Splinter

42

‘So I was right!’ Marc felt almost relieved at not being mistaken for once. Emma was a threat after all. She wasn’t on his side of the abyss; or, if she was, only so as to push him over the edge.

It had all been just a ploy. The papers in the hotel room, the photo of Sandra, the fainting fit that had enabled her to snatch Benny’s gun while they were hefting her downstairs.

‘We have to get going,’ Emma said hoarsely. She was still looking utterly drained. Her moon face was puffier than ever, her sweaty cheeks were threaded with dark-red capillaries, her eyelids quivering with fatigue, but she still had sufficient energy to transfer the automatic from brother to brother at one-second intervals. She also cast hurried glances at the ambulance, which was now driving past them at walking pace, presumably because the driver had spotted the gun in her hand and preferred to avoid another confrontation.

‘What do you want me to do?’ Marc asked quietly. His state of mind had automatically switched to the almost dispassionate mode he’d adopted during years of conflict resolution with his street kids.

‘Over to my car, please!’ Emma indicated her Beetle, which was parked in a bay some twenty metres away with one wheel on the kerb.

‘Okay, I’ll come with you,’ Marc replied. ‘But first you must give me that gun.’

‘No!’ she snapped. ‘We’re in danger, don’t you understand? Quick!’ She shouted the last words: ‘We must get out of here!’

‘Be quiet!’

They all turned their heads and stared at the entrance to the building next door, but the man who had shouted at them was nowhere to be seen. The door was wide open, but the passage beyond it was in total darkness.

‘Who’s there?’ Emma called, glancing over her shoulder. The only response was a faint scratching sound followed by the metallic rattle of a chain being dragged across a hard stone surface.

‘Hello?’ she called again. Absurd enough already, the situation became more ludicrous still when a dog’s furry head peered around the door post. The blackish retriever cross-breed looked straight at them, gave a cavernous yawn and ambled out into the rain. Its fur was so thick and matted the raindrops couldn’t have penetrated more than a couple of millimetres.

‘Come back, Freddy,’ called the reedy voice that had just shouted at them. ‘Come here and go back to sleep.’

Just a tramp. We’ve woken a down-and-out.

Emma’s relief was palpable. The only witnesses to their altercation were a harmless vagrant and his mongrel sleeping rough in the entrance to a building. Refocusing her attention on Marc and Benny, she jerked the gun in the direction of her car.

‘Where are we going?’ asked Marc.

‘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.