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Villanelle has been studying Linder, and deciding how to kill him, for twenty-four hours now. She's beginning to understand her target, despite the thicket of disinformation with which he has surrounded himself. All the interviews he has given propagate the same fictions. The humble beginnings, the fervent identification with the classical ideals of valour and duty, the self-taught political philosophy, the passionate identification with the "true" Europe.

This mythology has been skilfully fleshed out with invented detail and anecdote. Linder's childhood obsession with Leonidas, the Spartan king who died facing overwhelming odds at Thermopylae. His overcoming of school bullies with his fists. His lifelong persecution for his political beliefs by left-wing intellectuals, and for his sexual orientation by homophobic conservatives and religious bigots. In fact, as a memorandum attached to his file dispassionately notes, Linder comes from a well-off liberal background, and is a failed actor who turned to fascist politics as an outlet for his extreme racist and misogynist tendencies.

As always, now that she is in play, Villanelle is serene. There's a sense of things falling into place, as if impelled by gravity. All leading up to the kill, that moment of absolute power. The dark rapture flowing into every vestige of her being, filling and possessing her utterly.

"Good luck," says Anton, holding out his hand. "And good hunting."

In his office, her requisition list on the desk in front of him, Anton watches as Villanelle waits on the platform deck, a slight figure against the bruise-grey sky. The helicopter materialises, touches down for a moment, and is gone, swinging away on the wind. He stares after it. He can still feel the imprint of her hand in his, and from a desk drawer he takes a small bottle of sanitising gel. God knows where her fingers have been.

"Thank you. I'll see you when it's done."

It's raining as Eve and Lance cross the Piazza San Marco in Venice. Eve is carrying a plastic Sainsbury's bag with the Van Diest bracelet and packaging inside it. The paving stones shine in the watery light. Pigeons rise and fall in desultory flocks.

Flanked by Balenciaga and Missoni, the Van Diest boutique is on the ground floor of a former ducal residence. It's an elegantly appointed space, with dove-grey carpets, walls faced in ivory silk, and glass-topped jewellery cases picked out by discreet spotlights. Eve has made an effort with her clothes and hair, but feels herself wilting before the expressionless gaze of the assistants. Lance's presence doesn't help. Dressed in a horrible simulacrum of casual wear, and looking more rodent-like than ever, he's staring about him open-mouthed, as if awed by the gold and the gemstones. Never again, Eve tells herself. The man is a total liability. Approaching one of the assistants, she asks to speak to the direttrice, and an elegant woman of indeterminate age materialises.

"Looks like we've brought the weather with us," says Lance. "How was your breakfast?"

"Good. Lots of strong coffee with bread and apricot jam. Yours?"

"Same."

Eve has never been to Venice before and left the hotel at 7 a. m. to explore. She found it beautiful but melancholy. The vast, rain-washed square, the wind-roughened expanse of the lagoon, the waves slapping at the stone quays.

The woman frowns. Peripherally, Eve can see Lance examining a sapphire necklace and drop earrings. The assistants watch him uncertainly, and he winks at one of them. Jesus wept, Eve thinks.

"Yes, signora, a bracelet of this design was bought here last month. I cannot guarantee it is the same one."

"This bracelet," says Eve, taking it from the bag. "Is it possible to tell if it was bought at this store?"

"I do remember her," the manageress says. "Perhaps twenty-seven, twenty-eight. Dark hair, very attractive. She paid cash, which is not unusual for Russians."

"No, I just need to know when it was bought, and whether anyone can remember making the sale."

"Buongiorno, signora, how can I help?"

The woman smiles. "Is this a police matter?"

"Do you remember anything about the person who bought it?"

"Prego. One minute." The manageress examines the bracelet, and touches the screen of the terminal on the desk. A further dance of her fingers and she looks up.

"Not without a receipt, signora." She examines the bracelet with a critical eye. "Did you want to return it?"

Lance steps forward, and wordlessly shows her an Interpol identity card.

"Insistent?"

"Yes, she wouldn't touch the bracelet. And when I wrapped it up and put it in a carrier bag, she wanted that bag to be put in a second bag."

"Can you describe the companion?"

"How much did it cost?"

"I see. Well, let's hope." Eve questions the manageress for a further five minutes, gives her one of the Goodge Street email addresses, and thanks her.

"That bracelet, signora. It could have been chosen for you."

"She was speaking Russian with her companion."

"You're sure?"

"Six thousand, two hundred and fifty euros, signora." She frowns. "And there was something strange. She was very… come si dice, insistente --"

"Same age. A little taller. Short blonde hair. Strong physique. She looked like a swimmer or a tennis player."

"Do you have security-camera footage of these women?"

"She was definitely Russian?"

"Yes, signora. I hear it spoken every day."

"I can certainly look for you, and if you give me an email address, I can send you anything we have. But it's a month since the sale, and I'm not sure we keep the footage that long."

Eve smiles. "Goodbye for now."

He turns up his collar. "Here's Zucchetti. Let's go in and grab a coffee and some of those pastries."

The pasticceria is an intoxicating place, the air warm with the scent of baking, the counter an array of sugar-dusted pastries, golden rolls and brioches, meringues, macaroons and millefeuilles.

"Arrivederci, signora."

