Five minutes later, steaming mugs of tea and two of the biggest, greasiest burgers that Eve has ever seen are placed in front of them.
‘Eat,’ Villanelle orders. ‘All of it. And all the chips.’
‘Don’t worry. I’m starving.’
When they leave, Eve feels transformed, if a little nauseated. She follows Villanelle across the car park, and then, mystifyingly, along a darkened path towards a sparsely lit residential block. At the foot of a tower, Villanelle inserts a key into a steel-fronted door. They climb an unlit stairway to the third floor, where Villanelle opens another armoured door, and turns on the light. They’re in an unheated studio flat, furnished with bleak austerity. There’s a table, a single chair, a military canvas-topped camp bed, a khaki sleeping bag, a cloth-covered wardrobe with a hanging rail full of clothes, and a stack of metal storage boxes. Insulated blackout curtains prevent the escape of light.
‘What is this place?’ Eve asks, looking around her.
‘It’s mine. A woman needs a room of her own, don’t you think?’
‘But where are we?’
‘Enough questions. The bathroom’s there, take what you need.’
The bathroom proves to be a concrete cell with a toilet, a basin and a single cold tap. A plastic crate on the floor holds a jumble of toiletries, tampons, wound dressings, suturing kits and painkillers. When Eve comes out, the sleeping bag has been unrolled on the camp bed and Villanelle is field-stripping and cleaning her Sig Sauer at the table. ‘Sleep,’ she says, not looking up. ‘You’re going to need all your strength.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’ll be fine. Go to bed.’
Eve wakes into a cold and unidentifiable twilight. Villanelle is sitting at the table in the same position, but she is wearing different clothes and slowly scrolling through maps on a laptop. Slowly, wonderingly, Eve’s memory recreates the events of the previous day. ‘What’s the time?’ she asks.
‘Five p.m. You’ve been asleep for fifteen hours.’
‘Oh my God.’ She unzips herself from the sleeping bag. ‘I’m starving.’
‘Good. Get ready and we’ll go and eat. I’ve put out new clothes for you.’
They step outside into a desolate, twilit landscape. Eve looks about her. It’s the sort of place she’s driven past countless times without really seeing. The building they’ve just left is a condemned tenement block. Metal shutters cover doors and windows, security notices warn of patrolling guard dogs, wild lilac bushes have grown through the forecourt’s littered tarmac. Mir teney, the shadow world.
When they leave the café the drizzle has become rain. On the motorway, the traffic is unceasing, zipping by in a grey, vaporous spray. Eve follows Villanelle past the building where they stayed the night, to a graffiti-tagged row of garages. The end garage is secured with a galvanised steel roller-door and a heavy-duty coded padlock, which Villanelle unlocks. Inside, it’s dry, clean and surprisingly spacious. A hydraulic motorcycle repair bench runs along one wall; against the other, a shelved unit holds helmets, armour-panelled leather jackets, trousers, gloves and boots. Between them a volcano-grey Ducati Multistrada 1260 waits on its stand, fitted with locked panniers and top-box.
‘Everything’s packed,’ Villanelle tells Eve. ‘Time to get dressed.’
Five minutes later she wheels the Ducati out of the garage, and waits while Eve pulls down and locks the roller door. The rain has stopped, and for a moment the two women stand there, facing each other.
‘Ready for this?’ Villanelle asks, zipping up her jacket, and Eve nods.
They put on their helmets, and mount the Ducati. The whisper of the Testastretta engine becomes a murmur, the headlight beam floods the darkness. Villanelle takes the slip road slowly, allowing Eve to find her balance and settle tightly against her. She waits for a gap in the traffic, the murmur builds to a snarl, and they’re gone.
Acknowledgements
To Patrick Walsh at Pew Literary, unreserved thanks. The same to Mark Richards at John Murray and Josh Kendall at Mulholland; I couldn’t hope for finer or more supportive editors. Tim Davidson’s surgical experience was invaluable, forensic psychologist Tarmala Caple gave me vital insights into psychopathy, and for correcting my Russian, thank you Olga Messerer and Daria Novikova.
Table of Contents
Also by Luke Jennings
Title Page
Imprint Page
Dedication
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Acknowledgements
