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

by Nikki Owen

  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.’

  The people in the gallery murmur. I sit back, allow myself the smallest of smiles. The DNA may not be reliable, and that can lead to only one conclusion: I didn’t do it.

  ‘But this knife,’ Harry says now, ‘it also contained blood from the victim, is that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Harry lifts the corner of a file. ‘So we have a knife with blood from the victim, and the defendant. But the blood from the defendant is so negligible that, in your opinion, it cannot be reliably tested. So therefore the defendant cannot be identified as the perpetrator of this crime.’

  I hold my breath. The courtroom erupts. ‘Objection!’ says the prosecutor, rising. ‘Leading the witness.’

  The judge bangs his hammer for silence then laces his fingers. ‘Sustained. Ask a question,’ he says to Harry, ‘we are not in the business of monologuing our witnesses or passing judgement. That, Mr Warren, is my job.’

  ‘Yes, Your Honour,’ replies Harry. ‘And the other items,’ Harry continues, ‘the shoe—a Croc—the crucifix, also found in the tool shed. How reliable, in your expert opinion, are they?’

  ‘The Croc contained dried blood, not fresh, from the defendant.’

  Harry clicks his pen. ‘Consistent with, let’s say, a shoe rubbing a bleeding blister on a heel?’

  ‘Yes. It makes it unreliable as evidence, in my opinion.’

  The courtroom buzzes. I squeeze my fists together over and over, suppressing the bubble of laughter that wants to pop out from inside me.

  ‘And the crucifix?’ Harry now says. ‘What about that as evidence?’

  ‘Again, the blood found on there is too small to test. Its age and origin are undetermined. So therefore, it is unreliable.’

  Harry taps his chin. ‘So, Dr Gann, would you disagree with the statement that the blood on the crucifix belonged to the defendant?’

  ‘Yes. I would.’

  Harry smiles. ‘Thank you. No further questions.’

  I wipe the bridge of my nose as the gallery beyond descends into a rush of whispers, and I see him. Balthus. There, at the back. He meets my gaze, blinking at me, a loose smile on his face.

  I turn back to the dock, unable to think of Balthus at this moment, think of anyone except the priest. Because if this expert witness questions the blood on the Croc, then is there a possibility she is right? I hold the thought, weigh it up, but no matter how hard I press it into my skull, no matter how much I will it to be so, the truth sparks up like a flame that will never go out: Father O’Donnell must have died by my hands.

  I hold my fingers ahead of me, watch them, bathed in sunlight, shaking. My hands. Warm on the inside, cold on the outside. The hands of a covert killer.

  Chapter 30

  I grab the door handle, but before I can prise open the lock, Kurt is pulling me away.

  ‘No!’ I scream, but he drags me over, onto his chair. The spider camera falls out of my hand and Kurt scoops it up. I grip the back of the seat, wrenching it from its moorings, and manage to kick out, knocking Kurt backwards slightly. Tumbling, I scramble across the carpet, my knee crunching on the broken vial glass, my blood smearing a trail behind me. I crawl to my seat, rip my bag from the armrest, stuffing my prison notebook deep inside, and feel for my mobile.

  I haul myself up, dash to the door, when Kurt slaps my right cheek. A violent sting erupts all over my face. My head reels back.

  He grips my arm. ‘You are not going anywhere.’ He raises the needle.

  My eyes go wide. ‘No!’ I try shoving him with my fist. ‘Get. Off. Me!’

  But he is strong, trained, and he grips me harder, so hard, he leaves me with no choice: I sink my teeth into his hand and bite down, tight, feverish, determined, and I feel so angry, so confused that the urge to keep biting through his flesh and down to his bone is overwhelming.

  Kurt yelps. I let go, but he still has hold of the syringe, so I lift my fist and punch him straight in the face. He drops to the floor, his fingers releasing the needle, the whole length of it thudding to the ground as Kurt lies bent over, gripping his broken cheekbone. The needle rolls to a halt in front of me and I lift my foot and bring my heel down hard. The syringe buckles, the plastic bursting, liquid spurting out from it, soaking into the carpet, the drug oozing, merging into the fabric until it is impossible to tell where one begins and the other ends.

  I take one last look at Kurt, then bang open the door lock with the heel of my hand and run as fast as I can.

  Harry adjusts his robe as the latest witness is brought in. My body tenses: it is the DVD store owner. I remember him now from the first trial—eyes heavy, dark circles under them. His hair then was oily and long, his skin sallow and lined. But today his hair is clipped, neat, his complexion smooth and bright. Someone has cleaned him up.

  ‘Mr Granger,’ Harry says, addressing the witness, ‘can you tell the jury where you were at 10.30 p.m. on the night of Tuesday, the sixth of November.’

  The store owner leans into the microphone. ‘I was closing up my store.’

  ‘And could you explain what your store is, please, Mr Granger?’

  He faces the jury. ‘It’s a DVD store. I sell DVDs.’ He turns back to Harry.

  The jury is smiling.

