The Game Trilogy (11 page)

Rebecca looked at herself in the little mirror above the wash-basin in the examination room. Two white plasters on her head. A few bits of surgical tape elsewhere, a faint bruise on one cheek and bloodshot eyes from the powder on the airbag.

Add a bit of nausea, a headache and a gnawing pain in her chest and the picture of her injuries was complete.

Kruse was in a worse state. He remained in intensive care, according to Vahtola, who had looked in a while ago, and they were going to be flying his wife up the next day.

And all because of her. She’d been sitting in the passenger seat – and she should have sounded the alarm. She should have listened to her instincts and ordered the convoy to stop at once and retreat. But instead she had hesitated. She had wasted a couple of absolutely vital seconds on worrying about making a mistake instead of focusing on doing the right thing. Kruse had managed to save the day by his own actions, but he had also had to pay the price for her mistake.

Rebecca mechanically gathered together her things, the blue bulletproof vest that had probably saved her ribs, the baton and radio that they took from her before she was put on the stretcher.

A patrol car was waiting outside to drive her home. The debriefing could wait until the morning, Runeberg had decided. That suited her fine. She wanted to go home, take a couple of the knockout pills she had been given, and sleep for a day or so.

Just as she was taking a last look round the room to make sure she’d got everything her mobile phone rang. Number withheld, she noted with a frown.

‘This is Rebecca,’ she said with one hand on the door-handle.

‘Becca?’ the voice at the other end said, and she stopped.

‘Becca, it’s me …’

‘I can’t talk right now,’ she said unnecessarily abruptly. ‘Can I call you back tomorrow?’ She tried to compensate by sounding more friendly.

‘Er, sure, I just wanted to check that you’re … okay?’

‘What d’you mean?’ she replied, and somewhere inside her his tone of voice was setting off alarm bells.

‘Er …’ A few moments of silence followed, but she chose not to fill them. ‘… don’t really know how to say this.’

‘But?’ she cut him off, as her suspicions grew stronger and stronger.

‘That business … out at Lindhagensplan … Well … that wasn’t supposed to happen, or, well … it was, but … I didn’t know it was you, Becca!’

The words came in bursts and his voice rose to a falsetto towards the end. Suddenly she felt utterly exhausted, as if her legs could no longer hold her. Slowly she went back inside the examination room and sank down on the trolley she had only just got up from.

‘Okay, let’s take this from the start, please,’ she said, as calmly as she could while she tried to take in what he’d just said.

‘It wasn’t really serious, sort of a game, I suppose. A game that went a bit wrong.’

‘A game, you say.’

Her voice sounded tired but in spite of that he couldn’t mistake how angry she was.

‘Yeah …’ he replied, aware of how lame it sounded.

‘So you were playing a game, and that’s why my partner’s in intensive care, is that a reasonable summary of the situation?’

She sounded more angry now, as if she’d already got over the initial shock.

‘Well, that wasn’t supposed to happen, like I said.
Someone getting hurt, I mean … It’s sort of like an elaborate joke, I suppose.’

His voice was pleading, almost whiney.

‘A joke? Are you taking the piss? Are you completely stupid? For God’s sake, you’re over thirty and you still don’t give a fuck, you’re playing your way through life and you let everyone else pay for it! Only this time it all went to hell, or have I got that wrong?’

He didn’t answer. On the rare occasions when she swore he’d learned it was best to keep quiet.

‘Where are you now?’

The question was unnecessary, really. She already knew the answer. Why else would he have called her?

All that flannel about whether she was okay was just one of his usual smoke-screens. The cavalry to the rescue, even though what she most felt like doing was ripping his stupid immature fucking head off.

‘Kronoberg,’ he muttered.

She rested her head on her free hand.

‘Okay,’ she sighed after composing herself for a few seconds. ‘This is what we’re going to do …’

Bolin came back after ten minutes exactly.

‘Well, is a lawyer coming?’

HP shook his head.

‘I thought about it, but I don’t need one,’ he muttered, looking down at the table.

