Читать книгу The Girl Who Ran (The Project Trilogy) - Nikki Owen - Страница 11

Deep cover Project facility.

Present day

I’m not certain how I feel when I see Patricia held and behind the screen. Shock? Fear? Nothing? I am too scared to answer.

Stepping forward, I observe my former friend as if she were a specimen in a lab. On her head are fresh red lacerations. Deep bruises strangle her neck. Her body is clothed in a dirty grey t-shirt, ripped trousers hanging from her legs that lie crumpled at odd angles. She raises her eyes and calls out my name, but the officer kicks her in the stomach and her middle folds in, body collapsing flat to the floor. I want to slap my hand to my mouth, but something tells me that would be a bad thing to do right now.

‘What do you see, Maria?’ Black Eyes says, a crackle of something indefinable stepping across his voice.

‘Patricia,’ I say, quick, as steady as I can.

‘This O’Hanlon woman – she is not your family.’

‘No,’ I respond, ‘she is not.’ Patricia is looking at me with big eyes, but when before they were blue and clear and shining, now her eyes seem dulled and bloodshot.

He regards me, holding my face with his sight and I so desperately want to tap my finger, my foot, anything to help my mind deal with the intensity of the attention.

‘You had two fathers,’ Black Eyes says, ‘adopted, biological. Now both dead.’

A heartbeat. ‘Yes.’ My sight remains locked on Patricia.

He folds his arms across his chest, watching the scene behind the screen. The officer is hauling Patricia up, but her body must be weak, because her rib-caged torso keeps buckling, her legs bending, feet toppling.

‘I lost my father, too,’ Black Eyes says, sight on the screen. ‘I was fourteen. He was in the SAS.’

Beyond the window, Patricia whimpers. We observe, Black Eyes and I, riding for a moment in a slow seesaw of sound left, right, left, right.

‘Why is she here?’ I dare myself to ask.

‘She is here because she is the enemy. You do understand, don’t you, that after everything that’s happened, she is no longer your friend?’

Friend. I roll the word in my mouth, feel it, test it out. For a long time, I never really understood what having one meant.

‘You made the only choice you could, Maria, by being here. Here is where you belong. Patricia O’Hanlon is the enemy because she does not agree with the aims and objectives of the Project. She does not agree with you being here. Yet this?’ He stretches out his arms to the room. ‘This is where you belong.’

‘This is where I belong,’ I say, the words marching out of my mouth of their own accord.

‘That’s right. And you don’t need people like Patricia O’Hanlon when the Project is our only friend.’

He reaches forward and presses a button. The grey blind rolls down slowly, one centimetre at a time, but the movement of it must jolt Patricia awake as, suddenly, she raises her head, staggering up a little. She begins screaming.

‘Doc! Doc! Help me!’ She wobbles forwards. ‘Don’t listen to them, Doc! They’re lying! They’re all lying! They’re going to—’

The officer hits Patricia on the skull with the butt of his gun and she crumples, falling unconscious to the tiles. Without thinking, I slap my palms to the screen, startled, as before me the officer starts dragging Patricia’s clubbed-seal body out of the room.

‘Where are they taking her?’ I ask fast, pressing my face into the glass trying to see round the corner. ‘She needs help.’ I turn to Black Eyes. ‘Why did he do that? Why?’

I gulp in air, as to the side of me Black Eyes rolls back his shoulders, snapping the bones that puncture his spine one by one. He regards me as I stare at the screen as the blind descends, then he steps to his desk and picks up the photograph that sits on it.

‘When people we love die, it is often hard for us to cope with. Would you agree?’

I blink, the image of Patricia still fresh and raw in my head, not fully comprehending what is happening or why. Black Eyes holds the frame in his fingers closer to his face and as he does, I find myself staring at the picture of the two people in it, my brain prodded by some odd curiosity, a vague, foggy notion that they look familiar. Both female, the oldest appears to be in her thirties: slim, caramel skin, hair in long black cascades down a suited back, wide collar, wire-rimmed spectacles clutching high cheekbones and resting against thick branches of brows. Beside her is a girl, young, at estimate under ten years old, the same hair as the older woman, same features, just softer, plumper, the sharpness to her cheeks not yet defined, still hidden under an infantile cushion of baby milk and bread.

‘Who are they?’ I ask before I can stop myself.

He does not respond, seeming, at first, as if he will not say anything at all, but then he sniffs, takes a breath and traces one thin finger over the printed faces. ‘They are – were – my family.’ He swallows; the pointed triangle of his Adam’s apple juts out, then sinks in. ‘They passed away a long time ago.’

