She didn’t recognize him, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. There were more than 1,500 police in Stockholm, and many of them had started after her, and since she moved to the Security Police she had gradually lost touch with the uniformed branch.
For a moment she contemplated asking him straight out, then decided against it.
“Thanks,” she said instead, smiling as she handed over her bags.
He returned her smile and quickly shifted his own bag before taking hers.
She loosened her scarf, then opened her jacket, then breathed out.
Lovely!
♦ ♦ ♦
It was all about control—not just control of the buzz out there, but of the very company itself. The shares, that had to be it.
Anna Argos had owned the biggest stake in the company, and would thus have always had the last word. No matter what fantastic plans Philip might have had as MD, he would always have had to ask the board for permission, which meant that one way or another, he would still have been in his ex-wife’s hands.
The report he had paid for before starting work had mentioned rumors of a stock-market flotation. What if Philip had wanted to go public, but Anna had objected? He’d considered this theory before, before he got a bit too involved . . .
After all, ArgosEye had been Anna’s life’s work, Philip himself had said that at the funeral, and maybe she wasn’t prepared to give up control? Just as allergic to outside shareholders as old Ingvar Kamprad at Ikea, no matter how much it might swell the coffers? But what if Anna fell off her perch and Monika inherited the whole lot?
Something told him that the older sister would be considerably more amenable.
Beneath her disapproving façade he was fairly sure that Monika was scared of Philip.
Hardly surprising, really . . .
There had been something in the air the other evening. He had thought that everyone was partying like crazy because they thought the world was about to end. But in fact that might only have been part of the truth. Because if one world ends, doesn’t that also mean that another one is born?
Philip had dropped little hints that something big was about to happen, calling all the section heads in for a meeting even though it was Sunday.
The section heads weren’t just in charge of their own little fiefdoms, they were also share owners, Beens had blurted that out that night they had pizza together, so whatever happened to the company over the next few weeks would have a direct impact on their wallets.
The more he thought about it, the more details started to pop up. Rilke looking at a loft apartment. Dejan sitting there looking through Maserati brochures. Beens with all his boasting, and now the famous Stoffe, back with a suntan from a long trip abroad . . .
Could he possibly have been to an obscure little Gulf state to hand over a caseful of money? To thank Bruno Hamel, a.k.a. Vincent the Lady Killer, for his efforts?
He could understand that they were pissed off with him, they had every right to be. He had betrayed their trust, after all. But to go from that to electric shocks?
No, something was obviously going on, something big, and the only way to find out more was to pay a home visit to big sister Argos. Besides, he felt he needed to get away from the flat. Draw their eyes away from Becca . . .
♦ ♦ ♦
She had hardly made it through the door before he set about the bags, pulling off the tracksuit and T-shirt he’d borrowed, tearing off the labels, and putting the clothes on.
“Are you going out now, right away? I thought we could have coffee together, we’ve got loads to catch up on . . .”
She sounded disappointed, but he didn’t actually have any choice.
“Sorry, but like you said yesterday, there’s something I’ve got to take care of. It can’t wait . . .”
“But are you sure you’re okay? Do you want me to come with—”
“No,” he interrupted, a bit too sharply. “This is something I have to do on my own, Becca,” he added, rather more gently.
She gave him a long look.
“Okay, but you can at least take my cell so I can call you.”
“Sure,” he said, taking it. He put it in one of the many pockets of the padded jacket. But just before he left the flat he took it out again and poked it between a couple of woolly hats on the shelf by the door.
When he reached the ground floor he carefully opened the front door and looked up and down the street before slipping out and rushing quickly into the park opposite. His battered body protested after just a twenty-meter run. Not a good sign.
All of a sudden he thought he could hear footsteps behind him. He stopped abruptly and nipped in behind a tree.
But it was just a woman out walking her dog.
He let her pass, then carried on cautiously along the path toward Fridhemsplan.
By the time he got out of the subway at Ropsten it was already getting dark.
There were only three or four people on the platform, all of them harmless. No one was after him, he had run through all his best secret-agent tricks at Fridhemsplan, then again at the Central Station. He leaped onto a train, went one station, then doubled back on himself, then jumped on a train only to dash out again just before the doors closed.
In other words, everything ought to be okay. But he still took a detour down to the taxi rank at street level. He hung about in the kiosk until he heard the little train come rattling over the Lidingö bridge, and waited until the last second before racing up the stairs again.
Well, maybe he didn’t race. His body still felt incredibly sore, so he didn’t have quite the usual spring in his step. The infrared sensor in the waiting room seemed to be broken, because he came close to being guillotined by the sliding doors as he stumbled out onto the platform.
Damned local transport!
It must have been at least five years since he last traveled on the Lidingö line. He hadn’t been back since the time Klasse had a sublet single-room flat up in Larsberg and they would sometimes go back there to carry on partying after a night out.
