Crossing the Line

by Solomon Carter

  The driver pointed a gun at Eva. She stayed calm, because she knew they could not shoot her. She was promised to Marka. She hated that, but it was keeping her alive. Even though she had survived this long, and had taken at least one life in order to do so, these arrogant gangsters were still treating her like a piece of meat. It made her angry. And being angry made her feel strong. Even now, sitting as a captive, she had engineered Dan’s escape, and so she didn’t just feel defiant, there was just a little bit of her which felt victorious. Another colder part of her said all the other human shields were gone. Which meant the only thing standing between her and death was the time it would take Marka to have his way with her which was not gonna happen. Right now, she could think of nothing but the need for endurance. She stared at the gun, then the driver in wraparounds.

  “If you move, I’ll shoot you dead.”

  Eva twisted her head left and right in a little stretch. “I moved.”

  “Lean over and shut that door. Slowly.”

  She hesitated, resisting as long as she dared, and then she pulled the door shut. Without looking away, he pressed the child-lock, and the man breathed out, the gun loosening in his hand already.

  “Leaving the doors open and stopping for a Big Mac. That was a mistake, am I right?”

  The man in front ignored her.

  “Victor Marka wanted the man who just escaped very, very badly. In summary you are in very deep trouble because your stoned friend needed a cheeseburger.”

  The man turned around to face her. She saw her own face in the reflection of his shades.

  “I’m gonna live, bitch. You’re not. Now that’s what I call deep trouble.”

  The man with the cheeseburger returned, chewing already, a brown bag tucked under his arm. He tapped at the window, completely oblivious he had just ruined his own world for the foreseeable future. For Mr Stony, tonight was going to be one massive downer. Even before the driver had opened the door, big crisp white lights filled the rear view, painting the goof’s face a pasty blue. A long saloon paused then drove slowly up beside them. The cheeseburger man opened his door, bent his head and peered inside.

  “It’s hand over time, blood.”

  “What you gonna hand over, blood? Your milkshake?”

  The man grinned, and looked back at Eva. Then the empty seat. And back at Eva again, and his smile dropped off a cliff.

  “What did you do, man?”

  “Don’t speak to me. Don’t look at me. Don’t say a word to me ever again, you get me?” said the driver. And then a door opened, and the head of Victor Marka’s security, Nvotski, got out of the car. Beside him was a man who was tall and thin, shaven headed, with a strong jaw and a pinched nose. She didn’t recognise him, but there was something Germanic about this one too, and Eva felt a cold tension creep down her spine. The fear came back with a vengeance when she saw him, as if the dead had come back to life. The driver and Mr Stony were arguing hurriedly to get their story straight, and Eva worked out her priorities. She told herself three things, and repeated them over as the horribly familiar features of a man she never met peered in through the glass. Stay alive, learn Marka’s weak spots, and at all costs, escape.

  Ten

  Victor Marka’s apartment was like no other. Eva had never been poor, but neither had she ever been exposed to opulence like this. She remembered Victor Marka had only ever aspired to the wealth of an oligarch, having not reached the same heady heights of truly successful Russian billionaires who exploited the transition from Soviet monopoly to the great capitalist resource-grab of the nineties. Well, whether he was an oligarch or not, he certainly seemed to live as well as an Abramovich, if his collection of apartments, cars and business interests were anything to go by. This apartment was nowhere near Shad Thames. She had been collected from the South London McDonalds and deposited in the back of a black Lexus with cream leather seats. On either side of her sat a guard, one of them looked German, just like the ones she had encountered previously, and the other had the hair and rugged face of an ex-Soviet soldier. The one Eva concluded was the leader, Nvotski, sat in the front passenger seat. Nvotski turned and looked at her several times as they moved through the night time traffic, as if he expected her to vanish whilst his back was turned. The lights of the street windows washed over them like strange motion pictures projected over their faces.

  “Your boyfriend has left you exposed, Miss Roberts,” he said finally. She could tell that he had been planning to say something for a while. “If you tell us where he is, it could save you from the full force of Mr Marka’s anger.”

