Splinter

  ‘Out of here for a start. Not him, though.’ She indicated Benny, who just shrugged.

  ‘Fine by me,’ he said.

  ‘Okay, Emma,’ Marc said as gently as he could. ‘We’ll sort this out, but first you must give me the gun.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I can’t. Come on. . .’ Close to hysteria again, she uttered the next words with desperate intensity. ‘Otherwise he’ll kill us too!’

  Marc looked bewildered. He stared first at Benny, then at her.

  ‘Kill us?’

  ‘Yes, he’s a bad man.’

  There was something ominous about the remark, despite her childish choice of words.

  ‘What do you mean, bad?’

  ‘Didn’t you smell it?’ she shouted. The dog, which had returned to its master, started barking.

  ‘Smell what?’

  ‘You couldn’t miss it. The stench in his flat.’

  ‘What are you getting at?’

  Marc’s bewilderment and his headache intensified in equal measure. He needed to take a pill as soon as possible.

  Emma opened the driver’s door. ‘He killed her. The girl in the bathroom. I traced the smell and found her.’

  ‘The woman’s paranoid,’ said Benny, echoing Marc’s thoughts.

  ‘Please get in,’ Emma pleaded in a slightly calmer voice. ‘Just you, Marc, not your brother. You’ve got to trust me.’

  ‘Trust you?’ Marc fought for composure. All that prevented him from slapping her face was the gun in her hand.

  ‘Yes, I can explain everything.’

  ‘Then you’d better start with that licence number. Why did you lie to me?’

  ‘It was all I could think of on the spur of the moment,’ she said, trembling harder.

  Benny started to say something, but Marc forestalled him. ‘So you’re in cahoots with them, are you? They’ve employed you to drive me insane.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why? Who’d be interested in destroying me?’

  ‘That’s the right question, Marc, but I can’t answer it. Please,’ she repeated, ‘you’ve got to trust me.’

  Benny laughed. ‘Says the woman who claims she can smell dead bodies and threatens us with a stolen gun.’

  Marc nodded, although something about Emma’s tone of voice had puzzled him. Either she was a consummate actress or she genuinely believed she could justify her behaviour.

  ‘Look, Marc, I know you don’t believe I saw your wife. Even a photo of her wasn’t enough for you.’

  Using her left hand, Emma took her mobile from her jacket pocket, activated the display and handed it to him.

  ‘You were so mistrustful of me, but I didn’t want to be on my own again, so I quickly thought of a licence number – the first one that occurred to me. It’s the number of the ambulance that’s been tailing me ever since I broke out of the clinic.’

  ‘That’s another goddamned. . .’ Marc was about to add ‘lie’ when Benny cut him short by snatching the mobile from his hand.

  ‘One moment,’ he said, turning the display through ninety degrees. ‘Did you take this?’

  Emma stared at him suspiciously. ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘A yellow Volvo?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘With a dent in the side?’

  Emma nodded more vigorously, although it was clear she didn’t know where his questions were leading.

  ‘Right side or left?’

  ‘The dent? I don’t know. Left, I think, towards the back.’

  She started coughing again. The sweat was trickling down her cheeks now.

  ‘What is it?’ Marc broke in. ‘Do you know that car?’ He hugged his chest, although he didn’t really know what was making him shiver, cold or fear; probably both.

  Benny gave an affirmative click of his tongue. ‘Yes. I drove it recently.’

  ‘Really? So you know who it belongs to?’

  Out of the corner of his eye, Marc saw a cyclist on the other side of the street get off his bike and look over at them with interest.

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’

  ‘We must get going,’ said Emma, who had also noticed the cyclist, but Marc wasn’t listening.

  ‘What do you mean, you’re afraid so? Who is it, for Christ’s sake?’

  ‘Oh shit, you really don’t want to know.’ Benny handed back the mobile with a sigh, shoulders sagging.

  ‘Why not?’ Marc demanded. He was about to grab Benny’s arm when his brother darted forwards.

