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The Killing Files
Nikki Owen
No matter how fast you run, the past always catches up with you
A gripping and tense thriller’ Heat
A must have’ Sunday Express
Dr Maria Martinez is out of prison and on the run.
Her mission? To get back to the safety of her family.
Little does she know that this might be the most dangerous place of all
Don’t miss the second in Nikki Owen’s electrifying Project trilogy, perfect for fans of Nicci French and Charles Cumming.
NIKKI OWEN is an award-winning writer and columnist. As part of her degree, she studied at the acclaimed University of Salamanca – the same city where her protagonist of Subject 375 and The Killing Files, Dr Maria Martinez, hails from. Born in Dublin, Nikki now lives in Gloucestershire with her family.
To Brian – this one’s for you, Mr Blue Sky.
Acknowledgements (#ulink_6d02d248-8289-5af5-9a2d-eb6794a850d2)
Thanks to everyone in getting The Killing Files out into the world. Thanks to Sally, my Editor, to Cara, Alison and all the team at HQ Harper Collins. Also thanks to Adam, my agent (cheers, A!) and all the stellar PFD team. Big up to the supportive, beautiful book bloggers and Facebookers who make this such fun. And super shout out (once again) to Kelly Duke for reading this novel when, well, it wasn’t really one, and to my mum too, for giving it the thumbs up. Hugs to Marg and Brian for being the best friends and neighbours – Bri, you will always be in our hearts. And to Barry and Wendy for being the most amazing parents in law (and gardeners …) But, as ever, my biggest thanks has to go to my beautiful little family – Dave, Abi and Hattie, whom, without, I could never, ever write. DJ – you and me against the world, babe.
And, finally, to you now, holding this book – yep, you – thank you for reading The Killing Files! Without you, this book lark simply can’t exist. I am mighty, mighty grateful.
Table of Contents
Cover (#u351ec5ac-b74c-5398-901f-985aa540c416)
About the Author (#u665ef698-d644-529e-a3f1-23667821f7a4)
Title Page (#u4d90b565-c0a5-54ef-9444-af1c3facf474)
Dedication (#u7045e411-7d09-51be-bd40-6d92beb7bee6)
Acknowledgements (#udff32729-06d6-5bd6-b1d1-b32ba07eeef2)
Chapter 1 (#ua5775ffa-3b68-50dc-8a36-1bae0085988e)
Chapter 2 (#u2095b24d-b3f9-5ddc-acc7-f998f21577dd)
Chapter 3 (#ufc17f977-eecd-5668-b4ad-e343f8fd000a)
Chapter 4 (#udd18e7c8-178a-5d45-88d2-468ce1a106a1)
Chapter 5 (#uc2b1f6b6-61d3-5049-a353-5f6c501f6a92)
Chapter 6 (#u167b8c56-88fd-5d3c-b33d-01ddbdc231a0)
Chapter 7 (#uaacc3e00-a9dc-51ba-a1ed-a4b79057c596)
Chapter 8 (#u1984cca3-1278-5921-85bc-3a2c3b5bf240)
Chapter 9 (#u74b8fcac-d72c-577f-bd0f-8000a9664dde)
Chapter 10 (#u79d6e9c6-8308-5456-b52f-ffddfe998799)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 34 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 35 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 36 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 37 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 38 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 39 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 40 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 41 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 42 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 43 (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#ulink_c8738ac0-c616-56bb-be7e-2000f279a214)
Undisclosed confinement location—present day
The room is dark, damp. I cannot see properly. I have been caught, that much I know, but I am unsure by whom. The Project? MI5? Someone else? I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know how I am going to escape.
I lift my head but it feels heavy, a loaded sack filled with potatoes. I inch it back. My breathing is hot, the air a woollen blanket on my face, thick and scratchy, and, as my sight begins to adjust to the dark, slowly, like a curtain being lifted on a stage, I start to see small slivers of solid items. Where am I?
A room. I think that is what this is, but I am unsure. Then what? A cell? Prison confinement again? But I was found innocent. I am free, I tell myself. I am not guilty, have not killed anyone, yet even when I say the words to myself, for some reason, they don’t seem right, instead feel out of place, a code reassembled in the middle.
One breath, two. My eyes begin to adjust to the gloom and my sight registers small globules of shapes. The corner of a wall, the shard of a window—snapshots only of a whole picture. There is a seat of some sort, a table perhaps, but beyond that, nothing. The air is too black for me to take an inventory, the atmosphere sticky tar turning all the soft daylight into hot, putrid night as adrenaline starts to spurt out into my blood creating short, sharp alerts. I am not safe here.
It is then I hear it: the rustle of movement.
