Far ahead of her, an indistinct figure waits. Oxana walks towards her, her step determined. The woman is looking forward, into a snow-blurred infinity. She doesn’t seem to be aware of Oxana’s approach, but at the last moment she turns, her gaze a spear of ice.
Villanelle snaps awake, wide-eyed, heart pounding. Everything is sunlit white. She’s lying in a single bed, with her head supported by pillows. Wound dressings and compression bandages cover much of her face. In the direction that she’s facing she can see light streaming through net curtains, a cast-iron radiator, a chair and a bedside table holding a bottle of mineral water and a box of Voltarol tablets. When she first woke up here forty-eight hours ago, she felt utterly wretched. Her ears ached excruciatingly, bile rose in her throat whenever she swallowed, and the slightest movement sent pain jolting through her neck and shoulders. Now, apart from a faint, residual ringing in her ears, she just feels drained.
Anton walks into her field of vision. Apart from a mostly silent young man who has brought Villanelle her meals, he’s the first person she’s seen since arriving here. He’s wearing a down-filled jacket, and carrying a zip-up cabin bag.
‘So, Villanelle. How are you?’
‘Tired.’
He nods. ‘You’ve had primary blast wave concussion and whiplash. You’ve been on strong sedatives.’
‘Where are we?’
‘A private clinic in Reichenau, outside Innsbruck.’ He steps to the window, pulls back the net curtains, and peers out. ‘Do you remember what happened to you?’
‘Some of it.’
‘Max Linder? The Felsnadel Hotel?’
‘Yes. I remember.’
‘So tell me. What the fuck went down? How did you get caught in the explosion?’
She frowns. ‘I . . . I went to Linder’s room and prepared the device. Then he came in. I suppose I hid. I can’t remember what happened next.’
‘Nothing at all?’
‘No.’
‘Tell me about the device.’
‘I’d worked through a lot of ideas. Phone, digital alarm clock, laptop . . .’
‘Speak up. You’re slurring your words.’
‘I thought about different methods. I wasn’t happy with any of them. Then I found Linder’s vibrator.’
‘And you rigged it with the micro-det and the Fox-7?’
‘Yes, after planting forensic evidence on one of the other guests.’
‘Which guest? What evidence?’
‘The Englishman, Baggot. I hid the plastic wrapping from the explosive in the lining of his washbag.’
‘Good. He’s a moron. Go on.’
Villanelle hesitates. ‘How did I get out?’ she asks him. ‘After the explosion, I mean?’
‘Maria messaged me. Said Linder was dead and you’d been found unconscious at the scene and needed a rapid exfil.’
‘Maria?’ Villanelle raises her head from the pillow. ‘Maria works for you? Why the fuck didn’t you—’
‘Because you didn’t need to know. As it happened, there was a high-altitude blizzard that night, and no emergency helicopters could get up there. So the guests were forced to spend the night of the explosion in the hotel, which apparently caused a certain amount of panic and distress. At least Linder’s body was properly refrigerated. After you blew out the plate-glass window, the temperature in that room must have dropped to minus 20 degrees.’
‘And me?’
‘Maria kept an eye on you overnight. At first light I chartered a helicopter, and had you picked up before the police got there.’
‘No one thought this was weird?’
‘The guests were asleep. The hotel staff assumed it was official, and given the state you were in, were probably glad to see you go. The last thing they needed was a second corpse on their hands.’
‘I don’t remember any of this.’
‘You wouldn’t.’
‘So what happens now?’
‘At the Felsnadel? You don’t need to worry about that. Your part is done.’
‘No, what happens to me? Are the police going to turn up?’
‘No. I drove you here and checked you in myself. As far as everyone at the clinic is concerned, you’re a French tourist convalescing after a driving accident. They’re very discreet here, as they should be, given the price. Apparently they get a lot of post-operative cosmetic surgery patients. There’s some sort of treatment where they pack your face in snow.’
Villanelle touches the dressings on her face. The scabbing cuts are starting to itch. ‘Linder’s dead, as you requested. I’m worth everything you pay me and more.’