  Eva said nothing.

  “I strongly recommend you do. For your own sake.”

  She didn’t think about it at all. She thought about Jess, who was safe. Dan would have a second chance and she hoped he would grab it. As for herself, she knew her chances were slim at best. And by the time they reached the apartment, set high in a new white glass apartment block on Surrey Quays, South London, she was trying not to think about her chances of survival, which were dwindling by the minute. The tall tower block was a white shining pillar, set out into a square of decorated concrete and flagstones which jutted into a quayside, the water reflecting lights from the skyline and flashing red dots of the passing aircraft above. The limousine drove into a slip lane, following a curve towards the tower blocks, and then climbed over a kerb to come as close as possible to the entrance of the building itself. There was another similar block just beyond, at the other end of the concrete quayside. The new German from the outsource group began to open his own door, but Nvotski turned around from the front seat and said, “No. You go back to the city.”

  “She is a killer. You will need us.”

  “I don’t think so. Your men were the victims, not mine. Go back to the city and wait for your instructions.” The German nodded, but his face blazed with quiet anger.

  Then Nvotski turned to the man who was dressed much like himself, the younger Nvotski, sitting on Eva’s other side. “Open the door and wait for me before we take her outside.” The man nodded. He waited till Nvotski came around. They opened the door and pulled her out by her arm, and then threaded their arms under hers. They pulled her high and upright, making it difficult for her to walk. They wanted to mess with her head and it was working.

  “I feel sorry for you,” said Nvotski. “I am sorry for any who tries to take him on. He is brutal. You should have let us deal with Bradley and saved yourself. Now, you will both die unless there is a miracle.”

  “Bradley is free and nowhere near here.”

  “The Brixton gang made mistakes. We have eyes everywhere. He will be found and now it will be worse for him than before.”

  “No chance. You’ll never see him again.”

  “I thought you were a smart woman, Miss Roberts. But you know nothing about Victor Marka. He cares nothing for civility. This is war. You fought against him. He destroys women differently to men, as you will see.”

  They frog-marched her past an empty reception desk and beside a suited young man who was waiting in the lobby, carrying an armful of flowers. Eva looked at the man, and he at her. The man was confused as his eyes roamed cautiously over the men with her. The Russians each smiled at him with a nod of their heads.

  “She gets drunk too much. Always the same,” said Nvotski, gripping her arm tight as a warning not to speak. She didn’t. If she did, she knew the young romantic would be another casualty in this dirty war. They took her into the first lift to arrive, whilst the young man was left to sensibly wait for the next one. Eva watched the doors slide shut, and then looked as the numbers on a digital screen above the door flicked from 1 to 15. Floor 15 was the final number.

  There was only one door on floor 15 and it was as shiny, wide and black as 10 Downing Street. This door bore no number. Instead, beside it was a shiny brass plate that simply stated, Penthouse. She shivered. This game was drawing to a close. A pawn, a stupid pawn. She had been a pawn in this game the whole time and she
had had enough. Gillespie had outmaneuvered them all, if he was to be believed, and he was going to outmanoeuvre Marka as well. Gillespie and all the others believed they were destined for greatness, and that all the others were destined to die by their hands. Soon there would only be one winner, and she would become collateral damage in the crossfire. Gillespie to beat Marka? It sounded ridiculous, a desperate dream. She wondered if Victor Marka, being the deity he imagined he was, had been able to foresee all of this and turn Gillespie’s final moves against him. There was no telling. Only fear remained in her body. The chill on her neck climbed as she considered the onslaught, the depravity of what was to come. She screwed her eyes shut and tried to make it go away. But glimpses of her life poured into the darkness. Fights with Dan, the memory of her cruel drunk father, the insidious liking for drink that he had passed to her, the memories of a short, strange life pursuing liars and cheats just for a living; she wondered if it had been worth it. But how else could she have lived? Not as a bloody teacher. Not a safe, dreary life. No. Not after meeting Dan and working those early London cases. There was shame, and there had been hurt and bitterness along the way. She had made mistakes, but yes, it had all been ultimately for the best. The tears welled in her eyes and they spilled. Bound by the brutes on either arm, she could not hide them. So what, let them see. She was sad to die, fearful of the pain, but she knew in every atom of her being that she had at last done the right thing. This final gesture would not deny her dignity. This was a life to be proud of.

