Killing Eva (6 page)

EIGHT

As soon as
she left the hotel, Eva knew she was being followed. She could sense the presence behind her even if she couldn't see it. She crossed the road on her right, glancing slightly further than the flow of traffic to see if she could make out a figure in her slipstream but none stood out. She continued walking along the pavement on the other side of the road. It was broad daylight in Berlin, there were people everywhere, surely approaching her at this time of day would be crazy.

But she was wrong.

Almost as soon as the thought came, so did the assault. She was shoved from behind – so hard it completely took her breath away. She fell, sprawling onto the pavement, her bag hitting the floor before her body did. She felt the palms of her hands graze the concrete and she hit the front of her skull, hard. Instinctively, she reached for her head and then her bag, which had fallen in front, to her right. She grasped the leather strap. A heavy boot stamped down on her closed fist, making her grimace, but she didn't let go. Lifting her head caused a bolt of pain across her skull; the sun was bright in her eyes and Eva couldn't see who the foot belonged to. She dipped her head again, quickly brought her left hand to join her right on the bag strap. She felt her body jerk forward as someone picked up the bag and tried to rip it from her grasp, pulling her along the pavement with the soft leather satchel. She glanced up, breathing hard. Now she could see the face. She didn't recognise it but she understood the expression it wore. She yanked the bag back, trying to free it from the man's grasp, but he was built like a machine. She knew she should let go but she couldn't.

So she started screaming.

Her assailant's eyes widened and she knew people around would be staring at them. What would he do? And then the man surprised her.

‘
Bitte
,' he said, in a hushed voice, his eyes pleading with her. ‘
Please, just give me your phone. That's all I need.
'

Eva stared at him but did not release the bag.

‘What?'

His grip on her bag had loosened.

‘I don't want to hurt you,' he said urgently, ‘just give me the bag so I can get the phone.'

Why did he just want her phone? If this was a mugging, why not the cash and credit cards, too.

‘
Bitte!
' the man repeated and Eva could sense there were people running in her direction as the man began to glance left and right.

Eva, looking up at him from the ground, her neck vibrating with tension, shook her head.

NO
.

His eyes narrowed and he went to reach for something in his pocket. Then, apparently thinking better of it, he simply dropped the strap of her bag and began to run in the other direction.

‘I will see you again!' he yelled, over his shoulder, as he turned a corner into a side street. The oddly civilised threat hung in the air. Eva heard someone running behind her and the hotel's porter streamed past in his smart green uniform.

Several minutes later, the porter returned to where Eva sat on the pavement with several inquisitive commuters around her.

‘Are you OK?' he asked, looking genuinely concerned.

‘I'm fine,' she said, shakily. ‘I take it you didn't catch him?'

The porter shook his head.

‘Thank you for trying.'

A small crowd had gathered around Eva, who was staring at the smears of blood that had appeared on the concrete from her grazed hands.

There was a quiet ripple of German conversation and Eva felt herself being helped to her feet.

She looked at the owner of the strong pair of hands that had hoisted her up to a seated position.

A man with bright blue eyes, a narrow face and black hair slicked to his head. He gazed at her for a second and she stared back. Her heart double beat. He looked as if he was about to say something and then, without warning, he made a grab for her handbag and started running away with it in the other direction.

‘Hey!
HEY!
'

Eva was taken by surprise. However, she set off after the man at a run. Without her phone, her passport and her bank cards she really would be helpless here.

‘Come back!'

People along the street turned and stared as the two ran past, but this time no one stepped in to help.

Perhaps they could see the odds were stacked against her.

As she ran, Eva could feel herself becoming breathless. She was used to jogging, but not to this fast-paced sprinting. In a different situation, she might have wondered whether it was a good idea to be chasing someone down the street like this – and perhaps stopped and given up.

But she had eight months of self-defence training behind her.

And she was seeing red.

Or rather, she was seeing clearly.

This was no ordinary mugging. This was something to do with… with it all, with the man at Waterloo Station and, most of all, with the word ‘kolychak'. Perhaps the text messages on the phone were what they wanted, perhaps not. She felt she would never find out what was going on if she stopped chasing this man now.

And so she pushed all the energy she had through her limbs, forcing her body to switch up another gear, even though all her muscles burned.

