Splinter

51

The first time they drove there he couldn’t believe it was a proper road at all. The route that ran through the forest between Potsdam and Berlin, via Sakrow, was little wider than the average pavement. If you wanted to avoid oncoming traffic, you risked scratching your car’s paintwork on the fir trees alongside.

At the moment, however, they had the road to Spandau to themselves and Marc could put his foot down.

‘I wish you hadn’t found out.’ Sandra was gazing out of the window. ‘Not so soon, at least.’

They often argued in the car. As usual, she avoided looking him in the eye.

‘You shouldn’t have taken me with you, then.’

She nodded. A moment later, still watching the trees flit past, she reached for his hand. ‘Still, you do see we don’t have any choice, don’t you?’

His laugh was rather forced. Then, when she squeezed his hand so hard that it hurt, he said: ‘You can’t be serious, surely?’

He briefly contemplated pulling up, getting out and shaking some sense into her. His wife had clearly lost her mind.

‘The end justifies the means,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that what you always say?’

He speeded up. A yellow star lit up on the dashboard, indicating that the outside temperature had dropped below four degrees.

‘Well, isn’t that your motto in life?’

‘You’re crazy, Sandra. Killing is never justified.’

‘But you can’t prevent it.’

She let out a sob. As a rule, Marc always gave in when she started crying, but today it only made him angrier.

‘Oh yes I will, believe me.’

The speedo needle crept past 70 kph and the fir trees beside the road dissolved into a grey-green blur.

He glanced sideways. The glow from the dashboard made the tears on her cheek look like blood trickling from a wound.

‘You mustn’t,’ she protested. ‘I won’t let you.’

‘Really? I already did it once. How do you propose to stop me this time?’

Now it was his turn to stare obdurately ahead. For a while they didn’t speak, then they rounded a bend and the road became more undulating. Constantin’s house had long since disappeared from the rear-view mirror.

She was sobbing louder now. He longed to put out a soothing hand and stroke the medicine ball of a pregnant tummy that bulged below her seatbelt. But then she did something unexpected. She unbuckled the seatbelt and turned round. He had the sudden feeling that someone was sitting in the back, a stranger who had been listening to their altercation the whole time. But Sandra turned back, with a photograph in her hand. Coarse-grained and greyish-black, like an ultrasound print.

‘Look at it!’ she shouted.

But before he could look back at the road there was an ear-splitting crash. The steering wheel bucked in his grasp, and although he strove with all his might to correct it he failed. His last sight was of Sandra’s hands dropping the print and fumbling desperately for her seatbelt. Then lightning struck and everything went glaringly white. The next thing he saw was the worried face of an elderly man bending over him and patting his cheek.

‘He’s coming round,’ said the face.

And that was when Marc really did open his eyes.