‘Splendid,’ Bolin nodded, and switched on the tape-recorder.

‘Interview recommenced at 23:43 after Pettersson declined the offer of a lawyer. Is that correct, Pettersson?’

HP muttered in agreement but Bolin forced him to repeat himself.

‘Yes, that’s correct.’

‘Okay, Pettersson, how about taking it right from the start?’

HP took a deep breath and glanced at the mobile phone.

‘Tell them everything,’ she had said, and she was usually right.

To hell with rule number one, in other words. Blood was thicker than water, after all.

‘It all started when I found a mobile phone on the train …’

‘Duty custody desk.’

‘Hello, this is Police Inspector Rebecca Normén. My partner Kruse and I were the ones who went off the Drottningholm road earlier this evening,’ she said, as calmly as she could.

‘Inspector Normén, good to hear your voice. We’ve been pretty worried about you, I can tell you. Are you okay?’

Rebecca smiled. She hadn’t recognized the voice at the other end of the line, but now there was no doubt. Her old boss was on duty in Kronoberg tonight, which was one bit of positive news.

‘Hi, Mulle. Thanks, I’m okay, a few bruises and one hell of a headache, but that’s about it. I’m afraid Kruse wasn’t so lucky.’

‘Yes, so I heard, we had three cars there when the fire-brigade were cutting you free, and the lads said Kruse didn’t look too good,’ he replied in a more serious tone of voice. ‘We’ll be keeping everything crossed for him. Did you want anything in particular, or were you just calling to reassure your old boss?’

‘Well, there’s something I could do with some help with, Mulle, and it’s all a bit sensitive.’

‘Okay, let’s hear it!’ he replied encouragingly, and she took a deep breath before she went on.

‘The bloke you’ve arrested, Henrik Pettersson … He’s my little brother.’

He’d done exactly as she said. Told Bolin everything. Or almost everything …

For obvious reasons he’d decided to leave out the business with the M84 fireworks down in Kungsträdgården, but apart from that he’d explained everything, even about the door in Birkagatan.

It had felt pretty good, it was quite a story.

Bolin had mostly just nodded, occasionally interrupting to ask a question, but mainly he had kept quiet.

When they were finished it was past one o’clock in the morning.

Bolin read the time to the tape-recorder, then switched it off.

‘That’s some story, Pettersson,’ he said as he stood up. ‘We’ll have to double-check a few things, then we’ll need to talk again tomorrow. Someone will be with you shortly to take you to a cell.’

HP merely nodded in reply. He could handle a night in the cells, no problem.

Been there, done that …

But now fifteen minutes had passed since Bolin had left, and he was starting to get impatient.

Where the hell was the custody officer?

He was tired, his head and nose ached, and his mouth was completely dry.

Two more minutes, he thought, then he’d stick his head out into the corridor and make some noise.

He realized almost incidentally that his mobile was still sitting on the table among his other belongings.

The little LED light was flashing red.

‘Okay, you’ve lost me now, Normén. Did you say we’ve arrested your little brother?’

‘I’m afraid so, Mulle. Henrik’s a decent lad but he’s incredibly immature, and he’s something of a magnet for trouble, if you get what I mean?’

He chuckled in response.

‘The black sheep of the family, then?’

‘Exactly,’ she lied.

‘Do you know what he’s been arrested for, we’ve got quite a few immature trouble-magnets to choose from up here this evening?’

She frowned. Mulle may be getting close to retirement but there wasn’t normally anything wrong with his memory.

‘His name’s Henrik Pettersson and he’s been arrested for throwing that stone at me and Kruse.’

The line went silent for a few moments.

‘I’m sorry, Normén, but as far as I know no-one’s been arrested for the attack on the pair of you. Every patrol car in the district’s out looking for the bastard, they’re still hard at it on channel sixteen, so I’d definitely have heard if they’d got him. And we haven’t got anyone by the name of Pettersson according to the book, so your brother must have been playing some sort of prank on you, I’m afraid.’

Suddenly she couldn’t think at all, then she felt a wave of fury surging through her.

