The Game Trilogy

by Anders de la Motte

  But instead she slowly turned round. Then gave him a weary look over one shoulder.

  She left the room, closing the door carefully behind her.

  Her things fitted in a plastic bag.

  A couple of files with her payslips, employment contract and various other formal papers. The old police cap that she’d kept hanging on the wall, along with a couple of framed photographs from the time she was training to become a bodyguard. She put the pot-plant Micke had given her when she started in the bin, then changed her mind and put it back on the windowsill.

  All of her guards were out on jobs, and the office staff had long since gone home. She picked up the bag and headed downstairs.

  First to the vault, where she locked her gun away, then she emptied her locker. All that remained was leaving her keys and passcard in the personnel department’s pigeon-hole. But instead of going back upstairs she went onto the street through the basement door and started to walk towards the underground station.

  She felt in her pockets for her travel card and found it in her inside pocket. But when she pulled it out the business card that Uncle Tage had given her outside the flat came with it. A rectangle of thick white card with a large royal coat of arms in gold, red and blue to one side of it.

  COLONEL ANDRÉ PELLAS

  Office of the Marshal of the Realm Royal Household

  Followed by a telephone number and an email address, but, oddly enough, no mobile number.

  Then, on the back, written in blue biro:

  070 – 43 05 06 / Uncle T.

  For some reason the short message put her in a slightly better mood.

  He followed the brick wall for a while until he came to an opening.

  Even though the place hadn’t been a prison for more than thirty years, the old institutional buildings still looked really creepy, especially now, in the middle of the night. There was an Arkham Asylum vibe that was hard to shake off. The large, walled gravel yard he was standing in had once been the prison courtyard. Somewhere way ahead he could hear music mixed with the sound of traffic on the Western Bridge high above.

  A few weary streetlamps in the carpark over in one corner had company from a couple of lights in the windows of the low buildings straight ahead, which was where the music seemed to be coming from.

  But all the windows of the huge building to his right were dark, and when he walked up to the door he discovered why.

  The Youth Hostel is closed for refurbishment.

  See you again in the autumn!

  Shit! He’d been looking forward to a shower and a night in a proper bed.

  But he wasn’t entirely out of luck. He’d spotted a portacabin and a couple of toolsheds at one end of the building, and when he went round the building he found a temporary plywood door.

  Two metal catches and a simple padlock were all there was to keep trespassers out, and he forced them open easily with the help of a brick.

  Inside the door was a pitch-black corridor that smelled of brick dust, but at least his trusty lighter gave him a bit of light.

  A few metres in he reached the large cell block. It looked almost exactly the way he had imagined.

  The faint light of the summer night was falling through the skylights high up in the roof. It had to be twenty metres high. In between were several open landings lined with cell doors.

  To the right was a metal staircase, and he briefly considered climbing up to look for a bed straight away. Then he realized that he really did have to clean himself up first.

  His stomach was still cramping, and in spite of the involuntary bath he could still smell the shit in his trousers. In other words, a shower was priority number one.

  He carried on through the ground floor, holding the lighter high enough to get a better idea of where he was.

  Obviously the building was now a youth hostel. But they had retained the prison atmosphere, and in the darkness that feeling was intensified many times over. Hundreds, presumably thousands of poor bastards must have done time here over the years.

  Cramped cells, thick stone walls, heavy bars over the windows. Hard labour six days a week on a meagre diet of bread and water.

  Fuck, this was a long way from his own experience of prison, and that had been bad enough …

  A sudden sound made him jump. A metallic clang from somewhere in the darkness off to his right.

  He stopped for a moment, trying to move the lighter so he could see better. But the room was far too large and the flickering patch of light was quickly swallowed up by the thick darkness.

  He gulped and couldn’t help shuddering. Hardly surprising, really, seeing as the place really was fucking creepy, and given that he was soaked through and had shat himself.

  The sound must have come from a fuse-box, or something like that.

  Just to be on the safe side he waited another minute, but everything was quiet.

  Time to find that shower …

  A couple of metres away he could just make out the shape of a metal sign sticking out from one of the thick walls. He raised the light to read what it said:

  Washroom

  Yes!

  She put her bags down inside the door and went into the living room without switching the light on.

  It smelled dank.

  Last winter they had talked about whether she should get rid of her flat. Micke’s two-room flat was both bigger and closer to the city centre, and with the money they made from the sale they’d be able to buy the one-room flat next door and knock through.

  But she had procrastinated and avoided the subject long enough for the neighbouring flat to be sold. Maybe she’d already had a suspicion that it wasn’t going to work out, and that she was going to need a backup plan.

  She opened the window and let in some cool night air. Then she tipped out all the belongings she had picked up from his flat onto the bed.

  A failed relationship, boiled down to a toothbrush, a few crumpled clothes, a couple of dog-eared books and a few other random possessions.

  Fired and dumped on the same day. Nice work, Normén …

  Weirdly, losing her job hurt more. Getting fired was somehow the ultimate failure. She and Micke had been on the slide for a very long time, he had actually been right about that. There were reasons why she had preferred the time when they dating without any fuss, then later when she was going behind his back and seeing Tobbe Lundh. All the security and predictability that most other people seemed to crave made her skin crawl. Kept her awake at night.

