The Game Trilogy (55 page)

He dreamed about a bird.

A black desert crow with enormous wings that threw itself at him as he stood on the roof. He saw it coming, raised his arm to his eyes instinctively, and took a couple of steps back.

And a moment later he fell over the edge. He fell in slow motion between the buildings, whose windows had been replaced by giant, flickering screens. Messages washed over him, filling his head. Almost making him forget the ground, which was getting closer and closer.

‘… as a Friend Of Law and Order, I have to say …’
‘Congratulations, Skövde, now we’re rolling …’
‘… legislation that can’t come soon …’
‘Recently it has become more and …’
‘The writer doesn’t actually realize …’
‘Hello to Vanderlay Industries …’
‘What Sweden needs is a new …’
‘Suicide bomber!’
‘… ready to take responsibility …’
‘The Six O’clock News …’
‘… meaningless …’
‘Dressman …’
‘You Are …’
‘Terrorist’
‘… Always …’
‘bomber!’
‘Playing’
‘voices’
‘buzz’
‘The’

And then finally, just before his brain realized what was about to happen. The moment before his dream body smashed onto the tarmac …

Game
Game
Game

He drifted in and out of sleep and it took him a long time to make any sense of things. The bed was familiar, as was the room he was in. Extremely familiar, and for a moment he thought he was still dreaming. But then the pain caught up with him. Okay, so you could feel pain in dreams, but this was the mother of all pains …

His head, stomach, crotch, arms, legs, feet and hands. Basically there wasn’t a single part of him that didn’t hurt. So he must be awake. So – how in holy hell had he ended up here?

The door opened slowly and a familiar face looked in. ‘Hi, Henke,’ she said quietly.

Obviously she should have taken him to Accident & Emergency straight away. But he had begged and pleaded with her not to.

‘Not hospital, please … I’m fucked if I end up on a database. FUCKED, get it?’

So she had taken him home, helped him to stagger up to her flat, and then given him several of her strongest knockout pills before tucking him up in bed.

His sleep had been unsettled, and he had woken several times babbling about desert birds, Dressman and a whole load of other incoherent nonsense.

She really ought to be beside herself with worry. But at the same time it was so incredibly good to see him, to have him here in the flat. Safe …

It was more than likely that the state Henke was in had some connection with her own disastrous evening with John. You didn’t have to be Einstein to work out that he
must have been furious with her, and had in all likelihood taken out his anger on Henke.

Of course she should never have let on that he was her little brother …

Nice work, Normén!

Things could have been better …

His cover was blown, he had been tortured and chased, and had almost killed himself playing Spiderman in Östermalm. But he couldn’t deny that it was good to see her …

So, how much did he actually dare tell her?

He had already tried telling her some things the day before, but the combination of the pain and the pills had fogged his thoughts.

Now he had to make an effort, at least. She definitely deserved that.

She had basically saved his life.

What astonishing luck that she just happened to be there.

But this wasn’t the first time that he had been surprised by karma, so he just had to sit back and be grateful.

He got up out of bed and took a couple of unsteady steps across the floor. It actually went better than he had expected.

He opened the door and limped out towards the living room. She met him in the hall with her jacket on.

‘Hello, are you up and about?’

‘Hmm, feeling a bit better. I thought we could talk …’

‘I’d love to, I really would! But there’s something I’ve got to deal with first, something I should have taken care of a long time ago. It’ll only take a couple of hours, okay …?’

‘Okay,’ he mumbled.

He followed her to the door like a tired dog. She picked up on his disappointment.

‘I’ll be back soon,’ she said as she pulled on her woolly hat and gloves. ‘Make yourself at home in the meantime. You know where everything is.’

She slipped out of the door but stopped halfway down the stairs.

‘Don’t worry, little brother. What was it you used to say …?
I will clean it up!’

‘Them
…’ he muttered. ‘I will clean
them
all up …’

But she had already gone.

He was sitting in the far stand, just a few rows from the courts and with his sturdy back towards her. Two boys in their upper teens were playing a match, but she had no idea which one was winning.

Tennis had never interested her.

She walked slowly down the steps, then slipped into the row of seats behind him, quietly folded down one of the blue seats and sat down. He was still completely focused on the match and didn’t seem to have noticed her.

‘Oh, shit!’

One of the teenagers missed what looked like an easy ball and she heard him swear. His voice made her heart beat a bit faster.

Calm, now …

She took a deep breath to compose herself.

‘Hello, Tobias!’ she said.

He span round and for a moment he looked almost scared. No police officer liked being taken by surprise.

‘Becca! What the hell are you doing here?!’

She didn’t answer.

He looked around the seats, then glanced anxiously at the court.

‘I mean, shit, Becca … You can’t just show up like this.

That’s my boy out there!’

She shrugged her shoulders.

