Splinter

by Sebastian Fitzek

  Marc Lucas had it all, and lost it all. He is only slowly putting his life back together after the car crash that killed his pregnant wife, when things start to go strangely wrong for him. Nothing too sinister to begin with: his credit cards stop working. But then his key no longer fits his door, and he discovers someone else working in his office. Much worse is to come: he returns home to find himself face to face with his once-dead wife, and she doesn’t have a clue who he is. The next day, there is no trace of her.

  Could this have anything to do with the clinic? They wanted to test their ability to remove traumatic memories from live subjects. Marc had met them, just once, but declined their experimental technology. He now fears they may have begun their tests illicitly. . .

  Can he discover just what is happening to him before the waking nightmare he finds himself living overwhelms his sanity?

  Sebastian Fitzek has worked as a journalist and author for radio and TV stations all around Europe, and is now head of programming at RTL, Berlin’s leading radio station. His first and subsequent novels have become huge bestsellers in Germany, and he is currently working on his fifth.

  First published in the English language in Great Britain in 2011

  by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

  Originally published in German as Splitter in 2009

  by Droemer Knaur.

  Copyright © Sebastian Fitzek, 2009

  Translation copyright © John Brownjohn, 2011

  The moral right of Sebastian Fitzek to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  The moral right of John Brownjohn to be identified as the translator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from

  the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-1-84887-695-8

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-85789-270-6

  Printed in Great Britain.

  Corvus

  An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd

  Ormond House

  26-27 Boswell Street

  London WC1N 3JZ

  www.corvus-books.co.uk

  For Clemens

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Hm. . . I’d call it, well. . . an acquired taste?’

  ‘Utterly hideous, more like.’

  ‘Was it a present?’

  ‘No, I bought it.’

  ‘Just a minute. You paid good money for that thing?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘For a baby-blue, battery-operated dolphin bedside light which you yourself think is ugly?’

  ‘Hideous.’

  ‘Okay, so enlighten me. If that’s feminine logic, I don’t get it.’

  ‘Come here.’

  ‘I’m almost on top of you as it is.’

  ‘Come closer all the same.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you bought it as a sex aid?’

  ‘Dickhead.’

  ‘Hey, what’s the matter? Why are you looking at me like that?’

  ‘Promise me. . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Promise you’ll always turn the light on?’

  ‘I. . . I don’t get it. Scared of the dark suddenly?’

  ‘No, but. . .’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Well, I’ve been thinking how unbearable it would be if something happened to you. No, wait, don’t pull away, I want to hold you tight.’

  ‘What is it? Are you crying?’

  ‘Look, I know it sounds a bit weird, but I’d like us to make a deal.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘If one of us dies – no, please hear me out – the first of us to go must give the other one a sign.’

  ‘By turning the light on?’

  ‘So we know we aren’t alone. So we know we’re thinking of each other even if we can’t see each other.’

  ‘Baby, I don’t know if—’

  ‘Ssh. Promise?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Is that why it’s so ugly?’

  ‘Hideous.’

  ‘Right. Good choice from that angle. We’d never turn on that monstrosity by mistake.’

  ‘So you promise?’

  ‘Of course, babe.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Still, what’s likely to happen to us?’

  It’s either real or it’s a dream,

  there’s nothing that is in between.

  ‘Twilight’, Electric Light Orchestra

  The end justifies the means.

  Proverb

  1

  TODAY

  Marc Lucas hesitated. The one uninjured finger of his broken hand hovered over the brass button of the antiquated doorbell for a long time before he pulled himself together and pressed it.

  He didn’t know what time it was. The horrors of the last few hours had robbed him of his sense of time as well. Out here in the middle of the forest, though, time seemed unimportant anyway.

  The chill November wind and the sleet showers of the last few hours had subsided a little, and even the moon was only intermittently visible through rents in the clouds. It was the sole light source on a night that seemed as cold as it was dark. There was no indication that the ivy-covered, two-storeyed, timber-built house was occupied. Neither did the disproportionately large chimney jutting from the gabled roof appeared to be in use, nor could Marc smell the characteristic scent of burning logs that had woken him in the house that morning – shortly after eleven, when they had brought him to the professor for the first time. He’d been feeling ill even at that stage, dangerously ill, but his condition had dramatically worsened since then.

  A few hours ago his outward symptoms had been scarcely detectable. Now, blood was dripping on to his dirty trainers from his mouth and nose, his fractured ribs grated together at every breath, and his right arm hung limp at his side like an ill-fitting appendage.

  Marc pressed the brass button once more, again without hearing a bell, buzzer or chime. He stepped back and looked up at the balcony. Beyond it lay the bedroom, which by day afforded a breathtaking view of the little forest lake whose surface at windless moments resembled a sheet of window glass – a smooth, dark pane that would shatter into a thousand fragments as soon someone tossed a stone into it.