What the fuck was Henke really up to?

Two minutes. The light was still flashing angrily at him and for some reason, when he stood up to go over to the door and start banging, he grabbed it and his other belongings.

As he took a deep breath ready to shout, he pressed the handle.

The door was unlocked.

He opened it and to his surprise found himself staring out into a dark corridor.

‘Hello!’

No answer.

He called in a trembling voice, ‘Is anyone there?’

Suddenly he was in the fucking Twilight Zone! This was even worse than the gorilla or Bolin’s reptilian smile.

The corridor was completely deserted, not a sound, and all he could see was a row of closed doors the same as the one he had just opened. At the far end a green and white emergency exit sign flickered irregularly. He was reminded of the mobile flashing red in his hand and touched the screen. Even though he already had a vague suspicion of what the message had to say, his stomach still clenched in terror.

With an audible click the light in the room behind him went out.

Home, she thought.

She just wanted to go home. Take her clothes off, grab a quick shower to get rid of the sweat and blood. A handful of pills and then sleep, wonderful fucking sleep.

But it didn’t turn out to be that easy. And of course it was Henke’s fault.

She’d tried his home number but the line had been disconnected. The same thing with the two most recent mobile numbers he’d given her. She couldn’t get hold of her idiot little brother, which only made her more angry.

What had he actually said?

She tried to remember what his exact words had been, but it was practically impossible. He had at any rate confessed to throwing the stone. But how the hell could he have know that she was in the car? Was this some sort of elaborate, delayed revenge?

No, that sounded crazy, she realized that as soon as she had thought it. No matter how messed up her and Henke’s relationship was, he’d never set out to hurt her on purpose. So what was this all about?

Why had he dropped a stone on their car from a bridge, or at least claimed to have done so?

‘Kronoberg,’ he had said, but that had turned out not to be true. Just to be sure she had called Södermalm and the Western District too, but neither of them had a Henrik HP Pettersson in custody.

Had he been lying to her?

He could very well have been, that had happened far too many times in the past. But there was something about his voice, something … it sounded stupid to use the word when you were talking about Henke, but nonetheless … something honest. As if he really believed he’d been arrested. The only way she’d get any answers
to any of her questions was to get hold of her little brother.

The question was: where the hell was he?

He ran. First in sheer panic. Along the dark corridor, towards the door – although he was prepared to bet it was locked. Then relief as it opened onto a stairwell.

Stone steps down into the darkness, more unlit corridors along the way. His steps echoed on the concrete walls. Finally, at last, a way out.

Damp night air hit him as he crossed the street to get as far away as possible from that corridor. A quick glance over his shoulder, then one more just to be sure.

Suddenly he felt soft grass under his feet and it took him a few seconds to get his bearings. Large black trees splayed towards the night sky above him, and ahead of him was an iron railing and some unkempt gravestones.

Kronoberg Park, close to the Jewish Cemetery. Only a block or so from where he’d thought he was to start with.

His legs were working by themselves. Up the hill, through the park and finally out onto Polhemsgatan. The most western of the police’s three copper-coloured towers in front of him. For a few moments he considered carrying on to the entrance down on Kungsholmsgatan, knocking on the copper doorway and handing himself in. But before he’d had time to make a decision his legs were already carrying him out onto Fleminggatan, then right, towards the city centre.

His head was spinning as his feet drummed on the tarmac.

Tramp, tramp, tramp.

The monotonous sound calmed him down a bit. The whirlpool in his head gradually slowed down and the panic slowly released its iron grip of his chest.

Tramp, tramp, tramp.

A set-up!

Tramp, tramp, tramp.

The whole thing had been a fucking set-up!

Tramp, tramp, tramp.

The more he thought about it, the better he could see how it all fitted together. He had thought that three thousand points was a bit too much just for throwing a stone at a car, even if it was a cop-car.

And he’d been right!

The stone, the car, the cops – all of that had been secondary, or a sort of prologue. The assignment, the real assignment, had been all about him. A sort of evaluation, really.