Splinter

71

Marc studied his reflection in the glass door to the terrace with the snowflakes dancing behind it.

It was obvious once you knew: the yellow-tinged eyes, the fatigue, the ever-intensifying pains in his head and limbs, the itching. All symptoms of cirrhosis.

In front of him, Benny was trying to haul himself back on to his chair. ‘Your liver’s fucked,’ he gasped. ‘Not as badly as your son’s – he doesn’t have any bile ducts at all. You’ve got a bit more time, Marc, but not much more. Understand?’

No, he didn’t. His brain registered all the facts but his mind refused to recognize the connections between them.

‘You mean to sacrifice yourself?’ he asked, dumbfounded.

‘We don’t have any choice.’

Benny had struggled to his feet and was clinging exhaustedly to the back of the chair. ‘Your baby’s liver damage was discovered long before the accident – by ultrasound, during a routine examination here,’ he explained hurriedly. ‘Constantin was shocked, but he didn’t tell either you or Sandra. You weren’t supposed to find out until he’d located a suitable donor.’

‘You!’

Benny nodded.

‘He began by checking the official donor data banks and put the baby on the waiting list, but how likely was it that an infant belonging to a compatible blood group would die in time?’

Zilch.

‘So he examined all the potential donors in the family.’

Although everything within him rebelled, Marc began to draw the right conclusions. So that was why his father-in-law had persuaded him to undergo that health check three weeks before the accident. Fatigue, nausea and aching limbs – Constantin had identified the cause of those symptoms but concealed it from him.

‘You inherited your liver damage from our father and passed it on to the baby, Marc. I’m the only close relation who was spared.’ Benny laughed. ‘Ironical, isn’t it, that I should be the broken link in the chain?’

While his brother was talking to him persuasively, almost imploringly, Marc recalled the cryptic words of Benny’s nurse, Leana Schmidt, which now made sense to him:

‘Benny’s behaviour changed the day after he had an MRI scan… We normally scan the brain for anomalies, but they only scanned the lower part of his body… I got hold of the pictures… He’s perfectly fit.’

‘You propose to die for my sake?’ Marc asked. The very question sounded inconceivable.

Benny rose with an effort. ‘Yours and the baby’s. That’s the plan. Constantin told you when you met him at his house on the day of the accident.’

Which I wasn’t supposed to remember.

‘Is there really no other potential donor?’ Marc asked helplessly.

‘No.’ Benny looked at him sadly. ‘Neither legally nor on the black market. I’ve tried everything.’

So that’s why you needed the money… The words flashed through Marc’s mind. Ninety thousand euros. Benny had borrowed the money from Valka to purchase an organ illegally, to save his life and that of his child, but the deal had fallen through.

‘Marc, look at me.’ Benny thumped his chest with his fist. ‘I’ve got a healthy liver and a compatible blood group, unlike Sandra. You won’t find that combination in a hurry. Don’t you see what it means?’

Marc nodded. His brother was the ideal donor. That was why he had suddenly changed his lifestyle, working out and eating a healthy diet. All in readiness for the forthcoming operation. And that was why Valka had let him go. Benny must have let him into the secret at the last moment, probably after he’d been dragged out of the car and beaten up in the drive of Constantin’s villa. Valka had refrained from shooting Benny only because he knew he would soon be dead in any case. Why soil his hands when his victim was going to kill himself?

‘Sandra loves you,’ Benny said quietly. ‘So does Constantin. They arranged all this so as not to lose everything at a stroke – you and the child. So please,’ he entreated, ‘give me back the gun. Let me get this over.’

Marc retreated a step. Even though his memory of their last meeting at Constantin’s villa was still incomplete, he now knew exactly what they had been arguing about in the car on the way home.

‘Still, you do see we don’t have any choice, don’t you?’

At the end of her tether, Sandra had agreed to this murderous plan to save her child and her husband. He had vehemently opposed it, and had it not been for their accident on the return trip, he would undoubtedly have thwarted his brother’s suicide attempt a second time.

‘But why did you go to such lengths?’ he asked desperately.

‘Sandra told you: things got out of control. On the one hand, Constantin wanted to maintain your amnesia so you didn’t prevent my death. On the other, he had to prepare you for the operation. That was another reason why you had to go and have your dressing changed so often.’

‘Why didn’t he simply drug me or abduct me?’

‘What, Constantin?’ Benny shook his head. ‘Your father-in-law may be unscrupulous but he isn’t a criminal. On the contrary, he wanted to save your life. At first he thought a single lie would do the trick, so he shut you up in a mental prison far harder to break out of than any form of physical restraint – do you understand? He couldn’t just let you disappear either. First you had to retract your statement to the board of examiners, otherwise I would never have been discharged from that psychiatric hospital.’ Benny coughed. ‘It all went pear-shaped, of course, and when Emma suddenly appeared on the scene the chaos was complete. The script didn’t contain a part for an escaped lunatic. We hadn’t allowed for her, any more than we expected you to ask me, of all people, for help. Damn it, Marc, I’d meant to spend the last few hours before my death saying goodbye to everyone, but all at once I had you, Valka and that paranoid creature breathing down my neck.’ Benny’s voice shook. ‘Sandra wanted to back out at one stage. She begged Constantin to ditch the whole scheme and come clean with you, but by then he wasn’t behaving rationally any more. All that drove them both in the end was panic and fear.’ He swallowed hard. ‘Fear for you, fear for the baby. Have you got it at last?’

Yes, alas.

They had traumatized but not meant to kill him. The whole business had merely served to protect him. He was to forget in order to survive.

‘And now?’ said Marc. His physical and mental strength had finally run out. ‘Where do we go from here?’