Chiswick is at least an hour away, and Eve doesn’t much feel like making the journey, but it will be a chance to tell Richard her decision in a neutral setting. “See you then,” she faxes in response, then crawls back to bed, burying herself under the sheets for another hour. Fear, she’s discovering, is not a constant. It comes and goes, kicking in at odd moments with paralyzing suddenness, and then receding, tide-like, to the point where she’s barely conscious of it. In bed, it takes the form of a fluttery nervousness just insistent enough to keep her awake.
The desire for breakfast eventually gets the better of her, and she pulls on a tracksuit, drops the Glock in her bag, and makes for the Café Torino in Finchley Road. Richard’s watchers know their stuff, surely? And if they don’t, and she’s beaten to the draw by a torpedo, it’s going to be with a large cappuccino and a cornetto alla Nutella inside her.
Appetite assuaged, she dials Niko’s number. When there’s no answer, she’s simultaneously frustrated and relieved. She wants to tell him that everything’s all right between them, but she can’t quite face the intensity of the conversation that will ensue. From the café she walks unhurriedly to the tube station. It’s perfect Saturday weather, clear and cold, and she imagines her invisible watchers falling into step behind her. In the half-empty tube train she picks through an abandoned copy of the Guardian, reading reviews of books she will never buy.
The gallery in Chiswick is difficult to find, identified only by a small silver plaque on the door. Occupying the ground floor of a Georgian house, it has a sunlit brick frontage and a wide bow window overlooking the Thames. As soon as she steps inside Eve feels out of place. Richard’s friends have that casually privileged look that quietly but unmistakably fends off outsiders. For quite a few minutes, no one talks to her, so she affects a frowningly intense interest in the art on display. The watercolors and drawings are accomplished and inoffensive. Landscape views of the Cotswolds, boats at anchor in Aldeburgh, a girl in a straw hat on holiday in France. There’s a portrait drawing, quite a good one, of Richard. Eve is admiring this when a fine-boned woman with eyes as pale as sea-glass appears at her side.
“So what do you think?” she asks.
“It’s very like him,” says Eve. “Benign, but hard to read. You must be Amanda?”
“Yes. And I’m guessing you’re Eve. Concerning whom there can be no discussion.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Richard often mentions you. I don’t think he’s aware quite how often. And obviously, official secrets and so on, I don’t ask him about you. But I’ve always rather wondered.”
“Trust me, I’m not the mysterious type.”
Amanda gives her a pale smile. “Let me get you something to drink.” She beckons to Richard, who’s circulating with a bottle of prosecco wrapped in a napkin. Disconcertingly, given his church-mouse work look, he’s wearing a jauntily unbuttoned pink linen shirt and chinos.
“Ah,” he says. “You two have met. Excellent. I’ll just get Eve a glass.”
Richard walks away, and Amanda makes as if to straighten a picture frame. She barely touches it, but the movement draws Eve’s attention to the platinum wedding band and glittering baguette diamond ring.
“I’m not sleeping with your husband,” Eve says. “In case you’re wondering.”
Amanda raises an eyebrow. “I’m glad to hear it. You’re not remotely his type, but you know how lazy men are. Whatever’s to hand.”
Eve smiles. “The paintings seem to be selling well,” she says. “Lots of red stickers.”
“That’s mostly the drawings, which are cheaper. I’m counting on Richard to keep pouring wine down people’s throats. See if that helps shift some of the paintings.”
“Won’t you miss them? All those memories.”
“Paintings are like children. It’s nice to have them around the house, but not necessarily forever.”
Richard returns with a newly washed glass, which he fills and hands to Eve. “Can I have a brief word? In five minutes?”
Eve nods. She half turns, but Amanda’s already drifting away.
“Let me introduce you to our daughter,” Richard says.
Chloe Edwards has long-lashed eyes and her mother’s bones. “You work with Dad, don’t you?” she says, when Richard has moved on. “That’s so cool. Mum and I never get to meet his fellow spies so you’ll have to forgive me if I get a bit fan-girly. Bet you’ve got a gun in your bag.”
“Of course.” Eve smiles.
“Actually, come to think, I did meet one once. Another spook, I mean.”
“Anyone I know?”
“Lucky you if you do. We were at our house in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Mum was out sketching or shopping or something, and he came over for lunch. Older guy, Russian, devastatingly ravaged-looking. God, I fancied him.”
“How old were you?”
“Oh, fifteen, probably. I don’t remember his name. Which was probably fake anyway, right?”
“Not necessarily. Is that you in the painting? In the straw hat?”
“’Fraid so. I wish someone would buy it and take it away.”
“Truly?”
“It’s so, you know, white girl on holiday.”
“But it must be lovely having a house in Provence.”
“I suppose. The heat and the smell of the lavender fields. All that. But I’m not so much for the rich Parisian boys in their Vilebrequin swim-shorts.”
“Prefer a ravaged Russian?”
“God yes, every time.”
