Splinter

9

They sat down again.

‘There isn’t much to tell. We were on our way back from a little family celebration at her father’s place when it happened.’

Bleibtreu leant forwards. ‘What was the occasion?’

The wind was now buffeting the scaffolding so hard that its creaks and groans were audible even through the sound-proofed, double-glazed windows. Marc sighed.

‘Sandra had just been commissioned to write a new film script. She was an actress and screenwriter – but you know that.’

Marc shuffled restlessly to and fro on the sofa as he spoke. Sandra had always laughed at him for being a fidget. He could scarcely sit still for five minutes in a cinema.

‘It was to be her first screenplay for a feature film. The Americans were prepared to pay a vast amount of money for it, and we’d been celebrating the news with her father.’

‘Professor Constantin Senner?’

‘The surgeon, that’s right. He’s…’ Marc hesitated. ‘He was my father-in-law. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Senner Clinic?’

‘We recommend it to any of our patients in need of surgery. Not that it happens often, I’m glad to say.’

Before going on, Marc adjusted his position yet again and plucked nervously at the skin beneath his chin. ‘We were driving along a little-used road through the forest from Sakrow to Spandau.’

‘Sakrow near Potsdam?’

‘Then you know it. The Senner estate lies right beside the river, facing Pfaueninsel. Anyway, I was driving a bit too fast for a single-lane road. Sandra got angry with me – I think she threatened to get out.’

Shutting his eyes for a moment, Marc strove, as he had so often, to suppress his recollections of that fateful drive.

‘What happened then?’ Bleibtreu asked cautiously. The more quietly he spoke, the more feminine his voice sounded.

‘To be totally honest, I don’t know. My recollections of the last few hours before the accident are a blur. I can’t remember any more than I’ve told you. My father-in-law attributes it to retrograde amnesia. Our little celebration and what we said on the drive home – it’s all gone.’ Marc gave a mirthless laugh. ‘I only remember the outcome, alas. The rest is up to you.’

Bleibtreu folded his arms on his chest, a pose that underlined the note of suspicion in his next question. ‘And your memory of those last few seconds in the car has never returned?’

‘In part, but only very recently. However, I’m never sure what’s a dream and what actually happened.’

‘Interesting. What do you dream of?’

Marc shrugged. ‘As a rule, all I can remember the following morning are disjointed snatches of conversation. Sandra is going on at me about something – begging me not to prevent it.’

‘The end justifies the means – aren’t you always saying so yourself? Isn’t that your motto in life?’

‘You’re crazy, Sandra. The end never justifies taking a human life.’

‘What did you want to prevent?’

‘No idea. I suspect my subconscious is playing tricks on me and I’m talking about the accident itself.’

Marc was just wondering whether he should really acquaint the professor with every detail of their last conversation when Bleibtreu asked the most agonizing question of all.

‘Why did she undo her seatbelt?’

Marc gulped. Once, then again, but the lump in his throat only seemed to increase in size.

‘I don’t know,’ he said eventually. ‘She reached back over her seat, probably for something to eat. She was in her sixth month – we always took something sweet with us in case she had a craving. And she often did, especially when she was in a bad mood.’

He wondered if someone had removed the bar of chocolate from the glove compartment before the wreck went into the crusher. The thought almost choked him.

‘What happened then?’ Bleibtreu asked quietly.

I saw she was suddenly holding something in her hand. A photo? She showed it to me, but it was colourless and coarse-grained. I couldn’t make anything out. In any case, I’m not sure the scene was real. I see it only in my dreams, though they’re becoming steadily more distinct.

Till now Marc had only told his father-in-law about this dream, and only in outline, because he thought it might be a side effect of the medication he had to take for the splinter in his neck.

‘Then the tyre burst,’ he went on. ‘The car spun round twice before it…’

He tried to smile. For some absurd reason, he felt he had to play the tragedy down in a stranger’s presence.

‘I woke up in the Senner Clinic. You can read the rest.’

Bleibtreu nodded. ‘How have you been feeling since then?’

Marc reached for his glass. It was nearly empty, but he didn’t have the energy to refill it.

How does anyone feel after killing his wife and unborn son?

‘I feel tired, limp. Every movement is an effort. My joints ache and so does my head.’ He tried another smile. ‘Stick me in an old folks’ home and I’d have plenty to talk about.’

‘Those are symptoms typical of severe depression.’

‘Or of any other fatal disease. I Googled them, and the first things to pop up were banner ads for undertakers and coffin manufacturers.’

Bleibtreu cocked his left eyebrow, inadvertently evoking another memory of Sandra. Her eyebrows, which were naturally arched, had made her look permanently surprised.

‘And you’ve only had these symptoms since the accident?’

Marc hesitated before answering. The truth was, there had been days before it when he felt wrung out and exhausted – hungover, too, even when he hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol. Constantin, who was very concerned, had talked him into undergoing a thorough health check two weeks before Sandra’s death, including blood tests and an MRI scan, but they’d failed to turn up anything untoward.

‘Well, the accident hasn’t exactly improved my condition, let’s say.’

Marc heard a sudden high-pitched buzzing sound. It was a moment before he realized that his wristwatch alarm was reminding him to take his pills. He fished two out of the tiny pocket which for some reason is secreted in the right-hand pocket of most pairs of jeans. In the old days he’d kept sticks of chewing gum in there.

‘You take those for the injury to your neck?’ asked the professor as Marc washed them down with the rest of the water.

Marc nodded, instinctively touching his plaster. ‘The surgeons won’t risk operating. The splinter is only small, but it’s right next to the cervical vertebrae. The pills I take are meant to help the foreign body knit with the muscular tissue so it doesn’t cause inflammation or get rejected. If that doesn’t work, they’ll have to cut it out, though there’s a chance I’ll wake up paralysed from the neck down.’

‘Does it hurt?’

‘No, just itches.’

The real pain was more deep-seated. The ridiculous splinter was nothing compared to the axe-stroke that had cleft his soul.

‘Well now…’ said Bleibtreu, but Marc cut him short.

‘No, that’s enough. This medication makes me feel dog-tired. I often feel queasy too, so I’ll have to lie down soon if you don’t want me to throw up all over your floor. Besides, I’ve had enough of this. You’ve been stringing me along ever since I got into your car. Instead of supplying me with answers, you and your colleague have given me the third degree. You’ve two alternatives: either I walk out of that door right now-’

‘-or I let you into our little secret at last,’ Bleibtreu interjected, flashing Marc another of his five-star publicity-brochure grins. ‘Very well.’

He heaved himself rather ponderously out of his armchair, but his smile didn’t fade.

‘Come with me. You may be only a few steps away from a new life.’