It had actually felt pretty good.
Bolin had mostly just nodded, occasionally interrupting to ask a question, but mainly he had kept quiet.
When they were finished it was past one o’clock in the morning.
Bolin read the time to the tape recorder, then switched it off.
“That’s some story, Pettersson,” he said as he stood up. “We’ll have to double-check a few things, then we’ll need to talk again tomorrow. Someone will be with you shortly to take you to a cell.”
HP merely nodded in reply. He could handle a night in the cells, no problem.
Been there, done that . . .
But now fifteen minutes had passed since Bolin had left, and he was starting to get impatient.
Where the hell was the custody officer?
He was tired, his head and nose ached, and his mouth was completely dry.
Two more minutes, he thought, then he’d stick his head out into the corridor and make some noise.
He realized almost incidentally that his cell was still sitting on the table among his other belongings.
The little LED light was flashing red.
♦ ♦ ♦
“Okay, you’ve lost me now, Normén. Did you say we’ve arrested your little brother?”
“I’m afraid so, Mulle. Henrik’s a decent lad but he’s incredibly immature, and he’s something of a magnet for trouble, if you get what I mean?”
He chuckled in response.
“The black sheep of the family, then?”
“Exactly,” she lied.
“Do you know what he’s been arrested for? We’ve got quite a few immature trouble magnets to choose from up here this evening.”
She frowned. Mulle may be getting close to retirement, but there wasn’t normally anything wrong with his memory.
“His name’s Henrik Pettersson and he’s been arrested for throwing that stone at me and Kruse.”
The line went silent for a few moments.
“I’m sorry, Normén, but as far as I know no one’s been arrested for the attack on the pair of you. Every patrol car in the district’s out looking for the bastard; they’re still hard at it on channel sixteen, so I’d definitely have heard if they’d got him. And we haven’t got anyone by the name of Pettersson, according to the book, so your brother must have been playing some sort of prank on you, I’m afraid.”
Suddenly she couldn’t think at all, then she felt a wave of fury bubbling up.
What the hell was Henke really up to?
♦ ♦ ♦
The light was still flashing angrily at him and for some reason, probably just habit, he grabbed it and his other belongings when he stood up to go over to the door.
He pressed the handle.
The door was unlocked.
He opened it and to his surprise found himself staring out into a dark corridor.
“Hello!” he called in a trembling voice. “Is there anyone there?”
No answer.
Suddenly he felt scared. Considerably more scared than he had been when the gorillas had beaten him up in the car or when Bolin had flashed him his reptilian smile a couple of hours before. Because this was the fucking twilight zone!
The corridor was completely deserted, not a sound to be heard anywhere, and all he could see was a row of closed doors the same as the one he had just opened. At the far end a green-and-white emergency exit sign flickered irregularly. The flickering reminded him of the cell. He held it up and touched the screen, and even though he already had a vague suspicion what the message had to say, his stomach still clenched in terror.
Player 128
You have broken Rule Number One and are therefore expelled from the Game with immediate effect! Your points and any remaining pecuniary rewards are hereby withdrawn. Please leave the phone on the premises and refrain from talking to anyone about the Game in the future. Continued violation of Rule Number One will have serious consequences!
The Game Master
With an audible click the light in the room behind him went out.
♦ ♦ ♦
Home, she thought.
She just wanted to go home. Take her clothes off, grab a quick shower to get rid of the sweat and blood. A handful of pills and then sleep, wonderful fucking sleep.
But it didn’t turn out to be that easy. And of course it was Henke’s fault.
She’d tried his home number, but the line had been disconnected. The same thing with the two most recent cell numbers he’d given her. She couldn’t get hold of her idiot little brother, which only made her more angry.
What had he actually said?
She tried to remember what his exact words had been, but it was practically impossible. He had at any rate confessed to throwing the stone. But how the hell could he have known that she was in the car? Was this some sort of elaborate, delayed revenge?
No, that sounded crazy, she understood that as soon as she had thought it. No matter how messed up her and Henke’s relationship was, he’d never set out to hurt her on purpose. So what was this all about?
Why had he thrown a stone at their car, or at least claimed to have done so?
“Kronoberg,” he had said, but that had turned out not to be true. Just to be sure she had called Södermalm and the Western District too, but neither of them had a Henrik “HP” Pettersson in custody.
Had he been lying to her?
He could very well have been; that had happened far too many times in the past. But there was something about his voice, something . . . she realized it sounded stupid to use the word when you were talking about Henke, but nonetheless: something . . . honest. As if he really believed he’d been arrested. She was aware that she wouldn’t get any answers to any of her questions until she managed to get hold of her little brother.
The question was: Where the hell was he?
♦ ♦ ♦
He ran. First in sheer panic. Along the dark corridor, toward the door—although he was prepared to bet it was locked. Then relief as it opened onto a stairwell.
Stone steps down into the darkness, more unlit corridors along the way. His steps echoed on the concrete walls. Finally, at last, a way out.
