Nikki Owen - Spider in the Corner of the Room

It is here. The morning of my retrial.

I dry my face with a towel, fold it twice and set it on the rail. I do not look in the mirror, not wanting see my reflection staring back at me, a reflection I do not know any more, the image of a person I cannot trust, cannot be certain of, of what they have done, of who they have hurt. I slide my fingers down the mirror and turn away.

Patricia sits on her bed. ‘What time will you be leaving?’

‘Zero eight thirty hours.’

‘And you don’t know if your mam will be there, at the court?’

I shake my head. She is still ill, the cancer spreading its tentacles inside her. I squeeze my hands together.

‘Hey.’ She gestures to the bed. ‘Why don’t you come and sit down?’

I am faced with the reality of life on my own. If I stay in prison, Patricia could be out on parole. If I get out, then the Project will be waiting for me, as will MI5 and who knows who else.

I sit down. Patricia moves beside me and places her palms on her lap. ‘Have you prepared for the trial?’

‘Yes. Of course.’

‘Is Harry a great lawyer?’

‘Barrister. He is qualified and experienced.’

‘And they are helping you figure out everything that’s going on? All this creepy Project stuff?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then look, this is it now. Today. This is your chance. You have to get out of here. You have to figure out what is going on. They won’t beat you.’ She stops and exhales. ‘You’ll get out. And you’ll win against them all, you’ll see.’

And I try to listen to her, try to tell myself that it will all be okay, but the thought taps me on the shoulder, non-stop like an annoying child. ‘What if I did it?’ I say, my voice a small whisper.

‘What?’

‘I think I killed him. Sometimes…sometimes I see myself there, at the altar. The murder scene. I see it.’ And saying it aloud, hearing my confession out in the open, makes my shoulders soften a little, my headache ease.

‘Doc, you listen to me.’ Her voice is firm, like a quick jab. ‘You are good, you are kind. You are not a murderer, do you hear?’

I nod, but I can’t believe her. I can’t.

‘I know you don’t believe me,’ she says, ‘but this has to end. And it will-it will end well for you. I believe in you, even if you don’t believe in yourself. So, when you go to court today, and for however long it takes, you tell yourself enough , you hear me? Say it.’

‘Why?’

She sighs. ‘Because you have had enough of people thinking you are one sort of person when you aren’t that person at all. You are good. You are not a killer. That’s why you have to say enough to all this.’

She goes suddenly still, swallows and touches her eyes.

I tilt my head. ‘Is there something wrong?’

‘Hmmm?’ She drops her hand, pops on a smile. ‘No. Everything is grand.’

I glance at the clock: eight-twenty-five.

Patricia stands. ‘They’ll be here in a minute.’

I slip on my jacket, pick up my legal files. My hands don’t shake, but my eyes are blurred, as if my body is protecting me from seeing what’s ahead.

The cell door slides open. ‘Martinez?’ A guard is standing in the doorway. ‘Time to go,’ she says.

Hesitating, I grab Patricia’s hand and shake it.

‘What are you doing?’ she says.

‘Saying goodbye. Like people do, like you taught me.’

She smiles again, releases her hand and holds it up, her fingers star-shaped. I hold mine to hers, tips touching.

‘Martinez,’ the guard snaps, ‘time to go.’

‘Yes.’ I drop my hand, glance for the last time at my cell, at Patricia. Then, a lump forming in my throat, I quickly turn and leave.

I rip the cobweb down, desperate to grab the spider, but Kurt is right behind me. He grips my legs. I can feel the heat of his arms around my thighs.

‘Get-’ I kick out ‘-off me!’

I manage to shove Kurt away, but he clambers back up and clamps on to my right knee.

‘Maria,’ he is saying, yanking at my trouser leg. ‘Don’t!’

But I ignore him. I have to, my brain is screaming at me to run, my heart banging, begging me to protect it. Just as my fingertips grasp the spider, I feel myself falling from the chair. Instinctively, I roll my hand to a fist and hit the floor, landing on my back. The air shoots from my lungs. I try to swing back, but Kurt’s face looms over me.

I move fast, kick his left shin. He cries out, and I roll to the right, scrambling up against the wall, my eyes on the door the entire time.

Kurt turns to me. There is a sharp sting in my palm, but I keep it in a fist, ready to pounce, I realise, just as the Project has trained me.

‘Stop this, now. Please,’ Kurt says.

But I do the opposite and, dragging myself back up, I run to the open window, desperate, frenzied. ‘Help!’ I scream, but the traffic is loud and busy and oblivious. I rattle the bars with my right hand, but they do not move, cemented hard into the brickwork. Kurt is behind me now. He pulls at my shoulders, but I grip the bars, instinctive muscles kicking in, and I think I can hold on when Kurt slices into my arm with the side of his hand. A pain shoots through my elbow, and my fingers let go of the bars.

Kurt seizes me by the shoulders, too quick for me to move in time. He drags me from the window and, flipping me around, pushes me hard into the wall.

He has me pinned by my neck, says nothing at all. Then he begins to squeeze.

I am in a police van. The sun is high in the sky, thirty degrees already. The time is 08.45 hours.

The van jostles along the road, the compressed air stifling. The walls are black and the seats are metal. I stay very still, trying not to think too much or contemplate what’s ahead, because the answer will always be the same: I don’t know if I killed him. The guard sitting opposite me does not speak, instead simply sniffs, blows from an upturned lip onto her cheeks and chews gum.

As we near the court, I hear shouting and am horrified when, through the tiny slit of a window, I see crowds lining the roadside en route to the court building. They are holding up placards daubed with slogans that say ‘freedom’, ‘justice’ and ‘innocent’. The van slows down; the placard slogans change. ‘Don’t crucify Maria!’ ‘Tweet #saveMaria!’ I read them all, eyes flying left and right, my pulse accelerating. Who are these people? Why are they here? I feel threatened, a caged animal, in danger, and only breathe a little softer when the shouting subsides. But then other crowds appear, new placards, different ones. ‘God will be thy judge’. ‘Priest killer’. ‘Immigrants out!’ I smooth my trousers over and over, unable to cope with the volume of yelling, so loud in my ears, roaring, muffling my mind. The van jolts, the shouting at its loudest now. It is too much. I rock back and forth a little in an attempt to calm myself; the guard stares at me and chews her gum.

The van comes to a sudden halt and a loud alarm shrills. I slap my palms to my ears.

‘Hands down, Martinez,’ says the guard.

She takes out a pair of handcuffs and slips them over my wrists, but I don’t like it, the restricted feeling. It frightens me.

Outside, there is a loud creak of heavy iron gates being opened. I swallow. We are driving in.

It is 09.03 hours when I am escorted into the High Court building. The masonry is white and the air is cool, voices echoing, loud, vibrating, but my cuffed hands mean I am unable to block my ears from the noise. As we walk, I see the reception hall is cavernous and wide. Marble stairways curve from the ground floor all the way to the top and, on the ceiling, a fan, two metres in diameter, circulates air through the walkways. More sounds to deal with. Wigged barristers and suited solicitors scurry by, crisscrossing the tiles, heels clicking. Everyone appears to be wheeling suitcases of legal files, dragging them behind like clubbed seals.