Nevertheless, as Niko’s breathing slows to an even rise and fall, her hand steals down her belly, and she finds herself shockingly ready. But it’s not Claudio, or indeed Niko, who’s waiting behind her closed eyes, but a much more imprecise figure, all contradictions. Soft skin over coiled muscle, a killer’s fingers, a rasping tongue, eyes of twilit grey.
I climbed in one night to watch you sleep.
Eve rolls onto her hand, her fingers wet. Fear and desire fold into each other in successive waves until her shoulders and neck rise, her forehead presses the sheet, and the breath leaves her body in a long, ebbing sigh.
After a while she turns onto her side. Niko is watching her, his gaze unblinking.
Chapter 6
Eve slips from the bed before Niko wakes. When she emerges from Goodge Street Underground station the pavement is still shining from the night’s rain, but the sky is washed with a thin sunlight. The office door, to her surprise, is unlocked; she enters hesitantly.
‘Billy, hi. It’s not even eight yet. How long have you been here?’
‘Er, all night.’
‘Shit, Billy. That’s way beyond the call of duty.’
He blinks and runs a hand through his black-dyed hair. ‘Yeah, well. Kicked off the search into that guy Yevtukh, and one thing led to another.’
‘Anything we can use?’
‘Yeah, I’d say so.’
‘Good. Hold that thought. I’m going down to the café.’
‘We’ve got instant. And tea bags.’
‘That kettle’s gross. What do you want?’
‘Well, if you’re buying, an almond croissant and a latte. And perhaps a shortbread finger.’
She’s back five minutes later. It’s clear that Billy’s fading. His eyes gleam with exhaustion. Even his lip-ring looks dull. ‘Eat,’ she says, placing his order in front of him.
Billy takes a large bite of the croissant, showering his keyboard with crumbs, then washes it down with a gulp of coffee. ‘OK, Yevtukh. Basically the guy’s your typical Sov-bloc gang boss. Or was. Headed up an outfit called the Golden Brotherhood, based in Odessa. Usual stuff. Sex trafficking, people-smuggling and drugs. The Ukrainian police also have him down for at least a dozen murders, but have never been able to get anyone to testify against him.’
‘We know all this.’
‘OK, but you probably don’t know what happened earlier this year. According to a file sent to the Europol database, there was a major shoot-out at a luxury property Yevtukh owned in a place called Fontanka, about fifteen kilometres outside Odessa. By the time the local cops got there the house was pretty much wrecked, and half a dozen people were dead. It was obviously gang-related, so at that point the investigation was handed over to the Ukrainian Criminal Police, who handle serious and violent crime.’
‘Was Yevtukh implicated?’
‘Not directly. He was in Kiev at the time, seeing his family, but it was his foot-soldiers who died at Fontanka.’
‘So do we know who carried out the attack?’
‘This is where it gets weird. One of the people found dead at the house was nothing to do with Yevtukh. He was somebody his men had been holding prisoner. He’d been badly beaten up and then shot, and the police couldn’t immediately identify him. So a photograph, fingerprints and a DNA sample were sent to the interior security service in Kiev, and they knew who he was straight away. His name was Konstantin Orlov, and he was an ex-head of operations at Directorate S in Moscow.’
‘That’s more than weird. You know what Directorate S is?’
‘I do now. It’s the espionage and agent-running wing of the SVR.’
‘Exactly. And its Operations Department is like our E Squadron. A special forces team responsible for executing deniable and deep-cover operations overseas.’
‘Assassinations, for example.’
‘For example.’
Billy stares into the middle distance, almond filling oozing from his croissant.
‘Anything else in that Europol report?’
Billy shakes his head. ‘’Fraid not. No one seems to be able to work out what an ex-Russian spymaster was doing locked in a Ukrainian gangster’s house in Odessa. It doesn’t make any sense. Or none that I can see. We should ask Richard. Bet he knew this Orlov bloke.’
The door opens and they both look round. It’s Lance, an unlit roll-up between his lips.
‘Morning, Eve, Billy. Looking a bit rough round the edges, squire, if you don’t mind my saying so.’
Taking a deep swig of coffee, Billy makes an up-your-arse gesture with the shortbread finger.
‘He’s been up all night,’ Eve says. ‘And he’s discovered something a bit bloody brilliant. Listen to this.’ Briefly, she puts Lance in the picture.
‘So if Orlov was SVR, why would a scumbag like Yevtukh want to go anywhere near him, let alone lock him up and torture him? I’d have thought the last thing someone like that would want to do is to make enemies of the Russian secret service.’
‘Orlov was ex-SVR,’ Billy says. ‘He’d been out for a decade.’
‘Doing what, do we know?’ asks Lance.
‘Stop,’ says Eve. ‘Both of you. Sorry, but I think we’re coming at this from the wrong end.’
‘As the actress, etcetera . . .’
‘Lance, shut the fuck up. Billy, my coffee. Both of you just . . . shush a minute.’ She stands there, motionless. ‘OK. Let’s ignore for a moment what Orlov was doing, or not doing, in Yevtukh’s house in Odessa. Let’s think about our assassin, and quite possibly her girlfriend, making Yevtukh disappear in Venice. Why is she, or why are they, doing that?’
‘Contract hit?’ Lance suggests.
‘Almost certainly. But why? What’s the motive?’
Lance and Billy shake their heads.
‘Suppose it was revenge.’
‘Revenge for what?’ Billy asks.
‘For the killing of Orlov.’
Silence for a heartbeat. ‘Bloody hell,’ Lance
