Lethal Profit (20 page)

‘D
ID
YOU
HAVE
TO
KILL
HIM?
'

Eva realised her teeth were still gritted as she spoke, clamped together to stop her screaming when the shooting began. Her nerve endings were on fire; the gunshots were still echoing around inside her head. She felt Leon's incredulous stare as she remained sitting on the battered wooden chair, in between the bodies of the two men.

‘Is that a serious question?' He walked quickly across the room and began shifting the two bodies to one side before methodically searching them. She could hear that he was breathing heavily, through nerves or exertion.

‘What are you doing?'

‘Searching them.'

‘I… '

‘Can we talk about this later?' Leon indicated the bodies on the floor. ‘We need to get out of here.'

Eva looked down at the man with the scar who was now lying mute, eyes wide, fingers gripping the uneven floor in the position he had died.

Leon seemed to have found what he was looking for; he pulled Eva's phone from the man's pocket. Eva looked it at, surprised.

‘Come on.' Having cut the rope around her shoulders and the bonds at her hands and ankles, Leon pulled her to her feet, handed her the phone and began propelling her out of the door. Eva resisted slightly, but for the first time she let him lead. She was exhausted.

They half-walked, half-ran back along the corridor lined with cells, passed through a large metal door that looked like it had been kicked off its hinges, then stepped into a more inhabited building that appeared to Eva to be basement office space. It was empty, eerily so. Leon led Eva along through the dank darkness of the basement and then suddenly took a right and burst through a fire door.

‘Up there,' he said, indicating a small doorway. She looked up. They were at the bottom of a long metal spiral staircase that covered at least eight flights. Her legs felt weak, she was still shaking and her head was throbbing, but there was no way out other than up. When they finally reached the top, Leon broke through the outer fire escape door and suddenly they were in the street. A Parisian street – alive with cars, barking dogs and the smell of fresh bread. Eva looked around her in surprise.

‘I thought I was outside Paris.'

Leon simply shook his head. ‘Come.'

He led her around the corner to where the Citroen was parked, and opened the door. Eva got in, sinking gratefully into the soft seat. She was surprised to see the rear windscreen, that had been in pieces the last time she had seen the car, had already been replaced.

Leon started up the engine and pulled out into a flow of traffic whilst Eva glanced in the mirrors. Once they were under way, she looked expectantly over at him, assuming that some kind of explanation would be forthcoming.

‘Thank you,' she said in what was probably a fairly underwhelming expression of gratitude for what he had just done.

‘I shouldn't have left you alone at the Sacré Coeur.' He nodded in the rear view mirror at her. ‘You look terrible.'

‘Thanks.'

‘Who did they work for?'

‘That's what I was about to find out.'

‘Did they say anything at all?'

‘There was a name – Joseph Smith.'

Leon nodded slowly.

‘What did they do to you?' he asked, his voice hard.

‘Just what you can see,' Eva replied. And then in a low voice, with a lump in her throat, ‘I think they killed Jackson.'

Leon remained stony-faced. He seemed heavy, depressed. They sat in silence for several minutes.

‘Look, don't ask me how but I know of this man Joseph Smith,' he said finally. ‘If they are working for him then we won't have long before they discover you have escaped and come after us.'

‘Who is he?' asked Eva, ignoring Leon's instruction.

He gazed at her in the rear view mirror for several seconds. ‘It doesn't matter right now.'

Eva locked into his gaze and held it. They stared at each other and then, fearing Leon's pig-headedness would see them end up in a traffic accident, Eva looked away.

‘We need to find the memory stick Sophie gave me.'

‘Yes.'

Eva thought about how convinced she had been that Leon had been Sophie's murderer. ‘How do you know she gave me that? Every time I looked for you at the Sacré Coeur you weren't there.'

