Killing Eve: Bloodline (26)

The twenty-sixth episode of a new Killing Eve adventure, published exclusively on Substack

‘Phew, babe.’ Oxana begins to pull Eve’s sweater over her head, but it catches on a hair clip. ‘When did you last have a bath?’

Eve reaches for the clip, works the neck of the sweater free of her face, and shakes out her hair. ‘Maybe… yesterday morning. Or perhaps the night before. I was worried, angel.’ She drops the sweater on a chair and pecks a kiss at Oxana’s nose. ‘I just kind of forgot.’

‘I’m sorry I upset you.’ Oxana lifts Eve’s arm, runs her tongue along the inside of her bicep, and kisses the wet skin. ‘But you understand why I-’

Eve closes her eyes. ‘I could have a shower,’ she murmurs.

‘No, all our wet clothes are hanging up in the shower. Besides...’

‘Besides what?”

‘You smell sexy.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. Like you, but… more so.’

‘So kiss me again. Same place. Finish undressing me.’

Oxana complies. Her hair, damp and sharp-smelling, reminds Eve of the wheat fields outside. ‘Get into bed,’ she murmurs.

‘Do you think Valentin can hear us?’

‘No. Go.’

Eve crawls beneath the covers. Shivering, she kicks at the bedclothes. and watches as Oxana, golden-skinned in the lamp-light, arches her back to unhook her bra. ‘Hurry, angel.’

‘I am hurrying.’ Oxana kicks off her knickers, and overbalancing, falls onto the bed. ‘I’m also quite drunk.’

‘Get in.’

‘I am. I am.’

Eve shudders. ‘Angel, your feet. Like ice. Come here.’ She enfolds them both in a tangle of sheets and blankets, pushes her knee between Oxana’s thighs, and rolls on her back, so that Oxana is pressing down on her.

‘Warmer, baby bee?’

‘Mmm.’ Eve takes Oxana’s head between her hands and directs Oxana’s mouth to the valley between her breasts. ‘Getting there.’

She kills me, as always, and brings me back to life again. How is that the better we know each other’s body, the more desperate becomes our need to explore, to scour, to devour? There are no roles here, no familiar routines. It’s terra incognita every time.

On my part, there’s the steady amazement that this ferocious seeker after sensation - my lover, my Oxana - keeps discovering new possibilities in me. Perhaps this not-quite-believing is central to our need for each other. She claims, in her airy, full-of-herself way, to know exactly what I see and desire in her, but that’s just her bullshit. She doesn’t. She couldn’t.

Somehow, in our stumbling way, we’re moving forward. I always knew that we shared a language of wanting, a language of sighs and whispers, of agile fingers and warm tongues, but I wasn’t sure whether we could go further. In the shadow world we live in, it didn’t seem possible.

It’s well after midnight, and Oxana is lying in the crook of Eve’s arm, eyes closed and mouth open, drifting towards sleep.

‘What you did,’ Eve says. ‘Saving Valentin. I still can’t get over it. Honestly, it makes me teary-eyed.’

Oxana murmurs indistinctly.

‘It was a crazy thing to do, but the right one. And I love you so much for doing it. But I have to ask. Are we like, on the run for ever?’ Eve strokes Oxana’s cheek. ‘I mean, if we are, I’m in, all the way, the full Thelma and Louise. But-’

‘Mmm?’

‘Everyone’s going to be after us. Everyone. And we’ve got, basically, well… Just the clothes we stand up in. We’re not going to last five minutes.’

‘Then, lyubimaya, we have to make the most of those five minutes.’ Oxana’s eyes are still closed. ‘Make them forever.’

‘I’m terrified, babe.’

‘Don’t you trust me.’

‘I do. Of course I do, but-’

‘This situation isn’t everything it seems. I’ve been trying to figure it out all day. I’m almost there, but now…’ Oxana’s voice trails off. ‘Now I need to sleep.’ And with that she begins to snore.

---

---

It’s morning, and Balice is in bed, sipping Rose Pouchong tea, and watching a Russian news channel on her phone. In Moscow’s Red Square, beneath a steel-grey sky, President Tikhomirov is addressing his supporters. It looks as if it’s a cold day - the president is wearing a heavy coat and fur hat - but there’s no mistaking the enthusiasm of the cheering crowd. Pausing the film-clip, Balice coughs. She takes off her reading glasses and bats the air. ‘Bili. Bili?’

Bili, in shorts and a singlet, peers into the bedroom. ‘What?’

‘Is something on fire?’

‘I’m making breakfast, skupa. Steak. You want some?’

Balice is saved having to answer by the smoke alarm, which goes off with a series of piercing shrieks. She clamps her hands over her ears as Bili takes a broom, and jabs at the alarm with the handle. Eventually the noise stops, leaving Balice with ringing ears.

‘Bili, what the actual fuck are you doing cooking steak at seven-thirty in the morning?’

‘I have a heavy day. Weight training. Preparing for my MI6 interview.’

‘They’re not going to ask you to do bench-presses.’

‘It says on the website: “The Service is looking for candidates prepared to do the heavy lifting.”

Balice sighs. ‘Sweet girl, come here.’

