Die for Me Read online

  “You were going to try and get a message out, weren’t you? You saw me writing notes with a pencil and you thought, I’ll have that. Well you know what, you dumb dyke, that’s exactly what you were supposed to think. I left the pencil there knowing you’d come looking for it. You fucking women, honestly.”

  Waves of fury wash through me. I feel weirdly focused and light-headed.

  “I wish I’d saved everyone’s time and killed you in St. Petersburg. You and your psycho girlfriend. But hey, better late than never.” He reaches out with his free hand and grabs my arm, wrenching me toward the open door. I resist, pulling back hard, and as I do so I have the surreal impression that my body has been occupied by someone else. Someone strong, and ruthlessly efficient. Someone like Oxana.

  I continue to pull away from Anton with all my strength, grunting with the effort, and then I jump forward, unbalancing him so that he falls heavily backward and cracks his head on the steel door jamb. As he lies there, half-stunned and blinking in the raking torch beam, I shove the pencil as hard as I can up his left nostril.

  Anton’s eyes widen, his fingers writhe, and a quavering sound issues from his throat. He tries to lift his head, but I keep hold of the protruding end of the pencil and push downwards, forcing it further and further up his nose. The pencil sticks fast after about ten centimeters, so I put my weight behind it, and it slips in another couple of centimeters. Taking the torch from Anton’s hand, I shine it in his face. His eyes have rolled back into his head, his lips are fluttering, and a worm of blood is crawling from his open nostril into his mouth.

  “Fucking women,” I murmur. “What can you do, eh?” The point of the pencil has almost certainly penetrated Anton’s brain, but not lethally. I need something hard and heavy. “Stay there,” I order him, and shine the torch around the canteen. Lying on the bookshelf is a substantial hardback volume. I’m reaching for this, when Anton half-rises to his feet, his eyes staring wildly. Grabbing the book with both hands I draw it back, take aim, and smack the pencil in another inch. He sinks to the floor, his legs moving feebly.

  “Eve, sweetie, what’s going on?”

  I drop the book with a shriek, and clutch my heart. “Jesus, Oxana.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “What the fuck does it look like I’m doing? Hammering a pencil into Anton’s brain with a copy of Birds of the North Sea.”

  “Is that good?”

  “Definitive, according to the Observer.”

  “No, that you’re killing Anton. Was he annoying you?”

  “He caught me stealing the pencil.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It’ll wait. Just hold his legs while I give it one last bash.”

  When Anton finally stops shuddering I subside to an exhausted crouch against the container wall.

  “Is he dead?” Oxana asks, flicking the end of the pencil with her finger.

  “Near enough.”

  She hunkers down opposite me, reaches for the torch, and switches it off. “Night vision,” she explains.

  I can’t see much, but I can feel the warm bulk of Anton’s body against my feet.

  Oxana gives a long, phlegmy sniff. “You really are quite the player, aren’t you, pupsik?”

  “Tell me why you’re here.”

  “I was looking for you. I went to your cabin and you weren’t there.”

  “Why were you looking for me?”

  “I missed you.”

  “Tough shit. Go and bunk up with Charlie.”

  “Charlie’s not you.”

  “So why did you fuck them?”

  “Well, technically speaking I didn’t. We—”

  “I don’t want to know what you did, I just want to know why you did it.”

  “I don’t know. I just…” She sniffs again. “Truthfully?”

  “Truthfully.”

  “Because I was angry with you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I love you.”

  “God, Oxana. Please.”

  “I do. Truly.”

  “In that case help me, because I need to get rid of this body? Over the edge of the platform.”

  “OK, pupsik. Shall we take a leg each?”

  “Don’t call me that. I haven’t forgiven you.”

  “It was just a sex thing.”

  “Sex things with other people are not OK, Oxana.”

  “Sor-ree…” She glances at Anton. “And you can stop looking at me like that, Pinocchio.”

  It takes us several minutes to drag Anton out of the canteen to the westward end of the platform.

  “Do you still want that pencil?” Oxana shouts, as the wind screams in our ears.