‘What’s so odd about two former colleagues sitting here having a chat about work? Even if it’s been a while since you left the personal protection unit, my boss is still your neighbour, and your best mate, isn’t he …? BFF or whatever it is kids say these days.’

She gestured towards the court.

He squirmed again, as if the seat was chafing his considerable frame.

‘But, I mean, surely you can see … I mean, we …’

‘Had an affair?’

‘Y-yes … exactly!’ he nodded, then glanced at the court where one of the boys was about to serve.

‘Then we’re in complete agreement, Tobbe. We
had
an affair, but now it’s over, so I want you to stop driving past my flat in the van, and to stop sending texts to my mobile. Got that?’

He stared at her without replying, but his stern police glare had no effect. Instead she turned towards the tennis court where the match had resumed.

‘Looks like a good match. I ought to learn a bit more about tennis. There’s a big under-18s tournament at the Royal Tennis Club in a couple of weeks, isn’t there? Maybe I should look in, introduce myself to your wife, maybe call round at your house out in Näsby Park?
Hi, my name’s Rebecca, until fairly recently I was having an affair with your husband, but he seems to be having trouble accepting that it’s over
…’

He clenched his jaw and narrowed his lips to a thin white line.

‘Okay.’

‘Sorry? I didn’t quite hear what you said, Tobbe …?’

‘Okay, I get it!’ he hissed.

He glanced at the court again, then ran his hand through his short fair hair.

‘You won’t hear from me again, I swear, so just go, for fuck’s sake! Jonathan’s really sensitive about this sort of thing, Jenny and I have only just managed to patch things up … For God’s sake, we’re having therapy as a family, Becca!’

‘Yes, you really seem to be taking that seriously …’ she interrupted. ‘I’m about to go, but before I do there’s one question I want answered. I know you’ve talked to the guys in the team about me, because police are police, after all …’

He was avoiding her gaze, but she went on.

‘What I want to know is if any of your colleagues in the rapid response unit happen to be particularly keen on computers? Good enough to know how to set up an advanced anonymity cloak, for instance? Someone who’s also pretty articulate when it comes to writing?’

‘What?’ He stared at her.

‘You heard, and don’t pretend you haven’t read the shit that’s been written about me,’ she snarled. ‘Is anyone in your immediate circle unusually good with computers, and if so, who?’

‘Dad …’ one of the boys called.

They both turned to look at the court. The match seemed to be over, and one of the boys was standing just below them. The family resemblance wasn’t exactly striking. Unlike his father, Jonathan was skinny with long, greasy hair and a fair scattering of teenage acne.

‘We’re finished …’ Jonathan said sullenly.

‘Okay, great … Erm …’

‘Wiped out, three love. Can we go home now?’

The boy gave Rebecca a long look.

‘Sure, no problem. Go and grab a shower, Jon, and I’ll get the car.’

He stood up, and Rebecca followed suit.

Jonathan drifted slowly towards the entrance to the changing room, glancing back over his shoulder a few times.

‘Well?’ she said, trying to keep up with him as he climbed the steps.

As soon as they were out of sight he stopped and appeared to think.

‘Peter,’ he finally said abruptly. ‘Peter Gladh.’

How long had they known? One day, two? Maybe a whole week, or even longer?

He tried to think back through all the conversations he’d had at ArgosEye, breaking down every comment into its constituent parts in the hope of finding some sort of clue. Had they actually know all along, from the very first day?

He was fairly sure that wasn’t the case. But no matter how closely he examined the past few weeks, the only conclusion he found himself coming to was that his cover had been blown on the day of the funeral.

Stoffe was obviously the strongest candidate. After all, he’d actually met the real Manga and had been suspicious as soon as he heard that ArgosEye had given him a job. But he couldn’t rule out other alternatives …

Could Rilke have been involved, for instance?

Had he said anything to her, had something slipped out when they were curled up watching television on her sofa?

He didn’t think so, but on the other hand his double life in recent weeks had taken its toll on his psyche. One single slip, that was all it would have taken. A name, or
some tiny detail that didn’t make sense. Rilke was more than smart enough to pick up on something like that.

Like the fact that he had suddenly started drinking vodka in the bar, even though he was supposed to be teetotal …

Maybe Rilke hadn’t liked the attention he had paid to Sophie, and got jealous the next day and told Philip? He couldn’t rule it out, unfortunately.

But there was something else.

He was in Becca’s flat, a place that the Game must be keeping under regular surveillance.

As long as he was here, he was in danger.

And so was Becca …

When she got home she found him in front of the computer. His head was resting on his arms and he was fast asleep. She helped him back to bed and tucked him in, then sat down on the chair he had been sitting in.

The Pillars of Society website was open.

‘Hello?’

‘Good evening, my friend, I just thought I’d call, as arranged.’

‘So how is it going?’

