Game: A Thriller

by Anders de la Motte

  HP didn’t answer; now if ever was a time to keep quiet. His head ached and he felt like he was going to be sick. The pain in his lower arm was hardly helped by the fact that his hands had been bent up behind his back.

  The cops grinned and exchanged knowing glances in the rearview mirror. They turned off the expressway and headed into Kungsholmen. Next stop, Police Headquarters in Kronoberg.

  Balls!

  Everything had gone completely to hell. He’d been careless and not looked around properly. And had missed that damn idiot who rammed him. How stupid could you be?

  He gulped a couple of time to suppress the urge to throw up. Now he had to keep quiet and ask for a lawyer as quickly as possible. He knew the routine. There was no point talking to the orcs in the car, they didn’t have any say in anything.

  “What’s the matter, can’t you speak?” gorilla number one said in a mocking tone that for some reason made HP feel even more uneasy.

  He stuck to his strategy and kept quiet.

  “No problem, boy.” The cop chuckled, giving his colleague in the driver’s seat another look.

  The blow came out of nowhere; it must have been a left hook and he had no way of defending himself. Wham, right on his cheekbone, and his head thudded into the side window.

  “What the f . . . !” he managed to say before the next blow struck. A right hook this time, straight at the middle of his face, and he felt his nose crack.

  This can’t be happening, this only happens in films! he managed to think before the third punch blurred his vision.

  When he came around they were already down in the garage, and they were dragging him out of the car. Metal doors, a lift, a couple of blue shirts hurrying past, then a long, brightly lit corridor with beige plastic flooring. Doors, voices, a lot of rushing about, and finally a small interview room.

  The handcuffs were removed and the belongings that they had taken off him when he was arrested were emptied onto the table. House keys, ID card, and a few crumpled twenty-kronor notes, as well as the cell, of course.

  Blood was trickling from his nose and one of the gorillas tossed him a paper tissue before he sat down on a chair opposite.

  HP managed to pull himself together and regain some of his wounded self-confidence.

  “I want a lawyer,” he said, but the last word sounded more like “doyer” because of his swollen nose.

  The gorilla just grinned.

  “Didn’t you hear, I want a lawyer,” HP repeated, this time slightly less nasal as he rubbed the red marks on his wrists.

  The gorilla stood up quickly and HP twitched instinctively on his chair. The cop saw his fear and grinned. He wagged a fat, hairy index finger toward HP.

  “I think you should shut up, my friend,” he said exaggeratedly slowly, and there was no mistaking the underlying threat.

  HP decided to heed his advice and revert to his original plan. Besides, the lead interviewer ought to be along soon; then all this shit would be over.

  Sure enough, the door opened a couple of minutes later and another man came in, also in plainclothes. This one was shorter, wore glasses, and was considerably skinnier than the two gorillas, and it was immediately obvious which one was in charge.

  He glanced at HP’s swollen face and then gave the hairiest ape a disdainful look.

  “You can go now, Wiklander. Haven’t you and Molnar here got a report to write up?”

  The gorilla muttered something but went out at once, giving HP the evil eye on the way.

  HP nodded happily. This guy was more to his taste.

  “Bolin, duty officer,” he said by way of introduction. “And you’re Henrik Pettersson, known as HP, is that right?”

  HP nodded again.

  “I’m going to turn on the tape recorder now and we’ll do the introductions once more, but this time I want you to answer verbally, have you got that?”

  HP shrugged. He wasn’t planning on saying more than just one sentence.

  Bolin started the tape recorder that was on the table in front of them.

  “Interview with Henrik ‘HP’ Pettersson concerning suspicion of attempted murder and grievous bodily harm against a public official at the junction of Drottningholmsvägen and the Essinge expressway. Lead interviewer Detective Inspector Bolin, interview commenced at 23:12. Right, Henrik, can you tell me your response to our suspicions?”

  HP sighed. Now that the apes had been driven out, the normal order was restored, and he was back on familiar territory. His head was starting to clear and the sharp pain in his arm had shifted to a rumbling ache.

  “I’m innocent and want a lawyer present,” he said as clearly as he could, leaning over toward the tape recorder just to make sure that it didn’t miss a single syllable. “I want a lawyer, and I want to report that I was beaten up by that gorilla, Wiklander, is that his name?”

  He rubbed his swollen nose demonstratively. He still had some tissue paper stuffed up one nostril. Bolin gave no sign of having understood HP’s request.

  “A lawyer, I said,” HP clarified once more, seeing as what he had said evidently hadn’t sunk in. Were all cops this slow?

  Bright spark Bolin was still just staring at him across the table. Then the police officer slowly smiled and there was something about that reptilian smile that scared HP considerably more than the two trolls in the car had managed to do. He suddenly remembered a documentary he had seen about poisonous snakes on Discovery. How they sometimes settled down quite coolly to wait once they had bitten their prey as it used up the last of its energy in a meaningless attempt to escape.

  He shivered. Bolin leaned forward slowly and switched off the tape recorder.

  “Listen carefully now, Pettersson,” he said in a low voice. “You don’t seem to appreciate exactly how bad your situation is right now, so let me explain. You rode a moped to Lindhagensplan, stopped on the overpass above Drottningholmsvägen, and from a PE bag clearly marked with your name you pulled out a stone, which you then threw at the windshield of a police car passing below. Both police officers are now in St. Göran’s, one of them in a pretty bad way, so with a bit of luck you may have graduated to cop killer before the night is over,” he concluded with another of his unnerving snake smiles.