Damp night air hit him as he crossed the street to get as far away as possible from that corridor. A quick glance over his shoulder, then one more just to be sure.
Suddenly he felt soft grass under his feet and it took him a few seconds to get his bearings. Large black trees splayed toward the night sky above him, and ahead of him was an iron railing and some unkempt gravestones.
Kronoberg Park, close to the Jewish Cemetery. Only a block or so from where he’d thought he was to start with.
His legs were working by themselves. Up the hill, through the park, and finally out onto Polhemsgatan. The most western of the police’s three copper-colored towers in front of him. For a few moments he considered carrying on to the entrance down on Kungsholmsgatan, knocking on the copper doorway, and handing himself in. But before he’d had time to make a decision his legs were already carrying him out onto Fleminggatan, then right, toward the city center.
His head was spinning as his feet drummed on the tarmac.
Tramp, tramp, tramp.
The monotonous sound calmed him down a bit. The whirlpool in his head gradually slowed down and the panic slowly released its iron grip of his chest.
Tramp, tramp, tramp.
A setup!
Tramp, tramp, tramp.
The whole thing had been a fucking setup!
Tramp, tramp, tramp.
The more he thought about it, the better he understood how it all fitted together. He had thought that three thousand points was a bit too much just for throwing a stone at a car, even if it was a cop car.
And he’d been right!
The stone, the car, the cops—all of that had been secondary, a sort of prologue. The assignment, the real assignment, had been all about him. A sort of evaluation, really.
Or a test . . .
“
Only a very small number of people are qualified for this level . . .”
They had tested him to see if he had what it took. If he could handle the storms up on the summit.
And the result, ladies and gentlemen?
He had messed up.
Big-time!
9
I LOST THE GAME
“OKAY, REBECCA, WE’VE been through the details a couple of times now, but could you say a bit more about how you feel?”
She almost had to stop herself from looking up at the ceiling.
How she felt?
Standard-issue psychobabble of the sort she’d heard so many times before, and it had never led to anything positive.
Did he really want to hear the truth?
That she felt like shit?
And even if she was entirely honest and told her whole story, and turned her feelings, thoughts, and reflections inside out—was that going to help? Could it make everything undone? Hardly, so she’d have to pull out the tried-and-tested mask.
“Thanks, but I feel fine, actually,” she managed to say, with something that was supposed to be a helpful smile.
She glanced at the time, twenty minutes or so since they started the debriefing talk, and she’d be lucky to get away with anything less than half an hour.
Rebecca herself had insisted on seeing Anderberg at eight o’clock. She wanted to get the conversation out of the way, so she could head over to Maria Trappgränd before her good-for-nothing brother had even opened his eyes . . .
Anderberg sighed and leafed through his notes.
“Have you had a chance to talk to anyone else about what happened? Friends, family, colleagues, maybe?”
He looked at her over his narrow glasses.
“No,” she said, slightly too abruptly, then realized her mistake at once and tried to correct herself. “No, I haven’t had time to talk to anyone yet, it only happened last night, after all, and I wanted to see you first.”
A little smile to top off the lie ought to do the trick?
Nice save! Anderberg was thinking.
A smart girl, this one, but not smart enough to catch him out, at least not the day after such a traumatic experience as the one she’d just been through. A car crash and her partner in intensive care, that wasn’t the sort of thing you could just shrug off.
This was the second time in just a couple of weeks that they’d met, and his earlier concerns about Rebecca Normén hadn’t exactly decreased. As far as he understood it, she had once again acted in an irreproachable manner, but this time she didn’t seem anywhere near as composed.
In contrast to their previous conversation, this time she sounded mostly like a robot, as though she were on autopilot. That wasn’t a good sign. If he couldn’t get her to open up and let go of some of her feelings now, things would look very different and his report would be considerably easier to write. He’d seen tougher officers than her snap as a result of unprocessed experiences, and he had no desire to add Rebecca’s name to that tragic list.
“But you do have someone you can talk to if you need to? Sometimes it can take a few days after an experience like this, then suddenly a whole load of things come bubbling up. You can have my number, of course, but it’s important to be able to talk to other people, above all family and friends,” he went on.
She nodded mutely.
“But you don’t have any problems on that front?”
He looked at her again over the rims of his glasses.
She took a deep breath and made an effort to sound composed.
“No, I don’t.”
Anderberg nodded and leafed through his notes again.
“You’ve got a Henrik Pettersson listed as your closest relative. Is that your partner?”
She was on the point of jumping out of her chair. Anderberg wasn’t stupid, that much was clear.
A bit of harmless chat, and then bang, straight to her weak point. Evidently her usual defense wasn’t working, so she had to choose her words carefully . . .
Another deep breath. Careful now, Normén!
“Henrik’s my brother. Normén was Mom’s maiden name; I took it after . . .” She bit her lip involuntarily.
“. . . she passed away,” she concluded, with what she hoped was a sad smile.
