It had rained earlier. In the pale light from the lamp posts, the rain slick paving stones glistened like oil. Slightly shocked by her own audacity, Gray stood at the edge of the courtyard.

She couldn’t see anyone through the windows above. Nor were there any obvious CCTV cameras. But she knew the police at Number 10’s front desk watched feeds from cameras placed in strategic hidden locations. They could easily be watching her now.

Just in case, she kept her head tilted slightly down as she crossed the wet paving stones to the door on the other side, hoping that in dark trousers and a grey top, she’d pass as late-working member of staff.

Hesitantly, she reached for the cold metal handle. The door made only the faintest shush – a breath of movement – as it opened.

It was warm on the other side. In the soft darkness of the unknown office building, Gray stood very still, listening for any signs of life. She could hear nothing but her own heart pounding.

If she got caught now, her mother would absolutely murder her. But she wasn’t about to go back.

Cautiously, she took a step forward. As if she’d flipped a switch, a bright array of overhead lights flickered and came on.

Motion detector lights, she reminded herself. Some of the corridors at Number 10 had them too.

With the lights on, she could see the corridor stretched only a short distance, ending where it intersected with another hallway, beyond which lay darkness.

Emboldened by the fact that, so far at least, she’d not seen a single person, Gray strode confidently down to the end. As she stepped into the dark hallway the lights came on there too.

This hallway was much longer, and just as nondescript. There were no signs on the clean white walls indicating whose offices these were. It had the faceless look she’d come to recognise in government buildings – studiedly bland.

To the right, the hallway widened out. That looked the most promising, so she set off in that direction. If she wanted to find information, she needed offices, but not any old office. She needed offices that involved security or police work. Something like that, she decided. And she had no idea if she was in the right place.

Now that she was here, the size of the building was daunting. Also, it was better secured than she’d expected. There were a few closed doors along the way but most were locked. The one that did open proved to be a men’s washroom, and she hastily closed it again.

When she reached the elevators, she stopped. She must be getting near the front doors now, and there would be guards there. If she couldn’t go forward and she’d already been back, the only direction was up.

She pushed the call button and waited, checking over her shoulder constantly. But the hallway remained empty.

Seconds later, the elevator arrived, giving a cheery chirp that seemed to echo in the silent building like an alarm. Gray jumped inside and punched the button to close the doors.

At random, she chose floor six – the top floor.

Only when it was moving did it occur to her that, while the bottom floor was empty, for all she knew the top floor could be filled with all the members of her mother’s cabinet having some sort of top-secret meeting. It was after ten, but that didn’t matter. Sometimes her mother worked until the early hours of the morning.

She reached for the row of buttons to choose another floor but then stopped, her hand hovering above the numbers. No floor was guaranteed to be safe. Now that she was moving, all she could do was hope.

Biting anxiously on the edge of her thumbnail, she glimpsed her reflection in the polished metal door. The shiny surface softened and distorted her face, making her eyes huge and dark.

What am I doing? she wondered. There was no way she was going to find what she was looking for. And she risked even more weeks of punishment. Despite that, though, she felt no desire to go back. To stop. The buzz of exhilaration from doing something rebellious felt too good. Besides, she wasn’t a child. She had a right to try and understand what was happening in her own life. Her mother was always telling her to be confident and to take charge.

Well, don’t look now, Mum…

The lift juddered to a stop, bouncing softly, as if suspended on rubber bands. A mechanical female voice intoned, ‘Sixth floor’.

When Gray stepped out and the automatic lights came on. She was in a central lobby of sorts. From somewhere she could hear the distant rumble of a vacuum cleaner. Otherwise, the building was profoundly quiet. No sign of security. No official voices.

Ahead, she saw several open doors. With a quick glance over her shoulder, she hurried towards them.

The first door she reached opened into a large room with rows of blonde-wood desks. Each had an identical black office chair and a silver-framed computer monitor.

She walked through the rows, looking for any papers that might be useful, but most of the desks were empty. The only items left out were framed family photos. Virtually all of those pictures were of babies or small children.

As Gray explored the rows, seeing one cherubic face after another, it struck her that not one desk had a picture of a teenager on it. In fact, none of the children in any of the photos looked older than about eleven.

After that age, she thought, I guess we’re not as much fun for them.

She wondered if her mother had her picture on her desk. She doubted it.

The realisation made her feel hollow. They’d been so close once. When had they lost that?

When you’re little, they can’t bear to spend the day at work, knowing you’re at school without them. Who knows what adorable thing you might be doing? Once you’re old enough to speak your mind and make your own decisions, parents don’t see you as their little darlings anymore. You’re not what they created. You’re your own person. That’s when they start to view you as a problem.

It happens gradually. Probably nobody in this room had noticed they had stopped putting pictures of their kids on their desk when they got to be thirteen. But every single one of them had.

Frowning, Gray made herself stop thinking and start focussing. She was here for a reason, after all. To snoop. 

Finding a desk with a stack of papers next to the phone, she rifled through them. The letterhead read ‘Departmental Security Unit, Cabinet Office’. A black government crest in the corner showed a lion and a unicorn. Her heart jumped. This was a good place to search. Security was what she was looking for.

Hurriedly, she skimmed the papers, but they were all memos about meetings and directives.

She moved on, checking the other desks but finding nothing about security threats. The room was lined with beige filing cabinets, and she tried a couple of them, but they were all locked tight.

It was disappointing, but she’d known this was a long shot. Still, there were other offices.

After peeking out to make sure the corridor was still empty, she slipped out and into the next office. She found more papers there – but again, not the right ones. Nothing that would help.

The last office in the hallway was a long room with about fifteen desks neatly aligned. Spotting one with a stack of papers by the keyboard, she went straight for it. The letterhead read, ‘Eleanor Johnson, Security and Intelligence Division.’ It was stamped ‘CONFIDENTIAL’ at the top.

It was just a few paragraphs, and Gray skimmed it rapidly at first, slowing as she realised what she was reading. It was a note that had been sent out to members of something called ‘COBR’.  

‘Protocol 13 is applied effective immediately for protection at Number 10 Downing Street. Talos Inc. has been brought in for personal security duties. The threat organisation is unknown, but its methods would connect it to the Russian intelligence service. MI6 identify this threat as: CREDIBLE.’

Gray didn’t always pay attention when her mother talked about work, but she knew enough to get that this was important. COBR – which everyone called ‘Cobra’  – was the secret government group in charge of dealing with emergencies. And MI6 was one of the most famous spy departments in the world.

Given that, this letter indicated that everything Julia had said was true. But it didn’t tell her why someone wanted to hurt her family. She knew people were angry about the government’s decisions, but this didn’t seem to be a British threat. It was bigger than that.

Pulling her phone from her pocket, she snapped a picture of the letter before hurriedly returning it to the stack where she’d found it, and leafing through the rest of the papers. She was utterly focussed on finding out everything her mother hadn’t told her. Maybe that was why she didn’t hear the guards approaching until it was too late to run.

‘There’s another light on in here,’ a male voice said, so suddenly and so close that it made her jump.

Gray fought back a gasp. The voice was right over her shoulder. He had to be directly on the other side of the thin partition wall.

‘Anyone working in here tonight?’ the unseen man asked.

Gray stood up as carefully as she could and looked frantically for somewhere to hide. But there were no closets – no cupboards. Everything was open.

She was trapped.