‘A Chinese People’s Army hacker is killed in Shanghai, reportedly by a woman. Eve and Simon Mortimer share intel with Jin Qiang, who returns the compliment by providing evidence that a multimillion-pound payment has been made by a Middle Eastern bank to one Tony Kent. Jin clearly knows more than he’s letting on, and lo and behold, when we investigate Kent, we discover that he’s an associate of Dennis Cradle.
‘While Eve and Simon are in Shanghai, Simon is murdered. We’re not sure why, but possibly to intimidate Eve. We know that the woman who signs herself V was in Shanghai at the time, as she later produces a bracelet she stole from Eve’s hotel room there.
‘Investigation of Dennis Cradle shows that he is being paid huge sums by an unknown source. We confront him, and he tells Eve of the existence of a covert but rapidly growing organisation named the Twelve, and attempts to recruit her, apparently having been given the green light to do so. In other words, he has contacted the Twelve to tell them he has been compromised. Their actual intention, however, is to kill him, which they duly do.’
‘Query,’ says Lance, dropping tobacco into a cigarette paper and beginning to roll. ‘Why do they, the Twelve, let Cradle try to recruit Eve? And in doing so, tell her so much about the organisation?’ He licks the paper and places the cigarette behind his ear. ‘Why don’t they tell him to stall? Standard resistance to questioning?’
‘I’ve asked myself the same question,’ says Eve. ‘And I think it’s because they know Cradle’s not stupid. If they tell him to stall, he’ll suspect that they mean to kill him, and he’ll cut and run. If they give him a specific job to do – turning the situation round and recruiting me – he’ll think they trust him. Which’ll give them time to get their killer, V, in place. And when it comes down to it, how much did he tell me about the Twelve? How much did he even know? A couple of names which are certainly false. Some vague stuff about a new world order.’
‘I think Eve’s right,’ says Richard. ‘Dennis was always a pragmatist, never an idealist. They recruited him because they needed a senior desk officer in MI5, and whatever he might have told Eve, it would have been the money that he went for, not the ideology. People like Dennis don’t change horses at this stage of their career.’
‘The thing that really clicked for me,’ Eve says, ‘was Cradle saying that Kedrin was killed to turn a liability into a martyr. That confirms what we already know, that their methods are completely ruthless, but it also tells us that Kedrin’s vision was basically the same as theirs. A world dominated by an alliance of hard-right – or as they prefer to put it, “traditionalist” – Eurasian powers led by Russia.’
‘I agree,’ says Richard. ‘And that squares with what we know about the rise of nationalism and identity politics in Europe. That it’s being skilfully mobilised and massively funded by parties we can’t identify, but suspect to be Russian.’
‘Are we talking official Kremlin policy?’ Billy asks, wiping his fingers on his jeans and stuffing the wrapper of his pasty in his pocket.
‘Unlikely. In today’s Russia, the people you read about in the papers and see on TV are mostly figureheads. The real power-players move in the shadows.’
Villanelle hunches into her down jacket as the Super Puma helicopter circles the marine platform. Rain flurries wash the windscreen and, in the sea below, heavy waves rear and fall.
‘Going in to land now,’ the pilot tells her, and she gives him a thumbs-up, removes her headset, and grabs her rucksack.
They touch down, the helicopter rocking in the gale-force wind, and Villanelle jumps out and swings her pack onto her back. The rain lashes her face, and she has to lean into the wind as she runs head-down across the platform deck. Anton, a lean figure in a reefer jacket and submariner’s sweater, gives her a cursory glance and beckons her through a white-painted steel door. As he swings it shut behind her the sound of the roaring wind is muted a degree or two. Villanelle stands there, expectant, rain dripping from her nose.
