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

by Nikki Owen

  The jury leans forwards, shifts in its seat.

  ‘Okay,’ continues Harry. ‘Sister Mary, can you tell me why you allowed fifteen minutes to pass?’

  She lowers her eyes. ‘It was as I said, I was in shock. I couldn’t…I couldn’t move…I…’

  Fifteen minutes. I didn’t know this. Sister Mary recruited me to the convent, introduced me to Father O’Donnell. Why would she wait a full fifteen minutes before she went to get help?

  Harry picks up a blue clock from his table and clicks a button on the side. ‘Fifteen minutes. Hmmm.’ He pauses. ‘Let us see how one minute feels.’ Pressing a button, Harry allows the clock to commence a one-minute countdown.

  I tally the seconds. One-two—three-four. Sister Mary sits very still in the witness box. I scan the room.

  Fifteen seconds pass. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen…

  The judge frowns, his left elbow resting on the oak bench, his long wig sliding forwards in the heat. The usher taps her pen on the table. The clerk folds her arms.

  Twenty-five seconds. Twenty-six. Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine…

  My heart beats. The prosecutor picks up a glass with a bony hand, sets it down, shifts his legs under the bench, his height and limbs too long to fit.

  More seconds tick by. Slowly. Excruciatingly. Forty. Forty-one. Forty-two…

  I swallow and look at the oak-panelled walls, at the jury box, at the twelve faces of the men and women who will decide my fate. All their eyes are on the blue clock, ticking…

  I glance to the gallery. The makeshift fans are flapping in the heat. In the corner, Balthus is sitting very straight, his dark hair slicked forward, his arms crossed over his chest, torso taut, muscles firm…

  ‘Sixty seconds,’ Harry says, tapping the top of the clock. ‘One whole minute.’

  There is an audible sigh in the room. People visibly un-stick themselves from their seats. My shoulders soften.

  ‘It feels like a long time, doesn’t it?’ Harry says, ‘And yet you, Sister Mary, you waited for a full fifteen minutes before you moved from the scene of the murder to the convent building to call for help. Again, I ask why?’

  The Sister touches the crucifix that hangs around her neck. ‘I said that I was in shock.’ A small mew of a sound slips out of her mouth. ‘I had never seen anything like it before. I was frozen. Scared. I was…I was trapped by the sight of the scene.’

  The jury sits very still. My foot taps the floor. She is making this up.

  ‘Let us go then, Sister,’ Harry says, ‘to the moment when you returned to the convent to get help. You say you telephoned from there.’

  She nods. ‘Yes.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Objection!’ says the prosecutor. ‘Counsel clearly likes repeating questions he has already asked.’

  The judge waves his hand. ‘Sustained.’

  Harry nods to the judge. ‘Yes, Your Honour.’ He adjusts his wig. ‘Sister Mary, how much time elapsed between you arriving in the convent after discovering the body and calling the emergency services?’

  ‘Well, I called them immediately.’ She looks to the judge who smiles at her.

  Harry tugs at the lapels of his robe. ‘There is a logbook at the convent, is that correct?’

  Sister Mary looks to him. ‘No.’

  I fly forward in my seat. Yes, there is!

  ‘Oh, wait,’ she says, batting a hand, ‘yes, there is. Sorry, I am flustered. So sorry.’

  I lean back. Something is not right. She should know all about the logbook. Has someone talked to her? Has the Project talked to her?

  ‘The logbook was previously submitted to the court,’ Harry continues, ‘and it shows you entering the building at eight p.m. on the night in question, is that correct?’

  ‘It is written down, it must be so.’

  ‘Precisely.’ Harry pauses. ‘Father O’Donnell was killed between nine and ten p.m. that night, Sister. The call logged to emergency services from you, Sister Mary, was only recorded at 11.01 p.m.’

  A whisper travels around the room.

  ‘Can you explain why, Sister Mary, your call was only logged when it was?’

  Again, she touches her crucifix. ‘It must be wrong.’

  Harry frowns. ‘Wrong? But it is written down, so it must be so.’

  ‘I said I was in shock,’ she says quietly.

