But there was still something about the tone of the posts. It seemed so personal. As if MayBey knew exactly who she was, and genuinely didn’t like – hated her, even.
He was terrified.
They had been watching him somehow, letting him off the leash for a while to see what he’d do. Anyone smarter than him would obviously have taken off. Packed his bag and got the hell out of Dodge, making them believe he was out of the Game and no longer any threat to them.
But not him. Oh, no … Instead he had merely demonstrated that he had no intention of giving up. That he was still a threat. The question he had asked himself in the flat was still waiting for an answer. Had they managed to see past Henrik Pettersson and realize that he was also Player 128? Did they even know that it was him that Vincent had framed for Anna’s death?
The train pulled into the platform with a good deal of creaking, jolted a few times and then stopped abruptly.
‘Time to get out,’ Elroy muttered in HP’s ear as he grabbed him by the arm. ‘And just so you know …’
With his free hand he nudged his jacket open to reveal a black metallic object at his hip.
‘Model 88, 9 millimetre, 19 bullets in the cartridge,’ he grinned.
HP gulped a couple of times, then nodded slowly. His pulse was pounding in his ears.
They walked along the almost empty platform towards the ticket hall. Philip walked a couple of steps ahead, followed by HP, with Elroy glued to his left arm. He already knew where they were heading.
The same steep flight of steps down to street level, the one he had tried to run up just a few hours before. They were going to drive him out to some secluded place, a gravel pit or some forest clearing. This time he was far more scared. Just like Anna, he was a threat, a risk factor that needed to be dealt with. If he got inside that car he wouldn’t return until some Thai berry-picker found his fox-gnawed skull in thirty or forty years time, he was sure of that.
He had to do something!
As she headed out across the Lidingö bridge she tried to sort out the radio. A bit of music, that was what she needed. Something to drown out the maelstrom in her head.
But instead she got the news.
‘The Security Police are still declining to comment on the failed bomb attack in the centre of Stockholm. The 28-year-old perpetrator had no previous convictions, and was not known to the police, but the message the man left on Facebook suggests that his actions are linked to international terrorism …’
She changed channel, zapped about for a bit until she found a Babyshambles song she liked.
In the morning there’s a buzz of flies
Between the pillows and the skies
That beg into your eyes
Through the looking glass
And between your thighs
And it’s written no small surprise
Let’s straight down the rabbit hole
There we go …
Only ten metres left before the ticket hall, then a few more to the flight of steps. Elroy’s hand was holding him like a vice and he could feel the man’s eyes boring into the back of his neck.
But he had had an idea. He slowed down slightly, just enough for his former boss to get another metre or so ahead of them.
The sliding doors opened to let Philip into the hall, and at that moment HP stopped.
‘Don’t stop …’ Elroy muttered.
HP obeyed and took a step forward, so that they were in the middle of the doorway. Elroy squeezed his arm tighter and muttered irritably.
‘Come on, come on, come on!!!’
The doors closed without warning.
The left-hand door hit Elroy on the arm, forcing him instinctively to take half a step back. At the same time HP took a quick step into the hall and twisted sideways. The right-hand door missed his back and a fraction of a second later crashed onto Elroy’s already caught arm.
He heard Elroy yelp, felt his grip loosen and jerked his body quickly.
He was free!
Time to do what he did best: run for his life!
Philip had evidently heard the cry. He spun round, and reached out with his arms. But HP had already built up speed. He feinted left, then swerved round Philip’s right side.
He set off for the escalator leading up to the underground platform, taking the steps two at a time the way he usually did, but he could feel his body protesting. When he reached the top he glanced quickly over his shoulder, only to discover that both Philip and Elroy were already hot on his heels.
Fuck!
He flew out onto the platform, choosing the right-hand side which was completely deserted.
His body felt weak and he was having to make a huge effort not to trip over his own feet.
A handful of passengers were waiting on the left-hand side of the platform, but obviously none of them was going to help him. Instead he took aim at the far end of the platform, and the long tunnel that led up to Hjorthagen.
Another glance over his shoulder made his heart-rate change gear into panic mode. His pursuers were gaining on him, already close enough for him to see the clenched expressions on their faces. Plumes of breath were puffing from their mouths and noses.
Fucking hell!
He could usually outrun pretty much anyone, but he was still injured, and these guys seemed to be pretty phenomenal runners.
He could forget the tunnel, they’d have caught up with him before he even reached the entrance, and even if by some miracle he did make it, a two hundred metre uphill slope was the last thing he needed right now.
For a second he thought about crossing the empty track and jumping the fence down towards Värtavägen, but the viaduct the platform was built on must be a good fifteen metres up, and there was no way he’d survive a fall like that.
He needed a new plan, fast as fuck!
Another glance over his shoulder, they were even closer now.
