No one pays much attention to the slight figure with the scrappy ponytail standing by the plate-glass exit door. Her passive demeanour and her cheap clothes and luggage clearly identify her as a person of no consequence, and she speaks to no one. When she arrived at the heliport an hour ago she identified herself to the Felsnadel Hotel representative as Violette Duroc, a temporary room attendant sent by a local personnel agency. The hotel representative glanced at a clipboard, crossed her name off a list, and made it clear to her that although she was to be flown up to the Felsnadel with the hotel guests, fraternising with them was strictly verboten.

It's late afternoon, and an animated buzz and the clink of glassware rises from the departure lounge at Flugrettungs zentrum, Innsbruck's heliport, as Max Linder's invited guests talk, laugh and sip Pol Roger champagne. Those present are not the entire contingent of guests; some were flown up to the Felsnadel earlier in the day, others will follow tomorrow, and the atmosphere is one of high anticipation. In far-right circles Linder is known as a witty, generous and imaginative host. To be invited to one of his mountain retreats is not only to be identified as one of the elite, it is to be guaranteed a spectacularly good time. Max, everyone agrees, is fun.

If Villanelle is invisible to her fellow travellers, they are not invisible to her. Over the course of the last fortnight, she has researched most of them in considerable depth. The highest-status person in the room is probably Magali Le Meur. As the recently elected leader of France's Nouvelle Droite party, and an advocate of pan-European nationalism, Le Meur is regarded as the future of the country's far-right tendency. In the flesh, her broad, raw-boned features look older than on the posters slapped en bloc onto every derelict wall and motorway bridge in France. She probably wouldn't wear that thousand-euro Moncler coat to address her party's rank and file, Villanelle reflects. Or that Cartier diamond watch. Would she be amusing in bed? Unlikely. Nice eyes, but that thin, intolerant mouth told another story.

Le Meur touches her glass to that of Todd Stanton, formerly a CIA psy-ops officer, more recently an expert in the harvesting and manipulation of online personal data. Often described as the dark cardinal of the American far right, Stanton is widely believed to be the architect of the Republican Party's recent electoral victories. Today, he's wearing a wolfskin coat, which does little to flatter his corpulent frame or to distract from his florid complexion.

The other three figures Villanelle doesn't recognise. They weren't on her list of probable Felsnadel guests or she would certainly have remembered them. There's an imperious, pantherine woman with a severe bob of dark hair, who flicks a briefly curious glance at Villanelle, and two sharply handsome men. All are probably in their late twenties, and are outfitted in black uniforms with a distinctly military edge.

Beyond them, by the bar, three men and a woman circle each other warily. Leonardo Venturi, a tiny, wild-haired figure sporting a monocle, is an Italian political theorist and the founder of Lapsit Exillis, described on its website as "an initiatory guild for aristocrats of the spirit". Venturi is explaining the guild's mission in exhaustive detail to Inka Järvi, the statuesque leader of Finland's Daughters of Odin. Adjacent to them, not quite part of their conversation, are two Britons. Richard Baggot, a paunchy figure with a crocodile grin, is the leader of the UK Patriots Party, while pencil-thin Silas Orr-Hadow is an upper-caste Tory whose family have furnished England with several generations of fascist sympathisers.

"Just a couple of weeks. I'm temporarily replacing an African girl. Obviously they couldn't have an immigrant up there with these guests, so they laid her off."

"No," says Villanelle. "What's it like?"

"What about the guests?"

"So how long are you going to be working up there this time?"

"Yes."

"Natürlich. Why would they pay her if she isn't working?"

"Without pay?"

"Really fun. And some quite…" She giggles. "I worked here last year when Max's party came. There was a fancy dress party on the last night and it was like, crazy."

"Amazing place, but the money's shit, as you've probably found out. And the manageress, Birgit, is a real arschfotze. You have to work like a slave or she's on your tits the whole time."

"Hi, I'm Johanna. I'm from the agency too." She has close-set eyes, freckles and a substantial bust zipped into a pink quilted jacket. She looks like Khriusha the Pig, a puppet character from a TV series Villanelle watched as a child in Perm. "Have you ever worked at the hotel before?"

"Are you Violette?" a voice asks at her side.

