Play With Fire

by Solomon Carter

  Eva edged further along the rear wall, looking down the line of the dark inner hallway to the faint light beyond. She thought she could hear the sound of music or a television, but it was too faint to tell. At least the guy had been drinking. Drinking meant he was relaxed, his senses dulled. Eva moved to the window to get a better look at the pinboard and the documents in the folder, but the angle was no good.

  “Eva? What the hell are you doing?” hissed Lauren.

  “Be quiet, Lauren. He’ll hear us,” she whispered in reply, pressing her hand softly to the wooden frame of the window. She looked over the top of the central wooden bar and saw the window clasp inside – a metal hook set on a pivot. It was open, unlocked. Eva clenched her teeth as she tried to slide the sash upwards with her palms flat against the filthy glass. She worked as quietly as she could. Painfully slow, the sash window began to lift. The old rope and pulley mechanism in the window frame protested as it was forced up. It groaned with resistance at least once, and Eva had to pull herself out of sight, just in case. But the man didn’t come. She went back to the window and slid it higher. With a few more drags the window was open wide enough to climb through. All Eva needed to do was heft her leg over the wall and up over the windowsill, dip her head and she was in. But once she’d committed there was no going back. And if it went wrong there would be no one to blame but herself.

  Lauren looked at her with wide cold eyes, which glinted with the moonlight. Eva saw they were full of fear. “I can’t have you taking this risk,” she whispered.

  “Lauren, this is what you hired me for?”

  “I don’t want you to die. If he kills you, you can’t protect me, can you?”

  Self-interest, but Lauren was right all the same. And yet there was no choice.

  “I’ll be okay. Just stay back and if anything goes wrong, get to my car and go. Here.”

  Eva handed over her car keys. As Lauren took them, the metal keys came loose in her hand and jangled before she wrapped them in her fingers. Eva gritted her teeth and looked back down the musty corridor. No response.

  “Don’t make another sound,” whispered Eva, “And stay behind that wall.”

  Lauren nodded and withdrew.

  Eva drew one more breath, pressed a hand on the windowsill and lifted her left foot, sliding it over the dirty wooden frame. A moment later, she straddled the sill, then drew her right leg into the dull yellow glow of the back room. Eva looked around and held her breath. The room smelt of damp and the yellow wallpaper was peeling from the walls. She thought of closing the window behind her but decided it was better to leave it open. The laptop buzzed idly, its screen dark. Eva moved to the wall and peered at the pinboard notes. She saw names and addresses, including a few bearing the surname Jaeger. The addresses marked Jaeger were in Laindon, Wickford, and Benfleet and one of the addresses was that of Lauren’s mother in Hadleigh. Beneath the address notes was another set of notes, but these featured dates and movements. The most recent list of dates were clustered around Mrs Jaeger’s Hadleigh address. But there were other dates too… some of them even included a few of the coffee shop meetings with Eva. Her eyes widened as she read on. One note even mentioned the bakery at the Basildon Eastgate bus station. Eva swallowed. She’d had no idea that anyone had been watching but if he had seen her and knew who she was… then maybe he knew her car as well… Had he seen them following?

  Eva touched one of the Post-it notes and the adhesive gave way. The note sailed to the floor, floating towards the desk. If the guy saw a note missing Eva feared he would know someone had paid a visit.

  “Damn it” she said under her breath. The note drifted down past the edge of the desk and Eva moved to grab it before it landed out of reach. As she moved her hip bumped against the wooden desk. Her breath froze in her lungs and she stood up slowly. Stay calm, she instructed herself. Don’t mess up, please. Not here. Not now.

  In the dim front room, surrounded by a computer graveyard of cables and old computer carcasses, the man sat leaning on a dusty desk, his eyes staring idly at the back of the old metal shutters through the front window. His radio was on, set to Classic FM. Classic music never bothered him, never distracted him, and it always helped him think. The work space was temporary, cheap like always. And in another month it would be gone, and long before then, so would he. The man looked at the whisky glass in his hand as he listened to the faint sounds coming from the back room. He narrowed his eyes and set the glass down on the top of a nearby radiator. He wouldn’t be taking another sip for a little while yet.

  He took his mobile phone from his shirt pocket and typed a message to Blane.

  The job is back on. I’ll explain when it’s done.

  The man pressed send. He stood up and went to his jacket, hanging on the back of the door. He delved into his inside pocket and rummaged past the cold grip of his pistol. Far too loud. Too many unwanted consequences. But a knife, a sudden stab in the right spot or a sudden slash across the throat and there would be no sound at all. No noise, but a lot of cleaning up to do. But then he was used to that. The man pulled the knife free and turned it over in his hand. And then, silently and with great care, he left the front room and moved into the shadows of the hallway.

