Nikki Owen - Spider in the Corner of the Room

‘You need to come with me, Maria,’ Kurt says, rapid now, his body straight, ready. ‘I am sorry about all this, I truly am. If it could have been done an easier way, if we could have initiated you into the programme in a more gentle fashion, then we would have done so. But this is MI5 we’re talking about here. They know everything. And they are under enormous pressure right now with the NSA. If they want you gone, you’ll be gone.’

His words echo around the dampness, the gloom. The despair hits me, threatens to engulf me. I see it. Harry lying on the steps of the court, the priest’s body splayed at the foot of the altar. All of them lost to me. Their faces swim into my consciousness, each of them good, innocent. ‘You killed Father O’Donnell. Why him? Just to get me out of the way?’

‘He was getting too close to the truth,’ Kurt says, his voice higher, almost shouting. ‘He was helping you, was discovering Father Reznik was a cover name. We couldn’t let you start to figure out the truth before we’d got you out of harm’s way.’ Kurt shakes his head. ‘Don’t you understand? This is for the greater good.’

‘No,’ I say, feeling myself drift out to sea, unanchored. ‘I cannot trust you. I cannot trust any of you.’ And then I remember: the memory, the woman in the hijab, the one I strangled. ‘Have…have I killed before?’

He stops. ‘For the Project?’

I nod, unable to speak, too scared of the answer.

‘Maria, we have all done things for the Project that others will not.’

I shake my head, not wanting it to be true. ‘Have I been to Afghanistan? Somewhere very hot for Callidus? Worked in a refugee camp?’

‘I don’t know every single detail of your operational duties, but, given the nature of our work, it is highly likely, yes.’

I swallow, shaking, frightened. I look down at my hands. What have I done?

Kurt steps forward, his gun lowered. ‘It gets easier, you know. Please understand. I’m sorry about all this, about the way you are finding out. I really am. But you need to come with me now.’ He reaches into his pocket, pulls out his cell.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Sending a message.’ He pauses. ‘You recall the woman I said was my girlfriend? The one who delivered the coffee?’

The woman with the leather jacket and the chestnut bob. Her face appears in my mind now, brown eyes, honey skin, accent like a punnet of plums.

‘She’s with the Project yet still undercover at MI5,’ Kurt says. ‘So once I make contact, she’s going to confirm intel to the service that you’re dead. Then I’ll fly with you to the Project facility in Scotland. So you see? You stay with us and MI5 won’t be hunting you any more.’

‘If we fly from a commercial airport, MI5 will track me on surveillance camera. They will know I am alive.’

‘That’s why we’re meeting at a private airstrip, thirty miles from here.’

‘Your contact could have leaked false intel about me to MI5 anytime.’

‘No, that wasn’t possible until now. Think about it. You were a risk, but not any more, because, now we’ve tested you, checked your state, I’ve been able to tell you everything. And now you know your life is threatened. Now you understand why it’s vital to keep quiet, to stay low. That’s why we’re leaking the intel now.’ He exhales. ‘That’s why.’

I breathe hard, heavy, try to think. If I go with him, with the Project, who is to say I will ever return? Who’s to say that I will ever be the same again? MI5 may soon believe I am dead, but if I stay with the Project, my life will not be mine. It will be theirs. Theirs to use and command as they need. I glance at Balthus on the ground then look to Kurt, a subject of the Project, willing to do anything for them. I don’t want to be like that, don’t want to carry out tasks that I am against. Don’t want to kill, murder. I was a doctor. I am a doctor.

‘I cannot go with you,’ I say.

‘What?’ He taps his cell.

‘I cannot do this. I cannot be a part of Callidus, of the Project.’

He thrashes his hand up. ‘Jesus! Understand what’s at stake: that this is for the greater good. We help people, Maria. Do you get that? And there are elements now about you that we need to…to ascertain. Crucial elements, elements we could not predict until now, now you’re older.’

I go still. ‘What elements?’

‘I can’t say.’

‘You can say. You can speak. You are just choosing not to tell me.’

He shakes his head, looks at his cell. ‘Maria, you’re coming with me.’ He taps the screen. ‘It’s done.’ He holds up the phone. ‘The message has been sent. MI5 will be receiving the intel now. You are dead to them. You are dead. All I need to do now, once I get you to a safe house, is confirm when we’ll be at the airstrip and we’re free.’ He begins to walk towards me.

‘No,’ I say, backing away. ‘I am not going with you.’

‘You can help people, Maria. You can save lives. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted to do?’

‘Not like this. If I want to help people, I can do it in a different way, a more honest way.

‘An honest way? You think people are honest? Bullshit they are. Everyone lies, Maria, you of all people know that. All we are doing is blasting through the shit, using intelligent people to galvanise the lies, to cut through it all, make a positive difference in this fucked-up world.’

I inch back, hands trembling. ‘No.’

‘Yes.’ He points the gun at me. ‘And now you’re dead, we have three hours to get to-’

He drops to the ground. I gasp, hands flying to my mouth. Kurt is lying on the tarmac, a bullet wound through his forehead. I stumble back, confused, blinded, his red blood seeping into the cracks in the ground, into the black of the earth. What just happened? I shake, trip over myself, falling, gulping in fistfuls of air. And then I see Balthus.

He is holding a gun.

Balthus swallows. His wound is scarlet, his breathing laboured. ‘I…I shoved it in my pocket when I got your call.’ Then he splutters and slumps to the right.

I drag myself up, crawl over, hauling Balthus by his arms, lean him as best I can against the wall. I glance at Kurt’s body. Unmoving. Dead, the silent reality deafening. My eyes linger on Kurt for two more seconds, brain struggling with events. I turn back to Balthus, my fingers trembling, inspect his wound. ‘Your…your leg…There is so much blood.’

He groans. ‘Will it be okay?’

I grab his hand and press it to the torn skin, the shattered bone.

Balthus winces. ‘I didn’t mean to shoot him in the head. I just…I just meant to stop him. He was going to take you away.’ He looks over at Kurt’s body. ‘What are we going to do now?’

The growl of a van driving on a nearby road suddenly sounds. We stop, listen. When the van passes, I force my attention to Kurt’s body-his mobile phone lies on the ground. A memory floats into my consciousness. Me, standing in the therapy room, listening to a voicemail from Kurt’s girlfriend, the one with the coffee, the one who, a minute ago, received a message from Kurt. The one who is now expecting a second message from him, too.

I stand, everything suddenly seeming clear, obvious, and, ignoring Balthus’s calls to me, rush over to where Kurt’s body lies. Alive one minute, dead the next. So easy. I shiver, gaze at his smooth skin, his splayed limbs, the man who made me doubt myself, who drugged me to get a result he wanted, that the Project wanted. Bending, hesitant at first, I pick up Kurt’s phone and turn it over in my hand. Switching it on, recalling the same passcode I used when I accessed the voicemail in the therapy room, I scan the messages. There. The one giving the green light for the MI5 intel on my death.