The Game Trilogy (43 page)

The head cop looked up with a frown.

‘Don’t you like ice-hockey?’

‘W-what?’

HP stopped, on tiptoe, his eyes still fixed on his escape route.

‘LHC – Linköping Hockey Club …?’

The cops grinned and exchanged a look.

‘Thomas and I support AIK – we’re playing you in the Globe tonight. Top against bottom, you could say …’

‘Sure, yeah …’ HP muttered while his brain made an effort to catch up.

The policeman handed him the passport.

‘Welcome home, Linköping, and good luck. You’re going to need it …’

‘We have a problem …’

‘I see – that doesn’t sound good. How big?’

‘We’re not quite sure yet – right now we’re evaluating the situation. But we may need to use your services again …’

‘That’s okay – I almost expected that. I’ve actually made a number of preparations …’

She had been dreaming about him again.

The man on the running machine.

As she climbed the steps out of the underground she tried to remember what the dream had been about, but annoyingly the details were just out of reach. The look in his eyes was all she could remember. That penetrating black look that she had met in the mirror, almost making her lose her breath. She had seen it before, plenty of times. But back then it had belonged to a completely different man. A man she had loved – and hated …

But Dag was dead and gone, and she had carried on without him. Started a new, better life with someone who didn’t treat her badly. So why was she doing this? What
made a completely unknown man so interesting that she was dreaming about him?

Without the slightest warning, that feeling washed over her again and she stopped dead in the middle of the pavement. Just like in the car down in Darfur, when they had been rushing through the cloud of sand and away from the threat, the world seemed to slow down. Every detail, every little movement around her suddenly appeared crystal clear, and for just a fraction of a second she imagined she could see something out of the corner of her eye. An indistinct silhouette visible through all the passersby.

But the moment she started to turn her head, the world went back to its normal speed, her line of sight was obscured and the silhouette was gone.

She waited a few seconds, then slipped between two parked cars and quickly crossed the street. Nothing, not the slightest movement.

There was no-one following her. Anyway, who on earth would be?

She went round the corner and turned into a little side street, and stopped in front of a doorway.

For a brief second she hesitated, then tapped in the code, and looked over her shoulder just to make sure before going in.

Two floors up she took out her bunch of keys and unlocked the door to the flat.

After someone tried to burn down Henke’s flat the insurance company had not only paid for the hall to be restored, but also a reinforced door, so if your average burglar wanted to break in they’d have their work cut out for them. Which made it all the more annoying that the flat was uninhabited.

Henke’s belongings were still in storage with Shureguard, so the whole flat, with the exception of the mattress on the floor, was pretty much empty of furniture.

She fetched a glass of water from the kitchen, and had just finished it when there was a knock at the door. Three cautious little knocks.

She didn’t bother looking through the peep-hole, and just opened the door.

‘Please, no talking – can’t we just fuck?’ she said to the person outside.

He really shouldn’t. There were so many reasons not to that he had already lost count.

But he still felt obliged to.

The toilets looked just the same as they had before he left.

He found the right cubicle, locked the door and stood on the toilet seat. He looked anxiously around the top of the cubicle, then gently lifted one of the ceiling tiles.

He felt inside the enclosed space, his heart pounding faster and faster. For a few seconds he thought it was gone, that the security staff had found it. Or possibly someone else …

Someone coughed a couple of cubicles away from him, and the sudden noise made him start.

He looked around in panic, then caught sight of an electronic gadget in the ceiling and thought for a few moments that he’d been caught. That they were already on their way …

But then his fingertips touched something hard, and he breathed out.

How fucking paranoid could you get?

In purely logical terms, the toilets in the departure
hall were the perfect hiding place. Basically impossible to monitor. But logic was nowhere near enough to explain why he had decided to pick up the silvery little phone.

It took him almost five days to pull himself together. He stayed shut in his room, sleeping like a corpse and only getting up to go to the toilet or let room service in – which, at this elegant establishment meant paying the shagged-out-looking bloke in reception to close his hatch and go across the street to McDonald’s.

