Nikki Owen - Spider in the Corner of the Room

‘We needed to assess you completely unaffected, without your knowledge, so we could see how you were performing. Your memory was starting to malfunction-we needed to know what we were dealing with. The therapy cover was our route in.’

‘Why are you telling me all this? Why now?’

‘Because the service wants you dead.’ His shoulders finally drop. ‘And we want you alive.’

My hands begin to tremble. ‘But…you said you are with the service.’

He exhales. ‘Not any more.’

‘I…I don’t understand.’

He wipes his mouth. ‘Callidus-the Project-used to be part of MI5, part of a wide international programme against terrorism, but not traditional stuff. Callidus uses people, computers to fight the terrorists. Callidus uses intellect, not muscle.’

The report we found on Balthus’s computer that linked to MI5. My name on the list. The test child. I swallow hard. ‘You said, “used to be part of MI5”, past tense.’

‘MI5 want to cull the Project after thirty years.’

‘Why?’

He hesitates, rakes a hand through his hair. ‘The US National Security Agency is just hitting a huge scandal. Surveillance of stuff-internet sites, social media-they may not have been…allowed to watch, shall we say. Anyway, the world has got wind of it and now MI5 are scared the same will happen to them with Callidus, so they want it gone.’ He exhales. ‘Which means they want you gone.’

‘No…’ I clutch my hair, words whipping past my eyes, truth smacking me in the face. ‘Michaela Croft, the inmate. She was-’

‘MI5,’ he says, confirming it all. ‘And the woman you know as Dr Andersson? MI5.’

‘Blood. She was taking my blood.’

‘We needed to monitor you. But she’s not with the Project any more.’

I step back. ‘Why? This is not right. This cannot happen. I am not an experiment to be discarded. I do not belong to you, to Callidus, MI5 or anyone else.’

‘Bullshit,’ Kurt snaps. I go still. ‘We conditioned you-tests, training, code cracking, all of it-we did it to make you think bigger, better, faster than anyone else, than enemies, than the sneaky fucking little jihad terrorists that killed my brother. It’s not about muscle power any more, it’s about intelligence.’ He jabs a finger at his head. ‘High-functioning intelligence. Yes, we trained you to be strong, to fight if you needed to-to kill.’ He stops, draws in a breath. When he speaks, his voice is softer, quieter. ‘But, Maria, it’s all about what’s in your head, what astounding things your brain is capable of. You can save people! So, please, Maria, please: think. Why is the priest dead, hmm? It’s all part of the terrorist fight. It all starts and ends with you, Maria. You.’

I shake my head over and over. Two priests, one bloodied face. They swirl round and round, until I don’t know which is which any more. I look to Kurt. Does he know? Does he know the truth? ‘Did…did I kill him?’ I ask, my voice unstable. ‘Was he an…an assignment?’

Kurt checks his watch. ‘Shit. We have to go.’

I wipe my face. ‘No.’

‘Christ, you really don’t get it, do you? We’re on the same side. MI5 want the Project culled, which means they want you dead.’ He exhales. ‘You and I work solely for the Project. They want you hauled back in now, but, this, right here, is the end of the road. You figured out about the handlers, right?’

I nod, unable to speak.

‘Well, they kept an eye on you then, and I am doing just that now. I am helping you, I have been all along, even though I know you’ll find that hard to believe. And you’re not safe any more. I can’t protect you here; the game has just changed. Now, please, let’s go.’

His mobile bleeps. Neither of us moves. Then, slowly, Kurt slips his hand to his pocket and pulls out the phone. ‘Damn.’

I inch away from the wall. ‘What?’

‘They are sending her in if you don’t move soon.’

‘Who?’ I dart round. ‘They are sending who in? The woman with the coffee?’ The nightmare-that was real. ‘You told Black Eyes that you had put too much of the drug in the coffee. They said I had to be sent back to London.’ I slap my hand back to the wall. ‘It wasn’t a dream. You have been drugging me, all this time in therapy.’ I gulp in oxygen. It all makes sense: my wild thoughts, hallucinations, swaying, paranoia-all down to the drug.

‘We had to have some way of extracting your thoughts,’ Kurt says. ‘The drug gave us a chance to get the data we needed from you without you realising.’

A slap of nausea hits me, knocks me backwards. ‘You can’t do this.’

Kurt taps his jacket, then halting, pulls something out of his top pocket. It glints in the sun: a syringe.

‘What are you doing?’

Liquid sloshes in the vial. I glance to the broken glass tube, to the door that is still locked.

Kurt steps closer. ‘You have to trust me now, Maria. The coffee lady won’t be as nice as me. We are fighting for the same cause, you and I. We’re good people. Trust me, it’s easier this way. You won’t be out for long. It’s just to get you out safely, unnoticed.’

The needlepoint glistens in the light, loaded, ready to make me forget, tempting me, like a sweet high, to soothe and make all this go away. But it won’t go away, ever, like a cancer spreading to every organ in the body, it won’t respond to treatment.

I push Kurt into the wall and scramble to the door.

The entire jury watches now as Harry taps his chin, looks straight at Dr Gann as she details Father O’Donnell’s death. The urge to cover my ears so I don’t have to hear it is almost unbearable.

‘Dr Gann, to pin the victim down as he was found,’ Harry says, ‘regardless of the ease at which the neck wound could be administered, wouldn’t it have taken force, to keep him still?’

‘Yes,’ she replies after a moment.

Force. Pinning someone down. I sit forward, a wave of heat smacking into me. Because the thought grabs me, shakes me, wakes me up: the Project have trained me, conditioned me to be strong-strong enough to hold a man down flat to the ground. I wrap my hands around my arms, my torso, muscles. I have always assumed my athletic build came naturally. Maybe I was wrong.

Harry takes a sip of water, and, consulting his file, returns his attention to the witness. ‘Now, Dr Gann, if we look to the DNA evidence. The original forensic report stated that DNA was found in three places. Can you explain that, please?’

‘From the evidence submitted to me I can tell you that the blood from the defendant was found on the victim’s shoe-’

‘Where on the shoe exactly?’

‘The inside rim, by the heel.’ She pushes up her glasses. ‘Traces of the defendant’s blood were also found on a knife discovered in a tool shed located within the grounds of the convent. Finally, the defendant’s blood was found on a crucifix that was also located in the same tool shed.’

‘And this shed was used by the defendant, is that correct?’

‘Objection,’ says the prosecutor. ‘The witness is a pathologist, not a detective.’

‘Overruled,’ says the judge.

Harry continues. ‘And by evidence, do you refer to the original documentation submitted by the police from their investigations?’

‘That is correct.’

Harry adjusts his gown and looks to the expert. ‘Dr Gann, what did you make of this documentation you were given?’

She hesitates. ‘I was concerned about the testing carried out for the DNA.’

I drop my arms and sit as far forward as I can. Could this help my case?

‘Do you refer to the DNA of the defendant?’

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘In particular the DNA on the knife. Normally, we have a reasonable amount of specimen to test, but this amount, the amount from the knife from the shed in which the defendant is implicated-it was low and, in my opinion, too small to test. The readings would not have been accurate. I believe the evidence gained from it would not have been reliable.’