Killing Eva

by Alex Blackmore

  Several hours later, Eva began to experience flashbacks to a basement space and the distinct impression she had been tied to a bed, maybe even handcuffed. She looked at the black socks she had retrieved from the bin and then spread out on the bed opposite. They were cheap, bad quality and, clearly, only for one purpose. The fact she had been dressed in them, and fastened to something, was terrifying. But she had a choice about how to react to this now and she could not help herself if she fell apart. She still didn’t feel as if she’d had sex with anyone, and she knew she would feel it if that was what had happened. But could she really be sure… the uncertainty brought the panic back. She quietened both. No, she could not be sure but she had to be practical. She was alive; apparently uninjured. Concerns about anything having been transmitted to her could be allayed with tests. And besides, there was little she could do about that right now. What she really needed to establish was why this had happened and whether she was still in any further danger. She wished she could remember something else – anything – but from what she had read about scopolamine that was unlikely to happen. Ever.

  She used the internet on her phone to search for scopolamine and Berlin. There was nothing reported on any of the digital news sites but several forums popped up with entries from local Berliners afraid of the arrival of this new and scary drug.

  Some were in German but, of the English entries, she was particularly interested in posts on a forum offering support to those who felt they had been spiked – there were several people convinced they had been a victim of the drug. They were always women, they were around the same age as she was, and they were usually walking home at night, although none was in the area she had been in, most seemed to be further east.

  More worrying were posts from people who seemed to be searching for a woman who had gone missing in the same circumstances, in the same area. For them, there were even fewer answers than she had, Eva realised.

  He had borrowed a phone from a teenage boy at the settlement – who seemed to have nothing to his name other than that devise and whose eyes had almost bulged out of his head at the sight of the bills in the money clip. Thanks to the dated piece of technology, Leon had made enough calls to get himself out. He sat in a state-of-the-art medical room as his injuries were noted and categorised, checked and treated. They had offered him strong pain meds but he knew he couldn’t afford to be even slightly off his game and, besides, that always seemed to trigger a relapse in his drinking. He had to reach Berlin and he had to return to the job he had been doing when he had been taken – that was even more important now. The man he had seen had been real enough, his bruises were a testament to that. But his face… it just didn’t make sense. None of it made sense.

  Eva was screaming when she woke and the thundering on her hotel door added to the terror she felt in the darkened room. She struggled to clear the sleep from her head as the banging on the door continued and it took several seconds to realise the voice was asking – in English – whether she was alright. She gulped down several breaths of air and quickly reached for the light. Under the sheets she was dressed so she walked quickly to the door, looked through the spy hole and, seeing a man in a jacket with a name tag, pulled open the door.

  ‘Are you ok, Miss Scott?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s just that we had a call from one of the other residents. They said it sounded as if you were being attacked.’

  ‘I’m fine really. I’m sorry, it was just a nightmare.’

  ‘You were sleeping?’

  ‘Yes, what time is it?’

  He looked at her strangely. ‘It’s 5pm.’

  Eva had slept for most of the afternoon. She looked at the man. She could think of nothing else to say.

  It was obvious he was waiting for something from her – some other explanation, an apology, perhaps a tip – but she was so tense she could hardly breathe. She desperately wanted to shut the door.

  Finally, he nodded and she watched unmoving as he began to back away.

  Eva pushed herself to action and quickly shut the door. As the locking mechanism clicked home, she leaned heavily against it. She shut her eyes and slid slowly down the door until she was sitting on the floor. She cradled her head in her hands, a low moan coming involuntarily from her. Why was she so panic stricken, she didn’t feel as if she could cope.

  She screwed her eyes shut.

  The image was still there. The one she had awoken with.

  It was a basement room. Her legs – in those socks – on a bed. Then there was nothing but black and screams. The couple she had seen outside the club, slumped on the floor, eyes lifeless, blood everywhere. And then – the thing that scared her most – the last image branded on her mind in that dark hotel room. A face.

  Joseph Smith.

  THIRTEEN

  He looked at himself in the mirror as he dressed in the bedroom of his suite. His face was shadowed and his eyes still bore the telltale dark circles of going without sleep for far too long. He couldn’t remember the last time he hadn’t looked like that. He had left a half-centimetre of stubble covering his cheeks and chin. It changed his appearance very slightly, no bad thing. But he had not gone for a full disguise. Whilst his instinct was he should be dead – that this had been the intention – he was aware of the threat to his safety now and, as far as he was concerned, awareness was all he needed to keep himself alive. Or perhaps, after all this time, he simply wanted to be found.

  He pulled on a pair of charcoal grey trousers, cut close to the broad muscles of his thighs, and buttoned up a crisp white shirt. He was travelling business class to Berlin and he wanted to appear the faceless businessman. Except the suit was Tom Ford, as were the shoes.

