‘Maybe someone has decided that she’s a security risk and is keeping an eye on her movements.’
‘Perhaps you’re right.’
‘See you in the morning, beautiful. Did I tell you that you look beautiful?’
‘Jack, bugger off.’
As he headed out, Longbright turned back to her computer and reopened the photo file, to try to understand what she might have missed.
10
THE INVISIBLE CODE
SABIRA KASAVIAN HATED Fortnum & Mason.
The department store’s pastel shades, its veiled windows, the airless, hushed old-world atmosphere that was meant to be charming felt merely repressive to her. She imagined wandering around its food hall with her mother, who would marvel at the jars of apricots in brandy, the tins of caviar and miniature hat-boxes of champagne truffles that cost as much as her family’s weekly food bill. It seemed to be a store for people who disliked the simple pleasures of eating.
The wives of the Home Office officials met in the Fountain Restaurant every third Wednesday to boast about their holidays and luncheons and to complain about their husbands. Lately attendance seemed to have become compulsory, if only to ensure that no one was talking about you behind your back. They would have preferred to meet in the more expensive fourth-floor St James’s Restaurant, but its bloated sofas and armchairs squatted around the tables like sumo wrestlers, and prevented the ladies from being seated closely together.
There were eight wives today, presided over by the impermeable Anastasia Lang. Everyone had turned up to see if further sparks would fly. Sabira had decided to attend because she needed to show that she was unrepentant about her behaviour on Monday night. The first few minutes were made all the more awkward by the wives’ determination to act as if everything was normal between them all.
There was no air-kissing and no cocktails; they were not footballers’ wives. Instead they went straight to the table and ordered the lightest and most complex starters, less salads than fragile ecosystems of exotic greenery. The wine list was considered with the gravity a juror might reserve for convicting a rapist.
‘That is, if you’re drinking wine?’ Ana asked her foe pointedly as the other wives fell silent.
‘I’ll have a glass of anything red and full-blooded, a large one,’ said Sabira, fixing the group with an open I-dare-you-to-argue smile.
Lunch progressed through the usual roster of subjects, dinners and weekend trips, charity work and the difficulties of finding reliable nannies and gardeners, but inevitably it arrived, as it always did, at husbands.
With little to contribute, Sabira listened and drank. She heard the chatter of birds on a fence: creatures noted more for their colourful plumage than their songs. If Sabira had known that she would be required to give up her voice, she might not have been persuaded to move to England and get married.
‘I don’t mind that he comes to bed with his laptop,’ one of the women said, ‘but he puts it between us. He might as well stick an electrified fence down the middle of the duvet. I get the message; he’s working. He doesn’t need to point it up.’
‘Perhaps you should consider having an affair, darling,’ said Cathy Almon, already bored by the conversation.
‘That’s easy for you to say. Your husband is an accountant. He’s not required to think about anything but totting up numbers.’
‘Actually he heads up the Home Office’s Workforce Management Data System, and has a number of very important functions within the ministry,’ Mrs Almon recited.
‘Aren’t there websites that arrange affairs for you?’ asked the woman opposite her.
‘God, you couldn’t leave a data trail. It would have to be the butcher’s boy or someone like that.’
‘Someone uncouth and inarticulate.’ They all laughed.
Ana Lang turned to Sabira. ‘But, of course, we should ask you, shouldn’t we? I hear you already have someone uncouth waiting in the wings, don’t you?’ Her smile was as venomous as ever.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Sabira replied, sipping her wine.
‘Oh come on, darling, your little secret is safe with us,’ said Emma Hereward, looking around the table. ‘Spill the beans.’
‘There is only my husband.’
‘It’s perfectly understandable. You’re au mieux de votre forme. You must have at least fift— ten years on the rest of us. You’re among friends here. You can tell all.’
‘There’s nothing to tell. I would never dream of being unfaithful. I was raised a Muslim.’
‘We know all about the Muslims, sweetie, they’re the worst. Half of them operate double standards. I don’t know why you insist on pretending that you’re more virginal than anyone else. We all heard you weren’t wearing any underwear at the Guildhall dinner.’