Buzz: A Thriller (17 page)

“Hi. I’m out of cigarettes and got no money. Wondered if I could bum a couple of cigs . . . ?”

HP looked at the man in amusement. Who the hell was this? Rock granddad?

The guy seemed distinctly unthreatening, and for some reason it just didn’t feel right to slam the door shut in his face.

“Sure, come in . . .”

He took the safety chain off and opened the door wide.

“Cheers!” The man nodded when HP, in a sudden attack of generosity, handed him an unopened packet of Marlboros.

“I’m Nox. You’re new here, aren’t you?”

HP opened his mouth to reply, but after a couple of seconds’ reflection he shut it again without saying anything but an indistinct mumble. However much he might have liked to
chat to this funny little gnome, he realized that this wasn’t the time. If this whole undercover routine was going to work, he had to avoid making up any more lies than was strictly necessary. It was hard enough to keep track of the ones he was juggling at work, and now all of a sudden he regretted opening the door. He seemed to have a serious problem with his impulse control . . .

“Okay, cool, man. You’re not the type of guy who wants to say much, I respect that.”

Nox, as Rock Granddad evidently wanted to be called, put his hand to his chest.

“But if there’s anything you need, just knock on my door, down at number twenty-four.”

He gestured along the narrow corridor.

“I’m one of the regulars, yeah . . .”

HP nodded thoughtfully.

Maybe he could squeeze something useful out of this little Nescafé visit.

“I suppose you have a pretty good idea of who lives here . . . ?” he began. “ . . . Who comes and goes, I mean?”

“Of course! You, for instance, have been here almost three weeks, and social services came past with a couple of new arrivals the day before yesterday . . .”

“Great, look, maybe you can do me a favor and keep an eye out for me? If anything unusual happens, I mean. People who don’t seem to fit it, and so on . . .”

“Only people who don’t fit in live in a place like this . . .” Nox grinned. “But I get what you mean.”

HP tossed him another packet of cigarettes and the funny little man caught it midair. On his way out he tapped his nose with one finger.

“Just say if you need anything, man, Nox is at your service!”

“Okay,” HP said hesitantly. “Well, maybe I could ask another favor . . . ?”

Nox stopped in the doorway.

“It might be worth a couple of cartons.”

“Sure, you name it! . . .”

“You see, I need help to store something. There’s something I need to get out of the house, if you get what I mean . . .”

♦  ♦  ♦

“Aren’t you Rebecca? Rebecca Pettersson? Erland’s daughter?”

He was standing on the pavement right in front of her and she had no choice but to stop. An older gentleman in a dark overcoat and hat.

“Normén,” she mumbled as she tried to work out who the man was.

“Of course, yes, how silly of me. You changed your name after your mother . . . You don’t recognize me, do you?”

She looked at him carefully. He was slightly taller than her, around 1.80 meters, and at a guess somewhere around sixty.

There was, undeniably, something familiar about the man’s posture and stiff features, but she couldn’t quite place him. He was probably one of her father’s colleagues from the reserve unit.

“Tage, Tage Sammer, but you and your brother used to call me Uncle Tage. You came to stay at my summer cottage up in Rättvik years ago, if you remember?”

He smiled and something in his look made her do the same.

“Of course, yes,” she said through her smile. “Uncle Tage, how are you?”

“Very well, thanks. I was just going to ask you the same thing.”

“Fine, thanks,” she lied.

“Are you still working for the Security Police?”

She was taken aback, and he seemed to notice.

“Your father had a lot of friends, Rebecca, and we’ve done our best to keep an eye on you both. As a last favor to Erland. He would have been so proud of you, you were always his favorite.”

He smiled again and suddenly she felt a little lump starting to form in her throat.

She swallowed to get rid of it.

“By the way, I’m sorry I couldn’t come to your mother’s funeral,” he went on. “We sent a wreath, I hope it arrived.”

She nodded; she could remember the wreath clearly.

“A last farewell from your old friends.”

