Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

手机坚持不懈的震动把Karl弄醒了。年纪已经不轻的英国警察在妻子的抱怨声中挣扎着坐起身来，拿到床头柜上的手机，眯缝着眼睛按下绿色接听键。
“天啊，BB。”
“噢，很好，你终于接电话了，头儿。”BB的声音听起来像是已经醒了很久，Karl不确定他是否听到了背景里的电视声音：“抱歉把你弄醒，但是事态紧急。”
“发生了什么？”
“你知道Isaac Watson吗？”
“不。他是谁？”
“那你可以打开电视看看。BBC，CNN，随便选一个，十分钟前就已经都在现场直播了。”
Laura抗议性质地翻了个身。Karl看了看她，用没拿手机的那只手替她掖了下被子，然后起床离开了房间。夜还很深，孩子们都沉浸在甜美的梦乡里，Karl摸黑走到客厅，关上门，这才打开灯，让暖黄的灯光洒满房间。他从沙发上拿到了遥控器，打开电视。

「Breaking News」
“……我们现在正在Folkestone，也就是英吉利海峡隧道的这一边，目前隧道已经处于半封闭状态，工作人员正在尽全力疏导交通。大约半小时前，英国著名的生物学家Isaac Watson博士的座驾在通过隧道时突发爆炸，车内人员全部丧生。现场监控录像表明，这场爆炸是从车内爆发而非机械故障导致，实在令人怀疑这是否是一场精心策划的谋杀。”
“上帝啊。”Karl看着电视台不断重放的录像感叹：“他们到底是从哪里弄到的视频？”
“那可是一声很响的爆炸，肯定有人在警方要求封锁消息前就卖掉了录像。”BB说：“不过这不是重点。最先出警的是法国警方，因为Isaac是从Calais进入隧道的，我给你打电话之前，他们刚刚确认了这是一起谋杀。初步估计，原爆点位于后座的座位下，具体的炸弹类型还需要收集完残片后做进一步确认。”
“所以需要联合调查了，是吗？”
“比那还更麻烦呢。Isaac Watson目前在领导一个军用项目，我们的老朋友情报部门也可能来插一脚。”
“他是个生物学家，他从哪里搞来的军用项目？”
虽然上次案件最后MI6以他们自己的方式做出了报偿，但一想到又要和遮遮掩掩的保密部门打交道，Karl就恨不得再躲回PPU的维尼熊套房里去。秘密行动，保密项目……Karl怀疑自己人生里一半的悲剧都是这些不透明的东西害的。不过他已经太老了，早在十年前他就不再锱铢必较地计算各种可能性。
“头儿，你还在听吗？”
“呃，在。”
“总之，Watson的履历集中于基因编辑方面，很难说他到底在帮军方做什么样的工作，以及他的工作和这场袭击到底有什么具体关系。”BB说：“这起案件的影响很大，各方面都希望我们能够尽快破案。”
“这是当然。”Karl关掉电视，渐渐地从新闻影像中缓过劲来：“我应该没有那个运气做英国这边的主导侦探吧？”
BB笑了：“我猜我一定是最后才知道结果的那个。”