As they step outside into a squall of rain, Eve turns to Lance. "What the fuck were you playing at in there? Jesus. There's me, trying to get some answers out of that woman, and you're acting like Benny Hill, gawping at those women and… Fuck's sake, Lance, did you honestly think you were helping?"

"So," says Eve, five minutes later, her mood softened by a plate of galani and the best cappuccino she's ever drunk.

Lance leans forward over the tiny table. "When V bought the bracelet, the woman with her was almost certainly her girlfriend. Or at least a girlfriend."

Eve stares at him. "How do you know?"

"Because once I'd convinced those shop assistants that I was a gormless idiot who didn't speak a word of Italian, they started to chat to each other. And they all remembered V and her friend. One of them, Bianca, speaks Russian, and usually deals with the Russian customers, but she didn't on this occasion because V also spoke perfect English, so your chum Giovanna looked after her."

"I owe you an apology, Lance. Really, I'm --"

"Forget it. Let's ask the staff here if they remember two Russian women buying pastries a month ago, which they won't, and then let's get out of here. I need a smoke."

"I'm already supposing it."

Eve looks out at the rain-blurred expanse of the piazza. "Just suppose," she says, licking the last of the sugar-powder from her fingers, "that V was in Venice at the same time that this unnamed Ukrainian went missing…"

"You didn't ask. But that's not all. The shop assistants all assumed that we were here to investigate some rich Ukrainian guy who's gone missing."

"We don't know anything about that, do we?"

"No."

"First I've heard of it."

"Do we have a name?"

"That's what Bianca said."

"According to Bianca, the two women were having a lovers' tiff. V was telling the girlfriend off for eating in the shop, and the girlfriend was pissed off because V was buying a pretty bracelet for the 'angliskaya suka', and she couldn't understand why."

"You're sure? For the 'English bitch'?"

"So you speak fluent Italian? You might have told me."

"Go on."

Eve feels a flush of shame. It couldn't really be jealousy she's feeling, could it? She's embarrassed to even ask herself the question. She loves Niko and misses him. He loves her.

It's 5.30 p. m., and Eve and Lance are sitting in the waiting area, waiting to speak to the questore, the local chief of police. To arrange this has taken numerous phone calls, and now that they have an appointment, it turns out that Questore Armando Trevisan is "in conference". Hunching forward on the slatted wooden bench, Eve stares through the armoured glass of the entrance doors at the traffic. The rain stopped at midday, but she can still feel the dampness in the air.

The bracelet.

Outside, the air is vaporous and the sky bruise-dark. As they cross the piazza, Eve feels a creeping discontent, which seems to relate to the two women buying the bracelet together. Who was that other woman, the one who called her a bitch, and what was her role in all this? Was she really V's lover?

The questura, or central police station, of Venice is in Santa Croce, on the Ponte della Libertà. It has a river entrance, with blue-painted police launches moored at its jetty, and a rather less picturesque street entrance, fortified by steel security barriers and guarded by agents of the Polizia di Stato.

To be gazed at while you slept, though.

The sheer, dazzling effrontery of it.

"You want to know about our vanished Ukrainian? Well, so do we. His name is Rinat Yevtukh, and last month he was staying at the Danieli Hotel with a young woman named Katerina Goraya and several bodyguards. We were alerted to his presence, and details of his background, by colleagues in AISE, our external security agency."

"Please, Mrs Polastri and Mr…"

A lean figure in a dark suit appears from a corridor, his purposeful air disrupting the somnolent atmosphere of the place. Introducing himself in English as Questore Trevisan, he leads them to his office, a monochrome space dominated by filing cabinets.

They seat themselves opposite his desk. Trevisan opens a folder, removes a photocopied head-shot, and hands it to Eve.

"Edmonds," says Lance. "Noel Edmonds."

"He was known to them, then?" Eve asks.

From the folder Trevisan takes a second document. His movements are economical, and there's an alertness about him that tells Eve that this is a fellow spirit, an ally. A man who will only be satisfied by the truth. "Here's the timeline of Yevtukh's stay here in Venice. The usual tourist activities, as you can see, and always accompanied by Miss Goraya. A gondola tour, a visit to Murano, shopping in San Marco, etcetera. And then, on this morning here, and without the knowledge of Miss Goraya, he leaves in a motoscafo, a motor launch, with a woman whom he had met in the hotel bar the evening before."

"Very much so. Based in Odessa, where he was the head of a gang involved in drugs, prostitution, people-smuggling and the usual related activities. Very wealthy, very powerfully connected."

Eve and Lance exchange glances.

"According to the waiter the woman ordered the drinks in Italian but spoke English to Yevtukh. Both fluently. She looked, according to the waiter, like a film star."

"Any particular film star?"

"I think he meant more in a general way, but he did help us create an e-fit."

"We made this portrait three days after the waiter served her in the bar. It's the best he could manage. Yevtukh's bodyguards saw her briefly on the morning of his disappearance, but they were even less help. She was wearing large sunglasses, apparently, and they couldn't even agree on the colour of her hair."

Trevisan slides another photocopy across his desk. Eve forces herself not to grab it, but the image is wholly unrevealing. The heart-shaped face, shoulder-length hair and wide-set eyes have a blank, generic look. The subject could be any age between twenty and forty.

"Witnesses," says Lance.