Seating himself on the bedside chair, Anton leans forward. ‘He’s dead, as you say, and we appreciate that. But right now it’s time to get your shit together, and fast. Because thanks to your antics in Venice with Lara Farmanyants, and your Hello! magazine approach to assassination, we have a major fucking problem. Namely that Eve Polastri is currently in Moscow, discussing Konstantin Orlov with the FSB.’
‘I see.’
‘You see? Is that the best you can come up with? For fuck’s sake, Villanelle. When you’re good, you’re brilliant, so why do you have to act up in this childish, narcissistic fashion? It’s almost as if you want Polastri to catch and kill you.’
‘Right.’ She reaches for the Voltarol tablets, and he snatches them away.
‘That’s enough of those. If you’re in pain, I want you to remember that it’s wholly self-inflicted. All this drama you create. Speedboats, made-up aristocratic titles, exploding dildos . . . You’re not living in a fucking TV series, Villanelle.’
‘Really? I thought I was.’
He throws the cabin bag onto the bed. ‘New clothes, passport, documents. I want you in London and ready to work by the end of the week.’
‘And what will I be doing there?’
‘Terminating this shitstorm once and for all.’
‘By which you mean?’
‘Killing Eve.’
Escorted by the men who were in the FSB van, Eve walks into the building. The interior is not quite dark, as it appeared from outside. To one side is a battered steel desk behind which a uniformed officer is seated, eating a meatball sandwich by the light of a desk lamp. As they enter he looks up, and puts down his sandwich.
‘Angliskiy spion,’ says the man in the leather cap, slapping a crumpled document onto the desk.
The officer looks at Eve, reaches unhurriedly for a rubber stamp, inks it from a violet pad in a tin, and applies it to the document. ‘Tak,’ he says. ‘Dobro pozhalovat’ na Lubyanku.’
‘He says “Welcome to Lubyanka,” ’ Leather-cap informs her.
‘Tell him I’ve always wanted to visit.’
Neither man smiles. The officer lifts the receiver of an ancient desk telephone, and dials a three-figure number. A minute later two heavily built men in combat trousers and T-shirts arrive, look Eve up and down, and beckon her to follow them.
‘I have no shoes,’ she tells Leather-cap, pointing at her dirty bare feet, and he shrugs. The desk officer has already returned to his sandwich. She accompanies the two men down a long, sour-smelling corridor, through a pair of double doors, and into a courtyard littered with cigarette ends. High buildings, some of yellowish brick, some faced with weather-stained cement, rise on all sides. Uniformed and plain-clothes personnel lean against the walls, smoking, and stare expressionlessly at Eve as she passes. The two men lead her to a low door.
Inside is a tiled hall and a trestle table behind which two male officers are lounging, their crested caps tilted at jaunty angles on their shaved heads. One looks up briefly as they enter, then returns to his perusal of a body-building magazine. The other unhurriedly rises and, advancing on Eve, gestures that she should empty her possessions into a plastic tray on the table. She does so, divesting herself of her watch, phone, passport, hotel room keys and wallet. She’s then made to remove her parka, and subjected to a body-scan with a hand-held metal detector. She asks for the jacket back,
but is refused, leaving her shivering in a thin sweater, vest and jeans.
From the reception hall she’s led to a flight of stairs giving on to a small landing. From here a dim-lit, concrete-walled corridor leads into the building’s interior. The men walk fast, purposefully, and in silence. Their necks are thick and the back of their heads bristled. Pig-men, Eve thinks. An increasingly painful stabbing in her right heel tells her that she’s trodden on something sharp. The pig-men cannot fail to see her limping but they don’t slow down.
‘Pozhalusta,’ she says. ‘Please.’
They ignore her, and Eve’s hope that the situation is stage-managed, and designed to deliver her to Richard’s contact, begins to ebb. The corridor turns at right-angles several times, each change of direction delivering an identical vista of bare bulbs and concrete walls. Finally they reach an atrium, and a large service elevator. The air smells of garbage and decay; the stench catches in Eve’s throat. All this sends a very bad message. Is she under arrest? Do they really think she’s a spion, a spy?
You are a spy, an inner voice whispers. It’s what you always wanted. You’re here because you chose to be here. Because, in the face of wiser counsel, you insisted on it. You wanted this.
