‘Eve, can you come here?’
She’s in the bathroom, with its faint but unmistakable echo, and suddenly Eve is devoured by a curiosity that momentarily mutes her terror. Propelling herself through the living room into the rear of the flat, gun in hand, she pulls open the door and is met by a warm, scented gust of steam. Villanelle is lying in the bath, naked except for a pair of latex gloves. Her eyes are half closed, her hair is a spiky wet tangle, and her skin is pink in the hot, soapy water. Above her feet, lying between the taps, is a Sig Sauer pistol.
‘Will you help me do my hair? I can’t really manage it in these gloves.’
Eve stares at her open-mouthed, her knees shaking. Registers the catlike features and the flat grey eyes, the half-healed facial cuts, the strange little twist to the mouth. ‘Villanelle,’ she whispers.
‘Eve.’
‘What . . . why are you here?’
‘I wanted to see you. It’s been weeks.’
Eve doesn’t move. She just stands there, the Glock heavy in her hands.
‘Please.’ Villanelle reaches for a bottle of Eve’s gardenia shampoo. ‘Calm down. Put your gun down there with mine.’
‘Why are you wearing those gloves?’
‘Forensics.’
‘So you’ve come here to kill me?’
‘Do you want me to?’
‘No, Villanelle. Please . . .’
‘Well, then.’ She looks up at Eve. ‘You haven’t got plans for the evening, have you?’
‘No, I . . . My husband is . . .’ Eve stares around her wildly. At the steamed-up window, the sink, the gun in her hands. She knows that she should take control of the situation but there’s something paralysing about Villanelle’s physical presence. The wet hair, the livid cuts and bruises, the pale body in the steaming water, the flaking toenail varnish. It’s all too intense.
‘I read Niko’s note,’ Villanelle shakes her head. ‘It’s so crazy that you keep goats.’
‘They’re just small ones. I . . . I can’t believe that you’re here. In my flat.’
‘You were asleep in front of the TV when I came in. Snoring, in fact. I didn’t want to wake you.’
‘There’s an eight-bar security lock on that front door.’
‘I noticed. Quite a good one. I love your place, though. It’s so . . . you. Everything’s just how I imagined.’
‘You broke in. You brought a gun. So I’m guessing that you are, in fact, meaning to kill me.’
‘Eve, please, don’t spoil everything.’ Villanelle tilts her head flirtatiously against the edge of the bath. ‘Am I how you imagined me?’
Eve turns away. ‘I didn’t imagine you. I couldn’t begin to imagine anyone who’s done the things you’ve done.’
‘Really?’
‘Do you even know how many people you’ve killed? Oxana?’
She laughs. ‘Hey, Polastri. You really have been doing your research, haven’t you? Top of the class. But let’s not talk about me. Let’s talk about you.’
‘Just answer me this one simple question. Did you come here to kill me?’
‘Sweetie, you keep on about this. And you’re the one holding the gun.’
‘I’d like to know.’
‘OK. If I promise not to shoot you, will you do my hair?’
‘Seriously?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re insane.’
‘So they say. Do we have a deal?’
Eve frowns. Finally she nods, lays down the Glock, rolls up her sleeves, slips her watch into her pocket, and reaches for the shampoo.
Touching her is strange. And running her hands through her slick, wet tresses is stranger. Eve washes Villanelle’s hair as if it’s her own, caressing her scalp with dreamily circling fingers, probing and pressing and inhaling her biscuity, gardenia-scented smell. And then there’s the fact of Villanelle’s nakedness. The small, pale breasts, the lean musculature, the dark crest of pubic hair.
Testing the water temperature on the back of her hand, Eve rinses Villanelle’s hair with the shower head. If you know that you’re being manipulated, she tells herself, then you aren’t. Inside her, something has shifted. Something has tilted her world on its axis.
When she’s done, she drapes a towel over Villanelle’s head, twists it into a turban and picks up her Glock. ‘So what do you really want from me?’ she asks, jabbing the end of the barrel into the base of Villanelle’s skull.
‘I put some champagne in the fridge. Could you open it for us?’ Villenelle yawns, baring her teeth. ‘I unloaded that thing, by the way. And the Sig.’
