Finding Eva: a thrilling psychological suspense

by J. A. Baker

  The drink helped. Oh God, did it help. It blotted out chunks of the nasty stuff, built a wall in her head to keep out the thoughts that would sometimes sneak in and bite at her, niggle at her, worm their way into her veins; constantly reminding her what a useless mother she was, what a thoughtless, dark human being she had turned into. Regardless of how tough she had became, those thoughts were never far from her consciousness. They bubbled away so close to the surface there were days when she felt as if she would be sucked under by them and sink to the bottom, drowning in her own pit of despair. Far easier to numb everything with vodka and gin and tell herself she did the right thing than to sit around maudlin and miserable. Nobody wanted to be around miserable people. When she got like that, Russ hated her. When she got like that, she hated herself.

  She kept the next child that came along. She deserved it. She’d already given one away and made damn sure they wouldn’t take the next one from her. She knew how to play them after the last carry on – the army of social workers that trooped in and out of her house week after week, checking up on her family, filling out forms, ticking boxes, making sure there were no more broken bones, no more bruises or superficial damage. They were too stupid to see it all though, too rigid in their beliefs and too naive to see beyond the lies. They thought that if each and every form was neatly filled out, every box ticked, every piece of paper filed away, then everything was fine. They couldn’t see the internal hurt that her family carried. Just as well really. The internal stuff was far worse than any bruises. It didn’t heal. It simply festered and rotted, seeping into their bones, killing them slowly from the inside out.

  She looks up again at the family picture sitting on the fireplace then stares down at the photograph tucked tightly between her liver-spotted hands. It’s blurry and her eyes aren’t as sharp as they used to be. She wishes she could feel something – anything at all – as she waits for the image to come into focus. But there is nothing. She died inside a long time ago. It will take more than an old photograph to stir up any deep-rooted emotions inside her cold, dead soul. Just people, that’s all it is on there; pictures of people from another life. A life that took place so long ago it doesn’t even feel as if any of it actually happened. It means nothing to her.

  She won’t allow herself to get sucked into feeling pity or sympathy for anything or anybody any more. All those memories, all those years, they’re behind her now. No point in reminiscing over things you can’t change. What’s done is done. It doesn’t even look like her. It’s a tiny, creased print, so grainy and blurred it could be anybody. Except it isn’t anybody. It is her, and now it’s here, in her house; a throwback to another era. An era she would sooner forget. An era that saw her life turn upside down, never to be righted or balanced properly again. She has been on a seesaw ever since, tipping from happiness to abject despair and back again in a heartbeat, living life slightly out of kilter, like a watch that keeps losing time.

  She no longer knows what a conventional life is. She can’t remember normality and she cannot for the life of her remember this photograph being taken. She remembers the events that took place afterwards though. Oh dear Lord, she remembers those with frightening clarity. Even the drink failed to dull those first few days after she was taken from her; the dark and depressing times that closed in on her after her firstborn was taken into care. She will never forget those torturous hours even though she has tried.

  She swallows hard and stares outside at the cobalt sky and wispy clouds that hang like trails of candyfloss across an expanse of bare sky. She knows where this picture has come from. She has seen her daughter out there in the distance before; watching, waiting, biding her time. Her willowy frame silhouetted against the backdrop of the roaring sea, her long, auburn hair fluttering about in the breeze.

  She bites down on one of her nails and winces as a small strip of nail comes away and takes a piece of skin with it. She didn’t recognise her own child the first time they met and if that makes her a terrible mother, then so be it. It was only afterwards that she made the connection, the realisation hitting her like a thunderbolt, sending a hot dart of fear into her very core

  After the initial panic had subsided, she began to realise her child surfacing in town after all these years changed nothing. If her daughter is here then that’s how it is and there’s nothing she can do about it except keep a clear head and remain calm. And why shouldn’t she stay calm? She did the right thing all those years ago, handing the child over, not taking her back. The girl has probably had a better life than she would have if she had come back, so it all worked out well in the end, didn’t it?

  This photograph, this reminder, has been posted through her door to stir stuff up, to make her feel guilty, to make her feel something. Well, it won’t happen. She is too dead to feel anything. Too numb and jaded to care. She can post as many photographs as she likes; it won’t change anything.

  The knock at the door sends a small jolt of fear through her. It’s been horribly quiet in the house since Russ died. His presence always made an impact despite the fact he had quietened down towards the end. He simply ran out of energy. That’s when she noticed the real change. In a perverse sort of way, she had got used to his loud voice and boorish behaviour and the sudden lull took some getting used to. Now since his death, any unexpected noise sets her nerves jangling. She has spent the last thirty odd years on edge and it’s a hard habit to break. Life has changed so much lately and it’s taking a lot of getting used to.

  Shoving her feet into her fuchsia-pink slippers, she stands up with a groan and shuffles toward the front door where the knocking grows louder and more insistent until the sound of it makes her want to drive her nails over her bare flesh. Probably somebody who will try to sell her household items she neither needs nor wants, an ex-soldier or a reformed prisoner desperate to make a quick buck. She sees them all the time, trailing round the streets, trying to turn their lives around, asking for a second chance.

