Why was it necessary to incapacitate Greco in this way before shooting him? It’s a question that’s nagged Eve for some time, and she’s no nearer to finding an answer than she was on the day that she first read the file. Given that the assassination took place in an essentially public location, wouldn’t it have made sense to get it over with quickly? Why, with discovery possible at any moment, would the killer want to drag things out?
Eve is still pondering this question when she arrives back at the flat in Finchley a few minutes before eight o’clock. Her husband, Niko, is not there; he’s gone ahead to the bridge club where he instructs three evenings a week. He’s left a pierogi—a Polish dumpling dish—in the oven, which Eve retrieves gratefully. She’s not much of a cook and hates having to prepare meals from scratch when she arrives back after a long day at Thames House.
As she eats, she watches the eight o’clock news summary on the BBC. There’s a warning of a cold front coming in from the east (“Make sure your boilers are serviced!”), an overwhelmingly bleak piece about the economy, and an imported clip of a rally in Moscow, where an impassioned, bearded figure is addressing an attentive crowd in a snow-whitened square. A blurry caption identifies him as Виктор Кедрин.
Eve leans forward in her seat, a forkful of pierogi suspended in her hand. Despite the poor image-quality, Viktor Kedrin’s magnetism is palpable. She strains to hear his words behind the commentator’s voice-over, but the clip cuts to a story of an orphaned kitten adopted by a chihuahua.
When she’s finished eating, Eve exchanges her work clothes for jeans, a sweater and a zip-up windproof jacket. The result is unsatisfactory, but she can’t be bothered to give it more thought. She looks around the flat, from the waist-high stacks of books in the narrow front hall to the clothes hanging from the drying-rack in the kitchen. If and when I get pregnant, she tells herself, we’re going to need somewhere bigger. For a moment, she allows her thoughts to linger on the airy red-brick mansions in Netherhall Gardens, just five minutes’ walk away. A first-floor apartment in one of those would be perfect. And about as likely to come into her and Niko’s possession as Buckingham Palace. The combined salaries of a Security Services officer and a teacher just didn’t stretch to that sort of place. If they wanted somewhere larger, they’d have to move further out. Barnet, perhaps. Or Totteridge. She rubs her eyes. Even the thought of moving is exhausting.
She zips up her windproof. The club is ten minutes away, and as she walks, she thinks of that cold front coming in from the east. It seems to promise not just ice and snow, but menace.
It’s a tournament night at the West Hampstead Bridge Club, and the place is filling fast. The game room is laid out with folding baize-topped tables and stackable plastic chairs. It’s warm after the chill of the streets, and there’s an animated buzz of conversation round the bar.
Eve spots Niko Polastri, her husband, straight away. He’s playing a practice hand with three beginners, his gaze attentive, his movements economical. Even at a distance Eve can see from their body language how anxious the novices are to impress him. A woman with teased blonde hair leads a card, and Niko regards it for a moment before picking it up and returning it to her with a grave smile. She looks confused for a moment, then her hand flies to her mouth and everyone at the table laughs.
Niko has the gift of imparting knowledge with grace and humour. In the North London school where he teaches maths he’s popular with the pupils, who are generally acknowledged to be a tough bunch. At the club, where he is one of four senior instructors, the members compete openly for his approval, with even the flintiest veterans melting at a word of praise for a stylishly executed finesse, or a contract made against the odds.
Eve met Niko four years ago, when she first joined the club. At the time she was less interested in improving her bridge-playing than in finding a social life disconnected from the intense, inward-looking hive of Thames House. A social life that would hopefully feature an attractive, intelligent man. In her mind’s eye she saw a suave figure, his features not quite discernible, leading her up a broad flight of steps to a smart West End restaurant.
The bridge club, whose members had an average age somewhere north of fifty, did not deliver such a man. Had she wished to meet retired accountants and widowed dentists, it would have been just the place, but attractive single men under forty were thin on the ground. Niko wasn’t there when she first presented herself; she and a couple of other prospective members were attended to by Mrs. Shapiro, the blue-haired club secretary.
Dispirited by the experience, she was in two minds about going back the next week. But she went, and this time Niko was there. A tall man with patient brown eyes and the moustache of a nineteenth-century cavalry officer, he took charge of Eve from the moment she arrived, squiring her to a table, summoning two more players, and partnering her without comment for half-a-dozen hands. Then, dismissing the others, he faced her over the green baize table.
“So, Eve. Good news, or not-so-good news?”
“Not-so-good news first, I think.”
“OK. Well, you understand the basics of the game. You learnt as a child?”
“My parents both played, yes.”
“And you like, very much, to win.”
Eve meets his gaze. “Is it that obvious?”
“To others, maybe not. You like to play the myszka, the mouse. But I see the fox.”
“Is that good?”
“It could be. But you have faults.”
“A faulty fox?”
“Exactly. If you’re going to play a strategic game, you need to know very early on where all the cards are. To do this, you need to concentrate harder on your opponents’ play. You need to remember the bidding, and count every suit.”
“Right.” She digested this for a moment. “So what’s the good news?”
“The good news is that there’s a very nice pub just five minutes away.”
She laughed. They were married later that year.
Eve’s bridge partner tonight is a young guy, perhaps nineteen, one of a trio of students from Imperial College who joined the club in the autumn. He’s got a slightly mad-scientist look about him, but he’s a ferociously good player, and at the West Hampstead that’s what counts.
After her initial uncertainty, Eve has come to look forward to her evenings here. Some of the members are her parents’ age and even, in one or two cases, her grandparents’. But the standard of play is fierce, and after a rigorous day at Thames House she appreciates the idea of intellectual challenge for its own sake.
At the end of the evening she thanks her partner. They’ve finished fourth overall, a good result, and he grins a little awkwardly and shuffles off. At the entrance Niko helps her into her zip-up waterproof jacket as if it was a Chanel coat, a tiny act of chivalry that does not go unnoticed by other female members, who glance at Eve enviously.
“So how was your day?” she asks him, linking her arm tightly through his as they make their way back towards the flat. It’s just started to snow, and she blinks as the flakes touch her face.
“The Year 11 boys would have a better understanding of differential calculus if they didn’t all stay up until two in the morning playing Final Attrition 2. Or maybe not. How about you?”
She hesitates. “I’ve got a problem for you. I’ve been trying to figure it out all day.”