The Killing Files

‘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.’

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