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“This man in a black coat… Can you describe him?” Mark asks, clearly thinking the same thing.
The taxi driver shrugs and lights a new cigarette. “It all happened so fast, all I really saw was a blur of white as my headlights hit his face. Or her face. It might’ve been a woman.”
The image of the tall, blue-eyed woman staring at me through the window of the gift shop earlier flashes into my mind and stays.
“If you didn’t see clearly, how can you be sure?” I ask.
He shrugs again. “Just the way she was running. More a female run than a man’s, I thought. And that coat was so huge, yet somehow hung off their shoulders like it was a couple of sizes too large.”
Mark glances at me as though to see if I have anything else to ask. I shake my head and he turns back to the taxi driver.
“Where did they cross the street? And did you see where they went afterwards?” he asks.
“It was just by the Zois pyramid,” he says. It’s a good thing that spot is well lit, because otherwise I would’ve hit them. And then they just kept on running and went up those stairs that lead to the walkway around Križanke. I was honking, yelling and cursing, but it was like she didn’t even hear me. She didn’t react at all.”
“I’d like you to describe the person you saw to a sketch artist,” Mark says. “Can you do that?”
“As I said, I didn’t really get a good look,” the taxi driver says. “And I have my shift to finish.”
“Whatever you can remember will work,” Mark says. “And you would be helping us a lot.”
The man gulps again, but nods before taking another long drag on his cigarette. Then he glances over my shoulder and his face turns into a frozen mask of fear.
I look back and see that they are carrying the body up the steep bank, two men holding a black body bag, one at each end.
“I was in the war in Bosnia,” the taxi driver mutters. “I saw lots of bodies. I hoped I’d never see another. But now I have.”
His voice is shaky, the tone dark, and somehow his words cut worse that the icy wind.
Mark asks Sojer to arrange the sketch artist then motions me to follow him a few steps away. “I’d like to check out the place where he saw this person. Can you stay with Sojer until Dino gets here and then he’ll take you home?”
I shake my head. “I’m coming with you. What good am I at home? I won’t sleep anyway.”
Mark doesn’t say anything for a couple of moments, during which Dino drives up and parks his small, beat-up car next to the curb where we’re standing.
“This person could still be lurking around here,” Mark finally says as Dino walks up. “I’d prefer you to stay as far away from them as possible.”
Just about the only thing I’m grateful for is that I didn’t give any interviews yesterday. If I had, then my guilt over what we found here tonight would be even more unbearable.
This killer has now struck completely out of their normal sequence and I’m convinced it happened because of all the press coverage and mention of me, a “famous” serial killer hunter, being on their trail.
Yes, this killer could very well be lurking close by to watch us work. And I hope we meet them.
“This was a message to me,” I say. “I’m going.”
“Going where?” Dino asks and I’m glad he spoke, because the tension between Mark and me was starting to reach unbearable levels.
“To trace the path of a suspicious person leaving the area,” Mark explains. “I’d prefer Eva to stay behind.”
“I’ll go with you,” Dino says.
“And me too,” Sojer says.
Mark seems to be out of arguments, but he looks like he wants to find some anyway as he glares at both of them, and me too. But then he shrugs.
“We stay together, though,” he says. “And we’re taking a couple of officers with us to do a proper canvas search of the area. The taxi driver says he was honking and yelling. He might’ve woken someone up and that someone might have seen something.”
“Works for me, Boss,” Dino says and I nod.
