Game: A Thriller (29 page)

“Well, your sister and I were just discussing if it wouldn’t make sense to put your alcoholic mother in a home so we didn’t have to put up with you coming ’round here every five minutes.”

His tone of voice was so arrogant and provocative that she already had an idea of what was going on. She made another attempt to catch Henke’s eye and make him understand. Stop him from rising to the challenge that had been thrown in his face. But he didn’t seem to get it, or else he was simply ignoring her.

“Really, Dagge?” he said nonchalantly instead, emphasizing the nickname that he knew Dag hated. “Wouldn’t it make more sense for us to bury her in the same patch of forest as your ‘missing’ dad? That way we could keep all the violence in the family. I mean, you’re pretty good at that!”

Dag threw himself across the table and Henke didn’t have time to take more than a couple of steps back before Dag was on him. He tried to resist, but his opponent was considerably larger and much more aggressive. After just a few seconds Henke was on the floor, curled up with his hands over his face to protect himself. But Dag was on top of him, wrapping his arm around Henke’s neck and dragging him upward. Rebecca could see Henke’s face turning white.

“Stop it, Dag!” she cried. “Stop, for God’s sake, you’re strangling him!”

She tried to loosen the arm around Henke’s neck.

The blow came out of nowhere; he must have let go with the other hand without her noticing, because she was suddenly flying backward across the little kitchen table.

“You little bitch!” she heard him roar as her back hit the floor. Cutlery, plates, and food everywhere. Her cheek was burning, her face felt numb, and she was seeing stars.

Somewhere far away she heard Henke whimper and she tried to get to her feet.

For some reason the door had opened, unless Henke had never closed it, because all of a sudden the fight had moved out onto the balcony. Dag had got a fresh grip of Henke’s head and she could see that her little brother was almost finished. His legs suddenly went limp and he stopped struggling, but Dag didn’t seem to have noticed.

“You’re not so fucking cocky now, are you, you little fucker?!” he roared, his face bright red, as he tightened his grip.

And suddenly she knew that Henke was going to die. That Dag was going to murder her little brother, right there, out on their balcony.

“
Stop!!
!
” she screamed as loudly as she possibly could. Her voice sounded terrible, as if it came from deep within her chest rather than her throat.

Maybe it was the unusual tone of voice that jolted Dag out of it and made him realize he was going too far? Because just as she launched herself at him with all the energy she could muster, he let go of Henke. Let him fall to the ground like a rag doll, and took an unsteady step backward. Toward the balcony railing.

She hit Dag full in the chest. Even if she weighed almost seventy kilos the collision wouldn’t usually have moved him at all, at best it would have made him sway a bit.

But this time he must have been off balance, or else the force in her tackle was far greater than she was aware of. Either way, he stumbled backward across the balcony with his arms reaching for something to grab hold of, something to help him keep his heavy body upright and stop him from falling.

Then his back hit the metal railing . . .

♦  ♦  ♦

She would never forget that sound. A shrieking, grinding sound of metal mixed with a sigh from the concrete as it reluctantly released its grip on the far-too-few steel bolts.

And unexpectedly the railing was gone.

She was lying on the floor of the balcony, Dag just a meter away, balancing right on the edge. In his eyes that accusing look, as if he had already realized how it was going to end. That she wouldn’t lift a finger to save him. And wouldn’t actually even try. Because deep down she had already begun to celebrate, begun to rejoice that her love for him, just like he himself, would soon be dead.

That she would finally be free!

“It’s your fault!” the look in those eyes said in farewell before they, and he, disappeared over the edge.

And she knew that they were right.

♦  ♦  ♦

It’s winter, dark, and in this dream Henke is waiting beside a brightly lit shopwindow. He doesn’t know who or what for. He just knows that he has to wait. For someone to come. Someone important.

The street is lined with bare, jagged trees as cars drive past almost soundlessly on the white roadway. Older models, he realizes, as if he’s gone back in time.

He stamps his feet on the snow-covered ground to keep warm.

Then he hears a church clock chime farther down the street and he recognizes where he is. Sveavägen, diagonally across from the Adolf Fredrik Church.