Everything still looked the same, pretty much like some old film set. Tiny burgundy velvet seats, polished hardwood, and tin warning signs under every window with anachronistic messages such as “Kindly refrain from leaning out through the window.” It looked and smelled like a movie from the fifties.
He jumped off the train one stop before his destination, lit a cigarette, and walked the rest of the way. Silent roads lined with villas, where the snow muffled all sound.
Candlesticks, fairy lights on Christmas trees, and television screens spilled their light out onto the road.
Her house was at the end of a cul-de-sac, and to be on the safe side he checked out the parked cars lining the road. Only two of them were mostly free from snow, which had to mean that they had been parked within the last half hour. They were both empty. The other cars were so covered in snow that they must have been there at least a day, and if anyone was trying to keep watch from inside any of them, they’d be both frozen solid and unable to see a thing.
Just to be sure, he took the long route, going up the next road and then plodding up the poorly cleared cycle path linking the far ends of the two roads, and finally approached her house.
He could see candle flames flickering in a couple of the windows, so she was definitely home. He took a last look back at the road. Everything seemed quiet.
So he rang the doorbell. He heard footsteps approaching in the hall, then saw a dark shadow against the frosted glass. Then the rattle of the lock.
“I’ve been waiting for you to show up . . .” she said with a smile.
32
DO NOT FEED THE TROLL!
Pillars of Society forum
Posted: 23 December, 19:11
By: MayBey
I have found the person I have been looking for.
A worthless little shit, a parasite on the body of society without whom we would definitely be better off.
Let’s cal
l him Henrik . . .
This post has 116 comments
SO THE BASTARD wasn’t going to give up?
Either Tobbe hadn’t said anything about their meeting, or Peter Gladh was the type who didn’t take warnings seriously. But maybe that depended on where the warning came from?
She spent a couple of minutes setting up an online alias, then wrote a short message, double-checked it for spelling mistakes, and then clicked Send.
Surely that ought to make the idiot realize?
Back the fuck off, MayBey—I know who you are and if you
don’t stop I’ll come out and pay you a visit!
Sincerely, Regina Righteous
♦ ♦ ♦
Weirdly, she had just let him in without asking any questions at all. Offered to make some tea and parked him on the sofa.
The house was a perfectly ordinary 1970s construction, but the furnishings were a bit odd. White gloss and egg tempera, with colorful abstract paintings on the walls and leaning against the skirting boards.
And hanging over all of it a vague smell of linseed oil and incense. The whole place felt a bit “instant mindfulness,” complete with uplights and strange mobiles spinning from the ceiling. The only thing missing was a whale-song CD. Helmut Lotti sings Moby Dick, Absolute Shamu, something along those lines . . .
“You’re wondering why I’m not more surprised . . .” Monica Gregerson said when she returned with a little wooden tray holding two cups of tea and a plate of biscuits.
“Mmm.”
He blew on his tea, but had to put the cup down so as not to burn his fingers. Cups without handles, no doubt very feng shui but not really very practical if you weren’t a bit of a masochist.
“There was something special about you, I noticed it the first time I saw you up in the office. Your aura was different, stronger. As if you were there for a particular reason . . .”
She waved her hand at him.
“It’s all right, you don’t have to be polite and pretend you don’t think I’m crazy. Everything around us consists of energy, and that’s from Einstein, not me. Yet we in the West still have terrible difficulty accepting the fact that our energies affect us. And how we ourselves affect the people around us. I’m pretty used to it by now, so how about we skip the small talk and get straight to the point? If you like, you can just pretend that I was charmed by your smile and decided to trust you . . .”
She took a slurp of her tea and gave him a few seconds to compose himself.
“Now, I’d like to know why you’re here . . . Magnus.”
He took a deep breath. Just as he’d suspected, the woman was a bit on the soft-boiled side.
Energies and feng shui, okay . . . Hell, she didn’t even know what his real name was!
But straight to the point suited him fine.
“I want to know what’s behind your beef . . . I mean, your dislike of Philip. What happened between him and Anna. And what’s this big deal the company’s got going on?”
♦ ♦ ♦
She pulled on her hat and gloves, then yanked at her jacket so hard that the hanger fell to the floor.
So the little fucker wanted war, did he? Okay, he could have it!
A quick call to the personnel department and she had both an address and telephone number for Police Sergeant Peter Gladh, alias Internet bully and shit of the first order MayBey.
It’s not about what you know, Regina. It’s about what you can prove!
She tied her boots, then stopped in the doorway for a few moments. Then she went back in and, from the bottom drawer of the hall cupboard, took out a long, cylindrical object that she put in her jacket pocket. Gladh seemed to be a fairly unusual character, to say the least, so a bit of insurance wouldn’t hurt . . .
♦ ♦ ♦
“You’ve heard of the expression a love/hate relationship?”
He nodded, and sipped the bitter tea.
“That’s exactly how it was between Philip and Anna. They knew how to press each other’s buttons, playing all sorts of weird games . . .”
She shook her head slowly.
