Killing Eve: Resurrection (5)

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

How am I so certain that she's been taken? That she hasn't decided to teach me a lesson, selfish bitch that I am, and made sure that I come home to an empty flat. How do I know that she hasn't just gone out for a walk, or been overtaken by a sudden craving for dumplings from the late-night takeaway in Strelna?I know because of her makeup. Because the tubes and jars in the bathroom are randomly scattered on the glass shelf, not neatly arranged as she needs them to be when she goes out. They should be in three precise rows. Each one exactly in its place.

            I never intended to make a killer of her. I never meant to take her away from her work, and that dingy MI6 out-station on Tottenham Court Road. But I was bored, she was bored, and one thing led to another. She surprised me, to be honest. She surprised both of us. It was only when she thought I was dead that she started to fall apart. Seeing the bullets smack into my back outside the Bolshoi Theatre, seeing the spreading pool of my blood in the snow... These were things she'd never recover from, she told me. Her abiding terror was that, having found me, she'd lose me again, this time for ever.

            We'd been living in the flat for a couple of months when it first happened. I was at the university for the day, and Eve was finishing some translation work and preparing to go to the supermarket, when she became aware of a voice whispering to her. The voice seemed to be both inside and outside of her head. If she didn't arrange her makeup things neatly and symmetrically when she went out, the voice told her, something horrible would happen to me.

            Now I've never really bothered with all that skin-care stuff, but Eve's an addict. Not because she thinks it'll make her look better, but because the rituals calm and comfort her. All those expensive frosted glass jars, all those delicately scented lotions, so smooth and cool to the touch. She needs this little luxury, but given our limited income she feels guilty about it. You must impose order on your extravagance, the voice ordered her. Otherwise, Oxana will die.

            Eve knew, without doubt, that the voice was irrational. But it played to her darkest fears, and she couldn't free herself of the idea that she was now, in some weird and inexplicable way, responsible for my safety. So she carefully arranged everything on the bathroom shelf until the voice told her it was satisfied, and went out. And when I came back safe and sound from university that evening, the voice praised her. See, it works.

            Eventually Eve told me all of this, blurting out the story as we lay in bed. She had kept it to herself, she said, for fear that I'd call her crazy. In fact I was fascinated, and secretly rather pleased that her mind was playing this game. I'd been expecting something of the sort, some kind of reaction to the trauma and violence of the previous months. Eve isn't me, after all. She feels these things. So I was very gentle with her, and went along with the whole thing. I waited while she wiped the Natura Siberica containers clean and placed them just so beneath the mirror, lined up the Berezka Lab products in their violet bottles, and laid out the little Samosvet jars as carefully as if she was setting out a chess board. Low-key panic when she couldn't find a place for the Chanel lipstick I gave her for her birthday (no, obviously I didn't tell her I stole it from Galeria), but she brightened when I suggested that she carry it around with her. That way, I said with a brave, eyes-wide smile, she'd think of me every time she touched up her lips. She melted, of course, as she always does when I take love-lorn Oxana out of her box.

            When Eve was finally happy with the bathroom shelf, I suggested that she photograph it. That way, if she became anxious while she was out, she could check her phone, and know that she was keeping me safe. She was deeply touched by my thoughtfulness. It was all very sweet: proof of her devotion to me, proof that the time and effort I'd invested in her had been worthwhile.

            But I haven't kept her safe. Someone has taken her. It goes without saying that when I find out who that is, I'll kill them.           

Villanelle sits on the edge of the bed in her underwear, her eyes far-focused and unblinking, her mind very slightly clouded by the alcohol she has drunk. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that it was the Twelve who abducted Eve. It was only a matter of time before they discovered that Villanelle hadn't died outside the Bolshoi, and that the pair of them were living an under-the-radar existence funded by Tikhomirov. It's even possible that the Twelve were party to this arrangement from the start. It was certainly they, in the shape of Max and Maria, who lured Villanelle to the club, ensuring that Eve would be alone in the flat for several hours.

            There's a cheap nylon billfold that Villanelle carries everywhere. She's had it since her Paris days. It holds a few thousand roubles in cash, metro and bus tickets, and her student identity card. Concealed in the lining there's a tiny booklet, its pages thin as cigarette paper, wrapped in waterproof film. Each page is printed with fifty five-figure number groups. This is Villanelle's personal one-time code pad, created for use with the Twelve's number station. It's an old, Cold War-era mode of encrypted communication, but used correctly it's unbreakable.

            Taking the Tecsun shortwave radio that has been gathering dust behind the net curtain, Villanelle curls up on the bed and keys in a long-memorised search code. Today the Twelve's number station is broadcasting at or around 6900 kkHz, and Villanelle feels a thrill of recognition as she hears the first tinny, electronically generated notes of Valenki, a Russian folk song. The notes repeat for two minutes, the radio crackling as the tuning falters, then a woman's voice, precise and distant-sounding, begins to recite a five-digit number group. It's a call-up code, 63394, but it's not Villanelle's. Hers is 25979. The code repeats for several minutes, then segues into the number sequences which make up 63394's encoded message. Villanelle listens for twenty minutes, but there's nothing for her, no recital of "Dva, pyat', devyat', sem', devyat',"  and no notification that this call-up code has been transmitted in the past month.

      Rising from the bed, Villanelle shuffles into the kitchen, and drinks a large glass of mineral water. If it was the Twelve who took Eve, what did they want from her? The means by which they could discredit Tikhomirov's supposedly doomed government? Unlikely. If the Twelve want to smear Tikhomirov, they can call on any amount of witnesses, all more believable than a former foreign intelligence agent. Villanelle places the empty glass on her bedside table. Checks her watch. 2:13 am.

            Something about the evening at Apokalipsis didn't ring true. Something about the personae of Max and Maria themselves. It struck her at the time, and it strikes her with renewed force now. They were like actors playing roles for which they were not quite suited. He was too free with his eyes, too much the international fuckboy, and she was just weird. As if she'd been chosen because she was Villanelle's type, with her soft gaze and fluttery fingers and pretty cocktail frock. That business with the champagne bottle. Max covertly displaying the numeral 12. That was so spy-movie, so Netflix, and the operatives from the Twelve that Villanelle has dealt with in the past have not been glamourous or charismatic, they've been professional. All business, all the time. But then times and organisations change. And with this thought, Villanelle rolls back into bed.

The story continues…