The Game Trilogy

by Anders de la Motte

  ‘Yes, we heard you, Henrik,’ the policeman said. HP had already forgotten his name. ‘But we’ve been waiting several hours. At least we can get some of the formalities out of the way before your lawyer shows up.

  ‘He is coming, isn’t he – or she? How many law firms have you called?’ He tilted his head and smiled in a way that left no room for misinterpretation.

  ‘Of course there’s a lawyer coming …’ Henrik mumbled.

  ‘Well then, how about making a start? To save us all a bit of time,’ the policeman added with another smile.

  ‘Unless there’s anyone else you’d like to call? Someone close to you …?’

  ‘No!’ HP interrupted, slightly too loudly, as he sat himself up.

  He saw the look in their eyes. Bollocks, he’d been trying to play it cool …

  ‘I’ve got all the time in the world, and I’m not going to say anything until I’ve got a lawyer,’ he said as calmly as he could, staring down at the tabletop.

  ‘But by all means – feel free to talk away …’ he muttered a couple of seconds later, mainly to break the oppressive silence.

  ‘Good suggestion, Henrik.’ The male police officer, whose name HP still couldn’t remember, pulled out a chair and sat down. He took out a little digital recorder from the pocket of his jacket and put it on the table between them.

  ‘Interview with Henrik Pettersson, known as HP, third of June, time 15.13. Officers present, Police Inspectors Roswall and …’

  ‘… Hellström.’

  Stigsson had pressed a button next to the window and suddenly the lead interviewer’s voice could be heard from the speakers.

  ‘So what exactly is Henke supposed to have done?’ Rebecca said to no-one in particular, while Hellström went on talking to the recording device.

  She was doing her best to sound calm, as if she wasn’t that worried about the answer.

  ‘We’ve received information which suggests that your brother is planning some sort of terrorist attack against the state, possibly connected to the princess’s wedding …’

  ‘You’re kidding!’ she exclaimed, unable to stop herself.

  Stigsson gave her a quick look and she bit her tongue. Obviously, this was all just a big practical joke, the Security Police were renowned for their sense of humour, and Stigsson here was a brilliant stand-up comedian …

  Pull yourself together, for God’s sake, Normén!

  A mistake – this was clearly some sort of huge mistake. They must have got Henke mixed up with someone else and broken into the wrong flat. It would hardly be the first time information was wrong, after all …

  ‘We’ve also been made aware that this is by no means the first time your brother has been involved in this sort of criminal activity …’

  ‘You mean that business with Dag,’ she cut him off. ‘Henke was only trying to protect me. Besides, that was almost fifteen years ago …’

  Stigsson shook his head.

  ‘No, no, not the incident in which your boyfriend was killed, even if that isn’t entirely without interest as part of the bigger picture … This is about something else entirely. See for yourself.’

  He gestured towards the interview room, where one of the officers had just switched on a video projector. A recording from a shaky hand-held camera appeared on one wall, blue sky and some dark buildings. Then slender trees and a row of pavement cafés. Kungsträdgården, more specifically: Kungsträdgårdsgatan. In the background there was a clattering sound that was getting louder and louder. It took her a few moments before she suddenly realized what it was. Horses’ hooves … A lot of horses’ hooves on tarmac. When the royal cortege appeared in shot she noticed she was trembling …

  He recognized the film at once. Kungsträdgårdsgatan, exactly two years ago, the cortege with the royal couple and the Greek president.

  The soldiers bobbing along on their horses, the spectators on the pavements fiddling with their mobiles. He’d seen it on film hundreds of times, recognized every face, every expression. The guy with the dog, the woman in the white hat, the German tourists with their huge rucksacks … He knew the rest of it by heart. Any moment now a flash would bleach the image, and a bang like the one he had experienced in his flat would make the hand holding the camera shake. Then complete chaos, galloping horses, soldiers on the ground, people screaming in panic.