His muscles were aching, his lungs and throat burning and he could clearly feel his movements getting slower. They were going to catch him, he realized. Then he saw the sign announcing an approaching train light up on the left-hand side of the platform, and felt the familiar gust of air.
A chance …
A tiny, fucking dangerous little chance. But he didn’t exactly have much choice …
He swerved sharply to the left, changing platform and cruising between a couple of lethargic passengers.
He heard their angry cries as his pursuers knocked them flying.
He veered right and carried on down this new platform. Then he saw the lights of the train emerging from the tunnel, heading straight towards him. His pursuers had almost caught him. He could feel their hands grabbing for his jacket and staked his last reserves of energy on a final, violent burst of speed. The train’s brakes were squealing as he saw it getting closer. Hands brushed his back again.
His lungs felt like they were about to burst, his legs were on the point of giving out, but he forced them out over the edge of the platform. He felt a millisecond of weightlessness as he hung in the air in front of the train.
Then he heard someone scream, a long, drawn out scream that merged with the shrieking of the brakes.
Then ground, tarmac, metal and, finally: darkness …
35
The rabbit hole
Pillars of Society forum
Posted: 23 December, 22:49
By: MayBey
Maybe you’re right, Regina …
Maybe I am just a ghost?
But dare you all ignore me?
Dare you ?
This post has 96 comments
The pocket under the platform wasn’t particularly big. Not quite seventy centimetres across, and maybe half as deep. Just enough for an average-sized person to be able to take cover there.
The wheels of the train were still rolling just a few centimetres away, and the shriek of the brakes made it almost impossible to think.
He did a quick check. His body ached, both from the run, the landin
g and his dive into the cubby-hole, and his heart was pounding like the bass at a death metal concert.
But to his immense relief he couldn’t find any amputated stumps spurting cascades of blood. All his limbs seemed to be intact, even if they were badly battered. He tucked his arms under his body and tried to snake his way forward.
Not very easy …
His mate Vesa had once pointed out the protective pocket to him a long time ago. The guy clearly had a serious train fetish, but you didn’t know about that sort of thing when you were fifteen. He’d eventually met a tragic fate, ending up as charcoal down in Älvsjö. He’d been riding on top of a carriage but hadn’t realized that the power cables sometimes hung lower in the depot than they did out on along the tracks …
But they’d had fun back then.
They started hitching rides between the carriages, and other low-level stuff. They went on a tunnel safari at the abandoned station at Kymlinge. That was where HP tried out the safety pocket for the first time. One of the trains on the blue line had thundered past at almost eighty kilometres an hour, and for a few seconds the pressure wave and the ear-splitting noise almost made him crap himself. After that they tried the same stunt in other places, seeing as every station has the same little safety pocket. It was really more of a groove than a pocket, seeing as it ran the entire length of the platform. So he ought to be able to snake his way to the opening of the tunnel while the train stopped anyone seeing what he was doing from above. At least that was the theory …
The train had stopped and he could hear a buzz of agitated voices from the platform.
‘No, no, for God’s sake, you can’t go down onto the track …’ an authoritative male voice was saying. He guessed that was the train driver.
‘The current has to be switched off before you can do that … We’ve got set routines for this sort of thing, we get almost one jumper each week … The police and fire brigade are on their way, so can everyone please take a step back?!’
The voices grew fainter as he snaked away from them.
He was making slower progress than he had hoped.
The rough stones beneath him were scraping his knees and elbows, and his thick jacket was making it harder to move. In the distance he could hear sirens approaching. He needed to be a fair way inside the tunnel before the fire brigade shut off the current and got down onto the track.
He paused for a few seconds, then laboriously wriggled out of his jacket. It would be cold without it, but he didn’t have a lot of choice.
A quick double check of the pockets to make sure he didn’t forget anything.
Wallet, keys and cigarettes.
All present and correct, and he stuffed them all into the pockets of his jeans. Only the lighter left, and he ran his hands over the jacket until he found it in one of the many little side pockets.
It was ridiculously difficult to pull out, it seemed like it had slipped inside the lining and for a moment he considered abandoning it. But then he realized that the walk through the tunnel to the next station at Gärdet would be fucking long without a fag, so he tried again.
This time he tore the lining open with his fingers.
That was more like it!
But the little rectangular object he fished out wasn’t a lighter …
Elite GPS 311 it said in tiny letters on one side of the flat little rectangle. Well, that explained a whole lot. They had tagged him with a transmitter, tracking him like some fucking harbour seal! So that was why they had been able to locate him without him spotting them …
It was a smart place to put it, the jacket was thick and had enough zips and velcro fasteners for him not to notice even a hard little gizmo like that.
But there was one thing he couldn’t make sense of. How the hell had they managed to plant it?
The jacket was brand new, he’d grabbed it from Becca’s shopping bag just before he set out. Which in turn meant … well, what, Einstein?
A new factor in the equation …
Fuck.
Fuck.
FUCK!
