Killing Eve: Resurrection (16)

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

 

        After breakfast the group is driven to Charles de Gaulle airport, and by midday they're in Avignon. Lunch in the Palace of the Popes is followed by a private tour of the Papal Gardens, then a trio of taxis takes them into the heart of the Provençal countryside. Their destination is the Pavillon du Rossignol, a pretty two-storey building faced in apricot stucco, with shutters of faded green. They're received by the Comtesse de Quincy, a slender, silver-haired figure in worn dungarees and tennis shoes.

           Villenelle, who has been avoiding Balice all day, follows the others to a shaded terrace, where drinks and pastries are laid out on side tables. She forks several chocolate eclairs onto a plate, and drifts around the terrace, listening without interest to the various conversations. In the garden below, bees hum in the lavender beds. Cicadas scream and are suddenly silent.

            'You'd have thought a countess would be dressed in Chanel, at the very least,' Ingo murmurs to Teazel.

            'It's precisely because she's a countess that she doesn't give a hoot for that sort of thing,' says Lorelei, swiping a glass of champagne from a tray proffered by a manservant. 'Merci, Albert.'

            'How do you know his name?' Teazel asks, nibbling at her macaroon like a fieldmouse.

            'You can call any French waiter Albert. It's a convention.'

            'Really?' Ingo says. 'It's not one I've heard of.'

            'Well, darling, you should get out more.'

'It's so interesting what Dan was telling us.' Teazel smiles uncertainly. 'About how this garden is the countess's memorial to her husband. Such a sad, beautiful story.'

            'Mm.' Villanelle licks melted chocolate from her fingers. 'It is sad.'

            'Are you all right?' Teazel asks her. 'You seem a bit... quieter than usual.'

            'Just tired. All this travelling.'

            'Missing your ex?' Lorelei says.

            'I'm sorry?'

            'That's what your friend said. Malice, Balice, whatever her name is. She said you're missing your ex. That's why you're moping about like a wet Wednesday.'

            Villanelle touches the tip of her tongue to her lip. 'She's wrong.'

            'And coming our way, by the looks of it. Where's Dan?'

            Balice crosses the terrace, takes Villanelle's arm, and walks her away from the others. 'Please,' she says. 'Be nice. Let's look round the garden together.'

            'I've got a headache, Balice. Sorry.'

            'Well you'd better get over it. Because we need, quite urgently, to discuss tomorrow.'

            'Go. We can talk later.'

            Villanelle watches as the group follows Dan and the countess from the terrace to the gardens below. Then she sits down on the sun-warmed steps, inclines her back against a lichened pillar, and kicks off her shoes.

          I love this place. The heat, the deep blue of the sky, the smell of pine resin and lavender. But loving it hurts, because the thing that I don't dare put into words, even to myself, is that the experience is incomplete because I'm not here with... God, I can't even think her name, because if I did I would start imagining a future with her, and the not-knowing would make that unbearable. Balice distracts me. She's like a drug that I know is bad for me, but which takes me away from my reality, which is that life alone, even with all the nice things that I want and deserve, no longer has form or depth or colour. Just the thought of that rainwater plinking into the bowl from our leaking roof in Petersburg is enough to stop me in my tracks and make me dizzy with regret for all that I took for granted. Given her options now - husband, reputation, career - will she ever choose me? Was she a bird of passage, a lastochka, flying into my life only to fly out again? I'm trapped. I can't move forward and I can't move back. Perhaps I should be arm in arm with Balice right now, making plans. It's baseless and false, what she and I have, but it's here, it's now. I can lose myself in it.

            'They said you were reckless.'

            Villanelle wakes with a start. Johnny Fernandes is sitting beside her, his panama hat tilted forward to shade his face.

            'I'm sorry?'

            'Our associates. When they told me I was going to be your handler. They said you were inclined to be reckless. And sleeping with British secret service officers certainly counts as recklessness.'

            Villanelle stares at him. 'My handler?'

            'You must have been expecting something of the sort. We're not going to leave you out on a limb. You're too important to us for that.'

            'Who... are you?'

            'You met Sergei in Petersburg.'

           Villanelle narrows her eyes.

            'Sergei and I are old comrades in arms. I knew Konstantin, too.'

            'Does Balice...?'

            'As far as that woman's concerned I'm a retired Anglo-Asian widower with a recently acquired passion for rose-growing. That's as much as MI6's recent vetting will have revealed.'

            'And the truth?'

            'We won't go into that now. Let's just say that I'm no stranger to the profession of arms. And I'm here to help you regarding Ron Tiberius and his impending... demise.'

            'I don't need your help.'

'I'm not going to tell you how to do your job. As I told you, I've seen your record. But I do intend to keep an eye on your friend Balice. For the moment, we both want the same outcome. But that could change.'

            'She's not my friend.'

            'But you are sleeping with her.'

            'I have. Once.'

            'Well then.'

            'It's a woman thing. I needed to get the upper hand.'

            'You have the upper hand. For now.'

            Villanelle stares into the hazy afternoon. 'So tell me...'

            'Yes.'

            'You know what I'm going to ask?'

            'I have a pretty good idea.'

            'So?'

            'Eve Polastri is MI6's lost sheep, and they want her back. Not for her operational skills, but because of her link to you, and to us. They're playing it gently for the moment, giving her everything she needs to reintegrate into her previous life.'

            'Including her husband.'

            'So it appears. That's why employing you was such a smart move.'

            'In what sense?'

            'You're good at what you do, Villanelle, but you're not the only freelancer in the world. MI6 not only want Eve back on side, they want her to feel that everyone's on the same side. So they need her to know you're working for them. Balice has calculated this very exactly.'

            'I'm going to kill that suka.'

            'All in good time. Let's talk about Saturday.'

The story continues…