THE VERY LAST additional task was almost too good to be true. It was over a year since he’d written it down, but he remembered it like it was yesterday. It was the longest of the texts, and he’d never imagined it would become reality. But rolling twenty sixes had made the impossible possible.
There could no longer be any doubt the dice had forgiven him and considered him worthy of a new challenge. But that it would be another X task and number 120, to boot, was so astoundingly amazing he’d had to go out for a big dinner at Charles Dickens to let it sink in.
There had been enough people there for him to enjoy his steak and pints unnoticed. He’d even been able to read the evening paper, noting that the police were playing their cards close to their chest. There was no picture of him and his name wasn’t mentioned, and nowhere could he see anything about the events on Öresund and the murder on board the yacht. There was quite a lot of information about some bathtub murder, however, and at least they’d finally found the body in Klippan.
Eventually, he went home, stuffed and slightly tipsy. But that was okay. Maybe it would even help him get the good night’s sleep he needed so badly before starting on the preparations.
He stepped into the hallway, closed the front door behind him and realized immediately that something was wrong. When he got back from Öresund a few hours ago, the doors in the hallway had been closed. Now they were open…. Either the place was haunted or someone was having him on. Or…
He popped his head into the bathroom. It looked untouched. It was highly unlikely the police technicians would come back this late. Unless the flat was under surveillance and his return had been noticed.
The door to the walk-in closet was hard to close and sometimes opened of its own accord. But that didn’t explain the bathroom door. Maybe he’d left it ajar himself, after all.
He went into the bathroom, turned on the tap to fill the bath and started to pull off his clothes. He had been looking forward to this. A steaming hot bath in which he could get some well-needed rest with the floating pillow under his neck. Then, without opening his eyes, he would make a mental list of everything that had to be done before he could leave.
He would, for example, have to construct some kind of device to help him roll a dice while running. He didn’t have any ideas so far, but one would come to him. They always did. He also had to go through and make sure all his weapons were in good working order. Once he started, there would be no room for mistakes.
That, in turn, meant he was going to have to repack his backpack from scratch. He had to make it several pounds lighter. Anything that wasn’t strictly necessary would have to go. Like the extra provisions he’d brought in the boat. His meal at Charles Dickens had been enough for several days; he’d have to get by on a bottle of energy drink.
Being able to access as much of his equipment as possible without stopping was going to be crucial, too. Because that was the name of the game. To keep moving and finding the flow. A groove where he could pick off one person after another until the dice told him to stop.
He pulled off his underwear, peed and tested the water in the bath. The temperature was perfect and the bath was almost full. He went back out into the hallway and continued into the living room to get a glass from the kitchen.
But he never made it that far.
Instead, he stopped in the middle of the room with his eyes fixed on the glow spilling out across the floor from the overhead light in the bedroom.