Konstantin looked up from the shimmering blade of the knife in his hand, and to his form in the grotty mirror of the men’s toilet. At least, what had once been a toilet, many years ago when this place had last seen real use.
The patchwork lines of raised flesh across his tattooed chest glowed in the thin light. The newest of the scars, a three-inch long gash just above his left nipple, remained deeply red and swollen, the edges wet where the skin continually pulled apart anytime he exerted effort. He didn’t need stitches. It would heal over soon enough.
He muttered under his breath. Incoherent to anyone who could have overheard, but the words were deliberate, methodical. Prayer-like.
Penance. Atonement. Is that how others would describe this ritual? All Konstantin knew was that it was necessary, and that he couldn’t operate without this.
He held the knife higher. Focused hard on the reflection of the blade in the mirror. He touched the point of the knife onto his skin, the opposite side to the rawest of the scars. His skin tingled with the sensation, pimples forming around the knife point as though inviting what was to come.
With his teeth gritted he pulled the blade down and across. Skin and flesh parted.
This was a deep one. It needed to be. He slashed the knife again, a line parallel to the first, equally as deep.
Yes, he felt pain, but Konstantin didn’t murmur. Didn’t make a sound other than his constant, calm breathing. With the knife down by his side, he watched as blood oozed from the open wound. He focused on the sight, on the pain that pulsed. He didn’t like pain. He was no masochist. He didn’t thrive off it. That wasn’t why he did this.
He did this to remind himself of who he was. What he did.
Splat.
Just a faint noise – the sound of a drop of blood falling from the knife and into the puddle of water on the cracked tile floor. Somehow the sound snapped him from his thoughts. He looked down. Past his naked torso, past his dirtied jeans, past his black boots, to the floor. For a few moments he watched the ripples in the dirty liquid as the blood diffused into the water.
Soon all was still and quiet once more.
It was time.
He turned away from the mirror, pulled open the door. He strode across the concrete floor. Swathes of sunlight burst into the grotty structure from the holes in the walls and the tall gabled roof way up high. An expansive room of what used to be a... he had no clue. He didn’t care.
The two figures in front of him gently swung back and forth, the ropes around their ankles suspending them from the rafters above. Both figures were naked, both gagged. They faced him, and had moaned as soon as he’d opened the door. As he closed in on them the noise grew louder and more frantic. The man, on the left of the two, bucked from side to side, forward and back, as though swinging more forcibly was somehow going to help him now. Somehow prevent what was to come.
It was the man Konstantin moved over to. In his late forties, the man was big, muscled – good genes – though he’d enjoyed his lavish life that little bit too much given the pouch around his gut, and the way, hanging upside down, his chest sagged toward his neck.
Konstantin squatted down and looked into the man’s eyes.
‘You know why you’re here,’ Konstantin said. ‘You may even know who I am.’
A strong but muffled response.
‘It will help if you know who I am. Help to persuade you there is only one correct choice for you here.’
Konstantin reached forward. The man froze now. Konstantin brought his motion to a stop and reached a finger underneath the cloth gag, by the side of the man’s head, well away from his jaw in case he had the stupid thought of trying to bite.
‘When I take this off, you can scream if you want. Scream until your lungs burn and your throat bleeds. But it won’t help. Or you can listen to what I have to say, and tell me what I need to know.’
No response from the man. His wife, next to him, sobbed.
Konstantin whipped the knife up and sliced through the gag. A little knick on the man’s skin too, which was perhaps why he squirmed and moaned in pain, but it was nothing, a scratch really.
‘Now. Tell me who tried to kill Jesper.’
‘What? No. I don’t–’
Konstanin growled with effort as he threw a fist into the man’s bouncy gut. The captive hadn’t been prepared for the shot and air burst from his lips and Konstantin saw the fight in his eyes as he struggled to keep his oxygen-starved brain from drifting. Five seconds. Ten seconds. Enough.
‘I’ll only ask the question one more time. After that, I’ll move to your wife. She won’t get a question. I’ll simply take her apart. Skin. Flesh. Bones. Piece by piece. I won’t stop. Not until she’s lying in bits by your feet. Then I’ll do the same to you.’
Both of them sobbed and begged.
‘Who tried to kill Jesper?’
‘I... I don’t know!’ the man screamed.
Konstantin sighed and hung his head. So be it. He’d earned his stripes for today after all.
He shuffled over to the woman. Her feminine smell tickled his nose. He wasn’t aroused as he looked over her svelte, naked body, though he did think it was such a waste. Such a waste that her husband would protect his own honour – was that it? – over this beauty.
So be it. His choice.
Konstantin lifted the knife, and sank it into her flesh.
Thirty minutes later, Konstantin returned to the sink, out of breath. His hands, arms, chest, face, everything on him, glistened with a mix of perspiration and blood and crimson-soaked sinew.
He filled the bucket with water from the tap then tipped the contents over his head, using a scrubbing brush to get rid of a good portion of the red stuff from his skin. His chest stung like crazy as he rubbed over the fresh wounds.
Yes, he’d certainly earned those today.
He moved back out. As he grabbed his bag from beside the door, he took nothing more than a cursory glance at the lumps of butchered flesh across the way that used to be two human beings. He was midway through towelling himself dry when a buzzing came from the front pocket of the bag. His phone. Only one person had this number.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Did he tell you?’
‘No.’
‘So they’re both dead?’
Konstantin stared across the bloodstained floor to the corpses.
‘Both of them.’
Silence on the other end. Was this not what Jesper wanted?
‘Maybe he didn’t know after all,’ Jesper said.
If Konstantin had to give an opinion, he’d say the same. Surely no man could bear witness to their wife being savaged like that otherwise. Not that their fate hadn’t already been sealed, either way.
Konstantin didn’t care. He’d only done what had been asked.
‘Leave the bodies,’ Jesper said. ‘I want them found.’
‘Okay.’
He’d have preferred to burn the place down. Destroy the evidence of his presence here, even if he didn’t really care much for such things. Did it really matter if he left DNA here for a forensics team to try and trace? If the law ever found him, and if he couldn’t escape, he’d only ever get what he deserved.
‘And I have something else for you. Details to follow.’
The call ended. Konstantin pulled the phone from his ear and looked to the screen. After a few seconds a text message popped up. A simple message. Just two pieces of information: a name, a place. The name he didn’t recognise. The place, he did.
Trondheim, Norway.