Ahead, the running man was coming to the edge of a busy main road. He threw a glance back in her direction and, when he realised Eva was the only person in pursuit, he slowed his pace.

And then he stopped running. Unexpectedly, he turned to face her.

Eva slowed down too until she was just steps away.

They stared at each other for several seconds.

He was short but powerfully built.

‘Give me my bag!' she yelled, over the traffic noise, breathlessly, forced to rest with her hands on her hips to try and support her lungs, which felt as if they were about to collapse.

‘You're brave to chase me,' he replied, apparently having no difficulty breathing.

Eva regretted the cigarettes she had smoked recently, as she attempted to fill her lungs.

‘Probably unwise,' said the man, ‘but brave.'

She ignored the threatening tone. ‘Just give me the bag and I won't make any trouble for you.'

The blue eyes laughed back at her. ‘
You
won't make any trouble for
me
!'

Eva took a step towards him. ‘You're holding something that doesn't belong to you. You're a thief.'

She wondered where this casual antagonism was coming from. This was dangerous – reckless. It was not just the confidence of knowing she could defend herself, this was attack. Something else was driving her now.

‘Give me my bag,' she said, trying to sound bigger than she was.

The man laughed again and took a step backwards towards the edge of the stream of traffic. Eva inhaled sharply, he was a hair's breadth from being clipped by the cars steaming past at high speed.

She glanced around. They were close to a set of traffic lights. Presumably, he was waiting for the lights to change so he could run through the traffic. She saw him glance sideways.

Then she ran at him.

Surprised, he took that too-soon step back towards the road, just as a large lorry came speeding the other way, too close to the pavement. The huge wing mirror clipped the back of his head at high speed, the sound of bone cracking seemed to echo off the surrounding buildings. The man was thrown to the ground as the lorry began to screech to a halt. Eva's bag launched into the air and landed almost at her feet. Behind the first lorry, a second was too close to stop and ploughed into the back of the trailer in front. Eva watched, horrified, as the tail end of the vehicle in front began to swing around in her direction, shunted from behind. She heard a voice screaming inside her head and bent down, just about managing to close her fingers around part of her bag before she ran at speed in the other direction. She kept moving, expecting at any second to feel the enormous vehicle hit her in the back. She was braced for the impact – but it never came. She kept running for several minutes; all she could hear behind her was the sound of crunching metal. When she finally stopped, two streets away, she heard an explosion.

Eva stood dazed for several seconds, gulping down air into raw, empty lungs and trying to calm the frantic beating of her heart. She shut her eyes as, in her mind, she saw the tail end of the lorry swing at her again. She shook her head.

Stop, she thought to herself. Stop thinking. Just stop.

She forced herself to empty her mind and take deep breaths. Then, she realised she was being watched. A man in a small papershop – perhaps drawn out by the distant noise – was watching her, expressionless.

She met his eye and smiled, then forced herself to put one foot in front of the other.

She swung her bag over her shoulder and continued onwards, trying to make her awkward, wooden gait less obvious. But she felt as if her body was frozen in shock. She was like the Tin Man.

She exhaled, for the first time in several minutes she realised. Quickly, she pulled a pair of sunglasses out of her bag and covered her eyes, which no doubt were bloodshot and wide. As she made her way back towards the direction in which she had come, she straightened her hair, wiped the sweat from her upper lip and forced herself to move as if she had no idea what had just occurred on the adjoining street. There was no way she could allow herself to be connected to that.

It wasn't actually that difficult – despite the incredible noise the crash had made, there was no screaming and shouting, no panicked running in the direction of the street. Most people would not assume the worst until they were presented with it – at least at first. Although she knew the sense of calm wouldn't last, at that moment everything around her seemed normal, so Eva forced herself to pretend she was part of the scene and not the devastation she had left behind.

Despite the sunglasses, she felt self conscious. Should she report what had happened to the police, tell them her part in all of it? She should, she knew she should. But she wasn't going to.

Walking through the doors to the hotel, she jumped as the porter put his hand on her arm.

‘Are you OK? Do you want me to call the police?'

‘
No
,' she said, a little too forcefully, ‘thank you, I'm fine.'

He noticed the bag. His eyes widened in surprise. ‘How did you get it back?' he said, obviously assuming she could not have done it herself.

‘The kindness of strangers,' she mumbled and walked back through the hotel lobby towards the lifts.