‘At the moment I would say that everything is in the balance. The next few days will be decisive …’

Things were finally starting to go her way. The union had been brought in on her case, and she had got hold of a lawyer who had already started to work on both the prosecutor and the internal investigators.

Her affair with Tobbe was finally over, once and for all, and she also had a good idea who MayBey was. Peter Gladh, Tobbe’s deputy, and the nephew of that infuriating bastard diplomat, Sixten Gladh, in Sudan. His home address was on Lidingö, east of the city, just as Micke had said.

She could have kicked herself for not checking that angle to start with. The old duffer had gone on about his nephew, saying that he knew from him how immoral the force had become … Now, in hindsight, it all seemed obvious, of course.

Peter Gladh had heard stories, both from Uncle Sixten and his rejected little boss, about what a terrible person Rebecca Normén was, and had taken the chance to exploit the situation to build up a bit of interest around his posts. And it had obviously worked. The latest post from MayBey had over a hundred comments, and presumably at least a hundred times more readers. But unlike the people he had caricatured before, Peter Gladh seemed to have got hung up on her, to put it mildly.

According to reliable sources, he was something of an odd fish. No girlfriend, spent all his time in the station, either working or training for the next TCA contest, Toughest Cop Alive – a sort of decathlon for police officers. Bench-presses, obstacle course, swimming and cross country running. It certainly took a certain sort of mentality to do something like that. But was he ‘unusual’ enough to hang around in a car outside her door? And almost run her down?

She still had no answer to that question.

Now she was standing in the middle of a Christmas crowd in a shop that felt cramped and sweaty, in spite of its size.

The day-before-Christmas-Eve desperation was all too evident in the customers in their far too bulky coats. The shop assistants were racing through their work, almost as if the running tracks painted on the floor were real and not just a gimmick.

As soon as Henke said he needed clothes, she had hurried out into the city. She knew that sooner or later she was going to have to tell him about John, the television screen and the consequences of her catastrophic date, but for some reason she felt like putting it off a bit longer. And Henke didn’t seem too keen to tell his own story. A short summary of his holiday in Asia was all he had offered so far. Not a
word about how he had ended up naked in Östermalm, and for understandable reasons she hadn’t pressed him too hard. It would take no more than one counter-question about why she had been there, and she would have to tell him everything. And explain that she was probably the cause of him getting beaten up and coming close to killing himself.

But she couldn’t deny that she was extremely interested to hear his story: when, where and how he had come home, and how he came to know John, and how the hell their two worlds had so suddenly and violently collided.

It took her an hour and a half to get everything, and when she finally squeezed into the jam-packed bus she had her hands full of carrier-bags. She had to shift the whole lot into her right hand so she could hang on to the roof-strap with her left.

Well, at least Henke wouldn’t freeze.

Five thousand kronor in total, but he could have it as a combined Christmas and birthday present.

‘Bit cramped, this,’ the man beside her said in brisk voice.

‘Yes, hot too …’

She let go of the strap to loosen her clothing, but almost fell when the bus lurched unexpectedly.

‘I could hold your bags for you if you like?’ the man said.

She hesitated for a moment. Letting a stranger hold her things … But the bus’s heating system was going full-blast and she could feel the sweat trickling down between her shoulders. They were some way from the next stop, and besides, it was so crowded that he wouldn’t get far with her bags before she caught him. And there were actually people who offered to help without having an ulterior motive … Where was her Christmas spirit?

Besides, the man didn’t look like the sort who’d steal things on a bus, he looked more like a fellow officer. There was something about his frame and posture that made him seem familiar.

She didn’t recognize him, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. There were more than 1,500 police in Stockholm, and many of them had started after her, and since she moved to the Security Police she had gradually lost touch with the uniformed branch.

For a moment she contemplated asking him straight out, then decided against it.

‘Thanks,’ she said instead, smiling as she handed over her bags.

He returned her smile and quickly shifted his own bag before taking hers.

She loosened her scarf, then opened her jacket, then breathed out.

Lovely!

It was all about control – not just control of the buzz out there, but of the very company itself. The shares, that had to be it.

Anna Argos had owned the biggest stake in the company, and would thus have always had the last word. No matter what fantastic plans Philip might have had as MD, he would always have had to ask the board for permission, which meant that one way or another, he would still have been in his ex-wife’s hands.

The report he had paid for before starting work had mentioned rumours of a stock-market flotation. What if Philip had wanted to go public, but Anna had objected? He’d considered this theory before, before he got a bit too involved …

After all, ArgosEye had been Anna’s life’s work, Philip
himself had said that at the funeral, and maybe she wasn’t prepared to give up control? Just as allergic to outside share-holders as old Ingvar Kamprad at Ikea, no matter how much it might swell the coffers? But what if Anna fell off her perch and Monika inherited the whole lot?

