Luke Jennings - Codename Villanelle

At the fashion house in the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, the anticipation is mounting. Like every haute couture show ever staged, this one is running late. No one is so gauche as to betray actual excitement, but there’s an expectancy in the muted laughter, the flickering glances, and the delicate tapping of lacquered nails on iPhones. Villanelle closes her eyes for a moment, dismissing the crowd around her—the socialites overdressed for the press cameras, the fashion professionals in shades of black—and inhales the heady perfume of wealth. The fragrance of the lilies, fuchsias and tuberoses banked on either side of the runway, and entwined with that, the smell of designer scent—Guerlain, Patou, Annick Goutal—on warm skin. And as a top note, the sharper odour of the sweat lending a faint sheen to the foreheads of an audience that has been waiting here, on too-small gilt chairs, for more than forty minutes.

Absently, Villanelle reaches out and takes a rose-petal-flavoured Ladurée macaroon from the box on Anne-Laure’s lap. As she closes her teeth on its crisp outer shell the lights dim, the shining peals of a Scarlatti cantata fill the space, and the first model swings out onto the runway, wearing a long, crocus-yellow silk coat. She’s a vision, but Villanelle doesn’t really register her.

What would happen, she wonders, if Lara Farmanyants were to announce that Oxana Vorontsova is alive. Would anyone believe her, or care? Who was Oxana Vorontsova, after all? Some crazy student who shot three gangsters in a Perm bar, and then supposedly killed herself in prison. Old news, long forgotten. Russia’s a madhouse these days, and people are being murdered all the time. Why would Lara speak out? Who would she tell?

On the runway, immaculately tailored suits give way to embroidered crossover tops and tulle ballet skirts in dusty pink. Anne-Laure sighs appreciatively, and Villanelle helps herself to another macaroon, this one flavoured with Marie-Antoinette tea.

The point is not who she would tell, or who would care. The point is that if any element of the Villanelle legend threatens to unravel—if there’s so much as a loose thread—then she becomes a liability to the Twelve. And if that happens, she’s dead. Which leads back to the necessity of killing Lara. But would she be able to get away with it? The Twelve have people everywhere. She could confide in Anton, but she doesn’t fully trust him, and he might well decide that it is her, and not Lara, who has to be eliminated. Besides, she has to admit that she’s stirred by Lara, with her unblinking sniper’s gaze and hard, efficient body. She’s excited by the poignancy of her need.

A Handel sarabande. Cocktail frocks in silvery grey, furled like unopened petals around the slender bodies of the models. Evening gowns in midnight blue, embroidered with galaxies of diamanté stars.

Shooting Konstantin was bad. The sudden nothingness behind his eyes. Did Anton fly her halfway across the world to kill him out of a perverse consideration? Or to deliver a brutal message to Villanelle about the reality of her situation?

What’s most concerning is that the crisis in Odessa arose at all. It tells her that while the organisation that employs her is more than capable of solving its problems, it’s also susceptible to error. Konstantin always gave her to believe that in working for the Twelve, he and she were part of something which was both invisible and invulnerable. This episode showed that for all its reach and power, the organisation could be hurt. Despite the warmth of the salon, Villanelle shivers.

The lights soften. The fashion show has progressed to the bedroom, to a dreamscape finale with the models swaying and weaving in delicate camisoles, sheer nightdresses, and shimmering organza gowns. The designer steps onto the runway, blows kisses at the audience, and is met by waves of applause. The models retreat, and waiters circulate with trays.

“So did you see any of that?” asks Anne-Laure, handing her a flute of pink Cristal champagne. “You seemed miles away.”

“Sorry,” murmurs Villanelle, closing her eyes as the icy wine slides down her throat. “I’m a bit zonked. I haven’t slept much.”

“Don’t tell me you want to go home, chérie . We’ve got the whole night ahead of us, starting with a party backstage. And there are two very handsome men over there, staring at us.”

Villanelle inhales the scented air. The champagne has set her body tingling. The exhaustion falls away, and with it, for now, the doubts and fears of the last twenty-four hours.

“OK,” she says. “Let’s have some fun.”

“So,” says Richard Edwards. “Dennis Cradle. You’re really sure about this? Because if you’re wrong. If we’re wrong—”

“We’re not wrong” says Eve.

They’re sitting in Edwards’s thirty-year-old Mercedes in an underground car park in Soho. The grey-blue interior is worn but comfortable, the open windows admit a faint smell of exhaust.

“Run it past me again.”

Eve leans forward in her seat. “Acting on information given to us by Jin Qiang, who almost certainly knows more than he’s saying, we investigated a large payment made by persons unknown to a Gulf State account held by one Tony Kent. It turns out Kent is an associate of Dennis Cradle, and when we conducted a covert search of Cradle’s property, we found a locked file concealed on his computer. When we broke the password and opened it, we discovered details of a numbered account in the British Virgin Islands owned by Cradle. We also discovered that a sum in excess of £12 million has recently been paid into this account by Tony Kent, from the account that he controls at the First National Bank of Fujairah. I’d say that was conclusive enough to act on.”

“So you want to bring Cradle in?”

“I propose that we have a quiet word with him. We don’t mention these accounts and payments to anyone—Revenue, police, whoever. Instead, we leave everything in place. But we turn Cradle. We threaten him with exposure, shame, prosecution, whatever it takes, and we wring him dry. If he helps us, and agrees to let us run him against his paymasters, he gets to keep the money. If he doesn’t, we throw him to the wolves.”

Edwards frowns, beating a soft percussion on the steering wheel with his fingers. “If you’re right about the people who are paying him…”

“I am right.”

He stares through the windscreen at the concrete walls, and the low ceiling with its sprinkler fittings. “Eve, listen to me. There are enough dead people in this story. I don’t want you and Dennis Cradle adding to their number.”

“I’ll step carefully, I promise you that. But I want this woman, and I’m going to get her. She killed Viktor Kedrin on my watch, she killed Simon, and she’s killed God knows how many other people besides.”

He nods, his expression grave.

“She’s got to be stopped, Richard.”

Richard is silent for a moment, then sighs.

“You’re right. She has. Do it.”

When Eve gets home, Niko is sitting at the kitchen table making calculations in a notebook. The table is littered with electrical components and cooking ingredients. He looks tired.

“So,” he asks her carefully. “Did you find what you were looking for in that file?”

“Yes,” she says, kissing the top of his head, and subsiding into the chair next to his. “We did. Thank you.”

“Excellent. Can you pass me that glass beaker?”

“What exactly are you doing?”

He attaches two wires to a multimeter with alligator clips, causing the needle to swing wildly. “I’m making an enzyme-catalysed fuel cell. If I get this right, we should be able to charge our phones using icing sugar.”

“I’m sorry I’ve been so distant, Niko. Truly. I want to make it up to you.”