PROLOGUE
Eve wakes, quite suddenly, in the night. Beside her, Oxana is deeply asleep. Eve sits up, intending to walk to the kitchen and pour herself a tumbler of cold water, when she sees a blurred flicker of light at the window. Sliding out of bed, she takes her glasses from the bedside table and tiptoes across the room.
A fire is burning a couple of hundred metres away on Hampstead Heath. Eve and Oxana’s flat is the highest in the building, and for a second or two Eve thinks that the blaze is unintended, a consequence of the dry weather that London’s been enjoying, or enduring, since mid-May. Perhaps she should report it to the emergency services. She reaches into the pocket of her jeans, laid with the rest of the previous day’s clothes across a chair, finds her phone, and thumbs it on. The screen shows the time, 2.05a.m., and the date, 21 June. Midsummer morning.
A second glance at the window tells Eve that the blaze is very much intended. The fire is a stacked pyre, its flames snaking skywards and painting the surrounding trees a dim orange. Around it, counterclockwise, figures leap and whirl, red-gold inthe firelight one moment, black silhouettes the next. Hard to tell at this distance, but they appear to be naked.
Gripped by a curiosity that she can’t quite name, Eve finds the fringed suede moccasins that she uses as slippers and pulls on her black silk kimono. ‘Keys,’ she whispers, taking them from the bedside table. Then, with a parting glance at the sleeping Oxana, she slips out into the hall.
The lift wheezes and sighs. Loudly enough, Eve is sure, to waken the entire building. But no doors open. Nobody peers out, and the reception area is empty as she steps outside the front door. Making her way to the back of the building, she joins the path leading onto the Heath. She can see the fire now, and the outlines of the dancing figures. She approaches cautiously, moving from tree trunk to tree trunk, the ground soft beneath her moccasins. Soon she can hear the crackle of the flames, and the snap of shooting sparks. Moving between patches of darkness, she takes up position beneath a spreading beech. She can see the figures clearly now. They look like ordinary men and women. They could be schoolteachers or the staff of a supermarket, but their nakedness, their wild-eyed energy, and the flames gilding their bodies make them extraordinary.
Suddenly, as one they still, and turn to stare at Eve. She gazes back. One of their number, a middle-aged man, beckons to her. For a long moment Eve considers accepting the invitation. She imagines slipping off her kimono and joining their celebration. Dancing like a banshee around the flames. Letting everything go, all fear, all shame, all self-consciousness, and merging her consciousness with theirs.
But she doesn’t. She stands there, unmoving. She can’t escape who she is or the things that she’s done, even for an hour, even for a minute. Her secrets hold her too tightly; they bind her like talons. She accepts them in the same way that she accepts the person that she has become: as the price of love.She never dreamed that she would undergo this evolution, this dark flowering. But then she never dreamed that she would meet Oxana Vorontsova, the assassin code-named Villanelle. Shaking her head at the man who beckoned to her, she turns and walks away.
Back in the flat, she’s in the bathroom, pouring herself the glass of water she promised herself an hour ago. In front of her is the glass shelf holding her cosmetics. Before returning to bed she finds herself checking that the jars and vials are arranged with perfect symmetry, like chess pieces.
I know it’s illogical, but there’s a voice in my head telling me that Oxana will only be safe if I arrange my things in certain ways. Sometimes there are words I have to recite before I go out; sometimes it’s numbers I have to remember before going to bed. The voice plays cruel games with me. It calls me by name. Let’s say you ignore the rituals, Eve, and let’s say that she’s killed. You could tell yourself that the two things are disconnected, but you wouldn’t know. Not for sure. And so it goes on. My rituals. My magic.
PART I
1
‘I’m not sure about that hat,’ Oxana says.
‘It’s not a hat,’ Eve murmurs, turning her head this way and that in front of the mirror. ‘It’s a fascinator.’
‘You look as if you’re under attack from a swarm of bees.’
‘That’s exactly the look I’m going for. What are you wearing, anyway?’
‘Not sure.’ Oxana, naked and bed-haired, stares vaguely out of the bedroom window. ‘What do you think Balice and Bili will be wearing?’
Eve selects a lipstick. ‘Balice will look feminine and expensive. Pink or oyster or taupe, something in that register.’
‘She’s not getting married in white, I’m guessing.’
Eve looks at her sideways.
‘And Bili?’
‘I have literally no idea.’ She starts to apply her lipstick. ‘Angel, put some clothes on. We’re going to be late.’
‘I was hoping to go for a run. I’ve only done twenty miles this week, and Maxim cancelled our last Systema session. I’m feeling stale.’
‘You can go for a run this evening. Right now, you need to get dressed.’
‘I won’t be able to move this evening. I’ll be stuffed with wedding food.’
‘You shouldn’t be so greedy. Can’t you control yourself?’
Oxana doesn’t respond. She pads over to the wardrobe. ‘What do you think about the matador jacket? I look amazing in that.’
‘No,’ Eve says. ‘Too much. It isn’t a competition to outshine the bride. Or brides.’ She presses her lips together carefully, and pouts into the mirror. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Mmm.’
‘If Balice had asked you to marry her when you two were…’ She blots her lips with a tissue. ‘What would you have said?’