Villanelle closes her eyes, presses her forehead to her knees, covers her ears with her hands and opens her mouth. Her neck and shoulder muscles are quivering now, and her heart pounding.
‘Invade me, mein Führer!’
The air ruptures, tearing like fabric, and a roar of sound slams from wall to wall, wrapping around Villanelle so tightly that she can’t breathe, lifting and upending her. For an extended moment she’s weightless, then there’s a hard impact and the suitcase bursts open. Lungs heaving, faint with shock, she rolls into a frozen, singing silence. The room’s half dark, and there’s no plate-glass window any more, just an empty black space. The air is filled with feathers, whirling like snowflakes on the inrushing mountain air. Some, flecked with red, drift to the floor. One settles softly against Villanelle’s cheek.
Effortfully, she raises herself on one elbow. Max Linder is all over the place. His head and torso, still wearing the laced-up bodice of the dirndl, have been thrown back against the headboard. His legs, all but severed, hang loosely over the bed’s end. In between, on the exploded duvet, is a glinting mess of blood, viscera and broken glass from the blown-out overhead light. Above Villanelle’s head, something detaches from the ceiling and splatters into her hair. She brushes it away absently; it feels like liver. The ceiling and walls are glazed with blood-spray, and flecked with faecal and intestinal matter. Linder’s severed right hand lies, palm down, in the courtesy fruit-bowl.
Slowly, Villanelle gets to her feet and takes a few shaky steps. Vaguely conscious that she’s hungry, she reaches for a banana, but its skin is sticky with blood and she lets it fall onto the carpet. Her eyes ache with fatigue, and she’s desperately, mortally cold. So she lies down again, curling up like a child at the foot of the bed, as the body fluids of the man that she has killed drip and congeal around her. She doesn’t hear the splintering of the door, or the shouts and the screaming that follow. She dreams that she’s lying with her head in Anna Leonova’s lap. That she’s safe, and at peace, and Anna is stroking her hair.
Chapter 7
Sleet is spattering against the window of the Airbus as it taxis to the runway. A stewardess with over-bleached hair is giving a listless safety demonstration. Canned music rises and falls in volume.
‘I know the hotel,’ Lance says. ‘It’s on Prospekt Mira, and absolutely bloody enormous. Probably the biggest in Russia.’
‘Are they serving drinks on this flight, do you think?’
‘Eve, this is Aeroflot. Relax.’
‘Sorry, Lance, it’s been a really shit couple of days. I think Niko may even have left me.’
‘That bad, eh?’
‘That bad. Venice was tricky enough; this time I can’t even tell him where I’m going. He’d totally freak if he knew. And even though he knows that you and I are absolutely, you know . . .’
‘Not having sex?’
‘Yeah, even though he knows that, I’m still going to wherever it is that I’m going with some other guy.’
‘You told him I was coming?’
‘I know I shouldn’t have. But better than not saying anything, or lying, and him then finding out.’
Lance glances at the passenger on his left, a bullet-headed figure wearing a bulky jacket in the black and red colours of FC Spartak Moscow, and shrugs. ‘There’s no answer. My ex-wife hated that I never talked to her about my work, but what can you do? She liked a gossip with her pals, and with a couple of drinks inside her she got very chatty indeed. There are couples who cope better than others, but that’s as far as it goes.’
Eve nods, and wishes she hadn’t. She feels hung over, sleep-deprived and emotionally fragile. She and Niko were up until almost 3 a.m., drinking wine that neither of them felt like drinking, and saying things that could not be unsaid. Eventually she announced that she intended to go to bed, and Niko insisted with wounded determination on sleeping on the sofa.
‘Don’t be surprised if I’m not here when you get back from wherever the fuck it is you’re going,’ he said, leaning balefully on his crutches.
‘Where will you go?’
‘Why? What difference does that make?’
‘I’m just asking.’
‘Don’t. If I don’t have the right to know your movements, you don’t have the right to know mine, OK?’
‘OK.’
She fetched him blankets. Sitting on the sofa with his head bowed and his crutches at his side he looked lost, a displaced person in his own home. It distressed Eve to see him like this, so steeped in hurt, but some cold and clear-thinking part of her knew that this battle had to be fought and won. That she might back down was an alternative she never considered.
