by Nikki Owen
Blood. The vial in my fist. I hold it out. ‘So, how do you explain this?’
Kurt flashes one short smile. ‘What? An empty glass tube?’
I stare at the vial. There’s nothing in it. ‘No. How can that be?’ I turn it, tip it upside down, but still it is bare. ‘But there was blood in it. I know there was. I saw it.’
‘You saw what you wanted to see, Maria.’
I rub my eyes. What is happening? The vial was full. Thick with red blood.
‘Tell me, have you not been sleeping very well?’
I dart my eyes around the room, frantic like some wild animal caught in a trap. ‘You have drugged me.’
‘No.’ He sighs. ‘You are paranoid. It is very common among schizophrenics.’
‘I am not schizophrenic!’ I touch the wall, move my body a fraction.
‘It’s okay. I can help you.’ A line of sweat trickles down his temple.
‘You do not want to help me.’ I move one step to the right.
‘Yes, I do.’
I take another step.
‘Maria, stop!’
I freeze. My heart bangs against my ribcage, threatens to break free of my chest entirely.
‘This cannot go on,’ Kurt says. He shakes his head. ‘You are clearly unwell, more than I initially thought.’ He looks round him. ‘Where’s my cell?’
And then it comes to me. ‘Daniel!’ I say, fast. Kurt stops. ‘Your real name is Daniel.’
He stands still.
‘There is a message on your phone.’ I point to it. ‘Your girlfriend.’ He glances to where the mobile lies. ‘Dr Carr wants you to cut it—that means he wants you to stop interviewing me, doesn’t it? He said you have enough recording material, that the tests are all confirmed and neutral. The geese, she said, are on your trail now. That you need me out and on your side.’ I pause, chest heaving, air flying in, out. ‘She said, “NSA is blown.” NSA is the National Security Agency in America. What does it mean, “it’s blown”? Why the NSA?’
When he does not speak, I keep going, desperate to break free. ‘It’s time. She said, “It’s time.” So you can stop all this now and tell me the truth.’ I exhale, long, deep. ‘Tell me the truth.’
I wait, not daring to move. Kurt keeps his eyes on me, inches towards the phone, picks it up. He listens to the message. Done, he slips the phone into his pocket. His eyes stay on me. One second, two. My body presses against the wall, frantic for a way out, an escape.
‘Your brother,’ I say for some reason, out of hopelessness, ‘was he a part of all this?’
A flicker, there, in his eyes, a flicker of the lids. ‘Don’t mention my brother,’ he says, voice deep, scratched.
‘Is that why you are involved? Because he was killed by terrorists on 9/11?’
‘I said, don’t.’
But he is wavering, a wetness to his eyes. I keep going. ‘Is that why you are watching me? Because I am part of this conditioning programme and you think I can stop terrorists like Al Qaeda?’ The glass vial presses against my palm, and it suddenly all connects, all makes sense. ‘You drugged me, didn’t you?’ I nearly laugh at the craziness of it. ‘That’s why I thought there was blood in the vial.’ I shake my head. ‘All this time, you were drugging me.’
‘Versed,’ he says after a moment.
‘What?’
‘Versed. It’s a drug that makes you forget what has happened, any discomfort and…unwelcome effects of certain procedures.’
I look at the vial now, glass glinting in the sunlight. The memory of Black Eyes branding me to see if I could feel it. I touch my stomach where the scar sits. That’s why I can’t remember experiencing the pain. They were drugging me even when was a child. I look at Kurt now, my body shaking. ‘The…the hospital, the doctor with black eyes—’
‘Dr Carr. That’s who we took you to see.’
His name. Black Eyes has a name. ‘Then it all happened?’ I say, half of me not believing, half knowing it’s true. ‘You took me in a van during therapy?’
‘Yes.’
I slap my hand to my mouth. It wasn’t a nightmare. It was real. ‘And the Banana Room was…?’
‘An hallucination. Side effect of the drug.’
I shake my head, press into the wall harder, not wanting to hear any of it, eyes darting around the room. And then I see it: the cobweb.
I look back to Kurt. When I speak it is like steel, like the deepest cut. ‘There are no spiders are there? They were all hallucinations, too.’
But Kurt does not reply this time, instead his eyes are on the ceiling now, too. On one thing. One thing that seems as if it is there, real. I can tell he sees it, too.
Because when I look closer now, when I squint my eyes as tight as I can, I see it for what it really is: they were all hallucinations except one spider. One tiny black spider.
‘Dr Carr said to cut it,’ I say, frantic to say anything to keep him distracted from what I can see. ‘You need me on your side, they said. Your girlfriend—she said they have enough recording material and…’ I pause, shoot a fast glance at the spider now. ‘That’s how they knew what I was doing,’ I say, stopping, realising. ‘When I needed to go to Callidus for testing. They—you—were recording me the whole time. I just didn’t know.’
