"Julia," Alex said, and her voice had shifted into the tone Erin thought of as the Queen voice, calm, authoritative, carrying the weight of centuries of royal command. "What do we do?"
Julia put her phone down and stood straighter, as though the question had activated her professional mode. "We respond. Not to the article directly. Engaging with it gives it oxygen. Instead, we issue a statement through official channels reaffirming the Crown's confidence in the security services and the government's commitment to finding Florence. We use Charlotte's joint statement from earlier. It's already been well-received. We flood the positive narrative and let the Herald article sit in isolation."
"And Arthur?"
"I'll speak to Charlotte about political pressure. The government can't tell newspapers what to write, but they can make it clear that inflammatory articles during a national security crisis are unwelcome. Charlotte has already indicated she's willing to use the DCMS guidance mechanism."
Alex nodded. The fury was still there but it was being channelled now, directed into decision-making rather thanspiralling outward. Erin recognised the transformation. It was one of the things she loved most about her wife: the ability to take raw, terrible emotion and forge it into action.
"Do it," Alex said. "Whatever you think is needed."
Vic had stopped pacing. She was standing by the window, her reflection ghost-like in the darkening glass. "I want to punch him. Arthur. Can I punch him? I'd feel better. Right in his wrinkly old balls.”
"Get in the queue," Erin said.
“Vic!” Alex started but was luckily interrupted by Julia.
"There will be no punching," Julia said, in the tone of a woman who had spent a career preventing exactly this kind of escalation. "There will be statements and strategies and careful, measured responses that make the article look like the desperate move it is. Marcus Shaw has overplayed his hand. The sourcing is transparent to anyone who knows the landscape. I can already name three friendly journalists who will write counter-pieces by morning."
"This is what they do," Erin said. She'd stopped pacing and was standing with her back to the window, arms folded, her damaged hand throbbing inside its bandage. "They did it during the assassination investigation. They did it when Alex came out publicly. Every time this family faces a crisis, someone in Arthur's orbit feeds the press a narrative that positions him as the stable alternative. It's not journalism and it's not coincidence. It's a strategy that's been refined over decades and it runs on the same principle as the kidnapping itself: exploit the crisis to seize power."
The room absorbed this. Alex's jaw was tight. Vic had pulled a loose thread from the armchair's fabric and was winding it around her finger in tight, angry circles.
Frank tugged at Alex's sleeve. "Mummy, who's Arthur?"
"He's—" Alex hesitated. Erin saw the calculation: how much truth, how much protection, what could an eight-year-old process? "He's a relative. An uncle, sort of. He doesn't agree with some of the things we do."
"Is he the one who took Flo?"
The room went silent. Even Julia stopped moving. The question hung there, direct and devastating, the clarity of a child cutting through adult evasion to the heart of the thing.
"We don't know yet, sweetheart," Alex said gently. "The team is working very hard to find out."
"But you think it's him. I can tell. You and Mummy Erin get the same face when someone makes you angry."
Erin bit the inside of her cheek. The kid wasn't wrong.
Julia was already on her phone, typing rapidly, coordinating with Charlotte's office. Vic had settled back into the armchair with the exaggerated calm of someone who was trying very hard not to explode in front of children. The card game had been abandoned. Frank was watching the adults with the fierce attention of a boy who understood more than anyone gave him credit for. Matilda had pressed her face into Alex's arm and was quiet in the way that meant she was absorbing everything.
Erin's phone rang. The secure line. She looked at the screen and her pulse accelerated. It was Helena's direct number, and Helena didn't call on the secure line unless she had something worth saying.
She stepped into the corridor, pulling the door closed behind her. The hallway was quiet, the evening light slanting through the tall windows and painting the stone floor in warm rectangles. She pressed the phone to her ear.
"Kennedy."
Helena's voice was clipped and professional, but underneath the crisp military tone Erin detected something she hadn't heardsince the investigation began. Energy. The particular sharpness that came with forward movement rather than stagnation.
"Ma'am. We've been running surveillance on the Latimer property for the past forty-eight hours. As of thirty minutes ago, our team has confirmed movement consistent with a child being present at the location." Helena paused, and when she spoke again her voice had dropped, as though the information was too important for normal volume. "A woman carrying a tray was observed through a ground-floor window, entering and exiting a room at the back of the house at regular intervals, consistent with someone being cared for. The curtains in one of the upstairs bedrooms have been drawn since we began observation. But tonight, approximately forty-five minutes ago, they were briefly opened and our team caught a silhouette. The silhouette is consistent with a child of approximately eight years old standing at the window."
Erin's hand tightened on the phone. The corridor narrowed. The evening light, the stone floor, the distant sound of the children behind the closed door, all of it fell away. There was only this. A silhouette in a window. A child standing at a pane of glass in a house in Surrey, looking out at a world she wasn't allowed to be part of.
Florence. It had to be Florence.
"How certain are you?"
"Not certain enough for an operational decision. Not yet. The silhouette could be a child of any description. We don't have facial confirmation. But the convergence of evidence is significant. The phone records, the Latimer connection, the movement patterns at the property. Sergeant Kennedy- we are going in.”
Erin exhaled. The breath came out shaky and she didn't try to hide it. "Thank you, Helena. I'll be right there."