‘How long’s this flight?’ she asks Lance.
‘About three and a half hours.’
‘Vodka’s good for a hangover, isn’t it?’
‘Tried and tested.’
‘As soon as we’re airborne, catch that stewardess’s eye.’
The hotel, as Lance has described, is vast. The lobby is the size of a railway station, its pillared expanse and functional grandeur redolent of high Sovietism. Their twenty-second-floor rooms are drab, with worn furnishings, but the views are spectacular. Opposite Eve’s window, on the far side of Prospekt Mira, is the complex of ornate pavilions, walkways, gardens and fountains comprising the former All-Russia Exhibition Centre. At a distance it still has a fading glamour, especially beneath the enamel-blue October sky.
‘So what’s the plan?’ Lance asks, as they drink a second cup of coffee in the hotel’s Kalinka restaurant.
Eve reflects. She feels renewed by the night’s sleep, and unexpectedly optimistic. The fight with Niko, and the issues surrounding it, have receded to a background murmur, a distant shimmer. She’s ready for whatever the day and the city might bring. ‘I’d like to go for a walk,’ she says. ‘Get some Russian air in my lungs. We could go to that park opposite; I’d love to take a closer look at that sculpture of the rocket.’
‘Oleg said we’d be contacted at the hotel at eleven o’clock.’
‘Then we’ve got two and a half hours. I don’t mind going by myself.’
‘If you go, I come with you.’
‘You seriously think that I’m at risk? Or that we are?’
‘This is Moscow. We’re here under our own names, and we can count on those names being on some list of foreign intelligence operatives. Our arrival won’t have gone unnoticed, trust me. And obviously our contact knows we’re here.’
‘Who is this person? Any idea?’
‘No names. Just that it’s someone Richard knows from his time here. An FSB officer would be my guess. Probably someone quite high-up.’
‘Richard was head of station here, right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So does that happen a lot? Senior officers keeping lines of communication open with the other side?’
‘Not a lot. But he always had a way of getting on with people, even when things got frosty at the diplomatic level.’
‘I remember Jin Qiang saying much the same in Shanghai.’
‘I think Richard saw those relationships as a kind of fail-safe. So that if one of their leaders, or ours, were to go completely off the rails . . .’
‘Wiser heads might prevail?’
‘That sort of thing.’
Fifteen minutes later they’re standing at the foot of the Monument to the Conquerors of Space. This is a hundred-metre-high representation, in shining titanium, of a rocket rising on its exhaust plume. Beside them, a kebab vendor is setting up his stand.
‘I always felt so sorry for Laika, that dog they sent up,’ Eve says, pushing her hands deep into the pockets of her parka jacket. ‘I read about her when I was a child, and I used to dream of her alone in the capsule, far away in space, not knowing that she would never return to earth. I know there were humans who died in the space programme, but it was Laika that I found so heartbreaking. Don’t you think?’
‘I always wanted a dog. My Uncle Dave managed a w
aste depot outside Redditch, and every so often he’d invite us kids round and we’d send his terriers in after the rats. They’d kill maybe a hundred in a session. Complete bloody mayhem, and the smell was diabolical.’
‘What a lovely childhood memory.’
‘Yeah, well. My dad always said Dave made a fortune out of that place. Most of it from turning a blind eye when blokes turned up at night with lumpy shapes rolled up in carpeting.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Put it like this. He retired aged forty, moved to Cyprus, and hasn’t lifted a finger since, except to play golf.’ He hunches into his coat. ‘We should keep moving.’
‘Any particular reason?’
‘If anyone’s got surveillance on us, and that’s somewhere between possible and probable, we’re not going to know if we stay still.’
‘OK. Let’s walk.’
The park, built in the mid-twentieth century to celebrate the economic achievements of the Soviet state, is vast and melancholy. Triumphal arches, their columns flaking and weather-streaked, frame empty air. Neo-classical pavilions stand padlocked and deserted. Visitors huddle on benches, staring into the middle distance as if defeated by the attempt to make sense of their nation’s recent history. And above it all, that almost artificially blue sky, and the scudding white clouds.
‘So Lance, when you were here before . . .’
‘Go on.’
