The Killing Files

And how to make it all stop.

Salamancan Mountains, Spain.

34 hours and 11 minutes to confinement

A searing heat instantly explodes in my thigh.

The room begins to sway, the white sun from the window blinding me, mixing with the pain to create a lethal cocktail, slow at first then faster, and when I look at Dr Andersson her smile appears distorted, as if someone has taken an axe to her head and sliced it clean down the middle. Nausea balloons as blood begins to spew from the wound.

I force myself to keep my hands were they are, fixed in the position behind my back, despite the instinctive compulsion to throw my arms forward and tend to the wound.

As the pain rips into me, I focus on the cell phone, still hidden behind me, knowing that Balthus has listened to everything that has happened. Sweat drains down my face. Ahead Dr Andersson proceeds to tear apart my laptop, pocketing my USB sticks, disabling every part of my surveillance system, all that I have been unable to hide now being destroyed, and it hurts me, every smash, every rip and pilfer—what she is doing feels as if it is physically hurting me, the way in which she is creating pure chaos out of my routine and order.

If she is destroying evidence, it will soon come to the point where she will find my notebook.

I have to stall for time. ‘I need to stem the blood flow from my leg,’ I say. ‘I need to press my hands into it. Untie me.’

She throws me a glance, hesitating for a moment, her eyes on my wound, and I think she may come to assist me, but then she checks her watch, shakes her head and returns to pulling apart my data.

My body is getting weaker. The blood from the wound is slowing a little, but still oozing and if I don’t get pressure on it soon, I may bleed out entirely and lose consciousness. My eyes spot the iron bar—it is still on the floor where it fell.

Dr Andersson comes over and crouches by me. ‘Maria? Can you hear me? I need you to tell me something—is the Project still functioning?’

‘You are MI5,’ I say, winching at a stab of pain, ‘you should have the intelligence for that answer.’

She sighs. ‘I’m looking for a file.’

My ears prick up. ‘What file?’

She glances around at the mess. My teeth clench at the chaotic sight. ‘There is a file hidden by a woman, a woman you knew, an asset in the field some time ago when the Project was more … useful. Do you know where the file is?’

Sweat trickles past my eyes. Raven, the dream. Does she know? ‘What is the woman’s name?’

‘Ah, now wouldn’t that be easy, if I had a name?’ She wipes her cheek dry of sweat. ‘I’m afraid that’s what I was rather hoping you could provide.’ I shift, careful not to dislodge the cell phone. ‘Do you know where the file is, Maria?’

‘No.’

She stands. ‘Then I’m sorry, but …’ She administers one swift kick to my injured leg. I cry out in agony.

‘B … B …’ My speech slurs. I must be losing more blood than I thought.

‘Where’s the file, Maria? Please, just tell me.’ She sticks on a quick smile. ‘Let’s just get this done as fast as we can, okay? I really don’t want to hurt you any more than I have to before, well … Just help me out here.’

My eyes narrow as I muster every inch of energy that is left in me, every shard of anger and fear and pain and loss, straight at her. ‘Bitch.’

Her smile and shoulders drop. She reaches into her pocket and withdraws a knife, black handle, solid. My brain fires into red alert mode, desperate to move as she slides off a leather sheath to reveal one small, sharp blade, seven centimetres long, the sleek silver of it shining in the summer sun, a gentle light dancing warm and carefree on the glide of the metal.

‘I’m sorry I have to do this, but you were supposed to die months ago.’ She kicks a piece of computer casing away. ‘You evaded our officers then, even dodged my bullet for you outside the court, but not now. I’m afraid we can’t risk the service being exposed. You understand—it’s this NSA scandal. MI5 don’t want the Project blowing up like NSA’s prism programme did. The Project was good while it lasted, but it has to end. The file I need—we’ll find it. I hear there’s been a run of break-ins and knife crime in this remote area.’ She glances to the upturned room. ‘I’m afraid this will have to look like a burglary that’s ended in a murder.’

