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 ph
one 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?
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.
Killing Eva Page 7