“You should follow your dad into the Service. You’ll meet plenty.”
“He says I’m too glam to be a spy. That you’ve got to be, like, really ordinary-looking. The sort of person you’d walk straight past in the street.”
Eve smiles. “Like me?”
“No, no, no. No. I don’t mean—”
“Don’t worry, I’m just teasing you. But your dad’s right. You’re amazing-looking, and you should enjoy it.”
Chloe grins. “You’re nice. Can we stay in touch? Dad’s always going on about meeting the right people.” She hands Eve a card. It has her name on it, a phone number and an embossed skull and crossbones.
“Well, I’m not so sure I’m one of the right people, but thanks. Are you at university?”
“I want to go to drama school. I’ve got auditions in the New Year.”
“Well, good luck.”
Richard winds through the guests toward them, and pats his daughter on the bottom. “Vamoose, darling, I need to borrow Eve for a few minutes.”
Chloe rolls her eyes, and Eve follows him outside.
Whitlock and Jones, purveyors of pharmaceutical and medical supplies, is one of the longer established businesses in Welbeck Street, in central London. Its sales staff wear white coats, and are known for the tact with which they cater to their customers’ often intimate requirements. For sales assistant Colin Dye it’s been a slow day. The store caters to many of the private specialists whose well-appointed clinics line nearby Harley Street and Wimpole Street, and in the two years that he’s been working here, Dye has come to recognize many of the nurses who drop in when their employers’ surgical supplies need replenishing. With half a dozen of these he’s on solid bantering terms. His own surname is always a good ice-breaker.
So if he doesn’t know the young woman who’s approaching the counter, her gaze lingering on the fiberglass mannequins fitted with trusses and lumbar supports, he knows the type. Conservative makeup, sensible shoes, not hazardously pretty, and a generally brisk and capable air.
“So, what can I do you for?” he inquires, and in answer she places a written list in front of him. A blood collection kit, hemostatic forceps, a sharps disposal bag, and a packet of large condoms.
“Having a party?”
“Excuse me?” She peers at him. She’s slightly cross-eyed, and the clunky glasses don’t help, but that apart, Dye concedes, not a total car-crash.
“Well, you know what they say.” He points to
his name-tag. “Live and let… Dye.”
“Have you got everything on that list?”
“Give me a couple of minutes.”
When he returns, she hasn’t moved.
“I’m afraid the condoms only come in standard size. Is that going to be a problem?”
“Do they stretch?”
He grins. “In my experience, yes.”
She fixes him with one eye, the other looking disconcertingly over his shoulder, and pays for the goods in cash.
He drops the receipt into the Whitlock and Jones bag. “See you again, perhaps? You know what they say… Dye another day?”
“Actually no one says that. Asshole.”
Eve follows Richard out of the gallery, across the riverside walkway, and down a slipway to a floating jetty, to which dinghies and other small craft are moored. It’s low tide, and the jetty rocks gently beneath their feet. There’s a faint smell of ooze and seaweed, and the slow rasp of mooring chains shifting with the river’s rise and fall. It’s cold, but Richard doesn’t seem to notice.
“She’s quite a girl, your daughter.”
“Isn’t she? I’m glad you liked her.”
“I did.” A breeze shivers the river’s thin glitter. “A professional shooter tried to take me out in the Moscow metro. If it wasn’t for the FSB, I might be dead.”
“Lance told me. Said that they took you to the Lubyanka.”
“That’s right.”
“I’m sorry, the whole thing must have been bloody frightening.”
“It was. Although clearly it was my fault for insisting on going to Moscow in the first place.”
Richard looks away. “That’s not important now. Just tell me exactly what happened.”
She tells him. The metro, the Lubyanka, the conversation with Tikhomirov. All of it.
When she’s finished he says nothing. For almost a minute he seems to be watching a narrowboat edge past the jetty. “So they’ve got this Farmanyants woman in custody,” he says finally.
“Yes, in Butyrka. Which I gather is not a soft billet.”
“No. It’s bloody medieval.”
“I’m pretty sure she’s one of the women who killed Yevtukh in Venice. Tikhomirov thinks so too.”
“Does he now?”
“Richard, you recruited me to find out who killed Viktor Kedrin. I believe that it was a young woman named Oxana Vorontsova, codename Villanelle. A former linguistics student and prize-winning pistol shot from Perm, who was convicted of triple murder at the age of twenty-three. She was recruited and trained by Konstantin Orlov, the former head of the SVR’s Directorate S, as an assassin for the Twelve. He lifted her from prison, faked her death, and created a series of new identities for her, before he was killed himself, quite possibly by Villanelle. I’ll fax you my report in full over the next forty-eight hours, if I live that long.”
“You really think—”
“Look at it from Villanelle’s point of view. She’s dangerously compromised by what I’ve discovered about her, and her girlfriend’s in Butyrka, mostly because of me. So who do you think she’s coming for next?”
“The people I’ve got watching you are the best, Eve. I promise you. You won’t see them, but they’re there.”