  Eva looked at the image on the pinboard. The photograph of Lauren dressed as a pretty, chic woman in her mid-thirties, still with a lot of life ahead of her. Eva reached down and picked up the first sheet of paper from the folder, the one with the small photo paperclipped to the front. She raised the sheet to the pinboard until the photographs were almost side by side. Only because she had known Lauren so long could Eva tell it was the same woman. One image depicted a pale, skeletal version of Lauren with deep shadows under her eyes… the other woman was older, but full of lustre and life. The difference was haunting; awful. Eva’s eyes trailed to the piece of paper beneath the gaunt face. There was a solemn, old-fashioned letterhead at the top made of four capital letters, pompous and proud. CMPI. Beneath was a more detailed address: Centre de Traumatologie Psychologie et Sante Mental Aigue, followed by a street address from the town of Reuil=Malmaison: the French town name given to Joanne by Mr Carlton. The sheet was an obvious photocopy, the paper neat and clean while the letter itself was dated September 12th 2001.

  “My God,” Eva whispered. “Lauren… what happened to you?”

  Eva scanned the French words of the report, her eyes picking up on those most like the English. Épisodes fréquents, possibles maniaco-dépressifs…

  A whole section seemed to outline Lauren’s mental health issues. Eva continued to try and read through the language. There was talk of graves problèmes and regrets de son enfance – regrets from her childhood, is that what they meant? Eva stopped wondering whether her pidgin-French was up to the job. The ‘grave problem’ seemed to concern an amitié scolaire – a schoolfriend. Eva swallowed. The language was all about damage and regret. Eva frowned. The implication seemed clear enough, but when she flipped the sheet, it became clearer still. On the flipside she found a complete but scruffy handwritten translation – probably cribbed from Google Translate or similar. Her eyes widened as she scanned the section relating to Lauren’s schoolfriend.

  The handwritten translation said “her childhood regrets seem especially strong with regard to a broken school friendship which Miss Jaeger insists is the root of all her problematic behaviour…”

  Eva blinked. She had always believed the school betrayal had been a one sided suffering. Now, she was reading a professional report which said otherwise. The word regret hit her full force, along with a wave of guilt. As far back as 2001 Lauren’s suffering had been deep enough to land her into the hands of a professional psychologist at a French mental hospital. How the hell did that happen?

  As Eva read the handwritten notes, a shadow advanced in the dark hallway, a knife held low in the man’s hand. The man’s footsteps were near silent. His eyes hidden in the blackness.

  “Miss Jaeger’s self-hatred was effectively compounded with each
passing year since the event, and without intervention, her resultant state of mind probably pre-destined her for either a typically violent suicide or the sublimation of these unbearable feelings into other deeper areas…”

  In the hallway, the man’s shirt sleeve scuffed gently against the wall. Eva looked up from the report and the man slowed down. He was close now, so close. He took another step forward. The yellow light of the small room fell on his face, making it a sickly grey. He held back, taking another slow step as the doorway loomed ever closer.

  The handwritten note stopped there, matching the abrupt end of the typewritten French on the other side. Eva’s eyes narrowed at the sound of the scuff in the hallway. She froze and her heart started to pound. Not far away, the sound of classical music rose and fell, a great dramatic wave gently washing through her tension. Eva’s eyes drifted to the second sheet of typed French notes on the desk. Her hand wavered through the air, battling temptation to read on… but what about the noise? The man took another step, and his foot pressed down on a broken floorboard hidden beneath the dirty carpet. The sound it made was like a groan. Eva’s hand stopped reaching for the report file. She stayed utterly silent and instead moved her hand towards her handbag. She unclasped her bag and slipped her hand deep inside. Her throat was suddenly dry and her mind almost in full panic. Where was it? Where was the damn knife? She heard another gentle step, and another, much closer now, pressing gently on the carpet. He was coming. The killer was coming. Eva’s fingers poked past her car keys, her useless little notebook, her torch pen and a dozen other things she had rarely ever used. Another step, and now she saw the very tip of the man’s shoe. The man leaned into the room and their eyes met. For a split second the man seemed shocked, but then his eyes narrowed. He recognised her.

  “Ironvelvet?” said Eva, as boldly as she dared. The man’s eyes widened and narrowed again.

  “Hell. Blane really did mess up, didn’t he?”

  “I’d say you messed up just as badly,” said Eva. In her handbag, Eva’s fingers traced over the smooth cool handle of the blade and seized it. The man saw the fractional change in her eyes. He dived into the room. Eva pushed back against the side wall, edging quickly into the space between the wall and the edge of the computer desk. Bad move, but it bought her time. The knife came free and she swiped the little blade, arcing up from her hip. The man jumped back, but then Eva saw the glint in his eye.

  She was trapped by the wall and needed to make a break for it. To the corridor, but not to the front of the building. The shutter had been pulled down and she had seen no sign of a front door. It must have been concealed by the shutter. There must be another door. A back door, perhaps accessible from another room… The man read her eyes and started to back away towards the corridor. He grinned at her and lifted his blade.

  “I did wonder if I was being followed. But I didn’t know for sure until I saw your reflection in the bottle.”

  Eva’s breath shook as she exhaled. She felt the perspiration forming on her upper lip, on her forehead.

  “All we want is for Lauren to be left alone. That’s all.”

  The man shook his head. “Sorry. If you had stayed out of it, you might have been okay. Unfortunately for you, you didn’t.” His body blocked the access to the corridor. Eva considered her options. They were limited at best, close to zero in fact. But perhaps her knife would buy her a little time to think. Maybe just enough to find a way out of this alive.

