Killing Eva (3 page)

The man had been older and, looking back, had seemed frightened, perhaps as if he was being coerced. Realistically, there was no reason anyone would put themselves through the process involved voluntarily unless they had their own agenda. The drugs, the implants, the mental effects of the unfinished product were harsh indeed.

The man had disappeared, taking the evidence of a substantial part of Stefano's work with him. But it was several months ago and he knew from personal experience that, if his work had fallen into the hands of another scientist, it would already be on the market – but it wasn't, so it couldn't have. Perhaps the procedure had killed the man, and Stefano's secrets had died with him. The only other key in the system belonged to a woman connected to Stefano's ex-business partner – but she had been set up remotely using a sample and the entire test system had not been run on her. Not yet. That was the next step for both projects, a new test subject, someone within Stefano's control – otherwise this woman remained the only person who could be used to activate Veritas. He often wondered whether she was aware of her importance, whoever she was.

Regardless, it looked as if Stefano's key was still going to be the first of its kind to make it onto the market. And without his English partner, the revenue would be his and his alone.

Feeling satisfied, Stefano finished shutting up his lab. The rest of the building was almost entirely dark, it was late. He was just about to input his code into the main door to the lab when he stopped. He felt someone was watching him.

Ridiculous, he thought but, nevertheless, he moved his body to block the keypad.

Then, he silently left through the back entrance. He was not in the mood for a conversation with the jolly security guard.

THREE

‘Her name is Eva Scott. She is resident in London. We found her yesterday.'

Two sharp-suited men in a darkened room gazed at a projection of Eva's face on the wall opposite.

‘She's pretty.'

‘Hmmmm.'

‘Is there anything full length?'

A snap of the projector and the image changed again. This time, the shot captured all of Eva, straight backed, hair shining in the wintry morning sun as she waited at the mobile coffee stand under the glass canopy in her oversize coat.

‘What would you suggest that we do?'

One of the men, who wore a slim-cut grey tweed, turned away from the image on the wall. He was not a young man anymore, he felt the effort of middle age underneath his fading Mediterranean tan. He reached for a thick cigar and rolled it between his fingers before cutting and lighting it. He could feel his younger colleague becoming frustrated, both by the smoking indoors and the time he was taking to respond. He sat down at an enormous walnut wood desk and took several long, luxurious puffs on the cigar. His colleague said nothing.

‘What would you suggest we do, Paul?'

The younger man was a new addition to the team. He was an untested quantity and no one had taken kindly to such a late arrival, especially one so unexplained. Nobody intended to make things easy for him – he had an excess of ambition written all over his face.

This time, it was the younger man's turn to respond slowly. He leaned against one of the antique bookshelves in the library, knowing full well that his disrespect of the priceless furniture would drive the older man mad.

‘Well, I know less about this business than you,' he appeared to concede.

The older man nodded and continued to smoke.

‘But it seems to me she is a loose end. Her presence at Waterloo Station – was it really a coincidence, given her history?'

The smoke in the room was thick now, hanging blue and fragrant in the warm morning air.

Neither of the men spoke for some time, as the effect of the younger man's words began to sink in.

Suddenly, the subject was changed. ‘What have you planned for the man?' asked the elder, still working his way through the cigar.

A noticeable ripple of excitement travelled through the younger man and he moved quickly to sit opposite the desk.

‘I'd like to eliminate him. Now that she,' he gestured at Eva's worried face, ‘has surfaced, I think the threat – whilst minimal – is enough to warrant it.'

‘But are they even connected anymore?'

‘Why take the chance?'

‘And her?'

‘Maybe we should let Joseph Smith decide.'

For the second time that day, Eva found herself running. Only this time it was to escape. After leaving work early she'd gone home and curled up in bed. But by the evening she had allowed herself to believe her own lie about feeling ill and decided to walk to a late night chemist for some painkillers; no amount of water had been able to soothe the now continuous thumping inside her skull. It was almost 10pm, it was a Wednesday – the streets were wet with rain but empty of the usual crowds of revellers who would populate this area from tomorrow through to the end of the weekend. But as she left the chemist and crossed the road to make the ten minute journey back to the flat, the hair had begun to stand up on the back of her neck. A figure seemed to be shadowing her, stopping when she stopped, running when she ran, sticking to her like glue. It was impossible to tell whether it was male or female. She considered turning around and shouting a challenge but the streets were completely empty and the chances of anyone coming out of their home to help her were slim to none. She crossed the wide road in front of the station, walked by the glass canopy where she had bought her coffee that morning and jogged quickly up the small hill that led home. She felt her shadow follow, she even heard the footsteps. They weren't trying to hide.