The platform, some ten miles east of the Essex coast, is one of five built in the Second World War to protect the North Sea shipping lanes. Known as Knock Tom, it originally consisted of an anti-aircraft emplacement supported by reinforced concrete towers. After the war the anti-aircraft platforms were allowed to fall into disrepair. Three of the five were eventually demolished, but Knock Tom passed into private hands. Its present owner is the Sverdlovsk-Futura Group, a company registered in Moscow. SFG have undertaken extensive reconstruction of Knock Tom, and the former gun deck now holds three freight containers that have been converted into offices and a dining unit. The support towers have been divided into living quarters accessed by a vertical steel ladder. Following Anton, Villanelle climbs downward past a humming generator room and into a concrete-walled cell furnished with a bunk bed and a single chair.
‘In the office in ten?’ Anton says.
Villanelle nods, drops her pack, and hears the door close behind her. The room smells of corrosion, and the bedclothes are damp, but of the sea beyond the windowless concrete walls she can hear nothing. Somehow, Knock Tom is perfect for Anton. It’s exactly the sort of remote and brutally functional setting in which she’s always imagined him, and for a moment she wishes she’d brought something wildly inappropriate to wear – a hot pink Dior tulle dress, perhaps – just to annoy him.
He’s waiting for her at the top of the ladder. As they cross the platform deck to the containers, Villanelle looks out over the churning grey sea. The desolation of it makes her think, unexpectedly, of Anna Leonova. She hasn’t seen or spoken to her former teacher for a decade, but when she remembers her it’s with a sadness that nothing and no one else has ever made her feel.
‘I like this view,’ Anton tells her. ‘It’s so indifferent to human activity.’
‘Are we alone?’
‘There’s no one here except you and me, if that’s what you mean.’
The shipping container housing the office is surmounted by a steerable microwave antenna. The only link, Villanelle guesses, to the world beyond the waves. The interior is frugal but well-appointed. On a metal desk are a laptop, a satphone and an anglepoise lamp. A wall-mounted unit holds electronic hardware and several shelves of charts and maps.
Anton motions Villanelle to a leather-upholstered chair, pours them both coffee from a cafetière, and seats himself behind the desk.
‘So, Villanelle.’
‘So, Anton.’
‘You’re bored of routine actions like the Yevtukh and Cradle jobs. You feel it’s time you moved to the next level.’
Villanelle nods.
‘You’ve contacted me to request more complex and demanding work. You think you’ve earned it.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Well, I applaud your keenness, but I’m not sure that I agree. You’re technically adept, and your weapons skills are good, but you’re reckless, and your judgement’s often questionable. You’re sexually profligate, which I don’t give a shit about, but you’re indiscreet, which I do. Your fixation on the MI6 agent Eve Polastri, in particular, leads you to ignore the very real problems that she and her team could cause us. And cause you.’
‘She won’t give us any problems. I keep an eye on her so that I can keep up with what she knows, but she really doesn’t have any idea what’s going on.’
‘She found out about Dennis Cradle. And she’s not going to go away. I know her type. On the outside disorganised, but inside sharp. And patient. Like a cat watching a bird.’
‘I’m the cat.’
‘You think you are. I’m not so sure.’
‘She’s vulnerable, because of the asshole husband. I can manipulate her.’
‘Villanelle, I warn you. You’ve already killed her deputy. You threaten her husband, and she will unleash hell. She won’t rest until you’re laid out on a mortuary slab.’
Villanelle looks up, considers a facetious response, meets Anton’s level gaze, and decides against it. ‘Whatever.’
‘Whatever indeed. As
you will have calculated, I haven’t brought you here for the pleasure of your company. I have a mission for you, if you want it.’
‘OK.’
‘It’s important, but it’s dangerous. You won’t be able to afford any mistakes.’
The tip of her tongue touches the scar on her upper lip. ‘I said OK.’
He regards her with fastidious distaste. ‘Just for the record, I’m not attracted to promiscuous women.’
Villanelle frowns. ‘Should I care?’
Eve’s phone rings when she’s walking out of the office to pick up a sandwich for lunch. It’s Abby, her contact at the Metropolitan Police Forensics Laboratory in Lambeth. With encouragement from Richard, Abby has fast-tracked the analysis of the Van Diest bracelet.
‘Do you want the good news or the bad?’ Abby asks.
‘Bad.’
