‘Hi, guys, sorry, got lost crossing the street.’ He pushes the bottle at Niko. ‘Ritual offering. Think you’ll find it’s fairly decent.’
Eve recovers first. ‘Mark, how lovely. Thank you. And Maeve . . . Maisie . . . I’m terribly sorry, I’ve forgotten your—’
‘Fiona,’ she says, with a mirthless flash of teeth, shrugging off the Whistles coat.
As Niko introduces them to the others, Eve feels a sick sense of things left unresolved. Leila raises an eyebrow, detecting that something is amiss, and Eve beckons her into the kitchen and gives her an abridged version of events as she takes the duck breasts out of the marinade and lays them, hissing, in a heated pan.
‘I’ve been ordered to go to Venice,’ she says untruthfully. ‘It’s an important short-notice thing I can’t get out of, half-term or no half-term. Niko seems to think that I can just tell my bosses to go to hell, but I can’t.’
‘Tell me about it,’ says Leila, who knows what Eve does, although not in detail. ‘I’m constantly pulled in two directions. Justifying my work to Zbig is more stressful than actually doing it.’
‘That’s exactly what I feel,’ says Eve, giving the pan an irritable shake.
Mark, they discover when they rejoin the others, is a compliance manager. ‘The youngest the bank’s ever had,’ says Fiona. ‘Top of his training cohort.’
‘Gosh,’ says Leila faintly.
‘Yup, the enfant terrible of regulatory compliance.’ Mark swings round to face her. ‘So where do you hail from?’
‘Totteridge,’ says Leila. ‘Although I grew up in Wembley.’
‘No, but where do you come from?’
‘My grandparents were born in Jamaica, if that’s what you mean.’
‘That’s amazing. We went there on holiday two years ago, didn’t we, darling?’
‘Yes, darling.’ Fiona flashes her teeth again.
‘A resort called Sandals. Do you know it?’
‘No,’ says Leila.
Dizzy with the ghastliness of it all, Eve introduces Zbig, more or less forcefully, to Fiona. ‘Zbig lectures at King’s,’ she tells her.
‘That’s nice. What about?’
‘Roman history,’ says Zbig. ‘Augustus to Nero, basically.’
‘Did you see Gladiator? We’ve got the DVD at home. Mark loves the bit where Russell Crowe chops the guy’s head off with the two swords.’
‘Yes,’ says Zbig. ‘That certainly is a good bit.’
‘So do you get asked on TV programmes and stuff?’
‘I get the odd request, yes. If they need someone to compare the US president to Nero, or to talk about Severus.’
‘Who?’
‘Septimius Severus, the first African Roman emperor. He invaded Scotland, among other good works.’
‘You’re shitting me.’
‘I shit you not. Septimius was the man. But tell me about yourself.’
‘PR. Mostly political.’
‘Interesting. What sort of people are your clients?’
‘Well, I’m basically working full-time with the MP Gareth Wolf.’
‘I’m impressed. Quite a challenge.’
‘How do you mean?’
Frowning, Niko holds his wine glass up to the window. ‘He means in light of Wolf’s persistent lying, his rapacious self-interest, his open contempt for those less fortunate than himself, and his all-round moral vacuity.’
‘That’s very much a glass-half-empty perspective,’ Fiona says.
‘What about that expenses scandal?’ asks Zbig.
‘Oh, that was blown out of all proportion.’
‘Like Wolf’s girlfriend, after the boob-job he claimed as a legitimate parliamentary expense,’ says Leila, and Niko laughs.
‘He’s done amazing things for trade with Saudi Arabia,’ Fiona says, dropping her handbag onto the sofa, and pouring herself another glass of wine.
‘I bet you’re good at your job.’ Eve smiles at her.
‘I am,’ says Fiona. ‘Very.’
Eve scans the room. Why do we put ourselves through this torture? she wonders. Dinner parties bring out the worst in everyone. Niko, usually the gentlest of men, is looking positively vengeful, although obviously this has got a lot to do with her going to Venice for half-term week, rather than spending it on the windy Suffolk coast with him. Mark, meanwhile, is explaining at extraordinary length to Leila, whose jaw is set rigid with boredom, exactly what it is that a regulatory compliance manager does.