Eva could hear her heartbeat thudding heavily in her ears. She was exhausted and drained, as if recalling past events had somehow opened up everything she had stored away after another very similar experience all those months ago. She drew another breath down into her lungs and forced herself to remain focused. In Paris, she had ended up bouncing off Leon's car bonnet after she had convinced herself she was being pursued and reacted like a frightened animal. This time, she would behave differently. She didn't like to make the same mistakes twice.

At the top of the hill, the road curved to the right and Eva quickly made her way down the turning that would take her back to her own flat. Unexpectedly, she turned left, slipping inside the narrow alleyway between two shops. She flattened herself against the wall. Her breath was fighting to escape in large, anxious bursts but she forced herself to be controlled. Sure enough, seconds later the shadowy figure slipped past the alleyway. From the brief glimpse that she had Eva recognised it was a man. But he was wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up and a dark woollen hat covered most of his hair and the forehead of his profiled face. Eva waited several seconds for him to pass and keep walking and then stuck her head out of the alleyway.

What she saw made her heart skip a beat.

The man was standing just a couple of metres away under the darkness of a street lamp with no bulb. He was still, looking directly towards the alley in which she stood, the shadow of his hood creating a dark, faceless pool from which she knew two eyes were focused in her direction.

Eva stood frozen to the spot. Her heart was hammering frantically. The man didn't move. It was a surreal scene worthy of the finest Hollywood horror.

What was he going to do? Eva glanced around at her options – go further up the alley and become trapped, run at him and risk finding herself a stabbing statistic or run away from him and wait for him to chase her; wait to feel strong hands close around her neck and choke the life from her. Just like Paris.

Suddenly, voices broke the silence of the wet, cold streets. Drunken male and female voices heading towards where they were. The hooded man reacted briefly, glancing in the direction of the noise, and then slowly, almost unnaturally slowly, his head rotated back towards Eva. She still could not see any of his features. He looked almost as if he had none. Eva was frightened.

Then, without warning, the man turned and walked in the opposite direction, his hands in his pockets. Eva watched him go. The gaggle of Wednesday night revellers hustled past the alley, obscuring her vision of the departing man. None of them noticed the lone woman who had retreated, shaking, into the shadows. When they had moved on, she scanned the street for several minutes but could see nothing at all.

Her flat was just minutes from where she was standing. She could move, or she could remain cornered in that cold alleyway. She started to run. When she reached her front door, she drove the key home and flung open the door. It squeaked on its hinges. She leaped inside and felt for the handle behind her. A gust of wind blew in her face and, suddenly, she felt as if she was being pushed back, the door wrenched from her grasp. She felt a scream settle in her throat as she expected to see that empty hood appear around the door. The gust of wind died away. Quietly, Eva closed the door.

Once she had downed a glass of brandy to steady her nerves, Eva sat on her Swedish designed sofa and tried to stop shaking. The entire experience of the last hour was unpleasant, but what had shaken her most was that the man had done nothing. Perhaps he had been interrupted by those kids, but she wasn't sure. He had not tried to mug her, he had not tried to hurt her, he was apparently not trying to commit an opportunistic crime but just to intimidate. That meant there was another reason for his presence. Once again, Eva felt things slipping from her grasp. The steady, normal life she had constructed for herself over the past year seemed to be going up in smoke. Something was happening, she could feel it. Something she had no control over.

Her mind flicked back to the dying man at Waterloo Station earlier in the week. That seemed to be the point at which things had started to change.

She poured herself another drink and leaned back into the sofa. Then she stood up, walked to the kitchen and flicked the heating switch on the boiler before returning to the sofa and her drink. She tried to remember the man's face but it was difficult. She thought of his battered hat lying on the floor and felt sadness that someone in such a state could still do something as quaintly well mannered and old fashioned as wear a hat.