‘OK. We performed a tape-lift on the bracelet and the card, but found no extractable DNA. No hairs, no epithelial cells, nothing we could use.’
‘Shit.’
‘Not even that. Sorry.’
‘The card?’
‘Again, nothing. Gloves worn, I’d guess. I sent a copy on to graphology.’
‘Any joy with the perfume?’
‘We tried. It’s possible to identify the compounds in commercially produced fragrances using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, but you have to have an adequate sample, which we didn’t here. So no joy.’
‘I thought you said there was some good news.’
‘Well.’ Abby pauses. ‘I did find one interesting thing.’
‘Go on.’
‘A flake of pastry, almost invisible, caught in a fold of the tissue paper.’
‘What kind of pastry?’
‘I sent it for analysis. There were traces of vegetable oil, vanilla essence, confectioner’s sugar. But there was something else, too. Grappa.’
‘That Italian firewater? Like brandy?’
‘Exactly. So I put all these ingredients together and did a search. And came up with something called galani. They’re fried pastries, flavoured with grappa and vanilla and dusted with confectioner’s sugar. A speciality of Venice.’
‘Oh my God, thank you. Thank you.’
‘There’s more. The Van Diest jewellery boutique in Venice is in Calle Vallaresso, at the eastern end of Piazza San Marco. Three doors down is a small, very expensive pasticceria called Zucchetti, specialising in guess what?’
‘Abby, you are a fucking genius. I owe you so massively.’
‘You do. But bring me back a box of galani from Zucchetti and we’re square.’
‘You’re on.’
‘The target,’ says Anton, ‘is Max Linder. Have you heard of him?’
‘Yes. I’ve read a couple of profiles.’
‘Franco-Dutch political activist and media celebrity, twenty-nine. Gay, but nevertheless a figurehead for the extreme right, with a huge following in Europe, especially among young people. Looks like a pop star, and believes, among other things, that the obese should be put in labour camps and sex offenders guillotined.’
‘And why exactly do you want me to kill him?’
‘Some of what he says makes sense. His worldview is, overall, not so very different from ours. But Linder is also a Nazi, and Nazism is a problematic brand, discredited on so many levels, and that’s an association we do not need. In fact it could really damage us.’
‘You said the job would be dangerous.’
‘Linder is aware that he has enemies. He’s accompanied, everywhere he goes, by a praetorian guard of ex-military types. Security is always tight, and there’s invariably a heavy police presence at events he attends. That’s not to say that it’s impossible to kill him. It’s never impossible, there’s always a way. The problem is getting away with it.’
‘Have you got any ideas? I assume you’ve been thinking about this for some time.’
‘We have. Next month Linder is going to a mountain hotel in Austria called the Felsnadel, high above the snowline in the High Tauern. He goes there every year with a group of friends and political associates. It’s a luxury place, designed by some famous architect or other, and you can only get in and out by helicopter. Linder considers it safe enough to stay there without bodyguards. He’s booked the whole hotel for his guests for several days.’
‘So how do I get in?’
‘A week from today, one of the hotel’s service team is going to contract a vomiting bug that will require her hospitalisation. The agency in Innsbruck that provides their staff will send a replacement.’
‘Me.’
‘Correct.’
‘And do you want me to kill everyone in sight, or just Linder?’
‘Just Linder will be fine. It’s a personality cult. Eliminate him, and the movement will wither away.’
‘So what’s my exit plan?’
‘That’ll be up to you to improvise. We can get you in there, but we can’t guarantee to get you out.’
‘Nice.’
‘I thought you’d like it. In the other office I’ve got maps, a floor-plan of the hotel, and detailed files on Linder and everyone else we think is going to be there. How you kill him is up to you, but I’ll need a full list of supplies and weaponry before you leave here. Bear in mind that you’ll be expected to present yourself at the heliport with a single suitcase or bag which will certainly be searched and X-rayed, and cannot exceed ten kilos in weight.’
‘Understood. And now I’m hungry. Is there any lunch?’
‘Waiting for you in the other office. I assume you’re not a vegetarian?’