"Indeed, Mr Edmonds, witnesses. To continue, this woman meets Yevtukh at the river entrance to the hotel the next morning, and they leave together in the motoscafo. When Yevtukh doesn't reappear that night the bodyguards think their boss is enjoying a romantic assignment, and say nothing to Miss Goraya, but the following morning she goes to see the hotel manager and makes a big furore and the manager calls us. At that point the bodyguards agree to tell the truth."

"I may be able to help you move this investigation forward. In return I would ask that you keep our conversation confidential. That you mention it to no one, from your service or mine."

"Signor Trevisan, may I make a suggestion?"

"Initially, I thought that this was a story of a rich man and his lovers. But the stolen motoscafo, and its deliberate sinking, changed my mind. And now, Mrs Polastri, here you are from MI6 in London, confirming that this is indeed no simple disappearance."

Initially, Trevisan tells them, Yevtukh was considered a low-risk disappearance, and the investigation a formality. And then someone at the questura matched the description of a motoscafo stolen from a marina in Isola Sant'Elena with the bodyguards' description of the vessel they had seen outside the hotel, and a full-scale search was set in motion. A helicopter overflight of the lagoon revealed the motoscafo sunk in the Poveglia Canal, but of Yevtukh, not a trace. And there the enquiry stalled.

"Please do."

"So what do you think happened?" asks Eve.

"Go on."

"You're sure of this?"

"Yevtukh is dead, I have no doubt of that whatsoever. The woman he met in the bar, and who took him out in the motor launch the next day, is almost certainly a professional assassin. Multilingual, but probably Russian. Name unknown. She was in Venice with another woman, again probably Russian, and possibly her lover. The two of them had been shopping in San Marco two days earlier, and had visited the Van Diest boutique, the Pasticceria Zucchetti and other shops in the area. Both are highly CCTV-aware, and the assassin is extremely skilful at altering her appearance. We think that she's slim, of medium height, with high-cheekboned features and dark blonde hair. Eyes probably grey or grey-green, but we think that she often wears coloured contact lenses. Also hair-pieces and wigs. The other woman has been described as sporty-looking, with short blonde hair."

"I'm sure. And the pair of them must have stayed somewhere locally, either together or separately, given that there're two days between the San Marco shopping trip and Yevtukh's disappearance."

"We can certainly see if we can find any record of them." Trevisan looks at her intently, and Eve is suddenly conscious of her appearance, and, in particular, of the ugly nylon sockettes showing round the edges of her shoes. For years now she has sought others' approval of her professional competence, giving little or no thought to how they actually see her. But being here in Venice, seeing how Italian women carry themselves, and how they take pleasure in themselves as elegant, sensual beings, makes her want to be appreciated for more than the sharpness of her mind. She would like to walk through San Marco and feel the swirl of a beautifully cut skirt, and the breeze from the lagoon in her hair. Those shop assistants in Van Diest, this morning. They were dressed, it seemed, entirely for their own pleasure and enjoyment. Their clothes whispered secrets that endowed them with confidence and power. In her damp rain-jacket and jeans, Eve doesn't feel confident or powerful at all. She feels lank-haired and clammy beneath the arms.

Lance winces. "Ah."

The conversation winds down. "Tell me," Eve asks, as Trevisan ushers them to the entrance. "Where did you learn your excellent English?"

"In Tunbridge Wells. My mother was English, and we spent every summer there when I was a child. I used to watch Multi-Coloured Swap Shop on BBC1 every Saturday, which is why I'm so honoured to meet Noel Edmonds in person."

"Please, I understand professional discretion. Mrs Polastri, I'm glad we were able to help each other. Officially, as you requested, this meeting never took place. But it has been a great pleasure."

"I know," says Lance. "I know."

They shake hands, and he's gone.

"For fuck's sakes," says Eve, as they step out into the moist dusk. "Noel Edmonds?"

On the way back they catch a vaporetto, a water-bus. It's crowded, but Eve's feet are sore and it's a relief not to be walking. The vaporetto takes them the length of the Grand Canal. Some of the waterside buildings are illuminated, their reflections painting the broken surface of the water with gold, but others are shuttered and unlit, as if guarding ancient secrets. In the half-dark, there is a sinister edge to the city's beauty.

"There was another thing about the woman who bought the bracelet that I remember," she says. "Her scent. I always notice scent, it's my passion. My mother used to work at a perfume shop, and she taught me to recognise the… ingredienti. The sandalwood, cedar, amber, violet, rose, bergamotto…"

Lance rides the vaporetto all the way to San Marco, but Eve gets off at the stop before, and walks up towards the Fenice opera house, and a tiny boutique that she spotted earlier in the day. In the window is a beautiful scarlet and white Laura Fracci crêpe wrap dress, and she can't resist a closer look. The boutique looks terrifyingly expensive, and part of her hopes that the dress doesn't fit, but when she tries it on it's perfect. Barely glancing at the price, she hands over her credit card before she can change her mind.

It occurs to her to look in at the Van Diest store, to find out if they've found any CCTV footage of the two women. They haven't, she learns, as the video was deleted two days ago. Seeing her disappointment, the manageress looks thoughtful.

"So do you remember what scent this woman was wearing?"

"And?"

"I didn't recognise it. It certainly wasn't one of the usual designer brands. Freesia top note, I think. Base notes of amber and white cedar. Very unusual. I asked her about it."