‘Who is there?’ My voice clicks with a cotton bud dryness, and I wonder how long it is since I last drank water as my brain rapidly attempts to calculate timings and bearings and any scrap of geolocation memory it can cling on to.
‘Who is there?’ I repeat, yet there is no answer, only darkness. A worry rises inside me, but I press it back, not wanting to panic, not wanting to melt down here and now.
Focus. Breathing. I can hear someone breathing, there, on the whisper of the air. I inch my eyes left, sensing what exists but almost not wanting to acknowledge it. Have I put them there, whoever it is? Is that what this is—a hit? Did I try to kill them? I didn’t murder the priest, but I doubted myself then, in court, at the trial. And then a horrific thought strikes. What if I have been on an operation for the Project and this is the result? A body on the floor beside me, injured by me and waiting to die. A killing I may later have no memory of.
My torso remains as rigid as possible, not daring to move. How did I get here? I think hard, connect my cognitive thoughts, but no matter how much I try, nothing shakes, as if my memory has been erased.
As if who I am doesn’t really exist.
The person’s breathing is shallow now, gravelled and raspy. I know what bleeding out sounds like—the sharp, slicing quality of oxygen intake—but this is not it. And yet, there is an urgency to the breath, a desperation that I cannot place, but it makes no sense why. I am a doctor so should know the signs, but still I cannot place them. What is wrong with me?
I blink three times and try hard to concentrate, to return my brain to function mode, focusing again on the room for clues. The edges. They are shrouded in black, but the window above affords a slip of light that plops in a puddle to my left.
It is then I see it—an arm—and a gasp slips from my mouth.
I track the limb, milky-white skin on a long, limp wrist, different to my own arms, my muscled, tanned ones, with bitten nails and dirt in the creases. Even in this murky room, I can tell that this arm is clean, scrubbed.
I keep all my attention on the body part and attempt again asking who they are, instinctively counting the time as I wait. The numbers sooth me as seconds rack up in twos, the action slowing, at least for the moment, the anxiety that is building inside, but when I ask again who is there and no one answers, a moan slips from my lips. The urine-coloured light has all but disappeared, yet somehow I start to see something slithering into view. A long, T-shirted torso. An elegant, white neck. A skull.
A face.
A scream pierces the air and I am shocked to realise it is mine. I catch my breath, frantically slap my hands up and down, straining to thrash my body forward from the seat, but still my pulse flies. Because there is a face, a face staring back at me, a face I know. Shaven hair, sharp cheekbones, gapped teeth and pool-blue eyes, eyes that even in this tar-black air, shine. My hearts races, my chest tightens. How can she be here? How have I let this happen? We are all in danger now, all of us.
‘Doc.’ The voice comes from the head on the floor.
I slam my eyes shut, not wanting to believe what is here, reciting an algorithm in a vain attempt to calm myself.
‘Doc, it’s okay.’ The voice is a cotton sheet flapping in the breeze, a rustle of green grass. ‘Doc, I’m okay.’
My eyes open. One millimetre then two, gradually allowing my sight to do the work my brain does not want to understand. My friend is here. My only friend in the world is lying crumpled on the floor beside me.
‘Patricia?’ I say, testing out the word. ‘You are out of Goldmouth prison.’
‘Yes, I got out on parole, remember? Two months after you.’
Confusion, worry. They spin round my head fast. ‘You are here. Why are you here?’
‘Because they have us,’ she says, the Irish lilt to her voice still there as I remember, but scratched now, torn. ‘The Project have caught up with us. You can’t hide from them any more.’
The Project have found me—that’s why I have woken up here in this room. They have entrapped us and there is only one way it will end: someone will die.
‘We have to get out. Tell me your status—are you injured?’
I listen for her reply, but there is only silence.
‘Patricia?’ Yet there is no answer, no words back to me as I continue to repeat her name over and over again in the gloom. When I finally stop calling for her, I flop back, flooded with fear, fear of myself, of who I am. Because it’s me—I have done this. I have caused this to happen. I slam my head back and back again, crying out, yelling into the thick, black air. Why can’t I recall how I got here? Why don’t I recognise where I am? Why?
Why?
One solitary, fat tear slides down my cheek. ‘Do not die.’ The words slip out, silent, unbidden. ‘Please, do not die.’
My eyes search for Patricia’s body, for an arm or a head, anything that can reassure me she is okay, that my friend is okay.
‘I am sorry,’ I say. ‘I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.’
I stop, haul in oxygen, listen for signs of life, but in the ten long seconds that next pass, the only sound audible in the thick, foul air is the rasp of my own breath.
Salamancan Mountains, Spain.