  ‘Mr Granger, would you say that the day in question was a regular day for you?’

  ‘Well,’ he says, ‘apart from seeing a murderer leave the convent across the road, yes.’

  The people in the gallery let out a light laugh. I want to stand and shout out loud, ‘Don’t laugh! It wasn’t me! It wasn’t me!’

  Harry clears his throat. ‘What time does your store open, Mr Granger?’

  ‘Noon.’

  ‘Every day?’

  ‘We open at one on Sundays.’

  ‘In the afternoon?’

  The witness pauses. ‘Of course, the afternoon.’

  Harry shakes his head. ‘Yes, of course. Silly of me. And what time do you normally close?’

  ‘Ten-thirty—’ he leans into the microphone ‘—p.m.’

  The jury lets out a small murmur. Harry smiles at them then faces the witness. There were no eye creases to his smile.

  ‘Mr Granger, have you always opened on time?�
�

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And closed on time?’

  The witness pauses. I press my lips together, wait.

  ‘Mr Granger,’ Harry says, ‘I’ll remind you that you are under oath.’

  The witness scratches his cheek and sniffs. Above him, the ceiling fan whirls. ‘Can you repeat the question?’

  ‘Certainly,’ Harry says. ‘Mr Granger, have you always closed your store on time?’

  I want to yell at him to answer. The witness finally speaks into the microphone. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Objection!’ The prosecutor is standing. ‘The witness has already answered the question.’

  ‘Sustained. Mr Warren, move it on.’

  ‘Yes, Your Honour.’ Harry pauses. ‘Mr Granger, your DVD store—it is across the street from the Catholic convent at Draycott Road, yes? Number one hundred and twelve Draycott Road, Lambeth, London? Is that correct?’

  ‘Erm, yeah.’

  ‘And so, when you are not running your store on Draycott Road, what else do you do?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Do you take drugs, Mr Granger?’

  I sit forward. Harry did not tell me about this. Have they found out he is lying? And why? Did the Project pay him to do it, to say he saw me that night?

  ‘Objection!’ The prosecutor is standing.

  ‘Overruled.’

  ‘Mr Granger,’ Harry continues, ‘do you take drugs?’

  The store owner’s eyes dart around the room. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I will remind you that you are under oath,’ the judge says.

  The storeowner hesitates. ‘I…I used to.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Harry says, ‘for the benefit of the jury, Mr Granger, can you repeat that a little louder?’

  ‘Yes.’ He coughs. ‘I used to take drugs. But not any more. Not now.’

  I watch as Harry consults a file. This cross-examination is crucial. I wipe my palms on my trousers, once, twice, three times, but I feel odd, light-headed. I glance round: the court is deadly silent.

  ‘Tell me, Mr Granger,’ Harry says, ‘is it correct that you regularly use cocaine?’

  ‘Um, I did use cocaine, but only once or twice.’

  Chatter instantly erupts from the gallery. The judge bangs the bench. ‘Order.’ The room falls quiet. My head sways a little, my vision enclosed, as if I am in a tunnel.

  Harry holds up a photograph. ‘Can you take a look at this, please?’ The usher takes the picture and hands it to the witness. ‘This is a photograph,’ Harry continues, ‘of you receiving drugs from a dealer, specifically cocaine. Mr Granger, is this you?’

  He nods.

  ‘Can you speak for the court, Mr Granger?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says.

  ‘I would like this photograph to be submitted to the court as evidence,’ Harry says.

  The usher takes the photograph. Harry’s team must have located it somehow. This is good news, but I cannot focus on it. There is a blackness seeping around my eyes. I touch my head. I feel hot, clammy.

  ‘Mr Granger,’ Harry is now saying, ‘how often do you take cocaine?’

  He sniffs. ‘I told you, I don’t take it any more.’

  ‘So, on the day in question, the day you say you saw the defendant leave via the gates of the convent, had you taken cocaine?’

  He glances to his counsel. ‘No.’

  I push aside the tunnel vision, my eyes flying from the DVD store owner to Harry. What? He can’t say no. This man has to tell the truth, he has to! And, even though I tell myself to calm down, to stay still, anger erupts fast, like a gun being fired.

  ‘Liar!’ I shout, standing.

  ‘Order!’ shouts the judge.

  The guard pushes me to my seat, tells me to shut up.

  Harry swivels round, looks to me, a smile with creases by his eyes. My body immediately softens. The guard orders me to sit, but, as I do, the blackness returns and the room feels as if it is distant from me, faraway.

  ‘Mr Granger,’ Harry now says, turning from me, ‘I’d like you to reconsider your answer and remind you that you are a drug user, and that—’

  ‘Objection!’ the prosecutor says. ‘Badgering the witness. Mr Granger has already answered the question.’

  The judge narrows his eyes. ‘Sustained. Mr Warren, move on.’

  Harry nods to the judge. ‘No further questions,’ he says, and, moving to stare at the prosecutor, returns to his seat.