She shared the lift with three businessmen in expensive looking suits. The mirrored panels of the elevator revealed that, despite her best efforts, she looked dishevelled.

Back in her room, Eva stripped off and stood under the shower for twenty minutes. Then, she began again the process of making herself look human – a change of clothes, more make-up, a blow dry – so that not a hair was out of place. She ordered a large brandy and a pot of coffee to her room, as well as a sandwich and a bowl of fruit. Finally, she sat down and prepared herself for the interview with the climate change expert. As if nothing had happened.

He knew he had compromised himself. As soon as that van pulled up next to his car on the street in London, he knew. But until the blackout blindfold was removed from his eyes two days later, he didn't quite know how much. He had been kept in the dark the entire time. He had not been allowed to eat, drink or use the toilet and he felt weak, disorientated and tense. Exactly as he was meant to feel. But there was also something else, a chemical haze around his senses that he couldn't place. And a pain under the skin of his head, as if something had been inserted there.

He blinked as he tried to adjust his eyes to the sudden influx of light after all the time in the darkness. It was too difficult, so he shut his eyes again.

He could hear voices in the other room but, whoever had removed the blindfold had then left. Obviously, as yet, they had nothing to say to him.

He tried to make out a sound he recognised, something that would tell him where he was. But he had been senseless for too long and he was struggling. He felt the urge to panic rising inside his chest. His ribcage began to expand. He clenched his fists and pinched his eyelids together until the need to react had passed, then he focused on making his breathing slow and regular.

What did he know? He knew he had been here for two days because he had heard the birds singing twice. But he did not know where ‘here' was. When they had taken him off the street, they had gone to great pains to ensure he couldn't tell what kind of vehicle he was being transported in, or where he was going. By his guess, he was no longer on British soil.

He slowly started to open his eyes again, testing each eyeball against the harsh light filtering in through his raised eyelids.

When his eyes were fully open, he could make out the room around him. It was light-filled and was expensively furnished. It was an odd place in which to be tied to a chair.

But he didn't recognise it.

He strained to hear the conversation filtering in through a slightly open door on the other side of the room.

They were talking about Eva.

NINE

Eva had wrapped
up her interview within an hour and a half. It was straightforward, she had been well prepared and, when it came down to it, the woman had very little to say. Eva had managed to extract the basis for a sound piece of writing, complete with some appropriate quotes, but it wasn't exactly going to be one for the portfolio.

What she hadn't anticipated was being met, after the interview, by one of the NGO's Berlin-based translators who had insisted he had intructions from the ‘guys back in London' to take her out to a Russian restaurant on Boxhagener Straße. As he repeated in the face of her refusals, he took all London visitors to the restaurant when they were in Berlin, ‘it's tradition.' Eva had politely declined – several times. She wasn't in the mood for anyone, particularly someone quite so irritatingly effervescent; but apparently she had no choice. The man had smiled and said jokingly ‘it's part of your job to report back on the borsch,' and the painful realisation dawned on Eva that nothing would deter him. If she wanted to spend the night alone, she was going to have to be rude – he had given her no other choice.

In the end, manners had prevailed; she had smiled, agreed and he picked her up in a taxi from the hotel at 7 pm.

Now, she was sitting across from him, gazing at a giant wall painting of a Russian doll and attempting to spoon her way through a bowl of thick beetroot soup.

‘So, do you like the borsch?'

‘Uh huh,' she nodded, and spooned in another mouthful. It was earthy and sweet at the same time, but it was also heavy and she never seemed to see the bottom of the bowl.

‘Such a flying visit to Berlin. You should stay longer, there is so much to see.'

‘I don't have much say in when I come and go – it was really just to do the interview.'

‘And did you get what you needed today?'

She nodded and took another spoonful of the beetroot soup. ‘It was fine.'

Apart from being mugged this morning – twice, she thought to herself.

Just as she thought she could see the bottom of the soup bowl, a waiter stopped at their table and deposited a tray with two tall glasses full of clear liquid.

‘You must try this vodka, it is one of the best.'

She put her spoon down and looked at him. This was the fourth time he had said that. What with the bottle of wine he had ordered to accompany the soup, she was feeling ever so slightly drunk. If she was honest there was nothing she wanted more, right now, than the numbing effect of alcohol. Whether giving in to that desire would be wise was another matter.