I look at my leg, panting in air now. The limb is damaged, but the blood loss is finally halting. I can move my toes, but I don’t know if I can mobilise my body at all, but my hands are still behind my back and, for now, I need to keep them there …

I start to count.

One.

Dr Andersson takes a step forward.

Two.

She grips the knife tight in her fist, her eyes downturned.

Three.

I glance to the iron bar near on the floor.

Four.

Dr Andersson lunges forward. ‘I’m so sorry …’

Five.

I unleash my hands, tethers gone, Balthus having talked me through how to untie them, and, despite the blood loss, despite the odds stacked against me, and the chaos and the fear and the sheer sensory onslaught of the entire situation, I charge forward at Dr Andersson with every single drop of effort I’ve got.

Chapter 9

Salamancan Mountains, Spain.

34 hours and 7 minutes to confinement

I ram my body hard straight into Dr Andersson.

She yells out, her torso toppling to the left, the knife slipping from her grip, clattering to the tiles. ‘Maria, stop! Please, don’t …’

She steadies and I think she is going to recover, her hand reaching to a gun behind her jacket, and so fast, without thinking, I haul my whole body up and head butt her in the face.

She reels back, a sharp crack indicating her nose breaking, blood spurting, the fall dislodging her gun and causing it to slide under a table.

I move quick, drag my body up, the bullet wound in my leg throbbing.

‘Maria,’ Balthus calls from the cell. ‘What’s happening?’

I survey the damage fast, the slump of Dr Andersson’s slight body, her twisted limbs.

‘She is alive,’ I say. ‘Injured.’

‘I don’t give a damn about her—just get the hell out of there. Get your notebook and bag and run!’

But my eyes catch sight of my ordered articles and photographs and sketches ripped on the floor pressed under Dr Andersson’s mashed up body, blood seeping from her ear. For a moment there is a quiet, macabre eeriness to it all as the summer sun glows through the windows, warm and serene over the utter devastation in my villa. I slap a hand to the wall, steady myself, everything spinning a little as I will my brain not to melt down at the chaos. One, two, three. One, two, three. I play out a waltz of numbers in my head, draw in a long breath then, looking up, acknowledge where my notebook is and, glancing at Dr Andersson’s splayed limbs, stagger towards the fallen gun.

Balthus crackles on the line. ‘Are you on the move?’

‘Yes.’

I step over a broken laptop, and stop. There is a torn photograph of my papa lying discarded amidst the mess. It is the one of him with his arm around me, except the picture now only shows me with Papa’s arm on my shoulder, and does not show his face or the rest of him, his body ripped off and in two. The sight of the photograph instantly bothers me.

‘Papa.’ I scan the floor, frantic. ‘Where is the other half?’

‘What?’

‘The photograph of Papa,’ I say to Balthus, twisting left and right, crouching down despite the searing pain in my leg, and clawing through the tattered paper that litters the floor. ‘She tore it in two. Papa is missing.’

‘Maria, you’ve no time for this.’

But I keep looking, ignoring Balthus, ignoring the sting in my leg, led on instead by the urge to stay connected to my father in any way I can. I lift up a heap of shredded newspaper then drop it, confetti pieces floating in the sun. ‘He taught me not to flinch,’ I say to myself. ‘Papa.’

‘Maria? Maria, I know this is hard for you, but you don’t have time for this. If MI5 don’t hear from Dr Andersson, they’ll come to the villa. And if they know where you live, chances are the Project do too.’

Yet it’s as if his words have no meaning. All I can obsess on is Papa’s picture.

‘Maria!’

I lift up files. I throw torn shreds of NSA articles and images around until the air becomes thick with paper and no matter how hard I try, no matter how much I tell myself to leave, I can’t, not without Papa, not without seeing his arm around me, safe, secure, knowing I’m not on my own, because I don’t want to be on my own, not really, not like this for the rest of my life. And then, as I turn, there, among the broken pieces of laptop plastic, I see him, Papa, his eyes shining bright as if he were still alive, warm, breathing next to me.