  The bedroom remained in darkness. Even the dog, whose name he had forgotten, failed to bark, and there were none of the other sounds that usually emanate from a house whose occupants have been roused from sleep in the middle of the night. No bare feet padding down the stairs, no slippers shuffling across the floorboards while their owner nervously clears his throat and tries to smooth his tousled hair with both hands and a modicum of spit.

  Yet Marc was unsurprised, even for an instant, when the door suddenly opened as if by magic. Far too many inexplicable things had happened to him in the last few days for him to waste even a moment’s thought on why the psychiatrist should be confronting him fully dressed in a suit and neatly knotted tie, as if he made a point of holding his consultations in the middle of the night. Perhaps he really had been working in the recesses of his little house – perusing old case notes or studying one of the thick tomes on neuropsychology, schizophrenia, brainwashing or multi
ple personalities that lay strewn around, although it was years since he had practised as anything but an occasional consultant.

  Marc didn’t wonder, either, why the light from the room with the fireplace was reaching him only now. Reflected by a mirror over the chest of drawers, it seemed to adorn the professor with a momentary halo. Then the old man stepped back and the effect vanished.

  Marc sighed. Wearily, he leant his uninjured shoulder against the doorpost and raised his shattered hand.

  ‘Please,’ he implored. ‘You’ve got to tell me.’

  His tongue impinged on some loose front teeth as he spoke. He coughed, dislodging a little drop of blood from his nose.

  ‘I don’t know what’s been happening to me.’

  The psychiatrist nodded slowly, as if he found it hard to move his head. Most people would have recoiled at the sight of Marc and slammed the door in alarm, or at least summoned medical assistance. But Professor Niclas Haberland did nothing of the kind. He merely stepped aside and said, in a low, melancholy voice: ‘I’m sorry, you’re too late. I can’t help you.’

  Marc nodded. He’d expected this reply and was prepared for it.

  ‘I’m afraid you’ve no choice,’ he said, taking the automatic from his torn leather jacket.

  2

  The professor made his way along the passage to the living room. Marc followed close behind with the gun levelled at his back, but he was glad the old man didn’t turn round and see how close to passing out he was. He’d felt faint as soon as he entered the house. The headache, the nausea, the sweating – all the symptoms intensified by his mental ordeal of the last few hours had suddenly returned. He was almost tempted to cling to Haberland’s shoulders and let himself be towed along. He was tired, unbearably tired, and the passage seemed infinitely longer than it had on his first visit.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ Haberland repeated as they entered the living room, whose most conspicuous feature was an open fireplace with a log fire slowly expiring on the hearth. His tone was calm, almost compassionate. ‘I really wish you’d come sooner. Time’s running out.’

  Haberland’s eyes were completely expressionless. If he was frightened, he managed to conceal it as effectively as the old dog asleep in a little wicker basket by the window. The buff-coloured ball of fur hadn’t even raised its head when they came in.

  Marc moved to the middle of the room and looked around irresolutely. ‘What do you mean, time’s running out?’

  ‘Just look at yourself. You’re in a worse state than this place of mine.’

  Marc returned Haberland’s smile, and even that hurt him. The decor of the house was as odd as its location in the forest. Not one piece of furniture matched any other. A grossly overloaded Ikea bookcase rubbed shoulders with an elegant Biedermeier chest of drawers. The floor was almost entirely covered with carpets, one of them readily identifiable as a bathroom runner whose colour alone clashed with that of the hand-woven silk Chinese carpet beside it. Marc was involuntarily reminded of a box room, yet nothing in this ensemble seemed to be there by chance. Every last object, from the gramophone on the tea trolley to the leather sofa, from the wing chair to the linen curtains, suggested a souvenir of times gone by. It was as if the professor feared he would lose a reminder of some crucial phase in his existence if he rid himself of any pieces of furniture. The ubiquitous medical textbooks and journals lying not only on the shelves and desk, but also on the window sills, the floor, and even in the log basket beside the hearth, seemed to function as a link between the heterogeneous junk.

  ‘Do sit down,’ said Haberland. He spoke as if Marc were still the welcome visitor he’d been that morning, when they deposited his unconscious form on the comfortable sofa whose plump cushions threatened to smother him. Now, though, he would sooner have sat right in front of the fire. He was feeling cold – colder than he had ever felt in his life.

  ‘Shall I put some more wood on?’ asked Haberland, who seemed to have read his thoughts.

  Without waiting for an answer he went over to the basket of logs, extracted one and tossed it on to the embers. It caught at once, and Marc felt an almost irresistible urge to drive the cold from his body by plunging his hands into the flames.

  ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ It took him a moment to tear his eyes away from the fireplace and concentrate on Haberland once more.

