Splinter

  Perhaps Sandra was behind it all. Perhaps some PR consultant had advised her to engage in this conspiracy so as to boost her film’s success when it emerged that the plot was based on fact.

  Except that the script had come first and the reality second!

  Of all the noises surging around him in Französische Strasse, it was – once again – a driver sounding his horn that broke in on his thoughts. He’d heard it in the lobby of the clinic, but this time it was much closer.

  Glancing sideways, he saw his brother at the wheel of a dirty little Polo.

  ‘Get in!’ Benny called through the open window. ‘Come on, we’ve no time to lose!’

  60

  The car appeared to belong to a young woman or a family with a young child. Numerous cloth elephants with sucker feet stuck to the rear windows and a Winnie the Pooh audiotape protruded from the slot in the cassette radio.

  ‘I borrowed it,’ Benny explained, not that Marc had asked him to. Neither of them had spoken for fifteen minutes, but his brother was growing steadily more talkative. ‘I’ll take this bus back to the multi-storey afterwards, honestly I will. I couldn’t hang around when the law turned up, so I beat it and pinched this thing for us.’

  Marc nodded mutely, unable to concentrate, because Benny’s wasn’t the only voice to be heard. Someone was singing in English. It took him a while to register that the music was coming from the radio. He turned it off and reached for the door handle.

  ‘Pull up,’ he said quietly.

  Benny tapped his forehead. ‘Like hell I will.’

  ‘I want no part of a murder.’

  ‘That’s your nutty girlfriend speaking. Don’t you start! I haven’t killed anyone.’ Benny drew a deep breath. The Polo stank of vomit and cheap scent. Presumably, someone had attempted to disguise the former with the latter.

  ‘So why drive around with a plastic bag covered in blood and a small arsenal?’

  ‘The guns aren’t mine.’

  ‘Whose, then?’

  ‘Valka’s.’

  ‘What have you been up to?’

  ‘Nothing. I borrowed some money, that’s all.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘A sure thing, but it doesn’t matter now. I asked Valka to transfer the cash to my business partner’s account, but the deal fell through. I was taken for a ride.’

  ‘What about the cash in the sports bag?’

  Benny glanced over his shoulder at the blood-stained canvas bag, which was lying on the rear seat.

  ‘I hung on to some of it. Valka smuggled it to me in the hospital, but I’m missing the rest, so I can’t pay him back in full.’

  Benny was steering with one hand and massaging his right thigh with the other.

  ‘And now you’ve got his hitmen on your tail?’

  ‘More or less. Valka was going to scrub my debt if I did a job for him.’

  They changed lanes and overtook a student looking for a parking place. The university and the next roundabout were still one traffic light away.

  ‘What sort of job?’

  ‘A journalist named Ken Sukowsky was researching Valka – researching him only too thoroughly. I was supposed to kill him and cut off his fingers, or maybe the other way round. Then I was to leave town pronto.’ Benny looked in the rear-view mirror. ‘I should have been in Amsterdam hours ago, damn it. Now I’ve had it.’

  ‘Why?’

  Benny sighed. ‘Because I was only bluffing, of course. I went to see Sukowsky last night and warned him. Then I was going to do the rounds and say goodbye. You know, to all the people who’ve done me favours. Friends and acquaintances, or even strangers who helped me when I was in a bad way. Like the professor.’

  He felt in the pocket of his bomber jacket and handed Marc a crumpled sheet of paper. Of the ten names on it, the first three had been crossed off, Haberland’s included. Marc noted that his own name didn’t appear.

  ‘That was the real reason I drove you out there. While you and Haberland were out walking I left some of Valka’s cash on the kitchen table. The prof was one of the few people who really took care of me. He deserves it.’

  ‘Like Leana?’ said Marc.

  They drew up at some lights. Benny looked at him in surprise.

  ‘Did you also give your nurse some of Valka’s cash?’

