Spider in the Corner of the Room (The Project Trilogy)

by Nikki Owen

  ‘It’s a perk, let’s say, of the prison service. Sometimes, in this job, we need help. We have access to some really good people. I can make the call, if you like.’

  I shoot one more look at the skyline and, for the first time, I realise that I am gazing through a window without bars. ‘Can…can you call them now?’

  He smiles, pauses. ‘Yes, of course.’ He strides over to his desk and picks up the phone.

  ‘I’ll get dressed,’ I say.

  When I emerge from the bathroom, Balthus has finished his call and I am wearing a clean blouse and trousers.

  ‘All done,’ he says. ‘They have a couple of new counsellors who have just started. They come highly recommended and have worked with people with Asperger’s before. You’ll have to sign up to a radical kind of therapy, but it gets great reviews.’

  ‘Who is the therapist?’

  ‘They couldn’t confirm, given the last-minute nature of my request. You’ll find out when you get there. I’ve booked you in for first thing tomorrow. Is that okay?’

  I hesitate. ‘Yes.’

  Balthus smiles. ‘Good.’ He walks across to the kitchen, picks up a knife and slices into some more bread. ‘I think counselling could be just what you need.’

  Chapter 37

  Kurt holds the gun to my head. ‘I’m sorry to have to do this, Maria, but I really do need you to move.’

  ‘Why?’ I snap, the tension rolling out, the outrage, the injustice. ‘Fucking, why?’ I stop, heaving, exhausted by every inch of it all. I wipe spit from my mouth, raise my eyes. The gun loosens a little. ‘Did I kill him?’

  For a moment, I think Kurt is going to yell at me, but instead he frowns, takes a step back. The gun drops to his side. ‘No,’ he says after a moment. ‘You didn’t kill him.’

  My mouth drops open, a reflex, shocked. Relief washes over me, surging like the ocean. I didn’t do it. I didn’t kill Father O’Donnell. I step back a little, stumble, the thought overwhelming me, the year of pain and uncertainty dropping away, leaving me exhausted, worn. Broken. ‘Who?’ I say after a second. ‘Who killed him?’

  Kurt leans back against the wall. ‘This was when the Project was still connected to MI5.’ He pauses. ‘Your handler at the university in Salamanca was reporting changes in your biomechanical structure. Your cognitive responses were increasing. So we needed you here, nearer, in the UK so we could monitor you more closely. And, of course, we knew you were eager to find Father Reznik, so London was an easy option. We knew you’d come here.’

  ‘So you…’ I stall, not wanting to say it, not wanting to admit what they did, how they lied, schemed, cajoled. ‘You implied Father Reznik had family in London? You set up the cosmetic surgery secondment at St James’s, here?’

  ‘We made sure your boss was your new handler, as you figured out.’ He scratches his head. ‘All was well until we got first wind of the potential NSA scandal.’

  Balthus groans. I look at him—dark blood sticks like tar to the road. I turn back to Kurt. ‘What has the NSA got to do with the murder?’

  ‘I don’t know if I can—’

  ‘Tell me!’ I yell, spit flying out. ‘Look what you have done to me! Look how you have lied, how this Project has lied.’ I stop, gulp in a breath. ‘This is my life. My life. You owe this to me. You fucking owe it to me.’

  Seconds pass. His eyes flicker shut then open, directing them straight at me. ‘You want to know? You want to know why you matter? Why we did what we had to do to keep things safe, to keep the fucking world safe?’

  I remain very still. A phrase swims into my head. ‘For the greater good,’ I say to myself. ‘Killing is easy for the greater good.’

  ‘You remember the Project training mantra?’ A soda can blows in the wind, lifts up, then clatters to the ground. ‘Okay, look. When the NSA Prism thing blew up, the government got scared, began intelligence-committee investigations into all of MI5’s activity. They were going to pull apart everything, all operations. MI5 were shit scared they’d have their own NSA-style fuck-up. That’s when they gave the order for Callidus to lay low, for you to be placed somewhere safe, where no one could touch you—find you—until it all blew over.’

  It dawns on me, like a new day. ‘In prison. You put me in prison so I could be out of the way.’ I stop, nearly laugh at the audacity of it, almost admiring their intricate planning. ‘And, in prison, I could not escape. You had me securely where you wanted me to be.’

  ‘It was the obvious answer. A high-security facility without any extra effort on our part. All we needed was a reason to get you in there. A nun was all it took.’

  ‘Sister Mary.’ I slap my hand to my mouth. I was right. I was right about her in the retrial. She was lying. She was MI5.

  ‘She attended the hospital—St James’s—befriended you, persuaded you to volunteer at the convent. We knew you had struck up a friendship with your handler, Father—’

  ‘Reznik,’ I say, my voice sounding faraway, dreamlike.

