‘I’ve heard a lot about you,’ the man sitting next to him in the back of the car said.
Interesting. Because Konstantin could say the same thing back to this man – Valeri Sychev. Though the same wasn’t true of the man in the front, in the driver’s seat. Andrey. Konstantin had never met him before, had never seen the ugly face, though one look into his hard eyes had told Konstantin exactly what kind of man he was. Hard. But simple.
Boring, really.
‘Don’t you want to know what I heard?’ Sychev asked.
‘No.’
Sychev laughed – entirely forced. ‘Hey, Andrey, you two would be good friends. You’re both men of very few words.’
Andrey didn’t say anything in response to that – very apt.
‘I don’t think we’re anything alike, really,’ Konstantin said.
Sychev shrugged. ‘And I know we haven’t met in person before, but you do know who I am, don’t you?’
Konstantin nodded.
‘Good. Then you’ll understand what I’m about to say. You’ll take orders from me, from now until we’re done here. That is what Jesper has asked for.’
Konstantin said nothing, but he didn’t like the idea at all. Jesper and only Jesper was his paymaster. But what could he do?
‘I understand you had a problem last night?’ Sychev said.
‘No. There was no problem.’
Disposing of Jonas Nyland’s body had been simple enough, really. On the clarification of Jesper, he’d decided against making the body disappear. It wouldn’t have been hard, out in such a remote area. Water, woodland, burning, burying, a combination of those, the choices were many. The ultimate choice was far less work, which in a way Konstantin was pleased with. He’d dumped the body by the water, but not before smashing the face in. He’d later dumped Nyland’s car there too, before spending a couple of hours cleaning the blood from his own car to make it usable again. Taking Nyland’s personal possessions from his corpse, together with the pummeled face, would mean the police would have to work that little bit harder to figure things out, but if they were at all competent, it wouldn’t be long before questions were directed toward Sigurd Berg. Which was exactly what Jesper had wanted. Last night, at least. Now, with the appearance of these two, Konstantin wasn’t so sure.
‘No problem?’ Sychev said. ‘You stabbed the man to death, destroyed his face with a rock, and dumped his body by the road.’
‘It’s what Jesper wanted.’
‘It was?’
A silent stand-off ensued, both men holding the other’s eye. ‘My mother was Ukrainian,’ Konstantin said. Sychev raised an eyebrow. ‘She was from the east and spoke Trasianka. I spoke it at home as a boy but when I left for Moscow I soon turned to our real mother tongue. Your Balachka sounds very similar to me. I always hated the way you people speak. Like you couldn’t make up your mind who you wanted to be so you had to pretend to be two different people. One foot in each place.’
A scratching noise up front. Andrey’s hands twisting around the steering wheel. As though he was wringing Konstantin’s neck, angered by what he saw as a slight on his heritage.
‘I like people who know who they are,’ Konstantin said. ‘Who talk simply. Act simply. You know what I mean?’
‘Putting aside any insult, yes, I think I do,’ Sychev said. ‘I’ll talk plainly to you. I tell you to do something, you do that thing. Not anything else. If you do that, we’ll all get along just fine.’
Konstantin wasn’t so sure, which was why he didn’t say anything.
‘I want you to find out what they know about the boy. That’s all.’
‘You say that’s all, but—’
‘We’re not here to play games. Find out what they know, any way you can. But if you make a mess, it’s yours to deal with. And next time, deal with it properly, or this will be the first and the last time we work together. Do you understand?’
‘Very clearly.’
With that, Konstantin opened the car door. He stretched as he got out. The car remained by his side and Konstantin stayed where he was for a few moments, looking across the street. His chest ached, though the pain there lessened with each day that passed. The most acute pain now was across his right shoulder. Where he’d delivered yesterday’s atonement, yesterday’s punishment. He’d dug deep with the knife, into the nerves and muscles that lay below the surface. Nyland was a nothing, his death had been quick and near painless for him – certainly by Konstantin’s norm – but for some reason, his own punishment had been all the more severe.
Why was that? The only answer he could grasp was the pure frustration of this place. He already hated it, though he couldn’t fully explain why. It wasn’t the cold – he was well used to that – and it wasn’t even the people… or perhaps it was, especially now that Sychev and his little dog were here.
Yet Sychev’s direct order should have taken his frustration away. Wasn’t that what Konstantin wanted? To have his shackles removed?
The two sides of the coin didn’t reconcile at all. On the one hand, Konstantin’s life of violence had left countless scars on his body. Every line, every lump of raised flesh represented a life gone, a life taken, pain and suffering – both his and theirs. He’d never accept that what he did was ‘good’ – that was why he had those marks. Yet without killing… What else did he have? Did his life have any other meaning at all?
He checked the road, then moved across the street. He knocked on the door and waited. He heard footsteps on the other side. Hard shoes on a wooden floor. Locks released. The door opened.
The man was smartly dressed. Shiny black shoes. Neatly pressed navy trousers. Light blue shirt, tucked in, the top button undone, but the collar tidy. His hair was neatly coiffed, his face was strong – nice proportions to the jaw, nose, and overhanging brows gave an altogether manly appearance.
‘Can I help you?’ he asked in his native Norwegian, his smile relaxed and pleasant.
‘That choice is yours,’ Konstantin said, before thrusting his arm forward. Electricity fizzled and crackled as he pushed the Taser into Tronstad’s gut. His eyes bulged in shock as he reeled backward… Then he collapsed to the floor.
Konstantin looked over his shoulder. No one in sight, except for the car across the road. Andrey glared at him, but then the engine started up, the car pulled away and moved out of sight.
Konstantin stepped inside and shut the door behind him.