Читать книгу The Killing Files - Nikki Owen - Страница 16

Undisclosed confinement location—present day

Patricia is singing again. The song drifts in and out of my head as if in a dream, the melody and lyrics soothing, rocking me into a state of peace and calm as I think about the drug in my arm, the hallucinations.

The heat in the room appears to have increased. Sweat now drips from my body and while I know I am clothed, for the first time I begin to think about what I am wearing. Can I rip any of it off to cool me down?

‘Can you see me?’ I ask Patricia. ‘I want you to tell me what I am wearing.’

She stops singing and sighs. ‘Doc, you know I can’t see you. You know, really, that that’s impossible.’

‘It is not impossible.’

‘Yep. It is.’

Unsure what she means, I look to my arm and to the needle, to my body, my clothes. I can see nothing. The weak light that was there before has now gone, leaving a dark, dripping heat in its place, and every movement of my muscles is heavy, thick with fatigue.

We remain for a while as we are. Now and then Patricia will talk about how we may have arrived here, where the Project are, if they are watching us, but each time one of us attempts to conjure any significant recollection of our journey here, our minds come up blank.

Four, perhaps five minutes of silence pass when there is a sudden sound, the first we have heard at higher volume since we awoke in this dank, foul place.

‘Hey, Doc, can you hear that?’

‘Yes.’

It is there in the air—a ticking, a soft put, put.

‘That sounds like the stand thing, you know, the drip they had me hooked up to when I was in the hospital ward at Goldmouth.’

I listen to her words. The drip. The one she was hooked up to after she tried to commit suicide in prison. Put, put. Put, put. She is right. My brain begins to tick, firing now at the possibility of the hope of some kind of answer.

‘How close do you calculate you are to the sound?’ I ask, sitting up, alert.

‘Dunno. I’m not as hot on this maths stuff as you are. Say a metre away, something like that?’

‘No. That cannot be correct. That would mean that you are closer to the sound than I am.’

‘Well, yeah. Of course.’

‘That does not make sense.’

‘Doc, nothing makes sense in here.’

Put, put.

‘There!’ Patricia says. ‘I hear it again.’

The clicking sound hovers in the air now, hanging near us.

‘Doc, do you think, like, it’s got something to do with your arm, that sound?’

‘No. It is not …’ I stop, think. She is right—of course she is right. The needle. A drip. I whip my head to the side. ‘Have you got your bracelet on?’

‘Huh? Yeah, my mam’s one. Why?’

‘Twist your wrist.’

‘Uh, okay.’

‘Are you doing it?’

‘Yes. Hold your horses.’

‘Horses?’

Patricia moves her wrist, and at first nothing happens but then, slowly, a tiny shaft of light appears.

‘There must be some small bit of light. It is now reflecting on your bracelet. Keep moving your wrist.’

The bracelet reflection affords a shred of brightness across my body and I begin to look. At first, nothing appears, only a snapshot of my limbs, my knees, legs, but then, as Patricia’s arm moves some more, it happens. Inch by inch, upwards, light slithering towards my arm.

‘Can you see anything yet, Doc?’

There is a glint where the needle pierces my vein then it fades. ‘Move your arm again.’

‘This is hurting now, Doc.’

As the weak light returns, the glint comes again, stronger this time and, gradually, like clouds parting in the sky, what lies underneath is revealed.

I gasp.

‘What, Doc? What is it?’

I shut my eyes, open them, but it is still there.

‘Huh? What? What can you see?’

Sweat slices my head, confusion, deep-rooted fear. ‘There is a drip.’ I narrow my eyes, desperate to see anything I can. ‘It is … It is hooked up to a metal medical stand.’

‘I told you.’

‘There is a tube and it is … it is linked to the drip bag.’

‘That must contain the drugs.’

‘Yes, and …’ I stop, every muscle in my body freezing rigid.

‘Doc?’

Suddenly, everything makes sense. The put, put sound. Why the hallucinations only come in phases. Why I cannot move my arms.

‘There is a timer,’ I say after a moment.

‘What?’

I look back to the device, to the stand and the drug bag. ‘The drugs are being administered through a controlled, preset timer.’

Salamancan Mountains, Spain.

33 hours and 54 minutes to confinement

Dr Andersson’s body drops sideways, falling on top of me.

I push her off and choke, her body thudding to the floor, arms slapping to the tiles, and for some reason I notice for the first time that her fingernails are painted crimson, hanging now in long, sleek shapes.