  I’ve forgotten that securing the pencil was the point of the whole exercise. I nod and, kneeling beside Anton, try to pull it out of his nose with my fingertips. Anton’s eyes roll in his head but I can’t budge it, it’s stuck tight.

  Oxana tries, but does no better. She looks at me. “The only way we’re going to do this is if I hold his head, and you take the end of the pencil between your teeth and pull it out.”

  “That’s a really disgusting idea.”

  “You’re the one that wants the pencil, babe.”

  “Yeah, I know. Fuck.”

  “So do it.”

  We do it. Oxana locks her fingers under Anton’s jaw, and I lean sideways into his face and close my teeth on the end of the pencil. His lips are dry, his stubble rasps against my cheek, and his breath, now coming in shallow gasps, smells of brandy and curry. I pull at the pencil as hard as I can, but it doesn’t move, and I’m afraid of snapping the end off with my teeth. Eventually I lift my head, gagging, and drag sea air into my lungs.

  “Again,” Oxana mouths.

  “You want a try?” I shout at her, and she shakes her head.

  I take the pencil in my teeth again, brace my hands against Oxana’s biceps and pull as hard as I can. This time I feel something yielding. The pencil moves a millimeter or two, and as it finally slides out I feel liquid warmth bathe my neck and chest.

  “Fuck,” I say. “Blood everywhere.”

  “Don’t worry, sweetie, we’ll deal with it. Sit back to back with me so I can kick this asshole over the edge.”

  I feel her shoulders tense as she shoves with her legs, and when I look round Anton is gone. I don’t even hear the splash.

  We spend the next ten minutes tidying up. While I wash off the worst of the blood with water from the canteen, Oxana creeps into Anton’s room and finds me a clean T-shirt and combat shirt. I pull these on, then we locate the Napoleon bottle, which is still half full, and take it outside. Oxana pours the remaining brandy over the edge of the platform, and leaves the empty bottle standing on deck. I knot my bloody clothes into a bundle and, using the torch as a sinker, throw them out to sea. Then, with the night’s work completed, we depart the deck. Behind me, Oxana closes the hatch.

  “Your cabin’s in the south leg,” I tell her, but she takes no notice. Silently, rung by rung, she follows me down the steel ladder, past Anton’s empty cabin, to mine. I turn on the light, we stand there for a moment, and then I pull back my arm and punch her in the mouth, as hard as I can. She flinches, blinks a couple of times, spits blood and snot into her hand, and wipes it down the thigh of her combat trousers.

  “So,” she murmurs, licking her lips. “Are we even now?”

  I shake my head, wanting to hit her again, but discover that I’m shaking so much that I can’t. I try to speak, but I can’t do that either, because she’s pulled my face down into the warm place between her shoulder and the slope of her breast, and has locked me there so tightly, with her cheek sealed against my forehead and her hand in my hair, that I can hardly breathe.

  “Are we?” she asks, sniffing loudly in my ear, and all I can do is nod. She holds me for a time, and then lifts my face opposite hers.

  “It didn’t mean anything,” she says. “It was just sex.”

  “It was a shitty thing to do
. Really nasty.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you have a tissue?”

  “No. Do you need one?”

  “No, but you do. That sniffing and swallowing thing you do is really gross.”

  “I’ve got a cold, Eve. It happens. Even to Russians.”

  “So do something about it. Jesus.”

  She reaches into her pocket, pulls out a crumpled pair of knickers, and blows her nose into them. “OK. Done.”

  “And just for the record, have you had a shower since fucking Charlie?”

  “Like I said, I didn’t actually—”

  “Have you?”

  “No.”

  “Then have one now.”

  “Eve, it’s fuck-knows-what in the morning. I’ll wake Ginge up.”

  “I’m sure we won’t. And it doesn’t matter if we do, anyway, now that Anton’s gone?”

  “We?”

  “I’m joining you. I feel disgusting.”

  She narrows her gray cat’s-eyes at me.

  “Just don’t speak, OK?”

