Luke Jennings - Codename Villanelle

“Oxana, I know who you are. You look different, but it’s you. I thought I recognised that little scar on your mouth, and I knew for sure when I saw that mole on your breast. Don’t you remember me?”

Villanelle considers the situation. Denial isn’t going to work. “Lara,” she says. “Lara Farmanyants.”

They met, just a few years earlier, at the university games, when they were competing in the pistol-shooting. It had become clear that Farmanyants, representing the Kazan Military Academy, was going to be very hard to beat, so the night before the final Oxana slipped into her rival’s room, and without speaking a word, stripped naked and climbed into bed with her. It didn’t take the young cadet long to recover from her surprise. She was, as Oxana had guessed, badly in need of sex, and returned her kisses with the desperation of a starved animal. Later that night, dopey from hours of fervent cunnilingus, she whispered to Oxana that she loved her.

That was the moment when Oxana knew that she had won. Early the next morning she crept back to her own room, and when she saw Lara at breakfast in the canteen looked straight through her. Lara tried to approach her several times that morning, and each time Oxana blanked her. When they lined up at the target range, Lara’s broad features registered hurt and bafflement. She tried to compose herself for the competition, but her aim wavered, and the best she could manage was a bronze medal. Oxana, shooting straight and true, took gold, and by the time she climbed onto the team coach to return to Perm, Lara Farmanyants had been deleted from her thoughts.

And now, by some malign coincidence, here she is again. Perhaps it isn’t so strange that she should be working for Konstantin. She’s a superb shot, and probably far too smart and ambitious to waste her career in the military.

“I read in the paper that you killed some Mafia people,” Lara says. “And later, one of the instructors at the academy told me that you hanged yourself in prison. I’m glad that part wasn’t true.”

Conscious that she needs to keep Lara onside, Villanelle softens her gaze. “I’m sorry I treated you the way I did at Ekaterinburg.”

“You did what you had to do to win. And although it probably meant nothing to you, I’ve never forgotten that night.”

“Really?”

“Really and truly.”

“So how long is this flight?” Villanelle asks.

“Perhaps another two hours.”

“And will we be interrupted?”

“The pilot has instructions not to leave the cabin.”

“In that case…” She reaches out and runs a finger softly down Lara’s cheek.

The light is fading when the Learjet touches down at a small private airfield outside Scherbanka in South Ukraine. A cold wind scours the runway, where a BMW high-security vehicle is waiting. Lara drives fast, leaving the airfield by a side-gate, where a uniformed guard waves them through. Their destination, she tells Villanelle, is Odessa. For an hour they proceed smoothly through the darkening landscape, but as they approach the city, they run into traffic. Ahead of them, illuminated by the lights of the city, the clouds are a sulphurous yellow.

“I won’t say anything about you,” says Lara.

Villanelle inclines her head against the window. The first spatters of rain streak the armour-plated glass. “It won’t go well for you if you do. Oxana Vorontsova is dead.”

“A pity. I admired her.”

“You need to forget her.”

I’ll speak to Konstantin, Villanelle decides. He can deal with Lara. Preferably with a 9mm round to the back of that neatly cropped head.

On her return from China, with the help of an investigator borrowed from the City of London’s Economic Crime department, Eve attempted to chase down the lead Jin Qiang had given her: to identify who had made the bank transfer of £17 million, and who had been the beneficiary. The investigation failed to reveal the source of the funds, but led them via an intricate web of shell companies to the payee, a low-profile venture capitalist named Tony Kent.

Detailed investigation of Kent and his affairs revealed little, but one fact caught Eve’s interest: that Kent was a member of an exclusive fly-fishing syndicate that owned half a mile of the River Itchen in Hampshire. Information about the syndicate was not easy to come by, but Richard Edwards was able, after a few discreet enquiries, to furnish Eve with a membership list. This was not long; indeed, it contained only six names. Those of Tony Kent, two hedge-fund managers, a partner in a high-profile commodity trading firm, a senior cardio-thoracic surgeon, and Dennis Cradle. Eve knew exactly who Dennis Cradle was. He was the director of D4 Branch at MI5, responsible for counter-espionage against Russia and China.

Billy is crouched at the steel desk that used to be Simon’s, hacking into Dennis Cradle’s email account. The new computer hardware, now connected and running, gives off a faint hum. Lance is sitting on a plastic chair in front of the window, staring at the traffic on Tottenham Court Road. His contribution to the office decor has been a clothes rail, hung with coats and jackets that look like a job lot from a charity shop. In the teeth of all her principles, Eve has given him permission to smoke, as the pungent tang of his roll-ups masks other, worse odours.

“Did you have curry last night, Billy?” she asks, looking up from her laptop screen.

“Yeah, prawn Madras.” He shifts his buttocks in his chair. “How d’you know?”

“Call it an inspired guess. How are you getting on with that password?”

“Nearly there, I think.” His fingers dance over the keyboard as he stares at his screen. “Oh! You silly, silly man.”

“You in?” asks Lance.

“All the way. Dennis Cradle, you’re my bitch.”

“So what’ve we got?” Eve asks, a tiny flame of excitement flaring inside her.

“Cloud server data. Everything on his home computer, basically.”

“Doesn’t sound as if it’s very secure.”

Billy shrugs. “He probably thinks that because it’s domestic stuff, he doesn’t need heavy-duty authentication.”

“Or perhaps he doesn’t want to give the impression of having anything to hide. Perhaps this is what we’re supposed to see.”

Cradle shares an account with his wife, Penny, a corporate lawyer. Their emails are stored in orderly folders with names like Accounts, Cars, Health, Insurance and Schools. The inbox holds fewer than a hundred messages, which Billy copies and sends to Eve. A preliminary examination reveals little of interest.

“This is like a lifestyle advertisement,” says Eve, scrolling through the Cradles’ picture files. Almost all of the images are of family activity holidays. Skiing in Megève, tennis camp in Malaga, sailing on the Algarve. Cradle himself is a tanned, bullish figure of about fifty, who clearly enjoys being photographed in sports kit. His wife, prettyish and well groomed, is perhaps five years younger. Their children, Daniel and Bella, stare at the camera with the sulky entitlement of privately schooled teenagers.

“Twats,” says Billy.

“Have a look at their London place,” says Eve.

The street-view image shows a red-brick Georgian house, set back from the road. A pillared porch is half-obscured by a spreading magnolia. A burglar alarm is visible beside a ground-floor window.

“Where is it?” asks Lance.

“Muswell Hill. They’ve been there six years. Cost them one point three mill. Today, it’s got to be worth two, at least.”

“Surely Cradle’s not pretending to have paid for all this on his Service salary?”

“No. The wife’s the big earner.”

“Even so, they’ll have trouble explaining away seventeen fat ones.”