Splinter

64

‘Why did he do that?’ Marc had to shout to make himself heard above the headwind, which seemed to be scything into his face with the velocity of a tornado. Valka had blown out the windscreen but only perforated the driver’s seat when Benny hurled himself aside at the last moment.

‘Why did he just walk off like that?’ Marc looked back at Benny, who had made it back into the car and was lying sideways across the rear seat with his knees drawn up, mopping his mouth with the bottom of his T-shirt.

‘No idea. Must be my lucky day.’

Benny heaved, then turned on his side and threw up over the floor mats. It was a while before he could go on. ‘I reckon he didn’t want to get his own hands dirty. His people will find me soon enough.’ He groaned. ‘It’s all over anyway.’

Marc shook his head uncomprehendingly. ‘We’re almost there,’ he shouted above the wind.

Just to make matters worse, it was sleeting again. The wet snow was blinding him. Cars, pedestrians, road markings, the buildings on either side – all were dissolving into a blur before his eyes.

Benny tried to raise his head. ‘Where are we going?’

‘To the Senner Clinic.’

A people carrier behind them flashed its lights, but Marc couldn’t drive any faster, much as he wanted to. He removed one cold, wet hand from the steering wheel and blew on it, then felt in his pocket for the pistol, which he’d retrieved from a puddle of melted snow. Even the magazine was still in place.

‘Where are we, for God’s sake?’ Benny tried to prop himself on his elbows, but his strength failed and he subsided again. They were driving through a suburb so neat and tidy that it could have passed for a picturesque Bavarian village. The pubs were called The Coachman’s Rest or The Village Inn and there were almost as many churches as livery stables. It was no wonder the locals attending the weekly street market turned to stare at their shot-up car as if it had materialized from outer space.

Marc let go of the wheel and wiped his streaming face. The sleet was turning to snow, causing him to slow down even more.

‘There’s something I must tell you,’ he heard Benny groan. He looked in the rear-view mirror.

‘When you dropped out of the band and I swallowed those pills…’

‘It was bad, Benny, I know. I should have taken more care of you.’

‘No, I don’t mean that.’ Benny coughed. ‘I didn’t do it because of you.’

‘So why did you?’

‘Because of Sandra.’

The words smote Marc in the face, cold as the sleet. Sandra?

‘You weren’t the only one who was in love with her.’

Marc turned round.

‘Don’t worry,’ Benny said defensively. ‘I never had an affair with her, though she wavered at first.’

Marc stiffened. His fingers tightened their grip on the steering wheel as he tried to sort out his whirling thoughts.

So that explains it…

That was why Sandra had kept him dangling for so long at the start of their relationship. She’d been unable to decide between him and his brother.

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘So you don’t worry about me any more,’ Benny said haltingly. ‘The truth is, Sandra fell in love with you very soon. I was just an aberration – the pathetic younger brother who confused her for a short time. We met three times, then she realized you were the right one for her. I accepted that, but afterwards I simply couldn’t bear being anywhere near you both.’

Does that mean…

The jigsaw puzzle was forming a picture piece by piece.

… his first suicide attempt stemmed from a broken heart?

‘You never left me in the lurch, Luke. I was the one who severed contact. And then…’ His voice tailed off.

‘Then what?’ Marc insisted.

‘One day, quite by chance, I bumped into her again. It was when she was pregnant the first time.’

Marc could scarcely breathe.

Three years ago? Was Benny the reason for her odd behaviour? Was it him she’d been with at that café in Neukölln?

‘Believe it or not, I was in an even worse state then than I am now,’ Benny said. He spat out some more blood. ‘She saw at once that I was in a bad way and automatically blamed herself – as if her decision to fall in love with you was the reason for my hitting the skids.’ He gave a hollow laugh. ‘That was crap. The responsibility was mine alone.’

His voice was growing steadily fainter. It sounded almost dreamy, and Marc began to grasp the truth.

Damn it, he’s still in love with her. After all this time…

‘Her relationship with me was very much like yours, Marc. She wanted to help me – to make up for what she thought of as her mistake. I’m afraid she even had second thoughts about her relationship with you and wondered if she’d made the right decision. But hell, Marc, she was a pregnant bundle of hormones at the time. I’m sure you experienced her mood swings for yourself.’

‘I still don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me.’

‘It’s quite simple. Sandra and I met on several occasions, and each time she ended up feeling worse. She couldn’t talk to you about it. Your marriage was at stake, after all, and she knew how rocky our own relationship was. In the end she turned to her father for help. She meant to ask him to help me. With his money and his connections, I mean.’

Marc glanced over his shoulder. He had seldom seen his brother look as sad as he did now.

‘Now do you understand?’ Benny demanded hoarsely. ‘If it hadn’t been for me, she wouldn’t have lost her first child. She’d have been with you on the day of the break-in, not out at Constantin’s place.’

Marc sensed that he’d been holding his breath for far too long. Greedily, he sucked in lungfuls of icy air. Then he coughed, and the cough relieved some of the tension that had built up in the last few minutes.