  She draws an imaginary zip across her mouth, but her lips are twitching.

  We allow ourselves two luxurious minutes under the hot water. The first to wash off everything that’s happened, the second to begin rediscovering each other. The tiny washroom is not the ideal space for a date, but it’s warm and steamy, and Oxana is strong. Strong enough to lift me up the wall until her face is between my thighs and my legs are over her shoulders and I’m leaning back, open-mouthed and gasping, against the wet tiles.

  In my narrow bunk, with her body warm against mine and the smell of her in my nostrils, we huddle under the thin blankets and swap recollections of our first encounters.

  “It was that hot, thundery evening in Shanghai,” she whispers. “We just saw each other for a second in the street, but it was electric. It was like looking at myself. That’s why I climbed into your room at the hotel and watched you sleep. To make sure it was true.”

  “And was it? Is it?”

  “You know the answer to that. You proved it tonight. Are you going to tell me why you wanted that pencil so much?”

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow. I don’t want to think about all that. I want us to be here, in this bunk, in this cabin, forever.”

  “I know, pchelka, me too. One day.”

  “One day.”

  “Spoki noki, baby bee.”

  “Sweet dreams.”

  When Anton doesn’t show up for breakfast the next morning, no one takes much notice. The empty brandy bottle at the edge of the platform has been noted, and Nobby and Ginge make sympathetic references to hangovers and mornings after. By eight-thirty, however, the two men are looking at their watches and exchanging concerned glances. Ginge offers to go to Anton’s cabin and wake him, and when he returns he looks grave.

  He and Nobby confer, then we split up and search every inch of the platform. It doesn’t take long. The two office containers are locked, but a glance through the windows tells us they’re unoccupied.

  “There wasn’t any kind of boat or inflatable craft he could have taken?” I suggest helpfully, and Ginge shakes his head.

  “No. And even if there was, it was blowing at least force eight last night. The boss wouldn’t have been crazy enough to try anything like that.”

  “Only possible conclusion, he went over the side,” Nobby says. “Probably after downing that bottle.”

  “Deliberately?” I ask.

  “Nah. Why would he? He was well up for this project and obviously wanted to see it through. Probably got pissed up and lost his footing. Easily done.”

  Ginge nods. “Question is, what do the rest of us do now? We’ve got twenty-four hours until the chopper comes to pick us up.”

  “Carry on as before?” Oxana suggests. “It doesn’t need to make any difference.”

  “I can be your spotter today,” Nobby says.

  “Sure. Whatever.”

  Ginge looks from face to face. “Everyone OK with that? We carry on as we were? Meanwhile I’ll see what I can do about the lock on that front office. Pretty sure there’s a satphone in there and that the antenna works.”

  “Who you gonna call?” Nobby asks. “Ghostbusters?”

  “Our employers. Give them a heads-up about the boss.”

  “Rather you than me.”

  “Got to be done, boyo.”

  We return to the firing points. The sea and the sky are calmer today, and visibility much improved. Charlie’s nailing pretty much every target at seven hundred meters plus, now. One shot, one kill, as Ginge continually impresses on us. From what I can see, Oxana’s hit rate is every bit as consistent.

  We spend our last night on the platform in my cabin. I tell Oxana about the encounter with Tikhomirov, and how he asked me to contact him if I discover what the Twelve are planning, and I say that, if possible, I intend to do exactly this. The more important our target is, I argue, the less likely it is that the Twelve will let us walk away when the job’s done. We’re more than expendable, we’re a liability.

  If I can make contact with Tikhomirov, on the other hand, and provide him with enough information to intercept us before we fire a shot, he may see an advantage in keeping us alive, and letting it be known that we were acting as his agents all along. Oxana is briefly angry that I didn’t tell her earlier and deeply suspicious of any alliance with the FSB, but agrees that in the long run we are probably marginally better off relying on the state security service than the Twelve.

  “And this is what you wanted the pencil for?” she asks me.

  “Exactly. To try to get a message to him.”

  I tell her my plan, such as it is, and she considers it in silence.