  Benny nodded after a long pause. ‘Yes, fifteen thousand. I thought I could leave town before Eddy wanted it back, but he gave me an ultimatum.’

  ‘What was in that plastic bag?’ Marc asked, still suspicious.

  ‘A pig’s head. My farewell present to him. He was meant to find it in the boot long after I was out of the country.’

  The lights changed to green, and somehow they seemed to open the floodgates that had prevented Benny from talking until now. Everything came pouring out: how he’d been stopped at the checkpoint the previous night and narrowly missed being caught red-handed with the weapons he was supposed to use to kill the journalist. He even wound up by telling Marc about the murdered girl in his flat.

  ‘Then you appeared on the scene with that madwoman. I couldn’t get away in time, and now I’ve got Eddy’s people breathing down my neck.’

  Benny bore right and exited the Ernst-Reuter-Platz roundabout at the last moment. They sped down Bismarckstrasse in the direction of the opera house.

  ‘Why didn’t you come to me with your money problems?’

  Marc felt for the bag of pills in his jacket and discovered he must have lost them in the car crash. He only hoped his nausea didn’t get any worse.

  Benny glanced at him and laughed. ‘Quite apart from the fact that we haven’t exactly been close in recent years, you don’t have any €90,000.’

  Good God, as much as that?

  ‘What was it for, for heaven’s sake?’

  ‘It’s better you don’t know.’

  Marc controlled himself with an effort. Quarrelling with his brother had never been productive. The more you probed him, the more he retreated into his shell.

  ‘But why Valka?’ he demanded. ‘Goddammit, Benny, I know people who won’t top you the moment a debt becomes overdue.’

  ‘Really? If that’s a reference to your father-in-law, you must be joking.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He’s broke.’

  ‘What?’

  Another set of lights changed, from amber to red. The vehicles beside them braked to a halt – unlike Benny, who construed it as a signal to accelerate away.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Marc asked in dismay.

  ‘Broke, skint. Does the word have any other meaning?’ Benny glanced in the rear-view mirror as if afraid they’d picked up another tail. Marc turned to look but could see nothing suspicious. ‘It’s that clinic of his. He overreached himself financially – don’t you read the papers?’

  No. I’ve taken little interest in the outside world these last few weeks.

  ‘Added to that, one of his surgeons botched a cardiac operation – defective valve implant, or something. Not Senner’s fault, but the damages will amount to millions. They say he no longer even owns the house we’re on our way to right now.’ Benny glanced sideways. ‘That is where you want to go, isn’t it?’

  61

  The human brain is capable of suppressing even incontrovertible truths which everyone must face sooner or later: age, illness, physical decline, death. All of these come to each of us, yet they seem unreal. Someone else shuffles the cards we play with, and much as we despair of the system, we’re ultimately grateful for its mercies. After all, would we continue to make our way along life’s road if we could see into the future?

  That was the question Marc asked himself as he stood in the drive outside his father-in-law’s house. Benny had remained in the car, even though he had his doubts about the plan that had brought them there.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ he’d asked as Marc was getting out.

  ‘The truth,’ Marc replied.

  Was Constantin trying to drive him insa
ne because of his debts? Did he want to get him declared legally incompetent so as to lay hands on the proceeds of the film script sale? Whatever the truth, Marc wanted his life back, even if it was that of a widower. He knew that Constantin stood between him and the truth and had to call him to account. That would clinch matters one way or the other.

  He hammered on the door. Once upon a time Constantin had kept a spare key in the boathouse in case he locked himself out, but those incautious days were long past. A security expert had been employed after the burglary that had cost Sandra their first child three years ago. Since then a CCTV surveillance system had unobtrusively alerted those inside the house to the presence of visitors and, instead of a key, you needed a registered fingerprint. Today, however, Marc didn’t have to apply his forefinger to the cold key pad. The door was open already: it swung inwards at his touch.

  ‘Hello?’

