Killing Eve: Resurrection (9)

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

 

           A short tube ride takes them to Victoria, and an anonymous office building behind the railway station. 'Welcome to Transept House,' Victoria says, directing Villanelle towards the security area in the lobby. Placing her shoes, belt and bag in a tray to be X-rayed, Villanelle submits to a body scan, followed by an aggressive pat-down from a woman in ripstop combat trousers and a Metropolitan Police sweater.

            'That's a pretty top,' Villanelle ventures, but the woman, running heavy hands from Villanelle's armpits to her hips, is not amused, nor is her male colleague, who is watching from the sidelines with a warning finger extended towards the safety catch of his submachine gun. To Villanelle the scene bespeaks officialdom. This building is clearly a UK government secret asset. A Security Services outstation. And yet Maria seems to be persisting in the pretence that she is a representative of The Twelve, although why the Twelve would be interested in housing snitches and witness-protection people is a mystery. Villanelle follows her towards a lift which climbs wheezily to an upper floor.

      The office, overlooking the roofs of Victoria and Pimlico, is spacious. Two dessicated rubber plants stand in front of triple-glazed windows; a wall-mounted TV monitor playing silent news footage overlooks a conference table and chairs. One of these contains Max, suave in a linen suit. As Maria and Villanelle enter he jumps to his feet and extends a hand.

            Villanelle ignores it. 'Why did you lie to me in St Petersburg?'

            He lowers his hand, flexes his fingers and grins. 'We didn't exactly lie. We may not have told you the whole truth, but you can hardly blame us for that.'

            'I do blame you. You lied to me and you abducted my-'

            'Please, Villanelle, let's get real. Like Maria and myself, as I'm sure you've worked out by now, Mrs Polastri is an officer of the British Secret Intelligence Service. You, on the other hand, are a paid killer for a criminal organisation. There is no 'my' here. If anything, you abducted her.'

            'What do you want?'

            'As we told you, we want you to eliminate Ron Tiberius, and we need you to do it in such a way so that no conceivable responsibility attaches to ourselves. We know that you're an expert in this field, and we're happy to leave the ways and means up to you.'

            'And in return?'

            'In return, we can offer you further work. Further very well remunerated work. And I give you my word that we will take you to Mrs Polastri, although how happy she will be to see you I'm not sure.'

            'So those are your terms? I execute this contract, and you return Eve to me?'

            'We take you to her, yes.'

           'I see.' Villanelle walks to one of the windows, twitches a Kleenex from a box on the sill, and pockets it. Then she turns, covering the distance between herself and Max in a heartbeat. Her descending arm is a blur, her fist thumps against his neck. Max gasps, and his fingers scrabble at the thin ceramic blade that Villanelle has punched through his jugular vein. Grasping the knot of his Gucci tie, Villanelle pulls out the blade, deftly avoiding the arc of blood leaping from his neck. Max stares at her with astonished eyes, then takes two faltering steps, slumps against an elderly Gestetner photocopier, and bleeds out into the document feed.

            'Are you fucking crazy?' Maria hisses as Max subsides to the floor. 'What am I going to tell HR?'

            'Shaving accident?' Villanelle suggests, wiping the ceramic blade with the Kleenex.         

'He's dying,' Maria breathes.

            'Dead,' Villanelle corrects her.

            'But... Why?'

            'He lied to me. You both did. And as for what you did to Eve...'

            'Eve is fine,' Maria whispers.

            'She's not with me, suka, so she's not fine. Tell me where she is.'

            'Being debriefed. Off site.'

            Grabbing a fistful of hair, Villanelle wrenches Maria's head back and jabs the point of the blade into the underside of her chin. 'If you don't tell me where she is, right this second, you join that clown on the floor.'

            Maria gasps. A bead of blood trickles diagonally across her neck. 'She's at the castle.'

            'What castle'.

            'Teffont Castle. In Wiltshire.'

            'Security?'

            'Two officers. But she's free to... She's not locked up.'

            'How long to drive there?'

            'From here...' Maria tries to straighten her head, and mews with pain as the blade cuts deeper into her chin. 'Please. That... really hurts.'

            'You've no idea how badly I could hurt you. And how much I want to. How long?'

            'Three and a half hours? Four?'

            Villanelle releases her, and returns the blade to the lining of her belt. 'OK, let's go.'

            'But...?' Maria indicates the recumbent form of Max. 'What about him?'

            Villanelle shrugs. 'What about him? You honestly think your people are going to make a fuss? A Russian civilian makes fools of your security people and kills an MI6 officer in his own office? Doesn't play very well, does it?'

            'They'll come after you.'

            Villanelle shrugs. 'Let them come. They stole my girlfriend, what did they expect? Anyway, right now they need me. You need me. So like I said, suka, let's go.'

            An hour later they're sitting in Maria's ten year-old Audi on the M25 London ring road. The traffic's at a standstill, and the air blurred with exhaust fumes.

            'Staring at that phone isn't going to make it ring,' Villanelle says.

            Maria manoevres the Audi behind an articulated lorry. 'I don't want it to ring. That's the last thing I want. Because it'll mean I'm in such deep shit...'

            'Well then,' Villanelle says. Grabbing Maria's phone, she smashes it against the gear shift knob until it's reduced to twisted metal and shattered glass, then throws it out of the window onto the motorway. 'I promise you no one will ring you. Relax. That office will be spotless by now, and Max halfway to a landfill site. There'll be a brief announcement - nervous breakdown, early retirement, much missed - and then he'll never be mentioned again.'

            Maria says nothing, but grips the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles whiten, and when she speeds up to overtake the lorry, it's with a horrible clashing of gears. 'You are going to single-handedly end my sodding career,' she mutters. 'I thought it was a mistake to involve you, and now I'm fucking certain of it.'

         'That's not true,' Villanelle says. 'You were very pleased with yourself in Petersburg when you thought you'd hooked me. Quite the cat with the cream.' She flicks on the car radio, leans back in her seat, and half-closes her eyes. 'I like Sara Cox. Nice voice, pretty eyes. Do you know her?'

            Maria ignores her, and for twenty minutes they sit in silence as the radio plays. Finally she frowns. 'Why would I know her. She works for the BBC?'

            'I thought maybe she worked for MI6 too.'

            'Seriously?'

            'There's a poster of her in the safe house. 'Sara Cox. Weekdays 5:00pm to 7:00pm.' I thought maybe it's some sort of coded broadcast.'

            'Not that I know of. You do have a taste for the older lady, don't you?'

            'Older?'

            'Well, older than you. I mean, Eve... '

            'What about her?'       

            'You lost your mother very early, didn't you?'

            'Please, Maria, or whatever the fuck your name is, don't try and psychoanalyse me. What is your real name, anyway?'

            'Maria will do just fine.'

            'No, it won't. I can't trust you if I don't know your name. You know mine.'

            'Oxana.'

            'Don't call me that.'

            'Because Eve does?'

            'Just don't, OK?'

            'OK. But my name is kind of... strange.'

            'So what is it?'

            'Balice. Ba-lee-say.'

            'Seriously?'

            'My parents lived in Moscow when they were first married. My father worked at the Embassy, in the consular service. Their first Christmas, they were flying home to London and the plane was forced to make an unscheduled landing in Krakow. They ended up spending the night in a town called Balice, and that's where I was conceived.'

            'Romantic.'

            'Could have been worse. Could have been Novotel.

The story continues…