It’s late afternoon by the time they touch down at Annecy Mont Blanc airfield in south-eastern France, where a lone figure is waiting on the tarmac. Something about her severely cropped hair and over-tight suit tells Villanelle that the woman is Russian, and this is confirmed when she speaks, directing Villanelle towards a dusty Peugeot parked fifty metres away. The woman drives with brisk efficiency, making a fast half-circuit of the airfield before pulling up with a screech of brakes in a hangar beside a Learjet bearing the North Star insignia.
“Inside,” she orders, slamming the car door, and Villanelle climbs the steps into the Learjet’s climate-controlled interior and straps herself into a seat upholstered in arctic-blue leather. Following her, the woman retracts the steps and seals the exit door. The engines start immediately. There’s a flare of late-afternoon sunshine at the window as the jet exits the hangar, and then, with a muted roar, they’re airborne.
“So where are we going?” Villanelle enquires, releasing her seat-belt buckle.
The woman meets her gaze. She’s got broad, high-cheekboned features and eyes the colour of slate. Something about her is familiar.
“East,” she says, snapping open an overnight bag at her feet. “I’ve got your documents.”
A passport, Ukrainian, in the name of Angelika Pyatachenko. A worn leather wallet containing a driving licence, credit cards, and a reception pass identifying her as an employee of the North Star corporation. Crumpled receipts. A wad of ruble notes.
“And clothes. Please change now.”
A leather-look jacket, limp angora sweater, and short skirt. Scuffed ankle boots. Underwear, much washed. Cheap tights, new, from a Kiev department store.
Conscious that she’s being scrutinised, Villanelle takes off her cap and sunglasses and begins to undress, laying her clothes on the blue leather seat. When she removes her bra, the other woman gasps.
“Shit. It really is you. Oxana Vorontsova.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I wasn’t sure to begin with, but…”
Villanelle stares at her blankly. Konstantin promised her that the cut-out was total. That nothing like this could ever happen.
“What are you talking about?”
“You don’t remember me? Lara? From Ekaterinburg?”
Fuck, it can’t be. But it is. That girl from the military academy. She’s cut her hair off, and looks older, but it’s her. With a supreme effort of will, Villanelle keeps her face expressionless. “Who do you think I am?”
“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