  Marc made his way into the entrance hall. He sensed the change at once, even though everything seemed to be in its accustomed place: the little occasional table just inside the door, on which keys and mobile phones could be left; the big marble balls flanking both staircases; and the huge, silver-framed mirror in which visitors looked taller and slimmer than they really were. Normally, this gave visitors a good feeling as soon as they entered the house. In Marc’s case, this didn’t happen today, and not only because his father-in-law never left the front door unlocked.

  But because he could hear people talking.

  A man and a woman. They sounded like two good friends having an animated conversation, and they were somewhere overhead.

  ‘Hello, it’s me,’ Marc called up the stairs. No response, just a muffled giggle followed by a long monologue on the man’s part.

  He set off up the stairs which he and Sandra had once climbed every other Sunday. His father-in-law used to hold a family tea party twice a month. They had all expected this tradition to lapse after his wife’s untimely death, but Constantin had perpetuated it, so they continued to drive over and exchange the latest news around the fireplace in the upstairs library. Every other Sunday. Until the accident.

  Marc had reached the top step. The voices were more distinct now.

  ‘Constantin?’ he called hoarsely. It was hours since he’d had anything to drink, and his tongue felt like a foreign body in his mouth.

  The passage stretched away in both directions. On the left were the guest bedrooms, on the right the library and Constantin’s study, from which the voices were coming. Marc was near enough now to catch snippets of conversation.

  ‘Me, I wouldn’t do that,’ the woman said brightly.

  ‘Really? I wouldn’t be so sure,’ said the man. ‘Think back to your most embarrassing experience.’

  ‘Oh, that happened in the swimming pool recently, but I really can’t tell you about it.’

  Marc found it odd that the couple didn’t answer even though he’d advertised his presence more than once, so he decided to make as little noise as possible from now on. He turned right and tiptoed along the shadowy passage.

  Mingled with the voices was a faint crackle of static. It grew louder the nearer he got to the study door, which was situated opposite a small guest lavatory about halfway along.

  ‘Coward!’ laughed the man inside the study.

  ‘No, honestly. Anyway, I don’t really remember it.’

  ‘Aha, here we go again!’

  Holding his breath, Marc depressed the heavy handle, opened the door, and froze.

  The study in which the couple had been holding such an animated conversation was a scene of utter devastation. The standard lamp was lying sideways across the leather sofa, which had been slashed. The Persian carpet had been crumpled up like a outsize handkerchief and dumped in front of an empty set of shelves. All the books, pictures, photos and objets d’art they had once held were lying strewn across the floor.

  Marc looked around for the couple and found them behind a dusty glass screen. The television set was lying on its side behind the shattered remains of an empty saltwater aquarium. It was a miracle the old set was still working and hadn’t given up the ghost like the numerous fish on the parquet floor.

  ‘Tell us what you think. We value your opinion,’ said the man on the screen, who looked like a caricature of a breakfast-show host. He was wearing a smile as bright as his vivid tie and jacket. The camera pulled back to reveal the studio set plus his platinum-blonde colleague.

  ‘No, I really don’t want to think about it.’

  ‘You see?’

  The picture flickered every two seconds and there was a smell of scorching. The television’s lead had been fractured and was reacting with the spilt water.

  Marc decided it was safer to leave the box turned on. He looked at the desk, the only oasis of calm in the midst of the devastation. Vast and immovable, as if made for some statesman who proposed to sign epoch-making treaties on its polished mahogany top, it stood facing the windows overlooking the lake.

  Marc stepped over some smashed glasses and kicked aside an overturned globe that had once functioned as a minibar. He wondered what to do next.

  The house was too big to search for hidden dangers – it contained six bedrooms alone. If the intruder was still on the premises, he would be taking a risk. On the other hand, he had no further reason to stay. The chaos here was such that he couldn’t even find the remote control and turn off the drivel behind him, not to mention the answers he hoped would lighten the darkness of his psyche.

  ‘Yes, fine, but what if something goes wrong?’