  The first shot that rent the air prompted the cyclist to pedal off as fast as he could. He didn’t look back even when another shot rang out and the barking and cries of pain behind him steadily increased in volume.

  43

  Within the space of a heartbeat Benny had grabbed Emma’s wrist and forced her arm upwards, complete with gun. The second shot went off right beside her head. The agonizing pain took only an instant to have the desired, paralysing effect.

  She let go of the gun and sank to her knees beside the car with both hands clamped to her left ear. The blast had ruptured her eardrum.

  ‘What have you done?’ yelled Marc, slow to grasp what had just happened before his very eyes. All he saw was the blood oozing between Emma’s fingers and staining the collar of her white jacket. For one horrific moment he assumed that Benny, the kid brother who’d never hurt a soul in his life, had actually shot her in the head. Then she tried to get up and although she was only emitting hoarse cries of pain, he guessed that her injuries could not be life-threatening after all.

  ‘What now?’ he demanded, more quietly. This time the question was directed at Emma as well as Benny, who had retrieved his gun.

  ‘I’m going,’ said Benny.

  ‘You can’t just push off!’

  Marc knelt down beside Emma, at his wits’ end. The bleeding was worse, if anything, and had plastered the hair to her temple. In a kind of displacement activity, he felt her forehead like a mother checking her child’s temperature. It was burning hot.

  ‘We must get her to a hospital. Please Benny, you’ll have to drive us there. . .’ Startled, he broke off and clutched Emma’s hand, which had suddenly gone limp. She’d passed out again. ‘At least help me get her into the car. Benny?’

  He looked up, expecting some objection, but none came. His brother had disappeared.

  ‘Shit, shit, shit. . .’ Marc broke out in a sweat despite the cold. He was desperately tired and his headache had spread to his neck. He was afraid he didn’t have the strength to manhandle Emma into the car.

  Damnation.

  He got out his mobile, intending to dial emergency, but the battery gave out after one keystroke.

  Shit!

  He patted Emma’s jacket in search of her mobile. Then it occurred to him that Benny had had it last, so he’d probably pocketed it.

  He rose to his feet, leant against the car and surveyed the buildings across the street. As far as he could see, there was no one at any of the windows, and the balconies were deserted.

  Why hasn’t anyone called the police? Someone must have heard those shots.

  He was just about to bend over Emma again when he was startled by a voice he’d heard once before.

  ‘Hello there, mate.’

  Though very much quieter, the voice was definitely the one that had complained about the noise. Marc looked up. The old man was standing on the pavement with his dog on a length of chain.

  ‘What do you want?’

  The dosser seemed to take as much care of his clothes as the circumstances of his life on the streets permitted. It was easy to overlook the fact that he was destitute, because only close proximity revealed the crumbling layer of grime on his once expensive, crudely patched serge overcoat, beneath which lurked a sports coat far too big for him. Close proximity also enabled them to smell the cloying, rancid body odour that provided a further indication of his homelessness.

  ‘No worries, mate,’ the old man said with a toothless grin. ‘I didn’t see a thing.??
?

  ‘It isn’t the way it looks. I’m taking this woman to hospital.’

  Marc caught hold of Emma under the arms and, with his last remaining strength, hauled her to her feet. Her breathing was fast and shallow.

  The dosser just nodded indifferently and watched him struggling with his burden. He didn’t start chuckling until Marc had managed to drag Emma to the other side of the car, open the passenger door and buckle her into her seat.

  ‘Some night, eh?’

  Marc turned to him, wiping the sweat from his brow. ‘Look, if it’s money you’re after, I’m sorry. I’m skint myself.’

  He made sure Emma’s head couldn’t sag forwards and shut the passenger door.

  ‘I know.’

  Marc, who was about to make his way round to the driver’s side, stopped in his tracks.

  ‘How?’ he demanded.

  ‘I’m sorry, I looked, but there wasn’t anything in it. Here.’