  But instead of focusing on the cortege as he had expected, the camera suddenly began to pan round. It wavered for a few seconds, then slid along the crowd lining one side of the road.

  And it came to rest on a familiar figure, then zoomed in slowly until the person filled almost the entire screen.

  HP couldn’t help squirming. Suddenly he felt a bit sick.

  A man dressed in black sitting on an EU moped. The tinted helmet might be obscuring his face, but Rebecca had no trouble recognizing him. His posture, jerky movements, the way he held his head slightly tilted. There was no doubt at all …

  She had suspected it at the time, but had deliberately not asked because she hadn’t wanted to know the answer …

  The man on the screen reached into a plastic bag that was hanging from the handlebar, pulled out a cylindrical object and started to fiddle with it. The noise of horses’ hooves got steadily louder as the cortege approached. The camera zoomed in even closer. The man looked up, waiting for a moment with the object in both hands. Then he suddenly jerked one hand and raised his arm. She already knew what he was about to throw.

  The blast from the grenade made this film shake as well, but the cameraman didn’t shift his focus from the moped. According to the timer in one corner of the screen, he sat there impassively for ten seconds, watching the effects of what he had done, before putting the bike into gear, making a sharp u-turn and disappearing down Wahrendorffsgatan.

  The film stopped abruptly and the room fell silent. HP shifted on his chair and swallowed uneasily a couple of times. A couple of clicks on the computer and suddenly a still of him covered the whole screen. A freeze-frame image of the precise moment when he threw the grenade.

  His arm in the air, his body coiled like a spring. When you added the tinted helmet, he looked pretty alarming, to put it mildly.

  ‘So, Henrik,’ Hellström began, in a considerably less friendly tone of voice than before. ‘Is that …’

  ‘… your brother on the screen?’

  Stigsson and Runeberg were both looking at her now, and for a few seconds her head was completely blank. Her blouse was sticking under her jacket, and the air in the little room suddenly felt stale and difficult to breathe. Their eyes seemed to be boring right through her.

  She glanced into the interview room, but there was total silence in there as well. She had to try to gain a bit of time, get a chance to think things through … But to judge from the looks on both men’s faces they were expecting an immediate answer.

  So what was she supposed to do? Lie, or tell the truth?

  Make a decision, for God’s sake!

  She gulped a couple of times to clear the lump in her throat.

  ‘Well …’ she began.

  ‘You don’t have to answer, Henrik!’

  The door to the interview room opened and a tall man with slicked back grey hair walked in. With a flourish the man undid the gold buttons on his blazer and sat down on the empty chair beside Henke. At that moment Rebecca realized that she knew him.

  ‘My client declines to answer that question,’ the man said, this time looking at the police officers as he lifted his briefcase onto the table and snapped it open. He took out a folder.

  ‘Well, now I’d like to know why this interview has already started even though my client clearly stated that he wished to have his legal representative present. As I’m sure you are aware, this is in breach of chapter twenty-one of the Penal Code …’

  ‘Johan Sandels!’

  Runeberg’s surprised exclamation drowned out the rest of the lawyer’s speech.

  ‘How the hell did your brother manage to get
hold of a heavyweight like that at such short notice?’

  ‘I’ve got no idea,’ she replied with a shrug.

  That much was completely true.

  What the hell was going on?

  3

  Timeout

  The metal gate swung shut behind him and he took a couple of steps out into Bergsgatan. Freedom again – fuck, what a relief!

  The prosecutor had backed down almost immediately. A blurry film-clip was evidently not sufficient grounds to hold him, at least not if Johan Sandels was involved.

  The cops clearly hadn’t done their homework, and still thought he was the sort of small fry they could scare the shit out of with a nocturnal break-in, a few hours waiting and then a stint in the hot seat.

  A couple of years ago that might well have worked, and indeed probably had worked. But he was a totally different person now, and was playing in a considerably higher league than the cops could possibly realize.

