Killing Eva (12 page)

SEVENTEEN

As she ran
back to the hotel, Eva fumbled in her pockets for the business card Anya had given her. Her heart was beating out of her chest and she kept throwing glances behind her, to make sure Leon, with his lean boxer's physique and those hands that could so efficiently break a human neck, was not following her. Inside her mind, a whirlwind of questions. Why was he here, why did he want her phone – he was the second person to try and take it from her – why was he wearing a suit? And most pressing of all, how had he even survived the drop from the cliff, last time she had seen him? From experience, she knew Leon was a man of few words, even when his interests were aligned with hers – which, from the encounter in the park moments ago, they clearly were not this time.

But she was certain this wouldn't be the last time she would see him. It troubled her a great deal that she experienced not only fear but also excitement at the thought.

As soon as she found Anya's card, she dialled the number.

‘Eva.' It was answered on the first ring.

‘I need help.'

‘We'll come and pick you up.'

The line went dead.

Eva exhaled; she felt the adrenaline from the confrontation in the park start to wane. She slowed her pace. What am I doing, she thought to herself. I have no idea who Anya is.

Eva looked at the screen of her phone, informing her the call had been ended, and put it in her bag. She had felt as if she had been presented with making a decision between Anya or Leon, and Anya, with her (comparative) lack of physical aggression, seemed the lesser of two evils.

But was that really her only choice? Was either of them actually anything more than a rock or a hard place?

Shit.

Eva pulled the phone out of her bag and looked at the time. She had to check out of the hotel in an hour. Perhaps she should just go to the airport and board the next flight to London. There was no need for her to see Anya again and she was sure she could outwit Leon enough to make it safely onto her flight.

But then what?

Sit at a desk in an office and think about whatever it was she might have uncovered in Berlin. Something that might help her to finally let go of the obsessive thoughts about her brother and the man at the station in London – and that strange phrase ‘kolychak'. Wait for whatever was happening – and something was happening – to bring chaos to her life when she was unprepared for it?

Sometimes, she thought to herself as she took the lift back to her room, sometimes the only way out is through. You can do everything within your power to force yourself to make the right choices, to be in the right situations, to be the right kind of person, but sometimes, in spite of all that, you just end up somewhere else.

Almost as soon as Eva had finished having a shower, dressing and repacking the last of her suitcase, there was a quiet knock at the door. She glanced briefly at her wet hair and realised there was no time to dry it. She reached for the door handle. And then stopped. Was this actually Anya? It could be Leon. Or, she realised with a start, it could be Sam.

Sam. Shouldn't she at least let him know she was leaving? But when she thought about the way he had spoken to her last night, the resistance she had felt towards him, and the cloying suffocation of his affection, she just couldn't face it.

‘Who is it?'

‘Anya.'

Eva opened the door and the statuesque Blonde walked into the room.

‘What made you change your mind?'

Anya clearly did not pull punches. Direct eye contact, even voice tone, body language that indicated she was braced for any eventuality.

‘A blast from the past.'

Anya waited but, sensing she wasn't about to get anything else from Eva, she held her hand out for the suitcase.

The two women said nothing as they walked silently along the corridors of the hotel.

In the lift, Eva said ‘I need to pay my room service bill.'

‘I've paid it. We need to get you out of here as soon as possible.'

‘Why is that?'

‘After what happened to you this morning…'

‘You know about that.'

Eva couldn't say she was particularly surprised. Somehow, Anya had obtained a key to her room, so surveillance was likely. But how much? And why had they not helped her? Eva wondered whether she should be feeling more unnerved than she did. How much was she being manipulated? All she felt was a raw burning around her ears, as if she was hyper aware of what was going on. She rubbed her ear. A dark spot appeared in front of her right eye. She shook her head.

‘We have been keeping an eye on you.'

Eva looked at Anya. The dark spot was gone. ‘Who is “we”?'

‘That will have to wait.'

‘I don't think so.'

Eva slammed her hand against the emergency stop on the lift and it came to rest between the third and fourth floors.

‘You know that we'll have to deal with reception now,' said Anya, quietly, as the lift intercom began to buzz.

‘Tell me who you are and what your interest is in me – in this.'

Anya met Eva's gaze quite evenly. She seemed utterly unruffled. ‘I'm a friend, Eva, really – we are a network of friends.'

‘That's not enough.'

‘What is it specifically you want to know?'