Elise站在已经清理得差不多的现场旁边，恍惚有一种似曾相识的感觉。会产生这种感觉并非没有道理：在Calais当了这么多年警察，她确实办过几起发生在隧道中的案子。以这样的角度打量犯罪现场，早已经不是第一次。
“现场组还在收集碎片，等他们的工作告一段落，拖车会进来把这辆骨架给运回去。”Philippe走过来告诉她：“刚刚和会议主办方通过电话，他们说傍晚的时候，Isaac Watson博士就和他实验室的学生们一起乘车离开了会场，学生的名字是……呃，Eric Morse，Leo Turner，还有Cate Tosi。”
“他们都在爆炸的这辆车里吗？”
“目前是这样猜测的。基于现有状况，我们还没有一个很好的方法来辨识乘客身份。随身物品都被爆炸炸成了碎片。”
“呃，继续努力。”Elise本来打算再多说一点，但是她的手机烦人地响了起来。来电人一栏显示是Karl Roebuck，她觉得他大概是为了案件的事打过来的。
“Karl？你怎么打电话给我？”
“呃，就是问候一下。”Karl说：“我接了个案子，是发生在隧道里的，需要联合调查……”
“我知道那个案子。我现在就在现场呢。”
Karl停顿了一下，说：“噢。”
“我们这边几乎就要结束了，你用不着过来。明天早上我们可以一起去Isaac Watson的学校看看。”
“好。”
“怎么了？”Elise察觉到有什么地方不太对劲，英国侦探通常不会这么寡言少语：“有什么问题吗？”
“事实上，有小道消息称，Watson和军方秘密部门可能有合作项目。”
Elise知道小道消息的意思是Karl还不确定他到底有没有权利将这条消息和法国同僚分享，消息本身应该是可信的：“MI5？MI6？”
“我不知道。他们应该已经在去找你的路上了，你知道后告诉我吧。”Karl在电话那头露出个笑容：“拜托？”
“你是我的好朋友和同事，我当然会告诉你。”警戒线外出现了一点骚动，Elise转身看过去，发现一个高个子女人正弯腰通过警戒线：“先挂了，明天见。”
“好的，再见。”
Elise挂了电话，快步走向那个女人，拦住她进一步进入现场。Elise注意到她是从法国方向来的，但她绝不在Calais警局的雇员名单内。
“抱歉，无关人员不能随意进入现场。”
高个子女人微微皱着眉，凭借她的身高优势打量了一下整个现场，然后目光落回Elise脸上。
“你一定就是法国方面的负责警探。Carolyn Martens， MI6，俄国办事处。我相信这起袭击案件和我们一直在追查的一个恐怖组织有关。”

Chapter Text

The phone ring just refused to stop. Karl Roebuck, the experienced British police, struggled to get it while Laura is whining about her interrupted dream. He narrowed his eyes, had a clear look at the caller’s ID, and pressed the green button.
“God, BB.” He said, “What’s the problem?”
“Oh, good, boss, you finally answered. Sorry to call in so late, but we just got a case. An emergency one.”
Of course it’s emergency, otherwise he wouldn’t call. Karl was not certain if there was a noise from news in the background, this might indicate that the case wasn’t happen on Britain soil.
“What’s going on?” He asked.
“Do you know about one Isaac Watson?”
“No. Who is he?”
“Well, in that case, you might turn on the TV and find out. It’s all over the news now, BBC or CNN, take your pick, they were on live at least ten minutes ago.”
Karl let out a sign. Laura rolled over in complaint. Karl looked at her, tucked her with his other hand, tied his best to get out of the bed and left the room quietly. It’s still dark outside, and the kids were all immersed in sweet dreams. Karl went to the living room in the dark, carefully closed the door, only then did he turn on the light. He got the remote and turned on the TV.

「Breaking News」
“…we are now at the Folkestone, the other side of the Eurotunnel. Half an hour ago, the car of the well-known British biologist Isaac Watson exploded while passing the tunnel, all passengers died at the scene. According to videos from the scene, this explosion was triggered inside the vehicle, which leads to the conclusion that this is not a mechanic failure, but a murder. The tunnel is now half-closed, staffs are doing their best to keep everything in order, and crossing the tunnel is highly not recommended at the moment.”
“Oh, god.” Karl watched the videos, they were quality-low, focus badly, but enough to prove the point.
“Where the hell did they get this?”
“Well, that was a loud explosion, I bet someone must have sold the footage from their driving recorder before being asked to keep quiet.” BB shrugged, information leak was really a common situation these days, “Anyway, the French police is now taking over, because the car got in the tunnel from their side. They just confirmed it was a murder before I called, the ground zero is in the car. Further conclusions must be drawn after they collected everything and recreated the scene.”
“Of course. But a joint investigation is on, right? That’s why you called.”
“Yes. Isaac Watson was working on a military project before he died, the intelligence department made sure that we should be involved.”
“Military project? He’s a biologist, where the hell did he get a military project to work on?”
BB didn’t answer. They both knew that this was just a complaint about their uncomfortable ‘cooperation’ experience with MI6 before, since they can never find a way to file a formal one. Karl had that feeling that half his tragedy in life was the aftermath of intransparency, maybe he should avoid this by transferring back to that Winnie the Pooh suite in PPU.
“Boss, you still there?”
“Er, yes.”
“So, this is what we have so far. I will gather some information from our database, meanwhile, maybe you want to contact the French police, coordinate our next move. It’s all out now, people will urge us to solve it immediately.”
Karl smiled.
“Hey, BB, do you want to lead this case?”
“Ha, I won’t be the first one to know, right?”
“Yes, you are right. Bye then.”
“Bye.”

