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

by Nikki Owen

  ‘Dr Martinez, I put it to you,’ he says, ‘that you were indeed not in the geriatric ward in St James’s Hospital that night, but in fact at the convent on Draycott Road.’

  ‘I…I was not,’ I say, unsure, but I am not looking at the prosecutor, my stare, instead, is on the small parcel Harry has just been given.

  ‘And yet you cannot prove it.’ He shakes his head. ‘You cannot prove your alibi, Dr Martinez.’ The prosecutor looks to the judge. ‘No further questions, Your Honour.’

  Just as I begin to descend the steps, my head hanging, Harry rises. ‘Your Honour, I have just one or two more questions.’

  I halt, grip the rail. What is he doing?

  The judge lets out a sigh and eyes Harry. ‘Okay, make it quick, Mr Warren.’

  ‘Yes, Your Honour. Thank you.’ Harry holds up a CD. ‘The defence would like to submit this CCTV footage as evidence.’

  The usher takes the CD and slides it into the PC system to the right of the room.

  ‘If you could press play, please,’ Harry says. I stay very still, not daring to move, to breath. To my right, a television screen flickers to life with grainy black-and-white footage. The image—I recognise it.

  ‘What you are seeing here,’ Harry says, ‘is a CD that has been discovered—handed to me today, just now, in fact. It is a CD that contains CCTV footage of the night of the murder of Father O’Donnell.’ He points to the screen. ‘Note the time: 10.35 p.m. If you watch, you will see shortly coming along the corridor…Yes, there she is.’

  I squint at the image. Then I see it: me. My whole body goes rigid, scared to admit what my eyes are telling me.

  ‘Dr Maria Martinez Villanueva,’ Harry says, ‘this is who you are seeing in this recording in the hospital at the time of the murder of Father Joseph O’Donnell. And if we fastforward it…’ The screen blurs, black lines scratching left and right. ‘Yes, here.’ He points at the screen. ‘The time: 11.55 p.m. This camera was stationed by the main rear exit to the hospital.’

  I peer at the monitor. It is me, leaving the hospital. My mind scatters, thoughts blown wide open. It exists! Me, on screen. The evidence was there all along. I can feel myself shaking, tiny tremors. The people in the gallery whisper, everyone moving, looking to one another, to the television screen. I make myself peer at it now, too, my face, my evidence, one question forming in my mind until it is too big to ignore: Why? Why was the CCTV kept from my first trial? And why has it now been returned? I ring my hands together, feeling myself on the verge of breaking away, of finding an open window to flap out of.

  ‘You are seeing now, ladies and gentlemen,’ Harry says, ‘Dr Maria Martinez, visiting, as she has stated in this court, elderly, dying patients,’ Harry says. ‘Leaving at 11.55 p.m. This is after the time the call was placed by Sister Mary to the emergency services.’

  Harry nods to the usher, who presses pause. An image of my face half hidden under the shadow of a navy hooded Universidad de Salamanca top—but still clear, still me—flickers on the screen. I had thought the CCTV did not exist. It could not be found. No CCTV evidence—the reason I am in prison.

  Harry looks to the judge. ‘No more questions, Your Honour.’

  The room erupts. I am led back to the dock, but I don’t hear what else is going on, my mind dreamlike almost. How can an alibi appear just like that? Can it be true? But how? Is it the Project? It is all I can think of as, once the noise has died and the perfunctory processes have passed, the counsels begin their closing statements. Their words, as they speak, whip past me like a snow flurry.

  Suddenly, a voice snaps, ‘Stand!’ I blink my eyes into focus and see the guard staring at me, her body leaning towards me. I must have lost track of time, because the closing statements are over and the whole courtroom is looking at me.

  Slowly, I rise from my seat as ahead the judge bends forward to speak.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you have heard the statements from both counsels. The evidence has been presented and the facts are stated. You now have to consider this case based solely on the information presented in this court today. You have an important task ahead of you. This court will now retire and the jury will consider its verdict.’

  Chapter 33

  I try Balthus’s number once, twice, but nothing. No answer, no voicemail. The air is hot, heavy, sweat dripping down my back, but I hardly notice, so pricked are my ears for any sounds of movement, of running, shouting. Of Kurt.