"You are. Truly. You've been a great help. Perhaps if you remember the name of the scent, or anything else about these two women, you could speak to Questore Armando Trevisan at the police station in Santa Croce, and he will pass it on to me."

"She told me what it's called, but I can't remember the name. I'm sorry, I'm not being very helpful."

The manageress pauses, pen in hand. "I can see you admire fine jewellery, Signora Polastri."

Eve tells her, gazing wonderingly at the jewellery in the cases. A collar of incandescent sapphires and diamonds. A necklace of emeralds like a cascade of green fire.

"Certainly. Can I have your name? And perhaps your mobile phone number?"

"I've never seen pieces like this. Close enough to touch. I see why people want them so much. Why they fall in love with them."

"Absolutely I'm sure. It would be my pleasure."

"Well, then… Yes. Gosh. How exciting. I've never been to a party in a palace before."

"A dopo, Eve."

"May I make a suggestion? I'm going to a reception tonight at the Palazzo Forlani. It's the launch of Umberto Zeni's new jewellery collection. I was going to take my sister, but her daughter's ill. You're welcome to join me if you're free."

"It's Eve."

"In that case, è deciso. Palazzo Forlani's on the Dorsoduro. Cross the Accademia Bridge and it's a hundred metres or so on the left. Say you're with Giovanna Bianchi from Van Diest. I'll be there from nine o'clock."

"Um… sure. Why not. Thank you, Giovanna. That would be lovely"

"That's very kind," Eve says, taken aback. "Are you sure?"

"Perhaps you could wear your bracelet?"

She extends her hand. "Allora a dopo, Signora Polastri."

"I could, couldn't I."

Back at the hotel she sits on her bed with her laptop, encrypting her report on Yevtukh Rinat and the probable involvement in his disappearance of V and her Russian friend, lover, whatever. When she's dispatched it to Billy at Goodge Street, she calls Lance's room. There's no answer, but a couple of minutes later he knocks at her door, and when she opens it he's carrying beer bottles and an enormous pizza.

"I never knew you cared."

"That was seriously good," says Eve, when she can manage no more.

It turns out he's had an accident. He's spent most of the day in Accident and Emergency at the Royal Free Hospital, and is now back at home, on crutches.

"Funny old world, isn't it? Mind if I have a smoke on the balcony?"

When she eventually finds her phone in her bag, she realises it's been turned off all day. To her horror, she sees that Niko has tried to ring six times, and left three messages.

"Fuck. Fuck…"

"Go ahead. I should call my husband."

"The restaurants round here are all tourist rip-off joints," he tells her. "So I went for the takeaway option."

For the next half-hour they sit in front of the small balcony drinking cold Nastro Azzurro and eating pizza topped with sliced potatoes, rosemary and Taleggio cheese.

"Perfect. I'm starving."

"You have to put up with a lot as a spy," Lance says. "But I draw the line at crap food."

"Niko, I'm really, really sorry," Eve says, when she finally gets through to him.

"Is there enough hay for Thelma and Louise?"

"Painful?"

"Indeed it has. How's Venice?"

"My ancestors fought the Ottomans at Varna. I'll survive."

"Niko, please. Lance is fine, work is fine, and I'll be back tomorrow night. Are you going to be OK till then?"

"Oh God, you poor thing. For the accident, I mean, not for my cooking. Although that's not good news, either… Sorry, it's been a long day."

"Lovely, actually, despite the fact that's it's been raining all day."

"Niko, stop it. I'm sorry, OK? For leaving my phone off, for being here in Venice, for your accident. I'm sorry for all of it. Did the hospital give you painkillers?"

"Oh, my love. I'm so sorry. Is it bad?"

"And Lance? In good health?"

"Put it this way, you're going to be doing more of the cooking."

"School parent dropping her son off. Son steps out in front of a moving car, I run forward and pull him out of the way. Bang."

"You might pick some up at Duty Free."

"I've just discovered my phone's been off all day. What happened?"

"Broken ankle, basically. Fractured tibia and torn ligaments."

"What are you reading?"

"Take them. With water, not whisky. And go to bed. I hope that boy's parents are grateful."

"So what's the plan?" she asks him.

"Going to some sort of reception thing with Giovanna from the jewellery shop. The security footage has been wiped, but I'm sure there's more she can tell us."

"Parent. Singular. And she was."

She's still staring at the phone when Lance comes back into the room, trailed by a whirl of cigarette smoke.

"When are you meeting him?"

"I've got to go out later and speak to someone about some CCTV footage." The lie slips out easily, effortlessly. "Then to bed with a book."

"Phoned someone earlier. Bloke I used to work with in Rome who's moved up here. Thought I might have a word with him about our disappeared Ukrainian."

"Not in my experience."

"Half an hour. Bar near that police station we were at earlier. What about you?"

"The complicated relationship between two women."

"Well, I'm proud of you, my love. Truly."

"What's it about?"

"So what are you doing tonight?"

"A novel by Elena Ferrante."

"Is there an uncomplicated kind?"

"Yes. Codeine."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm sure there is."

"Nothing."

"No, I see that."

"That's not a smirk, it's a facial tic. I'm very sensitive about it."

"Fuck off, Lance."

"You're smirking, Lance."

"Look, you were good this morning. Really good. And that pizza was seriously delicious. But if you're going to smirk whenever I mention another woman's name this isn't going to work."