‘Here,' he said, handing her the glass. ‘Za zdarovye!'

He downed the shot of vodka in one go and then slammed the glass down on the table, in a great display of showmanship.

Eva picked up her glass and sipped from it.

‘Oh, come on!' he said ebulliently, ‘this is a
Russian
establishment. In honour of the nation that drinks like men, you must down it!'

Eva was about to protest – both at the slur against womankind's ability to handle alcohol and at another onslaught of pure liquor – but she had run out of energy. She was exhausted and could already feel the recklessness of passing her tipping point settling over her. The events of the last 72 hours had begun to fade into the comfort of alcohol. She couldn't pretend that wasn't welcome. So the shot was downed and Eva slammed the glass on the table in the same way her dinner companion had done. She felt the liquid running down her throat, fiery with heat and booze. One final spoon of the beetroot soup and she pushed the bowl away.

‘So, what is it exactly you do here, Andre?'

He smiled at her, eyes flashing, as he topped up her wine glass. He was a small man, perhaps in his late 30s, with a shadow of middle age already creeping up on him. His dark brown hair was flecked with grey, his face was youthful although showing the telltale marks of late nights and too many cigarettes, but he was pleasant and chatty, despite his slightly pushy demeanour.

‘I'm a translator and facilitator,' was his reply.

‘Who for?'

‘Mostly for your employer.'

Eva took a small sip of wine. She had a taste for alcohol now.

‘Do they need someone based permanently in Berlin? I thought most of the staff was in London, Brussels or Luxembourg.'

She could see instantly that he didn't like the questioning. It was obviously not his role to reveal anything about his position here. Which was a little odd.

‘Let's not talk about me, Eva, let's talk about you!'

‘No, I'm interested, really. What's it like working for them in a city like this?' Andre was not the only one who could be conversationally forceful.

He stopped and took a drink, assuming a thoughtful expression.

‘Well, I suppose it is like working for them anywhere in Europe.'

‘But I don't really understand what it is you do.'

‘I look after people they send here.'

‘Do they send many people here?'

Eva noticed Andre's expression darken and she could almost feel his irritation across the table. He really didn't want to talk about this.

‘I mean, it seems an odd place to have someone permanent,' she said, pushing him further, ‘rather than Brussels.'

‘I think maybe it's just convenient,' he answered lamely, before completely changing the subject.

Eva watched him as he pretended to read parts of the menu to her in Russian, as if he knew what he was talking about. Or perhaps he did.

His forced joviality was about as believable as his fake tan and Eva had a strong sense from him that something didn't fit.

As the meal came to an end, she had been relieved at the prospect of escaping from someone who had told her virtually nothing about himself the entire time she had spent with him. Andre, however, had other plans.

‘Have you ever been to Berghain?'

Eva shook her head as they sat in the back of the taxi. She'd heard of the Berghain and the legendary Panorama Bar, but never actually been to the vast East Berlin club.

‘Oh man, it is just the best club in Berlin!'

Eva gazed out of the window. Was she really in the mood for a night of techno?

‘Seriously,' continued Andre, enthusiastically, ‘it's like one of the best clubs in the world, the sound system is incredible. If you haven't been you should take this opportunity! Their door policy is super strict – especially with foreigners – but I know people. We won't even have to queue.'

Eva knew she had enough alcohol in her system for the prospect of a club to be appealing, and there was a certain desire to block out what had happened earlier in the day rather than go back to her hotel room and think about it.

But was this really the way she wanted to spend her night here? It had been a while since she had enjoyed the hedonistic release of an all nighter in a dark, sweaty club. And from what she knew of Berghain, it was very much an all night – and all day – event. When you were out of practice, the thought of that seemed rather intimidating.

‘Where is it?'

‘Ostbahnhof. Not far.' Eva caught a nod between Andre and the taxi driver and the car turned a smooth right before speeding along unexpectedly quiet streets.

‘Is it open?'

‘Eva, it's Friday!'

Eva looked at him, surprised. It appeared she had lost track of the days.

She pulled her phone out of her bag and that was the second surprise of the evening – it was almost 2am. She had absolutely no idea where the rest of the night had gone, after those four shots of vodka, but at least that explained why she felt so tired.