But as the days drifted past even the receptionist began to give him funny looks through the crack in the door, and eventually HP realized he was going to have to get his shit together.

So at least now he had more or less cleaned himself up.

The washed-out dressing gown he had pulled on after his much-needed shower lay in a heap on the stained carpet. He had only had it on for a few seconds when the feeling and smell of wet towelling made him pull it off in panic.

The television was showing pretty much the same shit as ever.

Channel five proudly presents: semi-famous people allowing themselves to be humiliated in new ways.

Zap.

American sitcom on six – season ten, episode sixty-eight …

Zap.

Advert for Dressman.

Zap.

Award-winning Iranian women’s drama – on the national broadcaster, SVT, where else …?

Double zap!

A crime series, featuring some sort of serial killer. Big surprise …

Zap again.

Big Brother, version 4.5.

Zap.

Ice hockey …

Zap.

Sitcom …

Zap.

A repeat of Swedish Idol.

Zap.

Advert for Dress …

Zap.

Zap.

ZAP!!

He was back home and nothing had changed except for him.

He thought about pressing the PayTV button and ordering a ridiculously overpriced porn film, but for some reason he wasn’t in the mood.

He was acting like he was still in exile because he was, even in Stockholm.

Anger roused him. He had a sister here, but if the Game was after him he couldn’t risk seeing Rebecca.

He got out of bed and dug out a notepad and pen from the battered little desk.

He opened the window the five centimetres permitted by the safety catch, clambered up onto the windowsill and lit a cigarette. There may have been no-smoking stickers here and there, but to judge by the smell and the nicotine-stained embossed wallpaper, he was hardly the first person to break that particular rule.

All his credit cards had been taken from him in Dubai – they told him they were fake, which in a way was true.

Fortunately they had missed the backup card he had had the foresight to stick between the layers of rubber on one of his flip-flops.

Twenty thousand in the account – enough to be able to book in anonymously here at the Hotel California, and buy the essentials. As soon he could get back online it would be simple enough to top up his account.

Laptop
, he scrawled on the pad, then, after a brief hesitation:

Mobile.

He cast a long glance at the little wardrobe.

He’d taped the phone to the back of one of the drawers, and for a moment he was seized by an almost irresistible urge to get it out and look at it.

Just for a few minutes …

You have to put a stop to this, Normén!

It was way past one o’clock at night, but as usual she was wide awake. She glanced at the sleeping form beside her on the mattress, trying to identify what she felt for it, but didn’t really succeed.

Sex – that was all this was about, at least for her. An undemanding fuck – enough to fend off the angst for a few hours.

She wasn’t entirely sure if it was the purely technical aspects that made the sex good, or if it was because what they were doing was forbidden.

Probably a mixture of the two.

Either way, she couldn’t carry on like this. She was starting to get paranoid, imagining that people were staring at her when she was on her way to another of their sordid little meetings. She had to put a stop to this, once and for all. Preferably today, or at the very latest by the end of the week, she thought, letting her hand slide over
the pale back beside her. The touch made the back’s owner turn towards her and pull her closer. A hand roamed over her breast, then warm breath on her skin.

By Friday at the latest, she thought.

The list – he had to focus on the list and get his shit together.

He added clothes, toiletries and some other useful stuff before he stopped again. Through the television, the radio was playing a Neil Young song that he recognized, and he sat still in the window and listened aimlessly until the obligatory ad break made him start thinking again.

So, what exactly were his plans?

Questions were still buzzing round inside his head like a swarm of angry hornets, but he had no answers. Or rather: he had far too many, and his five days of R&R had unfortunately left him none the wiser.

Obviously he ought to get out of the city. That was practically a no-brainer.

But he was fed up of running – completely fucking done with it.

Wasn’t it actually pretty smart to hide right here, right under their noses? Surely this would be the last place anyone would ever think of looking?