  Nvotski didn’t mention the tears he saw fall to the marble floor. He drew his mobile phone, tapped it and put it to his ear. How had she survived this far anyway? In the final analysis, Eva thought her best moves were the ones where she punched hard and fast and surprised herself. She had done it with the German who had held Dan captive, and she had won. She had done it with the negotiation to release Jess, and she had done it by forcing Dan to run to fight another day. In all the rest of it she had been playing cat and mouse exactly the way Gillespie had wanted, and so had Parker. Up to now, even mighty Marka had destroyed the enemies who had been Gillespie’s enemies in Essex, the Mitkins. Maybe Gillespie would win after all. She had doubted herself so much. She had doubted herself during all those years with Dan, working together with a swaggering partner who believed he was an expert PI whilst she played catch up. She had been playing second fiddle her whole life, dancing to someone else’s tune because she was always too afraid to believe in herself. She saw it clearly, laid out before her in these final moments. Even after Dan had departed, she had worked by herself behind an imaginary shadow. All the success she had enjoyed in those two years of business alone, in the new business. To have lived with so many rules, to be so locked in, to live with the all-too-much white wine and then the purging routine of morning runs, and to not be happy even with all the success she had seen – she should have enjoyed it more. If she could live through this, there would be easier times ahead of her. If she lived, she would believe in herself because she now knew she had instinct, guts and fire. But she had been taken to the very brink of death to learn this lesson. So close to the end, she knew she was better than she had allowed herself to be, and she would not tolerate her end being like her life. This day was the day she would fight for every breath, living in freedom even as she might die. She was no one’s pawn anymore. Not Marka’s, not Gillespie’s, not Dan’s. Not her father’s.

  The door opened into an array of pale gold lights and white walled luxury. She gasped and hauled her body up as tall as it could be. They walked her along a gleaming corridor and then turned her into a broad white room with ceiling to floor window views of the dark night city. She managed a grim smile and looked Victor Marka in the eye as he theatrically swept around from the window view. The instant she saw him, the glint of power in his eyes, she also saw it change, because Marka could see the direct challenge to his authority coming back at him. Eva breathed out calmly; she was staring death in the face. She refused to acknowledge fear. She breathed slowly and found that she could push the fear away. It was there, tearing at her, but she forced it down into the basement of her gut. Marka could not win, he could kill her, but he could not win. The fear was waiting just outside the door of her mind, ready to come as soon as her will power wilted. She refused to let it in.

  “They will not come for you,” he said with a smile.

  “What?”

  “Whoever you think will come. I have addresses all over this city and nobody knows where they are. Except you. You know two of them, and you I am not worried about so much. Because you will never leave this place ever again.”

  There were windows all around them, acting like black walls but for the reflection of the chandeliers and the lights from a minibar. The Penthouse was large, and mostly open plan. Out beyond the glass, she caught hints of some tall spike-leaved yucca trees, and some huge round pebbles suggesting the presence of a roof garden. There were some walls too on one side, which gave way into two corridors, one of which Nvotski had driven her down from the front door. He deposited her roughly on a long black leather sofa. Beside the sofa was a black glass coffee table with a wine cooler full of ice and a frost-covered champagne bottle. Opposite, to one side of the sofa, there was an enormous galley kitchen full of white marble, and in the middle ground beside it was an oversized dining table, rough-hewn and artistic, as if carved from a single vast and precious tree. Knowing Marka by now, she was sure that tree must have been near to extinction before he picked it. Knowing Marka, it had probably been the last of its species.

