Subject 375. Nikki Owen

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      Kurt crosses his legs. ‘You said Michaela mentioned something called Callidus, correct?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘And I assume you know what it means?’

      I scarcely move. My fingers begin to tap furiously on my knee, the phrase, who is he, whipping round my head like a tornado, a lethal storm. Can he be aware of what it really is? What it really stands for? ‘What do you know?’ I finally say, and I am surprised at the venom in my voice, the clench of my jaw.

      His eyes are narrowed, pen pointed. ‘Maria, I purely refer to the word, “callidus”. That is all. I simply want to hear if you know its definition.’

      I let my shoulders drop. What am I thinking? He only wants a definition. A definition. Do I want him to believe me unhinged? Crazy? Because if I continue to overanalyse every single word he utters, continue to try to decipher every utterance, every social nuance, that’s what could happen. Insanity. I tilt my head, endeavour to adopt a normal smile. ‘Callidus is a Latin word. It means clever, dextrous, skilful, cunning.’

      He lowers his pen. ‘Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?’

      I rub my forehead, compose myself. I need to remain calm, somehow, stay steady, but it is relentless, all the talk and the words and the endless possibilities of meanings. I breathe in hard then pause. The air. Is it…is it paint? I sniff again to clarify, but I am certain. There is a smell of fresh paint in the room. It is strong and I don’t like it, the fumes contaminating my nostrils, my brain, overriding them with new senses to process. I glance to the ceiling. The cobwebs dangle in the breeze, yet they seem strangely rigid, plastic almost.

      Kurt coughs and I look over. He is staring at me now, chin lowered so his eyebrows appear thick, straight yet strangely transparent, liquefied.

      ‘Maria, do you trust in your recollection of events—of what was said during the incident with Michaela Croft in the cell?’

      I hesitate. ‘Yes. I…Of course.’

      ‘And what about her mentioning Father Reznik?’

      He clicks his pen, waits. I am struck by silence. If I tell him what I have discovered, what then? A diagnosis, an incorrect one? Again? Maybe I should tell him portions of what happened, maybe he can advise me. I rub my head one more time then drop my hand. ‘Michaela was not who she said she was.’

      ‘How do you know that?’

      I clasp my hands together, squeeze the fingers. I can do this. ‘This is all private in here, no? Doctor-patient confidentiality applies?’

      He nods, sits forward. ‘Yes. Of course.’

      I glance to the window, the swell of the curtains sweeping across the side of the room. ‘She was part of MI5,’ I say after a moment, my eyes locked on the curtains.

      ‘They knew the priest and I were investigating the whereabouts of Father Reznik. The priest discovered that Reznik didn’t exist, not as a name, not as a real person.’ I turn, face him, squeeze my palms to stay calm, tell myself to trust him. I am in therapy, therapy designed to help me. ‘I find myself not knowing if I killed the priest from the convent or if someone else did. I get…’ I pause, take a sip of water. ‘I get confused, sometimes.’

      ‘Maria,’ Kurt says now, soft, low, ‘you have to remember you were convicted of killing Father O’Donnell—a guilty verdict, prison. And I think the repercussions of the prison environment, for you, may be adding to your sense of…your sense of anxiety, perhaps, your confusion. Prison is a hard place to be. You have been through a lot already.’

      ‘But you know I am innocent,’ I say. ‘You know what happened in the…in the…’ I stop, a slap of reality hitting me hard. Innocent. Not guilty. The two terms suddenly seem alien, odd, two strangers in the street. I don’t know what I believe any more, what I am capable of. ‘They put Michaela in Goldmouth to keep an eye on me,’ I say now. ‘They put her in there to ensure I said nothing over Father Reznik, about what—who—he really was.’

      ‘And what is he?’

      I hesitate. ‘A retired intelligence officer.’

      Kurt shakes his head. ‘Maria, can you hear what you are saying? MI5? A Catholic priest a former intelligence officer? How can all that be? And besides—’ he pinches the bridge of his nose ‘—retired implies no longer active, no longer working.’

      ‘You don’t believe me?’

      He inhales, taps his pen. ‘I believe that you believe it. I believe that you have been through a very traumatic process for someone like you. It is common for people in your position to…fabricate stories. To merge fact with fiction to create your own storyboard. It could be a way of the brain protecting itself from reality.’

      He thinks I am making it up. My eyes dart left and right around the room, at my hands, my legs, my feet. ‘This is not fiction,’ I say, quietly. ‘It is the truth.’

      But he says nothing. Instead, I simply hear the click of his pen as he writes some notes. I rub my eyes. I cannot handle this, cannot cope with the feelings coursing through me.

      The scent of paint is in my nostrils now. It is too much. Standing, I trail my fingers along my bag strap and walk to the window. I stop, hoist it up, longing for air, for a mouthful of freedom. Sunshine blasts in through the bars and hits my face. I inhale. I miss Salamanca. Sometimes I find myself thinking of my childhood home in Spain. Papa with the newspaper on his lap, oranges and lemons fat and ripe in the groves beyond. My brother, Ramon, and I running, shouting. Brown limbs. My calculator in my pocket. My brother crying when I broke his arm by accident. Papa negotiating a settlement between us. Always the lawyer. Mama cradling her Ramon, screaming at me to fetch the doctor, then apologising later for her anger, an anger that I never fully understood.

      ‘Maria, I would like you to sit down now.’

      I turn. Kurt is clutching a cup of coffee. I do not recall it being delivered. I return to my seat. Kurt taps his Dictaphone.

      ‘We’ll explore your compromised memory later. But for now, tell me what happened when you were taken to the infirmary, following the incident with Michaela Croft. You came across a newspaper article…Is that correct?’

      ‘Yes,’ I reply. Kurt smiles like the sun. I press my lips together. Thinking about my barrister, about what he did to help me—it is hard. ‘The article concerned a QC in London,’ I say finally. ‘He’d recently won an appeal case. The appeal was thought to be futile, yet he was successful in overturning the original verdict.’

      My throat is dry. I reach for the coffee.

      ‘And this QC,’ Kurt says, ‘did you think he might be useful for an appeal?’

      I sip. ‘Yes.’

      ‘And he contested the original DNA evidence, didn’t he?’

      ‘Yes, but—’ I see something. Up there. Another cobweb on the ceiling. I clutch the cup tight. Kurt mentioned a compromised memory. Is that what I am experiencing? Is that what his therapy is uncovering, following the trauma? And so is the cobweb just part of my imagination?

      ‘The QC’s СКАЧАТЬ