Killing Eve: Resurrection (15)

The fifteenth instalment of a new Killing Eve story, published exclusively on Substack

 

           The meal is awful. One of those experimental affairs that French restaurateurs occasionally attempt in the hope of making a name for themselves. Konstantin, my former handler, used to say that the best French cooking went hand in hand with kitsch decor. If there are paintings of weeping urchins and sad-eyed clowns on the wall, you're probably in good hands. If it's all square plates and minimalist spotlights, as it is tonight, watch out.

            Balice and I share a table with William and Lorna Stalleybrass. The tour people have ordered a set menu and bottles of house red and white for each table, but William insists on ordering a bottle of very expensive St Emilion for himself, a decision which makes Lorna's eyes bulge even more than usual. To my amazement, everyone pounces on the entrée, profiteroles d'escargots. I'm starving, but snails in warm chocolate and whipped cream? I just can't, and the courses that follow are no more inviting. The result is that I eat next to nothing and drink far too much. Balice, quite delectable in black cashmere, insists on telling the story of how I rescued her Ferragamo bag - an event seen by none of the others because they were in the bus, facing in the other direction - and William claps his hands and shouts 'Brava, brava', as if he's at an opera performance. He asks me if I gave the thief 'what for', and I'm about to say something about Johnny Fernandes preventing me from smashing the guy's face in, but some instinct tells me to remain silent.

There are probably all sorts of good reasons for not sleeping with Balice, but when we get to her room I can't think of any of them. We're both quite drunk, and fly together like magnets. Within seconds, she's got her bracelet caught in my hair, and when we've finally got that sorted out, she starts pulling her sweater over her head, staggers, loses her balance, and falls sideways against an armchair. I laugh, but she gasps and says she actually hit her ribs quite hard, so I scoop her up, sweater and all, and drop her on the bed.

She's like I knew she would be. Soft-skinned and sinewy, cattish, devouring. It doesn't completely work between us, but it had to happen. At one point I ask her not to whisper to me in Russian and she says 'Oh, that's what she does, is it?', and things freeze up for a heartbeat or two, but we move past it. Afterwards she lies there, her cheek damp on my shoulder, drifting her fingertips and her sharp nails over my body. Her skin smells of the rose garden, but with a corrupt, sophisticated edge. She takes my upper lip between her teeth, and I wait for the warm taste of my blood, but she releases me unbitten, and I know in that moment that when it comes to the sticking point, she will betray me. I draw her close and kiss her so softly that our mouths barely touch. I know how this is going to end.

I wake much later, feeling queasy. Balice is asleep, snoring quietly, and looking at her neat little head on the pillow, I'm struck by the distance between us. We've done all the things that lovers do, but she's still a stranger. I slip out of bed, walk to the curtains, and draw them a few inches. There it is, the first flush of dawn, and I'm pierced by an ache I only dimly recognise. Outside the window, a bird starts to sing, and soon there's a chorus of them. Balice sleeps on. What I feel is loss.

'We should get up soon,' Balice says. 'Breakfast at eight.'

            Villanelle groans, her face buried in the pillow.

            'You shouldn't drink so much.'

            'I wouldn't be here if I hadn't drunk so much.'

            'Thanks a lot.'

            'What's the time, anyway?'

            'Seven forty-five.'

            'God. I feel shit.' Villanelle opens an eye. Balice is sitting up with her reading glasses on, tapping at her phone. 'Maybe I'll feel better if I have a shower.'

            Balice glances at her. 'Before you go, I should bring you up to date on Tiberius.'

            'Later. Please.'

            'We've got a girl. Local, from Nice. Porn actress.'

            'Mm.'

            'She's twenty-four, but looks much younger. Like, sixteen. She specialises in 'barely legal' roles.'

            'You trust her?'

            'My people do. Pressure has been brought to bear. Apparently she's never paid any tax. We've said we'd smooth that out.'

Villanelle's stomach heaves, and a sour taste rises in her throat. She bolts out of bed and into the bathroom, where she vomits noisily. There's a protracted sound of dry-heaving, and eventually she staggers back to the bed and collapses face down.

            'Poor baby.' Balice pats Villanelle. 'Nice bum, though.'

            'Get your hands off me.'

            'I will. You smell of sick.'

            'Mm. I'm not about to kiss you.'

            'Small mercies.' Balice lays her phone down on the bedside table. 'Anyway, this girl Sylvie-'

            'The barely legal?'

            'Yes. She's been as good as gold. There's a café in St-Sépulcre, near the old port in Nice, where Myrtha goes to pick up girls for Tiberius. She looks for teenage working-class types, and offers them money, serious money, to attend parties at Tiberius's villa and on his yacht. They get more if they're prepared to give massages and other 'extras'.'

            'Right.'

            'So our people brief Sylvie, she pitches up at the café every morning at eleven, and yesterday, bullseye. Myrtha's there. Our girl sits at the next table, all dewy and innocent, and sure enough Myrtha strikes up a conversation, and the upshot is that Sylvie's expected at the villa on Saturday.'

            'What's today?'

            'Wednesday.'

            'So. The day after the day after tomorrow.'

            'Yes, my sweet. That’s Saturday.'

            'What's she going there for?'

            'To be introduced to Tiberius.'

            'While we're being shown round the gardens?'

            'Got it in one.'

            'So do I get a chance to talk to her beforehand, this Sylvie?'

            'Tomorrow evening. We're arranging a meet.'

            'Do that. I'm going to get dressed and go back to my room now. I'll see you at breakfast.'

            'Please don't tell me you're hungry again.'

            'I do feel a very little better, as it happens.'

            'God, you're gross. Do your teeth.'

            'I already have. With your brush.'

The story continues…