‘There was someone watching you – it was the larger man back there,' he said, indicating the direction of the cellar he had released her from. ‘I left my position because I followed him. I lost him and that's when I saw the gun being aimed at you through the curtain of a confessional near the exit. I couldn't get there in time… ' He finished, disappointment heavy in his voice. ‘I guessed it must be some kind of device.'

Eva nodded silently.

‘What was on the stick?'

She looked over at him. ‘I don't know. I mean, I did know… but… '

‘I think you were drugged.'

‘I guessed as much.' Eva rubbed her aching head. ‘How did you know where I was?'

Leon glanced sideways at her and then back at the road. ‘I fitted you with a tracking device when you were at my apartment. That's how I knew you had been at Valerie's flat.'

That was why he hadn't bothered to follow her when she ran off after the Sacré Coeur, she realised. ‘Where is it?'

‘It looks just like skin. It's on your lower back.'

Eva reached round and felt all across the skin of her back with one hand until, after several minutes, she finally found a tiny patch that was too smooth. She used her fingertips to find the point at which the too smooth area became real skin then gouged with her nails until she made a ridge. With some considerable effort she ripped the feather-light strip off, pulled it out from under her top and held it up.

‘It was for safety.'

‘Right. You know if you tried communicating with me in a normal way we might not keep ending up in these situations.'

‘It worked, didn't it?' he said, ignoring the comment.

She stared at him, annoyed, and then sighed. She was too tired.

‘I went to Valerie's yesterday but she wasn't there,' he continued, apparently keen to gloss over the issue. ‘I spoke to her neighbour and he saw her leave several hours after you. He said he noticed blood in her hair.'

‘Seriously?' That was a surprise. ‘Do you think maybe she didn't hand me over to those people?'

‘I considered that, but then why drug you?'

‘True.'

‘I'm still certain she's caught up in this.'

Whilst she wouldn't admit it, deep down, Eva couldn't help feeling stupid. She had walked right into Valerie's hands, despite Leon having warned her, and she hadn't been smart enough to avoid getting herself drugged, despite the fact that all her instincts had told her something was wrong from the moment she had arrived at Valerie's. She wasn't about to admit that to anyone though.

‘Where does she fit in all of this?'

‘I don't know. But we need to find that out.'

Eva glanced at the clock on the dashboard: 11.53am. She had been there all night.

‘Look Leon, this might be crazy, but I don't have the memory stick and I know that I had it before I lost consciousness. I think I might have hidden it at Valerie's somewhere.'

‘Before you passed out?' He sounded incredulous.

‘It's not impossible, is it?'

‘No, but it's not going to be easy to get in there.'

‘I thought you said she had gone to see a medic.'

‘That was yesterday, right after it happened.'

‘It's worth a shot, isn't it?'

They pulled up at a set of traffic lights next to a news stand. The headlines blared off the stand at them: ‘Bioavancement S.a.r.l. sells youth back!' Eva looked away and the lights turned green.

When they arrived at the flat, Leon met a man in a suit standing at a bus stop opposite and they had a short conversation.

‘She's out,' he said when he returned to Eva.

‘Who was that?'

‘A friend.'

‘Did your
friend
also have any idea how we can get in?'

‘The best way is just to walk through the door.'

‘Fantastic, where's the key?'

Leon held up a small set of wire-thin tools.

Once they were outside Valerie's door it took Leon less than a minute to shift the internal mechanism of her lock around so that it sprung open.

‘I'm guessing you've done this before.'

He ignored her.

‘We have an hour maximum.'

‘I need to clean up. I'll meet you in the room with the computer, down the hall.'

He nodded.

Once Eva had located the bathroom, she gratefully shut the door, sat on the edge of the bath and took a minute to try and collect her thoughts. After allowing herself several deep breaths she quickly used the products she found in the bathroom to wash off the liquid that had been thrown at her and remove the blood from her face, neck and hair. She took one of Valerie's hair-bands and pulled her long dark hair back into a ponytail. Her face was scratched and she was developing another huge royal purple bruise across her right cheek where she had been hit, but nothing felt broken and at least now she was clean and less bloody. She cleaned and dressed the wound on her hand from her fall at the petrol station and wiped antiseptic lotion over the smaller grazes on her face, hands and arms and the cuts on her collarbone. Finally, she borrowed mouthwash and deodorant to try and make herself feel slightly more human and took a couple of painkillers with water from the bathroom tap. Her head was still pounding.