‘You had that break-in, didn’t you?’ Fiona asks. ‘Did they take anything?’
‘Nothing, as far as we can find.’
‘Did they catch them?’
‘It was a her. And no, not yet.’
‘Was this woman Caucasian?’ asks Mark.
From the corner of her eye, Eve sees Zbig lay a hand on Leila’s arm. ‘According to Mrs Khan . . . have you met the Khans?’
‘The Asian family? No.’
‘Well, according to her, it was an athletic young woman with dark blonde hair.’
Mark grins. ‘In that case, I’ll leave my windows open.’
Feeling a vestige of sympathy for Fiona, Eve is just about to speak to her when she sees Leila pointing urgently. Pushing through the guests and into the kitchen, she grabs the smoking pan containing the duck breasts, and to a crescendo of sizzling, balances it on the sink.
‘Is everything OK?’ asks Leila.
‘The duck’s burned to buggery,’ says Eve, levering up one of the blackened breasts with a spatula.
‘Edible?’
‘Barely.’
‘Well, don’t worry. Zbig and Niko and I already know you can’t cook to save your life, and you’re never going to see that dreadful couple again. At least I hope you aren’t.’
‘No, and I honestly have no idea why I asked them tonight. I saw them leaving their house one morning, just after they’d moved in, and felt I should say something friendly. But then my mind went blank, and I panicked, and before I knew it, I heard myself asking them to dinner.’
‘Eve, honestly.’
‘I know. But right now I need you to help me make this duck look presentable. Charred side down, I guess, and surrounded with vegetables.’
‘Is there some gravy?’
‘There’s this sort of creosote stuff in the pan.’
‘No good. Have you got any jam? Marmalade?’
‘I’m sure we have.’
‘Right. Heat it up and pour it on. The duck’ll still be like shoe leather but at least it’ll taste of something.’
Moving from the kitchen to the dining table, a loaded plate in each hand, Eve and Leila discover the others arranged as if in a classic film-still. Beyond them, framed by the open patio door, stands the diminutive figure of Thelma. On the sofa, very much aware that the eyes of all present are upon her, Louise is nervously evacuating her bladder into Fiona’s handbag.
‘Well, that went well,’ says Niko a couple of hours later, pouring the last of the Romanian red wine into his glass and downing it in a single swallow.
‘I’m sorry,’ Eve tells him. ‘I’m a terrible wife. And a worse cook.’
‘Both true,’ says Niko, putting down his glass, placing an arm round her shoulder, and drawing her to him. ‘Your hair smells of frazzled duck.’
‘Don’t remind me.’
‘I quite like it.’ He holds her for a moment. ‘Go to Venice next week, if you really have to.’
‘I really have to, Niko. I have no choice.’
‘I know. And Lance, I’m sure, will prove the ideal travelling companion.’
‘Niko, please. Surely you don’t think—’
‘I don’t think anything. But when you get back, it ends.’
‘What ends?’
‘All of it. The conspiracy theories, the chasing after imaginary assassins, the whole fantasy.’
‘It’s not a fantasy, Niko, it’s real. People are being killed.’
He lets his arm drop. ‘If that’s true, all
the more reason to leave it to those who are trained to deal with that kind of stuff. Which, by your own admission, you’re not.’
‘They need me. The person we’re after, Niko. This woman. The only person who’s begun to figure her out is me. It’ll take time, but I’ll get her.’
‘What do you mean, “get her”?’
‘Stop her. Take her out.’
‘Kill her?’
‘If necessary.’
‘Eve, do you have any idea what you’re saying? You sound completely deranged.’
‘I’m sorry, but that’s the reality of the situation.’
‘The reality of the situation is that there’s a loaded handgun in your bag and people from the security forces watching this house. And that’s not the life I want for us. I want a life where we do things together, like a normal married couple. Where we talk to each other, and I mean really talk. Where we trust each other. I can’t carry on like this.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘That you go to Venice, and then draw a line under the whole thing. Resign, leave, whatever. And we make a whole new start.’