"The band, Panzerdämmerung. They played up there last year. Weird music, super-dark, super-loud, not really my thing. But the two brothers, Klaus and Peter Lorenz. Total geil."

"See, Violette, the thing about Max Linder's guests is that they like traditionally minded staff. Girls they can relate to. Some of the men can get quite frisky." She glances downwards at her chest with a complacent smile. "But maybe they'll leave you alone."

"So who are those three? They look younger than most of the people here."

"And the woman in the leather coat and the boots?"

"Is the singer, Petra Voss. Apparently…" -- Johanna lowers her voice to a whisper -- "she's a lesbian."

"Never!"

Departure is announced, and the guests make their way through the glass doors to the helipad where the Airbus helicopter is waiting. Villanelle and Johanna leave last, and then have to edge past the other passengers to reach their seats at the back of the aircraft.

"Don't I remember you from last year?" Richard Baggot asks Johanna as she passes, and when she smiles and nods, reaches across and pats her bottom. "Looks like I'll be needing room service, then." He turns to Villanelle. "Sorry, love. Prefer a little more flesh on the bone, if you get my drift."

"Right."

The helicopter takes off with a roar and a shudder. Beyond the Plexiglas window the sky is steel grey. Soon they are above the snowline, and climbing. Gazing out at the face of the Teufelkamp, at the precipitous crags and blue-white icefields, Villanelle feels a prickling anticipation. To those present she is a menial, not worth a second glance, barely even fuckable. But inside herself she can feel the demon of her fury coil and uncoil. With the tip of her tongue, she touches the pale knot of scar tissue on her upper lip, feels its throb echoed in her chest, the pit of her stomach and her groin.

Todd Stanton grins, Silas Orr-Hadow looks appalled, and the others ignore Baggot altogether. As she buckles herself into her seat, Villanelle entertains a brief fantasy of leaning forward and garrotting the Englishman with his golf club tie. One day, she promises herself, and glances at Johanna, on whose pink features a dimpled smirk has appeared.

The helicopter swings upwards and rounds a vertical spur. And there, like a crystal set into the black rock face, is the hotel, and in front of it, a horizontal shelf marked out with lights as a landing area. The passengers applaud, gasp and crane towards the windows.

"What do you think?" asks Johanna. "Amazing, no?"

"Johanna, come with me. And you must be Violette. Quickly now, both of you."

They touch down, the door opens, and frozen air blasts into the interior of the Airbus. Climbing out after Johanna, Villanelle steps into a flurry of wind-blown snow, and follows the other guests into the hotel, pulling her cabin bag behind her.

"Yes."

The speaker is a severely dressed woman in her forties. Without introducing herself she leads them at a fast clip through a side door and into a service corridor leading to the staff quarters at the back of the hotel. She deals with Villanelle first, briskly pushing open a numbered door into a small, low-ceilinged room containing twin beds. A pale young woman in a tracksuit and woollen beanie is lying on one of these, asleep.

The entrance hall is spectacular, its plate-glass walls affording a breathtaking view of the darkening massif. A hundred feet below, clouds stream past, carried on the racing wind. Above are silhouetted peaks, and the glitter of the stars.

Birgit stares at her suspiciously. "Wash your face before you appear in the restaurant." She leans towards Villanelle, her nose wrinkling. "And your hair. It smells."

Villanelle complies.

"Teeth."

"Yes, Birgit."

"Violette?"

"Good. I'll see you both in an hour." She starts to leave and then switches back. "Violette, show me your fingernails."

"Get up, Maria."

"How did you get that scar?"

"Yes."

"Yes, Birgit." She regards Villanelle intently. "You're not going to be trouble, are you? Because I swear, try anything on with me -- anything -- and you'll regret it. Won't she, Maria?"

"Violette, you're in here with Maria. You're both on duty for dinner tonight; Maria will tell you the house rules, and where to find your uniform. She'll also explain your room-service duties for tomorrow. Understood, Maria?"

Villanelle holds out her hands. Birgit examines them frowningly.

"A dog bit me. Birgit."

"Yes, Birgit," Maria says. "She will."

Blinking, the young woman jumps nervously to her feet, pulling off the beanie.

"Is she always like that?"

"Welcome to the insane asylum." Maria smiles wearily.

