Buzz: A Thriller (11 page)

Aziz gave HP another long look over his bundle of papers.

“All the prints match up, there are none unaccounted for. In other words, there’s no trace of this so-called Vincent . . .”

Another look to match his tone of voice, but HP hardly noticed.

Now that he came to think about it, he couldn’t actually remember Vincent ever saying anything about himself.

One day when he had been sitting in a bar feeling pretty fucking depressed, the Frenchman had just appeared.

Offering him beer and a smoke, someone to talk to who made him feel a bit better.

So who was Jerome Sinclair? His wallet was full of different credit cards—different characters who had helped him manage his nomadic, sleepwalking life. He could only remember a few of them:

Jim Shooter

Will Parcher

Tyler Durden

He had picked most of the names as a joke—at least that was what he told himself. A gang of made-up imaginary friends from film history. People who had never existed outside of the minds of characters in films.

He seemed to have a vague memory of Jerome Sinclair as a series of embossed letters on a plastic card.

Were Jerome and Vincent one and the same person?

Someone who didn’t exist outside his own head?

The detective put his papers down and leaned across the table.

“Let me summarize the situation, Mr. Pettersson. You—with a previous conviction for murder—enter the country on a false passport. You meet Mrs. Argos at the hotel, pick her up, and then arrange a desert safari together with some fleeting acquaintances. She, however, scornfully rejects your advances, which quite understandably makes you angry. Because of course you were the one who arranged everything, possibly even for her sake, and now she rejects you. Sometime
that evening Mrs. Argos disappears, and you are found badly affected by drugs and with her blood all over your shirt.

“And your only defense is to blame a mysterious man whose existence nothing and no one else can prove.”

He paused briefly to let his words sink in.

“Like I said, murder is extremely rare here in Dubai, possibly because all murderers are punished hard. Very hard, Mr. Pettersson . . .”

Another pause, so that HP didn’t miss what he was saying.

“But if the defendant cooperates, the judge is usually sympathetic. Your life is very much in your own hands, so I would ask you to think very carefully before you answer my next question.”

A third pause, entirely unnecessary this time.

“Did you kill Mrs. Argos?”

HP’s head was filled with flickering screen dumps—all of them containing different information, all of it damned alarming.

Had his tortured brain finally started making things up?

Blink

Showing him things that didn’t exist?

Blink

Mixing up fantasy and reality?

Blink

Yes?

Blink

No?

Freaking hell!!!

He screwed his eyes shut and covered his face with his hands to stop the flashing in his head. But the images carried on flickering across his retinas.

Shooter

Parcher

Durden

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!

Redrum, redrum, redrum . . .

Could he really have beaten up a bitchy bird? Given her what she had coming?

Shit,
he’d even fantasized about how it would feel . . .

Time to decide.

Red or blue?

♦  ♦  ♦

The world’s best Bodyguard, Regina Righteous, seems to be having a few problems. Looks like she got sunstroke down in Africa and saw something that wasn’t there.

Or is there another reason why she was hallucinating? Maybe because she’s been suspended? Does anyone out there know?

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17 comments

Regina Righteous. Great name. Just as Nina had said, it wasn’t exactly hard to work out who they were talking about . . .

And seventeen comments as well, pretty much all of them negative.

What else do you expect from Internal Investigations?

That’s what happens when you have quotas for women . . .

She was damned difficult even at the Academy

Probably took too many tranquilizers. WBUP, for sure . . .

She had to google that last comment. WBUP—Will Break Under Pressure. So this was how the rest of the world saw her. Someone who couldn’t handle pressure . . .

♦  ♦  ♦

“N-no,” he croaked, and cleared his throat again.

“No, I didn’t,” he went on, slightly steadier this time, almost as though he were trying to convince himself.

Aziz let out a deep sigh. He gathered his papers, stood up, then knocked twice on the steel door.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you anymore, Mr. Pettersson,” Aziz said, almost sadly.

He stepped aside as Moussad and four sweaty guard orcs squeezed into the room.

A moment later they were on him.

He was yelling, lashing out in panic, and actually managed to land a couple of decent punches before the orcs got him down on the floor.

He was going to die, he got that now. Either Scarface and his gang were going to drown him, or, more likely—he’d end up confessing everything. And would be sentenced to death by some shady judge and dragged out into the desert for a shot in the back of the neck, for which his sister would be sent the bill. Followed by eternal membership of the Association of Morons, along with Dag and Dad!

Hello, my name is Henrik, and I am a lady killer!

He was finished—screwed—toast!

Suddenly a synapse in his terrified brain made a connection.

“W-wait!” he yelled at Aziz, just as they were about to carry him out.

“Wait, for God’s sake, I know where to find evidence of Vincent. Just give me . . .”

Moussad whacked him in the side of the head to shut him up, but it didn’t keep him quiet for long. He had his fingers on a life raft and wasn’t about to let go.

“One of my trouser pockets, a gold cigarette lighter. It’s his. Vincent’s. Check it for fingerprints, DNA, whatever you damned well like . . .”

Another blow, this time hard enough for him to taste blood in his mouth. He heard Aziz fire off some sentences in Arabic at the guards, then Moussad, who seemed to be giving contradictory orders.

The sweaty orcs around him shuffled uncomfortably and exchanged glances as if they were unsure of what to do. Both of their commanding officers rattled off new orders. Still no reaction. HP managed to twist his head and could see Moussad and Aziz facing off against each other—just a few centimeters apart.

Moussad’s face was bright red, and he was clenching and unclenching his fists. He was a head taller than Aziz, and from HP’s lowly perspective he looked even bigger and more unpleasant.

But Aziz wasn’t letting himself be intimidated—instead he took another half pace forward so that the shirts of the two men’s uniforms were almost touching.