‘Maria, have you got it?’

‘Yes!’

I grab the picture, thrust it to my chest and standing, happy, so happy I have him close to me, even if it’s only like this.

‘Good. Okay, Maria. Now you need to run. Run now, yes?’

‘Yes. Yes.’

I turn, checking the room, glancing to Dr Andersson’s body on the floor, then, grabbing my notebook fast from where it lies half-hidden by a stack of half-toppled books, I go to hobble to my bedroom, to the hidden floor compartment containing my emergency bag. But, as I reach the door, there is an almighty scream that fills the room, piercing my ears.

Dr Andersson flies at me. ‘No!’

Her hand grabs me as she smacks me against the wall, the picture of Papa floating from my fingertips, notebook flying to the left. She slams me against the wall again, blood instantly spurting from my wound. Flipping me over, she digs her knee into my chest, pinning me down, but my right arm slips free and, crunching my fingers into a fist, I turn, punch her hard in the nose. There is a loud crack. Her head spins back, hand slaps to her face as blood spurts, a crimson slit sliced into her skin.

I shift faster now, heart racing, counting the entire time to focus, my body rolling away, quicker now, Balthus from the cell shouting at me over and over again to get to the door, to get out, but before I do, there is a scraping on my leg where the bullet wound throbs.

I look down. Dr Andersson has dug her nails into my skin, clawing at the injury and she is trying to reach my cell phone. ‘Just … Maria, don’t do this …’

Heat rockets up my leg and I scream out, stumbling forward, attempting to get to a stand, but my knees wobble and I tumble, my torso toppling forward, body a felled tree, slicing my scalp on the corner of a chair.

Blood splatters in my eyes, disabling my sight, the heat of it, the ooze cloaking my face. My hands flap in front of me as I frantically try to see, attempt to stagger to safety, but Dr Andersson gets to me before I can run. The blood clears and my sight kicks in, but now she has an arm locked around my neck, her hands grasping for my cell phone.

‘Who are you speaking to?’ she yells. ‘Who?’

I smack her hands away and then, spinning round, see it: her gun—under the table where it landed.

And now both our eyes are on it.

Quick, slick, she throws me to the side, lurching for the weapon, my shoulder slamming into the stone floor. She kicks me hard in the stomach and I reel back, the agony of it engulfing me, spiking into my consciousness.

‘Jesus Christ, Maria, why? Stay fucking still.’ She spits out some blood, looking round for the gun. ‘I didn’t want to fucking do it like this.’

But I can’t let her get the gun, can’t let her get to my cell and to Balthus. And then I spot my torn Papa photograph, lying lost next to ripped pictures of Mama, Ramon, Patricia and Harry, and a sudden rage courses through me, one phrase slamming into my mind—prepare, wait, engage.

I glance once more to the photographs and I fly. I fly at Dr Andersson and punch her throat, straight on the windpipe, and her whole body instantly folds, collapsing in with a strange gurgle as her hand clutches her skin. I scramble up, eyes scanning the floor. The gun. Where is the gun?

‘Stop!’ Slam. Dr Andersson’s whole body lands on me. I stagger backwards at the weight of her, smothering me almost, impossible to breath, horrified that she is on me, touching me, and I hit out, my legs kicking at her shins, but it does no good. She topples me, my cell phone almost slipping away.

‘Maria!’ Balthus yells.

My face smacks the tiles, bones crunching as she knees me in the chest. Air shoots out and it feels as if I am drowning, as if every atom of oxygen is wheezing from my thorax as now Dr Andersson’s knees pin my torso down, her legs wedged into my skin.

‘So it’s the governor you’re in touch with,’ she says, spitting to the floor. ‘I know his voice. Maria, it’s over. Don’t drag everyone into this.’