She looks round the room. At the detritus of the dinner party, the half-empty wine glasses, the remains of the tiramisu. From the sofa, Louise gives an encouraging bleat.
‘OK,’ she says, and allows her head to fall forward onto Niko’s chest. He puts both arms around her and holds her tight.
‘You know I love you,’ he says.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I do.’
Chapter 4
Villanelle has been studying Linder, and deciding how to kill him, for twenty-four hours now. She’s beginning to understand her target, despite the thicket of disinformation with which he has surrounded himself. All the interviews he has given propagate the same fictions. The humble beginnings, the fervent identification with the classical ideals of valour and duty, the self-taught political philosophy, the passionate identification with the ‘true’ Europe. This mythology has been skilfully fleshed out with invented detail and anecdote. Linder’s childhood obsession with Leonidas, the Spartan king who died facing overwhelming odds at Thermopylae. His overcoming of school bullies with his fists. His lifelong persecution for his political beliefs by left-wing intellectuals, and for his sexual orientation by homophobic conservatives and religious bigots. In fact, as a memorandum attached to his file dispassionately notes, Linder comes from a well-off liberal background, and is a failed actor who turned to fascist politics as an outlet for his extreme racist and misogynist tendencies.
‘Good luck,’ says Anton, holding out his hand. ‘And good hunting.’
‘Thank you. I’ll see you when it’s done.’
As always, now that she is in play, Villanelle is serene. There’s a sense of things falling into place, as if impelled by gravity. All leading up to the kill, that moment of absolute power. The dark rapture flowing into every vestige of her being, filling and possessing her utterly.
In his office, her requisition list on the desk in front of him, Anton watches as Villanelle waits on the platform deck, a slight figure against the bruise-grey sky. The helicopter materialises, touches down for a moment, and is gone, swinging away on the wind. He stares after it. He can still feel the imprint of her hand in his, and from a desk drawer he takes a small bottle of sanitising gel. God knows where her fingers have been.
It’s raining as Eve and Lance cross the Piazza San Marco in Venice. Eve is carrying a plastic Sainsbury’s bag with the Van Diest bracelet and packaging inside it. The paving stones shine in the watery light. Pigeons rise and fall in desultory flocks.
‘Looks like we’ve brought the weather with us,’ says Lance. ‘How was your breakfast?’
‘Good. Lots of strong coffee with bread and apricot jam. Yours?’
‘Same.’
Eve has never been to Venice before and left the hotel at 7 a.m. to explore. She found it beautiful but melancholy. The vast, rain-washed square, the wind-roughened expanse of the lagoon, the waves slapping at the stone quays.
Flanked by Balenciaga and Missoni, the Van Diest boutique is on the ground floor of a former ducal residence. It’s an elegantly appointed space, with dove-grey carpets, walls faced in ivory silk, and glass-topped jewellery cases picked out by discreet spotlights. Eve has made an effort with her clothes and hair, but feels herself wilting before the expressionless gaze of the assistants. Lance’s presence doesn’t help. Dressed in a horrible simulacrum of casual wear, and looking more rodent-like than ever, he’s staring about him open-mouthed, as if awed by the gold and the gemstones. Never again, Eve tells herself. The man is a total liability. Approaching one of the assistants, she asks to speak to the direttrice, and an elegant woman of indeterminate age materialises.
‘Buongiorno, signora, how can I help?’
‘This bracelet,’ says Eve, taking it from the bag. ‘Is it possible to tell if it was bought at this store?’
‘Not without a receipt, signora.’ She examines the bracelet with a critical eye. ‘Did you want to return it?’
‘No, I just need to know when it was bought, and whether anyone can remember making the sale.’
The woman smiles. ‘Is this a police matter?’
Lance steps forward, and wordlessly shows her an Interpol identity card.
‘Prego. One minute.’ The manageress examines the bracelet, and touches the screen of the terminal on the desk. A further dance of her fingers and she looks up.
‘Yes, signora, a bracelet of this design was bought here last month. I cannot guarantee it is the same one.’
‘Do you remember anything about the person who bought it?’