Elise stood just meters from that burned-black corpus of the vehicle, tried to shake this strange rendezvous feeling off. She had worked a few cases occurring in the tunnel, which made it reasonable for her to feel this way. However, now she had a new case, old-time feelings can’t get in the way of investigation.
“OK, I just checked with the sponsor of the conference Isaac attended, they left right after dinner. According to their correspondence before, Isaac intended to get back to Britain as soon as possible, for continuing his work on a big breakthrough.”Philippe came and updated.
“Do you get a name list? Of all the passengers?”
“Er yes, besides Isaac Watson, there’re three graduate students, Eric Morse, Leo Turner, and Cate Tosi. But we can’t recover any ID from the scene, so it’s not sure if they were all on that car. Maybe the CSRU team can find a way to do it after they finished collecting… remains.”
“Fine. Keep working.” Elise was going to say more, but her phone buzzed. The caller ID represented Karl, her British colleague and friend. A sometimes annoying friend.
“Hello, Karl. Why are you calling?”
Karl sounded like he just got out of his bed, “Just call to say hello. You still awake?”
This was weird. Karl wouldn’t just “call to say hello” at the middle of the night. But he was never good a liar.
“Yes. And you are not just call to say hello. Why are you calling? You should know that I don’t like lies.”
“Alright. I’m just not so awake now. I was assigned to this case, it happened in the tunnel just a few hours ago…”
“Yes, I know about it. I am at the scene right now.”
Karl gave it a pause.
“Oh.”
“There’s no need to come right now. The scene was mostly sabotaged by the explosion, tomorrow I will join you to visit his work place.”
“OK.”
Elise sensed the odd taciturnity of Karl, surely work schedule wasn’t what he wanted to talk about in the first place.
“OK. What is it?”
“Well, a little bird told me that Watson was working with the British intelligence.”
Elise knew that this was the farthest Karl could go without clear permission to talk about it, but she had to know a little more.
“MI5 or MI6?”
“I don’t know. They should be heading your scene right now, so when you found out, tell me.”Karl smiled at the other side. “Will you tell me, please?”
Elise frowned. “You are my best friend and colleague, of course I will tell you. Is this some kind of joke? Otherwise I don’t understand why you say that.”
“Of course it’s a joke, Elise. Try to be more relaxed.”
Some chaos happened near the restrict line. Elise looked over, found out a tall woman was passing the line.
“Talk to you later.”
Karl could tell something was happening. “Sure, bye.”
Elise hung up, quickly walked towards that woman. She stopped her before she got too close. Elise noticed that the woman came from the French side, but she cannot remember her from the employees of Calais police station.
“Sorry, but there is an on-going investigation you shouldn’t interfere.”
The woman didn’t answer her right away, but took her time glancing the whole scene. When she noticed there was no one else came close, she speaked.
“So you are the French lead on this case. Carolyn Martens, MI6, Russian desk, I believe that this case is associated with a crime organization we are chasing.”