Returning the frame to its allocated slot on the desk, Black Eyes picks up the file from the table, clutches it to his chest, then stands and stares at the grey blind where Patricia once was. For a few seconds time is suspended, the air swinging in silence around us. I steal a glance at the photograph on the desk.

Ten seconds pass, until, raising his chin, Black Eyes strides to the door and, unlocking it, gestures to the white-washed gleam of the walkways beyond.

‘Come. It’s time I showed you something.’

Zurich Airport, Switzerland.

Time remaining to Project re-initiation: 28 hours and 30 minutes

From: Harriet Alexander (Secretary of State for the Home Department)

To: Maria Martinez

Subject: Re: The Project

Dear Dr Martinez,

Thank you for your email. I’ve had your message decrypted and have verified the details contained within it. This information now is for our eyes only and has been seen by only the most trustworthy members of my immediate staff. You managed to find my private email address, so I am responding directly from that – given the nature of the situation you have brought to my attention, I believe it’s our most secure method of communication at this time.

Firstly, you have my gratitude for informing me of the true cause of death of my husband, Balthazar. Balthus was a dear husband and, while I did not know of your existence, I am sorry for the sadness I am sure you must be feeling at this moment.

I have reviewed your files on this organisation called Project Callidus. Please be assured that I was unaware that this group existed. I am currently seeking to set up talks with the Chief of MI5 with a view to beginning an investigation, but, as I am sure you understand, timing with these things is everything and I have to be very careful and measured with what we do next. Your safety, Dr Martinez, is paramount.

To that end, I would be grateful if we could meet. I understand this may be a complicated request. However, I strongly believe that, after reviewing the initial data you relayed to me, a meeting between us would aid in the investigation in the Project and MI5’s involvement in it.

Please do consider my suggestion. In the meantime, there is one more thing. After hearing of Balthus’s status as your biological father, I was naturally curious about the woman he had a baby – you – with. You asked in your email about her grave and its location. I thought it only right and fair to share the information with you as to her status.

Her name, as you know, is Isabella Bidarte. She is from Bilbao, Spain. The last known location of her is Weisshorn Psychiatric Hospital in Geneva, Switzerland. She was born in May, 1968. I, first, after your grave location request, also assumed she was dead. However, after a confidential investigation by my closest team, I can tell you that Ms Bidarte is indeed still alive, her residence understood still to be the Weisshorn Hospital in Geneva.

I trust this news is of value to you. This has been difficult for me, as I am certain it has been for you. I am sorry for the distress you have, over the years, I am sure, been caused at the hand of our security services. I hope this news of your mother contributes in some way to atoning for that.

Please do consider strongly my request to meet with you in order to aid our vital investigations and put an end to Project Callidus’ operations. Let us keep secure lines of communication open.

Yours truly,

Harriet Alexander

I look up from Chris’s computer tablet at Patricia, my hands shaking at the shock, yet my brain curious and elated at the email.

‘She is alive,’ I say. ‘She is alive.’

Patricia comes close to my side, the milk of her skin and the warm bath of her scent reaching my brain. ‘I’m right here.’

She touches my fingers and my mind becomes a little calmer, small clouds of our breath billowing in the frozen air.

We are hidden by a wall outside Zurich Airport. Close by, the external glass façade of the busy building glistens by a freezing taxi rank and the pencil-straight road washed in paint strokes of sunshine, leaving weak yellow lines across fine snow-covered pavements. I pull out my notebook and the photograph Papa had hidden in Ines’s Madrid cellar. I gaze at Isabella’s face, at her river of hair, her flowing skirt, her baby – me – swaddled and held in arms so smooth and melodic they sing like swans. Could she really be alive? Could it be true? Or is the whole thing a fabrication? Quickly, I begin to write down the email contents, cross match for any patterns, hidden codes or messages, but no matter how hard I look, there is nothing secret to find.

Chris hurries over, cupping his hands and blowing on his fingers. ‘I thought spring was supposed to be warmer here.’

Patricia rolls her eyes. ‘Wimp.’

He stares at her, shudders, then looks to me. ‘Okay, so—’ He sneezes.

‘Bless you.’

He tilts his head at Patricia and raises one eyebrow; I have no idea why.

‘Okay, so,’ he continues, ‘I’ve double-tracked the email on my system and it’s from her alright – it’s from Harriet Alexander.’

I clutch the sepia-tone photograph in my fingers. ‘Are you certain?’

‘Yep. The thing is, she said what she said, you know, about investigating the Project, but if MI5 are tracking her then they’ll know she’s talking to you.’ He points to the email. ‘They’ll know now she’s planning to investigate it all.’