  Even if he had chosen to break rule number one and tell them what had actually happened, their tiny little cop brains would never have been able to accept the truth.

  I found a mobile phone on a train, a shiny silvery thing with a glass touch-screen, and through that I got invited to play a game. An alternative reality game that altered my reality forever. But I broke out, or at least I tried to …

  Someone had shopped him, that much was obvious. Sent in the film clip and gave the Security Police his name.

  The clip was hardly a new Zapruder film, captured by some tourist who had got more than he had bargained for. The cameraman had focused specifically on him, had known exactly where he was going to be. Which must mean that the film came from the Game.

  But the Game had nothing to gain from getting him locked up – on the contrary. They’d already got their hands on him again and they needed him out in the open if he was to stand any chance of fulfilling the task they were asking of him. Were trying to force on him.

  He had actually considered trying to get himself locked up. Come up with some poxy little crime that would land him inside for a few months and quite literally get him out of the Game. But, like so many of his other brilliant ideas, he had chosen to park it for the time being. Prison really wasn’t his thing.

  Been there, done that …

  Fucking lucky that Sandels bloke showed up.

  He had called four of the biggest law firms, asking for their most famous lawyers, and each time he got stuck with some snippy little underling who gave him a half-hearted promise that they’d be in touch. He’d decided to make do with some junior lawyer from the B-team and a few nights on a hard bunk.

  But suddenly Sandels had popped up like a jack-in-the-box …

  Maybe the lawyer had got fed up of life in the country with his family, and was grateful for an excuse to come into the city and see his mistress?

  A stroke of luck, anyway. Unless it wasn’t …

  Either way, he had been severely roughed up, banned from travelling, and the cops had seized his passport.

  But at least he was out.

  He took a few more deep breaths, then set off towards the tobacconist’s a few blocks away.

  They had let him go far too easily.

  They could hold a suspect for seventy-two hours, and in terrorism cases the court usually followed the Security Police line and agreed to remand suspects. Yet Henke had been held for less than thirteen hours. That couldn’t only be down to the fact that he’d got hold of a famous lawyer.

  ‘Stigsson. How long has he been with the Firm?’ she asked Runeberg when they were sitting in the police canteen.

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I thought I knew most people in the Security Police, but he’s new to me …’

  Runeberg shuffled slightly, enough for her to notice.

  ‘Okay, he isn’t new, he was actually my supervisor back in the day. But then he worked abroad for years. UN, OSCE, that sort of thing, but right now we’re pulling in all available resources. Have you had a letter yet, by the way?’

  ‘A letter?’

  ‘Anyone on leave of absence is being asked to return to duty to cover the wedding. We’re going to need every trained bodyguard we’ve got. We’re already stretched as it is, with all these rightwing Sweden Democrats needing protection from the voters. How about it? It would only be a couple of weeks …’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Not at the moment, Ludvig, we’re only just getting things sorted at Sentry. It’s a bit of a muddle with all the new staff and the buy-out. I’ve got more balls in the air than I care to think about …’

  It suddenly dawned on her that he had managed to change the subject.

  ‘Okay, it’s more or less like this,’ he said. ‘New general director and all that. Well, will you promise to think about it? Do you want more coffee, by the way, they’re about to close?’

  She shook her head and stood up.

  ‘I have to get home, Micke will have dinner ready and I’m already late.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said, pushing his chair back. ‘How have things been going on the home front …? I mean, after …’

  ‘Tobbe Lundh? Oh, we got through it. Micke’s the forgiving sort.’

  ‘Good.’ Runeberg looked away for a few seconds. ‘Well, I have to show you out. New bosses, new routines, you know how it is.’

  HP emerged from the tobacconist’s, tore the cellophane from the packet of cigarettes and pulled out a Marlboro.