The psychologist nodded.
“So you’re close to your brother?”
“Not anymore,” slipped out of her mouth.
Shit, the lack of sleep and headache were taking their toll, and Anderberg wasn’t just anyone. Today it was unusually difficult to keep her guard up, mainly because in her mind she was already knocking on Henrik’s door. She had to regroup and try a new tactic.
“Do you feel like talking about it?”
Anderberg had evidently caught a scent of something. She had to tread carefully now.
She shrugged to give herself a couple more seconds to think. What the hell could she say?
No, dear shrink, I don’t feel like telling you about my useless petty-criminal little brother who doesn’t give a shit about anything and wrecks everything he touches, but to whom I’m going to be in debt for the rest of my life.
“Things were pretty tough when we were growing up,” she said instead, hoping that a few serious but now harmless confidences would throw him off track.
Anderberg nodded encouragingly, evidently interested.
“Well, to start with it was mainly Dad, I suppose. But after a while he dragged Mom down with him, you could say. Especially after she got ill.”
She took a deep breath before going on.
“Dad was pretty unusual. He was quite a bit older than Mom when they got married. It was his flat and he already had his set routines. Everything had to be exactly the way he wanted, down to the smallest detail, and Dad would get furious about the tiniest things. A set of keys in the wrong place or a mark on the bathroom mirror were enough to set him off. When he was home the rest of us had to tiptoe around so as not to make him angry or upset. Henke, my little brother, is three years younger than me,” she said.
“When things were bad at least we had each other. I used to protect him, comfort him, and take him out so that things could calm down. I suppose you could say we provided each other with a bit of stability.”
She smiled unconsciously.
“I used to take him with me whenever I could, I didn’t want him to be left at home alone with Dad. You never knew what might happen, and if anything did happen, for some reason my little brother would always get the blame, maybe because he was smallest and weakest. Dad didn’t exactly hold back, especially not after a few drinks, and even if Mom did her best she never really dared to stand up to him and take our side when there was trouble. She probably had to deal with enough of his moods as it was . . . But Dad never laid a finger on me, on the other hand. I was safe, somehow; men of his generation didn’t hit little girls, so maybe that’s why I started trying to protect Henke?” She shrugged her shoulders and caught Anderberg’s nod of encouragement.
He had evidently taken the bait. But to her surprise she also discovered that she actually didn’t mind going on . . .
“Henke was very patient, always tagging along, never complaining, even if he mostly had to play girls’ games. Sometimes he got to be the doll while I and the other girls on the block dressed him up. Mommy, Daddy, baby, and all that . . . All the stuff we weren’t getting at home.”
She smiled again and looked down at her lap thoughtfully.
The psychologist didn’t push her; he was actually looking quite pleased.
It was ironic, really, that everything she had tried to hide so far had turned into the perfect smoke screen now. A new line of defense now that the old one seemed to have crumbled. She hadn’t talked about this for . . . well, it must be thirteen years now, and it actually felt pretty good to let it out.
A quick glance at the time, twenty-five minutes done. Now she just had to round this off and catch the southbound subway train. Get back into the saddle.
> “But you’ve had less contact since you grew up?”
His tone was friendly, more supportive than questioning.
She nodded in confirmation.
“Yes, I’m afraid we lost a bit of our connection when I moved out. Dad had died suddenly the previous year and Henke was sixteen by then, so it felt fairly safe to leave him with Mom. She was also quite ill by then and spent most of her time in bed. I’d met a boy and we moved in together. First love and all that.”
She shrugged her shoulders in an effort to appear nonchalant.
“I suppose I’d been managing the household pretty much alone, and looking after Mom as well, so I thought it was Henke’s turn to take more responsibility now that Dad was out of the picture . . . My boyfriend and I sorted out a flat for them on Södermalm, near Mariatorget. Less space and closer to the hospital. And visits from home help to make things easier. I was in love and I was in a hurry to get away, let go of the responsibility once and for all. I let myself get caught up in my relationship with Dag instead, and Henke probably felt a bit left out. Like I’d abandoned him. After all, he was used to having me there, the two of us against the world. And he didn’t exactly get on with my boyfriend, so . . .”
She stopped herself. This was dangerous territory, best not to get tangled up in a load of unnecessary lies.
“In any case, it only lasted a couple of years; then Mom died of cancer. Henke’s still living in the flat, but our relationship never really recovered . . . You could say that we’re working on it . . .” she concluded with a settled expression.
Most of what she’d said was actually true. From a purely technical point of view, she hadn’t actually lied, just withheld certain details. The question was whether the story held up?
Anderberg nodded in empathy, evidently happy with the confidences he had managed to elicit.
“So you still see each other, you and Henrik?”
“Of course,” she replied, with a smile of relief. “I’m actually going to see him once we’re done here.”
. . . and I’m going to wring his bloody neck! she added silently to herself.
Game: A Thriller Page 11