The lift intercom was buzzing repeatedly now, with an intermittent voice being broadcast across it in German and then English.

‘I want to know what this network is, and, specifically, who you are.'

‘We are an international network of insiders, known only to each other.'

‘Sure you are.'

‘Do you want this information or not?' asked Anya coolly.

‘Go on.'

‘We're like the back-up plan, when official channels can't necessarily achieve what needs to be done to meet an objective – that's when we step in and help out.'

‘You're the “black ops”.'

‘This isn't a film, Eva.'

‘Frankly, it sounds just as fictional.'

‘I can't tell you much more right now, you're just going to have to trust me.'

‘Would you trust you?'

Anya didn't respond.

Both women jumped as a grinding noise indicated the lift doors being forced open by someone. Eva could see one pair of feet on the carpeted floor, currently at her nose height. She was sure she recognised those shoes. Suddenly, Sam's face appeared in the gap. He took a quick look at her and then – uninvited – began to roll himself in through the space. Eva inhaled sharply.

‘Do you know him?' Anya asked.

‘Yes, he's my boyfriend,' replied Eva, although she was slightly surprised at Sam's behaviour.

‘What are you doing, Sam, just call the hotel staff.'

But Sam was through the gap. He took a pace towards Eva and loomed over her. ‘Shut up.'

Shocked, she shrank back.

Sam turned towards Anya. Eva could see the other woman was confused, half on guard but half ready to welcome someone who, although unidentified, was more likely to be friend than foe.

Perhaps it was that which caused her to miss the knife.

Sam turned, bent his knees slightly and swung his right arm and fist at Anya's stomach. Blood spurted out across the lift. Drops landed on Eva's hands. She stared open-mouthed and, somewhere in the back of her throat, there was a gurgle that almost passed for a scream.

Anya went down clutching at her stomach, her face as white as a sheet. She pulled something from an ankle holster as she fell to the floor and fired a small black gun up at Sam, shooting him through the shoulder. He took a stumbling step back from the impact, also looking slightly shocked, and then he lunged again at Anya.

Instinctively, Eva threw herself in between the two. She knocked Sam sideways, punched him in the side of the head, jabbing her fingers into the softest part of his throat when he came at her again and hitting out at the panel of buttons on the elevator until one of them caused it to move again.

Sam was reeling backwards as the doors opened behind him and he staggered, and almost fell, onto the cold, hard floor. Then, he regained his balance and grabbed Eva by the hair, pulling her over to him, where he could gain a better grip. He squashed her against him and she caught the distinctive iron smell as the wound in his shoulder started to bleed.

Eva glanced back. Anya was lying in a heap on the floor of the lift. People in the reception had begun to realise something was happening. They looked at Anya and then at Eva and Sam. Eva thought she saw panic in Sam's eyes.
Run
, she willed him.
Just go
.

But he didn't. Instead, he grabbed her and held to her neck the same blade he had just used on Anya.

‘Nobody move!'

A hush fell across the busy reception.

He hustled Eva sideways across the room and towards the reception doors.

‘If you move, I'll stab her in the throat.'

‘Sam, stop. Let me go.'

Eva was struggling to make sense of what was happening. This was Sam – docile, puppy dog Sam. He was millimetres away from cutting her throat. Was this revenge, anger, obsession? Somehow, she didn't think so.

‘Sam…' she began, trying to exercise the control she'd apparently had over him back in the UK.

He flicked her head, so that his mouth was right up against her ear. ‘I mean it, shut up or I will cut you.'

She shut her mouth. Glancing sideways she could see that his eyes were bloodshot. He was obviously in pain. This was not the same person.

Who was he?

Eva struggled to stay on her feet, trying to keep her throat from his knife as he dragged her out through the hotel doors and into the street. Sam's wound was leaking blood, not gushing, but enough to leave a trail of drops on the pavement. Although she couldn't see him, his movements indicated he was frantically looking first left and then right, as if trying to spot someone. He began to drag her away from the hotel entrance. Eva heard the unmistakable sound of Berlin police sirens in the distance.

‘Shit', Sam muttered, and then pushed her up against the wall of the adjacent building. ‘Stay,' he said, keeping the knife at her throat, as he reached for his phone.

She glanced down at the screen. Sam quickly turned it from view. Had she seen what she thought she had?