  Marka looked tired, the bags under his eyes deep and heavy tonight, and the expensive silk shirt he wore sagged, open at the neck, exposing a wild bunch of grey chest hairs. He looked angry, still full to the very brim of his terrible hubris, its dark power emanating from him, eating him up. Eva was sure he had been drinking. His eyes were slightly glazed. He lisped slightly too. It took one to know one. Looking at him, she estimated his intake as two glasses of wine, or a few shots. She wasn’t sure whether to be encouraged or perturbed, so she sat quietly, biding her time, waiting for his first real move. She grinned as hard as she could. Gillespie is about to pounce, maybe right now, and you haven’t got a clue. The thought gave her solace. Gillespie’s move wouldn’t help her, but it sure as hell wasn’t going to help Victor Marka. He looked at her thinking, narrowed his eyes and looked away again. His mouth turned into a thin straight line.

  “You should not have gotten involved. Too bad for you. Very good for me.”

  His eyes roamed slowly and invasively over her body. She wanted to shift, and hide but she held firm. It was a slow, painstaking gaze, a proprietary gaze. He checked out her legs, her arms, her face, her body. She was tempted to hunch, to hide because he was claiming her as his with this kind of gaze, but she resisted the temptation. To do so would be to acknowledge his strategy and to signal she was cowering from him. She fixed her eyes on his, knowing the danger of an instant provocation remained incredibly high. There was a chance the alcohol had flooded his brain already, pushing him towards rage. There was no telling. His glassy, drunk eyes were inconsistent in what they told her. They were all about domination, about action. He was not a large man, but his body was muscular and lithe beneath his fitted shirt. She weighed him up, looked at him similar to the way he had looked at her. Was he strong enough to beat her to a pulp? Not immediately, but he looked strong enough to overwhelm her after a time.

  “The man you followed into this disaster, was he worth dying for?”

  Marka took a cigarette from a silver tin by his lap, tapped it and lit it.

  “He is a good man. Any person who is good is someone worth dying for.”

  “You can’t believe that, surely, do you, Eva?”

  The sound of her name on his lips jarred her. “The time for formality is over, Eva. I am so well informed about you. I know that I was successful in causing you to desert him just before the trial.”

  “In your dreams. We parted because
he was obsessed with the Tregenev case. We had stopped working together properly.”

  “In business? Or in the bedroom perhaps?” Marka took a long drag on his cigarette. Angrily, stupidly, Eva blushed. Marka smiled and ploughed on. “Both, then. Yes, I can take the credit for this. I ruined his attempt to taint me with Tregenev’s murder. And it was easy to discredit him when he forged the evidence.”

  “Because you destroyed the real evidence.”

  “Merely details. History records the right and wrong. He thought he could match me, mock me even by recreating the evidence. He infuriated me, of course. After all, the man is a cockroach and I am a giant. He dared to imagine he was on the same plane as me, and so I wanted to show him the error of his ways. Instead of having him injured, maimed, castrated, I wanted him to comprehend his true position compared to me – to see how worthless he was. I am a god compared to him. The distance between his life and mine is enormous - the distance between an untouchable Indian sewer rat and Putin, maybe on that scale – and he imagined he could use me to scurry up the pathetic greasy pole of his insignificant career. Using his own work against him, I have to say - it was beautiful – I destroyed him slowly. He unwittingly helped me destroy his job, his reputation, his health, his relationship. And you were the centre, really, the centre around which all the spokes of his life radiated. I knew it. I saw it clearly. For it to work, you had to reject him utterly. Really, it was like a remote control game for me. It was nothing really. A little light relief. Those people who commute from dormitory towns like yours to the power-centres in this wretched city, they play crosswords to pass their time. I have more exciting games, yes. It was a delicacy to me, to influence the unraveling of Bradley’s entire life. Or, I was re-writing his existence. But it was real. Just as real as you sitting and facing me, the man who holds your life and death in his hands right now. It was beautiful - an elegantly slow destruction, and I influenced every moment until you arrived back in his life. I wonder why a woman such as you would truly waste yourself on a man like him.”