‘Villanelle, I warn you. You’ve already killed her deputy. You threaten her husband, and she will unleash hell. She won’t rest until you’re laid out on a mortuary slab.’
Villanelle looks up, considers a facetious response, meets Anton’s level gaze, and decides against it. ‘Whatever.’
‘Whatever indeed. As you will have calculated, I haven’t brought you here for the pleasure of your company. I have a mission for you, if you want it.’
‘OK.’
‘It’s important, but it’s dangerous. You won’t be able to afford any mistakes.’
The tip of her tongue touches the scar on her upper lip. ‘I said OK.’
He regards her with fastidious distaste. ‘Just for the record, I’m not attracted to promiscuous women.’
Villanelle frowns. ‘Should I care?’
Eve’s phone rings when she’s walking out of the office to pick up a sandwich for lunch. It’s Abby, her contact at the Metropolitan Police Forensics Laboratory in Lambeth. With encouragement from Richard, Abby has fast-tracked the analysis of the Van Diest bracelet.
‘Do you want the good news or the bad?’ Abby asks.
‘Bad.’
‘OK. We performed a tape-lift on the bracelet and the card, but found no extractable DNA. No hairs, no epithelial cells, nothing we could use.’
‘Shit.’
‘Not even that. Sorry.’
‘The card?’
‘Again, nothing. Gloves worn, I’d guess. I sent a copy on to graphology.’
‘Any joy with the perfume?’
‘We tried. It’s possible to identify the compounds in commercially produced fragrances using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, but you have to have an adequate sample, which we didn’t here. So no joy.’
‘I thought you said there was some good news.’
‘Well.’ Abby pauses. ‘I did find one interesting thing.’
‘Go on.’
‘A flake of pastry, almost invisible, caught in a fold of the tissue paper.’
‘What kind of pastry?’
‘I sent it for analysis. There were traces of vegetable oil, vanilla essence, confectioner’s sugar. But there was something else, too. Grappa.’
‘That Italian firewater? Like brandy?’
‘Exactly. So I put all these ingredients together and did a search. And came up with something called galani. They’re fried pastries, flavoured with grappa and vanilla and dusted with confectioner’s sugar. A speciality of Venice.’
‘Oh my God, thank you. Thank you.’
‘There’s more. The Van Diest jewellery boutique in Venice is in Calle Vallaresso, at the eastern end of Piazza San Marco. Three doors down is a small, very expensive pasticceria called Zucchetti, specialising in guess what?’
‘Abby, you are a fucking genius. I owe you so massively.’
‘You do. But bring me back a box of galani from Zucchetti and we’re square.’
‘You’re on.’
‘The target,’ says Anton, ‘is Max Linder. Have you heard of him?’
‘Yes. I’ve read a couple of profiles.’
‘Franco-Dutch political activist and media celebrity, twenty-nine. Gay, but nevertheless a figurehead for the extreme right, with a huge following in Europe, especially among young people. Looks like a pop star, and believes, among other things, that the obese should be put in labour camps and sex offenders guillotined.’
‘And why exactly do you want me to kill him?’
‘Some of what he says makes sense. His worldview is, overall, not so very different from ours. But Linder is also a Nazi, and Nazism is a problematic brand, discredited on so many levels, and that’s an association we do not need. In fact it could really damage us.’
‘You said the job would be dangerous.’
‘Linder is aware that he has enemies. He’s accompanied, everywhere he goes, by a praetorian guard of ex-military types. Security is always tight, and there’s invariably a heavy police presence at events he attends. That’s not to say that it’s impossible to kill him. It’s never impossible, there’s always a way. The problem is getting away with it.’
‘Have you got any ideas? I assume you’ve been thinking about this for some time.’
‘We have. Next month Linder is going to a mountain hotel in Austria called the Felsnadel, high above the snowline in the High Tauern. He goes there every year with a group of friends and political associates. It’s a luxury place, designed by some famous architect or other, and you can only get in and out by helicopter. Linder considers it safe enough to stay there without bodyguards. He’s booked the whole hotel for his guests for several days.’
‘So how do I get in?’
‘A week from today, one of the hotel’s service team is going to contract a vomiting bug that will require her hospitalisation. The agency in Innsbruck that provides their staff will send a replacement.’
‘Me.’
‘Correct.’
‘And do you want me to kill everyone in sight, or just Linder?’
‘Just Linder will be fine. It’s a personality cult. Eliminate him, and the movement will wither away.’
‘So what’s my exit plan?’
‘That’ll be up to you to improvise. We can get you in there, but we can’t guarantee to get you out.’
‘Nice.’
‘I thought you’d like it. In the other office I’ve got maps, a floor-plan of the hotel, and detailed files on Linder and everyone else we think is going to be there. How you kill him is up to you, but I’ll need a full list of supplies and weaponry before you leave here. Bear in mind that you’ll be expected to present yourself at the heliport with a single suitcase or bag which will certainly be searched and X-rayed, and cannot exceed ten kilos in weight.’
‘Understood. And now I’m hungry. Is there any lunch?’
‘Waiting for you in the other office. I assume you’re not a vegetarian?’
On her way home, Eve picks up half a dozen duck breasts, fennel and a large tiramisu from Sainsbury’s in the Tottenham Court Road. New neighbours have moved in opposite them, and, rather wildly, Eve has asked them to dinner, telling Niko that ‘they look very nice’. What this supposed niceness actually boils down to is that the husband, Mark, is moderately good-looking and the wife – was her name Maeve, Mavis, Maisie? – has a highly covetable black Whistles coat. To make up numbers, Eve has invited Niko’s friends Zbig and Leila. It will be an interesting and sophisticated evening, she tells herself. Six young (well, youngish) professionals from diverse backgrounds and walks of life exchanging informed opinions over home-cooked food and