  The dosser extended a grubby hand. Only one of his four fingers boasted a nail and the thumb was missing altogether, but that wasn’t what puzzled Marc so much. He stared at the wallet in disbelief, feeling in his pockets. It really was his own wallet the dosser was trying to return.

  ‘Freddy found it. He’s a great one for picking up things lying around on the ground. Aren’t you, mate?’

  The old man patted his dog on the head. It promptly rolled over on its back in the hope of further caresses.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Marc, still bemused.

  ‘Don’t mention it, I’m an honest man. Come on, mate.’ He gave the chain a gentle tug and the mongrel got to its feet.

  ‘But next time keep the noise down,’ he said with another chuckle. He tapped his forehead and ambled off.

  ‘Yes, sure,’ Marc said pointlessly, turning the wallet over in his hands. He put it in his pocket. Emma had begun to whimper in the car behind him. She was evidently coming round.

  He got into the Beetle, started the engine and put it in gear. Before driving off, he obeyed a spontaneous impulse and took out the wallet again. He opened it just to make sure his ID card – one of the few remaining proofs of his identity – was still there. Fortunately, it was in the pocket provided. He pulled it out, meaning to glance at the old passport photo in which he looked so much younger and fitter, but it resisted. When he withdrew it completely, a little piece of paper fell out on to his lap.

  What on earth. . .?

  He unfolded the slip of paper and stared at it incredulously.

  What’s this?

  Marc felt sure he’d never seen the note before, let alone kept it in his wallet. He turned off the engine, undid his seatbelt in feverish haste, and got out.

  ‘Hey!’ he called in the direction of the dark doorway into which the dosser had just disappeared. ‘Come back here!’

  He broke into a run, although he hardly had the strength and already knew what awaited him at the end of his desperate sprint: nothing.

  The dog and its owner, who had just brought him a handwritten message from his late wife, had both disappeared.

  44

  Many people make the mistake of wanting to repeat everything. Not content with a single memory, they long to experience their life’s most blissful moments once again. They book another flight to the holiday resort they liked so much, watch the same film over and over, or sleep with an ex-partner although they’re happily involved in a new relationship, only to discover that a second bite of the cherry will never, as a rule, taste as good as the first. Feelings of happiness can’t be reproduced to order, can’t be recalled at the touch of a button. Paradoxically, as Marc found out to his cost, this does not apply to pain, suffering and agony of mind. He had inadvertently visited their old home once before, and once before he had been almost overwhelmed with grief.

  He got out of the car, leaving Emma behind. She had refused to be taken to A and E although the Martin Luther Hospital lay right on their route. Eardrums usually healed of their own accord, as he himself had found after a middle-ear infection. Besides, the car was hers and he needed it, both as transport and, possibly, as a means of escape. Even if Emma was paranoid and suspected his brother of murder for no good reason, she was the only person who could testify to the crazy situation in which he was embroiled. He couldn’t tell friend from foe in any case, so it was better to keep an eye on his enemies – if indeed she was one of them.

  He opened the garden gate. The small two-storeyed terrace house still seemed to be breathing. Unlike all its spick-and-span neighbours, whose well-tended gardens were enclosed by fences proof against wild boar, No. 7 looked rather neglected but, for that very reason, like an animate being – like an untidy nursery whose walls have been scribbled on in crayon but whose owners wouldn’t exchange it at any price for a designer home in The World of Interiors.

  Marc took another look at the note he’d found in his wallet.

  Meet you at the Villa Grunewald. Come quickly!

  LOL – S.

  The simple message was unambiguous. It didn’t prove she was still alive, of course. Sandra had often left similar notes on the kitchen table:

  Gone to the gym / Don’t eat too much junk food, I’ll cook us something / Last night was great – as usual / Don’t forget to take the bottles back

  At some stage, Marc had taken to signing his notes ‘LOL’ in the erroneous belief that it was short for ‘Lots of love’. Sandra had rocked with laughter the first time she read it, because – as she patiently explained – teenagers used that acronym to acknowledge receipt of some amusing email or text message from a friend.