‘Please,’ she says again in halting, pleading Russian. ‘Where are we going?’
Once again the pig-men ignore her. Her heel hurts badly now, the pain driving upwards like a blade. But the pain is nothing compared with the fear. One of the men presses the elevator’s call button, and there’s a distant mechanical clanking. Eve’s shaking now. The possibility of imposing herself on the situation has evaporated. She feels utterly, mutely helpless.
The service elevator doors open with a metallic shriek, and Eve is led inside. The doors close and the elevator begins a slow, grinding descent, the pig-men leaning against the dented walls with folded arms and blank faces. From somewhere in the building Eve senses a mechanical pulse. Faint at first, but growing louder as the elevator moves downwards. The noise becomes a roar, making the elevator shudder. She digs her fingernails into her hand. This is the twenty-first century, she tells herself. I’m an Englishwoman with a husband, a Debenhams store card, and a kilo of fresh tagliatelle in the freezer. Everything will be all right.
No, the voice whispers. It fucking well won’t. You’re a pathetically amateurish spy, hopelessly out of your depth, and now you’re paying the price of your fantasies. This nightmare is real. This is really happening.
Finally, the doors open. They’re in an atrium identical to the one they left just minutes ago. The light is a sulphurous mustard colour, and the noise, relentless and terrifying, is all around them. The pig-men march Eve into yet another corridor, and she follows them as best she can. If the journey is grim, she’s certain that the arrival will be worse.
Ten minutes later, she’s utterly disoriented. She senses that they’re underground, but that’s all. The mechanical roar is quieter now, although still audible, and the place seems to have other occupants. She can hear doors rattling and creaking, and a faint sound that could be shouting. They turn a corner. A tiled floor underfoot, the peeling walls suffused in that horrible mustard-coloured light. At the head of the corridor a door is open, and her guards pause long enough for Eve to look inside. At first glance the interior resembles a shower room, with a sloping concrete floor, a drain, and a coiled hose. But three of the walls are padded, and the fourth is made of splintered logs.
Before Eve has time to guess at the implications of this room, she’s moved into a row of cells, with reinforced doors and observation hatches. The pig-men stop outside the first of these, and pull it open. Inside there’s a stoneware basin, a bucket and a low bench against one wall. On the bench is a soiled palliasse. Light is provided by a low-wattage bulb protected by a wire grille. Open-mouthed and disbelieving, Eve allows herself to be manhandled inside. Behind her, the door slams shut.
Locking and bolting the door of her Paris apartment behind her, Villanelle drops her bag and curls, catlike, into a grey leather and chrome armchair. With her eyes half closed she looks around her. She’s grown very attached to its restful sea-green walls, anonymous paintings and worn, once-expensive furniture. Beyond the plate-glass window, framed by heavy silk curtains, is the city, silent in the twilight. She gazes for a moment at the faint shimmer of the illuminations on the Eiffel Tower, and then dips into her bag for her phone. The SMS message is still there, of course. The one-time burn code dispatched with a single keystroke.
They were in bed together in Venice when Lara showed Villanelle her phone. ‘If you ever get this text, I’ve been taken and it’s all over.’
‘That won’t happen,’ Villanelle replied.
But it has happened, and here is the text. ‘I love you.’
Lara did love her, Villanelle knows. She still does, if she’s alive. And for a moment, Villanelle envies her that capacity. To share another’s happiness, to suffer another’s pain, to fly on the wings of real feeling rather than to be forever acting. But how dangerous, how uncontrollable, and ultimately how ordinary. Better, by far, to occupy the pure, arctic citadel of the self.
It’s bad that Lara’s been taken, though. Very bad. Rising from the grey leather chair, Villanelle walks to the kitchen, and takes a bottle of pink Mercier champagne and a cold tulip glass from the fridge. In thirty-six hours she flies to London. There are plans to be made, and they are complex.
In Eve’s cell, the light flickers and goes out. She has no idea what time it is, or even if it’s night. No guards have returned with food, and although she’s painfully hungry, she’s also desperate to avoid the shame of having to empty her bowels into the bucket. Thirst has forced her to take sips from the tap in the basin. The water is brownish and tastes of rust, but Eve is beyond caring.