They sit together against the pillows. Balice sips her tea, and restarts the news clip on her phone. Bili chews unhurriedly on her steak. ‘Volkonskaya is going to have to come up with something very special if she’s going to win voters around to her traditionalist programme,’ the commentator announces. ‘So far, all the polls have called this election for Tikhomirov.’

‘Did you find out what happened to Oxana and Eve ?’ Bili asks. ‘Didn’t they have some connection to all this.’

Balice doesn’t answer. She switches off her phone, leans back against the pillows, and closes her eyes. The ensuing silence is broken by a tiny squeak from a cardboard box on the floor, followed by another, and another, and another. Balice looks at Bili. ‘Is that what I think it is?’

Bili swings her legs from the bed, and peeks into the box. She looks wonderingly back at Balice. ‘Yes,’ she whispers. ‘Alice is now a mother. A single mother of twelve. We need a bigger flat.’

---

---

Outside the shepherds huts, the fields are a dim vapourous grey. Dew shines in the long grass. Eve and Oxana are sitting on the top step of their hut, blankets draped round their shoulders.

‘Coffee,’ says Valentin, handing them steaming mugs.

‘Thank you.’ Eve smiles. ‘Our domestic god.’

‘I actually quite like all that kitchen stuff. I should teach myself to cook.’

‘That would make some girl very happy.’

He looks away. ‘Not one I’ve ever met.’

‘Maybe you’re not looking in the right places,’ Oxana says.

Valentin grins. ‘You’re probably right.’ He stands. ‘I don’t want to miss the light when the sun lifts out of those clouds, so if you don’t mind…’

‘Go,’ Eve says. ‘Draw. We’re not going anywhere.’

They watch as he goes, leaving dark tracks in the wet grass. Oxana leans her head on Eve’s shoulder. ‘I’ve worked it out,’ she says. ‘At least I think I have.’

‘Worked what out?’

‘This whole thing. I think I’ve subconsciously known… not all along, but-’

‘You’re being mysterious,’ Eve says. Above the horizon, the sky is streaked with yellow.

‘Last night, before I went to sleep, I asked myself a question.’

‘Go on.’

‘Why did I bring Valentin here? To a place known to Johnny Fernandes? Why not some completely random spot?’

‘OK. Why did you?’

‘Because part of me knew that Johnny meant me to take Valentin. He wanted us hidden somewhere that was known to him, but not to Balice or Volkonskaya’s people.’

‘What’s Volkonskaya got to do with this?’

Oxana scratches the scar on her cheekbone and settles herself more comfortably against Eve. ‘Tikhomirov, right? He was always the Twelve’s guy. No one knows that better than us.’

‘I guess.’ Eve sips her coffee. ‘So why was it was all suddenly about Anna?’

‘It never really was.’

‘But… the Dominiks, the Romanov stuff…’

‘All play acting. A performance. Starring us.’

‘You’ve lost me.’

‘OK, I don’t swear that this is the truth. But every instinct in my body tells me it is. The Twelve need Tikhomirov in the Kremlin. He’s their man. But he’s getting complacent, as Russian presidents do. He doesn’t appreciate the threat posed by Volkonskaya. He doesn’t smell the wind.’

‘OK.’

‘So the Twelve decide to give him a fright. To remind him just who put him where he is. They want him to win the election, but they want him to know that the presidency is the Twelve’s to give, and to take. So. They’ve discovered somehow that Volkonskaya has this… kozyr’

‘Trump card.’

‘Yes, this trump card. Valentin. And that this trump card, skilfully played, could place Volkonskaya in the Kremlin. So they pretend to back her, and to back the Nikolai plan, and in response Volkonskaya doubles down. She promises a new era. A return of the old values, symbolised by the Romanovs. She prepares to reveal Valentin, like a conjuror.’

Eve slowly nods. ‘But at the vital moment, there’s no rabbit in the hat.’

‘Exactly. The rabbit has run.’

‘As rabbits do.’

Oxana nods. ‘You and I thought we were acting for ourselves, saving Valentin from a political role he was never suited to, and possible assassination. We thought we were doing the right thing. And, I promise, detka, I brought him here because you made me see that.. that we had to. I did it for you. Because I love you.’

‘Oh babe.’ Eve pulls Oxana to her.

‘But the truth is, we were doing exactly what we were meant to. And now Tikhomirov will win, but he will have been given a bad scare, and reminded just who calls the shots.’

Eve shakes her head. Above them, the sky is now a turbid oyster grey. ‘But… why didn’t Johnny just tell us what to do.’

Oxana smiles. ‘He’s an artist. He likes to set up the game, and then see it play out in front of him, move after move. And he’s right. To be believable to a sophisticated audience, everything has to happen… organically.’

‘Like Balice slowly losing control of the situation?’

‘Yes, aided by Bili, another of Johnny’s star players.’

Eve slowly exhales. ‘So we’re not penniless and unemployed?’

‘My guess is no. We’re exactly where we’re supposed to be.’

‘And you just…’ Eve shakes her head. ‘You just figured all this out? You amaze me, angel. You always will. So what happens now?’

‘Now? I think we should go for a walk in the woods, while the weather holds.’

Eve kisses her hair. ‘OK. Let’s do that.’

THE END