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, swunground 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.