She seems to have been lying on the hard bench for hours, her mind alternately racing off at frantic tangents and sinking into a sick fog of despair. At intervals, she’s overtaken by shaking fits, caused not by the cold, although it is cold, and her sweater painfully thin, but by the endlessly reshuffling memory of events in the metro. Nothing in her life has prepared her for the flutter of a bullet parting her hair. For the sight of an infolding face, and outpouring brains. Who was he, the old man with the pale eyes, whose last living act was to smile at a stranger? Who was the man she killed? Because I did kill him, Eve tells herself. I killed him with my stupid, misplaced self-belief, as surely as if I shot him myself.
She stands up in the dark, endures another bout of the shakes, and limps around the cell, trying not to think about the probable infection in her heel. She can’t sleep. Her stomach is twisting with hunger, the bench is hard, and the palliasse smells of vomit and shit. She makes her way to the door. The random shouting that once seemed distant sounds closer now. A phrase, not quite intelligible, is repeated over and over again in a male voice. Others respond angrily. There’s a low groaning, suddenly interrupted.
Warily, Eve lifts the small wooden panel in the door – wide enough to slip a food bowl through – and looks out. From the end of the corridor, in the direction from which she was led earlier, come dim, flickering lights. The shouting starts again, the same unintelligible phrase delivered in a furious, desperate rasp. It’s met with the same responses, and the same sharply curtailed groaning. It occurs to Eve that she’s listening to a recording, some kind of looped tape. But if so, why? What would be the point? To intimidate her? That was hardly necessary.
Then, as she crouches by the hatch, looking out, a figure moves into her peripheral vision, and starts walking up the corridor towards her. At the sight of him, Eve once again starts to shake. A man of about forty, with thinning brown hair, wearing a boiler suit, a long leather apron and rubber boots.
As he passes her door, Eve closes the hatch to a crack. She can’t stop watching, and she can’t stop shaking. Moving with the unhurried air of a doctor on a hospital round, the man goes into the room with the hose and the drain and the sloping floor. Perhaps a minute passes
, then the two pig-men arrive at the opposite end of the corridor and unlock a cell door. Marching inside, they come out supporting a thin, blankly staring figure in a suit and shirt, and walk him past Eve’s door and into the same room.
Moments later they leave without him, and Eve sinks to the floor of her cell, her eyes as tightly shut as she can force them, and her hands clamped over her ears. But she still hears the shots. Two of them, seconds apart. And she’s so terrified she can no longer think, or breathe, or control any part of herself, and she just lies there in the darkness, shaking.
Somehow, probably from sheer exhaustion, she sleeps, and is woken by a hammering at the cell door. The lights are on again and there’s a faint smell of cooked meat. At that moment the only thing that she’s sure of is her hunger. She limps to the communication hatch, her mouth dry and her guts twisting with longing.
‘Da?’
‘Zavtrak!’ a voice growls. ‘Breakfast.’
With that, the hatch opens and a red box is pushed through by a large, hairy hand. It’s a McDonald’s Happy Meal, and it seems to be still hot. It’s followed by a canned energy drink called Russian Power. Eve stares disbelievingly at these luxuries before ripping open the McDonald’s box, and with trembling fingers devouring the contents. In the box with the hamburger and french fries there’s a cellophane-wrapped toy. A tiny plastic teapot with a Hello Kitty face on it.
Eve wipes her greasy, salty fingers on her jeans then rips the tab from the Russian Power can and gulps down as much as she can before sinking back, gasping, onto the bench. Nothing makes sense any more. Pulling the bucket to the door so that she can’t be seen through the hatch, she pees in it, pours the urine down the sink, and washes her hands and the bucket with the trickling brown tap water. Her bowels give a warning grumble, but shitting in the bucket is an indignity she’s not yet ready for, although she’s resigned to the fact that that time will come. Turning the french fries packet inside out, she licks up the last of the salt, and takes a measured sip of Russian Power. Was this a last meal before being dragged to the room with the concrete floor, the hose and the drain? I’m sorry, Niko my love. I’m so, so sorry.
No Tomorrow: The basis for Killing Eve, now a major BBC TV series (Killing Eve series Book 2) Page 17