  He stopped and looked again at the mirror. Piercing dark eyes stared back at him. There was a moment of weariness, of the kind he had begun to experience more and more as the years had gone on. A feeling this could not be it. That there must be more. The thought itself sapped his energy, so he banished it as quickly as it had come.

  He pulled on the suit jacket which, of course, fitted perfectly. He could understand why people would pay tens of thousands of pounds for ‘couture’. It was like wearing your own skin, only better.

  He briefly wondered what Eva would make of seeing him in such an expensive suit. And then, even more intensely, he wondered about the moment when they were face to face. Would the light of recognition flare in her eyes or was he too changed and had too much happened?

  He found himself fantasising the moment. How her dark eyes would widen – in surprise, disbelief, shock? Her hand would probably fly to her mouth as always happened when she was surprised. And then… and then what? He had no idea whether he would meet resistance or acceptance. He didn’t want to think about it.

  The phone rang and, in two large strides, he was beside it, receiver in his hand.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Your taxi is here, sir.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He put the phone down and scanned the suite for anything forgotten. He’d had nothing when he arrived, so there was little to remember. All his essentials had been sent to him covertly, in the usual way, and the rest he had purchased in London’s finest stores, even though it galled him to waste so much money on everyday items. But he was following a pre-arranged plan and, because of that, he was not entirely autonomous.

  He pulled the keycard from its holder by the door and the suite fell into darkness. He hadn’t even drawn back the curtains the entire time he was there and he realised, suddenly, he wasn’t sure whether it would be light outside. He shook his head angrily. Five years ago, that would not have happened, he would never have become so preoccupied with his thoughts.

  He was changing.

  Eva sat and stared at the piece of paper in her hand.

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

 
She put it down on the thick, satiny brown coverlet on the double bed, writing side up. She folded her legs underneath her and continued to stare at it, but no answers appeared.

  Eventually, she slid down so that she was lying on her side, still looking at the piece of paper.

  She closed her eyes. She was tired, her body ached, but her mind was restless.

  It was now 7pm. She still couldn’t get Joseph Smith’s face out of her head. But why had she dreamed about him?

  She had assumed the elements of her dream that had been drawn from reality were just fiction, but what if they were not? What if that had been a memory? A drug like scopolamine was an unknown quantity, she had never taken it before so she couldn’t judge the most likely scenario. Which made her feel shaky and nervous. It did not help that she still felt drugged, the edges of her consciousness smudged.

  Eva pushed herself back up so that she was sitting and then stood. With sudden energy, she began changing out of the leggings and T-shirt she had originally put on, into dark, tight jeans and a lightweight jumper – an almost fluoro shade of orange, in sharp contrast to her current mood.

  She pulled on her coat and boots, grabbed her small, battered satchel, threw her phone and purse into it and strode towards the door, pulling the key card from its holder as she did so.

  As the lights went out, the piece of paper that had been lying on the bed fluttered to the floor and landed writing side down.

  Seconds later, she was striding along the thick, patterned carpet of the hotel corridor; she knew she had to move fast. If she didn’t go outside the hotel, fear would overtake her and she wouldn’t be able to do it.

  She stood in the lift with two businessmen and a woman wearing a clinging gold dress, which shimmered in the bright lights. Eva tried not to choke on the vanilla-scented perfume, filling the lift so full it was almost tangible.

  At the ground floor, she let the other guests exit before her and followed. Footsteps strong, stride firm. She was going to do this. Her heart felt as if it might explode.

  She could see, through the glass doors of the hotel, it was dark outside.

  Her memory-less brain terrified her. But she couldn’t be in that room anymore. Or inside her own head. It was not a happy place.

  As she crossed the lobby, she slowed her pace. Where was she even going? But she didn’t stop. She just needed to be outside.

  She pushed her way out through the hotel doors, stood and took some deep breaths. She glanced around – no one was paying her any attention. Of course they weren’t, why would they?

  Eva’s reality had sometimes suffered at the hands of mild paranoia – she had never crossed the line into being unable to distinguish between the two but there had been times when it was blurred. Her life had been a series of lies, important people had concealed the truth from her at key moments. Sometimes this made it difficult for her to trust that the world was what it seemed to be. Wasn’t it all a matter of perception anyway?

  Eva tended to take what people said with a pinch of salt, which could isolate as much as protect. But recently – especially today – there was cause to indulge paranoia. And she had. However, now she had to distinguish her instincts from fear, even if it was instinct driving her out into the night. That was the thing about instincts, they often didn’t seem to make sense.

  With one last glance to left and right, Eva crossed the road from the hotel and set off along the pavement towards the nearest S-Bahn station. She had spent the last two hours alternating between fits of panic and fear, until she could not take it any longer. It had occurred to her that some clarity might be provided if she could go back – retrace her steps to the point where she left the club Berghain. It might trigger a memory and that was what was really driving her mad – the lack of information about what had occurred.