She sat back against the squashy seat of the taxi and watched Berlin's city streets flash past. At this hour, the buildings looked dark and intimidating, but the city was still very much alive and awake, and she felt a combination of anxiousness and excitement as the taxi drove on into the night.

Being in a foreign city was always the same mix of thrill and fear for her – liberation and vulnerability all rolled into one. It had been the same each time she had visited Jackson in Paris, too.

Jackson.

Suddenly, the phone call she'd received filtered back into her mind. She still had not worked out what was going on with that, and she was no closer to finding out what ‘kolychak' was either. Sam had not replied to her request for help and had she forgotten the muggings that morning? She felt herself sober up. Surely this was a mistake. After everything that had happened during the course of the day – and after only a few hours sleep and a skinful of alcohol – it seemed insane to go and drink the night away in a club.

She suddenly sat forward in the taxi.

‘Actually, I think I'd rather go back to the hotel.'

Her sentence hung in the air.

The taxi remained on its path.

Andre looked at her.

‘I said…'

‘No,' he said quietly.

A slight tremor of anxiety travelled down Eva's spine.

‘What do you mean, no?' she said quietly, looking at the face turned in profile in the seat next to her.

For several seconds, Andre said nothing. Suddenly, Eva lunged for the door but he was faster than her and his hand was around the handle of her door before she managed to open it.

They both remained still, he with his arm across her holding the door shut, she frozen by surprise and trying to control her rapidly spiralling heartbeat.

He let go of the door.

She sat back in her seat. What had she been going to do anyway, throw herself out of a moving car? Her instincts were obviously all over the place, thanks to the booze and the heightened emotion of her current situation.

‘Honestly, Eva, it's something you really must see, it's such an experience!' He was talking again as if the odd and slightly sinister incident with the door had not happened at all.

She nodded at him. For now, clearly, she had no choice. Weighing up the situation, she concluded they were going to a public space and, once out of the taxi, Andre could no longer control her movements. If she didn't like the situation, she would leave. Quietly, as the cab continued onwards, Eva tried to work the situation through logically, sensibly and rationally. And at the same time, she could feel the recklessness of the alcohol coursing through her veins.

In the front seat of the taxi, Joseph Smith allowed himself a small smile. Eva had not noticed him when she had entered the car and, even though he had spent most of the journey watching her in the mirror, still she didn't realise how close he was to her.

He could see she was scared. Her strong features were set in a determined mask of resolution – determination not to show fear and a refusal to be cowed by whatever this situation was. He sensed that she did not like Andre, that she found him weak somehow, worthy of little respect. She was intuitive. He appreciated that.

However, fear was not all he had seen in her eyes; there was excitement there, too – a thrill at the danger of launching herself into the unknown perhaps. A foreign city, a strange man, an environment that had a reputation for denial of social convention – most people might have swiftly retreated but not her.

He looked at her again in the mirror, as she watched the city outside the taxi. She was attractive, there was no doubt about that, but she was not his type. She was too strong, too determined, she gave off too much confidence. Although he would enjoy the challenge of breaking a wilful woman like her, it would take too much time. Besides, Eva was already marked for someone else, and he didn't need the complication in his life of crossing that person.

He was here only to do a job, a job he had learned to love, for all its challenges. He would never work in an office; his assignments inevitably involved spilling blood. Failure could mean the loss of colleagues, exactly as had happened in Paris – a situation Eva had been partially responsible for. Since then he worked alone, very much alone. He needed no one to assist him and he rarely liked to leave witnesses. Most of his work was done in dark alleyways and quiet side streets, in basements or abandoned buildings. He was skilled at the pain he could inflict – as the scientist had recently found out – and even more adept at using that pain to achieve his purpose; which was often to further someone else's ends.

He had learned to shut off – both from his victims and from his own personal pain. He didn't dwell, he simply forgot. Nevertheless, he repeatedly remembered that moment in the Paris park, when the dark-haired woman sitting in the back seat of his taxi had been trapped underneath him, lying on the cold hard ground and entirely at his mercy. He had thought about that many times since it had happened. Usually, when he was alone.

And there she was now, right behind him, once again at his mercy – although she didn't know it yet.

As far as Eva Scott was concerned, he was just another taxi driver. All she had to do was make eye contact with him and he felt she would know in an instant – he would see the recognition – but she wouldn't look, he knew that. Because he was just a taxi driver. And who ever looks at the eyes of a taxi driver?