  ‘Okay, viewers, what do you think? Call us on the hot line below.’

  He was about to go when he caught sight of a drawer that had been pulled out and left lying on the floor upside down. At first sight it looked like all the rest. It wasn’t until he looked more closely that he spotted the dismaying difference.

  ‘Would you take part or not? Vote now!’

  Marc knelt down and ran his fingers over the numerals scrawled in a childish hand on the bottom of the drawer:

  23. 11.

  His child’s estimated date of birth.

  ‘Please press one for “Yes” or two for “No”.’

  He turned the drawer over. Only one document, a sheet of grey-green paper, had lodged inside. Marc picked it up in his trembling fingers. It was a statement from Constantin’s private bank.

  ‘We now come to a report made available to us by our esteemed colleague Ulrich Meyer. I’m sure it’ll exert an influence on your opinion.’

  Bigger and bigger amounts had been withdrawn in recent days. The account was in the red and the last column bore the note ‘Frozen’.

  Marc looked at the television.

  At this moment there was no difference between his inner devastation and that of the room in which he was kneeling. Someone had extracted all his mental drawers and tipped them out too. He found it impossible to order his thoughts. Everything was interconnected – Sandra, Constantin, the baby – but none of it made sense. Neither Constantin’s debts nor the ravaging of his study. Nor Sandra’s voice, which had just uttered his name loud and clear.

  62

  Marc stared dazedly at the screen, which was now showing Sandra in close-up. Her hair was sweaty and dishevelled and her eyes were bloodshot and puffy. She looked drained and desperate, but even though he had never seen her in such a state before, it was unmistakably his wife.

  There followed a quick cut to a lanky young reporter. He looked rather too immature to be making an investigative contribution to a TV news magazine, but his deep voice made up for his lack of gravitas.

  ‘Up to now, the Bleibtreu Clinic has been regarded as a reputable private hospital specializing in psychosomatic disorders. In the last few days, however, it has aroused controversy by conducting an unusual experiment. An experiment said to be taking place in the building just behind me, apparently without official authorization.’

  The camera panned across the scaffolding in front of the clinic and homed in on
the brass plate beside the entrance. The reporter continued in voice-over: ‘MME, the memory experiment – that’s the name of the programme whose participants are being brainwashed, ostensibly in order to eradicate their most distressing memories. It’s a tempting idea, of course. Fatal accidents, unhappy love affairs, personal tragedies – what if we could permanently forget all the things that prey on our minds?’

  The reporter reappeared. Inquisitive passers-by came into shot as they turned to watch him walking along the street in front of the clinic. ‘But what if something goes wrong, as it did in the case of this patient whose records have been leaked to us?’

  Marc gave a start. The television was showing a partially blacked-out document. The names of the doctors in attendance had been obliterated, but his own name appeared on nearly every line, and his photograph in the top right corner of the patient’s record sheet had not been blacked out.

  Unimaginable though it seemed, Sandra confirmed the evidence of his eyes. ‘Yes, that’s my husband’s file,’ she said, sounding even more desperate than before. ‘Please quote his name and publish his picture. It may help him to recover his memory.’

  The camera pulled back to reveal all of her. She was lying in a hospital bed, her body more bloated than ever.

  Marc began to shed silent tears.

  ‘My husband underwent treatment there, I’ve no idea why, and now he can’t remember a thing.’

  Another cut to a hand-held-camera shot of the Bleibtreu Clinic’s reception desk, in front of which Emma had so recently been overpowered. Suddenly a hand shot up and obscured the lens. A tussle ensued, and the camera’s view of the lobby went haywire.

  ‘Unfortunately, the clinic’s medical director declined to comment on these accusations. Our camera crew was forcibly ejected.’

  The report wound up with a final shot of Sandra in hospital. ‘He can’t remember a thing,’ she repeated. ‘Not even me or the baby.’ Tears were streaming down her cheeks. ‘Good God, he doesn’t even know there are complications.’