She found Leon sitting at the computer, his broad frame blocking most of the screen. When he heard her come in, unexpectedly he stood up and Eva took up a position in front of the computer. She looked back at him over her shoulder, surprised at the relinquishing of control. Then he handed her the USB stick.

‘You found it!'

‘Under the table leg. I noticed as soon as I walked in that it wasn't level. I always notice lines that aren't straight – OCD.'

Eva took the stick and glanced at him sideways. She'd never met anyone with the same issue she had. She watched him line up an iPad that was sitting on the desk so that it was exactly parallel to the edges of the table. It was satisfying.

As the contents of the USB stick opened up in the window and the folder names came into view, memories suddenly began to filter through Eva's mind.

‘I opened “briefing” last time,' she said, hovering the mouse over the file as she remembered.

‘What's in it?' asked Leon, his voice tinged with impatience.

Eva thought for a second. ‘It's a collection of research sources – articles about a youth supplement. I don't think it's very important.'

‘What about “test results”?'

‘I don't know. Perhaps that's what I was reading when I passed out.' She clicked on the folder, selected the first file and the ‘Highly Confidential' document appeared on the screen. She felt Leon reading over her shoulder, his eyes like laser beams boring into the page. ‘But this… ' He began and then stopped and carried on reading. Apparently the scientific jargon was no barrier for Leon. When he didn't say anything else, Eva opened the summary document she had read the day before and Leon made fast work of that too. Then he folded his arms, gave a short whistle and leaned back against a cupboard.

Eva closed the file ‘test results' and looked at the remaining folders. There was one labelled ‘Read Me', a document rather than a folder of documents. As she looked at it, she knew she had read it before.

‘I think this might have some answers.'

She moved the mouse over the icon and opened the document. As she began to read, it all came flooding back.

Eva looked away from the screen and up at Leon who seemed to have turned very pale.

‘Does it seem serious to you?'

‘It could be.'

‘But it's just algae.'

‘I expect that's the assumption they are relying on everyone making.' Leon scrolled further down the page and whistled. ‘Jesus. This stuff is virtually unstoppable.'

She looked at him incredulously. ‘I know what the document says, Leon, but seriously it's just a plant,' she repeated.

‘Have you ever heard of a “red tide”?'

‘No.'

‘It's a “population explosion” of toxic, naturally occurring microscopic algae. It can kill everything it comes into contact with – fish and plants – it contaminates water and is even harmful to humans. Here,' he reached over Eva and opened up an internet search engine on the computer, typed in ‘red tide' and pulled up the results.

All at once Eva was looking at blue-green seas covered in vast swathes of red algae – a ‘red tide'. She quickly read the accompanying FAQs.

‘But it says here the particles are only harmful if you eat infected fish or shellfish and normally they are filtered out of water by our filtration processes.'

Leon frowned and stared ahead. ‘This information, Eva, I find it very confusing.'

She nodded. ‘It doesn't make sense.'

‘I don't understand why this company is importing algae plants into the UK, when these plants are clearly going to become a threat to its water system. How can this have been allowed to happen?'

‘What I don't understand is why they have done it. I mean, surely this Bioavancement S.a.r.l. company is going to end up getting sued for the damage it causes. No commercial contract would leave a loophole like that.'

‘And what about this?' said Leon bringing up the ‘Highly Confidential' document once again.

Eva looked blankly at the screen. ‘I don't understand the language in that one.'

‘It's describing the effects of this strain of algae on the human body if you consume it as a supplement. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with cell regeneration – in fact, quite the opposite. It actually shuts some of the body's functions down.'