Eve checks both weapons. It’s true.
Abruptly standing up, Villanelle stretches, revealing unshaved armpits. Then she reaches across to the medicine cabinet, takes out a pair of scissors, removes her gloves, and starts cutting her fingernails into the grey bathwater.
‘I thought you were worried about forensics?’
‘I’ll deal with it. And talking of forensics, I could really use some clean pants.’
‘Knickers?’
‘Yes.’
‘Couldn’t you have brought some with you?’
‘I forgot. Sorry.’
‘Jesus, Villanelle.’
When Eve returns, Villanelle is wrapped in a towel, gazing at herself in the mirror. Eve throws her the pants but Villanelle, absorbed in her reflection, doesn’t notice, and they land on her wet hair. Frowningly, she lifts them off. ‘Eve, these are not very pretty.’
‘Tough. They’re all I’ve got.’
‘You have only one pair?’
‘No, I’ve got lots, but they’re all the same.’
For a moment, Villanelle appears to wrestle with this concept, then she nods. ‘So will you open the champagne now?’
‘If you tell me why you’re really here.’
The midwinter gaze meets hers. ‘Because you need me, Eve. Because everything has changed.’
Leaning against the wall in the living room with a glass of pink Taittinger champagne in her hand, Villanelle looks poised, efficient and feminine. Her dark blonde hair is slicked back neatly from her forehead, and her outfit – black cashmere sweater, jeans, trainers – is chic but forgettable. She could be any smart young professional woman. But Eve can sense her feral aspect, too. The potential for savagery that beats like a pulse beneath the urbane exterior. It’s a barely perceptible murmur, right now, but it’s there.
‘Have you got any nice dessert in the fridge?’ Villanelle asks. ‘Something that will go with this champagne?’
‘There’s ice-cream cake in the freezer compartment.’
‘Can you get it?’
‘You fucking get it.’
‘Eve, kotik, I’m your guest.’ She takes her Sig Sauer from the waistband of her jeans. ‘And this time the gun’s loaded.’
Wordlessly, Eve does as she’s been asked, and then, turning back from the fridge, sees Villanelle raise the pistol and turn towards her. Her mind emptying, Eve sinks to her knees and squeezes her eyes closed. A long silence roars in her ears. Slowly, she opens her eyes to discover Villanelle’s face inches from hers. Eve can smell her skin, the wine on her breath, the scent of shampoo. With shaking hands, she gives Villanelle the frozen cake.
‘Eve, listen. I need you to trust me, OK?’
‘Trust you?’ Slowly, Eve stands. Villanelle has put the automatic down on the dining table. It’s within easy reach. One good lunge, and . . . she’s hardly even formed the thought when Villanelle catches her across the face with a stinging backhand slap. Breathless with shock, Eve staggers towards the sofa and sits down.
‘I said. I need you. To trust me.’
‘Fuck you,’ Eve mouths, the side of her face throbbing painfully.
‘No, fuck you, suka.’
They stand there, face to face, then Villanelle reaches out a hand and touches Eve’s cheek. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.’
Probing her teeth with her tongue, tasting blood, Eve shrugs.
Vi
llanelle gathers up the glasses and champagne bottle, and deposits herself beside her on the sofa. ‘Come on, let’s talk. For a start, how was the bracelet? Did you like it?’
‘It’s beautiful.’
‘So . . . what do you say?’
Eve looks at her. Notes how Villanelle mirrors the way she sits, the way she carries her head and neck, the way she holds her glass. If she blinks, Villanelle blinks. If she moves a hand or touches her face, so does Villanelle. It’s as if she’s learning her. As if she’s occupying her, inch by stealthy inch, slithering into her consciousness like a snake.
‘You killed Simon Mortimer,’ Eve says. ‘You almost hacked his head off.’
‘Simon . . . Was that the one in Shanghai?’
‘You don’t remember?’
Villanelle shrugs. ‘What can I say? It must have seemed like a good idea at the time.’
‘You’re insane.’
‘No I’m not, Eve. I’m just you without the guilt. Cake?’
For several minutes they sit there in silence, spooning ice cream, chocolate chips and frozen cherries into their mouths.