Ten minutes later, Eve has changed into the Laura Fracci dress, pinned her hair into a passable French twist, and is stepping out into the dusk with the rose gold bracelet on her wrist. The day's rain has sharpened the air, which smells of dampness and drains. Crossing the piazza she threads her way westwards, past lingering groups of tourists, to the Accademia Bridge. Halfway across the bridge she stops, entranced by the view. The darkening canal, the illuminated waterside buildings, and, at the distant mouth of the lagoon, the dome of Santa Maria della Salute. Almost too much beauty to bear, and all of it dying. As are we all, a voice in her head whispers. There's no tomorrow, there's only today.

"Absolutely. Right away."

From such a challenge, Eve now knows, there's no retreating, no walking away. Wherever it leads, she has to follow, and if she has to lie to Niko, then so be it. A seaward breeze flickers up the canal, flattening the soft folds of the dress to her thighs, and her phone vibrates in her bag.

Looking out over the glimmering canal, poised between the upstream and the downstream of her life, Eve considers her adversary. All she's seen of her is her eyes, but the eyes are enough. I am death, that gaze seemed to say, and if you're not intimate with death, can you ever feel truly alive?

It's Giovanna. She'll be there in ten minutes.

In her narrow room on the first floor of the Gasthof Lili in Innsbruck, Villanelle is sitting cross-legged on her bed in front of a laptop, scrolling through architectural blueprints of the Felsnadel. The hotel, a futuristic slice of glass and steel wrapped around a frozen Tyrolean crag, is Austria's highest. It stands on a ledge, some two and a half thousand metres above sea level, on the eastern flank of the Teufelskamp mountain.

Villanelle has been prowling the building in her imagination for hours now, testing possible entry and exit points, memorising the layout of the guest quarters and the kitchens, noting the whereabouts of storerooms and service areas. For the last thirty minutes she's been examining the fittings and locking mechanisms on the triple-glazed windows. Details like these, Konstantin impressed on her, can mean the difference between success and failure, between life and death. It saddens Villanelle to think that, somewhere along the line, Konstantin himself neglected a detail.

She yawns, baring her teeth like a cat. She always enjoys the preparatory phase of an operation, but there's an overload point. A moment when the plans blur, and the words on the screen start to run together. In addition to researching the mission, she's been teaching herself German, a language she's never previously studied. She will not be required to pass herself off as German at the Hotel Felsnadel; her cover story is that she's French. But she will be required to speak it, and it's an operational necessity that she understands everything that she hears.

Herzog-Friedrich-Strasse is pretty in the fading light, its illuminated buildings framing the distant mountains like a stage set. But it's cold, with an insistent wind whistling through the narrow streets, and this cuts straight through Villanelle's skimpy clothing as she hurries towards the Schlossergasse and the golden glow of the Brauhaus Adler. Inside, noise levels are high, and the air warm and beery. Edging round the throng, Villanelle notes a line of men with their backs to the bar, surveying the crowd with an amused, predatory air. At intervals, they exchange comments and knowing smiles.

These and other preparations are mentally tiring. Villanelle is less susceptible to stress than most people, but when she's faced with long periods of waiting, a familiar need tends to make itself felt. Locking down the laptop so that any attempt to log in will cause total data-erasure, she stands, and stretches. She's wearing a cheap black tracksuit, she hasn't showered for thirty-six hours, and her unwashed hair is raked back into a scrappy ponytail. She looks, and smells, feral.

Villanelle doesn't return it. Instead, she takes his stein of beer, drains it, and walks away without looking back. An instant later he follows, pushing through the crowd after her. Wordlessly, she leads him out of the main entrance, then turns into a side street, and again into a narrow alley behind the bar. Halfway along the alley is a shadowed space between two overspilling refuse bins. Above the further of these, an extractor fan vents kitchen exhaust through a dirty grille.

Bracing her back against the brick wall, Villanelle orders the young man to kneel in front of her. When he hesitates she grabs a handful of blond hair and forces him down. Then she drags her tracksuit bottoms to her ankles with her free hand, parts her legs and pulls her knickers open to one side. "No fingers," she tells him. "Just your tongue. Get on with it."

Villanelle watches for a minute or two, and then, unhurriedly, walks up to the bar. Strolling along the line of men, taking casual repossession of the space they've annexed, she eyeballs them one by one before coming to a halt in front of a fit-looking guy in his early twenties. He's handsome, he knows it, and he meets her stare with a confident grin.

The kitchen worker stands there, hand on groin, for the best part of a minute, then a voice recalls him to the kitchen in profanity-laden Turkish. By now Villanelle is pretty sure that if she wants to come, she's going to have to go back to her room and finish the job herself. Her thoughts wander, dissolving into refracted images which, quite suddenly, coalesce into the figure of Eve Polastri. Eve with her skuchniyy clothes, and that English decency that Villanelle wants, so badly, to disrupt. Imagine if she were to look down, right now, and see that face between her thighs. Eve's eyes looking up at her. Eve's tongue scouring her.

He glances up at her, his eyes uncertain, and she tightens her hold on his hair until he gasps with pain. "I said get on with it, dummkopf. Lick my pussy." She shuffles her feet wider apart, the wall cold against her buttocks. "Harder, it's not a fucking ice cream. And higher. Yes, there."