The problem was that no matter how much of a stroke of genius this Million Dollar Hotel was, he couldn’t stay up here pulling his Anne Frank routine for the rest of his life. He was a social creature, he’d already tried living as a hermit and had almost gone mad as a result. If he carried on along that path it would end with ‘Brooks was here’ and a length of Venetian blind cord from a lamp hook, he was pretty sure of that. And his sister would have to identify his body.

He finished his cigarette, flicked the butt out of the
window, two storeys down into the courtyard. The fall through the air made it glow until it suddenly went out as it hit the damp little patch of grass below his window.

Whatever had actually happened out there in the desert, it had something to do with his mysterious compatriot Anna Argos, and if he was the least bit interested in making any sense of this whole crazy story, he had to start with her. The only question was how.

He glanced at the wardrobe again as he felt in the packet for another cigarette, then realized at the same moment that he’d just smoked his last one.

Fucking bollocks!

Cigs
, he wrote on the list, then began, without any great expectation, to search through the pile of used clothes in the hope of finding a forgotten little fag-end.

Instead he found himself holding a business card in his hand. The little white rectangle contained a long sequence of hand-written numbers that started with +971, and he was just about to toss Moussad’s contact details in the bin when he realized there was something on the other side.

And suddenly he had an idea.

A crazy, fucked-up, stupid idea that he turned over in his mind for several minutes before making the decision. It was hardly going to be easy – possibly actually life-threatening.

But just the thought of what he was considering made him feel insanely excited!

Better to burn out than fade away!

‘Central Investigation Office, Westergren.’

‘Hello, this is Rebecca Normén from the Bodyguard Unit.’

She was making an effort to keep her voice neutral. There were a few moments’ silence on the line.

‘I see. And how can I help you?’

Westergren’s tone of voice was curt but not directly unpleasant. Not much, anyway …

‘I was just wondering how far you’d got with my case? If anything new has emerged?’

More silence.

‘And what might that be, Normén?’

Nice move – turning the question back on her. Pretending nothing had happened and making her lay her own cards on the table.

But she had already noted the faint hint of annoyance in his voice and side-stepped the trap.

‘I was hoping you might be able to tell me, Westergren,’ she replied.

Several more seconds of silence.

‘I know exactly why you’re calling, Normén,’ he suddenly snarled. ‘You, Runeberg and your other colleagues have had plenty of time to work something out, which is exactly what I told the prosecutor a short while ago. You can tell Ludvig that we haven’t got anything new to say and that the case is still very much open!’

The line went dead.

Rebecca slowly put the receiver down.

So what did this mean?

Well, in the unlikely event that it was Modin who filed the complaint against her, then her altered testimony ought to have punctured the entire investigation. The prosecutor was usually quick to write off shaky cases like this, and simultaneously improve the statistics, seeing as ‘case abandoned’ was, oddly enough, a result …

But Modin had never been the prime suspect, so this whole line of reasoning was probably largely theoretical. For instance, why would Modin report her for misuse of office only to change her mind a few days later …?

Considerably more interesting were the circumstances surrounding her altered testimony. Rebecca could actually understand why Westergren was so annoyed. Even if Modin had done her best to make her story sound believable when they spoke, it still didn’t sound quite right, more like something she’d come up with later on. But on
paper the story worked perfectly. No precise details that could be checked, no absolute contradictions that would sound odd after her original statement. Taken as a whole, Modin’s version of events did actually strengthen her own. So she should really just be grateful for it …

If David Malmén really was the person who, one way or another, had ‘helped’ Modin to remember, then Rebecca had seriously misjudged him, clearly. Although of course it was also possible that her deputy was acting on orders from above …

No matter, she could remove him and Modin from the list of suspects, and with them probably the other two members of the team. Which left just the embassy counsellor, Gladh. Not really much of a surprise.

She was back to square one again – but at least she no longer had to watch her back.

At least she hoped not …

Everything was laid out on the stained bedspread. Every item neatly arranged so he could tick it off his list. He felt like some secret agent getting ready for a dangerous mission. Which might well turn out to be the case …

The paranoia that had followed him halfway round the world had grown stronger, which probably wasn’t that strange really. Somewhere out there people were looking for him, people who wanted nothing more than to get their hands on Player 128 and hand him over to the Game Master.