‘That was heaven,’ Villanelle murmurs, putting her bowl on the floor. ‘Now I need you to listen to me very carefully. And before I forget’ – she pulls a dozen 9mm rounds from her jeans pocket and hands them to Eve – ‘these are yours.’
Eve reloads the Glock, and, uncertain what to do with it, pushes it into the back waistband of her jeans, where it lodges uncomfortably.
‘That’s probably not a good idea,’ says Villanelle. ‘But whatever.’ Taking her phone from her pocket, she retrieves an image and shows it to Eve. ‘Have you ever seen this man?’
Eve peers at it. He’s about thirty, lean and sunburned, wearing a khaki T-shirt and the sand-coloured beret of the Special Air Service. The photographer has caught him in the act of turning, his eyes narrowed in annoyance, with one hand raised, perhaps to shield his face. Behind him are the unfocused outlines of military vehicles.
‘No. Who is he?’
‘I know him as Anton. He used to command E Squadron, who handle black operations for MI6, and now he’s my controller. On Thursday he ordered me to kill you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’ve got too close to us, and by us I mean Dvenadtsat, the Twelve. When Anton gave me the order, I was in a private hospital in Austria. He came to see me in my room, and when he left the hospital, he drove away with this man. That’s Anton on the left.’
The image is tilted and poorly framed, but clear enough. It’s taken from inside a building, looking down on a snowy car park. Two men are standing by the passenger door of a silver-grey BMW. The left-hand figure, in a bulky black jacket, has his back to the camera. Opposite him, clearly recognisable in an overcoat and scarf, is Richard Edwards.
Eve stares at the image for a long while without speaking. Inside herself she feels the collapse of all her certainties, like an iceberg imploding into the sea. This man, who just hours ago was pouring her prosecco in a pink linen shirt, and telling her that she was ‘born for the secret life’, has agreed to, and perhaps even demanded, her death.
Tikhomirov guessed. That moment when she asked him whether Richard had mentioned their suspicions about Yevtukh’s disappearance. Just for a second, the FSB officer’s eyes widened, as if he’d suddenly understood something that had eluded him for ages. That’s when he asked her about the canary. She pictures the bird, singing in its cage, far underground. The deadly, odourless gas wreathing through the seam, and the canary silent now, a stiff little mess of feathers.
‘I need to make a call,’ Eve tells Villanelle, and, searching the detritus of her bag for Chloe Edwards’s card, she calls the number. It rings for almost ten seconds, and then Chloe answers. She sounds as if she’s been asleep.
‘Chloe, it’s Eve. I wanted to ask you something about our conversation this afternoon. Confidentially.’
‘Oh hi, Eve. Yeah, um . . .’
‘That Russian guy you were talking about.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Was his name by any chance Konstantin?’
‘Er . . . Yeah! I think it was. Wow. Who is he?’
‘Old friend. I’ll introduce you one of these days.’
‘That’d be cool.’
‘Just don’t mention to your dad that I called, OK?’
‘’Kay.’
Eve disconnects and lays the phone gently on the table. ‘Oh, God,’ she says. ‘Oh my God.’
‘I’m sorry, Eve.’
She stares at Villanelle. ‘I thought I was hunting you down for MI6, but in reality I’d been set up by Richard to test the Twelve’s defences. I was the canary in their mine.’
Villanelle says nothing.
‘Every time I discovered anything I’d report it to Richard, he’d pass it on to the Twelve, and they’d patch the vulnerability. All I’ve been doing, all these weeks and months, is making them stronger. Jesus wept. Did you know?’
‘No. They don’t tell me things like that. Of course I knew you worked for Edwards, but it wasn’t until I saw him with Anton in Austria that I understood how you’d been set up.’
Eve nods, coldly furious with herself. She’s fallen for a classic false flag operation, constructed, like all the best deceits, around her own vanity. She thought she was so clever, with her intuitive leaps and her left-field theorising, whereas in truth she was just a skilfully manipulated dupe. How could I have been so obtuse? she wonders. How could I not have seen what was happening right before my fucking eyes?