Where had he come from?

Again, Eva heard the word that he had said to her as he died, ‘kolychak'. She realised she had said it out loud.

She leaned over and opened the notes app on her phone and typed it into the lined yellow page. She stared at it. It meant nothing to her. But it had meant something – at the time. Or had she imagined that in the drama of the moment.

She stood up, walked over to a vintage chest of drawers and pulled it open, the pale wood so smooth under her touch, contrasting with the clean modernist lines of the sofa. It was a contrived ‘look' but she quite liked it. She retrieved a piece of paper and a black pen and wrote the word, first in large capital letters and then in standard sized text. She propped the sheet of paper on the arm of the sofa next to her and continued to stare. She was sure she knew that word. She had heard it before. But where had she heard it and what did it mean?

When she finally persuaded herself to go to bed an hour later, she took her laptop with her. She had bolted, locked and chained her front door, checked every window and even picked up an empty wine bottle and a kitchen knife, a small arsenal of weapons, ‘just in case'. And she could use them, she knew that now – she had killed two people in Paris.

In the warm light of the cosy bedroom, she began to search the internet for the word ‘kolychak'. She passed the term through several search engines but soon felt her mind begin to slow. The brandy was relaxing her body and she now realised how very tired she was. She looked at the screen but couldn't read what was on it. She closed the computer and shut her eyes.

Stefano Cirza stared in horror at the man in front of him, who held a metal claw at his throat. At the end of another late night in the lab, a feeling had crept over him that he wasn't alone. It was the same instinct he'd had several nights previously. When he had finally seen the stocky black man standing silently watching him, it had dawned on him he had indeed not been alone that night either. In fact, ever since that night he'd instinctively felt someone was in his life, silently watching, and now this man had let himself in with a code known only to Stefano and his research assistant – who had been on an extended holiday for the past three weeks.

When the eyes of the two men had met, neither had moved for several seconds. But then, before Stefano could summon security, the metal claw was at his throat.

‘W-what do you want?' he stuttered, every nerve ending on the back of his skull alight.

‘I am sure you already know.' The accent was most definitely African but, other than that, Stefano could not tell.

‘Who are you?'

‘My name is Joseph Smith.'

With a sinking feeling, Stefano realised that the ease with which the man had revealed his name did not indicate a positive outcome. One in which Stefano was left breathing.

He felt the metal implement begin to graze his skin and he wondered why the man didn't just carry a gun. Why bother with the theatrics of such a cruel thing?

‘What is that?' he asked, nodding as far as he could without the metal piercing his skin. Perhaps he could appeal to the man's better nature, make a connection with him.

‘Bagh nakh. Tiger claws. They are from India.'

Stefano started to speak again but the other man interrupted. ‘No,' he said and took a step back, removing the tiger claw from Stefano's throat.

Stefano tried to calm his heart but he knew what was coming.

Smith stepped forward and drove the metal implement through Stefano's thigh, slashing it down so that it was possible to hear the tearing of skin and muscle as it was ripped from the bone.

He covered Stefano's mouth to stifle the scream. ‘If you give me what I need I will slash your throat so you die quickly. If you don't I will butcher your body so that you feel every single cut.'

Stefano clutched at his thigh, the blood was running warm and sticky through his hands. His eyes met those of his aggressor once again.

‘I want to live!' It was a cry that bubbled up from Stefano's very core. He did not want this choice. It wasn't any choice at all.

There wasn't even a flicker of empathy in those black eyes. ‘You cannot. Now make your decision.'

Shaking, Stefano closed his eyes. That it should come to this. Had his ex-business partner died at the hands of this man too – was that why he had disappeared? When he opened his eyes again, there was an acceptance of sorts. He was not a coward and he would die with as much dignity as he could. The pain in his leg from the first cut was bitter and he knew he could not take that over and over again.

He began slowly to lift a chain from around his neck. On it hung a small metal box. His entire body was shaking almost uncontrollably. The other man steadied his hands. Stefano opened the box and handed over a boxy key. He tried to speak but Joseph Smith was too fast.