Chapter Text

The room had a damp smell, probably a sour fruit from its near-sea location. One shall never call this place fancy, though the original owner might have tried so (judged by the fainted wallpaper that is hard to decide where the criticism should start, but still, an effort), the successor definitely thought it was a terrible idea.
Villanelle was lying on the bed, staring at the television like a teenager who was asked to finish watching some video materials that couldn’t be more boring as homework. As a picky assassin, the past few escaping days were like her personal hell. The absolute tasteless of this so called ‘safe house’ tortured her even in her dreams, as the sheets were made from plain cotton, stupid rose and ribbon figures all over, possibly bought on sale, in a gaudy market. Whoever was responsible for maintenance must be indifferent to the quality of life, that he(or she?) even failed to notice the stock could get no gas, which forced her to murder her palate every day by takeouts.
It was a bad idea, to ask for help from the real Russian intelligence. It seemed like they still worked in a cold-war style-- the unnecessary socialistic mortification. In her defence, she was hurt badly at the moment, physically and psychologically, and her choices were limited due to the situation. However, it would be unwise to let this last, a new decision had to be made.
The door made quite a noise closing. Villanelle got her gun under the pillow. Thank God the pillow was a velvet one.
The gun was loaded. As always.
“I bought some sandwiches, hope you’ll like them for breakfast.” Eryka Klein walked into the room, noticed Villanelle’s position, astonishment flashed by, “Oh, good, very cautious.”
“Don’t try to fool me. What’s your answer?” Villanelle kept the gun up, asked.
“I talked to my commissioner, he believes your talent can be of great use.”
“Go on.”
“But you’ll need to prove your loyalty.” Eryka shrugged, she didn’t like this any bit more than Villanelle, but she wasn’t in control.
“Ha, loyalty? Hahahaha!” to her surprise, Villanelle put the gun down and started laughing. It was quite a laugh that Eryka could see tears come out of Villanelle’s eyes. Emotional, but professional. Eryka Klein recalled her assessment in mind, trying pretty hard to restrain the impulsion of stopping the laugh.
“I am always loyal to my work.” Villanelle suddenly stopped laughing, said in an innocent voice. She paused a little bit, added, “What’s the job?”
“An explosion happened in the Eurotunnel just hours ago. Our source told us it was the twelve’s design. Find the perpetrator and find out why the twelve target a biology professor.”
It felt different from postcards. But it was her first job after Konstantin/ the final job for the twelve, and involved some detective work, which she wanted to endeavour after being found by Eve. She could find a way to adapt.
And she was always a hard-worker, wasn’t she?
But before she got started, she should get something else done.
“I guess there should be a new apartment for me, it’s on the list.”
“You’ll get that.”
Villanelle raised her eyebrow.
“After breakfast.”
“I’ll take that. So, what did you have?”
She literally jumped out of the bed, but she forgot her stab wound hadn’t fully recovered yet, so a delicate pain hit her. It’s so much pain, for Villanelle once thought she’ll never feel pain except dysmenorrhea, for she was so damn sure she wouldn’t get hurt again. Sometimes these days she kind of felt frustrated (of course she’ll never admit it to anyone, not even her perkier self) in herself, because she really just let Eve Polastri did this to her. And in Eve, of course, because she stabbed her after she made it clear that she just wanted a friend (let’s just leave how much lie it was). The memory of what happened and what were supposed to happen on that day was a bit foggy to her right now, but Villanelle was sure that the former British Intelligence employee owed her. Now the pain was a legible reminder that there were still something unfinished between them, and she would make it right.
Eryka Klein took a tube of anti-inflammatory drug from the drawer, got close to check Villanelle’s wound.
“Oh, I haven’t noticed that you have a physical interest in me.” Villanelle backed away when Eryka was trying to lift her clothes, took the drug and smiled, “Sorry, but you’re not my type.”
“You are not my type, too.”
“Oh, so you do have a type?” Villanelle hissed as the alcohol doing its work,”please, tell me more, or I’ll still under the impression that all you agents are nuns. ”
“No. You take care of yourself, breakfast is on the table. I am going to have a shower.”
The brunette agent was somehow a mystery. Villanelle met her after she arrived in Calais, and she helped pull all the strings. But unlike Konstantin, or that bald guy she didn’t remember his name, Eryka Klein wasn’t a talkative person who spent most of her time reading original version books. Villanelle noticed her reading in Russian, French, German, Portuguese, and English, maybe there was a lot more. Speaking a language was one thing, appreciating literature in a language was a whole different one. Villanelle’s curiosity took her to google Eryka’s name, and it made her more curious when she found out that Eryka was an a lucky survivor out of a terrorist attack.
Would Eve be curious too? If she was in my position. Probably yes, after all, she was such a determined detective.
“Oh, no, my dear Eve.”Villanelle tossed the tube, shook her head and smiled, “You are not going to do that. You are still mine. ”
A few hundreds miles away, Eve Polastri sneezed. She knew exactly who was thinking of her.