  She grabs at the handle and flings it open, the weight of it causing the door to bash into the wall with a loud thud, the metal handle embedding itself into the smooth arc in the plaster; a lasting reminder of past slams.

  She stares at the face before her. An unexpected flush of heat creeps up her spine and over her scalp. She reaches up and loosens the buttons on the neck of her sweater. The figure in the doorway watches her closely, not speaking, not moving. Silent. No words are needed.

  They stare at one another for a short while, their eyes locked together, until eventually she gives a curt nod and steps aside to let the figure enter. She cannot let them see her nervous or ill at ease. This is her house; her rules. Anyone who steps over this threshold abides by her laws. She bites at her lip. She always knew this person would come to see her. She can sense these things. She knew deep down that at some point, they would find their way back.

  They sit opposite one another in the eerie stillness of the dated living room, the figure clearly too ill at ease, too agitated to speak. She waits. She doesn’t want to be the first to open her mouth. She has no idea why, that’s just how it is. So many things to be said but no easy way to form the words and say them out loud. They always sound so much better in your head and once they are said, they cannot be unsaid. Better to stay silent than to go headlong into a conversation that she would rather not be having in the first place.

  The silence goes on and on, a pregnant pause making her restless and uneasy. Something is different. There is an air of anger about this person; a quiet rage that makes her anxious. This is not how they were. Something has changed and she doesn’t like it. Perspiration gathers around her thinning hair and runs down the side of her face, a thin trickle of fear.

  She lets out a rattling breath, looks around the living room and shakes her head slowly. This is nonsense. There is no need for fear, no need at all. She should have been prepared for this moment. It was always going to happen at some point. She places her hands over her knees and does her best to look unpe
rturbed as she clears her throat and finally finds her voice, the person opposite watching her with dark, unforgiving eyes.

  ‘So,’ she says quietly, her voice low and soft with a sliver of anxiety running through it, ‘at long last, you’ve decided to come home.’

  London – Before and leading up to…

  3

  Eva

  Have you ever felt as if your entire life is one huge fabrication – an assortment of lies so deeply embedded in your psyche you no longer know who you are? I have. I feel it every minute of every single day. Everyone thinks they know me. They don’t. How can they possibly know the real me when I don’t even know myself?

  That’s the problem you see. The life I have now, the life I think of as mine, didn’t start at the beginning. I have little, if any memories of my formative years; just fragments of thoughts too disjointed and ethereal to pin down. They meander around my brain, disconnected images, all parts of a jigsaw puzzle that refuse to fit together, pieces of my mind that simply won’t mesh. I’ve tried over the years to work out what the images mean, but each time I end up more confused than before I began. It’s like trying to catch the wind.

  I dream about them – my parents – the ones I don’t even know. I imagine their voices, what they’re like, how they would sound as they call my name. I visualise their expressionless faces staring at me, their features bland and unrecognisable, like a pixelated image that never quite comes into focus. It’s just a great big blank canvas where their faces should be. This happens regularly; my mind greedily salting away any clues that could allow me access to my past. I’m a person with no history, my previous life rubbed out, smudged into nothingness without my consent. I have no real identity.

  There are days when I feel as if I’m a lesser version of me, someone who is just playing at being Eva Tweedie. Can you imagine how that feels? Have you any idea how soul destroying it is to have a great, yawning abyss where the very foundations of your life should be? No, of course you don’t. You have no idea at all. Nor would I expect you to. Why would you be interested in me, in what I have to say, in what I have been through to get to this point in my life? Such interest would make you odd, a tad off balance. Such interest would make you as strange as me.

  Anyway, I digress. This is something I do quite a lot – wander off on a tangent, teeter on the brink of a downward spiral – constantly reminding myself how unwanted I am. I need to stop the self-hatred and sort my life out. I do know that. I may be many things: melancholic, over analytical, even slightly out of kilter, but I’m not a complete idiot. I have to do one of two things; either I get over this, draw a line under it all and move on, or I do the unthinkable and open that particular can of worms. The latter is an unpalatable option and something I’ve avoided for many years, but not finding out is killing me. I have reached a point in my life where I need to know. I want to find out what happened. I just want to be me. The real me. Not an imposter. I want to be the real Eva Tweedie, to find out who I am, work out why I was abandoned at such a tender age. I think about it all the time. It obliterates everything I do, getting in the way of everyday life, hindering my ability to function properly. It has almost ruined me.

  My car crash of a life isn’t helping. Things haven’t been great recently and there are times when I can’t seem to think straight. I’ve also done some terrible things of late. Unforgivable things. I need to get some equilibrium back into my life; to restore the balance after I’ve tipped it so violently with my dreadful deeds.

  I think of them all the time – my biological parents – I think of them living their lives without me, going about their day to day business, not giving me a second thought, carrying on as if I don’t even exist. It never fails to get to me, to dent what little self-esteem I do actually possess.