  His hands were still trembling slightly, but that was probably due to his nicotine withdrawal. Well, that was his preferred explanation …

  A couple of deep drags on the pavement to calm the worst of the pangs, then he set off towards the underground. Time to go home and inspect the damage. The cops had no doubt turned his flat upside down. Good job he had nothing there that he was worried about.

  He opened the door to the underground station then, without deigning to look at the ticket booth, jumped over the barrier as he usually did, and carried on towards the escalator.

  On the way down he was passed by a tall, platinum blonde woman roughly the same age as him. Mostly out of habit he watched the movement of her hips for a few seconds before returning to the maelstrom of thoughts in his head.

  He had to try to make some sort of sense of whatever the fuck was going on, and who had grassed on him. And, above all, why …

  But first he had to get a few hours sleep.

  He got to the bottom of the escalator and strolled slowly along the platform towards an empty bench.

  The blonde was sitting a short distance away. The music in her massive headphones had to be seriously absorbing, because she was staring ahead of her with a glassy look in her eyes, and didn’t even seem to have noticed him.

  Never mind, women were the least of his problems right now, and besides, to judge by her black nail varnish, fringe and gloomy clothes, she looked like she was probably a bit emo. Not really his cup of tea …

  A faint gust of wind against his legs made him turn his head towards the opening of the tunnel. He got slowly to his feet as the train thundered into the station.

  ‘Well, it was still good to see you, Normén,’ Runeberg said as they approached the reception area. ‘Even if the circumstances could have been rather happier …’

  He held his card up to a little black reader beside the door. It looked new – the pale outline of the old card-reader was still visible on the wall behind it.

  Runeberg pulled at the handle, but the door remained locked. He muttered something and repeated the procedure, with the same result.

  ‘Bloody security system,’ he muttered. ‘Two years of planning, millions of kronor, and the crap still doesn’t work properly …’

  Taking it more slowly, he repeated the procedure for a third time, and suddenly the lock clicked. Over by the reception desk two people appeared to be having a heated discussion with the guards. Runeberg quickly ushered Rebecca past them and off towards the main door.

  She opened her
mouth to say something, but Runeberg was quicker.

  ‘I’ll be in touch …’ He gestured towards the ceiling and it took her a couple of seconds to realize that they were standing right beneath the dark globe of a little camera. Just like the card-reader, it looked very new.

  She frowned and for a few seconds they stood opposite each other without speaking. Then she gave him a quick hug and opened the door.

  ‘Bye, Ludvig,’ she said as she left, but for some reason Runeberg didn’t answer, just pulled an involuntary grimace. It only lasted a fraction of a second, then his face went back to normal. But for the second time in just a few hours she couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right.

  The note was on his front door, and he came close to just crumpling it up and throwing it down the stairwell. A little greyish-white scrap of recycled paper, with a tiny bit of tape to hold it up, just like all the ones that had gone before it. Please don’t play loud music at night, or We would like to remind you of the housing association’s rules about blah blah blah …

  A nocturnal Nescafé visit by the anti-terrorism squad had probably made the committee shit themselves. He could easily imagine the discussion downstairs in the communal area. We need to let our feelings be known, Gösta. Use capital letters this time …

  In previous years he had always just moved the notes onto the Goat’s door. Which probably wasn’t a very nice thing to do, in the pale light of hindsight. The little hash pixie was already paranoid enough. It still seemed a bit odd that he hadn’t said anything about moving out, or knocked on his door to ask for help.

  But on the other hand he hadn’t exactly been very sociable himself in recent months, and he’d long since cut the wires to the doorbell.

  Oh well, his new and as yet unknown neighbour might as well have a little welcome message.

  He pulled the note off and fixed it to the door of the neighbouring flat. His hands were still shaking slightly, which irritated him more than he was prepared to admit.

  There, welcome to Housing Association block number 6, mofo!

  He stepped back and was just about to turn away when he realized that the note didn’t look the same as usual. Instead of the chairman’s old man’s handwriting, this note was written in rounded, almost feminine letters.