Nikki Owen - Spider in the Corner of the Room

Pausing to take a breath, to steady myself, I then begin to methodically scan his emails, his texts. Nothing of interest. I shake my head, check again, but still no real facts, no crucial information, and then, just as I think I was wrong, that I have flown to a crazy conclusion and that Kurt is just what he says he is-a therapist-I see something. Voicemail. He has a voicemail message. Should I listen to it? Pausing to check for anyone returning, I gulp and tap the icon before I can change my mind. I put the phone to my ear.

‘Daniel?’ a woman says. I freeze. I recognise the voice: a punnet of plums, a bunch of black grapes. Kurt’s girlfriend, the one with the coffee. Except, she is not calling him Kurt. So does that mean…? I press the phone harder against my ear, listen.

‘I’m at Callidus now,’ she is saying. ‘Dr Carr wants you to cut it now. We’ve got enough recording material. Tests are all confirmed and neutral. The geese are on our trail now. NSA is blown. We need her out and on our side. It’s time. See you at the Project.’

The message ends. I lower the cell, my whole body suddenly numb, immobile. The woman who brought the coffee, Kurt’s girlfriend-she works for Callidus. Which means…I throw the phone down as if it’s red-hot, as if it’s scorching my skin, because the truth burns me, sears my mind. Kurt is not a therapist. He is from Callidus, and he has been here messing with my head, implying that I am going crazy when I am not. I pace the room, thoughts spinning, hands wringing themselves over and over again at what it all means, at why they are doing all this, at the gut-ripping reality of it all. Balthus and Harry and I-we found out, we discovered the eyes-only document that day in the office, the conditioning, the tests, the, the…I have to stop, overwhelmed, leaning against Kurt’s chair, gulping in air, but it doesn’t work. My heart still pounds in my chest, my blood still bangs in my veins.

Daniel. The woman on the message said his name was Daniel. Daniel means ‘God is my judge’. God? God? I almost laugh out loud at the absurdity of it. Where is God in all this? How can a God condone what is happening in the world? The lies, the corruption-nowhere is free from it, not even the inner sanctum of religion itself, rife as countries all over the world are with violence and hate and greed and deception. All of them-Spain, Iran, Iraq, England, America, Israel, Palestine-justifying their actions in the name of their God. And so is that what God is? Cruel? Lying? Prepared to go to any means to succeed in his aim, to get what he wants? Is that what Father Reznik was, what Daniel-Kurt-is?

It is too much. I bang my head hard on the chair, my forehead, the taut bone hitting the leather. But then something happens, as if the blow dislodges a reality inside me, one I knew was there, but for some reason could not reach: Kurt took me to Callidus. I halt, skull resting on the seat. I wasn’t asleep at all, not in the chair. What I thought was a dream actually happened-they took me in a van and plane so they could test me, drugging me for the journey back to London. Why?

I flip up straight and, ignoring the head-throb, stride across to the picture of the mountains and moorland on the wall, utterly lucid now, knowing exactly what I need to do. His girlfriend said they had been recording me, so let’s see.

I study the moorland picture. The frame is wooden, the paint is oil. I trace my finger along the edge and analyse the painting strokes. Each one of them appears just the same, each a deep green of the moor or a brown of the mountain. Mountains and moorland-the two are not normally found side by side. By the bottom right-hand corner there is a tear. It is only one millimetre in diameter, but I see it.

I reach out and, slowly, touch the canvas. Bit by bit, I poke my finger into the painting and, gradually, the tear becomes bigger until, when I stop, it is two centimetres long. I pause, listen to the rise and fall of my breathing. I look at the carpet, at the door, at the bars on the window. A soup of faces stir in front of me: Kurt, Father Reznik, university professors, colleagues at St James’s, Dr Andersson, Michaela Croft. Each of them blending into one swirling stew of blood and tissue. All of them liars. All of them part of the Project, the covert conditioning experiment.

I face the painting and begin to rip it apart.

Harry and Balthus stare at the computer screen. No one moves. No one speaks. The rain outside has been replaced by a sudden howling wind.

Harry steps back, shakes his head. ‘How can Dr Andersson’s website link to MI5?’

They both look at me, but I avoid their gaze, my whole body spent, exhausted with what I have tried to do. ‘She was right,’ I say after a moment, voice quiet, shattered. ‘Bobbie was right.’

Harry stares at the screen again. ‘MI5?’ He shakes his head. ‘My God.’

Balthus reaches over, picks up the phone. ‘I’m getting Dr Andersson, or whatever her fucking name is, out of here now. This is not okay. This is not fucking okay.’

‘Maria, I am so sorry,’ Harry says now. ‘I…’ He stops, breathes out. ‘I am so sorry we doubted you.’

I look at him now and sway. It feels as if I am hanging off the edge of a cliff, teetering, staring into the sea below. Bobbie has been telling the truth. I roll the word in my head; it almost feels like a stranger to me.

‘She took my blood,’ I hear myself say now aloud.

‘What?’ Balthus says, holding out the phone receiver.

‘In our therapy sessions, Dr Andersson took several blood samples from me for tests.’

Harry looks to Balthus. ‘Is she permitted to do that?’

‘No,’ he says, slamming the phone back to his ear. ‘No she’s bloody well not.’

I hang my head, my notebook still open to my left. MI5. It is real, the connection to it is real. My mind fogs up and it’s only when I hear Balthus shout down the phone do I come to, my sight focusing on the scrawled pages beside me. Why? Why are MI5 involved? How can I ever have had a part in any of what may be going on? Why was Dr Andersson taking my blood? Why? Why?

I dig my fingernails into the notebook, hold on, claw into it, desperate for more answers. What is Project Callidus? Why are they using me? If Papa were here now he would make me investigate more, make me keep going, tell me not to give up, but I don’t know if I can. It has taken all my energy to convince Balthus and Harry of it all. To delve further may wipe me out.

I let out a breath and allow my eyes to flicker shut. A breeze glides in from the window. When I open them, the notebook is still there, but now it is on a different page, the wind having lifted it up and over. I stop, look at it. A thought begins to whirr inside me. Inching out my hand, I pull the pad over and scan the details on the page. Two codes stand out among all the others. They mean something, don’t they? They have to.

I stay on the page, blink at the numbers again, glance to the computer screen. What if the codes are a key? What if they can help me get to the information I need on unlocking Callidus? ‘I have to access these security-service file names,’ I say aloud.

‘What?’ Harry says. ‘Maria, MI5 will have the highest security levels. Access is impossible. Along with the CIA, the Pentagon, GCHQ, it’s one of the most enclosed sites in the world. You just have to accept this is as far as we can go.’

I stare at him then look back to my notebook. He is right. About the security, he is right. But why do these codes spark something in me, unlodge a distant recollection, a glimmer of a procedure I have previously performed.

I divert my eyes back to the laptop, block out the sound of Balthus now yelling on the phone and look. I don’t know what I am searching for, don’t even know what to do, but still I examine everything. It is on my third search, leaning so close that my nose almost touches the screen, that I see it. On the top left of the page is a scroll icon. My head jerks back. Was that there before? I rub my eyes, lean in again. It is still there. Very slowly, I put my hand on the finger pad and move the cursor. I take in a breath and hold it. One second, two. On three I click on the icon. Immediately, a tiny image of a black bomb springs up.