  ‘In shock?’ Harry tuts. ‘Sister Mary, this court can just about believe that you were in shock upon first discovering the murder scene, but in shock for more than, what? More than fifteen minutes?’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Did you like Father O’Donnell?’ Harry asks.

  ‘Objection.’ The prosecutor stands.

  The judge looks at him. ‘Overruled. Continue, Mr Warren, but get to the point.’

  Harry nods and repeats the question to the nun. I smooth back my hair to stop the sweat trickling down my face, and notice three court reporters looking at me.

  ‘Yes,’ Sister Mary says. ‘Of course I liked Father O’Donnell.’ She pauses and dabs her eye. ‘He was a bit difficult at times, but yes, I liked him, God bless his soul.’

  ‘And yet you allowed him to bleed to death before calling for an ambulance.’

  ‘Objection!’

  The judge nods. ‘Sustained. Enough, Counsel.’

  ‘But, Your Honour,’ Harry says, ‘I am trying to demonstrate that, by Sister Mary not taking any action for what was potentially up to an hour before finally calling emergency services, she contributed to the victim’s death. Sister Mary’s actions broke the causation of the original crime committed and, I argue, contributed to the victim’s death. Your Honour, if an ambulance had been called immediately, the priest may have survived. Fifteen minutes to one hour later was too long to help him.’

  The judge rests his hands under his chin, his brow furrowed. ‘On a point of law, Counsel, I cannot allow this line of questioning. Jury are to disregard Counsel’s last question to the witness.’

  Harry’s shoulder’s drop. Pausing, he turns once more to the nun. ‘Sister, one last question, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Not at all, dear.’

  ‘How do you know the defendant, Dr Maria Martinez?’

  She looks towards me. Green eyes, cold. ‘She talked to me at the hospital.’

  ‘St James’s?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And when you say talk—who approached who?’

  ‘She approached me.’

  Liar! She is lying. I clench my teeth shut, forcing myself to keep quiet. She is not being truthful. She came to me. Me. I watch her and slowly begin to conclude that she must be part of MI5, part of this Project, mustn’t she? That day at the hospital, I know she came to talk to me, I know she did, and that must have been deliberate and…The idea must have been to get me to the convent all along! To lure me there, to put me in a position where I could be called a murderer. I raise my hand to my mouth, suddenly feeling as if I am dropping like a stone to the bottom of the sea without any anchor. I rub my cheek. Are my assumptions getting out of control? Is this, here, today—is it all affecting my cognitive thought?

  At the bench, Harry frowns. He knows what I have told him. ‘Are you sure, Sister? You are under oath.’

  ‘Of course. She seemed…lonely. I guess she latched on to me.’

  I didn’t! I didn’t!

  Harry throws me a brief glance, but I hardly see him. The memory of my hands around the woman’s throat, of what it means I am—a cold-blooded killer—threatens to engulf me. When I do look back down to Harry, my blood suddenly runs chilly, a shiver, despite the heat.

  Resting a hand on the bench, Harry utters the phrase that means we are losing the battle: ‘No further questions, Your Honour.’

  Chapter 32

  Kurt’s footsteps echo along the corridor.

  Moving fast, I rip the map from the wall and run down two levels of stairs. I stop and listen. More footsteps. I glance around, heart pounding; there is a door to my lef
t. I check the map. There is a fire escape at the back of the building that can be accessed through the exit. Darting to the left, I shove my shoulder into the door, but it does not move. I try again. This time, I shove harder; it pops straight open on to the fire escape.

  I am hit by the sound of traffic, buses, people, music. The sounds. The air. It is not prison. Not a therapist’s room. I inhale a large gulp of it, close the door, turn and, without waiting, lower myself to the fire steps, not stopping until my feet touch the tarmac.

  I drop to the pavement and look up.

  Kurt is staring at me from two floors above. His hair sticks up, blood stains his face and his left eye is half shut. He looks as if he has just climbed out of a grave.

  My pulse screams through my veins. We hold each other’s gaze for a few seconds; then, securing my bag, I spin round and start to run, hard, fast, the sound of my feet pounding the pavement echoing behind me.