‘You liked it though, didn’t you?’ Villanelle says. ‘Playing the secret agent in your secret Goodge Street office with your secret codes, which weren’t secret at all.’
‘Richard flattered me, and it worked. I wanted to be a player, not just some paper-pusher at a desk.’
‘You are a player, sweetie. Any time I was bored, I’d log on and read your email. I love that you spent so much time thinking about me.’
Looking at her undrunk wine, Eve feels a vast weariness. ‘So what happens now? I know this sounds weird, but why haven’t you shot me or whatever, like Anton said?’
‘Two reasons. When he ordered me to kill you, I realised that it was because you’d found out too much about me. Which meant that I’d be the next one to die.’
‘Because you were compromised?’
‘Exactly. The Twelve don’t take any chances. I saw that with Konstantin, who you obviously know about. He was my handler before Anton. They thought he’d talked to the FSB, which was bullshit, and they . . . had him killed.’
‘At Fontanka.’
‘Yes, at Fontanka.’ She looks pensive. ‘And now one of my people has been arrested in Moscow.’
‘Larissa Farmanyants. Your girlfriend.’
‘Lara, yes, although she wasn’t so much a girlfriend in the holding hands and kissing sense. With us, it was more just sex and killing.’
‘Well, the FSB have got Lara now. She’s in Butyrka.’
‘Putain. That’s bad. They’ll definitely interrogate her, so I’m doubly burned as far as Anton’s concerned.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means that he’ll have me killed, as soon as he can. I imagine his plan is to wait until I’ve finished with you, then deal with me.’
‘You’re certain about this?’
‘Yes, and I’ll tell you why. I know that Lara was arrested, because she managed to send me an emergency message. And then when I saw Anton earlier today he spoke about Lara, but didn’t say a word about her being arrested. He knew that I’d know what it meant.’
‘You said there were two reasons you haven’t killed me. What’s the second?’
Villanelle looks at her. ‘Really? You haven’t worked that out yet?’
Eve shakes her head.
‘Because it’s you, Eve.’
Eve stares at her, the complexity, strangeness and sheer enormity of the situation suddenly bearing down on her. ‘So what happens now? I mean, wh
at . . .’
‘What do we do? How do we get out of this alive?’
‘Yes.’
Villanelle begins to pace the room, her movements as fastidious as a cat’s. Occasionally she darts a glance at a book or a photograph. Catching sight of her reflection in the mirror over the fireplace, she comes to a halt.
‘You need to understand two things. First, that the only way of surviving is if you and I work together. You have to put your life in my hands, and do exactly, and I mean exactly, what I say. Because if not, the Twelve will kill you, and me too. There’s nowhere to hide, and no one you can trust to protect you except me. You have to take my word for it that this is true.’
‘And the second thing?’
‘You have to accept that your life here is over. No more marriage, no more flat, no more job. Basically, no more Eve Polastri.’
‘So . . .’
‘She dies. And you leave all this behind. I take you into my world.’
Eve stares at Villanelle. She feels as if she’s in free-fall, weightless.
Villanelle hitches up the sleeves of her sweater. Her hands are strong and capable. Her eyes, all business now, meet Eve’s. ‘The first thing we have to do is convince Anton that I’ve killed you. Once he thinks you’re dead, we’ve got a very short breathing space before he comes after me. We have to misdirect him, and whoever he sends. Then we disappear.’
Eve closes her eyes. ‘Look,’ she says desperately. ‘Let me contact someone I know in the police. DCI Gary Hurst. He was involved in the Kedrin investigation. He’s a good guy, and completely straight. He’d put us under full close protection, and I’m sure you could do some sort of a deal, testifying against the Twelve in exchange for immunity. I’d much rather go that route.’
‘Eve, you still don’t get it. They have people everywhere. There’s no police cell, no prison, no safe house that they can’t get to. If we want to live longer than twenty-four hours, we have to disappear.’
‘Where to?’
‘Like I said, another world. Mine.’
‘And what do you mean by that?’
‘I mean the world that’s all around you, but which is invisible if you’re not part of it. In Russia we call it mir teney, the shadow world.’
No Tomorrow: The basis for Killing Eve, now a major BBC TV series (Killing Eve series Book 2) Page 20