‘What were you actually doing?’
He shrugs. A solitary roller skater whirrs past them. ‘Bread-and-butter stuff, mostly. Keeping an eye on people who needed an eye kept on them. Seeing who came and went.’
‘Agent-handling?’
‘I was more of a talent-spotter. If I felt one of their people had potential, and wasn’t being fed to us, I’d pass it on and an approach would be made. With walk-ins, I helped filter out the obvious nutters.’
They’re rounding an ornamental lake, its surface furrowed by the wind. ‘Don’t look now,’ Lance says. ‘Hundred metres behind us. Single gent in a grey overcoat, pork-pie hat, looking at a map.’
‘Following us?’
‘Certainly keeping eyes on us.’
‘How long have you known?’
‘He picked us up when we left the rocket statue.’
‘What do you suggest?’
‘That we do what we’re going to do anyway. Go and have a look at the metro station, like good tourists, and make our way back to the hotel. If possible resisting the temptation to turn round and stare at our FSB chum.’
‘Lance, I’m not that naive.’
‘I know. Just saying.’
Entry to the metro station is via a circular pillared atrium. Inside it’s bustling but spacious, and after buying a ticket each they descend by escalator to the palatial underground concourse. At the sight of it Eve stops dead, causing a woman to ram her behind the knees with a shopping trolley before pushing brusquely past. Eve, however, is captivated. The central hall is vast, and lit with ornate chandeliers. The walls and vaulted ceiling are white marble; archways faced in green mosaic lead to the railway platforms. Passengers hurry to and from the trains in swirling cross-currents, a young man is playing a song Eve vaguely recognises on a battered guitar, a beggar displaying military service medals kneels with head lowered and hands outstretched.
Lance and Eve allow themselves to be drawn along the concourse by the crowd. ‘What’s that song?’ she asks. ‘I’m sure I know it.’
‘Everyone thinks they know it. It’s the most annoying song ever written. It’s called “Posledniy Raz”. The Russian equivalent of the “Macarena”.’
‘The things you know, Lance, honestly . . .’ She stops. ‘Oh my goodness gracious. Look.’
An elderly man is sitting on a stone bench. At his feet is a cardboard box full of new-born kittens. He grins toothlessly at Eve. His eyes are a pale, watery blue.
As Eve falls to one knee, intending to touch a finger to the impossibly soft head of one of the kittens, a fluttering wind touches her hair, followed by a smacking sound. The face of the man on the bench seems to fold inwards, grin still in place, as his skull bloodily voids itself against the marble wall.
Eve freezes, wide-eyed. She hears the tiny mewing of the kittens, and as if from a distance, screaming. Then she’s dragged to her feet, and Lance is strong-arming her towards the exit. Everyone else has the same idea and as the crowd presses around them, shoulders barging and elbows shoving, Eve is lifted from her feet. She feels herself losing a shoe and tries to duck down for it, but is swept forward, the press of bodies against her ribcage so unyielding that she gasps for breath. The clamp tightens, points of light burst before her eyes, a voice yells in her ear – ‘Seryozha, Seryozha’ – and the last thing she knows before her legs give way and the darkness rises to meet her is that from somewhere, somehow, she can still hear that maddening, insinuating song.
Catching her, hoisting her up so that her head lolls on his shoulder, Lance carries her onto the escalator. This too is packed tight with passengers but finally they reach the atrium, and he lowers her into a seated position against a pillar. Opening her eyes she blinks, gulps air, feels the waves of dizziness rise and fall.
‘Can you walk?’ Lance scans the area urgently. ‘Because we really, really need to get away from here.’
Her lungs heaving, Eve kicks off the remaining shoe as Lance pulls her to a standing position. She sways for a moment, the floor cold beneath her bare feet, and attempts to order her thoughts. Someone has just tried to shoot her in the back of the head. The old man with the kittens has had his brains blown out. The shooter might at any moment catch up with them.
Eve knows that she should act decisively, but she feels so light-headed and nauseous that she can’t bring herself to move. Shock, a small voice tells her. But knowing that she’s in shock doesn’t dispel the meaty smack of the bullet, the infolding face, the brains tumbling from the skull like summer pudding. Posledniy Raz. The kittens, she thinks vaguely. Who will look after the kittens? Then she leans forward and vomits noisily onto her bare feet.