  I scan the area as I sprint, head for a building on the opposite side of the road. There is a warren of side streets and, selecting the nearest one, I fly through them until I reach a corner and stop. I gasp for breath and listen. No footsteps. No one following. Spitting to the road, I fish out my phone.

  And I call Balthus.

  ‘Your Honour,’ says Harry. ‘The defence calls Dr Maria Martinez Villanueva.’

  I do not move. The court has descended to a low murmur, the air thick. I feel stuck to my seat, paralysed by doubt. Events, so far, have not gone in my favour. Sister Mary, the DVD store owner’s evidence, Mama believing I am schizophrenic. But while they all implicate me, all tell the world I am guilty, crazed, there is so much more: there is me. I am the issue now, because I do not trust myself any more, do not trust my memories to be real or fake. So what do I say if I go on that stand? What message do I give? That I believe in myself, in my innocence? Or that deep down, deep, deep down, I fear I may be a killer.

  Slowly, I stand, my eyes on Harry. The gallery above creaks as people crane for a view. Harry is smiling his creased smile. I force myself to keep my gaze on his face, on his soft features. He believes in me. Patricia believes in me. Papa believed in me.

  I walk across the courtroom, feet quiet, just a low shuffle from the soles of my loafers brushing the floor. I can feel everyone’s eyes on me, hear the flap of their makeshift fans as the sun blazes in. I pass Harry and swallow hard, fighting the urge to run to him, to yell that I don’t want to do this, that I cannot trust what I will do or say any more.

  The heat saturates the court and sweat springs up on the back of my neck. I reach the witness box, ascend the steps and look down. A Bible. I almost fall when I see it. A priest, a nun and now a Bible: my holy trinity.

  ‘Repeat after me,’ the usher says. ‘I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’

  She finishes and looks to me. Everything is quiet. Everything is still.

  I grip the edge of the oak panel, the only solid thing, right now, I can hold on to. ‘I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,’ I repeat, yet even when I say it, when I hear my voice echo the phrase around the court, I do not believe it. I don’t know if I can trust, any more, what the word ‘truth’ really means.

  As the usher takes her seat, Harry walks over to the witness box and smiles at me. My shoulders soften a little. ‘Dr Martinez,’ he says now, ‘how well did you know the victim, Father O’Donnell?’

  I swallow and lean into the microphone. ‘He was a priest at the convent.’ There is a deafening ring. I recoil, slap my hands to my ears. The usher runs over, pulls the microphone back. My eyes dart round the court. People are frowning, craning their heads to see. The vibration of the ring fades and I slowly drop my hands.

  When the rustle of whispers settles, Harry clears his throat. ‘Why did you work at the convent?’

  I inhale, try to claw back some composure. ‘I did not work at the convent. I volunteered.’

  ‘And what did you volunteer to do at the convent?’

  ‘I fixed things for them. I repaired broken sheds and windows and other similar items.’

  Harry nods. ‘That is very noble of you, Doctor. You donated your shoes—Crocs—to the convent, correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Father O’Donnell took them?’

  I flinch at his name. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And they contained dried blood from you, from a burst blister, correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Your work as a doctor—can you tell me about that?’

  ‘I am a Consultant Plastic Surgeon. I work mainly with burn victims and childhood facial disfigurements.’ At the mention of the hospital, the thought walks into my head: my manager was working for the Project.

  ‘If we could go to the night of the murder,’ Harry says now. ‘Between nine p.m. and midnight on the sixth of November, where were you?’

  ‘I was at St James’s Hospital sitting with elderly patients.’

  He smiles. ‘And why were you there, with these patients? You have Asperger’s, yes?’

  ‘Objection! Irrelevance.’

  The judge considers the prosecutor. ‘Overruled.’

  Harry nods and repeats the question.

  I pause, not knowing he would ask me this. It is not normally a question I falter with too much, but now, with the memory of the woman in the hijab fresh, raw, how do I know what I do is simply down to my Asperger’s? How do I know it is not a result of the conditioning?

  ‘I was sitting with the patients,’ I say, quietly, after a moment. ‘I have…Asperger’s. It is a condition on the autistic spectrum. I have difficulty expressing emotions. I found that sitting with the elderly patients helped me with empathy. They were kind. Most of them were dying.’