  I examine the area, and, changing direction, ditch down another side street, dark, out of the way. I stop by some bins, steady myself, slowly check around. There is no one here. The whole situation hitting me, I slide against a damp wall and try to defuzz my head, think through my options. I have broken out of the session, which means they’ll be after me, instantly. I wipe my forehead. Kurt, the needle. He wanted to drug me to get me out. To where? To Callidus? And if everything he said was true, if the NSA surveillance has threatened the Project, threatened me, then can I really evade them? Will they always be watching?

  I rub my eyes. Callidus, the memory I had in the courtroom of the woman in the hijab. Was she real, the woman? And what of Project Callidus, of their intentions? Are they inherently good? Do they really want me to help them, as Kurt said, to fight terrorism? For the greater good? But how can murdering people—anyone—be good? How? Even the notion of it seems absurd, crazy: me, covert, an asset, trained without knowing, already having possibly completed code-based operations without realising, killing without knowing I was being drugged.

  An unexpected wave of exhaustion washes over me. Leaning back against the wall, I give in a little, just for a moment, and, my eyelids heavy, close. The brickwork is cold against my back and it feels good, a relief almost to be here, outside, hiding, out of the way, out of—

  My mobile vibrates. I grunt, eyes flying open as I try to get my bearings. I fumble for my phone, slam it to my ear.

  ‘Maria?’

  I freeze. The voice. I recognise it, tense up, self-defence mode on high alert.

  ‘Maria, it’s me. I missed your calls. Where are you? Are you okay?’

  My body drops at the realisation of who it is, relieved I was wrong. ‘Balthus,’ I say, fast, alert now, ‘the therapist, the one your service sent me to: he’s part of the Project.’

  ‘What? Jesus.’

  I stand, scan the area, aware of everything, every sound, colour, smell, as if all my dials have been turned up to maximum, at breaking point.

  ‘Maria? Are you still there?’

  ‘I need you to get here.’ I smear sweat from my face, tell Balthus where I am, words forming in my mouth, my mind automatically giving an almost exact GPS location without me knowing how. A clatter of bin lids echoes from two streets back. I sling my bag over my shoulder. ‘Hurry.’ I end the call and start to run.

  The jury has returned.

  As they take their seats, I am led to the dock by the guard. My head, my thoughts are spiralling out of control now, I can feel it. Sister Mary, the sudden CCTV discovery, the blood, the knife, the killing—it all stinks of the Project, and yet, even now, as the ceiling fan spins and the sun bakes the bodies of those returning to the public gallery, I can’t say for certain the Project is involved, the dreaded thought that I have acted alone, that I have killed alone, threatening to slice me in two. Reality sneaks in through the back door of my brain, whispering one word: Murderer.

  The room swells with noise as people take their seats. I am not allowed to put my hands to my ears, so instead I try to quell the sounds by clouding my vision, by attempting to zone out of it all, when someone catches my eye. I hold my breath, not daring to believe it.

  At first, it is not clear, but, as the remaining people take their seats, it becomes obvious: my mother is in the courtroom, by her side is Ramon, both of them two seats away from Balthus. Even from this distance, I can see her skin shines with a translucent, pasty sheen, her hair brushed back into an oversized bouffant that sits high and proud upon
her gaunt face.

  Ramon is holding my mother’s arm by the elbow now, assisting her into her chair, and, as she eases down, she looks straight to me, unexpectedly, and mouths, Hello, my darling. A tear slips out, just one, sliding down her cheek. My mama is ill and yet she is here, for me. I allow myself one last glance; then, rubbing my face, I turn away.

  ‘All rise,’ declares the usher.

  Bile rises to my throat. I swallow it back down.

  A door at the far left of the courtroom opens and the jury enter. I count them as they file in. One—two—three—four…Each of them glance at me then at the jury box. Five—six—seven—eight…The jurors begin to sit down, adjust their clothes, fan their faces. The heat, the sun. Nine—ten—eleven—twelve…They are all seated, their foreheads fixed into frowns, their hands laid in their laps.