"Sometimes worse. I'm not kidding."

"Watch out for Johanna. She pretends to be really friendly, and on your side, but anything you tell her goes straight back to Birgit. She's a spy."

"Yes, Birgit." Villanelle and Maria watch as the manageress leaves the room, followed by the still-smirking Johanna.

"Fuck."

Maria is Polish, she tells Villanelle. There are men and women from at least a dozen countries employed at the Felsnagel, and although spoken German is a requirement, the staff usually speak English among themselves.

"OK, I'll remember. So what are these house rules?"

"Tak. And you're stuck here now. That's your bed. And the bottom two drawers are yours."

Maria recites a litany of fetishistically precise regulations. "Hair always to be worn braided, with plain steel pins," she says in conclusion. "No make-up, ever. Max Linder hates make-up on women, so no foundation, lipstick, anything. And no perfume. The only thing you're allowed to smell of is disinfectant soap, and you have to use that regularly. Birgit checks."

"First time, she cuts your pay. After that, I don't know, and I don't want to find out. There are stories that she whipped a girl once for wearing mascara."

"So what happens if you break the rules?"

It's just after 6 p. m., London time, when Eve and Lance walk into the Goodge Street office, carrying their overnight bags. They've taken the Underground from Heathrow, which was slow, but not as slow as battling through the rush-hour traffic in a taxi.

"I'm joking. Where's the bathroom?"

"End of the corridor. There's usually not much hot water, especially by this time. Your soap's in the top drawer. I'll fill you in about tonight when you get back. And Violette…"

Billy swivels his chair to face them. On the floor beside him is a small tower of foil takeaway cartons. He stretches lethargically and yawns, like an inadequately exercised cat. "Good flight?"

"What?"

Maria stares at her. "Are you serious?"

"God, no. She's employed by Linder, to make sure that everything runs the way he likes it. She's a fucking Nazi, basically, like him."

"Don't make trouble. Please."

"Wow. That's quite sexy."

"She's employed by the hotel?"

"Not bad. Tea?"

Eve resists the urge to open the streaming window and let a little air into the curried fug of the office. She's anxious for Billy to do two things. To find out everything possible about Rinat Yevtukh, the Ukrainian who went missing in Venice, and to launch a worldwide search of recent internet traffic for the name, or codename, Villanelle. Both undertakings are likely to be complex, and experience has taught Eve that to get the best out of Billy, you don't rush him.

"What the lady means is, did you miss us?" says Lance.

"How's it been?" she asks him.

"What's this?"

"Yeah, go on."

"Same," Billy says, moving unhurriedly towards the sink and flipping a tea bag into each of the mugs on the draining board.

"How are you, Billy?" Eve asks.

"Lance?"

"God, yes please."

"Had worse." Lance drops his bags and noses the air. "Did something die in here while we were away?"

"Didn't really notice you weren't here, to be honest."

Lance unzips his overnight bag and pulls out a package, which he throws to Billy.

"Souvenir of Venice, mate. Just to show we were thinking about you slaving away while we were living the dream."

"So where are we?" she asks Billy, when the tea has been circulated.

Billy swivels back towards his screens. "OK, background. Kent is an associate, friend, whatever, of Dennis Cradle, now dead. The money that the Twelve used to pay Cradle was routed via Kent, and the original source for this information is a document provided to Eve in Shanghai by Jin Qiang of the MSS, the Chinese Ministry of State Security. Agree so far?"

It's a gondolier's red and white striped T-shirt. Eve darts a grateful look at Lance; never once did it occur to her to pick up anything for Billy.

"Bits and pieces."

Eve nods.

"Spill."

"Open source intelligence on Kent is hard to find. Basically, his online presence has been scrubbed. Not a whisper on social media, and highly selective bio-data. Enough detail not to look deliberately redacted, but nothing that leads anywhere."

"I've been chasing Tony Kent."

"Anything new?"

"Nice one."

In her pocket, Eve's phone vibrates. Without looking she knows it's Niko. Billy glances at her, wondering if she's going to take the call, but she ignores it.

"Are the ex-wives contactable?"

