Killing Eva (7 page)

TEN

Eva had been
expecting a basement on a Berlin street, perhaps an abandoned warehouse or factory building, but Berghain was something else. An enormous, intimidating former power station in the east side of the city, it was possibly the biggest club Eva had ever seen. The stark building was lit up in flashing primary colours from the inside and a huge queue snaked from the front entrance, back several blocks.

She looked at the queue. ‘I'm not a huge fan of standing in lines.'

Andre flashed her a side smile.

‘I never queue.'

Eva looked at him doubtfully. She knew what it took to jump a line of this size and Andre didn't look like someone who had it. In fact, he looked like an accountant.

They walked past the penned-in queuers at the front and Eva could feel the piercing stares from each person she passed. She recognised that feeling of indignation. The rage of being queue jumped.

Nevertheless…

When they reached the front, an enormous bouncer stopped them. Andre spoke in German and Eva felt appraising eyes on her. The only thing she really knew about this club was that it was notoriously hard to get into – the door policy was whatever the bouncers wanted it to be and, if they didn't like the look of you, there was no appeal. But after a terse nod, they were waved in, branded with a Berghain stamp and that was it.

Eva was vaguely impressed.

Inside, the building was vast. They passed through the enormous room that housed the coat check and then climbed a giant set of stairs up to one of the main dance floors. Hard techno pumped out from skip-sized speakers and the industrial space was a mass of moving bodies. For a moment, Eva felt overwhelmed by the sudden assault of noise and light on her senses. She blindly followed Andre as he directed her around the edge of a dance floor of football pitch dimensions, pulsating with bodies, and to stairs at the side up to the top floor.

‘Panorama Bar,' he yelled happily, as he turned to her at the top of the stairs.

She nodded. He obviously loved this place.

The room upstairs was less crowded. Andre ushered her towards a large bar in the centre of the room and bought drinks. Two shots of Jägermeister in plastic, thimble-sized containers.

The music in Panorama Bar was not quite the wall of sound the other dance floor had been, but it was still loud. The bar was vast and oval shaped, lined with people waiting to be served, sitting at bar stools or just nodding along to the bassline while people watching. It was surprisingly well lit.

Eva had to admit the club felt good. There was none of the extreme drunkenness typical of the UK at this time in the morning and, although she didn't doubt there were plenty of people enjoying more than just a drink, it didn't feel messy or out of control. Yet.

‘See,' Andre yelled, over the vicious bassline, ‘I told you it was worth coming!'

Eva nodded and wondered whether she had yet made the decision to stay and join in or to quietly slip off back to the hotel. She hadn't paid for anything, she reasoned, so, at the very least, she could wait a while and see what this place was about. It felt oddly safe, as if the wall of sound was a defence and the people around some kind of temporary community.

‘You know,' Andre was yelling again, ‘Berghain isn't just a techno club.'

He smiled at her with what was clearly meant to be predatory intent but he had a purple piece of beetroot stuck between two of his front teeth.

‘Oh?'

She knew what he was about to say. She had read about clubs in Berlin where sex in the basement was common currency, gay, straight or bi. She had never been to one, but that wasn't to say she hadn't imagined what it might be like.

‘There's more to this place you know. What happens in Berghain stays in Berghain.' He winked at her. Eva felt he wasn't doing the club justice by reducing it only to the more salacious sides of its existence.

She looked hard at Andre trying to figure what he wanted. It bothered her that he thought it acceptable to hit on her when she was here in a professional capacity. Or had she given up the right to that boundary when she walked through the doors of the club with him. That shouldn't be the case but he seemed like the type who might see it that way.

Then, just as he had done earlier, Andre switched from sex pest to professional in seconds.

‘Want to dance?' A lightly casual tone to his yell over the music.

Eva looked at him. What a strange way to behave.

He led her back down the stairs from Panorama Bar into the middle of the enormous dance floor. Eva had forgotten how much she enjoyed dancing to this relentlessly heavy beat and Andre was right, the quality of sound really was incredible. The music required precisely no thinking at all, just an instinctive, animalistic response. Thankfully, Andre kept his distance and so she decided to sweat out some of the frustrations of the past week or so. There had been no opportunity for running since she left London so this was a good substitute. Between the combination of the lights, the music and the detachment in her head, she didn't notice when Andre suddenly slipped away.

In the darkness of the early hours, the man with the Mediterranean tan was not looking quite so bronzed.

He brusquely nodded his head to a side room, where a figure sat tied to a chair. Of course, he was used to events such as these. Nevertheless, a live captive always made him feel vulnerable. It was high risk. His colleague, on the other hand, seemed to relish every minute.

‘He has been tied up in there now for, what… a day? We can't leave him like that much longer.'

He should not have listened to Paul, that much was obvious now. What were his credentials for this kind of work anyway?

‘Have you suddenly developed a conscience?' When the younger spoke it was almost a sneer – caught just in time.

That reveal was surprising.

‘No. But I value my carpets, my young friend, and so far he has pissed three times. Besides, there are other factors to consider here. The longer we hold him, the more vulnerable the rest of our operations are. It's unlikely he is working alone, I'm assuming you have realised that.'

A challenge. Territorial.

The younger man stalked several paces to the right.

‘Perhaps if you told me more about what those other operations are, I could make better informed decisions. I could even advise you.'

The idea of being advised by one so inexperienced was an impertinence too far.

‘No, you could not.'

The two men locked eyes. Seconds passed, neither looked away.

‘So what are you saying?'

‘I'm saying that you need to eliminate him, enough of these games, we need to move on.'

‘He is the test subject, it has to be right. The scenario is almost ready, I just need to install the implants.'

‘Almost is not good en…'

The younger man suddenly slammed his balled fist down on a small oak card table. The sudden movement shattered the stillness of the air around him but his gaze never wavered.

