door kicked open. Out on the balcony there was no sign of Kooi. The street was too wide to leap across to the buildings on the other side and the ground was too far down to drop to, so Victor looked right – seeing nothing – then left.
The Dutchman had jumped to the adjacent balcony. Victor did the same, stepping onto the stone railing and covering the distance by the time Kooi had reached the next balcony along. Victor hurried after his target, who had run out of balconies, but who climbed up on to the stone railing and jumped.
He landed on the roof of the neighbouring building and rolled to disperse the impact of the two-metre drop. Victor rolled seconds later and Kooi glanced back over his shoulder, face shining with sweat, to make brief eye contact with his relentless, tireless pursuer.
The next flat roof was only a short jump away, but Kooi stumbled as he landed and slowed his run to keep his balance. An exterior stone staircase descended from the far side of the roof and Kooi hurried down it, Victor now close enough to hear the Dutchman’s urgent breaths.
The stairs led down to a small square, at the centre of which was an ornate tiled fountain where residents collected drinking water. Kooi grabbed a boy holding a bucket in each hand and heaved him backwards into Victor’s path. Victor dodged the boy but not the buckets spilling water. He slipped but stayed on his feet, losing a second on Kooi, who vaulted over a small wall and down to a neighbouring alleyway.
Victor followed, absorbing the drop with bending knees, and caught a glimpse of Kooi as he rounded a corner ahead. Victor took the same corner moments later and sprinted down the adjoining alley, jumping over baskets knocked over by Kooi, past a small hovel with a red door, out onto a side street. He looked left, saw a long street Kooi hadn’t had the time to run the length of, almost no people, no restaurants or businesses, no way to veer off. Victor looked right – a dead end. Kooi could have gone neither way. Victor’s memory flashed back. The red door. No splinters of wood near the lock or hinges from a kick, but it was still slightly ajar, having been already open. He spun around and saw—
Kooi, charging from the doorway, the glint of metal from a blade in his hand, meant for Victor’s back but now thrusting at his heart.
THREE
Kooi stopped, half a metre from Victor, the tip of the knife centimetres from his ribcage. It was a small weapon, painted black, with a triangular point and a recurve blade. A fine weapon – better than Victor’s own – folded high-carbon steel, wickedly sharp, strong enough to be capable of breaking bone without compromising the blade, but harmless while piercing only air.
He was only a little older than Victor but far more fatigued from the chase. Kooi was about the same height and similarly proportioned, with long limbs, athletic and muscular but compact and lean. Sweat glistened on the Dutchman’s face and arms from the heat and the chase, and darkened the front of his undershirt. Kooi stumbled, but didn’t move any further forward. His mouth opened, but he didn’t say anything. His eyes stared at Victor, but focused on a point somewhere behind him.
Then he exhaled and wheezed. The black knife fell from his trembling fingers and clattered on the paving stones near Victor’s feet.
The Dutchman blinked, his eyes watery, and placed both hands on Victor’s right arm to steady himself while he looked down at his abdomen, to where the knuckles of Victor’s right thumb and index finger pressed against Kooi’s white undershirt.
The white shirt became red around Victor’s hand.
‘No,’ Kooi said, as if defiance could remove the blade from his stomach and repair the hole it would leave behind.
Victor let go of the folding knife’s grip. It protruded at a downward angle from just below the base of Kooi’s sternum, the short blade buried up behind the breastbone, the tip puncturing the bottom of the Dutchman’s heart. He coughed and struggled to breathe as blood drained from the ruptured left ventricle and slowly filled the chest cavity, impeding his lungs’ ability to inflate and deflate. Victor eased Kooi to the ground as the stability left his legs.
‘No,’ Kooi said again, but quieter.
He slumped against the alleyway wall, his legs splayed on the paving stones before him, his arms limp