  The next morning, she would have to return to London. She could not spend any more time or money on this trip. Which meant she had a matter of hours to do this or it would have to be forgotten forever – and, frankly, that was more frightening than the idea of being attacked again. At least, if the crime were repeated she might be able to find some answers.

  The thought of being outside – vulnerable again – had terrified her. But the longer she sat in that hotel room waiting for someone else to solve the problem, the more afraid she would become.

  The entrance to the S-Bahn station looked like an underpass to get mugged in.

  Great, Eva thought, pulling her coat tighter around her.

  Like many locations she had come across in Berlin, there was a random, inexplicable air of aggression or danger, as if something unspeakable had once happened in the spot and left behind a ghost of a feeling. Or perhaps she was imagining it.

  She walked quickly into the station and began putting coins into the slot of the ticket machine. She bought a single to Berlin Ostbahnhof. She would have to do the rest on foot. Then she began to walk to the platform.

  And that’s when she began to feel uneasy.

  For some reason, she kept walking towards the other end of the platform, keen to move away from the station entrance and maybe conceal herself behind a pillar until the train pulled into the station. She was sure she could hear it coming now. The faint rumble that indicated, in any mass transit system in the world, that a train was on its way. She checked which side the train would come in and then looked nervously up and down the track. Why were the hairs standing up on the back of her neck?

  She pulled her sleeve back from her arm and looked down. Goosebumps. Instinct.

  She found a wall to lean against and casually glanced down the platform towards the exit. Had she heard footsteps behind her as she walked to this spot? Or was she simply imagining that because she was scared? She pulled her sleeve back down to her wrist and took a step away from the wall.

  At that moment, the whooshing and rumbling of the train became louder. It was almost at the station. She took another tentative step towards the edge of the platform, steadied herself as a silent gust of wind made her wobble slightly. She was just a pace from the edge of the platform now, ready to step into the warmth and light of the train. Where there would be other people and she could stop listening to paranoid thoughts circling around in her brain.

  What happened next was so fast and so violent that Eva had no time to react. A pointed force smashed her hard between the shoulder blades, forcing her body to contract backwards and projecting her forward at the same time. She felt herself being pushed in the direction of the train track. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the yellow train approaching. She resisted the force from behind, compelling her towards the tracks, but she was dizzy and her balance was shot. Then, with one final shove, the force released her and she fell forward. She turned as gravity dragged her down, her shoulder clipping the front of the S-Bahn train which bounced her straight back on the platform with its forward momentum. She skidded, stumbled and then fell against the wall separating the two directions of the platform. And there she sat like a rag doll.

  ‘There has been a lack of caution. We have taken too many chances.’

  There were four people in the conversation, two in the room and two via video link.

  The man with the Mediterranean tan was projected large on to the screen. He looked angry. ‘I don’t think you realise the pressure we’ve been under. The deadlines have been incredible – unrealistic and almost completely unmanageable. You have parachuted someone in at the last minute, it has disrupted everything.’

  ‘But… you have managed it haven’t you?’

  ‘No! I told you, we’re already behind schedule and the additional issues – the failure of this technology – have left us in a very compromising position.’

  ‘Are all three of them free?’

  ‘Yes. For now.’

  ‘And what do you think they will do next?’

  ‘Heaven knows!’ the m
an was becoming exasperated. He disliked this cold, logical approach, the appraising and the rationing, a life lived like that was a life lived at half speed. Action was what mattered. Besides, if he had not been forced to incorporate Paul into his plans, none of this would have ever arisen. ‘Honestly, how do you expect me to predict what they will do next?’

  There was a tense silence in the room and across the video connection.

  ‘It’s your job,’ was the cold response.

  ‘Not strictly true.’

  Again another silence. He knew he was pushing it.

  ‘This is a serious threat,’ came the voice from the screen, ‘and you are both responsible. You will resolve it.’

  The man’s voice had assumed an unmistakably authoritative tone. Perhaps he had had enough pretending in this partnership. They were, after all, not really partners.

  ‘I don’t understand what you expect me to do about this.’

  ‘You must make it work. There is not much time.’

  FOURTEEN

  The driver of the S-Bahn train had been almost hysterical. Eva had heard him shouting at someone. She had heard his panic from her hiding place in the dark recesses of the entrance to the ticket hall, where she had pressed her shaking body into a half open doorway and waited for the noise level to die down. She had no idea what he was saying but she could hear the high pitch of his voice and the way his sentences were punctuated with semi-hyperventilated inhalations of breath. She clutched at her shoulder and held it tight as she waited for the chance to escape to her hotel. She didn’t want to cry and ask for help but this pain was very real. Her biggest concern was she might have punctured something internally. The rest would heal but, presumably, that could kill her.

  Why was this happening? She shut her eyes and tried to block out the waves of pain washing over her from the tip of her shoulder across her back and neck. But she couldn’t and she began to cry softly.