  The professor looked him up and down. ‘Your injuries,’ he said, ‘who caused them?’

  ‘I did.’

  To Marc’s surprise, the old psychiatrist merely nodded. ‘I thought as much.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you’re wondering if you exist at all.’

  The truth seemed literally to pin Marc back against the cushions. That was just his problem. This morning the professor had confined himself to vague allusions, but now he wanted absolute clarity. That was why he back on this squashy sofa.

  ‘You want to know if you’re real, that’s another reason why you injured yourself. You wanted to make sure you were still capable of sensation.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Haberland made a dismissive gesture. ‘Experience. I myself was once in a similar situation.’

  He glanced at his wristwatch. Marc wasn’t sure, but he thought he detected some scars around the strap. They looked more like old burns than cuts.

  ‘I may not practise officially any more, but my analytical flair hasn’t deserted me. Far from it. May I ask what you’re feeling at this moment?’

  ‘Cold.’

  ‘No pain?’

  ‘It’s bearable. I think I’m still too much in shock.’

  ‘But don’t you think you’d be better off in A and E? I haven’t even an aspirin in the house.’

  Marc shook his head. ‘I don’t want any pills. All I want is certainty.’

  He put the pistol on the coffee table, with the muzzle pointing at Haberland, who was still standing in front of him.

  ‘Prove that I really exist.’

  The professor scratched the back of his head, where his grey hair was punctuated by a bald patch about the size of a beer mat. ‘Do you know what is generally held to constitute the difference between man and beast?’ He indicated the dog in the basket, which was restlessly whimpering in its sleep. ‘Self-awareness. We reflect on why we exist, when we’ll die and what happens after death, whereas an animal wastes no thought on whether it’s on earth at all.’

  Haberland had gone over to his dog while speaking. He knelt down and affectionately cupped its shaggy head in his hands.

  ‘Tarzan here can’t even recognize himself in a mirror.’

  Marc rubbed some dried blood off his eyebrow. His gaze strayed to the window. For one brief moment he thought he’d glimpsed a light in the darkness outside. Then he realized it was only the reflection of the flickering firelight. It must have started raining again, because the outside of the window pane was spattered with droplets. After a while he discerned his own reflection far out in the darkness above the lake.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I can still see my reflection, but how can I be sure it isn’t an illusion?’

  ‘What leads you to assume you’re suffering from hallucinations?’ Haberland rejoined.

  Marc concentrated once more on the droplets on the pane. His reflection seemed to be dissolving.

  Well, how about high-rise buildings that vanish into thin air just after I’ve left them? How about a man imprisoned in my cellar with a film script that describes what will happen to me in a few seconds’ time? Oh yes, and how about the dead suddenly resurrecting themselves?

  ‘It’s because there’s no logical explanation for all that happened to me today,’ he said in a low voice.

  ‘Oh yes, there is.’

  Marc spun round. ‘What is it? Please tell me.’

  ‘I’m afraid we don’t have time for that.’ Haberland glanced at his watch again. ‘It won’t be long before you have to leave here once and for all.’

  �
��What are you talking about?’ Marc took the gun from the coffee table and stood up. ‘Are you another of them? Are you in this too?’ He aimed the automatic at the psychiatrist’s head.

  Haberland put out his hands in a defensive gesture.

  ‘It’s not the way you think.’

  ‘Really? How do you know?’

  The professor shook his head sympathetically.

  ‘Come on, out with it!’ Marc shouted the words so loudly, the veins in his neck bulged. ‘How much do you know about me?’

  The answer took his breath away.

  ‘Everything.’

  The fire flared up. Marc had to avert his eyes, unable to endure the sudden glare.

  ‘I know everything, Marc. And so do you. You refuse to believe it, that’s all.’

  ‘Then, then. . .’ Marc’s eyes started to water. ‘Then tell me, I beg you. What’s happening to me?’

  ‘No, no, no.’ Haberland clasped his hands together in entreaty. ‘It doesn’t work like that, believe me. Any realization is worthless unless it comes from within.’

  ‘That’s crap!’ Marc yelled. He shut his eyes for a moment, the better to concentrate on the pain in his shoulder. Before going on he swallowed the blood that had collected in his mouth. ‘Tell me right now what your game is, or I swear to God I’ll kill you.’

  He was no longer aiming at the professor’s head, but straight at his liver. The bullet would destroy some vital organs even if he missed, and out here any medical assistance would arrive too late.

  Haberland was unmoved.

  ‘Very well,’ he said eventually, after they had stared at each other in silence for a while. ‘You want to know the truth?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Haberland slowly subsided into the wing chair and looked down at the fire, which was burning more and more brightly. His voice sank to an almost inaudible whisper. ‘Have you ever listened to a story and wished you hadn’t heard the ending?’