“I was on service abroad in Africa. Unfortunately I was injured and was unable to travel . . .”

He nodded at his leg, and only now did she notice the stick in his right hand.

“A very sad story, both your dad and your mom,” he went on. “Erland didn’t deserve to be taken from us so early. And certainly not under those circumstances . . .”

She frowned and opened her mouth to say something, but he interrupted her.

“Well, it was very nice to bump into you like this, Rebecca.”

He put his hand in his inside pocket and took out a neat little business card.

“Feel free to get in touch. It would make an old man very happy.”

“I promise, Uncle Tage.”

They shook hands, then, acting on impulse, she took a step forward and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. He smelled of cigars and aftershave, almost exactly the same smell as her dad, and for a few seconds the lump was back again.

“By the way,” he said just before they parted. “Your brother, Henrik, do you ever hear from him?”

♦  ♦  ♦

“So, Mange, Frank says you’re our new hotshot down in the mine . . .”

They had been put in a separate room some way from the entrance, which suited HP perfectly.

His role as Mange may have been good enough to fool strangers, but he wasn’t sure if people who knew him would be as easily deceived. But on the other hand neither his nor Mange’s friends tended to hang out at posh places like this.

They had finished eating, and had already got through several beers. Apart from HP and Frank, all the departmental bosses except for the Goth Queen were there. Unfortunately HP had arrived too late to be able to sit next to Rilke. Instead he had to make do with Beens, who seemed to have warmed up already with a few pints.

But it didn’t matter much. The guy obviously liked talking almost as much as he liked drinking beer.

“Yep, it’s going pretty well. Interesting company, ArgosEye!” HP gave Beens a crooked smile and tried to sound humble.

“Mmm, the company’s quite an unusual workplace, but I’m sure you’ve already worked that out. Hardly anyone ever leaves—at least not voluntarily. All of us here have been there from the start.”

Beens pointed at the others around the table.

“Dejan and Rilke have worked with Anna for almost ten years, and Stoffe, who’ll be back in a couple of weeks, came over with Philip from Burston. Frank and I worked together for another company but Anna recruited us at roughly the same time. Our little gang has more or less built ArgosEye from the ground up. We’re actually all partners—Philip’s idea.”

Beens’s garlic breath was no trifling matter, and to make matters worse he was the sort who liked to lean a bit
too
close when he talked, but HP grinned and bore it.

“I don’t think I got the chance to meet Anna . . . ?” he attempted, then held his breath.

Dejan shook his head and took a couple of gulps from his glass of beer.

This was the first time anyone had even mentioned Anna’s name, and HP hadn’t been able to resist the temptation. Damn, this clearly wasn’t the right moment to start talking about the dead . . .

Beens put his glass down and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“No, we don’t see much of her since she and Philip got divorced . . .”

HP jerked involuntarily and shuffled on his chair in an attempt to disguise the fact.

“Ouch. The bad sort of divorce?” he went on, trying to project just the right level of interest.

“You could say that. Neither of them is really the compromising type . . .”

The waitress walked past and HP gestured to her to bring another round.

Did Beens really not know that Anna was dead, or was he just putting it on?

It was impossible to tell.

“So did things get better once Anna pulled out?” he went on, as neutrally as he could.

Beens shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m not sure that she
pulled out,
exactly, but with her gone Philip can run the company the way he wants.

“The way we all want,” he added, draining his glass. “The only problem is that Anna still owns a share of the company. As long as that’s the case, we can’t . . .”

Beens stopped abruptly and HP noticed Rilke giving him a quick look. The others around the table also seemed to have heard the comment seeing as the conversation around them had suddenly died away. But instead of staying quiet Beens tried to make good his mistake.

“Look . . . don’t get me wrong. Anna’s been bloody important for the company. But, I mean, really . . .”

He held his hands out in front of him, as though hoping the others would agree with him.

“ . . . in purely business terms, everyone stands to gain if she vanished for good.”

