Game: A Thriller (32 page)

“No, Doctor, Henrik just fell downstairs. Our little lad’s very accident-prone . . .”

She bit her lower lip unconsciously.

You had to be quick, get Henke out of the way before the situation slid out of control. Keep Dad and her little brother in a good mood so that everything at home ran smoothly. Mom had tried her best, at least to start with. But when the illness
started to demand more of her attention, she hadn’t been able to anymore, or perhaps didn’t even want to. Dad had finally started to see her. However odd it sounded, maybe it was the drink and the self-pity that finally brought Mom and Dad closer together. Gave them a mutual interest, something they could share? As time passed it was left more and more to Rebecca to maintain the balance at home. Always being on the alert, constantly ready to step in, almost like at work. To start with, trying to protect Henke from Dad, then, later on, from himself as well.

The truancy, his gang, the dope smoking, all of that must have been some sort of revenge, at least to start with. Later on it was probably just an excuse not to give a damn about the rest of the world . . .

Rebecca didn’t bother trying to separate the pages that had stuck together, so on the next page she looked at, more than ten years had passed. She had just graduated from high school and was sitting at a heavily laden table in their old apartment.

She and Dag were smiling at the camera, in the first flush of teenage love. He had his arm around her shoulders and she was leaning awkwardly, and possibly too closely, into his broad chest. It almost looked as if he was holding her captive.

She looked happy, overjoyed even, in her student cap and white summer dress. Even though it was only six months or so since they had met, the engagement ring sparkled on her finger. It could be a retrospective construct, but if she looked closely enough she imagined she could see that her smile wasn’t quite reaching her eyes. As if her joy in that picture was just a façade.

The next photograph showed the other people at the table. Mom, hollow-eyed and emaciated as usual. Henke and Mange, Dag’s mother, Nilla, and a couple of her own friends whose
names she could hardly remember now. They were all smiling and waving at the camera, which she must have been holding. A cheery greeting from an apparently happy past.

“Now we’ll all smile and wave. Hello, Rebecca!”

“Hello,” she found herself muttering, unexpectedly feeling sad.

When that picture was taken it couldn’t have been more than a year since Dad had gone to Spain for a conference and came home in a coffin. And ten months afterward the cancer would have finished with Mom and she would have joined him in the Garden of Remembrance. But before that Dag would get himself killed and Henke would end up in prison.

And her?

Well, as Mange had said, she hardly got away unscathed either . . .

But on the photograph in the album none of that was visible. In that frozen moment the future was still bright. Only her own nineteen-year-old eyes seemed to suggest anything different.

She slammed the album shut and tossed it into one of the book boxes, then tried to shake off the unsettling feeling. Only the clothes closet was left now; then she could call the removal firm and get rid of it all. The estate agent was coming the following week to value the flat; then in a couple of weeks or so it would doubtless have sold and the cavalry could stand down at last.

She opened the door and saw to her relief that the little room was almost empty.

That wasn’t actually altogether surprising, seeing as most of the clothes seemed to have been in various heaps around the flat.

There were a few boxes on a shelf at the back of the room and she took a couple of steps forward to pull them down. On the way her foot landed on a striped piece of cloth on the floor. She fished it up and was about to throw it toward the trash bag when she realized what it was.

Henke’s old gym bag, the one he made in sewing class. It was still neatly marked with his name and phone number, but the inside of the bag was sticky with some sort of oil. She wondered what he’d had inside it.

She thought for a couple of seconds, then put it in one of the bags of clothing she’d decided to keep. Henke probably had some sort of sentimental attachment to the bag, so it could have a few months’ reprieve. She was actually fairly doubtful that he would ever come back, and even if he did he was hardly likely to want his old things. She’d give him six months, then she’d let the whole lot go to auction, including the photograph album.

When she took down the last box something fell and landed on her foot. It was fairly heavy and she had to do a one-legged war dance out into the bedroom before she shook off enough of the pain to go back into the closet.

It turned out to be a little wooden box, probably made in Henke’s woodwork class. His initials had been neatly engraved on the top in black. There was no lock, but the wood must have swollen because she couldn’t get it open.

She shook her find and got a metallic rattle in response, but the sound wasn’t exciting enough to make her go and get something to open it with. She put it alongside the photograph album in one of the book boxes.

♦  ♦  ♦

When she had finished and was washing her hands in the kitchen sink, her cell phone rang.

“Hi, it’s Micke!”

“Hello!”

She realized that her voice sounded happier than she had intended.

“How . . . how are things?”

“Good.”

She probably ought to be annoyed.

He had said he’d call, but that was last week. Much to her indignation, she had noticed that she was actually waiting for him to phone. But now that he had phoned, she couldn’t manage to sound quite as cool as she had planned. Because she was actually happy to hear his voice.

“Do you feel like meeting up?”

He sounded happy, almost exhilarated.

“Somewhere in the city?” he added before she had time to answer.

“Sure,” she said neutrally.

“Good, there’s something I need to talk to you about. Sturekatten at five, if that sounds okay?”

“Sure,” she repeated. “Five is good.”

“Okay, see you then, bye!”

“Bye,” she said and clicked to end the call.

What was all that about?