  Laughing out loud.

  Since then, appending an ‘LOL’ to nearly every message had become one of their private jokes.

  That and the unmistakable handwriting were definite indications that Sandra had written the note. Another was the stated rendezvous. Their terrace house in Eichkamp was far from being a ‘villa’ – another of their private jokes.

  Marc put the slip of paper away and got out his bunch of keys. The front door jammed, but it had done that months ago.

  What greeted him inside was not the stale smell he’d been expecting. It was chilly – the central heating had been left on minimum to prevent the pipes from freezing – but the stuffy smell typical of an empty house was absent. Someone seemed to have aired the place not long ago. They had also taken the opportunity to polish the floor. The sofa’s rubberized legs had left black scuff marks on the parquet, and these had disappeared.

  ‘Hello?’ he called. His husky voice sent metallic echoes reverberating around the bare walls of the deserted stairwell. He advanced slowly and cautiously, as if the route to the living room were a thin layer of ice. He wasn’t sure which scared him more, being alone in the house or the possibility of coming face to face with his wife.

  ‘Hello?’ he called again. He would have liked to call Sandra’s name aloud but he didn’t dare.

  Built on to the living room was a conservatory whose windows overlooked the neglected garden. He had turned on the exterior lighting, and the little halogen spotlights acted like a soft-focus lens. Everything looked fuzzy – veiled in a golden-yellow aura: the fruit trees, the rotting apples on the lawn, and the fish pond, which was overgrown with reeds and contained more mud than water.

  A gust of wind tore some leaves from the silver birch immediately in front of the veranda. Marc was allergic to birches but had never had the heart to fell the proud tree. Now, looking up at it, he saw a crow soar into the sky from its topmost branch.

  His tears seemed to be intensifying the soft-focus effect, because the tree had suddenly become much paler in colour. He rubbed his eyes, but the effect persisted.

  What the. . .?

  He put his head back and tried to analyse the strange glow, which bathed only a small part of the tree’s foliage. When the wind stirred the higher branches, the truth dawned on him.

  The tree was being illuminated not by the lights in the garden but by some other artificial light source.
And this was located two or three metres above his head. On the first floor.

  Inside the house!

  Everything happened very quickly after that. He dashed back to the entrance hall and pelted up the stairs two at a time. Moments later he threw open the bedroom door. It was true. Although he had removed all the plugs and unscrewed every bulb, the room was ablaze with light.

  His jaw dropped and more tears welled up in his eyes. He couldn’t believe, couldn’t grasp, what he was seeing as he blundered into the room.

  This is impossible! Why, Sandra? Why?

  He had got rid of all the furniture after the accident. The double bed, the louvred wardrobe units, the dressing table with the big mirror. A Pole and his son had come for them. They had dismantled them in his presence, carried them downstairs and driven them off in a trailer. And now, three weeks later, everything was the way it had been. The bed, the wardrobes, the dressing table – all were back in their old places. There was even a new addition, something that looked as wrong as the sight of a pregnant woman lighting a cigarette. Pale blue, with a snow-white canopy, and standing roughly in the middle of the room, it was a brand-new, freshly made-up baby’s cradle.

  For one frightful moment Marc feared it might rock, propelled by some unseen hand in time to a discordant lullaby. But the cradle didn’t budge a millimetre. It did something far more terrible: it started to speak.

  45

  ‘Help. Please help me.’

  Marc shrank back. The voice grew louder. ‘Don’t go! Don’t leave me here!’

  Although he’d taken only a quick look and drawn the drapes aside for only a moment, he was sure the cradle contained nothing but a little pillow. He might have overlooked some pyjamas, a baby’s toy or a blanket, but he certainly hadn’t failed to see a living occupant, least of all one big enough to address him in such a deep male voice.

  ‘Who’s there?’ he asked, convinced that he was talking to a recording.

  He was all the more startled to receive an answer. ‘Thank God you came, Marc.’

  It knows my name. How does it know my name?