Sensation flickers through her, but it's too irregular, and her new acquaintance too inexpert, to take her where she needs to go. Through half-closed eyes she sees a kitchen worker in a soiled apron and skullcap step from a doorway and stop, open-mouthed, at the sight of her. She ignores him, and the blond guy is much too busy searching for her clitoris to sense the presence of a spectator.

"Hey, come on now, schatz…"

Rearranging her underwear, Villanelle pulls up her tracksuit bottoms. "Please," she says. "Just go."

Villanelle cleaves to this image until, with a brief shuddering of her thighs, she comes. At which point the image of Eve dissolves into that of Anna Leonova. Anna, to whom all the blood-trails lead. Anna who, in another life, showed Oxana Vorontsova what love could be, and then denied it to her for ever. Opening her eyes Villanelle takes in her filthy surroundings. The wind touches her face and she realises that there are tears on her cheeks.

He meets her stare, and his grin fades. He starts to walk away, and then turns. "You want to know something?" he says. "You stink."

"You heard me. Fuck off."

The blond guy is grinning. "That was good, ja?" Standing, he fishes a pubic hair from his mouth with a finger. "Now you suck my dick, OK?"

"Good. And a word of advice. Next time you find yourself in a girl's pants, bring a map."

The Palazzo Forlani is at the eastern end of Dorsoduro. The street entrance, through which Eve arrives, is nondescript. There's a poorly lit cloakroom staffed by dark-suited attendants and supervised by an unsmiling figure who looks as if he might have once earned his living as a boxer. Beyond them, two young women in identical black moiré cocktail dresses sit at an antique desk, checking the names of new arrivals on a printed list.

"Come," says the friend and, beckoning Eve to a chair, swiftly and expertly reworks her coiffure. As she's inserting the final pin Giovanna arrives.

"Eve. You look stunning… Ciao, ragazze."

Eve raises a hand and encounters a hairclip swinging from an errant tress. "Oh my goodness, could you really?"

"Ciao, Giovanna. Just fixing a little hair emergency here."

Eve approaches them. "Sono con Giovanna Bianchi."

A curtain parts, and they move from the twilit foyer into a warm blaze of illumination. The street entrance to the palazzo, Eve realises, is in fact the back entrance, like a stage door. They're in a wide, stone-floored atrium, thronged with guests, at whose centre is a rectangular space concealed by hanging drapes imprinted with the Umberto Zeni logo. Opposite Eve and Giovanna is the much grander and more ornate canal entrance, dominated by an arched portal through which the gleam of water is visible. As Eve watches, a motor launch draws up, and two guests step out onto a jetty, and are ushered inside by a doorman.

"My French twist came adrift," Eve explains.

They smile. "OK, no problem," one of them says. "But my friend needs to fix your hair."

Giovanna smiles. "That's why you should always go Italian."

"And that's Umberto," says Giovanna, swiping two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter's tray, and nodding towards a tiny figure dressed from head to foot in leather fetish-wear. "An interesting crowd, don't you think?"

Around her, the crowd ebbs and flows. She can smell scent, face-powder, candle wax, and the faint, muddy tang of the canal. It's an intoxicatingly strange scene, a collision of the antique and the dazzlingly fashionable. Eve feels poised, soignée even, but she can't imagine actually talking to anyone here. There's a nucleus of ageless men in dark suits and heavy silk ties, and women whose lacquered hair and ornate designer gowns are clearly chosen to intimidate rather than to attract. Circling around these figures, like pilot fish around sharks, is a retinue of socialites and hangers-on. Lizard-like designers with implausible tans, gym-toned young men in ripped jeans, willowy models with wide, vacant eyes.

"Amazing. And so not my world."

"So what is your world, Eve? Forgive me for asking, but you come into my shop with this man who shows me identification from Interpol and then pretends to be un cretino while he eavesdrops on my assistants" conversations -- oh, don't worry, I saw him -- and then you ask me about a bracelet that was bought by a woman who came into the shop with her girlfriend, but which you are now wearing? Per favore, what is going on?"

"Tell it to me."

Eve takes a deep swallow of her champagne, and turns her wrist so that the diamonds glitter. "It's a long story."

"How so?"

"Because this is the kind of luxurious thing I could never afford, and could never imagine myself wearing."

"We want this woman for a series of crimes. She knows I'm after her, and she sent me this bracelet to insult and intimidate me."

Their conversation is interrupted by a dimming of the lights. Then, to a deafening burst of industrial metal music, and whoops and applause from the onlookers, the curtains at the centre of the atrium rise, and spotlights illuminate the tableau within. Rising from the floor is a massive concrete column, into which a white Alfa Romeo sports car appears to have crashed at speed. The car, wrapped around the column, is a total wreck. Two passengers, one male, one female, have been thrown through the windscreen, and are sprawled on the car's crumpled bonnet.

At first Eve thinks that these are horribly life-like, or perhaps death-like, dummies. Then she sees that they are breathing, and real. Belatedly, she recognises the famous boy-band singer and his supermodel girlfriend. Shane Rafique, dressed in a white T-shirt and jeans, is lying face down. Jasmin Vane-Partington is on her back, one arm outflung, her breasts exposed by her ripped blouse.

"Nevertheless, Eve, you are wearing it."