  And the happy pills hadn’t been much help.

  Over the past few months she had tried to find new ways of handling her restlessness. More time in the gym and the firing range, and, most of all, more work. Loads of work.

  But that had all just been a way of postponing the inevitable. She simply wasn’t in love with Micke any more, and maybe she never had been.

  Not properly …

  A shame, because he was a nice bloke, really nice.

  But if she looked in the rear-view mirror, nice blokes didn’t really seem to be her thing. According to convention, she was now supposed to shut herself away in her flat, put on her dressing-gown, eat Rocky Road straight from the tub and fast-forward through ten seasons of some American sitcom.

  But what she felt was mostly just weary disappointment mixed with a few spoonfuls of relief. Besides, she didn’t have time to feel sorry for herself.

  The safe deposit box, Uncle Tage / André Pellas, and everything she had seen up in Henke’s flat – the whole lot was probably connected somehow, and she needed to work out how.

  She opened the bathroom cabinet, found the right box and took her evening medication.

  Then she got the business card out of her pocket and fetched her phone.

  The pills, the wet packet of cigarettes, lighter, the key to his flat and a roll of soaking wet notes from his secret stash …

  He lined the objects up on the windowsill in the spacious shower room. The tiles on the walls reflected some o
f the light from outside, enough for him to get his bearings without the lighter. In one jacket pocket he found the pay-as-you-go mobile he had been given by the gang in the vet’s clinic.

  Shit, he thought he’d ditched it in the park.

  But so what, the cheap plastic gadget was full of water now and bound to be stone-dead.

  He turned on the shower, and to his surprise discovered that there was hot water. After rinsing off the worst of the dirt and mess, he moved on to cleaning his clothes.

  His underpants were ruined, there was no point even trying to rescue them. But he scrubbed his jeans hard on the rough floor until most of the shit was gone.

  The jacket and t-shirt were easier, and he draped everything across some hooks in the corner of the room to dry. When he was finished he sat on the floor as the water continued to rain down on him.

  He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. The spiral of thoughts in his head slowly began to slow down.

  Spinning sloooower

  and

  sloooooooweeer …

  ‘You were very easy to find …’

  The voice came out of nowhere.

  He flinched, hitting his head on the tiles and making himself dizzy.

  Then he tried to stagger to his feet as his heart raced and his brain tried to work out where he was and who the hell had crept up on him while he was asleep.

  ‘Not very impressive, is he?’

  The man’s voice again, evidently addressing someone else. HP squinted at the door where the voices seemed to be coming from.

  Instinctively he moved his hands to cover his crotch. The gruff voice sounded familiar.

  Two dark figures emerged from the darkness and he took a step back.

  ‘Here, we brought some new clothes …’

  He definitely recognized that voice.

  It was Nora, the vet. She dropped a gym bag on the floor beside him.

  For one terrible moment he thought it was stripy, made in needlework class when he was at school, and had his phone number on it. But when he touched it he found to his relief that this bag was made of nylon.

  ‘Th-thanks,’ he managed to stammer.

  ‘Get dressed quickly, we have to go!’

  Biffalo Bull from the vet’s, Jeff or whatever his name was.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing here …?’ HP spluttered, but neither of them answered. ‘How did you find …?’ He broke off.

  ‘It was the phone, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Good guess, Einstein!’ Jeff grinned.

  ‘We have to get out of here, HP, right now,’ Nora said. ‘Every cop in the country is looking for you. If anyone in the main building works out there are people in here …’

  ‘Okay, okay.’ He quickly pulled on the pants, tracksuit bottoms, t-shirt and hooded jacket.

  Everything fitted perfectly, even the trainers.

  As if they knew exactly what size he was.

  ‘You still look pretty rough, are you taking the pills?’ Nora asked.

  ‘Mmm,’ he murmured. ‘But I must have eaten something dodgy. I’ve had the shits really fucking badly.’

  She went past him to the windowsill and picked up the pills.

  ‘Okay, I’ll give you a few more in case you threw up the last lot …’

  He put the rest of his things in his pockets and gave his damp clothes one last look.

  ‘Okay, I’m done. Thanks for your help!’

  ‘Right, let’s get going.’ Jeff pointed at the door.

  ‘Sorry, don’t know if you’d listened to your messages, but I’m not interested in getting involved. Not my cup of tea …’

  Neither of them moved.

  ‘Listen, mate,’ Jeff said in a tone of voice that was anything but friendly. ‘That wasn’t a request …’

  He took a firm grasp of HP’s right bicep and gestured to Nora to lead the way.

  He waited a moment until she was a few metres away.

  ‘Do me a favour,’ he hissed at HP as he squeezed his arm tighter. ‘You and I have a bit of unfinished business, so how about putting up a bit of resistance? Just a bit?’

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

  ‘Number 32 Birkagatan, does that ring any bells? I had to go to A&E to get that red spray-paint out of my eyes. I was off sick for a week, and my girlfriend didn’t dare to stay after you’d left your little message on our door …’

  So that was where he knew the musclebound moron from!