"Yes, one now lives in Marbella, in Spain, and the other runs a Staffordshire bull-terrier rescue centre in Stellenbosch, South Africa. I rang them both, saying I was trying to get in touch with Tony. The first one, Letitia, was so drunk she could hardly speak, even though it was only eleven o'clock in the morning. She said she hadn't seen Kent in years, had no idea how to contact him, and if I saw him to tell him to go and -- I quote -- 'fucking throttle himself'. Ring a bell, Lance?"

"Even so, I've been able to join up one or two of the dots. Kent is fifty-one years old. No kids, two divorces."

"Lol. Anyway, the South Africa one, Kyla, was perfectly friendly but said that she was bound by law from discussing her ex-husband with anyone, which I took to mean that she'd signed a non-disclosure agreement as a condition of her divorce settlement. So not much help there. Anyway, back to Kent. He grew up in Lymington, Hampshire, and was educated at Eton College. As, it turns out, was Dennis Cradle."

"Loud and clear. Last time I saw my ex she said much the same thing."

"Totally."

"Cradle, obviously. But why Kent?"

"Seriously?"

"Any idea why?" Eve asks.

"After Eton, Cradle goes to Oxford, takes the Civil Service exam, and is headhunted by MI5. Four years later Kent goes to Durham, and after graduating, tries to join Cradle at Thames House, but fails selection."

"Yes, Kent was Cradle's fag. Which means, apparently, that he was like his personal servant, and had to clean his shoes and make him tea and warm his toilet seat in the winter."

"Bloody hell. I knew those places were weird, but…" She blinks. "How did you find all this out?"

"The MI5 selection panel don't think so. They bin him, and the following year he goes to Sandhurst, and is commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Royal Logistics Corps. Serves two tours of duty in Iraq, leaves the army in his late twenties, and from that point onwards things get hazy. I found only two very brief press references to his activities over the next decade. One describes him as a London-based venture capitalist, one as an international security consultant."

"Put it like this: one of the assessors ended his evaluation with the words 'Sly, manipulative, untrustworthy'."

"I asked Richard to run both names through the Security Services vetting records, and both were on file."

"They weren't there together, were they?" Eve asks.

"Sounds like the ideal candidate," says Lance.

"Which can mean pretty much anything," Eve says.

"And do we know what these companies do?"

"Yeah, well. Turns out that Kent owns no residential or commercial property in London, and a search at Companies House reveals that he holds no directorships, executive or non-exec, of UK-registered companies. So given the Twelve connection, I start looking for Russian interests. I don't speak Russian fluently, but a lot of the international registries are in English, including the database of the Federal State Service for Statistics. Anyway, I discover that Kent's a partner in a private security company named Sverdlovsk-Futura Group or SFG, based in Moscow. He's also a partner in an offshoot of the company, SF12, which is registered in the British Virgin Islands."

"Well, this is the point at which my lack of Russian becomes a problem. I'm learning the language via the MI6 online course, but I'm nowhere near fluent. So Richard puts me in touch with a Russian-speaking investigator from the City of London Economic Crime department, a guy called Sim Henderson. And what Sim tells me is that private security companies, known as Chastnye Voennie Companiy, or ChVKs, have become the go-to option for Russian military activities abroad. Official and deniable. Under the Russian constitution, any deployment of ChVK personnel must be approved by the upper house of parliament. But here's where it gets interesting. If the company's registered abroad, Russia and its parliament are not legally responsible."

"SF12, yes, is going its own merry way, doing whatever…"

"Basically, yeah. I mean, this is Russia we're talking about, so they're almost certainly paying a hefty percentage to the Kremlin for the privilege of staying in business, but… yeah."

"So on the one hand you've got the official company, with a turnover of…"

"Exactly."

"And you say that the offshoot company, whatever it's called, is registered in the BVI?" Eve says.

"All transparent and above board?"

"And meanwhile the not-so-official, foreign-registered arm --"

"SF12."

"A hundred and seventy million dollars, give or take. SFG handle everything from security for hospitals, airports and gas pipelines to military adviser contracts."

Max Linder has specified that, for the duration of his private gathering, the female catering staff of the Felsnadel should wear the uniform of the Bund Deutscher Mädel, the female equivalent of the Hitler Youth. Accordingly, Villanelle is wearing a blue skirt, a short-sleeved white blouse, and a black neckerchief secured by a leather woven knot. Her hair, still damp from her tepid shower, is in a short pigtail. She's holding a circular tray of cocktails.