Immediately outside the metro station, four solidly built men are waiting. Behind them, a black van bearing the insignia of the FSB is drawn up on the tarmac. A fifth man, wearing a pork-pie hat, stands a short distance from the others, making no attempt to disguise the fact that he’s watching the outpouring passengers closely.
Eve’s retching, and the evasive action taken by those passing her, attracts the men’s attention. By the time she straightens up, wet-eyed and shaking, they’re moving determinedly towards her.
‘Come,’ says one of them, in English, placing a hand on her elbow. He’s wearing a leather flat cap and a padded winter jacket, and looks neither friendly nor unfriendly. Like his three colleagues, he has a large handgun holstered on his belt.
‘Kogo-to zastrelili,’ Lance tells him, pointing into the metro. ‘Someone’s been shot.’
The man in the leather cap ignores his words. ‘Please,’ he says, gesturing towards the black van. ‘Go in.’
Eve stares at him wretchedly. Her feet are freezing.
‘I don’t think we’ve got much choice,’ Lance says, as passengers continue to stream past them. ‘Probably safer there than anywhere else.’
The drive is conducted in silence and at high speed, the van swerving aggressively from lane to lane. As they race southwards down Prospekt Mira, Eve attempts to focus her thoughts, but the swaying van and the overpowering smell of petrol, body odour, cologne and her own vomit make her nauseous, and it’s all she can do not to throw up again. Staring through the windscreen at the road in front of them, she runs a hand through her hair. Her forehead is clammy.
‘How are you feeling?’ Lance asks.
‘Shit,’ she answers, not turning round.
‘Don’t worry.’
‘Don’t worry?’ Her voice is a rasp. ‘Lance, someone just tried to fucking shoot me. I’ve got bits of sick between my toes. And we’ve been abducted.’
‘I know,
not ideal. But I think we’re safer with these guys than on the street.’
‘I hope so. I fucking hope so.’
They swing into a wide square, dominated by a vast and cheerless edifice in ochre brick. ‘The Lubyanka,’ Lance says. ‘Used to be the headquarters of the KGB.’
‘Great.’
‘Now occupied by the FSB, who are basically the KGB with better dentistry.’
The driver takes a road to the side of the building, makes a turn, and parks. The rear of the Lubyanka is a wasteland of building works and litter. Wire grilles cover windows impenetrable with grime. The man in the leather cap steps down from the front passenger seat, and slides open the van door.
‘Come,’ he says to Eve.
She turns to Lance, wide-eyed with apprehension. He tries to get up but is pressed firmly back into his seat.
‘She come, you stay.’
She feels herself boosted towards the van door. Leather-cap waits outside, blank-faced.
‘This could be what we came for,’ says Lance. ‘Good luck.’
Eve feels empty, even of fear. ‘Thanks,’ she whispers, and steps down onto a cold scattering of builders’ grit. She’s hurried past an entrance covered by corrugated iron to a low doorway surmounted by a hammer and sickle in carved stone. Leather-cap presses a button, and the door gives a faint, expiring click. He pushes it open. Inside, Eve can see nothing but darkness.
Oxana Vorontsova is walking at the side of a road in a city that both is and isn’t Perm. It’s evening, and snow is falling. The road is bordered by tall, flat-fronted buildings, and between these the dark expanse of a river is visible, and ice-floes painted with snow. As Oxana walks, the landscape takes shape ahead of her, as if she’s in a 1990s computer game. Walls rise up, the road unrolls. Everything is made up of graduated flecks of black, white and grey, like the wing-scales of a moth.
The knowledge that she is living in a simulation reassures Oxana: it means, as she’s always suspected, that nothing is real, that her actions will have no consequences and she can do what she likes. But it doesn’t answer all her questions. Why is she driven to this constant search, this endless walking of this twilit road? What lies behind the surfaces of the buildings that rise up to either side of her like stage scenery? Why is it that nothing seems to have depth or sound? Why does she feel this terrible, crushing sadness?
No Tomorrow: The basis for Killing Eve, now a major BBC TV series (Killing Eve series Book 2) Page 16