But he had to try to shake it off. There was no proof that they had found him, none at all. He was still one step ahead, and as long as he trod carefully and didn’t wake up any guard dogs then that would remain the case.

What he really needed to do was focus on his new mission.

He opened his laptop and started to type out a message, but stopped after just a couple of sentences.

Shit, in the bitter glare of hindsight he could see that picking up the phone hadn’t exactly been his smartest move. Okay, so it was switched off and drained of power. Not even the best batteries in the world would last fourteen months, so he wasn’t worried about being traced.

His problem went rather deeper than that.

Even though the phone was physically stone-dead, it was as if it was still sending out signals.

Inaudible little enticements to the part of his brain that still longed for everything the Game could offer him.

And that was presumably why he hadn’t been able to leave it where it was out at Arlanda.

Just holding it felt undeniably good. Feeling the cool metal against the palm of his hand, his fingertips sliding over the touch-screen.

And for a few seconds, a few wonderful seconds, the feeling was back.

Introducing Player 128, first runner-up, the public’s favourite – the hottest guy in the Game. Heeeeenrik Petteeerssooon!

Almost all phones could be charged up the same way these days. A little cable to one of the computer’s USB ports was all it would take …

But obviously he wasn’t going to switch it on, he wasn’t completely thick, for fuck’s sake!

There were plenty of other things to be getting on with, ways to keep his mind occupied and at a safe distance from that lethal track. It was just like that mental exercise.

Whenever you think about the Game, you lose!

‘Hi Rebecca, this is Håkan! Håkan Berglund,’ he clarified when she didn’t say anything.

‘Oh, hi …’

She was holding the phone between her cheek and shoulder so she could pour a cup of coffee.

‘I’m back in Stockholm and was wondering if you felt like having that meal we talked about. How about this Friday?’

She took a deep breath.

‘I’m not sure that’s such a great idea …’ she began.

‘Oh, come on!’ he interrupted. ‘I got the feeling we clicked pretty well, and I’d like to see you again. I can pick you up around seven …’

She sighed.

Evidently she’d got Håkan Berglund all wrong.

The fact that he dared to call at all was pretty surprising in itself, considering how little he’d done to support her down in Darfur. And now he didn’t seem to be the sort who could take a hint.

She really didn’t like pushy people.

‘Sorry, Håkan, but I’ve actually already got a boyfriend,’ she said bluntly.

There was silence on the line.

‘Hello?’ she said.

But he had already hung up.

‘Magnus Sandström?’

‘That’s me.’

He got up from the sofa in the waiting area and followed the receptionist to a small meeting room.

‘Welcome, Magnus, take a seat and Eliza will be with you shortly. We’re running slightly late with the interviews, but she shouldn’t be too long.’

‘No problem!’

‘Great. Can I get you anything while you’re waiting? Coffee, tea …?’

‘Thanks, I’m good,’ he smiled.

She gave him a little wave as she went out, closing the door carefully behind her.

He made himself comfortable on one of the six metal-tubed chairs around the table. One wall was made entirely of glass and through it he could see straight down onto Sergels torg. The sound of traffic was only just audible as faint background noise. The skyscrapers of Hötorget had to be one of the best office addresses in the city.

The door opened and a solidly built woman walked in.

‘Magnus?’

He nodded and she marched quickly across the room.

Her handshake was limp and slightly damp.

‘Eliza Poole, head of personnel. Welcome!’

She gestured at the chair he had just stood up from.

‘Sit yourself down and tell me why you’re interested in working for us here at ArgosEye …’

He sat down, crossed his legs and leaned back.

‘Well, I’ve worked for a long time in the computer business, and questions of risk and crisis management in communications have long been a subject close to my heart …’

HP smiled his smoothest smile, nudged his glasses into place and brushed an invisible speck of dust from the sleeve of his jacket.

‘By the way, call me Manga. Everyone does!’