  “Could work,” she says eventually, stroking my cheek with cold-roughened fingers. “At the same time I’d kind of like to go through with the hit. I’d love to pull the trigger on someone really high profile. Just to sign off.”

  “I wish you didn’t enjoy it so much.”

  “I’m good at it. Every ocean needs its sharks. Every kill I’ve carried out has left the world a better place.”

  “That’s not what it’s about, though, is it? I mean, you’re not really interested in making the world a better place.”

  “Mmm… no. Maybe not.”

  “And you’re not a sadist. You don’t get turned on watching people suffer.”

  “Not particularly.” She slides her hand down my back. “Apart from you, obviously.”

  “Very funny. And stop wobbling my bum.”

  “I love your bum.”

  “Easy for you to say, with a body like a weasel on steroids. But go on. Remind me. What is it about murder that turns you on so much?”

  “I could ask you the same question.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning not to be that bitch, sweetie, but you’re a murderer too. Twice over.”

  “Well, yeah, OK, but both of those were…”

  “Were?”

  “You know perfectly well. I had no choice.”

  “And I did? You really think I could say no, sorry, Konstantin, I can’t carry out your contract. I’ve got a hairdressing appointment at Carita in the morning, then lunch at Arpège, and in the afternoon I was planning to hack into Eve Polastri’s email, masturbate, and eat a box of Fauchon marrons glacés.”

  “You did that?”

  “What, eat a whole box of marrons glacés at one go?”

  “Hack into my email and masturbate?”

  “I tried. But it wasn’t interesting. No sexy messages. No nude selfies.”

  “Why would I take nude selfies?”

  “For me to find, obviously. I wasn’t going to finger myself over your bank statements. But back to you, pupsik. You’re so many things. You’re an ex-spy, although if we’re being honest not a great one. You’re Niko the asshole’s ex-wife. You’re my current lover.”

  “Current?”

  “Yes. Means right now.”

  “I know what it mean
s. I speak English. It’s just a bit… Couldn’t you just say you’re my lover?”

  She nips my cheek with her teeth. “I’m teasing you. But yeah. You’re clever, a bit nerdy, and quite needy. You’re a scaredy-cat but also weirdly brave. You’re sexy and adorable in bed and you’re a really, really terrible cook.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve seen inside your fridge. It was tragic.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes, you have zero fashion sense.”

  “Thanks.”

  “The point I’m making is this. That if I took all these things away from you, if I peeled it all away, layer by layer, there’d still be you. Underneath everything, there’s Eve. And you know that about yourself, you know exactly who you are. But I don’t have that. If I take away everything I’ve done, and all the people I’ve been, or pretended to be—all the layers—there’s nothing. No Villanelle, no Oxana, no self at all, just a…” She’s silent for a moment. “Did you see that film, The Invisible Man? You couldn’t see him, but you could see the effect he had on the things and the people around him. That’s how I feel. The only reason I know that there’s a me, an Oxana, is that I see the trail she leaves. I see the fear and the horror in people’s eyes, and that tells me that she exists—that I exist. Konstantin understood this perfectly. He knew that I needed to make the world echo with my presence.”

  “And this made you feel powerful?”

  “It made me feel alive. Those kills that I carried out for Konstantin were beautiful. Perfectly planned, perfectly executed. Fucking works of art, to be honest.”

  “And you want one more hit of that drug before you walk away? One more smack rush? One last high?”

  “Maybe I do.”

  “But can’t you see? If that’s what it takes to make you feel alive, you’ll never walk away. There’ll be one more kill, and then one more, and one more after that. Until someone kills you.”

  “I’ll walk away, trust me.”

  “Why would you?”

  “Because killing for the Twelve is not the only thing that makes me feel alive. Not anymore.”

  “What else does?”

  “You, pupsik. You do. You look at me with such tenderness, and such love. For the first time since I was a child, since that visit to the Kungur ice caves, I feel seen. I feel that there’s someone there, underneath all the bullshit. A real Oxana. A real me.”