"Exactly. Whatever weird dark-side shit it feels like."

"No, sir."

Her smile tightens. It's Roger Baggot, in a loud tweed suit.

"Cocktails, sir. This is a Zionist, this is a Snowflake, and this is an Angry Feminist."

He roars with laughter. "Well, you're a sharp little piece of work, aren't you? What's your name?"

"I take it you're not a feminist, Violette?"

"So what have we here, fräulein?"

"Probably because it's difficult to get it to go down, sir."

There are perhaps twenty guests in the dining hall, which is set with a single long table. Apart from those she arrived with, Villanelle recognises a number of prominent far-right figures from Scandinavia, Serbia, Slovenia and Russia. Most have entered into the spirit of the occasion. There are polished boots, cross-straps and daggers hanging from stable-belts. Magali Le Meur has a forage cap pinned to her blonde up-do, while Silas Orr-Hadow is sporting lederhosen and white knee socks.

"What's in this one?"

"Mostly Crème de Menthe and Fernet Branca."

"Violette, sir."

"So why's it called an Angry Feminist?"

Baggot retreats, grinning bemusedly, and at that moment, to loud whoops and applause, Max Linder enters the dining hall. It's Villanelle's first sight of the man she has come to kill, and she takes a long hard look. Elegant in a high-buttoning Bavarian trachten jacket, his platinum-blond quiff shining in the spotlight, Linder looks less like a politician than a member of a fascistically inclined boy band. His smile reveals orthodontically perfect teeth, but there's something avid about it too. A twist to the lips that suggests a hunger for the extreme.

"Over there, sir. And for the record, sir, until the establishment of the Fourth Reich, we're in fucking Austria."

"Glad to hear it. Now please point me to where I can get some decent beer. We're in fucking Germany, after all."

They sit down to dinner, Linder taking the head of the table. As the courses come and go -- lobster thermidor, roasted boar with juniper, crêpes Suzette flambés, Dachsteiner and Bergkäse cheese -- Villanelle and the other serving women pour the accompanying wines and spirits. As she does so, Villanelle catches fragments of the diners' conversations. Max Linder is sitting next to Inka Järvi, but spends much of the meal talking across her to Todd Stanton.

"You'll see. Wait in the entrance hall after the meal."

"And the cost?" Inka Järvi interjects, as Villanelle pours Stanton's wine.

"You should have gone earlier. Right now, you need to return to the guests."

"Well now…" Stanton begins, but at that moment Villanelle sees Birgit beckoning to her from the other end of the room.

The American, his face flushed, drains his etched crystal glass of Schloss Gobelsburg Riesling, and indicates to Villanelle that he wants it refilled. "Look, Max, the population of Austria is eight and three-quarter million. Four and three-quarters of those use the same social media platform. Mine that data, and you'll know more about those dumb motherfuckers than they know about themselves."

"Whom are you addressing, Violette?"

"So what does it involve?"

"No problem, Birgit. Where's the staff toilet, by the way? I need to --"

Birgit tells Villanelle that she is to take part in a ceremony in front of the hotel at the meal's conclusion.

"Can you guarantee the result?" Linder asks Stanton.

"I'm sorry. What does it involve, Birgit?"

Villanelle stares at her, then slowly turns and walks back to her place. Stanton, his face by now flushed a livid mauve, is still talking across Inka Järvi to Linder. "I said, dude, think about it. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a musical. Give me one motherfucking reason why not."

"Birgit, I've been standing up for an hour and a half."

"I'm not interested. Exercise some self-control."

It comes as a shock to see him on crutches, with one foot in an orthopaedic boot. She'd forgotten that he's broken his ankle. Forgotten about the boy stepping into the road, the accident, the entire phone conversation. The realisation freezes her to the spot, and when she lunges forward to give Niko a hug she almost pushes him off balance. "I'm sorry," she says, wrapping her arms around his chest. "I'm so, so sorry."