At the junction of Tunnel Street.

And suddenly he sees them coming toward him. A couple walking arm in arm. The man in a winter coat and fur hat, the woman in a coat and some sort of shawl. He recognizes them immediately: the prime minister and his wife. He runs his hand over his jacket and feels the object in his pocket, then turns toward the shopwindow and lets them pass.

Then he spins around and takes a couple of strides to catch up with them.

He knows what he has to do.

♦  ♦  ♦

Ten minutes or so had passed since Dag fell from the balcony, but she remembered nothing of what had happened during that time. She is sitting in the kitchen with a female police officer in her forties. She looks kind, Rebecca finds herself thinking.

From down below there are blue lights flashing, lighting up the whole of the courtyard. She isn’t crying, she hasn’t done any of that, and she won’t either, she knows that already.

“Can you bear to tell me what happened?” the police officer says, and just as she opens her mouth to talk, she hears Henke’s voice from the living room.

“It was me who did it!” he says, loudly and clearly. “We were fighting and I pushed him; then the whole thing collapsed and he went through the railing. It was my fault.”

♦  ♦  ♦

He’s got the gun in his hand, a large, silver-colored revolver with a laser sight on top. The red dot is right in the middle of the man’s broad back.

Just squeeze, and . . .

But they seem to have noticed him, because they stop.

Then the man turns around. His body has changed, becoming much bigger, much more intimidating. When their eyes meet HP sees that the man is smirking.

“So, you criminal little bastard, you’re going to kill me face-to-face this time, are you?” says the prime minister, with Dag’s voice.

And suddenly he feels all the resolve that was so strong a moment ago starting to dissolve.

♦  ♦  ♦

She wants to yell at him to shut up, yell at the police officers in there not to believe him, and tell the woman opposite her that her little brother is lying. That she was the one who shoved him, not Henke. That she’s the murderer who should be punished.

But none of that happens.

Her head is completely empty, her body incapable of all movement, even a millimeter, and so her mouth stays silent too.

“Was that it?” the police officer opposite her says. “Was he the one who pushed your partner off the balcony?”

But she can’t answer.

And she still isn’t crying.

♦  ♦  ♦

“Go on then!” the man in front of him jeers.

His breath is like a pillar of smoke from his scornful, smiling mouth.

“Pull the trigger, if you dare!”

The red mark from the laser sight trembles on the man’s broad chest. All he has to do is squeeze the trigger, and the bullet will do the rest.

But he hesitates. In the background the church bells are ringing louder and louder. And abruptly he seems to have shrunk, become shorter, smaller, almost as if he were changing into a child. The pistol is getting heavier and heavier and soon he won’t be able to hold it anymore.

“Henrik,” the woman at the man’s side says quietly, and she has to lean over to get eye contact with him.

“You don’t have to do this. I’ll be okay anyway.”

Her voice is calm and friendly, so familiar and comforting. Then she smiles at him, that gentle smile he’s loved for as long as he can remember, and suddenly he feels a lump in his throat. It’s forcing its way to his larynx and into his mouth, and when the tears burn through his eyelids he hears the man chuckle.

“I knew you wouldn’t dare!” he mocks. “A worthless little shit like you isn’t capable of anything. Not even taking care of your family.”

The prime minister puts his arms around the woman’s shoulders and pulls her to him. She does nothing to stop him and just lets herself be embraced. She stands there quite still, stuck to his side.

In his grasp.

“I’ll be okay anyway,” her voice whispers inside his head, but he knows she’s wrong.

And the look in her eyes agrees with him.

Then the man is someone else. Changes, right in front of his eyes. Into someone older, more dangerous. And suddenly he feels his little boy’s weenie shrivel up and almost disappear down inside his pants.

But just as he catches sight of the belt in the man’s free hand, at the very moment he knows how it all fits together and his index finger squeezes the trigger to blow him away, send the bastard back to hell once and for all—the gun suddenly turns into something else entirely.

The bells have turned to thunder inside his head.

Drowning out all sound and swallowing the whole world.