For a moment it looked as if the pair of them were about to start fighting.

HP and the guards held their breath.

Then Moussad slowly stepped back.

Aziz roared another order, louder this time, and a moment later HP found himself sitting on the interview chair while one of the guards reluctantly undid his cuffs.

“Tell me more,” Aziz said curtly once the cell door closed and they were alone.

“HELLO?”

“Good evening, my friend. Has everything gone well?”

“Everything has gone excellently, entirely according to plan—but of course you already know that.”

“Any pain?”

“No more than necessary.”

“Good, and the retreat?”

“No problems there either. How have things been going with
 . . .

“The Player? It’s a little too early to say yet. I’ll keep you informed.”

♦  ♦  ♦

They came in the middle of the night. Four Guantánamo gorillas, and just like last time they dragged him off the bunk and cuffed his hands behind his back. This time he couldn’t summon up the energy to put up a fight.

He was Nick Orton, Thomas Andersen, Charles Herman, and so many other names that he could hardly even remember them.

Imaginary characters that he had made real, at least for as long as he needed them.

So why not Vincent Sinclair?

The hood was pulled on while they were still in his cell, but the guards seemed to notice how apathetic he was and didn’t bother to tie his legs. They led him, stumbling, down one flight of steps, and then another.

His body felt heavy as lead.

More steps—he tripped and the guards had to catch him to stop him falling. But they didn’t stop to put him back on his feet. Instead they grabbed him under his arms and picked him up, so high that the tips of his toes just touched the ground. And then the steps came to an end.

The room they entered was larger, so large that the strained grunts from the guards echoed drily off the walls. Had they really come this way before?

A faint smell of gasoline and exhaust fumes filtered in under the hood and all of a sudden he felt completely sure. They weren’t on their way to the torture chamber!

A moment later he was put down in a seat and a heavy car door slammed on him.

A squeal of tires, a sudden jolt, and they were on their way.

HP was trying desperately to get his exhausted brain to take in this new information. Someone was sitting to his left in the backseat, because he kept getting whiffs of aftershave. And the car had to have a driver as well.

So in other words there had to be at least two people apart from him in the vehicle—possibly as many as three—but none of them was saying a word.

Wherever it was they were going, the driver appeared to be in a hurry. The big engine was roaring and the vehicle’s
movements were so abrupt that he kept sliding around on the leather seat.

Then he noticed a change in the road surface as they switched from smooth tarmac to gravel. A few minutes later the noise disappeared almost entirely and the vehicle began to slip and slide in a very familiar way. HP’s stomach got the message much quicker than his brain, and the panic-stricken lump down there slowly turned into nausea. More lurching, and the hiss as sprays of sand hit the windows.

They were on their way out into the desert!

♦  ♦  ♦

“You’ll see, Becca, it’ll all be fine. I mean, it’s not as if you’ve done anything wrong . . .”

Micke put his arm around her on the sofa and she fought a sudden urge to shove it off. And to grab hold of the nearest solid object and smash his head in.

It’ll all be fine, you’ll see
 . . . If she had twenty kronor for each time she’d heard that comment over the past week. Ludvig, Nina Brandt, and a whole load of other well-meaning souls.

Was that really the best people could come up with whenever someone was in the shit?

“Of course I haven’t done anything wrong,” she snapped, unable to stop herself. “What, don’t you believe we were being attacked either?”

“Of course I do,” he replied quickly, but she took her chance to straighten up and shake off his arm.

“I just mean that this is bound to blow over soon—”

She interrupted him with a snort.

“I wouldn’t bet on that. There are enough people who want to get at me, who don’t actually have to do much more
than keep their mouths shut and just watch the show. Gladh, Malmén, Modin, and the others in the team . . .”

“Don’t forget Gladh’s assistant . . .”

“Berglund? No, not him!”

She bit her tongue but it was too late.

“Why not? I mean, it would make sense for Gladh to ask his assistant to look after something unpleasant like this, wouldn’t it?”

“Sure,” she muttered, shrugging her shoulders.

She slid back down in the sofa and locked her eyes quickly on the television.

“I was thinking of making some tea, do you want a cup?” she said in a far gentler voice a minute or so later.

“Mmm,” he replied.

On her way out into the kitchen she surreptitiously picked up her cell from the hall table.

♦  ♦  ♦

They had been rolling around for a quarter of an hour or so, and finally the pieces of the puzzle had fallen into place.

There weren’t going to be any more questions.

Just as Aziz had said, he had a previous conviction for murder, had entered the country on a false passport, and appeared to be closely connected to the crime. No one believed he was innocent.

What with all the bling, he’d forgotten that the country was actually a dictatorship. A poor, helpless Western woman—kidnapped and murdered out in the desert. That sort of thing could scare off tourists and big business alike. It would cost millions of dollars in bad PR and lost business deals. Much better to put a lid on it and pretend the whole thing never
happened. All they had to do was get rid of the last remaining loose thread and literally bury the story where it started.

In the sand . . .

He could feel tears of panic bubbling in his chest and bit his bottom lip to stop them escaping.

Suddenly the car stopped and he heard the driver’s door slam shut.

This train terminates here—all change, please!

Damndamndamndamndamndamn!!!

♦  ♦  ♦

She shouldn’t really let it bother her.

So what if someone was talking shit about her? It had probably happened plenty of times before. The only difference this time was that she had the chance to follow what was being said.

Most of them probably didn’t even know her, had no idea who she was or what she’d done. But what if she was wrong?

What if they were fellow officers, colleagues she’d said hello to in the corridors, or even worked closely with?

Obviously she should just ignore it all, forget the website, and leave the idiots to say whatever they wanted. But she still couldn’t keep away.