On the TV, a woman in a bikini is playfully waxing a man’s chest beside a swimming pool. ‘You watch,’ Oxana says. ‘I’ll put the stuff in the dishwasher.’
‘You know, there’s something that really puzzles me,’ Eve says, not taking her eyes off the screen.
‘What?’
‘When you’re planning a mission, you’re super-organised. Get in, do it, get out. Every second accounted for, every possibility considered.’
‘So?’
‘So when you’re cooking, why don’t you wash up as you go along?’
2
Before joining forces with Oxana, or Villanelle as she was then known, Eve was employed by the British security services in an inter-agency liaison role. The work, which mostly involved co-ordination between MI5 and regional police forces, was not so much boring as disappointing. At university, Eve had read criminology, and she knew that she had more to offer.
Chasing Villanelle started off as a spare-time thing. A hobby, almost. Collecting and reviewing data on recent assassinations in Europe, Eve detected a pattern that everyone else had missed. And so began a pursuit which would consume her utterly, obliterating Eve’s marriage and career, and confounding all her expectations.
Her quarry was a young Russian woman, a diagnosed psychopath whose violent proclivities had resulted in her arrest, several years earlier, for triple murder. Held on remand in Dobryanka, a crumbling and insanitary jail located in the frozen wastes of the Perm Krai, Oxana was visited by a member of the Twelve, and presented with an unexpected route to freedom.
The Twelve was, and is, one of the world’s most powerful and secretive organisations. Born in the dying days of the Sovietempire, it was originally made up of a dozen forward-thinking individuals from the worlds of espionage, politics and business. These men – and they were all men – recognised that in the twenty-first century, the reins of power would be held not by governments or corporations, but by those who steered events from behind the scenes. Their theatre of war, they determined, would be themir teney, the shadow world. Their objective, invisible control.
As the decades passed, and Russia grew increasingly enmired in chaos, the organisation went from strength to strength. It extended its reach worldwide, inserted its operatives into every sphere of influence, and quietly consolidated its power. The Twelve wished to write the pages of history, not read them. Strategic murder was just one of their methods.
Plucked from the remand centre, twenty-three-year-old Oxana was given a choice. Work for us, and harness your lethal gifts in our service, or return to the icy hell of Dobryanka. Oxana didn’t hesitate. She’d always known, even at her lowest ebb, that she was different. That she was special. ‘Without predators, the world stands still,’ the Twelve’s representative told her. ‘You are an evolutionary necessity.’
The training was long and brutal, but Oxana survived it, emerging with a unique skill set and a hunger to deploy it. Established in an apartment in Paris, and code-named Villanelle, she lived a life of solitary luxury interspersed with bouts of extreme violence. It was a life that suited her perfectly. And all would have gone swimmingly, but for the inquisitive nature of Eve Polastri.
Villanelle had been picking off targets for the Twelve for more than a year when she came to Eve’s attention. Eve locked on to Villanelle tenaciously, chasing the elusive young assassin across the globe, often with the slenderest of leads. But who was pursuing whom? As time passed, and Eve and Villanelle’smutual fascination intensified, their dance grew ever more intricate, ever more ambiguous. Gradually, their respective loyalties fell away until finally there was only the two of them, face to face.
Now, as well as being a couple, they’re business partners. The business has no name, because it’s not the kind of enterprise that exists on paper, online, or anywhere else official. Nor are its services ever defined. Anyone who knows of its existence, knows what it does.
There’s a third partner, Johnny Fernandes. Oxana met Johnny first, almost a year ago now. She’d been sent to eliminate a man named Ron Tiberius in the south of France, and he oversaw the operation. Since then, she and Eve have discovered that he had a distinguished career with the Indian army, and that he left with senior rank before joining the Twelve. Where he lives now, he has not confided to them. They’ve discussed his age, and imagine him to be a well-preserved sixty.
When the three of them joined forces, it was with a view to launching themselves as a consultancy. Their clients would be agencies or individuals seeking to address problems that couldn’t be resolved through official channels. ‘Deniable, off-book stuff,’ as Johnny called it. He would handle client liaison, logistics and armoury. Eve and Oxana would do the fieldwork.
When Eve and Oxana meet Johnny, it’s usually at the Indian Military and Sporting Club, a stylishly antique institution near Piccadilly, in London. Today, they find him in the bar. He’s ordered drinks in anticipation of their arrival, and hands them each a gin and tonic. It’s barely noon, and neither Eve nor Villanelle much feels like alcohol, but Johnny presents the drinks with such panache, and appears so pleased to see them, that they accept, and after a sip or two, are happy that they did.
In a lounge suit and regimental tie, Johnny is his customary dapper self. ‘Just run into a chap in the smoking room,’ hetells them. ‘Last time I saw him was in ’99. We were fighting Pakistani paramilitaries and mujahadeen at Tiger Hill. They put up a good show, but we saw them off in the end.’ He takes a pensive sip of his whisky-soda. ‘Happy days.’
‘How are the roses?’ Oxana asks.
‘Flourishing.’ Johnny smiles. ‘Thank you for asking.’
Whether Johnny actually cultivates prize roses in Walton-on-Thames, or anywhere else, Oxana very much doubts. It was part of a cover story he adopted for the purposes of the Tiberius operation, but it has become a ritual between them to pretend that it’s true.
‘Do you have news for us?’ Eve asks, taking a single pistachio nut from a bowl on the bar, and prising it open with her fingernails.
‘As it happens, I do.’ His expression is suddenly serious. ‘We have a mission, and we have twenty-four hours to accept or decline it.’
‘What kind of mission?’ Eve asks, putting the pistachio nut in her mouth.
‘Perhaps we should sit down.’
They move themselves and their drinks to a secluded table. Johnny gazes for a moment out of the silk-curtained windows overlooking St James’s Street. He holds his whisky tumbler up to the light. ‘First, a little background. Half a dozen years ago, the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, and the following year they banned the cultivation of opium poppies. These poppies, as I’m sure you know, provide the raw materials for the production of heroin. The Taliban have claimed that the ban was imposed for religious reasons, but it’s more likely that the leadership wanted to rein in the power of their commanders, who were using the poppy trade as an independent source of income.’
‘So there’s a heroin shortage?’ Eve says.
Johnny nods. ‘There is now. Historically, almost all of the heroin entering Europe came from Afghanistan, making hundreds of millions for the drug gangs who refined, distributed, and sold it. When the ban came into force, the gangs had reserve supplies, so for a time the effects of the ban weren’t felt. But those reserves are running out, and the major players are making new arrangements.’