It’s as if every church in Stockholm has suddenly joined in the ringing and is making the ground shake beneath his feet.

“Fire, fire!” he hears someone cry as he races up the steep steps toward Malmskillnadsgatan a few seconds later.

In his jacket pocket he can feel an old wrench bouncing about.

♦  ♦  ♦

HP woke up gently. He opened his eyes slowly and knew straightaway from the smell that he wasn’t at home. There was a smell of food. Warm, cooked food, not from some takeaway or kiosk, but proper home-cooked food. Sweet!

“Oh, so you’re awake!” She stuck her head into the living room and seemed almost pleased to see him.

“Food will be ready in a couple of minutes, if you want to freshen up first.”

He nodded and wandered off toward the bathroom.

When he returned she was ladling out a helping of sausage and mashed potatoes for him.

Proper mash, made from real potatoes, not powder. He hadn’t had that for . . . well, he couldn’t actually remember how long it had been.

It was pretty damn good as well, and he ate ravenously. She waited until he had finished his first portion and was no longer completely starving.

“I was over at the cottage,” she said neutrally.

“I know!” he said between chews. “I saw you from a distance but didn’t really feel like introducing myself to your colleagues,” he explained when he saw the quizzical look on her face. “Was it a real bomb?”

She looked at him searchingly for a few seconds. There were a lot of things you could say about Henke, a hell of a lot, actually, but he wasn’t stupid. That was actually the main problem.

Smart, but lazy. Clever, but indolent. Bright, but lacking ambition.

She should have known it wouldn’t be that easy to pin him down.

“Looks like it,” she said shortly. “According to Forensics there was enough dynamex in it to turn Auntie’s cottage into kindling. It was under the sofa, by the way, with a pressure-sensitive detonator, but perhaps you already know that as well?”

He shook his head as he shoveled in another mouthful. Dynamex, that’s the stuff they used on building sites. Good old dynamite in a modern form.

The same stuff he’d read about on the Internet, after it went missing from a weapon store out in Fisksätra. The bit about a pressure-sensitive detonator also sounded familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. Almost like something you’d see at the cinema. Just like everything else that had happened.

As if his whole life had turned into some sort of weird film.

“I’ve spoken to Mange,” she said, changing tactic.

That had more of an effect.

He stopped chewing and looked at her anxiously.

“And?”

“He told me everything,” she said, holding his gaze.

The shift was immediate, from cocky little brother to frightened little rabbit in the space of a couple of seconds.

“And he also showed me some nice video clips from a phone you left with him.”

His face had turned white and his fork fell to his plate with a clatter.

“Becca, I . . .”

“Yes?”

She looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to go on.

But nothing came.

Instead he buried his head in his hands and slumped across the table. It actually sounded like he was crying. All of a sudden she didn’t know what to do. She hadn’t actually counted on this particular scenario. She hadn’t seen him cry since . . .

Well, since that evening when the police showed up. Back then he had shaken her, tried to get her out of her state of shock and talk to him. Tears of frustration then. Anger, impotence maybe, but not fear.

Not like now. He looked so vulnerable, so small.

Carefully she put her arms around his shoulders.

“There, there, Henke, don’t worry,” she said in her gentlest voice, just like she used to when they were kids and he woke up scared from the noise on the other side of the bedroom door.

“It’s all going to be all right,” she whispered, stroking his hair.

♦  ♦  ♦

Henke had showered and used her Ladyshave to get rid of the worst of the stubble, and was now wearing some of her
gym clothes while his own were soaking in Y3 detergent in the kitchen sink.

It was surprising what a bit of food, some basic hygiene, and a bit of sympathy could do, she thought as they sat curled up on her sofa. Once her initial anger had faded away, it actually felt nice having him there, hearing his voice, and knowing he was okay.

He had filled in the gaps in Mange’s story. How he found the phone, the assignments, the mocked-up arrest, and everything that had followed since he was kicked out of this peculiar Game.

They made slow progress to start with, but as time went on he picked up the pace so much that in the end the words were firing out of his mouth, almost too fast for her to follow them.