Eva stood still, trying to process the two words on Sam's screen. She realised she was watching a man with a briefcase and curiously square glasses who was walking towards them. He seemed to have no reaction to what was happening in front of him – had he even realised? She looked at him but he looked away. People never wanted to become involved in someone else's shit.

And then, suddenly, the man with the briefcase turned towards them. She saw the muzzle of a silenced gun and Sam's body jerked from hers. The knife grazed her throat as he fell.

‘Where's Anya?' The man was running towards her.

Eva heard the screeching of tyres on the street.

‘
Where's Anya?
' he said again, more urgently this time.

‘She's in the hotel,' said Eva, pointing back in that direction, ‘in the lift.' She was dazed and breathless. What on earth was going on?

‘Only get into the black car,' said the man, as he set off at pace towards the hotel.

A yellow van screeched to a halt on the opposite side of the street and the door sprung open. Eva began to run back towards the hotel.
Only get in the black car…
which black car?? There must be thousands in this city. And then she saw it, a black car driving stealthily towards the hotel, pulling up to a stop across the road. She ran over to it, just as the man emerged from the hotel with Anya over one shoulder, dragging Eva's suitcase with one hand, her handbag – with her phone in – balanced on top. Eva ran and took the case from him but he seemed angry. He saw the yellow van and shouted at her ‘GO!' and pushed her in the direction of the black car. Both doors on their side of the road opened. Eva jumped for the passenger seat as a hail of bullets came in their direction from the yellow van. Anya was now in one of the passenger seats behind her, the man next to her. And in the front seat was Irene.

EIGHTEEN

Eva was staring
out of the window as the streets of West Berlin gave way to those of the East. Irene Hunt was driving the car in silence. From the seats behind, Eva could hear the sound of medical supplies being ripped open and a noise like liquid bubbling up. However, she couldn't bring herself to turn around and find out if Anya was likely to survive. Equally, she could not look at Irene. In fact, all she could do was sit and stare out of the window. It was as if a layer of white noise had settled around the outside of her brain. Disjointed thoughts came and went, half finished, uncertain and accompanied by underlying anxiety, building and building. Her heart was thudding in her chest, she felt she could hear it struggling from one beat to the next, as if the tension building up in every muscle, every vein, might overwhelm its ability to function.

Then a thought occurred to her.

I have to get out of the car.

She heard it repeat through every recess of her brain.

I have to get out of the car. NOW.

She reached for the door handle.

‘Eva!'

Irene's shout was tense and high pitched.

Eva stopped.

She looked at her hand on the door handle of the passenger side; she had been about to open the door and step out. The car was still moving.

She removed her hand from the door handle and glanced over at Irene.

‘You're in shock, Eva. Just sit still.'

It was an order but Eva found it comforting. She could just sit still, she could do that, yes. It was fine to let someone else take over until her brain returned to normal speed. She felt as if it was swelling, anxiety and confusion creating a ballooning mass that at any moment could burst the fragile bone of her skull.

Eva sucked in a thin breath, through bluish lips.

She forced herself to sit back in the seat and tried to calm her frantic heartbeat with normal thoughts. She watched as they drove along Friedrichstraße, past the original Checkpoint Charlie, crossing from west to east as few had wanted to do in the years Berlin had been divided by the giant Wall.

As the car continued its steady pace and the architecture began to change around her, Eva forced herself to think, not about her own situation, but the struggle for freedom that had taken place in this city, not that long ago. If the people could survive that kind of brutally incomprehensible regime then she had no right to crumble under whatever was happening to her now. It was a tenuous comparison but it was all she had.

‘What can you tell me about that back there?'

Her voice was calm. Amazing what the power of reflection can achieve, she thought to herself, as the physical symptoms of her panic began to subside.

She felt Irene's gaze on her. The other woman was looking at Eva's hand, which was resting not far from the passenger door.

She withdrew her hand to her lap.

‘I'm fine, Irene, really.'

Irene turned back to the road. ‘To be honest, I'm surprised that your first question wasn't about my presence here, Eva.'

Eva glanced across the car.

Irene and Eva had never made things easy for one another. Both headstrong, both stubborn, both used to having their own way.

‘Did you know I tried to get hold of you in London a week ago?'

Irene nodded at the road. ‘Of course.'

‘Apparently, you never lived at the house where I visited you with Leon.'

‘You know I can't discuss that with you, Eva.'

Eva felt resentment building. ‘Need to know' had never really worked for her. As far as she was concerned, she needed to know everything.

She was interrupted by a gasp from behind.