  Once the jury is settled, the clerk stands and the foreman of the jury rises. From the bench, the judge watches.

  My hands shake. I hold my breath. This is it. This is the decision. I squeeze my fingers, recite complex equations in a low whisper over and over again. If I had not been in prison, if the Project had never existed, I wouldn’t be here, hunted, marked. Guilty. A dead woman walking.

  I try to direct my attention to the court, reroute my brain. The room is steaming with bodies and odour and heat. I remain standing in the dock. Up in the gallery, one by one, people are now falling silent, each of them looking at me. I press my lips together and keep my eyes straight.

  Some of the jury members are biting their nails, others are dabbing sweat from their foreheads with their palms. At the counsels’ bench, Harry is peering across at the jury, the prosecutor is reading his notes. I have gone over the words of both closing arguments five separate times in my head. I recall every sentence, every phrase. Guilty. Innocent. Beyond reasonable doubt. They all swirl through my mind now as I think, as I try to determine if, on its own, it is enough.

  I raise my fingers to my lips. Enough—Patricia’s message to me.

  The judge clears his throat and I fight the sudden urge to curl into a ball.

  ‘Have you considered a verdict upon which you are all agreed?’ the clerk asks.

  The foreman holds out a piece of paper. ‘We have.’

  I watch him, his fingers shaking, as across my mind the face of the woman in the hijab, eyes frozen wide in death, flashes past in one last defiant grip on life.

  ‘Do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty?’

  Chapter 34

  The foreman looks to the clerk.

  ‘In the case of the Crown versus Dr Maria Martinez Villanueva, we find the defendant not guilty.’

  The room detonates into a mushroom cloud of noise. Harry turns to me, smiles. The prosecutor shakes his head. I cannot move, cannot think. The talking is so loud in the court that it vibrates against the walls, rings in my head. I cover my ears to lower the volume, but the guard tells me to place my hands by my sides, and all I want to do is turn around and yell to her that she can’t do that any more. She can’t tell me what to do. No one can. Not any more.

  The judge bangs his hammer and a hush descends. I cannot believe what has happened. Like a dream, like a mirage, I feel that if I reached out, if I touched it, it would all evaporate before my eyes and I would be at the starting point again, arrested, a murderer.

  I search for my mother, for Ramon, eager to catch a glimpse of their faces, but they are not there. How can that be? I stop, look again, eyes franticly scanning the people as they move, but they are nowhere to be seen. The reality hits: Mama and Ramon have already left. A lump swells in my throat, instant, harsh. They have left me, now of all moments. Why? I suddenly feel lost, abandoned, like a solitary bird in the sky, like a lone fish in the sea.

  I swallow, try to refocus, anything to distract from the swell of sadness that rises inside me. I look at the foreman, at the twelve faces of the jurors, at the clerk, the usher, the gallery. At Balthus. At Harry. They all swim into one wash of colour, and yet, as the verdict sinks in, as the smiles of Harry and his team filter my way, I cannot allow myself to join in the elation. Because I have seen it. I have seen death. And I know the hands that have caused it all: mine.

  The judge waits until the noise has receded, then he sits forward. ‘Dr Martinez, you are free to go.’

  The guard instructs me to walk down the steps and I follow, but I cannot focus. All around me, people stare and talk and point, and yet I feel like a fraud. I am aware there is noise, but it is as if the mute button has been pressed, and I see their mouths move, but I do not hear their voices, hear their shouts. I stare at the guard as she says something to me, but I cannot make out what it is.

  The volume turns up. ‘…Because if you go this way,’ the guard is instructing, ‘you can be with your barrister before you exit. He wants to see you.’

  I tilt my head at the guard, fight the urge to poke her, check if she is real.

  ‘Did you hear me?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, finally, wiggling a finger in my ear. ‘Yes.’

  She tuts. ‘This way.’

  We walk along a basement corridor where the lights blink and the walls are grey. Passing changing rooms with lockers and police kit and showers, we then halt at a door painted blue, and the guard says, ‘Here you go.’ And, as the door swings open, I see Harry and Balthus.

  They immediately stand.