On the bus going home, squashed into her seat by an obese man who smells of damp hair and beer, Eve attempts to organise her thoughts. Beyond the rain-streaked windows, Warren Street tube station and the Euston Road intersection pass in an illuminated blur, so familiar that she only half sees them. She's left Billy with instructions to find out all he can about Rinat Yevtukh, and to search the darkest reaches of cyberspace for any mention of Villanelle. She feels a rush of exhilaration. It's good to be back. Venice is already a dream, and now she's going home to Niko. And the goats.

"That's all?"

"For what?"

He smiles faintly. "They did suggest some exercises I could do to make the bone mend faster."

"I mean ankle. What did they say at the hospital?"

"Working with him, hanging out with him…"

"Better than I expected. Street-smart but socially dysfunctional, like a lot of older field agents." She tells him the Noel Edmonds story.

"How was it with Lance?"

"How was it? You mean working with him?"

"Yeah, I just wanted to…" She shakes her head. "Tell me about your foot."

"Ankle."

"Smooth."

He shrugs. "That it's fractured."

He's made a stew. Ham hock, Polish sausage, porcini mushrooms and juniper berries. Two cold bottles of Baltika beer stand next to the casserole dish. It's a lot better than anything she had in Venice. "I spent half a day in the main police station, and it only occurred to me afterwards that that's where I should have asked where to go to eat. Cops always know."

"I don't know. Being a shit wife. Not being here. Everything."

"You're here now. Hungry?"

"So have you been doing them?"

"Ah, those exercises." She touches his face. "Perhaps we could pencil something in for tomorrow night?"

"We could make a start now."

"No, they involve you."

"I'm pretty wiped out. And you look tired too. Why don't we watch TV in bed? You choose something. I'll clear up."

Taking her phone from her bag, she runs a search for "Villanelle, scent" and is directed to the website of Maison Joliot, in the rue du Faubourg St Honoré in Paris. The perfumery has been owned by the same family for many generations, and its most expensive range is named Poésies. It comprises four fragrances: Kyrielle, Rondine, Triolet and Villanelle. All come in identical vials, the first three with a white ribbon at the neck. The fourth, Villanelle, has a scarlet ribbon.

"I suppose I could settle for that. Will you put the girls to bed?"

Thelma and Louise bleat and snicker as Eve orders them off the sofa and dispatches them to their quarters. Hearing the clump of Niko's orthopaedic boot in the bedroom, she remembers Claudio's neat, tanned feet in the velvet loafers embroidered with the Forlani crest. Claudio, she reflects, would not see the point of the goats at all.

"I may at some point have mentioned something to that effect, yes."

Gazing at the screen, Eve is possessed with a sudden and unexpected longing. She's always thought of herself as a fundamentally cerebral person, contemptuous of extravagance. But gazing at the tiny image on the screen, she feels her certainties shifting. Recent events have taught her that she is not as immune to luxury and the purely sensual things of life as she once thought. Venice at nightfall, the weightless caress of the Laura Fracci dress, the touch of a six-thousand-euro bracelet on her wrist. All so seductive, and all in some essential sense so corrupt, so cruel. Villanelle, she reads, was the favourite scent of the Comtesse du Barry. The perfume house added the red ribbon after she was guillotined in 1793.

"Niko, sweetie," Eve calls out. "You know you say you love me."

"Because there's something I'd really, really like. Some scent."

At the Felsnadel Hotel, the meal is in its terminal stages, with bottles of Cognac, Sambuca, Jägermeister and other spirits circulating. Leonardo Venturi, his tiny hands cradling a balloon glass of Bisquit Interlude Reserve brandy, is explaining his personal philosophy to Magali Le Meur. "We are the descendants of the grail knights," he says, glaring at her breasts through his monocle. "New men, beyond good and evil."

"And new women, perhaps?"

"When I say men, I mean women too, naturally."

In the entrance hall, Birgit issues Villanelle and the other serving women with floor-length black cloaks and long-handled combustible torches. Villanelle has asked once again to be allowed to go to the toilet, and has once again been refused. Sympathetic glances from her fellow staff members suggest that they've been victims of the same obsessively controlling behaviour. Ordering them outside onto the snow-covered plateau in front of the hotel, Birgit positions the serving women in lines of six on either side of the helicopter landing pad. This has now been swept of snow and converted into a music stage, with speaker-towers to left and right. At the front of the stage is a microphone stand, at the rear a drum-kit bearing the Panzerdämmerung logo.