‘Doc,’ Patricia says, ‘he’s right. They’ll follow you and then MI5’ll want you dead and the Project will want you with them, just like before. The Home Secretary asked to meet you. Wouldn’t that be the right idea? She’s based in Westminster – it doesn’t get much safer than there. The Project and MI5 can’t get you then.’

‘Hang on though,’ Chris says. ‘What if she knows something – your mom, Isabella?’

I turn to him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Okay, so, what if we find her and she can, I don’t know, tell us something to really put the nail in the Project’s coffin? Because the way I see it, you can’t trust—’

Patricia shakes her head. ‘No. No way. Too risky…’

‘A nail in a coffin?’ I say, but Patricia continues.

‘The police have our bloody pictures, Chris, for God’s sake. They’ll find us. And then MI5 will get to us before we get back to the UK and we’re all stuffed.’

‘Wimp,’ he says. ‘We’ll be fine.’

Patricia rolls her eyes and looks to me. ‘Doc, I don’t like it. It’s risky. God, I’d rather we went to the safe house of Chris’s in Zurich than go to the hospital in Geneva.’

There is a wall straight in front of us. It is beige, bland, the grouting along the brickwork in neat patterned lines, each one with a clear beginning and an obvious ending. I calculate the length of the edges to help my brain to think straight in the midst of the plane engine roar in the air around me, the birds in the swaying fir trees near the network of road and railways, the tremble of trolley wheels and the faint scent of distant cigarette smoke. Yet it is only when a lick of aviator fuel flicks my nostrils, jolting me upwards, that the thought occurs to me.

The brick and the grouting and the definable end. I think about that word – end – how it sounds and what it means…

Slowly at first then faster, I study the cellar picture in my hands then scan the dates scrawled on the back. ‘There is an end.’

Patricia looks over. ‘What d’you mean?’

I spin round to Chris, my mind moving at speed. ‘Isabella’s birth date and death date are both on this photograph.’

He looks.

‘If she is alive,’ I continue, brain planning now at lightning speed, ‘as the email said, why is the date of her death written here? It was written over two decades ago. The conclusion can only be that either my Papa wrote down the date without it being true or—’

‘Or the Home Secretary is lying,’ Chris says.

I look to him, his body stomping from foot to foot, his breath blowing small, white candy strands into the air, and for the first time since we arrived in Zurich, I feel a strong urge to turn to him and nuzzle my face in his neck and just smell him.

‘I have to know whether she is alive or not,’ I say now. ‘And if Weisshorn Hospital was her last known location then that is where we will go.’

Patricia stretches bolt upright. ‘Doc, no. I don’t think that’s a good idea. There’s a high chance she’s not there and then what? Why on earth d’you want to go there, Doc, when it’s so risky? Why?’

I stare at Isabella’s image. ‘She is the only family I have left,’ I say, quietly, softly.

Patricia’s shoulders drop. ‘Oh, Doc.’ Around us, lace patterns of snow float to the tarmac and evaporate into nothing. Patricia wipes her eyes, but doesn’t speak and when I inspect her left hand, I see her index finger and thumb pressing hard against each other so the skin is white.

‘Ok, so Google,’ Chris says. ‘You freak out on trains, right?’

I tear my sight from Patricia. ‘What?’

Chris leans against the wall and, fast, flips open his laptop. ‘There’s the Goldenpass route to Lausanne in Geneva. It’s long, but quiet, a tourist route, but not busy at this time of year. We can lie low.’ He looks to me, hair flopping in his eyes. ‘Would you be okay with that? It would mean it’s calmer for you to, well, to deal with.’

I study the details he has pulled up on the journey. Wide-open carriages, large windows, space, clean mountain air and no crowds. ‘We will have to change outfits so we are not recognised.’

‘No sweat. I’ve got untraceable credit cards that can buy us new stuff, and an uncanny ability to deactivate security cameras.’ He pauses, drops still for a moment, looks to the photograph in my hand. ‘Hey, we’ll find her, whatever the ending. We can go under the radar, figure out everything we can. We’ve done it before, we can do it again.’

I watch his lips move, smell his scent. ‘Can you hack into the Weisshorn Hospital, track any data?’

His face breaks out into a grin. ‘For you? Anything.’

Patricia coughs. ‘What’— she stops, swallows— ‘sorry – what time does the train depart?’

‘In one hour,’ Chris says. ‘We all ready to go?’

‘Yes.’ I throw my rucksack to my shoulder. ‘But first, I need to use the toilet facilities.’

‘Oh. Okay,’ Patricia says. She slips her cell phone from her bag, checks it and slides it out of sight.