  The door shuts. The room is cold. There is a table and three chairs and folders and water. Harry takes a step towards me and holds out his arms. ‘Come here.’

  I blink at him. I try to focus, but my eyes are wet and it is hard to see. I let Harry’s arms wrap around me, feel the heat of him, smell the fug of a shirt dried in a machine, as he closes his hands around me and lets me rest my head on his shoulder.

  ‘It’s over now,’ he says. ‘It’s over.’

  I close my eyes. And push all my black thoughts to one side.

  After I breathe, begin to focus again, we sit. Harry and I talk, but I do not relay to him my doubts. How can I? He is a good man, a kind man. Would he think so much of me if he knew that, deep down, I was a cold, trained killer? That, in reality, I think I may have killed Father O’Donnell after all?

  Balthus leaves and returns with hamburgers ten minutes later, the hot stink of processed meat and fat and salt penetrating the air. He hands one to each of us. Slowly, I take it, inspecting the packaging, picking out the lettuce that wilts inside. It is the first hamburger I have eaten in over a year.

  ‘What do we do now?’ I say, swallowing a mouthful of meat. ‘If they were after me in prison, what happens now I am out? I need somewhere to stay.’

  Balthus lowers his burger. ‘You can stay with me.’

  ‘Is that possible?’ Harry says.

  He nods. ‘I have a place, an apartment. No one knows about it. I needed some space a few years back when things between me and Harriet were getting difficult.’

  ‘Is it far?’

  ‘No. Just ten minutes from here.’

  ‘Good,’ Harry says. ‘We need Maria out of the way. That CCTV tape just turned up. If the Project has anything to do with this, if they released that tape to us in court, they have done it for a reason. They’ll be looking for her. We need to be quick now.’

  Balthus looks at me. ‘What do you think, Maria? You can stay there until everything calms down, then Harry can meet us and we can plan what to do next, who to contact.’

  I murmur a response, but keep my eyes down. The CCTV tape. Was it false evidence doctored by the Project? Am I indeed guilty? Slowly, I raise my eyes as Balthus repeats his accommodation offer. It has come to this, staying at other people’s places, my own apartment long gone after my conviction, my assets temporarily frozen. My old life dead, resurrected with a new one I do not recognise yet. I pick up the burger then pause, the meat hovering, dripping with ketchup. I feel scared, unsure of what’s ahead, of why people do and say what they do. But most of all I feel a gaping hole inside me, at a loss, a death, a savage
murder, at lives taken.

  ‘We have to find out what Project Callidus is,’ I say finally.

  Harry looks at me, nods. ‘Yes.’

  Balthus sits, stares at the table. Harry sighs, leans back, wipes his chin. ‘Okay,’ Harry says after a while, gathering food remnants then closing his files. ‘Best not waste any more time. Let’s go.’

  ‘Are the reporters all out there?’

  He looks at me. ‘Yes, I’m afraid so. A full team of press and photographers on the court steps. It will be loud. I can do all the talking, if you like.’

  The door opens, warm air whooshing through. Harry’s solicitor enters. He takes Harry’s documents for him then exits, leaving the door open. We all stand.

  I look at Harry. ‘Can you…’ I pause, the thought of her, of my friend making everything seem more real, somehow, more urgent. ‘I need you to do something for me.’

  ‘Of course. What is it?’

  ‘I require a pen and a piece of paper. Do you have them?’

  ‘Hmmm? Oh, yes. Yes. Hang on a tick.’ He fishes out a pad and pen and hands them to me. I scribble down my name and the address of my villa in Spain for Patricia. I add a small note telling her to come and visit me and stay as soon as she can when she gets parole.

  Folding the paper, I hand it to Harry. ‘My cellmate, Patricia O’Hanlon, is due to leave Goldmouth soon. Could you pass this note on to her?’

  ‘Of course,’ he says, and he slips it into his top jacket pocket. ‘I will help in any way I can, my dear.’

  ‘Ready?’ says Balthus.

  The three of us proceed to walk down the corridor, past the police changing area and towards the lift leading to the main exit. I can already hear the low hum of reporters outside, waiting for me, like Dobermans salivating over a slab of steak. I stop, scared.