Killing Eve: Bloodline (1)

The first episode of a new Killing Eve adventure, published exclusively on Substack

            Balice St Clair glances at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, and is happy with what she sees. A neat, poised woman in her mid-thirties. Chin-length bob, good bones, and a quietly unflinching gaze. Her midnight-blue suit isn't new, but it doesn't need to be; it's McQueen.

            Not that the finer points of her appearence are likely to be much appreciated at this morning's meeting. The Russia Group, as it's informally called, is a loose assembly of Intelligence professionals, academics and Kremlin-whisperers. Most are middle-aged men with frayed ties and poorly maintained teeth, and in Balice's opinion not a single one of them is to be trusted. But it's worth hearing what they have to offer in return for a weekly place at the table in the MI6 building, a cup of Earl Grey tea, and a couple of Chocolate Digestive biscuits.

            On the way to the meeting room Balice glances out of one of the triple-glazed windows at the Thames. As the sunlit river sweeps under Vauxhall Bridge, it's almost amber in colour. Seeing it, Balice can't help thinking of the night, almost three months ago, when her plans came so horribly unstuck, and Villanelle and the Polastri woman escaped her. The one saving grace of the whole fiasco was that she had briefed the sniper in person, so there was no trail, no unofficial kill order waiting to be accounted for.

            The meeting of the group lasts its allotted hour. The main topic of conversation is the Russian presidency. The received wisdom is that Vadim Tikhomirov, the sitting president, has no long-term future. Anna Volkonskaya, an opposition candidate, has been making steady inroads into the public consciousness, and her nationalist-traditionalist programme poses a major threat to Tikhomirov and his regime, widely viewed as bullying and corrupt.

            Balice listens in silence. She knows about Volkonskaya, and suspects that she is aligned with the Twelve, although this is a view she doesn't share; the Twelve have people everywhere, quite possibly in this room. Balice herself has a single asset inside the Twelve, a low-level member who has provided no intelligence of obvious value, but has heard mention of an operation codenamed Sanctify, which appears to relate to the Russian election. What might the Twelve's agenda be, Balice wonders. Do they see their interests better served by the opposition candidate than the president? Sanctify?

            'Does Volkonskaya have the backing of the Orthodox Church?' she asks the room, speaking for the first time.

            'Very much so,' says one of the academics. 'She's seen as a champion of the old values. Duty, honour and religious observance. This is why she poses a threat to the pragmatic, secular Tikhomirov.'

            Balice sits in thoughtful silence as the meeting runs its course. Sanctify?

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          Villanelle and Polastri got away. That much is clear. Their bodies would have washed up by now; the Thames has never been a river to hold on to its dead. This means that they're out there, somewhere, and sooner or later they'll looking come for me. So be it. Let them come.

            I don't understand Villanelle. We were so good together. Hunter and prey, made for each other. And honestly, I'm quite a catch. Clever, beautiful and chic - what's not to adore? And yet she chooses boring, big-bum Polastri, who's none of these things. And yes, that hurts. Which is why it was Polastri that I was trying to kill. To hurt Villanelle right back.

            That was the idea, anyway. What's happened to 'E' Squadron? Time was, a quick phone call to the regimental HQ was enough. You could get on with your day, knowing that the whole thing would be dealt with speedily and efficiently. No embarrassing bodies turning up in suitcases, nothing like that. Perhaps my mistake was meeting the sniper in person beforehand. He was a Welshman with mad, glittering eyes, who told me that he'd never done a woman before, and that the rest of the lads were dead jealous. I told him that, as a feminist, I didn't like that sort of talk, and he got very huffy and affronted, accusing me of being a member of the woke mob.

            I was actually speechless when he shot the wrong woman because, although I hate to admit it, I do have feelings for Villanelle, faithless bitch that she is. I'm pretty sure he only winged her, though. She was certainly alive when Polastri dragged her over the bridge, and I'd bet anything that she's still alive now. The fact that big-bum (I can't quite bring myself to call her by her name) is also still in the picture is a major irritant. She dodged a bullet on this occasion, but her time will come, believe me.

            So where the fuck are they? In some Twelve safe-house? In Russia? I've put out feelers, and asked the DGSI to keep an eye on Villanelle's Paris flat, but no one's seen hide nor hair of them since that night. Which concerns me. I don't like loose ends.

            Eve Polastri squints as she gazes into the face of the sleeping Villanelle. It's late afternoon, and they're lying on a rug on the edge of a field of recently harvested wheat. A short distance away, in front of a spinney of beech and oaks, stands a green-painted shepherds hut. Actually a wagon on cast-iron wheels, the hut has been home to the pair for the last six weeks. It's situated on a thousand-acre farm near the West Sussex town of Barnham, between the South Downs and the sea. It's a lonely place, with wide, bright skies and endless views, and the hut is the only habitation visible. They've slept here, cooked on the tiny wood stove, and walked for miles as skylarks and lapwings wheel overhead.

            Lying there in the late afternoon sunshine, Eve wonders if she's ever been happier. She's too close to Villanelle to see her clearly; instead she has an impression of fractured light, of cropped, sun-bleached hair and freckled cheeks. And the track of the sniper's bullet, crawling across her face like a centipede. Seeing the still-raw scar, Eve feels a rush of tenderness. She watches as Villanelle’s eyelids flutter. What can she be dreaming of?

            We've needed this so badly, she and I. The chance to find some kind of equilibrium. To rediscover each other. To just be. I even get the Balice thing. We can't quite laugh about it yet, but I get it. She's pretty, despite that bony ass, and she was there. And it was very much Villanelle that she got. Not Oxana.

Oxana's mine, and Oxana loves me. Not in the broad, uncomplicated way that I love her, but that's because Villanelle's never completely absent. She's always hovering in the background, Oxana's dark shadow. Even here, in our little Arcadia. And Villanelle is pitiless and savage. She's the beast. But here's what I've come to understand: I love Oxana, and the last few weeks have been idyllic, but I need Villanelle too. I need the beast, and the beast needs me. I don't expect anyone to understand this (although Johnny Fernandes maybe has an inkling), and I don't care if no one does. I'm hers, and she's mine, and that all that anyone needs to know.

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          A butterfly, a Cabbage White, settles on Villanelle's hair, and tremulously spreads its wings. Villanelle's phone rings in her jeans pocket, and when she twitches and blinks awake, the butterfly takes off.  She watches it go, and holds the phone to her ear. A dozen hearbeats pass, and she lays the phone down. Her grey eyes meet Eve's. 'It's time, detka.'

            Eve looks around her. The bees in the clover, the shadowy trees, the shepherds hut, the shimmering horizon. She'll miss it all. And more than anything, she’ll miss those nights when the weather broke, the heavens opened, and the rain pounded on the corrugated iron roof above them. When that happened they burrowed into their narrow bed, whispering conspiratorially - anything, nothing - and held each other as tightly as if they were the only lovers left alive in the world.