  In the witness box, the store owner descends the steps and exits the room, but I hardly notice, because my eyes are shrouded now, the blackness enveloping me. I begin to see something. A memory? I try to run from it but it comes, rolling in closer and closer like an avalanche. It hits and I gasp. An image smacks hard into me. I see myself head to toe in khaki and black. The air is cold but a promise of heat is there, like daybreak in an equator country. There is a woman in a hijab. She is running, her black cloak flapping behind her as she flees. But it is no use. I catch up with her, knocking her to the ground, flipping her round until I get her head between my knees, ripping off her veil. Her eyes are wet, but I ignore them. I have a mission to complete, a task and I will do it. I have been trained for this. I reach for her neck, enclose my hands around her windpipe and I squeeze. In the end it is easy. She goes limp and I fall back, check her pulse. Nothing. She is dead. For the greater good, she is dead.

  I bolt forward, my eyes flying wide open. I gulp in large breaths. What did I just see? What? I look up to see everyone staring at me. Harry mouths, Are you okay? and I nod, but I am unsure. Because what I just saw felt so real, felt so familiar, it was as if it happened. My hands were around the woman’s windpipe. Windpipe.

  I inch my fingers to my neck, almost too scared to admit the truth. Because what I just saw has to have been a memory. A memory of an operation I had been sent to complete.

  Chapter 31

  I sprint down the corridor. There are no guards, no police. I do not know where I am or even where I am going, but I know I have to get out of here. Away from Kurt. Away from the service, the Project, the conditioning, the drugs, the tests—everything. So far away that I can finally think clearly, hide.

  There are doors on either side of me, bars on windows, but when I shake the handles, every one of them is locked. I race to an exit ahead. It is a fire door. I stop, ribcage heaving. I peer through the glass window and evaluate the area. There are stairs to the left, one large window at the back, and on the wall is a map of the building.

  I dart my eyes to the corridor—no sign yet of Kurt. I turn to the fire door, and, pushing it hard, slam it open, my body spilling into the stairwell. Catching my breath, I close the fire door as quietly as possible, and, turning, look straight to the map. I scan it and find the exit location. I am about to shoot down the stairs when there is the distant slam of a door.

  I wait. Listen.

  Footsteps. A voice on the phone. Kurt is running towards me.

  The woman in the hijab floods my thoughts, confusion wrapping its tentacles around my head. Is it true? Is the memory real? For what greater good would I kill someone with my bare hands? The reality is almost too overwhelming, too crushing for my mind, my body.

  I fall into reciting numbers to try to calm my growing fear, whispering them under my breath over and over to myself. So when the nun walks into the witness box, her Catholic robes floating behind her, I freeze. Only when the nun sits do I allow myself to breathe again, telling myself that she is not the same person. She is not wearing a hijab. She is not dead.

  ‘Thank you for being here today, Sister Mary,’ Harry says.

  She smiles, her rotund body shrouded in a cloth of grey, her tubby fingers entwined around her rosary. Seeing her in the flesh dredges up something else inside me, but I don’t know what. Fear? Calm? There is a fine line between the two.

  Harry consults a file and looks up. ‘I wonder, Sister, if you could explain to me what happened that night—sixth of November
—when you found the victim.’

  ‘His name was Father O’Donnell,’ Sister Mary says. Her voice is plump, sugary, like a boiled sweet. I glance to the jury; they are all smiling.

  ‘Thank you,’ Harry says. ‘Can you talk me through the moment you found Father O’Donnell?’

  She sighs. ‘It was terrible. He was lying there, strapped up. And the blood…‘ She kisses her crucifix. ‘The blood was on his chest. Bright red like poppies in a field.’

  ‘And what did you do when you found Father O’Donnell?’

  ‘Well, I called an ambulance, of course.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘The ambulance, Sister—how did you come to call the ambulance?’

  ‘I returned to the convent,’ she says, after a small hesitation. ‘There is a telephone in the main hallway. That is the one I used.’

  I stop, shake my mind away from the image of the hijab and the windpipe, and try to focus. There was no telephone in the hallway, not that I recall. Why would she say this?

  ‘And did you alert anyone to Father O’Donnell’s…situation?’

  The Sister raises her eyebrows. ‘Well, of course I did. Goodness, I shouted as loud as I could. Awful, it was. So awful.’ She shakes her head. The only sound in the courtroom is the whirr of the ceiling fan.

  ‘Forgive me, Sister Mary,’ Harry says, ‘but I am a little confused and need your help.’

  ‘Yes, dear?’

  ‘Yes.’ He coughs. ‘You say you went to the telephone in the hallway upon discovering Father O’Donnell’s body.’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘When did you leave to use the phone? Immediately on finding the victim? Thirty seconds later? Two minutes after you discovered the body? When?’

  What is Harry doing? Does he know there was no telephone in the hallway?

  ‘Fifteen minutes afterwards,’ the nun says. ‘I left to telephone for an ambulance fifteen minutes after I found…after I found the blessed Father’s body.’ She crosses her chest. ‘I was in shock.’