Luke came over on Friday with wine and that easy, practiced smile, and Jane let herself be pulled into the familiar comfort of him — his arms, his warmth, the certainty of someone who knew her. She needed certain, right now. She needed ordinary.
They had dinner and talked about his football practice and her essay deadline and the weekend plans they might make. He was attentive and kind and said all the right things. Jane leaned across the table and thought: this is real. This is what I have. Whatever strange, inexplicable thing happened in that ballroom and on that pavement — this is real.
Later, after he'd gone, she found herself replaying the evening with a slightly clinical attention to detail that she didn't much like in herself. The way his phone had buzzed twice and he'd flipped it face-down both times. The moment she'd asked, lightly, what he was doing Saturday night, and there'd been a fraction of a pause — barely anything, just a quarter-second — before he said he was "probably just hanging with the lads."
She was being paranoid. She was projecting the unsettled feeling from the gala onto perfectly innocent behaviour.
She opened her laptop and tried to work on her essay.
She wrote exactly forty words before she gave up and went to bed.
~ * ~
In a sleek building in Mayfair, Dimitri Volkov sat at his desk at eleven p.m. and read through the file Anton had placed before him.
Jane Williams. Twenty-two. Literature student, Westbrook University. Born in Bristol. Father: Robert Williams, secondary school teacher. Mother: Claire Williams, primary school teacher. One younger sister, Emily, age eighteen. GPA: 3.8. Clean record. No debts beyond standard student loan. Rents a one-bedroom flat in Hammersmith. Takes the tube to university. Frequents a coffee shop on King Street. Visits the university library on average four times a week.
And then, near the bottom of the page, almost buried: Boyfriend: Luke Harrison, twenty-three, sports science student.
Dimitri looked at that line for a long time.
Then, with a deliberate calm that had nothing to do with indifference, he turned to the next page of the file.
Luke Harrison had a great many more pages devoted to him than Jane Williams.
Dimitri read every word.
By the time he closed the file, it was past midnight. He sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers and stared at the middle distance and felt something cold settle into the place where most men kept their guilt.
He didn't feel guilt. He was careful not to call what he felt by its true name, because he understood that naming a thing gave it a kind of power.
Instead, he pressed the intercom button on his desk.
"Anton."
"Sir." Anton's voice, steady as always, even at midnight.
"Continue the observation. I want updates daily."
A pause that was shorter than most men would have allowed. "Understood."
Dimitri released the button and returned to the file.
He turned to the photograph they'd included. Jane, outside the university, laughing at something on her phone, unaware of the camera. Natural. Unposed. A girl standing in the ordinary light of an ordinary afternoon.
He looked at it for a very long time.