Luke Jennings: Codename Villanelle

“It’s just as well the police found you before the Brothers did, or I wouldn’t be talking to you now.” He dropped his cigarette end on the floor and trod it out. “But I have to admit it was an efficient piece of work. Your father taught you well.”

She glanced at him again. Dark-haired, medium height, perhaps forty years old. His gaze was level and his eyes were almost, but not quite, sympathetic.

“But you neglected the most important rule of all. You got caught.”

She took an exploratory sip of her tea. Reached across the table, took one of the cigarettes, and lit it. “So who are you?”

“Someone before whom you can speak freely, Oxana Borisovna. But first, please confirm the truth of the following.” He took a folded sheaf of papers from his coat pocket. “Your mother, who was Ukrainian, died when you were seven, of thyroid cancer, almost certainly as a consequence of her exposure to radiation following the Chernobyl reactor disaster twelve years earlier. Three months after your mother’s death your father was posted to Chechnya, at which point you were taken into the temporary care of the Sakharov orphanage in Perm. You spent eighteen months at the orphanage, during which time the staff noted your exceptional academic skills. They also identified other traits, including habitual bed-wetting and a near-total inability to form relationships with other children.”

She exhaled, the smoke a long grey plume in the cold air, and touched the tip of her tongue to a ridge of scar tissue on her upper lip. The gesture, like the scar itself, was barely perceptible, but the man in the coat saw it, and noted it.

“When you were ten your father was seconded again, this time to Dagestan. You returned to the Sakharov orphanage where, after three months, you were discovered setting fire to the dormitory block, and transferred to the psychiatric unit of Municipal Hospital Number 4 in Perm. Against the advice of your therapist, who had diagnosed you as suffering from a sociopathic personality disorder, you were returned home to your father. The following year you commenced your studies at Industrialny District secondary school. Here, once again, you won praise for your academic results—particularly for your language skills—and once again it was noted that you made no attempt to make friends or form relationships. Indeed, it’s on the record that you were involved in, and suspected of instigating, a number of violent incidents.

“You did, however, form an attachment to your French teacher, a Miss Leonova, and became extremely agitated when you learned that she had been subjected to a serious sexual assault while waiting for a bus late at night. Her supposed assailant was arrested but later released for lack of evidence. Six weeks later he was discovered in woodland near the Mulyanka river, incoherent with shock and blood loss. He had been castrated with a knife. Doctors succeeded in saving his life but his attacker was never identified. At the time of these events you were approaching your seventeenth birthday.”

She trod out her cigarette on the floor. “Is this leading anywhere?”

He almost smiled. “I could mention the gold medal you won for pistol shooting at the University Games in Ekaterinburg. In your first year as an undergraduate.”

She shrugged, and he leaned forward in his chair. “Just between ourselves. Those three men in the Pony Club, what did you feel when you killed them?”

She met his gaze, her expression blank.

“OK, hypothetically. What might you have felt?”

“At the time, I might have felt satisfaction at a job well done. Now…” She shrugged again. “Nothing.”

“So for nothing, you are looking at twenty years in Berezniki, or somewhere similar?”

“You brought me all the way here to tell me that?”

“The truth, Oxana Borisovna, is that the world has a problem with people like you. Men or women who are born, as you were, without a conscience, or the ability to feel guilt. You represent a tiny fraction of the population at large, but without you…” He lit another cigarette, and sat back in his chair. “Without predators, people who can think the unthinkable, and act without fear or hesitation, the world stands still. You are an evolutionary necessity.”

There was a long silence. His words confirmed what she had always known, even at her lowest ebb: that she was different, that she was special, that she was born to soar. She stared through the window at the waiting vehicle, and the guards stamping their feet in the snow. Again, the tip of her tongue momentarily probed her upper lip.

“So what do you want from me?” she asked.

Konstantin told her, sparing no detail of what was to come. And listening to him, it was as if everything in her life had led to that moment. Her expression never flickered, but the thrill that ripped through her was as avid as hunger.

Over Paris, the light is fading. From a drawer in the desk in her study, Villanelle takes a new, boxed Apple laptop, and unpacks it. Soon she is connected to a Gmail account and is opening a message whose subject heading is Jeff and Sarah—Holiday Pics . There are two paragraphs of text, and a dozen JPEG images of a couple exploring tourist sites in and around Cairo.

Hi All!

We’ve had the best time ever. Pyramids amazing, and Sarah rode a camel (see attached pics)! Back on Sunday, landing 7.42, should be home by 9.45. Best wishes—Jeff.

PS please note Sarah’s new email SMPrice88307@gmail.com

Ignoring the letters and words Villanelle extracts the figures. These make up a one-time password, which enables her to access the compressed data embedded in the innocent-looking JPEG images. She remembers the words of the Indian systems designer who taught her covert communication: “Encrypted messages are all very well, but even if they’re completely unbreakable, they attract attention. Much better to ensure that no one suspects the existence of the message in the first place.”

She turns to the photographs. Because they’re highly detailed, with excellent resolution, they can carry a substantial data payload. Ten minutes later she has extracted all of the concealed text, which she combines into a single document.

A second email headed Steve’s mobile has a briefer message, just a single phone number, and six JPEG images of an amateur football game. Villanelle repeats the earlier process, but this time extracts a series of photographic portraits. They are all of the same man. His eyes are dark, almost black, and the set of his mouth is hard. Villanelle stares at the pictures. She has never seen the man before, but there’s something in his face that she recognises. A kind of emptiness. It takes her a moment to remember where she’s seen that look before. In the mirror. In her own eyes. The text document is headed Salvatore Greco .

One of the unique attributes that recommended Villanelle to her present employers was her photographic memory. It takes her thirty minutes to read the Greco file, and when she has finished she can recall every page as if she were holding it in front of her. Culled from police files, surveillance logs, court records, and informers’ statements, it is an exhaustive personal portrait. All things considered, though, it is frustratingly brief. A timeline of Greco’s career to date. An FBI psychological profile. A breakdown, in large part hypothetical, of his domestic situation, personal habits and sexual proclivities. A list of properties held in his name. An analysis of his known security arrangements.

The portrait that emerges is of a man of austere tastes. Pathologically averse to public attention, he is extremely skilled at avoiding it, even in an era of mass communication. At the same time his power stems in large part from his reputation. In a region of the world where torture and murder are routine, Greco’s ferocity sets him apart. Anyone who dares to stand in his way or question his authority is eliminated, usually with spectacular cruelty. Rivals have seen their entire families shot, informers discovered with their throats slashed and their tongues drawn out through the gaping wounds.