Splinter

21

The situation was ridiculous. Confronting him was an unknown woman who sounded like a paranoid conspiracy theorist. She imagined she was being dogged by unseen pursuers from whom they had to escape at once, yet he felt he had to talk to this creature because she was the first person in ages who appeared to recognize him.

‘You know who I am?’

‘Yes, come on.’

Emma pulled a snow-white hood over her bedraggled hair and set off. It was only now that Marc noticed that her knee-boots were, surprisingly, far from down-at-heel. She also seemed to be in better physical condition than her obesity suggested. It was an effort to keep up with her, and he soon broke out into a sweat.

‘Do we know each other?’ he asked. Emma strode along with her head down, looking like a boxer on his way to the ring. ‘I mean,’ he added rather breathlessly, ‘have we ever met before?’ He was suffering from the effects of lack of medication and felt even wearier and more wrung out than he usually did at this hour. At least his nausea had subsided a little, but that could be down to the MCP drops he’d taken at the beginning of his last taxi ride.

‘No, we’ve never met.’

Emma’s reply reassured and disturbed him in equal measure. On the one hand, it accorded with his own certainty that he’d never seen this woman before. On the other, it posed the question of how she knew who he was.

He caught hold of her sleeve and brought her to a stop. ‘What do you know about me?’

‘Please can we straighten that out on the way?’

‘On the way to where?’

A car crawled past. Emma swiftly turned to face a shop window displaying women’s shoes that cost more than a laptop – despite the 30 per cent price reduction emblazoned in bold lettering.

‘He’s only looking for a parking place,’ said Marc, and she promptly lost interest in a pair of high-heeled Italian sandals.

‘Quick, quick!’

She hurried across the street, taking a bunch of keys from her jacket pocket. When Marc saw what she was rushing towards, his original assumption about her was finally dispelled. Nobody who drove an old Volkswagen Beetle with a divided rear window could be an urban vagrant.

But he wasn’t interested in going for a drive in this peculiar creature’s car. He wanted some answers.

‘Stop, wait.’

Although he hadn’t raised his voice she must have sensed its latent threat. She turned and saw the mobile in his hand.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m going to call the police and-’

‘No, don’t!’

She came back with her hands outstretched defensively, stark panic in her eyes. Marc knew that look of desperation. He’d often seen it in his street kids when they were told their parents were waiting in the room next door.

‘Oh yes, I should have done it before, at the “Beach”.’

He dialled 110 and put his thumb on the key with the green telephone.

‘The “Beach”? That’s what you call your Hasenheide office, isn’t it?’

How does she know that?

He removed his thumb from the key.

‘What else do you know about me?’

Emma drew a deep breath.

‘You’re Dr Marc Lucas, lawyer and social worker, age thirty-two, of Steinmetzstrasse, Schöneberg. Widower, formerly married to Sandra Senner, thirty-three. She lost her life in a car crash. And…’

She opened the passenger door and went round to the driver’s side.

‘…and you mustn’t call the police, not under any circumstances.’

The chill had spread from Marc’s sodden trainers to his throbbing temples. He rubbed his ears, but they were as numb as his fingers.

‘Why not?’ he demanded.

‘Not before I’ve explained what’s happening to you.’

She opened the driver’s door, got in and wound the window down. The eyes behind her glasses were blurred by raindrops.

Marc stared at her. ‘Who the hell are you?’

She gave him a mournful look and started the engine. It wasn’t loud enough to drown her mysterious and disconcerting reply: ‘I can’t remember.’

She backed out of the parking space with the passenger door open and pulled up right beside him.

‘Please get in, Dr Lucas. We’re in great danger.’