By the time she gets back to the room, Maria is in her serving uniform, and on the point of setting off for the restaurant. ‘You really don’t look well,’ she tells Villanelle. ‘Make sure you wrap up warmly. Take the blanket from my bed if you want.’
After she’s gone, Villanelle waits for a further ten minutes. By now, everyone should be congregating in the main building for pre-dinner drinks. Opening the door onto the staff corridor she peers cautiously out, but can hear nothing. She’s alone.
She retreats back inside, takes her phone and a steel-bodied ballpoint pen from the bedroom chest of drawers, and locks herself in the bathroom. Kneeling on the tiled floor, she removes the back from the phone and, lifting out the battery, extracts a tiny foil envelope containing a copper-bodied micro detonator. Then, taking a small violet-scented oval of soap from her washbag, she strikes it with controlled force against the porcelain base of the sink, so that the outer shell of the soap cracks open. Inside it is a 25g plastic-wrapped disc of Fox-7 explosive, which Villanelle returns to the washbag. It’s joined there by the micro detonator, the ballpoint pen, and the clippers, cuticle-pushers and scissors from her manicure set.
She dislikes Anton but she has to admit he’s provided everything she’s asked for. The detonator and the Fox-7 explosive are state-of-the-art, the manicure items are engineered steel, capable of doubling as professional DIY tools, and the pen, with very little adjustment, turns into a miniature 110V soldering iron.
Now, there’s just one more thing she needs.
Goodge Street tube station is crowded. It’s always this way during the after-work rush hour, which is one of the reasons that Eve likes to take the bus. She’s not claustrophobic precisely, but there’s something about being hemmed in by bodies while hurtling through an underground tunnel, with the possibility that the lights may flicker and go out at any second, or the train unaccountably stop, as if its functions have suddenly and catastrophically failed, that makes her profoundly anxious. There are just too many parallels with death.
The first train that arrives, a Northern Line train via Edgware, is already full to capacity, and as the ranks of commuters on the platform press forward, trying to force their way aboard, Eve retreats to a bench.
‘Crazy, no?’ says an expressionless voice next to her.
He’s in his late thirties, forty at a push. Skin that hasn’t seen the sun in months. She looks frostily ahead.
‘I have something for you.’ He passes her a brown office envelope. ‘Read please.’
It’s a handwritten note.
You win. This is Oleg. Do everything he says. R.
Frowning hard to disguise her elation, Eve puts the envelope and note in her bag. ‘OK, Oleg. Tell me.’
‘OK. Tomorrow morning, very important, you meet me here on station platform, eight o’clock, and give me passport. Tomorrow evening six o’clock meet me here again, and I give back. Wednesday you flying Heathrow to Moscow Sheremetyevo, and staying at Cosmos Hotel. You speak Russian, I think? Little bit?’
‘Not much. I learned it at school. A-levels.’
‘A-levels Russian. Eto khorosho. Have you been before?’
‘Once. About ten years ago.’
‘OK, no problem.’ He opens a briefcase, and takes out two flimsy sheets printed with the tiny, smudgy script common to visa application forms the world over. ‘Sign, please. Don’t worry, I fill in the rest.’
She hands the forms back to him.
‘Also, Moscow very cold now. Raining ice. Take strong coat and hat. Boots.’
‘Am I going alone?’
‘No, also your kollega, Lens.’
It takes her a moment to realise that he means Lance.
‘Thanks, Oleg, do zavtra.’
‘Do zavtra.’
It’s only at this point that she starts to wonder what the hell she’s going to tell Niko.
It takes Villanelle fifty-five minutes, working calmly and steadily, to prepare the explosive device with which she intends to kill Linder. When it’s ready she changes into her Bund Deutscher Mädel uniform, pockets the device and her pass-key, and leaves the room. Arriving at the guest wing she pauses. The corridor is silent; the guests are still at dinner. Walking unhurriedly to Roger Baggot’s room, she knocks quietly on the door, gets no response, and lets herself in. Having pulled on her rubber cleaning gloves, Villanelle takes an envelope from her pocket. In it is a pair of nail scissors and the plastic film in which the Fox-7 explosive was wrapped. In the bathroom she finds Baggot’s washbag, makes a small cut in the lining with the nail scissors, and pushes the plastic film inside. The envelope goes in the small pedal waste-bin beside the sink. The scissors go in the bathroom cabinet.
She leaves Baggot’s room and ascends to the first floor, and Linder’s room. Once again she knocks quietly on the door, but there’s no sound from within. She lets herself in, her breathing steady, and carefully plants the device that she’s prepared. For a moment she stands in the middle of the room, calculating blast and shockwave vectors. Then her body registers alarm, and she realises that she can hear a faint, muffled tread climbing the stairs. It might not be Linder, but it might.
Villanelle considers calmly walking out of the room as if she’s just finished turning down the bed linen. But the linen isn’t turned down, and there’s no time now to do so. Besides, others might see her leaving, and remember. So, exactly as she’s rehearsed in her mind, she moves at speed to the tan suitcase, and pulls open the twin zips. Stepping inside, she kneels, contracts, angles her shoulders, and tucks in her head. Then reaching upwards, she draws the zips together, leaving a four-inch space to breathe and look through. It’s a brutally tight fit, impossible for anyone who didn’t exercise and stretch regularly, but Villanelle ignores the straining tendons in her back and legs and concentrates on regularising her breathing. The case smells of musty