The older man began to feel its intensity. He saw revealed in the person opposite the hidden dimension that he had suspected from the start – volatile, violent, emotional. This was not strictly business for him. He looked at Paul again and something in the air between them sparked. Without meaning to, he dropped Paul's gaze. As he did so, he realised the landscape of the relationship had changed.

The younger man moved away from the card table, which seemed to be almost reeling from the blow.

‘I do agree, the delay is not ideal, but we could proceed without the cranial implants,' said Paul huskily, rubbing the side of his hand. A conversational olive branch from the victor. That again was unexpected. The deference, the revolt, the release of contained violence and then… reconciliation? That was not how it went. This man – Paul – did not behave normally, he did not follow the rules. Perhaps he didn't know them. Either way, nothing that he said or did could be taken as genuine.

The man with the Mediterranean tan realised he was hesitating to respond.

‘Do as you think. How much longer?'

‘It's rather unpredictable. It may be in the hands of fate.'

‘Fate is a fallacy.' No hesitation anymore.

‘You don't believe in fate?'

Another flash point.

‘No, the futures of those two men lie in their actions. As do ours.'

There was no response.

‘We have him right here,' said the older man, nodding his head towards the room in which the man was tied to the chair. ‘We should just kill him now.'

There was a small movement from the side room and both men looked through the spacious doorway at the incapacitated figure. There was no way the bound man could hear their conversation at that distance. Nevertheless, they both lowered their voices.

‘But we have already administered the doses – he is almost ready. And we must make sure this works before we test it on her.' His voice sounded almost nervy.

‘This is not my technology, Paul.'

The younger man did not need reminding.

‘It is not mine either.'

The conversation fell away into an unimpressed silence.

When Eva realised Andre was gone, she briefly experienced a moment of panic. The enormous room seemed to expand and contract as her brain processed that she was alone. She stood still and looked around. Faces bore smiles, most people were clearly having a fantastic time, it didn't feel threatening. In fact, this was probably the kind of club you could come to on your own.

She met the eyes of a tall blonde man who was dancing on a raised platform. He held out his hand and she allowed herself to be pulled upwards.

For a moment, she felt self conscious and then, as the bass found its way into her limbs, she once again began to dance.

Eva had no idea how long she had been on the podium when she felt a hand clutch at hers from behind. She turned to look over her shoulder and felt her balance shift but could see no one. She steadied herself quickly, the lights and the noise were a sensory disruption but it would not do to end up on her back on the floor. English-style loutish drunkenness would probably not go down well in here.

Then, the human contact was broken and the hand withdrew. She looked down at her closed fist, able to feel something small and solid inside it. Had someone just handed her a pill? She looked around again for anyone making eye contact but the grey light and flashes of strobe prevented her from seeing who it was and her senses had been numbed by the Jäger and loud music. Perhaps this was part of Andre's role as fixer in Berlin.

She climbed down off the podium, hand still clasped around whatever was in it, and walked to the back of the dance floor to lean against a railing that looked down on the entrance hall.

She opened her palm to a small piece of paper. She straightened it out.

‘Do not leave Berlin. All the answers you seek are here.'

Eva stared at the paper as, around her, the club night continued to roll on. She suddenly felt very out of place in this world of hedonist escapism, given everything that was happening to her – as the alcohol wore off, reality muscled in and she knew she could no longer indulge, she had to sober up.

Quickly, she pushed her way up to Panorama Bar, where the light was brighter. She joined the queue for the bar, waiting for water, the note playing over and over in her head. Was this actually directed at her? There was every chance this was simply coincidence – some local artist or Berghain lover encouraging people to see what was at the heart of this strangely beautiful and dark city. But there was also a chance it was not.

Suddenly, Eva felt irritated. She needed water and then she needed to go.

She stepped forward to wave at the barman and someone grabbed her wrist.

‘Don't touch my beard.'

Eva looked in surprise at face of the man she had barely registered on the bar stool in front of her.

‘I…'

‘Shst!'

He shoved her arm aside with some force and stared at her. He had a large, bushy beard, flecked with ginger and grey, and his eyes bored into her aggressively. Large earrings hung inside the lobes of his ears, stretching them to great wide circles in the flesh.

Eva clenched her teeth, lowered her arm, turned and walked in the other direction around the oval shaped bar.

‘Idiot,' she muttered to herself, rubbing the point on her wrist at which he had grabbed her.

She felt an urgent desire to leave.

She walked back down the stairs towards the main club space. It would be light soon, she wanted to return to the hotel and pack, well before her flight.

Back downstairs the music had become harder and the club seemed to be picking up the pace. The dancing was more energetic and there were casualties now, collapsed against a wall or slowly chewing through their own lips as they swayed robotically on the dance floor.

This wasn't a world she wanted to inhabit anymore. The bearded ogre had been the wake up call that this place, like anywhere else, could have its unwelcome, dark side. And she was now on her own.

She made a beeline for the exit.

Outside, it was still just about dark. The air was cold. She looked at her watch. 6.30am. There was still an enormous queue for the club, longer than when they had arrived.

She pulled on her jacket. Although she knew she should find a taxi she wanted to walk first, she needed fresh air.

As she moved away from the noise and chatter of Berghain, she started to feel slightly uncomfortable but still she kept walking.

The streets of East Berlin had an entirely different feel to the centre.

‘You want some help?'

A couple was walking towards her.

‘Are you lost?'

‘I'm fine, thank you.'

It never seemed sensible in the early hours of the morning, in a dark city, to admit to being either lost or in need of help.

They looked friendly, though, this couple, didn't they? Berlin-hipsters but harmless enough, walking arm in arm towards her. Although their stares were intense.