JF03 - Eternal Read Online Free PDF Page B

you mean sex?’
    ‘I mean sex. Or anything approaching it. We do touch. We do kiss … but then I start to feel …’ She drew her shoulders up, as if her body were beingsqueezed into a small space. ‘Then I get the panic attacks.’
    ‘Does he understand why you withdraw from him?’
    ‘A little. It’s not easy for a man – for anyone – to feel that their touch, their close proximity, is repellent. I’ve explained some of it to him and he’s promised to keep it to himself. I knew he would anyway. But he understands. He knows I’m seeing you … well, not you specifically … He knows I’m seeing someone about my problem.’
    ‘Good …’ Minks smiled again. ‘What about the dreams? Have you had any more?’
    Maria nodded. Her defences were beginning to crumble and her posture sagged a little more. Her hands still rested on her knee but the manicured fingernails now gathered up a small clutch of expensive tailoring.
    ‘The same thing?’ asked Minks.
    ‘Yes.’
    Dr Minks leaned forward in his chair. ‘We need to go back there. I need to visit your dream with you. You understand that, don’t you?’
    ‘Again?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Minks. ‘Again.’ He gestured for her to relax into her seat.
    ‘We’re going back to your dream. Back to where you see your attacker again. I’m going to start counting, now. We’re going back, Maria … one … two … three …’
9.00 a.m.: Schanzenviertel, Hamburg
    Kristina left the door open, leaning the vacuum cleaner and her cleaning tray as checks against thedoor spring; leaving her escape route clear. Old instincts started to rouse themselves from somewhere deep within her, awoken by the scent of fresh death in the air. She became aware of a rhythmic rushing noise and realised that it was the sound of her pulse in her ears. She reached down and picked up a spray bottle of cleaning fluid from her tray, gripping it tight in her trembling hand, like a gun.
    ‘Herr Hauser?’ She called into the hall, into the quiet rooms beyond. She strained to hear any sound, any movement. Any sign of something living within the apartment. She gave a jump as a car drove past on the street outside, the thudding bass of raucous American dance music synchronising with the pulsating rush of blood in her ears. The apartment remained silent.
    Kristina edged down the hall towards the lounge, the hand with the cleaning-fluid bottle held out hesitantly before her, the other offering uncertain support, tracing its way along the bookshelves that lined the hallway wall. As she did so, Kristina couldn’t help her trembling fingers registering a hint of dust on a shelf needing special attention.
    She felt her anxiety ease as she stepped into the bright lounge and found nothing untoward, other than that Herr Hauser had left it particularly untidy: a whisky bottle and half-drained glass sat on the table beside the armchair; some books and magazines lay scattered on the sofa. Kristina had always marvelled that someone who was always so concerned about the environment in general could be so careless of his personal surroundings. Kristina Dreyer, the assiduous cleaner of other people’s homes, swept the room with her gaze, registeringand mentally timetabling the work that needed doing. But a former Kristina, a past-tense Kristina, screamed at her from deep within that there was death here: its wraith smell hanging in the stuffy air of the apartment.
    She stepped back out into the hall. She stopped in her tracks, as if the energy from even the slightest movement had to be diverted to her hearing. A sound. From the bedroom. Something tapping. Someone tapping. She moved towards the bedroom door. She called out ‘Herr Hauser’ once more and paused. No answer, except the ominous sound from within the bedroom. Her grip tightened on the cleaning-fluid bottle and she threw open the door so hard that it banged against the wall and swung back, slamming shut again in her face. Again she pushed it open, more