  Well, two years had passed, and he’d only caught glimpses of a bright red face and a tattooed arm, but now, in hindsight, it was obvious.

  Remember rule number one.

  The fans liked it when you fried a …

  ‘Rat …’ He blurted it out in a fit of Tourette’s, and he felt Jeff twitch. The grip around his arm got even tighter, and for a moment he thought Jeff was going to hit him.

  ‘Are you coming, or what?’ Nora said.

  A short silence.

  ‘Sure, we’re coming,’ Jeff muttered, and shoved HP ahead of him.

  Their car was parked on the other side of the wall.

  ‘Get in!’ Jeff held one of the back doors open.

  ‘Not until you tell me where we’re going!’

  ‘Get in, I said.’ Jeff took a step closer and clenched his fists.

  ‘Like fuck will I.’ He looked over his shoulder, trying to find an escape route. But unfortunately he was on an island, and he had serious doubts about his ability to cope with a long run.

  ‘Okay, calm down, both of you.’

  Nora again. She put her hand on Jeff’s shoulder and the intimacy of the gesture made HP dislike the bodybuilder even more.

  But it seemed to work, because Jeff lowered his hands.

  ‘We’re going to a meeting,’ she said curtly. ‘It’s not far, then afterwards we’ll drop you wherever you want to go.’

  He didn’t move.

  ‘Come on, HP, you can hardly be scared of a meeting …’

  She winked at him, and suddenly he found himself trying not to smile. He stood there for a few more seconds, pretending to think about it. But really he was far too tired to think about anything.

  ‘Okay,’ he sighed with a shrug. ‘Let’s do it …’

  The dark Volvo pulled up outside her door.

  The driver hardly had time to put the handbrake on before she was out on the pavement.

  She had already been waiting fifteen minutes in the dark stairwell, and having to wait had done nothing to improve her mood.

  She jumped into the back seat and slammed the door hard behind her.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ she snarled.

  ‘Calm down, I’ll explain everything. Just give me a chance, please.’

  Tage Sammer held his hands up in such an exaggerated way that she had trouble staying angry.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, then took a deep breath. ‘I’m listening …’

  ‘As you already know, I work with security issues. I have done ever since I left the military. The Palace, or rather the office of the Marshal of the Realm, is one of my clients.’

  ‘Yes, I worked that out,’ she snapped. ‘So why didn’t you say so when we last met, and why are you called André Pellas instead of Tage Sammer? And how does my brother fit into the picture …?’

  He put one hand on her arm to get her to stop.

  ‘We can set off now, Jonsson,’ he said unnecessarily loudly to the chauffeur.

  ‘Of course, Colonel.’ The chauffeur put the car into gear and pulled away from the kerb.

  Tage Sammer leaned closer to her.

  ‘You have to understand, Rebecca,’ he said, ‘just like your father, sometimes I have to use different names. André Pellas is the name I went by earlier in my career.’

  ‘Military Intelligence, yes?’

  It was dark in the back seat, but she thought she could see his face twitch slightly.

  ‘I found an old picture of you in a book about Cyprus,’ she added.

 
‘I see …’

  A brief silence followed.

  ‘Well, I should have known better than to underestimate you, Rebecca,’ he said with a wry smile.

  ‘Your father was also very diligent in his work, preparing everything very thoroughly, never leaving anything to chance …’

  He took a deep breath.

  ‘After the attack in Kungsträdgården two years ago, the Palace realized that they needed to improve their handling of security and intelligence. The Marshal of the Realm and I are old acquaintances, which is why he contacted me. As you know, His Majesty has had a number of …’

  He paused and seemed to be searching for the right words.

  ‘… PR-related difficulties, one might say.’

  ‘You mean that muckraking book, and the friends who employed gangsters, and the rumours about …’

  ‘Perhaps we needn’t go into detail …’ he interrupted. ‘But any decrease in public support goes hand in hand with an increased level of risk, and with an event like the princess’s wedding just around the corner, everyone is rather more nervous than usual.’

  ‘I can understand that, but the Security Police are already on top of all that …’

  ‘Naturally, of course they are. But the incident in Kungsträdgården a couple of years ago showed that there were clear deficiencies both in the evaluation of the threat level, and in communication between the Palace and the Security Police. My role is to act as a link. To bridge potential differences of opinion, if you understand what I mean?’

  He brought his fingertips together to illustrate his point, and suddenly she couldn’t help smiling. The gesture was so obvious, and so familiar.

  ‘I am also able to contribute the experience and network of contacts I have built up during my thirty years or so in the world of international security,’ he went on. ‘Offering a second opinion, so to speak …’

  The car climbed to the crown of the Western Bridge, then continued down towards Hornstull.

  Down to their right they could make out the dark edifice of the old prison on Långholmen.

  ‘We believe that the attack in Kungsträdgården was carried out by a particular network. A group calling itself the Circus, the Event, and occasionally …’

  ‘The Game,’ she interjected.

  ‘Exactly! I presume you heard about it from Henrik?’