‘Where does Haberland come into it?’
‘It’s a complicated story – he told me it in outline during one of our therapy sessions. It took place on the other side of the city, more or less where you insist on going now.’
They passed a sign for the A113. On the other side of the street a knot of people had taken refuge from the snow in a bus shelter, but the wind was blowing it almost horizontally across the pavement, so only the ones on the inside were spared. Although Marc’s seat was heated and a jet of warm air was blowing straight at his chest, he felt as unprotected as the pedestrians. The cold he was exposed to was of a different nature. It came from within.
Constantin.
Twice a week he’d gone to have his dressing changed. Twice a week he’d thought it exceptionally considerate of his father-in-law to attend to him personally instead of leaving the task to one of his nurses. He had lived with the threat of paraplegia and been advised to avoid violent exercise, forbidden to play any kind of sport, to touch the wound or even to get it wet, which had made showering awkward.
All lies, and all for one purpose only.
No splinter, no wound. No wound, no reason to take pills regularly.
That was why the chemist didn’t have the medication in stock. Far from being immuno-suppressives, the pills he’d been made to take every day had presumably served to throw his mind out of gear, to paralyse or even alter it. They were powerful psychiatric drugs, just as Inspector Stoya had told him at the station.
Marc took the plastic bag containing the unpaid-for medication from his jacket pocket and removed an aspirin. Although he was feeling better than he had a few hours ago, his basic symptoms – dizziness, nausea and leaden-limbed fatigue – had not subsided.
‘What did Haberland give me?’ he asked Benny, wondering how his stomach would react if he swallowed the aspirin without water.
‘Nothing.’
Benny veered right on to the fast lane of the slip road leading to the urban expressway. The windscreen wipers were waging a furious battle with the snowflakes, which did not stick to the windscreen but hampered visibility nevertheless.
‘The good professor had nothing handy in that shack of his,’ Benny said, glancing at the plastic bag in Marc’s hand. ‘Your girlfriend back there got the last of the Paracetamol.’
But what about that plaster? That jab in the arm? Marc was about to ask when he remembered giving a blood sample at the Bleibtreu Clinic. One of the preliminaries for an amnesia experiment in which he had never taken part yet seemed to be in the thick of.
Am I feeling better because the effect of the pills is wearing off? Am I seeing things more clearly now I’ve stopped taking them? Did I just have temporary withdrawal symptoms, and am I now on the road to recovery?
They drove north along the deserted expressway. Unlike rain, which regularly brought the traffic on Berlin’s arterial roads to a thrombotic standstill, the first snow of the year always had a cleansing effect. The roads emptied, and if you were brave enough or drove a winterproofed car you could make better progress than you ever could in rush hour. The lights of the vehicles ahead and behind them were so far away, even now, that they could hardly be seen.
External visibility was as blurred as Marc’s inner vision. He still hadn’t the faintest idea what part Sandra was playing in this crazy scenario, for which she even seemed to have supplied the script – one that anticipated all the traumas he was undergoing. How was that possible? Why had there been a baby’s cradle in their bedroom? And why had she wanted to alter her will, as the mysterious attorney had claimed? On the other hand, was there a will at all? Might it exist as little as the clinic that had vanished before his eyes?
And even this invisible pointer is leading me back to Constantin, Marc concluded in his mind. After all, he had spotted the Bleibtreu Clinic’s advertisement in a magazine in his father-in-law’s waiting room.
LEARN TO FORGET
But what?
What is going to happen today, 13th November?
Professor Haberland’s voice still resonated in his memory: ‘Recall what you want to forget!’
How was he supposed to do that?
Benny’s mobile beeped, jolting him out of his reverie.
‘What is it?’ he asked when he saw his brother’s face darken after he’d read the text message and replaced the phone in the tray between the seats.
‘Nothing, just a change of plans.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘I can’t keep you company any longer, Mark, I’ve wasted far too much time already.’
‘Time on what?’
Benny smiled sadly. ‘You don’t need to know. I borrowed some money from the wrong people, and-’
Emma uttered a sudden cry. Simultaneously, Marc was thrown forwards against his seatbelt and flung up his arms.
‘Bloody fool!’ yelled Benny. He blew his horn furiously, but far too late to elicit more than a weary smile from the driver who had just cut in on them.
Marc froze.
The car that had changed lanes ahead of them and was now heading at breakneck speed for the Tempelhofer Damm slip road was a boxy, mass-produced saloon like thousands of others. The licence plate was illuminated but indecipherable, obscured by mud and slush. Despite this, Marc was in no doubt as to what had just overtaken them: the yellow Volvo photographed by Emma outside the police station. He was equally certain that the person who turned to look at them from the passenger seat was a fair-haired woman.
56
‘After them!’ Marc shouted, and before Benny could protest he had grabbed the wheel. The car swerved to the right. They were flung forwards with a force resembling that of a rear-end collision, but Benny had merely stamped on the brake so as to regain control of the car.
‘What are you doing?’ he yelled, almost in unison with Emma, who had luckily fastened her seatbelt in the back.
‘Sandra,’ was all Marc said, pointing ahead.
It was warmer in the city centre than beside the Müggelsee. The snow melted as soon as it landed on the asphalt and visibility was considerably better.
‘Where?’ Benny was now, willy-nilly, taking the exit road to Tempelhofer Damm.
‘There, in that Volvo.’
‘You’re crazy.’
‘Please!’ Marc heard the desperation in his own voice. ‘Do me this favour.’
Benny shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what he was letting himself in for, but he put on speed.
They raced past the abandoned airport and along Tempelhofer Damm, heading in the direction of Airlift Square.
‘You could be right!’ Emma chimed in, hanging on to one of the grab handles in the back. The Volvo squeezed past a bus that was occupying two of the three lanes ahead of them. The road was further obstructed about a hundred metres ahead by a stranded lorry.
The Volvo was now out of sight and there was no possibility of overtaking it, but Benny sped towards the tailback without reducing speed.
‘Stop!’ Marc shouted, bracing himself for the worst. But instead of slowing down, his brother wrenched the wheel over and swerved on to the pavement. Emma started screaming, and all that prevented Marc from following suit was sheer bewilderment. A few seconds ago he’d had to urge Benny on, and now his brother was trying to kill them all. He didn’t regain the power of speech until they were level with the slip road to the airport.
‘Slow down, it isn’t worth it.’
Benny’s eyes flickered between the rear-view mirror and the road ahead. ‘Just so you know. We aren’t chasing anyone.’
‘No?’
‘We’re being chased.’
Marc turned to look.
Shit, what is it this time?
The motorcyclist only two metres from their rear bumper was taking no more notice of traffic regulations than Benny. Instead of a helmet he wore a black balaclava and a blue-grey scarf wound around the lower part of his face. Mounted on a light motocross bike, he was steering with one hand and holding something to his ear with the other.