She shifts to the right, blowing air on her face where her ponytail now hangs in strings of sweat on her face, and as I try and jerk my head out of her way, I see a glint. The bar. The iron bar.

I move fast, automatic. I whip my hand forward and with one swift movement, stretch my arm, grab the bar and, using all the force I can find, smash it over Dr Andersson’s head.

Her grip immediately loosens, her fingers go slack. She slips to the side, a slow groan sliding from her mouth and I waste no time. Pushing her off me, I scramble back, crawling on all fours, my eyes darting left and right until they finally land on the gun, wedged now into the wall. I grab it, chest heaving, and, staggering to a stand, point it at her.

‘My baby—’ she says, eyes rolling in her head. ‘It’s her … birthday …’ Blood loops round her ear now, pooling in the well inside it, and she drifts in and out of consciousness.

I pause at the sight of her, my brain stuck, torn between helping and running.

‘Maria?’ Balthus. ‘Are you okay?’

‘She is injured. I should help her.’

‘What? No. No! Is she down?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then go. Go!’

Swallowing, unsure what to do, but knowing Balthus is right, I secure the cell phone, turn, then, throwing one last glance at Dr Andersson’s broken body, I hobble away as fast as I can. But as I drag myself across the room somehow, Dr Andersson crawls up, fast and unexpected, catching me slap at the ankle.

‘Give me … the gun,’ she yells.

She fells me, topples me to the ground, clambering to my chest, fingers finding my throat where they squeeze hard. I choke, gasp for air. My arms stretch out as far as they can, the gun still in my fingers, but it is slipping now, teetering on the tips. My legs flap, nails scratch at her as I try to wrench her off me, but she presses harder, her hands nearly at my fingers now where the gun seesaws, teetering between life and death.

Tears roll down her cheeks. ‘I’m so sorry. I hate doing this.’

I feel myself begin to asphyxiate and it is hard to retain a grip on anything at all, the room swaying, my eyes bulging, about to explode. I look round at the torn articles on the floor, at the images of the friends and family that, without ever telling them, I do love. I thrash, yell, but Dr Andersson just digs in harder, strength coming from somewhere, her blue eyes fixed on mine, the sun shining on us and I feel it, there, its heat, and my mind goes to Papa, to his face and eye creases and his complete and utter acceptance of me for who I am.

I have almost no oxygen reserves left.

‘Ssssh,’ Dr Andersson says to me now. ‘It will all be over soon. Sssh.’

A warmth spreads over me, trickling at first then rushing in as, one after the other, faces swim before me—Balthus, Patricia, Harry, Ramon, Mama. And seeing them, watching the contours on their expressions, the grooves and lines, I start to believe that when I die, I will no longer be lonely and awkward and hunted down, but happy and free and regarded as normal.

‘Maria? Maria, fight her!’

Balthus? His voice swims into my head.

‘Maria,’ he shouts, ‘don’t let them win! Don’t let them win!’

His voice, hearing it—it sparks something within me, something that takes hold of the last flicker of a flame inside me. My fingers wriggle. Slow then picking up speed, I find, from somewhere, a fight, a strength and, instead of letting it slip from my hand, I begin to clutch the gun until my knuckles turn white and my breath grows strong. ‘Prepare. Wait,’ words whisper in my head. ‘Engage.’

I force myself to look straight at Dr Andersson and, gripping the gun as hard as I can, I make myself focus, make myself do what I am alarmed I’ve been trained to do, what I must do to survive.

I twist my torso.

‘No!’ Dr Andersson yells, eyes wide at the sight of the gun. ‘No. No … Her …her name is Briony. She’s three today. Three. I … I can’t let you get away. I can’t let you stop me.’ And then she goes to press down harder on my mouth, squeezing out the air.

And so I grip the gun hard.

And I shoot.

Chapter 10

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.’