‘Irene, she's bleeding out,' said the man sitting in the seat behind Eva. ‘We must get her to a medic.'

‘You know I can't drive any faster than this, Sassan, we cannot draw attention to ourselves. Anya will be fine.'

Eva stared at the side of Irene's face. It wasn't the first time she had seen this woman, and her will of iron, in action but it was the first time she had been in a car with someone bleeding profusely and Irene had just refused to do anything to help.

‘Don't look at me like that, Eva, you saw what happened back there. We can't sacrifice all of us for the sake of getting her to a hospital.'

It was cold logic of the worst kind but it was, unfortunately, the truth.

They arrived at an address in East Berlin which Eva felt sure wasn't far from the Berghain club. Several people appeared from the gloomy looking building and silently removed Anya from the car.

‘Will she survive?' asked Eva. A knife wound to the stomach surely required more than a home first aid kit could supply. Irene didn't answer the request for reassurance. She was giving nothing away – not about why Irene was here or why Eva was.

People who played games for a living, Eva recalled, ensured no one ever knew which side they were on. These people only associated with those less powerful if they were either a threat or useful. Which meant she had been brought here because she was either of the above. Which was not comforting.

On the outside, the sprawling townhouse had a ramshackle, run-down air but, inside, it was a different story. The interiors could have been plucked straight from the pages of a high-end design magazine. Clinically whitewashed walls, smooth edges and sharp corners were softened by design features, a 70s style hanging lamp, a curved couch, a thick rug that looked so soft Eva just wanted to take her shoes off and stand on it in bare feet. It was a beautiful conversion but it made little sense to Eva that she should have been brought here. It was the wrong location.

Irene made them both a coffee and signalled she should sit down at an industrial-sized dining table.

‘I doubt very much whether you know what's going on.'

Eva shook her head slowly. ‘Tell me.'

‘Unfortunately, we are almost as much in the dark as you are.'

Eva sipped her coffee. ‘I doubt that.'

‘It's true, I'm afraid.'

‘So, why have you brought me here?'

‘I – and people working for me – have kept an eye on you over the past year or so, as well as that phone calls you and I have had, and things seem to have changed for you recently. For a short period of time you appeared to settle into life, to take a step back from all the questions I know remain unanswered for you. But that isn't the case anymore, is it?'

Eva said nothing.

‘You seem to have returned to your old recklessness.'

My ‘old recklessness'? thought Eva… was that how she was defined in a file somewhere, as ‘reckless'?

Irene continued. ‘I want you to explain where this change in behaviour has come from.'

She was hesitant to cooperate, particularly as the question seemed odd given the circumstances. It could have been asked in London months ago. But Eva was tired and fed up with feeling isolated.

So she told Irene why she had tried to contact her back in London – the connections with the word ‘kolychak', the dying man at Waterloo, and the fact she had remembered where she had heard the word before – in a subterranean basement in South America. She told Irene that kolychak was a defunct weapons plant – and a private bank – and that the bank's address was one they both knew from Paris. She felt she was telling Irene what she already knew, certainly the other woman showed no surprise at any of it.

Eva did not mention Leon. And she didn't know why not.

‘But I'm guessing you know all this anyway,' she said, as she finished her account, her voice trailing away as Irene continued making notes.

‘It's interesting to hear how you've come to these conclusions,' said Irene, ignoring Eva's attempt to place the other woman somewhere on the knowledge spectrum.

‘But, Irene, something is happening isn't it? You can at least confirm that – and it's connected to the events of last year. It's not over…'

Irene met Eva's gaze.

‘No.'

In this light, she seemed to have aged only slightly since Eva last shared a room with her and the small changes to her face were perhaps more attributable to the constant pressure she existed under than to the passing of time. Eva wondered how Irene's personal life was faring – she knew there was little balance to be found between a job like Irene's, with its unofficial hours and ‘work until you drop' culture, and a family life.

‘What's going on, Irene?'

‘Obviously, I wish I could tell you.'

Eva stood and walked across the immaculate kitchen, leaning against a beautifully restored Aga on the opposite side of the room. ‘Here's the thing, Irene.'

The other woman waited, expressionless.

‘You know, as well as I do, that if something is happening here, it's connected to what we were both part of in Paris.'

Nothing.

Eva continued. ‘And you also know I already have a great deal of knowledge about that situation, much more than I have told you – perhaps information that you
don't
have.'