I take one step to the corner. ‘It is a real spider,’ I say aloud, not caring any more what Kurt does or says. Connections race through my brain. Like a fire sparking, they ignite, flames licking, growing bigger, hotter until my head is filled with a blaze of answers, questions, accusations, every one of them threatening to scorch me, to burn me to a cinder.
‘It’s a real spider,’ I shout. ‘Real!’ I have to get it, prove it. I scan the room. Kurt’s chair.
‘Maria. No! Please, don’t. We need you.’
But I ignore him, and instead, race over and, grabbing Kurt’s seat, drag it to the corner.
‘Maria, stop!’
‘Are you MI5?’ I shout to him. ‘Are you?’
‘Yes.’ He shakes his head. ‘No. I was. Let me explain.’
‘Liar!’ I yell. ‘You fucking liar.’
I position the chair underneath the cobweb and clamber onto it. Raising my arm, I aim to wrench the spider from the web, but I have forgotten that the glass vial is still in my hand. It comes loose and drops to the floor.
I watch it. Kurt watches it.
It smashes into thousands of tiny pieces.
Kurt stares at it then looks straight at me. He holds my gaze for one, two, three seconds.
Then, quick, Kurt scrambles towards me. I move. Fast—I have to. Thrusting my hand as far as possible to the ceiling, I rip the spider from the corner of the room.
Chapter 27
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 th
is 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.
I walk with the guard and glance to my left. There are four carved oak doors, all double bolted and taller than two men. Police firearms officers stand by each one. Long, black guns sit diagonally across their bodies.
Once deep inside the bowels of the building, I am placed in a box room and told to sit. The guard unlocks my handcuffs and turns on a radio before she leaves. ‘Some company,’ she says. Classical music immediately drifts in, and for the first time since we arrived here, my shoulders relax.
When Harry finally arrives he is breathless, wigged and sweaty. Greeting me, he dumps his files on the desk and adjusts his wig as it slides forward. He is wearing a barrister’s black robes. I breathe more easily now he is here.
‘How are you?’ he asks.
‘You are sweating a lot.’
‘Sorry?’ He looks down at himself. ‘Oh, yes. Big day.’
He lays out his legal briefs, stands and dabs his forehead with a handkerchief. ‘It would be the hottest day of the year for your trial, wouldn’t it? Did you bring the Spanish sun with you?’
‘No. How could I do that?’
Harry opens his mouth to speak then closes it. He drags out a chair from under the table, flicks his cloak behind him and sits. The classical music still plays on the radio.
‘So,’ he says. ‘We are as ready as we can be. Do you have any questions?’
‘How long will the trial take today?’
‘That depends on how long the prosecution cross-examine for. It could last all day, though naturally there will be a break for lunch.’
‘Do you know who has been selected to be on the jury?’
He nods. ‘I’ve seen the names. There’s a good bunch to select from, it seems. Reasonable mix of people. Jobs. Backgrounds—we should be okay there when the clerk picks them out.’
‘You will call me to the witness stand?’
‘Yes. I think it’s best. Are we still agreed you will do that?’
I pause. If I take the stand, what will I say? If they ask me if I did it, if I killed him, then do I tell them the truth? That I don’t know, that I can’t be sure any more because I have been drugged more times than I know? Because when I think of Father Reznik, I find myself now confusing him with Father O’Donnell and his butchered body? ‘I haven’t decided yet,’ I say finally.
‘Okay.’ A smile. ‘I understand.’
The door opens. One of the solicitors. ‘They’re running five minutes late, Harry,’ she says. Harry thanks her. The door closes.
Harry gestures to the radio. ‘I love this piece.’
I breathe in, a deliberate, indulgent inhalation. ‘“The Flower Duet”.’
‘By Léo Delibes from his opera, Lakmé.’
Our eyes rest on the radio as the sopranos sing, their voices lapping like waves on a shore. I loosen my shoulders, close my eyes. Violins. Flutes. They dance together across the room, twirling, spinning, entwined.
Harry sighs. ‘I’ve always thought, when I hear this piece of music, that if there were angels, this is what they would sound like. That when I arrived at the gates of heaven, this is what I would hear.’
The voices are in the sky now, high notes gliding through the music. We sit, listen, no words spoken. As the piece comes to a close, the singing hovering in the air like a butterfly, I open my eyes.
Harry smiles at me. We do not speak, simply wait as the singing slowly fades away. I glance to the clock on the wall and my body tenses once more: 09.29 hours. Nearly time.
Harry starts to write some notes. I stare at the radio, try to focus on it to quell my rising nerves. The music has been replaced with a news bulletin, and the announcer is issuing a breaking report about the American National Security Agency—the NSA. There are allegations of espionage and something called Prism. I sit up, pay close attention. The NSA is being accused of illegally accessing personal information via social networking sites and other significant online organisations.