He needed to get hold of her, find out who she’d been in contact with recently. Try to stop her getting even more involved than she already was.
But first he had to get out of here …
Tobias Lundh had obviously been a mistake, an error of judgement on her part, and one for which she was paying the price in more ways than one. Even though she never dated colleagues, unlike a lot of female police officers, she had suddenly thrown herself into an affair with a notorious ladies’ man like Tobbe. Who just happened to be best friends with her boss, as well as his neighbour …
What the hell had she been thinking?
But of course that was the whole problem. Just like with John, she hadn’t been thinking at all, just following the first impulse that popped into her head. After everything that had happened last year with Henke, and the attack she had managed to avert at the last minute, and not least the parcel containing those bolts, she had promised herself that she would try to relax a bit more. Lower her standards and give herself a chance to be more human …
Well, that had turned out really well.
Clearly she should have rectified the Tobbe Lundh mistake a long time ago, then she would have escaped his pathetic jealousy and constant text messages. She already had a boyfriend. A nice, considerate one, who maybe wasn’t all that exciting, but at least he’d never cause this sort of mess. So why had she deceived Micke, betraying him for a bit of meaningless sex with a man she didn’t even like? She had no good answer to that question. Or rather, she had far too many …
36
Out of the hole and down the slope
Location: Hotel Hopeless
Date and time: Christmas Day, 13.48
Clothing: In-room casual, which meant underpants and vest
Status: Bruised and hacked off
Droning.
That was what the phenomenon was called, he’d seen it on Discovery. Sleeping while you were walking. Well, sleeping? That definitely wasn’t the right word for it. He’d been in a sort of trance, awake enough for his legs to carry on moving forward, but with his brain still way off in fucking lala-land.
The tunnel itself hadn’t actually been all that long, maybe a kilometre or so. But seeing as it formed a broad curve under Hjorthagen it hadn’t taken more than about ten metres before the light from the end of the tunnel at Ropsten had disappeared. The impenetrable darkness had certainly contributed to the experience.
He had seen things, terrible fucking H P Lovecraft things that had made the hair stand up on his arms and the back of his neck. Rats, bats and even bigger shapeless creatures tucked away in corners and side tunnels. Things that had hissed at him as he staggered past, scratching at his back with shitty, claw-like, down-and-out hands.
And the voices. Dad, Dag, that poor incinerated bastard, Erman. They had all whispered to him out of the darkness. Demanding answers from him.
Do you want to play a game, Henrik Pettersson?
Do you want to?
Are you completely sure?
Yes or No?
His lunch had just been delivered, a Royale with Cheese that cost him double the usual rate seeing as Burger King was a couple more blocks for the receptionist to walk. But it was worth it. The dressing dribbled out between his fingers and he greedily slurped up every last, greasy drop.
He had staggered out of the ghost tunnel at Gärdet, actually carrying on almost another hundred metres before realizing that the lights and fresh air were real and not just more hallucinations.
Then he had managed to get a taxi outside the TV4 building, and even if the driver had given him a funny look he had still agreed to drive his dirty and battered body home to Södermalm.
He had slept for almost twenty-four hours, then dragged himself up to shower and shave. After a bit of food he had logged on to the computer.
He had to find a way to contact Becca. Explain why he hadn’t come back. She was bound to have been both
pissed off and worried. But he didn’t dare call her at home or try her mobile. If they could plant a GPS in his clothes, then they could certainly bug her phones. His adversaries weren’t just anyone.
The whole thing was much bigger than he had thought, he realized that now, and a bit of good old googling had quickly reinforced the idea that he had started to develop out on Lidingö.
He had to find a different way to contact her. To keep her safe.
Christmas made everything twice as depressing.
She was almost as angry with herself as she was with Henke. First he quite literally drops from the sky, naked and battered, with some ridiculous story. Then a couple of days recovering while his nice big sister brings him food and looks after him, then he suddenly vanishes again without a word of explanation.
And she’d got Christmas food sorted, had even dragged some decorations out of storage in the attic, and he never showed up. Naturally she had called her mobile, only to find it tucked away on the hat-rack.
So fucking typical of Henke, and so fucking typical of her not to know better.
So she’d ended up spending Christmas on her own.
Micke had called a couple of times, but she hadn’t felt comfortable talking to him. She blamed the fact that she was spending Christmas with her brother, and kept the conversations as short as she could. She was pretty sure that he must know about her affair with Tobbe by now. Not least from reading all the gossip on the Pillars of Society forum. Her lawyer hadn’t helped to lighten the mood. Apparently the prosecutor was thinking of bringing charges against her early in January. Gross misuse of office, which meant she’d be fired if she was found guilty. Fucking fantastic, as Henke would have said …
She carefully packed her gym gear and left the flat. One of the big chains had a gym at Fridhemsplan, and she was thinking of getting a ten-session ticket there for the time being.
The Game Trilogy Page 58