“
Something I need to talk to you about
 . . .”? It sounded so innocent. Like it was nothing important. But they didn’t share idle small talk, or anything else for that matter apart from their physical relationship. So that was probably what he wanted to talk about. He wanted to finish with her. She’d already guessed that he had someone else. Maybe he’d decided once and for all to give
it a go with the other woman? Dump the one who only showed up when she wanted to fuck? That sounded logical. Really she shouldn’t feel bothered.

But there was something else that was starting to get to her. Someone had started calling her landline from a withheld number, letting the phone ring but always hanging up without leaving a message when the answering machine clicked in. For a while she had thought it was Micke calling, and not having the sense to leave a message. She had almost started to get annoyed with him until she realized that she had never given him her home phone number, just her cell.

The calls had been sporadic to start with, but in recent days they were coming more often. As if someone really wanted to get hold of her, to tell her something important. Unless there was some other motive?

What bothered her most was that the caller always managed to pick times when she was at work.

First she thought it was coincidence, then, as the calls mounted up, she became aware that there was a pattern. As if her absence was a precondition for the calls, and that the lack of any messages was a message in itself.

But when she thought about it a bit more, it really wasn’t that strange. She actually knew perfectly well who was behind it. And that the other woman had no intention of letting her get away.

♦  ♦  ♦

He needed help, that much was crystal clear. The question was just what sort of help?

Okay, so he knew a few lads in the housebreaking branch, but there was a hell of a difference between using a crowbar to break open someone’s porch door and paying an undetected home
visit to the Game. Camera surveillance, a pass-card system, a full-time guard, and there were guaranteed to be alarms throughout the building.

Serious shit!

So who could help with something like that?

Well, he could cross that bridge a bit later.

To start with he had to do some research, dig out the plans and any other useful details that might be buried away in various registers and databases. And for a job like that, there was really only one obvious candidate.

Mange the Carpet Seller, of course, who else?

Contacting him was fairly low risk. Mange was totally paranoid when it came to Internet security.

He’d written letters and calls-to-arms against FRA and IPRED, and had even got involved in that silly political party. All the clichés about integrity sounded a bit weak coming from a bunch of latte liberals who spent their whole days googling, blogging, tweeting, and Facebooking, only to go and swipe their supermarket loyalty cards so they didn’t miss out on a five-kronor discount on organic macaroni and unbleached sodding toilet paper.

“This offer has been specially selected just for you!” Yeah, right!

So that was what all that integrity was worth.

Why not just say it like it was?
Everything should be free—it’s all about the damned money!

That would have made a fucking brilliant campaign slogan; he’d have had no trouble voting for a party like that! But the real bonus was that Mange’s electronic communications, just like his own these days, were guaranteed to be free from Big Brother, regardless of which family they happened to come from.

He rolled out of the gas station and headed off toward Tensta. After cruising around for a few minutes with his laptop on his knees he found what he was looking for. An unprotected wireless network with a decent signal. Just park up and log in, thank you very fucking much!

Badboy.128 says:
Hi Mange, you online?

He waited a minute or so, and was just thinking of lighting a cig when the screen flickered.

Farook says:
Salaam alaikum brother HP long time no C
not in the cottage anymore I see?

Badboy.128 says:
No, the model village got a bit too tight, thinking of leaving the city for a while but discovered something I have to do first need a bit of help . . . ? ?

Farook says:
anytime brother, you know that. How can i be of assistance?

Badboy.128 says:
Need some plans and general info about a place out in Kista Torshamnsgatan 142, anything you can find really.

Farook says:
Okay??

Badboy.128 says:
You have to tread lightly, yeah?

Badboy.128 says:
Leave no trace, not wake the guard dogs, right? :-x

Farook says:
Roger that got it! :-x

Farook says:
Guess its about what we talked about before??

Badboy.128 says:
pretty much . . .

Farook says:
okay so youve found the people who were going to set fire to my shop?

Badboy.128 says:
pretty much . . .

Farook says:
Give me a couple of hours!!

Badboy.128 says:
Thnx!

Farook says:
My pleasure, brother, promise to give them one from me. }:)

Badboy.128 says:
Roger that!

Farook says:
Btw had a visit from your sister the other day . . .

Badboy.128 says:
I heard . . .

Farook says:
She didnt seem all there, u havent got her mixed up in this have u??

Badboy.128 says:
No chance . . .

Farook says:
Okay, just wanted to check. Always liked Becca!

Badboy.128 says:
You don’t say???!!1

Farook says:
What does it show??

Badboy.128 says:
Just a bit . . . ;-)

Farook says:
*sigh!*

Badboy.128 says:
No probs, all under control! Thnx for help!

Farook says:
No worries Ma’a salama brother!

Badboy.128 says:
laters, mr M!

♦  ♦  ♦

Sturekatten, a classic old café with lots of little rooms and antique furniture. More grandma’s home-brewed coffee and almond buns than monster American cookies and latte in cardboard cups.

Blue-rinse old ladies, families with kids, teachers at the tables, and of course the obligatory Twitter cuckoo with his nose in his electronic best friend. Obviously his friends needed to know what the coffee was like, in real time, how would the world cope otherwise . . .

But the location didn’t matter much, best just to get it over and done with and move on.

Hello, kiss kiss and all that when he showed up three minutes late. For some reason they suddenly seemed almost shy with each other. Maybe because it had been so long since they last slept together?