Splinter

33

A distracting noise that ultimately unnerved him even more than the self-illuminated dolphin lamp, it resembled the menacing hum of a hornet trapped between a blind and a window pane and becoming steadily more aggressive in its desperate attempts to escape. Except that the sound was coming from the hallway, where there were no windows, and was far too rhythmical to be made by a maddened, struggling insect.

Marc turned towards the bedroom door and the humming in his ears abruptly ceased. The sudden silence was so complete that he could hear the faint click of the electricity meter and the liquid gurgle of the central heating.

‘Anyone there?’ he called, dry-throated, only to flinch in alarm the instant he crossed the threshold of the darkened hallway.

The hornet was back. It sounded even louder now. Louder and more infuriated.

Marc’s heartbeat speeded up as he crept along in search of some object with which to defend himself. But then, just before the humming noise became continuous, he realized the absurdity of his behaviour. He looked up at the little grey box above and to the right of the door frame.

‘Shit, I’m afraid of my own doorbell,’ he whispered. He made another attempt to laugh at himself, but his efforts to master his fear misfired.

Like a hornet. It sounds like a trapped, infuriated hornet.

No one knew his new address except the men from the removals firm and Roswitha.

So who can it be?

His eye fell again on the door chain, which someone must have replaced from the inside after his father-in-law disappeared. He shivered.

‘Constantin?’

Goose pimples broke out all over his body as he put his eye to the spyhole. He peered through it and groaned aloud. Although the continuous hum had changed to a rhythmical staccato, he couldn’t see anybody with their finger on the button.

What’s going on here? Perhaps it’s all in my head. Perhaps there isn’t any bell at all. No door, no flat, no Sandra.

He really did laugh now, albeit with a touch of hysteria.

Perhaps there isn’t even any me?

In a sudden access of fatalism he removed the chain and wrenched the door open.

Nobody.

Neither right outside the door nor in the passage. No Constantin, no neighbour, no stranger. He was alone, and that was how he felt – alone – as he slowly pushed the door shut and rested his head against it.

The infuriated buzzing of the bell stopped for a moment, then adopted a different rhythm.

Three short, three long, three short.

SOS?

He fingered the sweat-sodden plaster on his neck, the only part of his body unaffected by the icy stranglehold that was steadily tightening its grip on him.

A ghostly doorbell signalling in Morse. Even my hallucinations show a sense of humour, you’ve got to grant me that.

He backed into the living room without taking his eyes off the little buzzing box above the door. From it, a length of flex ran down the wall, dividing at the level of the door handle. One half ran down to the skirting board, the other ran parallel to the floor and disappeared behind his overcoat, which was hanging on a rail that had been there when he moved in.

Three short. Three long.

Of course!

I’m so exhausted I can’t think straight.

He pulled the coat aside, recalling the rapturous sales talk of the estate agent, who had implied that a simple intercom was NASA’s latest technical achievement and more than justified the exorbitant rent.

The intercom emitted a beep as he picked up the receiver. Instantly, the hornet stopped humming.

‘Yes?’ he croaked. He was almost relieved to get an answer, even if the voice belonged to the person he’d recently run away from.

‘Can you talk?’

Emma. Her diffident, submissive tone was unmistakable.

He stared at the displayless intercom, incapable of replying.

‘Hello? Is he still with you?’

There was a click. Marc finally regained the power of speech.

‘Who do you mean? How did you know where I live?’

‘I followed you,’ she said, and coughed.

‘You followed me?’ he repeated stupidly.

‘Yes, to the police station. Then here. I saw you go inside with him.’

‘Constantin?’

‘I don’t know his name. He’s one of them, that’s all I know.’

One of them?

‘Come down here before it’s too late.’

He shook his head, as if Emma could see him from down in the street below. ‘So you can trap me again?’

‘What do you mean, trap you? What are you talking about? I’m the one who’s being hunted.’

Hunted?

‘Listen…’ His voice was shaking. ‘I don’t know who you’re working for, but-’

‘Working for? What on earth do you mean? I’m on the run like you. I’m all on my own.’

‘Oh yeah? So who were you talking to about me on the phone? Back at the hotel, I mean?’

Emma sighed. ‘Oh, so that’s it. I’ll explain later.’

‘No, now. Who were you calling?’

There was another click on the line and the static grew louder.

‘My mobile.’

‘What?’

She hesitated. ‘I call myself once every hour and tell my mobile where I am, who I’m with and what I’m going to do next. It’s just a precaution, in case something happens to me or they wipe my memory again.’

‘And I’m supposed to believe that?’

‘Why should I lie to you? I’m in need of help myself, even though you’re now in greater danger than I am. So hurry up and come down here.’

‘I’m sure I’m safer up here in my flat than I would be down there with you.’

‘Nonsense. I’ve been here for half an hour and I haven’t seen anyone leave the building. That means he must still be with you. And that, in turn, means that you’re…’

‘I’m alone,’ he broke in.

‘…in great danger, because the programme is still in operation.’

‘I’m not in any programme!’ Marc bellowed into the receiver.

‘You are, and I’ll prove it to you.’

‘How?’ he demanded. He felt a sudden breath of air on the back of his neck, as if someone were coming up behind him. He swung round, wide-eyed with fear.

‘She’s still alive,’ he heard Emma whisper. ‘Come down here and I’ll prove it to you.’ Her voice was almost inaudible.

It can’t be true. It mustn’t be.

He didn’t hear himself utter the words aloud, but he saw that he had by his breath. The all-embracing chill was no delusion; it was streaming into the flat like liquid oxygen. Through the wide-open window in the living room. The window he’d only just firmly secured.