On her way home, Eve picks up half a dozen duck breasts, fennel and a large tiramisu from Sainsbury’s in the Tottenham Court Road. New neighbours have moved in opposite them, and, rather wildly, Eve has asked them to dinner, telling Niko that ‘they look very nice’. What this supposed niceness actually boils down to is that the husband, Mark, is moderately good-looking and the wife – was her name Maeve, Mavis, Maisie? – has a highly covetable black Whistles coat. To make up numbers, Eve has invited Niko’s friends Zbig and Leila. It will be an interesting and sophisticated evening, she tells herself. Six young (well, youngish) professionals from diverse backgrounds and walks of life exchanging informed opinions over home-cooked food and cleverly chosen wine.
With a flash of apprehension, as she’s sitting on the bus, it occurs to Eve that the Maeve, Mavis, Maisie person might be vegetarian. She doesn’t look vegetarian. When Eve met her she was wearing court shoes with little gilt snaffles, and surely no one owning shoes like that has ever been vegetarian. And the husband, Mark. He does something in the City, so is surely a carnivore.
Niko’s home on time, for once. He tends to hang about at school, giving unofficial coding and hacking classes in the IT room, and teaching the science club how to make miniature volcanoes out of vinegar and baking powder. But today he’s busily peeling potatoes at the sink, and leans back to give Eve an over-the-shoulder kiss as she comes in.
‘I’ve fed the girls,’ he tells her. ‘I’ve given them extra hay to keep them busy.’
‘Can we give them those potato peelings?’
‘No, potato peel contains solanine, which is harmful to goats.’
She puts her arms round his waist. ‘How do you know these things?’
‘Urban Goat Forum.’
‘Sounds like a porn site to me.’
‘You should see LondonPigOwners.com.’
‘Pervert.’
‘I wasn’t deliberately searching for it. It just came up on the screen.’
‘Of course it did. Have you got the wine?’
‘Yes. White in the fridge. Red on the table.’
When she’s put the potatoes and fennel in the oven to roast, Eve goes outside onto the patio, where Thelma and Louise nibble affectionately at her fingers in the fading light. Despite her misgivings, Eve has grown very fond of them.
Zbig and Leila arrive at eight o’clock on the dot. Zbig’s an old friend of Niko’
s from Cracow University, and Leila is his girlfriend of several years’ standing.
‘So what’s new?’ Zbig asks them. ‘Are you doing anything next week, for half-term?’
‘We were thinking of going up to the Suffolk coast for a couple of days,’ Niko says. ‘It’s wonderful at this time of year. No crowds. We’ve even found someone to goat-sit Thelma and Louise.’
‘What do you do there?’ asks Leila.
‘Walk. Look at seabirds. Eat fish and chips.’
‘Catch up on your love life?’ Zbig suggests.
‘Maybe even that.’
‘Oh my God’ says Eve, her heart plummeting. ‘The roast potatoes.’
Niko follows her to the kitchen. ‘The potatoes are fine,’ he tells her, glancing into the oven. ‘What is it really?’
‘Next week. I’m really sorry, Niko. I have to go to Venice.’
He stares at her. ‘You’re not serious.’
‘I am serious. It’s already booked.’
He turns away. ‘Jesus, Eve. Couldn’t you, just once, just fucking once . . .’
She closes her eyes. ‘I promise you, I . . .’
‘So could I come too?’
‘Er, yes, I guess.’ She feels her eyelids flutter. ‘I mean, Lance will be there, but we can still—’
‘Lance? Human cockroach Lance?’
‘You know perfectly well who I mean. It’s work, Niko. I have no choice.’
‘You do have a choice, Eve.’ His voice is almost inaudible. ‘You can choose to spend your life chasing shadows, or you can choose to have a real life, here, with me.’
They’re staring at each other, beyond words, when the doorbell sounds. Mark precedes his wife. He’s wearing strawberry-coloured trousers and a Guernsey sweater and carrying an enormous bottle of wine. A magnum, at least.
No Tomorrow: The basis for Killing Eve, now a major BBC TV series (Killing Eve series Book 2) Page 7