Where there might have been blood and torn flesh, however, there are jewels. Jasmin's forehead is not studded with fragments of windscreen glass, but enclosed in a tiara of diamonds and blood-red garnets. A string of Burmese rubies snakes down her belly like a fatal gash. Tourmalines glitter in Shane's hair and a topaz necklace cascades from his mouth. Vermilion gemstones spatter the car's bodywork.

As cameras flash, the music plays, and the applause rises and falls, Eve stares open-mouthed at this glittering tableau mort.

After ten minutes, when the photo flashes have subsided, and Umberto Zeni has made a short speech of which Eve understands not a single word, the curtain descends on the crashed Alfa Romeo and the celebrity corpses. Unhurriedly, the guests begin to make their way up a worn stone staircase, past faded tapestries, to the first floor. Eve and Giovanna join them, collecting fresh glasses of champagne en route.

"It's quite an extreme way of selling jewellery."

Giovanna smiles. "So what do you think?"

"People want extremes here, they get bored very easily. And the fashion press will adore it. Especially with Jasmin and Shane."

"So much fun. I don't know how to thank you."

"Having fun?" asks Giovanna.

The galleries set around the stairwell swiftly fill with noise and people. Everyone seems to know Giovanna and she's soon surrounded by an excitable clique, exchanging observations in rapid-fire Italian. Fluttering her fingers in a vague, see-you-in-a-minute gesture, Eve drifts away. Taking a third glass of champagne, she winds purposefully through the crowd, smile in place, as if she's just caught sight of an acquaintance. She's always felt like an outsider at parties, torn between the desire to be swept along on a tide of conversation and laughter, and to be left alone. The essential thing, she's found, is to keep moving. To stand still, even for a moment, is to present a vulnerable profile. To announce yourself a target for every cruising shark.

"Finish your story."

Eve laughs. "I will, one day." For the first time in months, perhaps years, she is having a fabulous time that she won't have to account for. She feels an airy rush of elation, and floats up the staircase, weightless.

Moving on, she finds herself in front of a gilded porcelain sculpture, again life-size, of the late Michael Jackson fondling a monkey. One push, Eve muses. One good, strong shove. She imagines the crash, the gasps, the shocked silence.

Adopting a connoisseurial attitude, she examines the art on the panelled walls. Allegorical scenes from Greek mythology hang next to vast contemporary paintings of skulls; eighteenth-century Venetian aristocrats cast a jaundiced eye over explicit life-size photographs of a couple having sex. Eve supposes she should know the names of the artists in question, but isn't quite interested enough to find out. What strikes her forcibly is the sheer, bludgeoning force of the wealth on display. These art objects are not here because they are beautiful, or even thought-provoking, but because they cost millions of euros. They're currency, pure and simple.

"La condizione umana," says a voice beside her.

"You're English. You don't look English."

She glances at him. Registers dark hair and aquiline features. "I'm sorry?"

He grins. "I'll take that as a compliment. My name is Claudio."

"The same pretty eyes. The same sad smile…"

"Of course seriously. Look at it. What do you see?"

"Seriously?"

"Really? In what way?"

"I was saying that this sculpture represents the human condition."

"OK, Eve, now I believe you're English. You want to know what I see?"

"Your clothes, your hair, your sprezzatura."

"And I'm Eve. You were saying?"

"I'm sure you're going to tell me."

"I'll take that as a compliment." Turning to face him she meets amused brown eyes. Notes the broken nose and the sensual, deeply incised mouth. "You, on the other hand, could be nothing but Italian."

"Dio mio. You look at me with those beautiful eyes and you bust my balls."

"Your… attitude."

"A pop singer and a monkey. A giant version of the china ornaments my grandmother used to buy."

"My what?"

"No, not at all." She touches his shirt sleeve, feels his arm warm beneath. "Truly. I just… thought of someone."

"I apologise," he says. "I've offended you."

"Someone special?"

"I see." Eve lifts her champagne flute to her mouth but it's empty. She realises that she is quite drunk, and that this doesn't matter. Perhaps it's even a good thing.

"Well, I see a man so lonely, so detached from his fellow humans, that his only companion is this monkey, Bubbles. And eventually, even Bubbles moves on. He can't live in this fantasy."

"Perhaps your grandmother was right, with her china ornaments. Perhaps she understood that the things we really long for, we cannot buy."

They stand there for a moment in silence.

"This sculpture is Michael Jackson's dream. A golden forever. But it takes us back to the reality of his life, which is grotesque and sad."

"In a sense, yes. But go on. Tell me what you see."

A wave of melancholy sweeps over Eve, she teeters dizzily on her heels, and a single tear runs down her nose. "Now you've made me cry," she says. "Really, you're impossible."

"And your glass is empty."

"It should probably stay that way."

"As you wish. Come and see the view from the balcony." He takes her hand, which makes Eve's heart lurch, and leads her through the gallery to a marble-floored expanse hung with baroque mirrors. A projection screen is mounted on one wall, showing, on repeat, a video prequel to the Umberto Zeni installation, in which Shane Rafique and Jasmin Vane-Partington are shown running from a bank vault, laden with stolen jewellery, leaping into the white Alfa Romeo, and roaring away.

"Totally," says Eve, biting off a mouthful of marzipan fingers.

