“It was last autumn, almost a year ago. She was quite persistent, to the point where I thought she might become a nuisance, but we never saw her again.”
“What was her name?”
“I can’t remember off the top of my head, but I took a note of it somewhere. It was a foreign name.”
Clio handed him a card. “Could you get in touch if you find it? Let me know?”
“Of course. Is there something special about the embroidery?”
She didn’t have to lie. “I really don’t know.”
But she was beginning to believe there might be.
Olivia
Olivia Macdonald, wife of Judge Henry Macdonald, glanced out the window as she put on her necklace, a gold chain with a pendant in the shape of a spiked wheel.
Outside, she could see the gardener working on the rambling rose at the entrance to the walled garden, pruning its thorny, lashing branches into submission. Henry would want to tour the walled garden when he came home this weekend. It was his pride and joy, and now it would be looking lovely for him, which was good, but Olivia struggled to feel as happy about that as she might usually.
She was having what she called one of her bittersweet days.
Her husband had been with his mistress, Diana Cornish. Bitter thought.
But Diana was unaware that Henry’s wife was a member of the Order of St. Katherine who knew all about the affair. Sweet thought.
Outwitting Diana Cornish was satisfying. As for the affair being a source of pain? As every member of the Order of St. Katherine must, Olivia understood, accepted, and made the best of the realities of her marriage. She well knew that the garden was only Henry’s second-favorite place to be. The first was in Diana’s arms. Men will be men. You did not try to change them; you worked with what you had.
Downstairs, she made tea and toast, which she spread thickly with her homemade marmalade, then sat down at the kitchen table and opened her laptop.
The screen saver was a photograph of their twin boys from a fewyears ago, when they were still sweet. Now, on the cusp of turning fifteen, they reminded her more of giant slugs, dull, oily creatures who were apparently semi-blind when it came to finding any of their possessions and permanently in great need of food, sleep, and charging cables.
There was work to do, with them, but Olivia wasn’t fazed. This was just a phase. She had a plan to turn them into fine young men, and she had the time to do it, since no member of the Order had a job outside the family once her marriage was established. It wasn’t allowed. That didn’t bother her, either. Ultimately, it was wives and mothers who held all the power in a family, even if the men thought they did.
Multiple folders floated on the home screen of her MacBook, with labels like “Family,” “Volunteering,” “Housekeeping,” and “Holidays.” The app bar glowed with bland software icons, nothing that might attract the attention of her sons (who anyway tended to regard her and her interests as if both were transparent), or even Henry, who was a great deal sharper and more attentive than his offspring but nevertheless content to imagine that Oliviawishedto spend most if not all her days in service to him and their family.
She clicked through a few menus to reach the app she kept hidden: encrypted audio software. She opened it, slotted earbuds in, and made a call.
“Hi!” Conchita answered immediately.
“Hi, sweetie,” Olivia said. “Well done.”
“Thank you.”
There were nanny cams hidden throughout Henry and Olivia’s London flat, including the bedroom. Henry had no idea. Olivia visited the property so rarely that he considered it his private space, for all intents and purposes.
Olivia hadn’t watched any of the recordings of her husband making love to Diana Cornish since the first time. Once had been enough. His tenderness had been the most difficult thing to witness.The rest was just biology. Urges. But she’d watched the feed from the hallway camera this morning, and seen Conchita let herself into the flat while Henry and Diana were in the bedroom.
“It was pretty easy,” Conchita said.
Olivia knew this already. The footage had shown Conchita, wearing a cleaning tabard over a hoodie, cheap black leggings, and sneakers, slip inside and make it the work of seconds to pick up Diana’s coat from the chair in the hallway, to remove Diana’s phone from its pocket, and to install an app that would allow them to monitor all Diana’s phone activity. Conchita knew Diana’s passcode because it had been recorded by the cameras before. They had to do this often, because Diana changed her phone frequently, which meant that the information they got from it was only patchy, but it was better than nothing.
“Is it working?” Olivia asked.
“Yes. I’ll send you the report later.”
“Thank you. Can we make it twice daily, please.”
“Is something wrong?” Twice daily was more than normal.