"Naturally."

When the twelve women are in place, Birgit walks to each of them in turn and lights the wicks of their torches with an electronic gas lighter. "When the guests come out, lift the torches up in front of you, as high as you can," she orders them. "And on pain of dismissal, do not move."

"Friends," he begins, raising his hands to silence the applause. "Welcome to Felsnadel. I can't tell you how inspiring it is to see you all here. In a minute the band are going to start playing, but before they do, I just want to say this. As a movement, we're gathering speed. The dark European soul is awakening. We're creating a new reality. And that's in great part due to all of you. We're winning supporters every day, and why? Because we're fucking sexy."

Pausing, Linder acknowledges the cheers of his guests.

It's piercingly cold, and Villanelle pulls her cloak around her. The burning oil in the torches sputters faintly in the frozen air. Ice particles swirl on the wind. Finally the guests saunter out of the hotel, warmly wrapped in coats and furs, and Villanelle raises her flaming torch in front of her. The guests arrange themselves on either side of the stage and then Linder appears, picked out by a spotlight, and marches to the microphone.

"What woman, and what sensible man, doesn't fancy a bad-boy nationalist? Everyone wants to be us, but most people just don't dare. And to all those sad liberal snowflakes out there, I say this. Watch out, bitches. If you're not at the high table with us, tasting the glory, you're on the menu."

She starts to sing, her fingers picking softly at the strings. The song is about loss, about forgotten rituals, extinguished flames and the death of tradition. Her voice hardens and her guitar-playing, underlined now by Klaus Lorenz's bass, takes on a steely resonance. She doesn't move or sway but just stands there, motionless except for the dance of her fingers. For a long moment she stares straight at Villanelle, expressionless.

This time the whoops and cheers are deafening. As they finally die away Linder steps to one side of the stage and the three members of Panzerdämmerung enter from the other. As Klaus Lorenz slips his arm through the strap of a bass guitar, and Peter Lorenz takes his place behind the drums, Petra Voss walks to the microphone. She's dressed in a white blouse, calf-length skirt and boots, and carrying a blood-red Fender Stratocaster guitar slung like an assault rifle.

Villanelle stares back, and then turns her attention to the guests, who stand rapt in the flickering torchlight. Max Linder is watching them too. His gaze scans the group dispassionately, noting their reactions to the spectacle that he has created for them.

On the drums, Peter Lorenz has been maintaining a ticking backbeat, but now he ramps up the pace. A recorded track of a political speech, ranting and incoherent, counterpoints Petra Voss's edgy, insinuating guitar. The drums continue to build until all other sound is annihilated. It's the sound of battalions marching through the night, of lands laid waste, and as it reaches a climax and stops dead, a starburst of spotlights pierces the darkness, illuminating the surrounding mountain peaks. It's an awesome sight, ghostly and desolate in the ringing silence. The guests break into applause, and Villanelle, taking advantage of the diversion, lengthily and copiously pisses herself.

Eve and Niko doze through most of the TV show they're watching in bed. Opening her eyes to discover the end-titles rolling, Eve reaches for the remote control. For several minutes she lies there in near-darkness, her thoughts vague, as Niko shifts beside her. Every time he moves he's twitched into wakefulness by his fractured ankle, but eventually fatigue and codeine prevail, and he sleeps.

Claudio. Suppose she'd let him kiss her. How would it have gone from there?

The kiss itself would have been brief and efficient. A formal statement of his intention and of her acquiescence. He would have taken her somewhere in the palazzo, into some suggestively appointed chamber for which he always carried the key. There would be few words and no wasted time. He would be a serial womaniser with a well-worn routine, refined by scores or perhaps hundreds of such encounters. The choreography would be fluent and the narrative arc conventional, proceeding to a showy money-shot for which she would be expected to display gasping and incredulous gratitude. He would be back in his clothes within minutes, his handmade loafers barely cooler than when he kicked them off. She would be left with a crumpled dress, the musky taint of his cologne, and sticky breasts.

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.

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.

I climbed in one night to watch you sleep.

After a while she turns onto her side. Niko is watching her, his gaze unblinking.