Killing Eve: Bloodline (18)

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

            The following morning, Balice is at her desk in Vauxhall, reading the report from the A4 Watcher team deployed in Kensington Park Gardens. It confirms that the person taken to St Mary's Hospital in Paddington during the early hours of the morning was Valentin Dominik, and that he is currently in the hospital's Intensive Care unit. The team also logged a phone call made from the Dominik house by Anastasia at 9:05 am to the Kensington Extermination Bureau, concerning the presence in her house of a plus-size rat.

            More immediately concerning is the report from SO15, the Counter-terrorist Command, to the effect that Gyorgiy Peskov, a senior GRU officer and the surviving suspect from the Poodlefaker nightclub incident, has succeeded in escaping from police custody, despite serious injury, while in transit to the Bayford detention centre in Hertfordshire. His current location is unknown.

            Balice stares at her screen for a full minute. Then she opens a desk drawer, selects a phone from a jumble of half a dozen, conducts a quick online search, and inputs the number of the Kensington Extermination Bureau. 'Hello,' she begins. 'Anastasia Dominik here...'

---

 

---

           Eve looks around her. The Intensive Care unit is bright, and smells faintly of cleaning fluid. Valentin is in a bed by a window overlooking the Regents Canal, separated from the other patients by a pale green curtain. He is asleep, his face transparently pale against the pillows. A cannula is taped to his left wrist. Only the just-detectible rise and fall of his chest indicates that he is alive.

            'How is he?' she asks.

            A young woman with a name-tag identifying her as Indrani Sen, Senior IC Physician, lowers the chart that she's been reading. 'He's not well,' she says. 'He suffered a major head trauma last night, and this caused intercranial bleeding, which could have been fatal. But we caught him in time.' She fits an intravenous line to the cannula with brisk, economical movements.

            Villanelle stares at Valentin. 'It was my fault,' she says quietly.

            'Haemophilia is no-one's fault, ' Dr Sen says. 'It's caused by a deficiency of clotting factors in the blood.'

            'But he'll be OK?'

            'This time, probably.' Dr Sen regards Villanelle quizically.

            'I brought him some sandwiches. Meatball and parmesan.'

            'Let's hope he wakes up hungry.' Dr Sen gives them a professional smile. 'I may see you later.'

            'Do you really think it's your fault?' Eve asks, when she's gone.

            'Well, if I hadn't gone down there in the first place...'

            'You might as well say it's the rat's fault.'

            'The rat won't be there for long. I heard Anastasia ringing the pest control people this morning.' Villanelle plants herself gracelessly in a chair. 'I hate hospitals.'

            'Why?'

            'My mother died in one. The last time I saw her she was like a ghost.'

            'How old were you?'

            'Six or seven. I remember rows of metal beds. Grey blankets. It was cold, and smelt of piss and shit. And death.'

            'I'm so sorry, angel.'

            Villanelle shrugs. 'I don't want to die like that. Alone.'

            'She was alone when she died?'

            'Yes. It was night.'

            'Babe, you're not going to die.'

            Villanelle gazes at the pale green curtain, her eyes unfocused. 'One day.'

            Eve sits down next to her. She wraps her arms around Villanelle's neck. 'Never,' she says.

            Villanelle leans her head against Eve's. She closes her eyes. 'Keep me safe, detka.'

            An hour later Valentin is still sleeping. 'We're going to have to take turns to watch him,' Eve says. 'If you don't mind doing the rest of today, I'll do tonight.'

            Villanelle nods. 'OK. Go home and get some sleep. You must be exhausted.'

            'I am.' Eve flicks a glance at her.

            Villanelle narrows her eyes. 'What?'

            'Just... You thinking of how I'm feeling.'

            'I think about you all the time.'

            Eve touches Villanelle's cheek, then stands, walks over to the towering hospital bed, and stares at Valentin. 'I feel so sorry for him.'

            'I know. Haemophilia. That's so shitty.'

            'Yes, it's a horrible disease, but I'm thinking more of this whole Sanctify business. Becoming an official Romanov descendant and being thrown into Russian politics. I mean, honestly, can you think of anyone less suited to all that. They'll eat him alive over there. If they don't kill him first.'

            'He has to do it. It's his destiny. And he said...'

            'I know what he said, but that was just to please Nikolai. He's fucking terrified.'

            'He said that?'

            'Oxana, he doesn't need to say anything. Can't you tell?'

            'No. I can't. In Russia he will be an important person. A person with power and status and responsibility. A person with the blood of the Romanovs in his veins.'

            'Tainted blood. Look at him.'

            'He'll be a symbol of everything people think they've lost. Order, instead of chaos. Tradition, instead of living like... like greedy fucking pigs. What's he going to do here? Go to nightclubs with a lot of other spoiled kids, take drugs, and get shit-faced?'

            'God, I can't believe you're being so-'

            'This is our job, Eve. This is literally why we're here. To keep him safe, and deliver him to his new life.'

            'He doesn't want a new life.'

            'That's not our concern.'

            'It's wrong, Oxana.'

            'Are you serious?'

            Eve's head sinks. Villanelle takes it in her hands and lifts it so that Eve's eyes are level with hers. 'Look at me, babe. Look at me. You like our life? Because everything that we are, and everything that we have, is bought and paid for by the Twelve. Everything. So don't give me right and wrong, OK?'

            Eve closes her eyes.

            'We have to finish this, detka? We have to see it through.'

            Eve nods dully, and at that moment Valentin stirs. Eve disengages herself. 'I should go. Please be careful.'

            'I'll be fine, OK?' Villanelle touches her lips to the point of Eve's nose. 'What will I be, babe? Tell me."

            'Fine,' Eve whispers.

---

---

            I have such a bad feeling about this. And behind all the tough talk, and the pragmatism, I know Oxana does too. She's trying so hard to get into the habit of looking at the world through other eyes than her own, mine especially, but she finds it a struggle. Part of her is terrified that if she relaxes her maniacal inward focus she'll become declawed, like the cat, while another part knows that she can't go on like this forever. Not if she doesn't want to die alone. So she asks me how I feel, and she tries her best to act like a loving partner, and I tell her how touched I am by her efforts, and how proud of her, and somewhere in all of this we go on reaching for each other in the dark - needing each other, longing for each other - and I tell myself that there's never going to be an end-point, a higher state of love, but that this is it, this ongoing electric storm, right here, right now.