The woman frowns. Peripherally, Eve can see Lance examining a sapphire necklace and drop earrings. The assistants watch him uncertainly, and he winks at one of them. Jesus wept, Eve thinks.
‘I do remember her,’ the manageress says. ‘Perhaps twenty-seven, twenty-eight. Dark hair, very attractive. She paid cash, which is not unusual for Russians.’
‘How much did it cost?’
‘Six thousand, two hundred and fifty euros, signora.’ She frowns. ‘And there was something strange. She was very . . . come si dice, insistente—’
‘Insistent?’
‘Yes, she wouldn’t touch the bracelet. And when I wrapped it up and put it in a carrier bag, she wanted that bag to be put in a second bag.’
‘She was definitely Russian?’
‘She was speaking Russian with her companion.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes, signora. I hear it spoken every day.’
‘Can you describe the companion?’
‘Same age. A little taller. Short blonde hair. Strong physique. She looked like a swimmer or a tennis player.’
‘Do you have security-camera footage of these women?’
‘I can certainly look for you, and if you give me an email address, I can send you anything we have. But it’s a month since the sale, and I’m not sure we keep the footage that long.’
‘I see. Well, let’s hope.’ Eve questions the manageress for a further five minutes, gives her one of the Goodge Street email addresses, and thanks her.
‘That bracelet, signora. It could have been chosen for you.’
Eve smiles. ‘Goodbye for now.’
‘Arrivederci, signora.’
As they step outside into a squall of rain, Eve turns to Lance. ‘What the fuck were you playing at in there? Jesus. There’s me, trying to get some answers out of that woman, and you’re acting like Benny Hill, gawping at those women and . . . Fuck’s sake, Lance, did you honestly think you were helping?’
He turns up his collar. ‘Here’s Zucchetti. Let’s go in and grab a coffee and some of those pastries.’
The pasticceria is an intoxicating place, the air warm with the scent of baking, the counter an array of sugar-dusted pastries, golden rolls and brioches, meringues, macaroons and millefeuilles.
‘So,’ says Eve, five minutes later, her mood softened by a plate of gala
ni and the best cappuccino she’s ever drunk.
Lance leans forward over the tiny table. ‘When V bought the bracelet, the woman with her was almost certainly her girlfriend. Or at least a girlfriend.’
Eve stares at him. ‘How do you know?’
‘Because once I’d convinced those shop assistants that I was a gormless idiot who didn’t speak a word of Italian, they started to chat to each other. And they all remembered V and her friend. One of them, Bianca, speaks Russian, and usually deals with the Russian customers, but she didn’t on this occasion because V also spoke perfect English, so your chum Giovanna looked after her.’
‘Go on.’
‘According to Bianca, the two women were having a lovers’ tiff. V was telling the girlfriend off for eating in the shop, and the girlfriend was pissed off because V was buying a pretty bracelet for the “angliskaya suka”, and she couldn’t understand why.’
‘You’re sure? For the “English bitch”?’
‘That’s what Bianca said.’
‘So you speak fluent Italian? You might have told me.’
‘You didn’t ask. But that’s not all. The shop assistants all assumed that we were here to investigate some rich Ukrainian guy who’s gone missing.’
‘We don’t know anything about that, do we?’
‘First I’ve heard of it.’
‘Do we have a name?’
‘No.’
Eve looks out at the rain-blurred expanse of the piazza. ‘Just suppose,’ she says, licking the last of the sugar-powder from her fingers, ‘that V was in Venice at the same time that this unnamed Ukrainian went missing . . .’
‘I’m already supposing it.’
‘I owe you an apology, Lance. Really, I’m—’
‘Forget it. Let’s ask the staff here if they remember two Russian women buying pastries a month ago, which they won’t, and then let’s get out of here. I need a smoke.’
Outside, the air is vaporous and the sky bruise-dark. As they cross the piazza, Eve feels a creeping discontent, which seems to relate to the two women buying the bracelet together. Who was that other woman, the one who called her a bitch, and what was her role in all this? Was she really V’s lover?
No Tomorrow: The basis for Killing Eve, now a major BBC TV series (Killing Eve series Book 2) Page 8