Like Giovanna, Claudio seems to know everyone, so their progress is stately, with much waving and greeting and air-kissing. An animated group is gathered round Umberto Zeni, who is explaining, in English this time, that dying in an automobile crash is the contemporary equivalent of Catholic martyrdom. As if to illustrate his point, a waiter is offering round a tray of petits fours shaped like sacramental objects. There are frosted pink sacred hearts, spun-sugar crowns of thorns, candied angelica crucifixion nails. Most exquisite of all are the tiny marzipan hands with red jelly stigmata.

Finally they reach the balcony, which is grand and spacious, and fronted by a carved balustrade, against which several guests are already leaning, smoking. Normally Eve hates cigarette smoke but at this moment, with the night darkening the Grand Canal and Claudio's arm around her shoulder -- how did that get there? -- she couldn't care less.

"Divine, no?" says Umberto.

"My father does."

"Yes," he says, turning back to face the canal. "We do."

"The coat of arms of the Forlani family. Six stars on a shield, surmounted by a doge's crown. The palace dates from 1770."

Half turning to her, he runs a finger down her cheek. "It is what it is."

She looks back at him. The sculpted features, their perfection at once marred and confirmed by the broken nose. The crisp whiteness of the linen shirt against his skin, with the cuffs rolled just so high up his tanned forearms. The elegant musculature displayed by jeans that look ordinary enough, but undoubtedly cost many hundreds of euros. The nonchalant absence of socks, and the black velvet loafers embroidered with what, on inspection, turns out to be the Forlani family crest.

She stares at him. "You? You… own this?"

"I would be very surprised if you weren't. Look upwards."

She shakes her head. "That must be… extraordinary."

She turns, and leans back against the balustrade. Above them, weathered by age and affixed to the building's facade, is a crest carved from stone.

"I'm married," she says.

"That's amazing. Do the family still live here?"

"Well," says Giovanna, watching him disappear into the crowd. "You don't waste any time. And as it happens, neither do I. I have some news for you."

Looking into the interior, she sees Giovanna moving towards them. "And here she is. Claudio, this is --"

"That's a pity, Eve. For you and for me."

"I know who it is. Buona sera, Giovanna."

"I expect we'll both survive, one way and another. And now I have to find my friend."

She shakes her head.

"You're a scary woman, Eve. I haven't even kissed you yet."

"Buona sera, Claudio." There's a moment's silence.

"Seriously?"

Desire ripples through her with unexpected force. "That sounds lovely, but it's not going to happen."

"I should go," Claudio says. He bows, with just detectable irony, to both of them. "Arrivederci."

She smiles. "You're just that tiny bit too good to be true, aren't you? And you're not quite as young as you'd have me believe, either." She mirrors his gesture, running a finger across his cheekbone. "How many other women have you brought out here? Quite a few, I'm sure."

"Tell me."

"I was talking to the Contessa di Faenza, a big customer of mine. And I realised that the woman standing next to her was wearing the scent I told you about. The one the Russian who bought your bracelet…"

"Well, the contessa is talking to me about some prêt-à-porter show she's been to in Milan, and I see the other woman walk away. Obviously I can't just follow her, but I watch her, and remember what she's wearing, and five minutes later, when the contessa finally lets me go, I set off in search of her."

"Oh my God. Go on."

"Absolutely sure. Freesia, amber, white cedar… So I tell her how much I like it, we get talking -- her name's Signora Valli, it turns out -- and I ask her what her scent is called." She hands Eve a folded slip of paper. "I wrote the name down this time, to make sure."

"I can't find her. I look everywhere, on both floors, but she's disappeared. And then I go into the Ladies", and there she is, standing in front of the mirror, actually putting on the scent. So I walk behind her, and check that it's the one I remembered, and it is."

"You're sure?"

"And?"

"Where's Villanelle?"

Eve opens the paper and stares at the single word written there. There's a moment of ferocious clarity, as if ice-water is racing through her veins. "Thank you, Giovanna," she whispers. "Thank you so, so much."

Oxana is lying on a steel bunk in a Russian stolypin prison train surrounded by grey, indistinct figures. There are no windows; she has no idea of the terrain through which the train is moving, nor does she know how long she has been on the train. Days, certainly, perhaps weeks. The steel-panelled stolypin compartment is her whole world. It smells of shit and piss and rancid bodies, but the cold is worse. The cold is like death, and its icy hand is closed around her heart.

"Dead. Like the others."

A figure stirs on the bunk opposite her. "You're wearing my bracelet, Villanelle."

She tries to explain, to show Eve her bare, shackle-bruised wrists. "My name is Oxana Vorontsova," she says.

Jolting awake, her heart pounding, Villanelle gradually identifies the outlines of her room at the Gasthof Lili. It's just gone 3 a. m. The room is cold, she's naked, and the duvet has slipped from the narrow bed onto the floor. "Fuck you, Polastri," she mutters, pulling on her tracksuit and wrapping herself in the duvet. "Get out of my head."

Four hundred miles away, Eve is also awake, sitting on the side of her hotel bed in her bunny-print pyjamas. Her feet are on the terrazzo-tiled floor and her head is in her hands. She's pretty sure she's going to be sick. She closes her eyes. Immediately, her equilibrium goes into free-fall, and she staggers towards the window, bile rising in her throat. A desperate fumble with the shutters, a glimpse of the canal rocking dark and greasy below, and she's clutching the rail of the balcony, and vomiting, far from silently, into a moored gondola.