Something told him that the older sister would be considerably more amenable.

Beneath her disapproving façade he was fairly sure that Monika was scared of Philip.

Hardly surprising, really …

There had been something in the air the other evening. He had thought that everyone was partying like crazy because they thought the world was about to end. But in fact that might only have been part of the truth. Because if one world ends, doesn’t that also mean that another one is born?

Philip had dropped little hints that something big was about to happen, calling all the section heads in for a meeting even though it was Sunday.

The section heads weren’t just in charge of their own little fiefdoms, they were also share-owners, Beens had blurted that out that night they had pizza together, so whatever happened to the company over the next few weeks would have a direct impact on their wallets.

The more he thought about it, the more details started to pop up. Rilke looking at a loft apartment. Dejan sitting there looking through Maserati brochures. Beens with all his boasting, and now the famous Stoffe, back with a suntan from a long trip abroad …

Could he possibly have been to an obscure little Gulf state to hand over a case full of money? To thank Bruno Hamel, a.k.a. Vincent the Ladykiller, for his efforts?

He could understand that they were pissed off with
him, they had every right to be. He had betrayed their trust, after all. But to go from that to electric shocks?

No, something was obviously going on, something big, and the only way to find out more was to pay a home visit to big sister Argos. Besides, he felt he needed to get away from the flat. Draw their eyes away from Becca …

She had hardly made it through the door before he set about the bags, pulling off the tracksuit and t-shirt he’d borrowed, tearing off the labels and putting the clothes on.

‘Are you going out now, right away? I thought we could have coffee together, we’ve got loads to catch up on …’

She sounded disappointed, but he didn’t actually have any choice.

‘Sorry, but like you said yesterday, there’s something I’ve got to take care of. It can’t wait …’

‘But are you sure you’re okay? Do you want me to come with …’

‘No,’ he interrupted, a bit too sharply. ‘This is something I have to do on my own, Becca,’ he added, rather more gently.

She gave him a long look.

‘Okay, but you can at least take my mobile so I can call you.’

‘Sure,’ he said, taking it. He put it in one of the many pockets of the padded jacket. But just before he left the flat he took it out again and poked it between a couple of woolly hats on the shelf by the door.

When he reached the ground floor he carefully opened the front door and looked up and down the street before slipping out and rushing quickly into the park opposite. His battered body protested after just a twenty-metre run. Not a good sign.

All of a sudden he thought he could hear footsteps behind him. He stopped abruptly and nipped in behind a tree.

But it was just a woman out walking her dog.

He let her pass, then carried on cautiously along the path towards Fridhemsplan.

By the time he got out of the underground at Ropsten it was already getting dark.

There were only three or four people on the platform, all of them harmless. No-one was after him, he had run through all his best secret-agent tricks at Fridhemsplan, then again at the Central Station. He leaped onto a train, went one station, then doubled back on himself, then jumped on a train only to dash out again just before the doors closed.

In other words, everything ought to be okay. But he still took a detour down to the taxi rank at street-level. He hung about in the kiosk until he heard the little train come rattling over the Lidingö bridge, and waited until the last second before racing up the stairs again.

Well, maybe he didn’t race. His body still felt incredibly sore, so he didn’t have quite the usual spring in his step. The infrared sensor in the waiting room seemed to be broken, because he came close to being guillotined by the sliding doors as he stumbled out onto the platform.

Fucking local transport!

It must be at least five years since he last travelled on the Lidingö line, he hadn’t been back since the time Klasse had a sublet single-room flat up in Larsberg and they would sometimes go back there to carry on partying after a night out.

Everything still looked the same, pretty much like some old film set. Tiny burgundy velvet seats, polished hardwood, and tin warning signs under every window with anachronistic messages, such as
‘Kindly refrain from leaning
out of the window’.
It looked and smelled like a movie from the fifties.

He jumped off the train one stop before his destination, lit a fag and walked the rest of the way. Silent roads lined with villas, where the snow muffled all sound.

Candlesticks, fairy lights on Christmas trees and television screens spilled their light out onto the road.

Her house was at the end of a cul-de-sac, and to be on the safe side he checked out the parked cars lining the road. Only two of them weren’t covered with snow, which had to mean that they had been parked within the last half hour. They were both empty. The other cars were so covered in snow that if anyone was trying to keep watch from inside any of them, they’d be both frozen solid and unable to see a thing.

Just to be sure, he took the long route, going up the next road and then plodding up the poorly cleared cycle path linking the far ends of the two roads, and then he finally approached her house.

He could see candle flames flickering in a couple of the windows, so she was definitely home. He took a last look back at the road. Everything seemed quiet.

So he rang the doorbell. He heard footsteps approaching in the hall, then saw a dark shadow against the frosted glass. Then the rattle of the lock.

‘I’ve been waiting for you to show up,’ she said with a smile.