“I hope so, Richard, I really bloody hope so, because she’s a killing machine. I’m trying to sound calm, and I’m more or less in control, most of the time. But I’m also scared to death. I mean, really fucking terrified. So terrified I can’t even think about the danger I’m in, or take the necessary precautions, because I’m afraid that if I face it straight on, or start thinking about it in any detail, I’m just going to fall to pieces. So there you go.”
He regards her with silent, clinical concern.
“I’m not going back to Goodge Street,” she adds. “Ever.”
“All right.”
“I’m out, Richard. I mean it.”
“I hear you. But can I ask you one question?”
“As many as you like.”
“Where do you want to be in ten years’ time?”
“I’ll settle for alive. If I’m still married that would be a bonus.”
“Eve, there are no guarantees in this life, but you are in every sense more secure inside the citadel than outside. Let us take the strain. You were born for the secret life. You live and breathe intelligence work. The rewards could be… very great.”
“I simply can’t do it, Richard. I can’t carry on. And now I’m going to go.”
He nods. “I understand.”
“I don’t think you do, Richard. But either way.” She holds out her hand. “Thanks for asking me today, and my compliments to Amanda.”
He frowns as he watches her go.
With the medical goods from Whitlock and Jones stowed in her rucksack, Villanelle meets Anton at the ticket barrier at Finchley Road tube station. He looks tense and short-tempered, and they’ve barely exchanged a few words before he turns away and leads her to the small Italian café outside the station.
Ordering coffee for both of them, he directs her to a corner table. “Ideally, I want it done tonight,” he tells her. “The husband’s away, staying with friends, and I’ve just had confirmation he’s still there. The weapon, ammunition and documents you requested are in the bag under the table. You also asked for a vehicle, presumably for getting rid of the body?”
“Yup.”
“You’ll find a white Citroën panel van parked directly outside Polastri’s house. Key’s in the bag with the gun. Signal me in the usual way when the job’s done, and I’ll see you in Paris.”
“OK. Nyet problem.”
He looks at her irritably. “Speak English. And why are you wearing those ridiculous glasses? You look mental.”
“I am mental. Have you seen the Hare psychopathy checklist? I’m off the scale.”
“Just don’t screw up, OK?”
“As if.”
“Villanelle, take me seriously. The reason I still need you to do this job is that Farmanyants fucked up in Moscow.”
Villanelle remains expressionless. “What went wrong?”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that this one goes right.”
8
On the tube, going home, Eve looks surreptitiously around her. Which of the other passengers are her watchers? There would probably be two of them, both armed. The Goth couple with the Staffordshire bull terrier? The earnest-looking guys in the Arsenal shirts? The young women endlessly whispering into their phones?
She could ask to go to a safe house, but that would just be postponing the problem. The unspoken truth, as she and Richard both know, is that she must make any would-be killer break cover, and this will most easily be achieved by continuing to live in her own flat. The building and the surrounding streets, meanwhile, will be invisibly cordoned off by the protection team. If Villanelle comes anywhere near, the team will move in for a hard arrest, and if she resists, disable or kill her out of hand. One way and another, Eve knows, she’s probably safer than at any time since she started working for Richard.
Dragging her keys from her bag, she unlocks the front door, and steps into the small communal hallway. Opening the door to the ground-floor flat she stands there for a moment, listening to the silence, and the faint buzz of the prosecco in her ears. Then, taking out the Glock, and ignoring the thumping of her heart, she closes the door behind her and subjects the place to a brisk and professional search.
Nothing. Collapsing onto the sofa, she flicks on the TV, which Niko has left tuned to the History Channel. A documentary about the Cold War is playing, and a commentator is describing the execution of thirteen poets in Moscow in 1952. Eve starts watching, but she can’t keep her eyes open, and the documentary becomes a flickering montage of grainy black and white film and semi-comprehensible Russian. Minutes later, although it could have been an hour, the titles are rolling, accompanied by a scratchy old recording of the Soviet national anthem. Sleepily, Eve hums along:
Soyuz nerushimy
respublik svobodnykh:
Splotila naveki velikaya Rus’!
Dreadful lyrics, all that crapola about an unbreakable union of republics, but a stirring tune.
“Da zdravstvuyet sozdanny voley narodov…”
The will of the people. Yeah, right… Yawning, Eve reaches for the remote and flicks the TV off.
“Yediny, moguchy Sovetsky Soyuz!”
She freezes mid-yawn. What the fuck? Is that voice in her head? Or is it right here in the flat?
“Slav’sya, Otechestvo nashe svobodnoye…”
Terror stops Eve’s breath. It’s real. It’s here. It’s her.
The singing continues, clear and untroubled, and Eve tries to stand but discovers that her joints are gluey with fear, and her coordination all wrong, and she falls back onto the sofa. Somehow, the Glock is in her hand. The singing stops.
“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 gray 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.”
Killing Eve--No Tomorrow Page 19