Nikki Owen - Spider in the Corner of the Room

Balthus stares at me, his brown eyes two deep pools. He laces his fingers together. ‘You said Bobbie told you that you aren’t safe?’

‘Yes,’ I say after a moment.

‘And you are certain of this?’

I hesitate. ‘Yes.’

He holds my gaze then breaks away. Pausing first, his hand hovering mid-air, he reaches forward and opens a drawer.

I watch him, suspicious, heart rate rocketing. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Your interaction with Bobbie…’ He trails off, drops his hands. ‘What she says concerns me. It concerns me that you believe her.’

‘But the report cannot be…’ I stop, unsure what direction to take, which way to turn. ‘The psychiatric evaluation of her cannot be right.’

‘Maria, what Bobbie said to you is a lie. It’s what she does.’

I close my mouth, press my lips together tight, scared that if I speak, if I articulate what my brain is thinking, it may not make sense. Because the simple truth is: I don’t know. I don’t know what is going on or who is real. Who is good, who is bad. ‘I have to believe her,’ I say after a while, voice weak. ‘Because I didn’t kill the priest.’

Balthus stares, his head dropping then lifting to reveal eyes slit like steel. ‘I didn’t want to have to tell you this quite so soon.’ His voice is low, metallic.

I press my palms into my notebook, try to remain calm. ‘Tell me what?’ I say, almost too frightened to ask.

‘This,’ he says, ‘was taken a long time ago.’

He dips into the drawer and slides across a photograph. Inching forward, I look, holding my breath. It is of two men. The image is grainy, but visible. I touch it. The paper is worn, perhaps several decades old.

‘Why are you showing me this?’

‘It was taken in 1973,’ he says, voice smooth yet coarse.

The photograph pulls my eyes to it. ‘Who are these people?’

‘That one is me.’ He places a manicured fingernail on the face of a young man. His hair is dark, shoulder length. His shirt has a very wide collar, dark sunglasses shrouding his eyes. A knot begins to tighten in my stomach, my brain sparking. I fling the picture at Balthus. ‘Take it away.’

He hesitates then reaches forward, picks up the photograph. He looks at it for a few seconds, his breathing deep, heavy, then sets the image down between us. I sit, stare, not daring to move. I don’t know how much I can trust him. I don’t really know who he is.

‘I hadn’t long started university,’ he says after a while.

I find my voice. ‘What has this got to do with anything? Why are you telling me all this? Is it a game? Some social nuance game I can’t interpret? What? What?’ And I slam my hand to the desk, but he simply continues as if I had never spoken.

‘We were studying Law at Churchill College, Cambridge.’

I go still. ‘We?’

He breathes out. ‘Your father and I.’

‘What? My papa? You knew my papa? What?’ I say, over and over. ‘What? But how…? Why…?’ I sit, shake my head. Blood pumps fast into the base of my brain, banging, thrashing.

‘Your father, Alarico, had a European scholarship for Cambridge. That’s where I met him.’ He pauses. ‘That is where I met your mother.’

‘Why are you…?’ I stop, unable to articulate the thoughts that come flying out from my head. This man knew my papa, my mama. This man, the Governor of the prison I reside in. It is too much. Too much. I smack my head with my palm, my brain overloading, threatening to blow a fuse from the waves of lies, of truths.

‘He was concerned for your safety,’ Balthus says, cutting through my panic. ‘That’s why, when you told me about Bobbie, about what she said, I instantly became worried.’

I pause, lower my hand, try to stave off the tremor. ‘Why are you telling me now?’

He plants his elbows into the desk. ‘When you were young, Alarico-your father-he spoke to me, told me to keep an eye on you should anything ever happen to you. He had serious…fears. Something is clearly happening to you. That is why I am telling you now.’

‘But…but…’ I trail off, the words too spiked, too sharp to speak. If he was keeping an eye on me, what else was he doing? Is he one of them, working for the Project? Is he my handler in here, using me, too? Is no one who they seem? I stand, fast. ‘I have to go. I have to go.’

‘No. Maria, stay.’

But I ignore him, my eyes searching for the door, frantic. I spot it, grab my notebook and run to the exit.

‘Maria, stop!’

I can hear him, but I reach the door, rattling the handle, desperate. ‘Let me out!’

He is there by my side now, his torso thick, steady, his hands blocking the door. ‘I’m sorry you are finding out like this.’

I shake my head. ‘Are you with them? With Callidus?’

‘What? No.’

I grip the handle tighter. ‘How can I believe you? They have been watching me all my life. All my life! And now this Bobbie tells me to speak to you and you tell me my papa said to keep an eye on me, so what am I supposed to think?’ My chest heaves. ‘What?’

‘Sir?’ A guard shouts from the corridor beyond. We both go still. ‘Is everything okay in there?’

Balthus stares at me. I force myself to meet his gaze, to make myself stand up to him. ‘Everything is fine,’ he shouts to the guard after a few seconds, his eyes not leaving mine. ‘Everything is fine.’

He steps away from the door, drops his hands to his side. ‘Maria, I don’t know who or what Callidus is. They have not sent me to watch you. The only thing I know is that your father was my friend and he told me to look out for you.’

‘Why?’ I say, my body tense, ready to run. ‘Why did you not tell me when I arrived at Goldmouth that you knew my papa, knew my mama?’

‘I am the Governor, Maria. What could I say?’

‘You could have told the truth.’

He nods and I look at him. Everything I thought was right, everything I believed in-my life, who I was, why I was here-all of it is disappearing, evaporating like water droplets into the atmosphere until they will eventually vanish, die.

A wave of exhaustion surges over me. I begin to loosen my grip on the door when a high-pitched buzzing suddenly invades the air. I slap my hands to my ears. ‘What is that?’

‘My bleeper.’

He slips it from his pocket, turns it off, reads the message. ‘I have to go.’

I drop my hands. ‘Why?’

‘An…emergency.’ He coughs. He shoots to his desk, picks up the phone and dials a number. Done, he sets down the receiver, strides to the door, then stops. He turns, looks at me. ‘You sit, wait here.’

‘But I have many questions and-’

He holds up a hand. ‘Please, just wait for me.’ He presses his lips together. ‘I have more to tell you. I promise.’

He stares at me but does not move, eyes like two mirrors. I wonder if I looked deep into them, what I would see? Would they tell me that I can trust him?

‘You said it was an emergency.’

He inhales. ‘Yes.’ He presses the exit buzzer, buttons up his jacket as, from outside, an alarm begins to wail. I watch as the door shuts and locks as he leaves.

Alone, I let my shoulders drop. My mind feels wild, crazed with what I have just been told. I need to sit, rest, think. Turning, I go to walk to the chair when I spy a laptop on the desk. I halt. Bobbie. She mentioned this.

I grip my notebook and stride round to Balthus’s desk.

I need to find answers.

‘I am bending over the priest’s body,’ I say. ‘He is still warm. There is no heartbeat, no pulse. Blood pools everywhere, thick, sticky. It drips down the steps like treacle and trickles towards the altar. Through the priest’s neck there is an entrance wound, one slash, slick, neat. A knife. Clean like butter. The urge to stick my finger in the hole is incredible. I stand up. Fingermarks at a crime scene. Not good.’