  ‘These patients saw you?’

  ‘When they were awake, yes.’

  ‘So you were nowhere near the convent on the night in question.’

  I hesitate. A flicker of doubt. There is no CCTV to prove where I was. Could I have been at the convent and not recalled it? Did Sister Mary have something to do with it?

  ‘Dr Martinez,’ the judge says, ‘answer the question.’

  I look from him to Harry and exhale. ‘No,’ I say finally. ‘I was not at the convent.’

  I glance to the jury; they are not smiling.

  ‘Thank you,’ Harry says. ‘No further questions.’

  The prosecutor stands and my shoulders become tense again. Coughs echo around the courtroom, hands in the gallery fan faces in the heat.

  ‘Dr Martinez,’ the prosecutor says, the skin under his jaw swinging slightly, his spindly arms arranged across his chest, ‘let us go to the night of the murder. You were working a shift that day, correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What hours?’

  ‘I began at eight hundred hours and finished at twenty hundred hours.’

  ‘A twelve-hour shift. That is a long time; is that usual?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Twelve hours is normal.’

  He pauses. ‘So, you work twelve-hour shifts and still manage to find time to volunteer at a convent, is that right?’

  I hesitate. Where is he going with this? ‘Yes.’

  ‘And so the night of the murder, you went from your shift, straight to the convent.’

  ‘No.’

  There is a rustle of voices in the courtroom.

  The prosecutor scowls. ‘No? You see, Ms Martinez, here is the problem: you say you did not go to the convent, yet there is a witness that places you there at the time of the crime. And yet, you insist you were at St James’s Hospital with elderly patients. I’m sorry,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘You expect us to believe this?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘of course. I am under oath.’

  A murmur ripples through the onlookers.

  ‘Did someone see you during these…visits?’

  ‘The patients saw me.’

  ‘Who were elderly and medicated, is this correct?’

  �
�Yes, naturally. They were dying and in pain.’

  ‘And did anyone else see you on the ward at this time?’

  My heart sinks. ‘No.’

  ‘What?’ he says. ‘No nurses? No fellow doctors?’

  When I look up to speak, my body feels heavy, my mind exhausted. ‘I wear a hooded sweat top when I visit. I go in unnoticed and in the evening there is a skeleton reception staff. I do not wish to draw attention to myself. I do not visit sick patients so others can see me. But there is—’

  I stop dead. The phrase hits me like a truck, unlocks a recollection. I do not visit sick patients so others can see me. The woman in the hijab—she spoke that phrase to me once! She worked in…in a medical tent on a refugee camp, tended to patients. Which means I knew her, worked with her. Murdered her under the influence of what? Unlicensed drugs? My mouth drops open, a lone shriek flying from it. I look up. The prosecutor is standing, frowning.

  ‘Ms Martinez,’ the judge says, ‘are you okay?’

  I turn, blink at him, but my mind is melting.

  ‘Ms Martinez…’

  From the corner of my eye, I just about see the jurors fold their arms, heads shaking. I swallow hard, wipe the sweat from my brow and force myself to look to the judge. ‘I am sorry.’

  He nods to the prosecutor, tells him to continue.

  The prosecutor clears his throat. ‘Dr Martinez, is there CCTV evidence of these visits of yours to the elderly ward?’

  ‘There…’ I stall, try to focus, but it is hard now. ‘There is a CCTV camera there,’ I say, sitting back upright a little, suddenly wondering if he is part of the Project, too. I shoot a glance around the court. Maybe everyone here is with them, all conspiring against me. The judge. The jury. But what would I do if they were? Murder them, too?

  ‘And is there a recording of your visits, showing you, at the time of the murder, sitting by the bedsides of these elderly patients?’

  All eyes are directed at me. ‘There is no recording, no,’ I say, finally.

  The gallery erupts.

  ‘Order,’ says the judge.

  From the back of the room, a door bangs open and a man in a wig and cloak, clutching a file scuttles to the defence bench. The whole courtroom watches. The man slides next to Harry, whispers in his ear, then exits, his back to me the entire time. The prosecutor dabs his neck, returns his focus to me.