“Anna was always very unusual. She loved anything competitive; even when we were little she loved to challenge me any way she could, even at things where she couldn’t possibly win. It was as if the actual competitive element, the contest itself, was what appealed to her rather than winning.”
She took another careful sip from her cup.
“No matter whether Anna won or lost, she always seemed just as disappointed when it was all over. She played all sorts of different sports, got brilliant grades at high school and the School of Economics. But she still didn’t really seem satisfied. When she met Philip, it was as if she’d found a worthy opponent. Someone who could constantly challenge her, if you see what I mean?”
He nodded.
“The only problem was that their ongoing battle for control, which was doubtless very inspiring to start with, gradually turned into something far more unpleasant . . .”
“He used to hit her?”
Monika pulled a face.
“Well . . . it wasn’t quite as simple as that . . .”
She took a deep breath.
“Their power struggle took place on so many different levels, not just physical. As time went on it escalated until eventually neither of them was prepared to back down, not an inch, and not about anything. Never! And it got worse, especially when things started to go well for the company. I worked there for a year or so, but in the end their tug-of-war got too painful to watch. Whichever one of them was most determined to win had to use whatever tactics they could, no holds barred, if you get what I mean?”
She gave him a long look and he nodded once more.
“But they ended up getting divorced. Didn’t that improve things?”
“Yes and no . . . They carried on working together, and Anna sometimes used to stay in the company flat. It’s right next door to Philip’s, and I think she sometimes used to take other men back there . . .”
“Ah . . .”
HP had a sudden flashback to the double bed in Östermalm.
“In the end I think she simply went too far. Something happened between them, something terrible, because all of a sudden she was terrified of him, and Anna wasn’t the sort who scared easily. I’m not sure, but I think the others were involved somehow. Kristoffer, Rilke, Dejan . . .”
“Sophie and Elroy . . . ?” he asked.
“No, those two have always been Philip’s faithful henchmen. He brought them with him from the military, but you probably know that. Maybe you even know what they get up to up on the top floor?”
He shook his head.
“They’ve got some sort of register of anyone who might in any way be regarded as an opponent of the company’s clients. Mapping them down to the smallest detail. Photos, opinions, social circle, everything you can think of.
“Most of it comes from Facebook and other social forums, but they also use all sorts of official databases to find information . . .”
She put her teacup down slightly too hard.
“I trained as a lawyer, and the idea was that I would take care of legal matters for the company. But when I confronted Philip, told him their register was illegal, and asked him to explain what it was for, he became almost threatening. Said that what Sophie and Elroy were doing was way outside my area of responsibility and that I should mind my own business. A couple of days later I resigned, there was no way I could possibly be involved in that sort of thing . . .”
HP nodded slowly.
His conflict detector had evidently been correct.
“You said the section heads were involved somehow . . . ?”
“Sorry, I got a bit sidetracked, didn’t I?”
She poured them some more tea.
“All the section heads apart from Kristoffer were chosen by Anna, before Philip came into the picture. You could say they were her protégés, and she was very attached to them. But somehow Philip managed to
turn them against her.”
“The shares . . . ? Philip and Anna owned half each, but gave some to the section heads . . .”
She gave him a long look, without either confirming or denying what he had just said.
“But Anna still had the majority holding?”
“Well, that depends a bit on how you count . . . The actual redistribution was Philip’s idea, but Anna supported it. She saw it as a way to tie the section heads more closely to the company, a way of retaining their experience and skills. After the allocation Anna kept forty percent of the shares, Philip twenty, and the four section heads ten percent each. That was no doubt why she agreed to it. Seeing as Philip was the one who was giving up most, she probably saw it as a victory. Because to vote her down, he’d need to have all the section heads on his side, and she couldn’t imagine that they would ever let her down, at least not all of them . . .”
“But that’s what happened . . . ?”
She nodded.
“Somehow he managed to get them all on his side, don’t ask me how, then at the last shareholder meeting they all voted in favor of Philip’s proposal . . .”
“Stock-market flotation . . . ?”
“No, no, absolutely not!” She laughed. “Stock-market flotation would have meant having to account for their activities, telling a load of strangers who the company was actually doing business with, and that’s the last thing Philip would have wanted. No, what they actually forced through was a sell-off . . .”
♦ ♦ ♦
She hung about at the back of the building for a while. Waiting for the worst of her anger to subside, and to give her a chance to consider if this was really such a great idea.
But now she had been waiting out in the cold for a good while, and she was still just as furious as she had been when she stormed out of her flat almost an hour before. Peter Gladh lived on the second floor of a building containing four separate apartments, but he probably had a sublet seeing as his name wasn’t on the list by the entry phone.
The house was set high up, with its back facing a small patch of woodland, and she had had to abandon the rental car and scramble up through the trees to find a decent vantage point.
There were lights in a couple of the windows, and at one point she thought she saw a silhouette pass by. So he was home. Now she just needed to get in, because that was her plan, wasn’t it? Ring on his door and confront him?
Buzz: A Thriller Page 25