He took a couple of slow steps, then three or four very quick ones. He pulled off his blood-stained gloves and threw them into the car. Closing his eyes momentarily, he slammed the rear door shut, then got in his seat, turned off the interior light and, closing his own door with his left hand, swung the car to the right and headed towards the policeman operating the traffic signals at the centre of the crossroads. Just at that moment, the lights turned green on the ring road. A stream of cars that had started moving again drove towards the crossing, but as Sponer cut across, all hell broke loose. Some drivers cursed and slammed on their brakes right in front of Sponer’s car, others tried to swerve around him, while the majority pulled up behind with a jolt. The policeman yelled something. Sponer drove right up to him. “What the hell?” the policeman shouted. Sponer suddenly found himself front bumper to front bumper with a convertible that had been waiting in the right-hand lane at the crossing in order to join the ring road, and the driver, who was already moving, had to brake in the nick of time.
“Get back!” the policeman yelled, and pulled out his notebook from under the cuff of his sleeve to take down Sponer’s number. Sponer leant out of the car window.
“Officer,” he said, “I’ve…”
“Are you mad?” the policeman yelled.
“Officer!” Sponer called out. “I’ve got a…”
“Get back!” the policeman shouted.
Sponer went into reverse, but immediately collided with a car that was trying to negotiate round him. The policeman screamed at him.
“There’s a dead man in my car!” Sponer shouted at the top of his voice, but the noise from the convertible which had braked in front of him and was now edging its way out of the jam drowned his words. The policeman raged and gesticulated; cars drove past. Sponer shouted to the policeman a few more times, but finally realized he couldn’t get through to him, engaged first gear with a curse, swung round the policeman and, changing up rapidly, raced off in the direction of Kärntner Strasse.
He had to get to a police station. He turned left off Kärntner Strasse into Neuer Markt, sped along Plankengasse, and pulled up in front of the police station in Bräunerstrasse.
A policeman was standing at the door, but Sponer rushed past him. He had had enough of policemen; he was going to talk directly to the inspector. When he entered the charging room he saw three or four officers who were trying to restrain a drunk who had just been brought in.
Two of them were holding the man by his arms while a third tried to force him down on a bench. The drunk, however, was lashing out with his feet. Sponer turned to the fourth officer, who was barking out the orders.
“Something’s happened,” he said, but received no answer. He grabbed the officer’s arm. “Inspector!” he said. The policeman turned towards him for a split second but was forced to turn round again because the drunk, having been briefly forced down onto the bench, had jumped up again and was about to break loose, whereupon all four officers hurled themselves at him. The drunk displayed extraordinary physical strength, as if the superior forces he was struggling against had driven him wild. In the end, however, the policemen overcame him by their sheer weight, and as he lay spluttering on the bench, they vented their anger in a torrent of abuse. Sponer stood in the middle of the room, and the events of the past minutes raced through his mind like short, randomly edited film clips: the dead man, the speeding cars, the news stand, the dead man, the carriageway, the blood, the dead man, the streets, the dead man. Caught a taxi at the station. “Hotel Bristol!” Ten minutes’ drive. “Old or New?” No reply. “There are two: the Old Bristol and the New.” No answer. Light on. The man sitting there, not moving. Leaves his seat, starts shaking him. He slumps forward, the head lolls back. Blood from his mouth. He’s wedged between the suitcase and the seat. Someone’s shot him through the throat. Who? He was in the cab by himself! “Who?” asks the inspector. “The dead man!”—“And the other one?”—“What other one?”—“The one who shot him!”—“There wasn’t anyone else.”—“There must’ve been a second person who’d…”—“No, he was on his own.”—“Where was the person who shot him then?”—“I don’t know.”—“But when you heard the shots and turned around…”—“I didn’t hear any shots.”—“You didn’t hear any shots?”—“No. I mean, yes: it was probably some exhaust backfiring…”—“What type of backfiring?”—“A lorry I was overtaking.”—“And when you turned around?”—“I didn’t turn around.”—“You didn’t turn around?”—“No.”—“Dammit, man!” the inspector yells. “Someone gets shot in your car, and you don’t so much as turn around?”—“No, I thought…”—“A murder is committed in your car as you drive along, and you don’t notice a thing? A man is bumped off so close behind you that you could reach out with your hand and touch him, and yet you see nothing, absolutely nothing of the murderer? You continue driving with the dead man in your car and expect me to believe you had no idea he was dead, and it was only after you touched him that he slumped forward, and is now lying between the seat and the suitcase, and the car’s outside the door…”
“What do you want?”
The policemen had overpowered the drunk at last, and the officer whose arm Sponer had pulled now stood facing him and said, “What do you want?”
Sponer stared at him. He must’ve committed suicide. The man shot himself. That’s right! Seeing as there wasn’t anybody else there… On the other hand, if it wasn’t suicide… If the dead man didn’t even have a weapon on him… He hadn’t seen one lying there. If, however, someone had jumped on the running board, pulled the door open, fired, slammed the door shut and jumped off… And you didn’t notice a thing? Didn’t hear the shots? Thought it was backfiring? And the man in the car didn’t shout out when the other person burst in and attacked him? A person who’d just arrived is attacked and murdered before he even reaches his hotel… Why? Why on earth should anyone… I haven’t got a clue who the murdered person was or who did it! How the hell should I know why the bastards did it in my car… the bastards, for that’s what they are…
“Well?” the policeman asked. “What’s the matter?”
“I…” Sponer said.
“Yes?”
“I… I only wanted to…”
“What did you want?”
“I wanted to see if a…”
“If a what?”
“If a mate of mine…”
“Yes?”
“If he’s here,” Sponer gasped.
“What mate?” the policeman asked.
“Another… another driver.”
“Should he be here?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Sponer stuttered, “because he… was involved in an accident.”
“Oh? Do you have any details.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Where did the accident take place?”
“In town.”
“Yes, but where?”
“On the Freyung.”
“I see. Who else was involved?”
“It… it was a car.”
“What type of car?”
“Another car.”
The policeman frowned.
“Really?” he cried, clearly still furious after the struggle with the drunk. “Another car? Not his own? Are you trying to be funny?”
“No, Inspector,” Sponer mumbled, “I only wanted to say…”
“What did you want to say?”
“I only wanted to ask if he was here.”