Pillars of Society forum

Posted: 30 November, 10:53

By:
MayBey

Little Regina Righteous has really messed things up for herself.

Rumor suggests her boss had an affair with the wife of a certain Internal Investigator. If I were Regina, I’d have a lot of trouble sleeping these days . . .

This post has
23 comments

REBECCA READ THE
post several times before the words actually sank in.

She pushed her chair back a couple of feet, then sat there rocking on it as she made up her mind.

What a fucking mess she’d got caught up in. Okay, so she only had herself to blame for most of it. Instead of simply showing up quietly at the interview, she ought to have taken along the union and a sharp lawyer. And put a bit of pressure on those Internal Investigation vultures right from the start,
not played along with their little game. Then she’d most likely have escaped this whole disaster.

And she should have stood her ground much more firmly up in the department, particularly after they got home. She should have insisted on them doing the debriefing together as a team, whether or not she was suspected of any wrongdoing. But, just like when Runeberg persuaded her to take the job as head of the unit, she had been too busy proving what a good girl she was. Nodding and not saying anything and sticking to her role as overachieving Rebecca, the way everyone expected her to, while the rest of the world evidently did whatever they felt like.

God, she was so sick of herself!

♦  ♦  ♦

“Can you stay on this evening, Mange? There’s a big job on the way and we need to start by rolling out a bit of artificial grass.”

HP had no idea what his boss was talking about, but nodded anyway. But Frank picked up on his hesitation.

“Artificial grass, Astroturf, yeah? We roll out a carpet of opinion via a number of different channels, and try to get other people to play along, as part of the plan, on our turf, so to speak . . .”

“Cool!” HP said, even though he still wasn’t quite sure what this was all about. “So what’s the message?”

“Lower VAT leads to more jobs. You can probably guess who the client is.” Frank grinned.

“No problem, I’m up for it. I can go all night if necessary!”

“Great! Philip usually comes down to check, so tonight we really need to be on top of our game.”

♦  ♦  ♦

“So you lied to me about Westergren . . . !?”

He flew up from his chair behind the desk, rushed past her, and closed the door to his office.

“Calm down, for God’s sake, Rebecca, people can hear you!” he hissed, taking hold of her arm.

She shook his hand off.

“I’ve got no intention of calming down until you tell me what the hell you’re up to. You lied to me about Westergren. You and his wife . . .”

His eyes suddenly turned black and she stopped. For a couple of seconds they stood facing each other, exchanging angry glares.

“Sit down,” he ordered, pointing at a chair.

Rebecca folded her arms.

“Sit down!” he repeated, louder this time, but she still didn’t move from the spot.

Her boss let out a deep sigh.

“Please, sit down, Becca,” he said in a considerably friendlier voice, and this time she did as he asked. She sat down exaggeratedly slowly on the chair.

Runeberg returned to his side of the desk.

“You look tired. Do you want anything, coffee, tea . . . ?”

She shook her head.

“Okay . . .” he said. “What have you heard, and who from?”

♦  ♦  ♦

“Three, two, one. GO, GO, GO!!”

Ten keyboards began to clatter at almost exactly the same
moment. The tame trolls were set loose and gradually began to roll out the artificial turf over the pitch. Twenty different discussion forums were the targets. Eight newspapers, five political websites, and seven general discussion boards. All the trolls were supposed to post short comments that either supported lowering the rate of tax, or attacked their opponents’ arguments.

HP was in his element. He’d worked out that a special program bounced their comments off a load of different servers out in cyberspace, spreading their posts out among a mass of different IP addresses so that they all looked genuine. As if the grassroots really had risen up to push this particular issue. The blog gang would join in over the next few days, and probably a couple of the newspaper columnists that had been bought and paid for. Then they just needed the radio and television news to pick up on it, and the game would become reality and their artificial turf would be transformed into a real grass pitch.

This is the nine o’clock news. In the past few days an increasing number of voices have been raised calling for the VAT rate to be lowered. Now the government has responded with a proposal . . .