  And then there’s my job. I hate it. It pays well and I’m aware that many would give their right arm to have it, but without the backing of a loving family, it is pointless. I know I sound like a grumbling pessimist who revels in being down on their luck, but you would have to fully understand my predicament to know where I’m coming from. I’ve had a shitty day stuck in a shitty office surrounded by even shittier people and now I’m going home to an empty house. Life doesn’t get much more depressing than that, does it?

  I pick up my pace and hurry down the escalators, gently nudging grumbling commuters aside. I reach the platform and slice through the crowds onto the waiting train to grab a seat before anybody else does. With every passing day, I hate this journey more and more. The stench of a nine-hour slog at the workplace oozes out of everyone’s pores, masked by cheap perfume and aftershave. They all wear a grimace. Even the allure of heading home for the evening does nothing to lighten their mood or lift the misery that’s etched into their inner core. They wear all their worry and anger like a dark cloak. It’s written all over their faces; frowns and lines of disdain at their lot in life so deeply embedded in their expressions, they look as if they could murder one another at any given moment.

  I hear a collective giggle and turn to see a group of tourists pointing at a map stretched out over their laps. They’re nodding at each other and laughing at the weird and wonderful names on there – Seven Sisters, Elephant and Castle, Pudding Mill Lane. I pick up on an American accent and watch them closely, noticing how golden their skin is compared to the dozens of grey dead-looking people around them, how animated they are and how their laughter tinkles through the carriage like stardust being scattered over the grieving masses. I remember being like that once, excited at the prospect of living in London, looking forward to carving out a new life for myself, being full of vim and vigour, but now I’m as jaded as the rest of the folk on this train. All of a sudden, the big city that was once so full of promise and glamour has lost its shine.

  Behind me, an argument breaks out. I turn to see a well-dressed gent being harassed by a pregnant woman who is demanding he give up his seat for her. She’s wearing a purple velour tracksuit and her swollen belly sticks out from under her skimpy T-shirt like a huge beach ball. The skin on her abdomen is covered with bright red stretch marks as if the devil himself has clawed at it; long jagged welts running the length of her entire midriff. Her stomach is horribly distended and looks fit to burst, the flesh translucent, shiny and raw looking and stretched to capacity. A gaggle of people join in with the fight while others turn away, their faces flushed with embarrassment at being privy to such an awkward display.

  All this debacle does is provide me with another reason to leave this place, to get away from everything; to escape the noise and grime and mantle of discontent that seems to have settled on me. After last night’s carry on with Gareth, I may just do it. There’s nothing else to keep me here now he and I are no longer an item. I can do whatever I want, go wherever I please. As from 8pm last night, I am officially a free agent.

  The argument gains traction, with people standing up pointing and doing all the insane, irrational things that angry people do, even though none of it is any of their business. Perspiration breaks out on my face and my scalp prickles as the man next to me stands up and decides to get involved, gesticulating to everyone watching, shouting that he used to be a doorman and could wipe out everybody in the carriage if he so chooses. He shouts at the sitting man, his voice booming around the small space, bouncing off the walls of the carriage and rushing past me in a hot bubble of anger. I shift in my seat, my skin growing clammier by the second. I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

  It feels as if an army of ants are crawling over my skin; the walls close in on me and every noise is accentuated as blood roars through my ears, thumping and growling through my veins, making me hot and dizzy. I need to get out of here, to get away from all of this. Horrible images fill my mind. I do my best to keep them at bay, to shake them off. I try to think of other things; anything at all to stop them. I bite at my nails and swallow the lump that has risen in my throat. All this shouting takes me back to the horror of last night, to the argument, until
in the end, the quarrel close by disappears off my radar and my mind is totally focused on him; Gareth.

  And what I did.

  I blink back hot tears and stare out of the window. I cannot think about it. Thinking about Gareth is worse than anything; worse even than this dreadful fight. I wince as it gets louder and dip my head. Panic claws at me. Surely someone will help or pull the emergency stop cord? Somebody should do something. I am consumed by an overwhelming urge to leave this train, to get away from these people.

  The journey seems to go on for an age. The racket in the carriage grows ever louder around me and every bump on the track makes my blood fizzle with dread.

  It’s the shouting. I can’t bear it. It triggers something in me. An unwelcome thought that I can neither see properly nor fully explain. I think about Gareth last night; our final words before we parted. My throat feels tight, restricting my oxygen. I need some fresh air. I have to escape from all of this. I have got to get out of here.

  Suddenly we’re surrounded by blackness as we rush through a tunnel. My eyes water and my ears pop with the change in pressure. Still the argument with sitting man and standing pregnant lady rages. My pulse is a steady, thick beat in my neck as the doorman raises his voice another decibel. My chest becomes taut and my breathing laboured.

  I cannot take this any longer.

  We finally emerge out of the tunnel and the train rattles into my stop. Blinking repeatedly, I find I’m standing next to the warring crowd with no recollection of how I got here. I turn to see a blur of faces staring at me and feel vomit rise. I swallow it down. My face burns. I feel dizzy and disorientated.