‘Forget it,’ he said. He brushed some bits of shattered windscreen off the passenger seat and deposited Benny’s pistol on it in case of another attack. ‘You weren’t to blame.’

‘Yes, I was.’

‘No. It was chance – a quirk of fate. If anyone failed, we both did.’

After a couple of minutes, during which Marc silently digested his brother’s confession, they pulled up at a red light. The wind had veered, and he took advantage of the delay to mop his eyebrows, mouth and nose with a handkerchief.

‘We both got it wrong, didn’t we?’ he said.

Benny grunted.

‘And now?’ Marc glanced at the rear-view mirror. ‘Will we manage to straighten things out?’

‘I don’t know. We could always consult the radio oracle,’ Benny quipped through gritted teeth.

Radio oracle…

The very words triggered a host of old memories as numerous as the snowflakes that were once more whirling into the car. If he remembered rightly, the last time they’d played it was the night they dumped their father’s car in the flooded gravel pit.

‘Shall I?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Benny called back. He coughed. It might also have been a laugh; Marc couldn’t tell. They were just turning into Heerstrasse.

‘Okay, the question is: “Dear radio oracle, how will everything turn out today?”’

Marc slowed to 50 kph and turned on the radio at random.

A commercial.

‘We don’t have time. Skip it!’

Marc pressed the search button. They landed on some instrumental jazz, then on a classical programme. After that came talking or news broadcasts. They didn’t succeed until the seventh attempt.

‘I know, I know what’s on your mind,’ sang a strikingly high-pitched male voice. ‘And I know it gets tough sometimes.’

‘You can say that again,’ said Benny.

Marc glanced over his shoulder. ‘Know who it is?’

Benny didn’t open his eyes. He shrugged apologetically, the cuts and bruises on his swollen face conveying some idea of the pain he was in.

‘Do you?’ he asked almost inaudibly.

They came to a bridge over the Havel. The tyres skidded on the icy surface, and Marc slowed down, although everything inside him was urging him to head as fast as possible for the hospital, where Benny could be attended to.

And where Sandra was just giving birth to their child?

He almost welcomed this opportunity to occupy his mind with this puerile game. It meant he didn’t have to reflect on the fact that he was on his way to see his late wife giving birth to their child.

‘I’ll think of it in a minute,’ he said as the refrain began.

‘’Cause it’s all right, I think we’re going to make it.’

He dried his face on his sleeve. His skin, his lips, even his tongue seemed to have gone on strike. Not long to go now, though. He could vaguely discern the high-rise building in the distance.

The Senner Clinic marked the boundary between Spandau and Charlottenburg. Most of the buildings in the complex were at most two or three storeys high and almost hidden from Heerstrasse by a dense belt of trees. But the new fourteen-storey hospital block, which also housed a hotel for convalescents and patients’ families, jutted into the sky like a phallus and served as a guide to drivers on their way to open-air concerts in the woods. Here, at the latest, was where they had to turn on their indicators.

‘I think it might just work out this time.’

‘Hear that? Everything’s fine. We’re going to make it.’

All right.

Marc knew it was a silly, irrational, childish superstition but he couldn’t help feeling heartened by the radio oracle’s prediction.

They left Heerstrasse and turned down a private approach road. Notice boards warned drivers to proceed at a walking pace. The outside lights were on already.

‘Okay, but what’s the singer’s name?’ Benny was coughing again, and this time it didn’t sound like laughter.

Had Valka shot him after all?

Fear for his brother dispelled his irrational euphoria.

‘I don’t know,’ Marc said quietly. The road narrowed and came out in a visitors’ car park.

‘Shit, you know what that means.’

Marc nodded mutely. Of course he knew the rules; he’d invented them himself over twenty years ago. The radio oracle didn’t count unless you knew the singer’s name. If you didn’t it brought bad luck.

‘Yes, it’s a bad omen, but I’ll think of it in a minute.’

Criss, Christoph, Chris Jones, Christopher…

It was on the tip of his tongue when a mobile phone beeped in the footwell. He looked down in surprise. ‘Hey, somebody wants you.’

The Nokia’s display was flashing. He bent down and picked it up. A sealed envelope was indicating the receipt of a text message.

‘It fell out of my pocket earlier on,’ said Benny.

Marc gave a start. Then every muscle in his body tensed.

‘What is it?’ Benny asked, but Marc was staring at the phone, transfixed.

It can’t be true. Not this on top of everything else…

Benny had activated the preview function, so Marc had two seconds to read the sender’s name and message:

Where are you, Benny?

Hurry, it’s almost time.

We can’t start without Marc!

Constantin

Marc stared aghast at the rear-view mirror, which dealt him his next shock. All he saw at first was Benny’s hand reaching for the grab handle. Then his face came into view.

Benny made a sudden lunge for the passenger seat, but Marc was too quick for him. He braked hard and the pistol fell to the floor. The car spun round ninety degrees, slithered another half-metre, and came to rest just short of a stop sign.

Reaching down, Marc retrieved the automatic and put the muzzle to his brother’s blood-stained forehead.