  Kurt’s gun swings against his thigh. ‘It was the ideal motive. You liked him, he left you. We could fashion a seething hatred from that. We lifted the Croc you donated to the convent and, because of the blood blister, we had your DNA. Then we staged the murder.’

  Murder. My stomach lurches at the word. They staged it, they killed him, made it look as if I did it. As if I killed Father O’Donnell.

  ‘Our officer waited until the right time and staged the crime scene. I helped; it was a tough job.’ He blows out some air. ‘The priest was stronger than we thought, so it took two of us to string him out, slice him up, pierce through his neck. All a bit dramatic, but it had to be done, had to look…vengeful. A lot was at stake.’

  I swallow, eyes damp, head throbbing. ‘But the DVD store owner…’

  ‘We paid him. He was taking a hit at the time. Drugs. So we paid him to say what we needed—that he saw you. Then I went to the hospital, waited until you had finished your night-time geriatric visits, and took the CCTV tape.’

  I look up. ‘But the CCTV tape was uncovered.’

  ‘That was me.’

  ‘But…’ I trail off. I know the answer now, but cannot say it.

  ‘At first, the idea was to hide the CCTV so you would be convicted, which you were, then reveal the tape, get you out once MI5 knew they were in the clear.’

  I keep my eyes on the floor, on Balthus’s blood now seeping past me. ‘But NSA happened.’

  ‘Yes. The service was under too much scrutiny. The NSA scandal would not die down. MI5 were sure the Project would be uncovered and they couldn’t risk that. So that made you a threat to them. And they had to eliminate the threat. They told me to destroy the CCTV.’ He stops. ‘And they told our two undercover officers in Goldmouth who were watching you, to kill you.’

  My eyes go wide. ‘Dr Andersson and Mickie Croft.’

  ‘Yes.’

  They all lied. The fact strikes me like a jab to the ribs as, ahead, the breeze lifts the soda can up once more. I watch it briefly rise until the wind throws it to the ground, unwanted, trash.

  ‘You recall I mentioned my brother to you,’ Kurt says now, unexpectedly.

  ‘Y-yes.’

  ‘When MI5 wanted to pull the Project, I couldn’t let that happen. I knew how close we were, with you, to being able to use intelligence, computers—all of it—to stop the terrorists in their tracks.’ He looks at the gun. ‘So I left MI5 and stayed with Callidus, committed to keep it going.’

  My brain, through the fog, connects, puts the pieces together. ‘You put Bobbie Reynolds in prison to protect me.’

  ‘A cover, yes. And we sped up the appeal process to get you out, away from MI5, fast. So you see? We are on the same side.’

  ‘Maria!’ I spin round. Balthus is trying to drag himself forward. I drop to help him.

  ‘Stop!’ Kurt shouts. He points his gun at Balthus. Balthus thuds back down.

  ‘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.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Balthus says, as I hurry back over.

  ‘He said he was going to send a message to confirm our arrival time at the private airstrip. So, if I send that message from his phone, from him to his contact, leading them to think all is as planned and that I am on my way to them, that will give me time to run, to get away.’ I think of the commercial airport surveillance. ‘I will have to change my appearance. Can you access a pas
sport under a different name so I can get out of the UK?”

  ‘I have a contact. Where will you go?’

  ‘Somewhere no one knows about. I will require that contact.’

  I grip the phone and, thinking of Papa, of Harry, of all the needless deaths, I write the message and hit the send button. Exhaling one long, deep breath, I throw the phone to the floor. It spins then comes to a halt by Kurt’s legs.

  Pressing my lips together at the sight, I close my eyes, think of Papa, then run to Balthus and help him up. ‘Can you walk?’

  ‘Yes. Just,’ he says, and together we hobble to the main road, blinking as the sudden sunshine hits our faces.

  Balthus stops. ‘Maria, I can help you.’ He winces. ‘I can always help you.’

  My eyes feel wet. I blink back the tears, because I don’t want them, no longer wanting to feel weak or vulnerable or at the mercy of others. Swallowing hard, I focus on the road ahead, focus, now, on what needs to be done. ‘I will have to dye my hair. And I will get some coloured contact lenses, perhaps some clear glasses, too. I will have to change how I look if I am going to travel. I cannot let them see me ever again and—’

  I stop. Balthus is staring at me, the corners of his eyes creased, just as Harry’s used to be when he smiled. A lump swells in my throat.

  ‘It’s going to be okay,’ Balthus says.

  But I cannot believe that. I may have killed people, hurt them, may have instigated covert crimes, and I need to know, need to understand what I have done. The Project is still out there. Once they realise Kurt is dead, once they know I have fled, they will be after me. So I will always have to hide, run, get away and never surface again, cut, sever any contact with my previous life. With people, with my family, with my…my friend.

  ‘Can you—?’ I stop, clear my throat. ‘Can you get a message to Patricia O’Hanlon? Can you tell her I am okay, even though I cannot see her? Harry was going to contact her, but now he’s…” I trail off, the words too hard for me to say.