After the incident at Lille and the failed attack at Gatwick the atmosphere at London Stansted Airport was febrile and tense. Travellers and airport workers looked edgy, their eyes darting around while they carried their cases and pretended everything was fine. Eva Roberts was edgy too, but as a seasoned private detective she guessed the odds of another terrorist incident were pretty slim. Besides, Eva had other reasons to be edgy, and all of them were personal. Eva was waiting to meet a face from the past and she was dogged by mixed feelings - excitement, trepidation, and shame.
After returning to her old agency office Eva felt she could finally breathe again. But within a day of being back, something changed. It was unexpected, sweet, and yet very awkward. She found the email buried halfway down a list of two hundred unopened messages. Her stomach burned with nerves as she read it, and then she broke into a bright smile. Pavel wanted to see her, and he was coming to London the very next day. Pavel from Prague - her cousin. Pavel had visited England twice during their youth. Once when they were eight years old, and they had played for a week on the beach at Southend, and then once more when they were both seventeen. The last visit caused Eva’s awkwardness. At seventeen they had shared lingering glances, and when they were left alone, they held hands. Just before Pavel had flown home with Eva’s aunt, he snatched a kiss. Eva knew it was wrong, but deep down she had always thought Pavel was the first man to make her feel like a woman. The kiss had never been mentioned since. But the moment Eva read Pavel’s email, the strange memory came flooding back along with all the sweetness and the shame.
Her business partner, and virtual husband, Dan had offered to come to Stansted Airport with her, but Eva made excuses. “I’ll be okay, Dan. Pavel’s not a Russian spy or a murderous oligarch. He’s just my cousin. The best thing you can do is stay here and find us some paid work.”
“But we don’t need work. We’ve got enough money from the Kent gig,” Dan replied.
“I need work, Dan. Make a head start, will you?”
Dan had put on a sour face but relented and Eva went to Stansted alone. Now here she was feeling hot and slightly giddy, thinking about her appearance. How much older did she look? How would Pavel look? Would they still be attracted to one another? The Prague passengers began to stream into Arrivals while the airport big screens showed blurred images of the man in black who bombed Lille, and similar images of the men who fled from the attempted attack on Gatwick. They all looked young, though their faces were blurred. Some were dark skinned; some were pale. News tickers ran underneath the news images. The warnings rolled on and on.
“...the government has described the risk of another terrorist attack as severe. The Prime Minister is said to be considering the use of special security forces in the event of another attack...”
A terrorist video had been released just after the Lille bombing. It showed two young men with masked faces, standing before a black flag. Their video said London was next, and so it proved. But police thwarted the attempt, and the extremists ran without detonating their bombs. They were still on the loose. How could people become so evil? After ten years of chasing down all kinds of sleazebags for her clients Eva should have known the answers – but evil was still a mystery to her.
The passengers poured into Arrivals. Halfway along the pack of hurrying students, holidaying couples, and hungover parties was a man half a foot taller than the rest. He had the cheekbones, Eva remembered and the right kind of sharp blue eyes. His hair was thinner than before and cropped and there were new faint lines on his forehead. He wore a short brown and grey beard, but it was definitely Pavel. As soon as she saw him her chest swelled with warmth and joy. Pavel smiled at her. He walked through the crowd and grinned wider with every step. As soon as he reached her, Eva was hesitant. Pavel opened his arms for her but she held back, thinking of Dan, and thinking of that long-ago kiss, and of everything which could not be allowed to happen. But it was not polite to leave her visitor empty handed. Eva gave in to his embrace. Pavel wrapped her up and pressed him to her as if they were long lost siblings... or something more...
The embrace lasted a second too long. While his beard bristles scraped Eva’s face, she stared up at the screen and saw the blurred images of a man in a backpack walking towards the Lille train station. A moment later, Eva’s eyes happened on a young Asian man with a beard as he checked something deep inside his luggage. There was a twinge of discomfort. A knee jerk reaction in her nervous system and she dismissed it. Pavel looked down at her with intense light in his eyes. “You are the very same as all those years ago.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s true at all, Pavel.”
“Yes, it is. The same in every way.”
Sweet and awkward. From nowhere, Eva wished she had refused to meet him. But the truth was refusing had never been an option.