I stare at them, cannot pull my eyes away, my hands rubbing at my throat over and over, skin red, sore, every atom in me screaming for oxygen. A moan escapes my lips.

‘Maria?’ Balthus yells. ‘What’s happening?’

I stare at Dr Andersson and her fingernails, and I moan again and again, rocking gently now, back and forth. There is a small round circle one centimetre in diameter in her forehead, a single line of blood trickling from it, same colour as the lacquer.

‘She is dead,’ I say to Balthus.

‘Oh, Jesus.’

A damp circle the size of a dinner plate spreads on Dr Andersson’s jacket. It drips to the tiles, painting them red, and at first, paralysed by the sight, I cannot understand why there is a hole in her head while it is her shirt that oozes. Finally, I drag my eyes away from the growing pool on her chest as, slowly, the reality of what I have done begins to sink in.

‘I shot her twice.’

‘Maria, it’s okay. Maria?’

I drop the gun, crawl over, quick, and without thinking, roll the body over. There is a deep red stain shrouding the dark T-shirt on her chest where the bullet entered, shattering her rib cage.

‘No,’ I say, a whisper at first then louder. ‘No, no, no!’ I shout as my hands grope Dr Andersson’s torso, desperate to stem the blood loss, to close up the gaping hole that has ripped open her skin, bones, heart and head.

‘Maria? Maria, talk to me.’

‘I killed her.’

‘Okay. Okay, I know, I know, but it’s okay.’

I look at her breathless body, at my hands soaked in her blood. ‘No. It is not. Killing is not okay. It was her daughter’s birthday today. Oh my God. Oh my God, oh my God.’

Then, barely realising what or why I am doing it, I find myself slapping Dr Andersson’s face, rattling her shoulders, frantic for her to open her eyes, wake up.

‘Who else has the Project trained?’ I yell at her. ‘Who was Raven? Who was she? Why did you just not refuse to come here? Then you would still be alive! You would still see your daughter! Daughters need their mothers.’ Fat tears fall down my face. ‘They need their mothers.’

‘Maria!’ Balthus yells. ‘Stop!’

But I shake Dr Andersson’s dead body again and again, an anger I don’t understand surging inside me, gripping me tight at the chest, making me pant, making my eyes blur and my head drop. I give her body another shake, her skull flopping to the side, when something falls out of the inside of her jacket.

I halt, pick it up. It is a piece of paper, pink, confidential, A4 in size. Slumping back, I wipe snot from my face and peel open the paper. What I see shocks me to the core.

‘It … it is my family.’

‘What?

I slap the paper to the floor, smoothing it out as what I see sinks in. ‘There is a file containing pictures of you, Mama, Ramon and Patricia.’

‘What? Where was it? With Dr Andersson?’

‘Yes.’ My hands shake.

‘What does it say?’

My eyes scan it all, not believing what I can see, that they would do this, say this—believe this is right. ‘There is one word next to your name and to Patricia’s name,’ I say after a moment.

‘What?’

My eyes swim, head struggles to accept it. But finally, I say it aloud. ‘Locate.’

I drop the paper to the floor as my limbs, back, legs begin to shake uncontrollably. ‘They are looking for you. They know you are both my friends. They realise you know about the Project.’

‘And MI5 want all connections to the Project eliminated.’ He exhales hard and heavy, and when he next speaks, his words are low and slow. ‘Look … Look, Maria,’ Balthus says. ‘I know this is … this is not a good situation. But … but right now, you have to focus. You heard what Dr Andersson said before—she was looking for a file. It could be the same file you remembered in your flashback.’

Slowly, I pick up the paper again, eyes glancing to the blood, to the crimson nail-polished fingers. I open it up, the paper. I open it up and force myself to look at it again. ‘They want to monitor you all.’

‘Okay. Hang on a second. Let’s look at this one step at a time. First off, we have to get you out of there. The Project will trace you any time soon. And if you go now you could find the file, figure out where it is. Maria, that file, its contents, it could stop it all.’

He halts now, his breathing only drifting on the phone line. I think about his words, look again at the images of the people I love. My jaw clenches. ‘You are all in danger because of me.’

‘No,’ Balthus says, immediately. ‘No. This is because of the Project, because of MI5. But you can help. You can do something.’ He pauses. ‘Maria, you can stop it. You find the file, you end the Project, you end MI5’s involvement in it—you end it all.’