There was the carrot.

‘If you don't share what you have with me, why should I share what I have with you?'

And there was the stick.

Even though Eva couldn't quite see Irene's eyes, she knew they were narrowing.

She put her hands behind her, against the cold metal of the huge oven. Her right hand wandered onto the large hot plate on top. If the appliance was on, her skin would have stuck to it.

‘We all thought that operation was over, Eva, you know that.'

Do I? wondered Eva.

‘Until today, there would have been nothing to
share
, as you so collegiately put it.'

It was not the truth, Eva knew that. She was silent for several seconds. ‘What about Jackson?'

‘There has been no word on your brother.'

Eva moved back to the table and took her seat opposite Irene. She raised her eyes and locked them onto Irene's. There wasn't even a flicker in the stare of the older woman. But she was, no doubt, a practised liar and Eva had the distinct impression that, if she did know a) Jackson was alive and b) where he was, every effort would be made to keep the siblings apart. Why that should be the case, however, she couldn't guess.

‘How did you find Leon?' Eva ventured.

The time had come to mention him; she knew instinctively, if she didn't do it right now, it was for reasons she didn't want to think about.

Irene didn't even blink at the mention of his name.

‘He started watching you.'

‘Me?'

‘In London.'

‘I didn't notice…'

‘Not surprising. You have an incredibly sharp instinct but you're no match for him.'

Although she knew Irene might be right, Eva felt irritated. She
was
a match for Leon.

‘It was when we were watching him we realised we weren't the only ones.'

‘Who's the other party in this?'

The question once again went unanswered.

‘They took Leon on your street.'

Eva's mind moved and locked onto a memory. The man in the baseball cap she had seen bundled into a waiting van…

‘He disappeared for several days and we couldn't find him. Then, he reappeared in north Africa, injured. But we have no way of piecing together what happened to him in that time. And, knowing him, frankly your guess is as good as mine.'

‘What does he want with me?'

‘You tell me.'

‘I don't think I can. I mean, I thought he was dead – I thought he rolled off the cliff at the Iguaçu Falls in the Land Rover.'

‘Did anything pass between you during that incident to indicate why he would suddenly want to make contact now?'

Irritatingly, Eva felt herself blushing. She knew Irene would notice.

‘Were you lovers?' Irene didn't miss a trick.

‘Once,' she replied, ‘literally, just once.'

‘And you continued to carry a candle for him after the event?' Her turn of phrase was endearingly old fashioned.

‘No, absolutely not.'

‘Did you not feel used by him?'

‘It was very much the other way around.'

Eva couldn't help noticing the slight discomfort Irene seemed to experience at the idea of Eva having used Leon for sex. Was that the line for Irene, she wondered. She could kill, maim, order death to be dished out left, right and centre but she could never use sex as a weapon, a tool, or simply as a release.

‘What did he want from you when he saw you?'

‘My phone.'

‘Your phone?' Irene seemed surprised.

‘Yes.'

‘Give it to me.'

And then Eva hesitated. She realised she had identified a bargaining chip. ‘I think I will hang on to it for now.'

There was the look once again from Irene, the look that could kill.

Joseph Smith stared at the three faces on the screen of the laptop on the table in front of him. The sleek, matte metal cast a glum reflection of the scene. Around him, the room was dark.

‘Ok, I'm ready,' he said, eventually.

There was no reaction on the screen. Three men in suits sat staring at him as his words made their way across the international connection.

‘It is new technology. It has been developed with the resources from kolychak.'

The word meant little to him.

‘Ok,' he said and waited for them to continue.

‘Check your iPhone,' another of the men spoke this time. ‘You have been sent an “instruction manual” for the mapping. You will be required to brief others.'

‘I understand the basic principles but what about the chemicals?'

‘That will not be your role.'

‘To whom will the task fall?'

‘Not your concern.'

Joseph Smith began to feel the bile rise in his throat. He detested anyone attempting to exert authority over him and, in particular, these three men. He hated the way they flinched when he spoke, the taint of his rough Sudanese accent offended their ears. But he had learned over many years – and several very hard lessons – there was little to be gained in reacting to snobbery and prejudice. Better to simply note it, lock away the emotion it created and use it at some future point. For, if he was ever face to face with those men and he heard that note of disdain… their connections and their cash would do nothing to preserve them. However, right now, his future depended on them, as much as theirs depended on his. And in this situation, the wise man would stay silent.