  Eva grimaced, and lurched forward as if she intended to make an attack. The man stiffened and got ready, his blade held out at his side. But instead of completing her run, Eva made a different move. She flicked her other hand across the desk and knocked the contents of the medical folder flying. Annotated sheets flew into the air and briefly blocked the man’s view. Eva used the chaos to reach the laptop. She pulled it from up from the desk and hurled it at him full force, hearing it crack as it hit the man’s face. He grunted in pain and, as Eva darted to the open window, she hurled the pinboard at him as a final distraction. The man covered his face and swatted the pinboard to the floor. Eva hurried, swinging her leg over the windowsill before hurling the rest of her body after it. She landed hard on the cold concrete, her hip and ribs grinding heavily into the dirt as the man leaned out and swiped his blade after her legs. He missed by a narrow margin. From the side, Lauren leaned in and clawed wildly at the window above his head. The man turned right and saw her, his eyes widening in surprise. He smiled. He leaned further out of the window and jabbed his knife at Lauren’s stomach. She dodged the knife, clawed at the wood and pulled the window down hard. The window protested but gave and the wooden sash slammed down hard on the man’s upper body.. The man spluttered in pain and snatched himself back inside, struggling through the narrow opening.

  “He’s seen you, Lauren. We’ve got to get you away from here.”

  “I can’t run now. If I run now, this won’t end until I’m dead!”

  They looked at one another in the darkness. Eva nodded. She thought of the paperwork she had seen. A life ruined by mistakes and regret. She recalled the desperation in the medical report. Now it all seemed to have a reason. Everything began to make sense. The woman was broken, and Eva had almost left her to her fate. She wouldn’t do so again.

  “Okay, Lauren. But just get out of sight – stay out of the way.”

  Eva pointed to a pool of shadows on the other side of the Sportage.

  “Then what are you going to do?” said Lauren.

  “I don’t know, just go – Go!” whispered Eva

  Lauren read Eva’s eyes and didn’t argue. She ran across the gravel and ducked behind the side of the car as a heavy door slammed at the rear of the building. Eva moved back to the corner of the wall and gripped her knife tight by the handle. She held it low and relaxed her body, while her arm stayed tense and ready. So here it was. She’d told herself she wasn’t a killer, but whenever the need came along why did she always find herself ready? Guilty as Charged. Eva listened, and heard the footsteps coming. She smelt the boozy breath just around the corner, heard him breathing, and she knew it was just a matter of seconds until one of them struck. To have any chance at all, Eva knew she had to be first. She took a breath, leaned around the corner and swiped the knife towards him but found the man waiting for her. He grinned. He seized her arm, twisted her whole body around, and threw her against the bonnet of the Kia.

  “Don’t damage the hire car now, honey, or poor old Jamie might lose his deposit.”

  Eva turned to see the man coming at her, his face smarmy and confident, getting ready to finish her. Eva thought of how to defend herself, knowing deep down it was useless, but she had to try

  The man’s eyes flicked between Eva’s chest and throat as if he was making up his mind. His eyes fixed on her chest before they finally looked at her face.

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart… It will all be over in a heartbeat.”

  He made his move and Eva threw her hands up in a desperate attempt to stop the blade, blocking his face from view. She gritted her teeth, ready for the agony. But it didn’t come. Before the knife plunged into her chest, she heard a brutal thud. Eva moved her hand away to see something heavy pull away from the side of the man’s head. He stumbled sideways and covered his head with his hands. His knife clattered to the floor. Lauren stood to one side, eyes bright, breathing hard. Eva saw a lump of broken concrete in her hand. Lauren wiped her mouth and nodded at Eva before stepping past her towards the killer. The man was on the floor, kneeling, cradling his head. Eva pulled herself away from the car bonnet and Lauren moved in.

  “Lauren. It’s okay. You’ve done enough.”

  “But you would have done it,” said Lauren. “I saw you. You would have finished him off. Now it’s my turn.”

  “No, Lauren. I wouldn’t!” called Eva. But she was too late.

  Lauren leaned in and swung the concrete at the man’s face. The man tried to pull away but an edge caught him on the side of his head. He wa
s lucky – it was a glancing blow. He was still hurt, and he tried to crawl away down the alley.

  Eva moved to Lauren’s side as the woman gasped for air.

  “We should kill him now – while we have the chance,” said Lauren. Eva laid a hand on her arm and Lauren’s eyes flared.

  “No. You’ve done enough. If you kill him, you’ll go to prison.”

  The man scrambled away to the edge of the alleyway. He pulled himself upright, dabbed a hand to his headwounds and winced when he saw the blood on his fingers. His eyes burned at them for a moment before he pulled away around the corner. He was gone.

  “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever hit a man with a piece of concrete before,” said Lauren, wheezing.

  “It seemed to work.”

  Lauren grinned. “Then I’ll have to remember it.” Eva gave her a look.

  “Joke,” added Lauren.

  Lauren looked at the improvised weapon in her hand and slowly lowered it to the gravel. “I know you didn’t want me to get involved,” said Lauren. “But you were in trouble…”