  HP had turned pale, but he continued to stay quiet.

  Oh yes, he’d realized that he’d hit a police car; the flashing blue light had been a bit of a giveaway even before he threw the stone. What the hell, did they think he was stupid or something? But on the other hand, he hadn’t really given much thought to the consequences, but so what?

  If you were a cop, you had to put up with a few risks; that much was obvious from the papers. Besides, it was hardly his fault that they were driving so fast, was it? Anyway, wasn’t the speed limit seventy along there? The Volvo must have been doing a ton, so in a way it was the cops’ own fault that things turned out so badly, wasn’t it? He glanced at the cell phone on the table just off to one side in front of him. The screen was facing up and he was well aware of what it said on the other side. Number one hundred and twenty-eight, one of the chosen ones, that was who he was, and rule number one applied, no matter what world you moved in.

  But what was it Bolin had said about the PE bag, he had almost missed that. His name? Bolin must have read his mind, because out of nowhere he conjured up the striped bag and tossed in on the table.

  For a couple of seconds HP just stared at it, then curiosity got the better of him. He opened the bag. It was empty, apart from a bit of dirt.

  Suddenly he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. There, on the inside of the lining, was a bit of fabric he’d almost forgotten. A scrap of cloth that his mom had sewn in during the short period when she was actually his mom and not just Maj Britt the invalid and drunk. A printed tag you could order through school from some company, the sort all well-meaning mothers sewed into all their kids’ stuff so that it wouldn’t get lost. All mothers except his, because Mom had been replaced more and more by Maj Britt, a
nd this bag was the only thing she ever managed to sew a name tag into, the bag he himself had made in sewing class.

  “Property of Henrik Pettersson 08-6636615,” it said in blue lettering.

  HP went icy cold. The last time he had seen the bag it had been hanging in the wardrobe in his bedroom; he was absolutely certain of that.

  “In other words, you’re not exactly the smartest criminal I’ve ever come across,” Bolin declared, interrupting his train of thought. “Besides, we’ve got the stone and it contains two perfect fingerprints in two-stroke oil, and we’re convinced they’re going to match yours.”

  He leaned forward toward the deathly pale HP.

  “So the way I see it, you’re pretty much in the frame for this, my dear Henrik. Is there anything you’d like to say about it?” he concluded, then switched on the tape recorder again.

  HP’s head was spinning.

  Who the hell had been in his flat?

  Why had someone stolen the bag and hung it up on the bridge?

  The car that had rammed him had appeared out of nowhere, almost as if it had been sitting just around the bend waiting for him. And it had hit the moped just enough for the cops to be able to pick him up.

  But who would want to frame him that badly? Okay, he had a few enemies, but no one in that league. So who could it be? Number fifty-eight?

  What if Mr. Five-Eight was Swedish and had managed to work out who it was coming up fast behind him on the league table? And sabotaged the whole thing on purpose?

  No, that sounded too ridiculous . . .

  His head was aching from the collision, the punches, and all the shit that was flying around inside it. He couldn’t make sense of any of this, at least not right now.

  He glanced over at the mobile again and decided to stick to rule number one, keep quiet.

  “I have no comment to make, and, like I said a few moments ago, I want a lawyer,” he repeated, but this time his voice didn’t sound quite so confident.

  Bolin sighed and slowly switched off the tape recorder again.

  “If you like, Pettersson, obviously that’s within your rights. There’s the phone, with the phone book next to it. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

  He gestured toward a small telephone table in the corner of the room, and stood up to go.

  “You’re damn lucky that Officer Normén got away with minor injuries,” he added as he got to the door. “There’s only one thing us cops hate more than a cop killer, and that’s someone who kills female cops.”

  Something suddenly clicked inside HP and he could almost feel the blood rushing from his head.

  “H-hang on!” he called to Bolin, who was on the point of closing the door.

  “What did you say the officer was called, the woman . . . the one who got hurt?”

  “Normén,” Bolin said drily. “Rebecca Normén.”

  Fuck, fuck, fuck!!! a little voice in HP’s skull screamed.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Twelve stitches in total. Four in one cut, five in the other, and a few single ones on her face.

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

  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 was still in intensive care and, according to Vahtola, who had looked in a while ago, 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 just sleep for a day or so.

  Just as she was taking a last look around the room to make sure she’d got everything her cell 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 instead?” 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 it wasn’t supposed to be you. I didn’t know it was you, Becca!”

  The words came in bursts and she heard how his voice rose to a falsetto toward 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 making fun of me? Are you completely stupid? For God’s sake, you’re over thirty and you’re still playing your way through life, you don’t give a fuck 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.

  “Well, now you know that I’m okay. Where are you now?”

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

  All that nonsense 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 a
fter 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 cell phone.

  “Tell them everything,” she had said, and she was usually right. He almost always did as she said, at least when it was about something important, and she’d always tried to protect him, watched his back . . .

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

  “It all started when I found a cell 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, just a few bruises and one hell of a headache, but that’s about it. I’m afraid Kruse didn’t get off so lightly.”

  “Yes, so I heard; we had three cars there when the fire brigade were cutting you free, and the boys 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 man 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.