Buzz: A Thriller

by Anders de la Motte

  She could. Tobbe was rabidly homophobic, which was just one of the many characteristics that had really started to annoy her once the physical attraction had begun to wear off.

  “So he started spreading shit about you . . . ?”

  “Well,” Gladh muttered, “he’s probably a bit too smart for that, I mean, he is in charge, and we did used to be mates. If he did start spreading shit about me, some of it would have landed on him, so he steered clear of that . . . But he did start to treat me differently at work, which pretty much amounted to the same thing. In a close-knit group like ours, everyone notices at once if there’s something wrong, and all of a sudden he was taking any chance he could to get me out of the van. Keeping me at arm’s length, sending me on secondment to other units that were short-staffed. It didn’t take long before the rest of them started joining in. I got the hint and applied for a transfer at once, before the gossip had time to really build up. For the past three weeks I’ve been working with the Youth Unit out in Roslagen.”

  “And Sixten . . . ?”

  She had pretty much worked out the answer for herself. Those comments about the lack of morals in the force had suddenly taken on a whole new meaning.

  “Uncle Sixten? He’s as homophobic as Tobbe Lundh, if not worse. We haven’t spoken for years . . . What’s he got to do with anything?”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  His first instinct was to run, run for his life. But as he attempted to stand up he felt a heavy arm on his shoulders.

  “Take it easy now, lad,” Elroy muttered in his ear as he pushed him back down onto his seat.

  “You’ve certainly been busy tonight, Henrik.”

  Philip sat down opposite him. Their knees were so close they were almost touching.

  “So, what exciting stories did my former sister-in-law have to tell you? Let me guess! I tormented her little sister, forced her out of her own company, and now I’m planning to sell the whole lot to the devil. Right so far?”

  HP nodded mutely. All of a sudden he felt nauseous. He was sure he hadn’t been followed. He’d even left the house by the terrace door, cutting through the hedge into the woods.

  So how the hell had they found him?

  Someone must have blabbed.

  But who?

  He glanced quickly toward the front of the carriage. The man with the headphones was still there. As long as there was an outsider in the carriage with them, they probably wouldn’t dare to harm him.

  At least he hoped not . . .

  Philip smiled amiably.

  “I’m afraid our last meeting was rather unfortunate, Henrik, and I take full responsibility for that.”

  He felt in his coat pocket and HP stiffened.

  “Throat lozenge?”

  Philip held out a little red box and for some reason HP obediently took one.

  “Makes people talk,” Philip said with a chuckle, mimicking the advert. HP heard Elroy join in behind his neck. He couldn’t help grinning nervously. His stomach lurched again and he swallowed a couple of times to get it under control.

  “As you might have noticed, my sister-in-law is a rather unusual person,” Philip went on. “Monika’s focus is more on the supernatural plane, which means that she sometimes has difficulty accepting reality the way that it actually is. Unfortunately Anna’s tragic death seems to have done nothing to help that . . .”

  He pulled a sad face.

  “As in every broken relationship, the fault is shared by both parties . . . But as far as ArgosEye is concerned, everything I have done has been strictly by the book, I can assure you. Well, enough of that . . .”

  He flashed a glance at Elroy, then looked over his shoulder toward the man a few seats farther forward.

  “I thought we might continue our discussion in a more private setting, Henrik. We’re still very interested in who sent you to us, and what instructions you were given. Besides, we have plenty more to discuss . . .” He held his hand up to stop HP from saying anything.

  “No, no. No need to say anything now. We’ll deal with all that when we can speak without fear of being disturbed . . . Sophie’s waiting with the car in Ropsten, so my advice to you would be to take the chance to consider which direction you would like our impending conversation to take.”

  “Easy or difficult, little Henke, you decide,” Elroy whispered in his ear. “It’s all the same to me!”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The train made one last stop before the bridge, but before HP had a chance to think about trying to run, Elroy had once again laid a hand on his shoulder. The young man with the headphones stood up and walked past them. HP tried to catch his eye, but the guy wasn’t even looking in his direction. Then the train creaked into motion again and started the long sweep up toward the Lidingö bridge.

  Philip took his cell from the holster on his belt and put it to his ear.

  “Yes, hello . . . The situation’s under control . . . We go ahead as planned.”

  HP looked out of the window. They were up on the bridge now, dark water far below on either side of them.

  “Good,” Philip said into the phone. “You have permission to proceed. We’ll start phase three at midnight . . .”

  Maybe he could make it. If he leaped to his feet, jumped on Philip, and clambered over him . . .

  No, even in the unlikely event of him getting his battered body away from both Philip and Elroy, he had no inclination at all to dive twenty meters into ice-cold water. It was a long way to shore, far too far, and there was no way he would survive a swim like that, certainly not in his current state . . .

  Philip seemed to have ended the call. He sat with the phone in his hand for several seconds and then pressed a button on one side of it before raising it to his mouth.

  “Sophie?” He released the button.

  “I’m here!” her voice crackled over the little speaker.

  “We’re on the bridge, will be there in a couple of minutes. You can drive up now, over.”

  “Understood!”

  The other end of the bridge was getting closer and closer, and HP felt the train start to slow down.

  “Well, Henrik, we seem to have reached the end of the line . . .”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Her head was still spinning as she walked slowly back toward where she had left the rental car.

  Peter Gladh wasn’t MayBey, unless he and his partner were extremely good actors. But she doubted that. They had both seemed genuine, and that whole story about Tobbe seemed to come from the heart.

  Tobbe . . .

  It was quite obvious that he’d tried to mislead her.

  He probably didn’t have a clue about MayBey, and had just given her Gladh’s name to get her out of the tennis hall before little Jonathan could pick up the vibes.

  But she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that Tobbe was involved, one way or another.

  Not just because MayBey seemed to know about them using Henke’s flat, or that several of the events that had been described matched the sort of thing Tobbe had told her. The whole situation had also escalated at about the same time that she finished with him. But Tobbe wasn’t MayBey, she’d worked that out early on. He simply wasn’t good enough at expressing himself, not by a long shot. Besides, he didn’t have the IT skills needed to keep MayBey anonymous.

  But there was still something about the tone of the posts. It seemed so personal. As if MayBey knew exactly who she was, and genuinely didn’t like—hated her, even.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  He was terrified.

  They had been watching him somehow, letting him off the leash for a while to see what he’d do. Anyone smarter than him would obviously have taken off. Packed his bag and got the hell out of Dodge, making them believe he was out of the Game and no longer any threat to them.

  But not him. Oh no . . . Instead he had merely demonstrated that he had no intention of giving up. That he was still a threat. The question he had asked himself in the flat was still waiting for an answer. Had t
hey managed to see past Henrik Pettersson and realize that he was also Player 128? Did they even know that it was him that Vincent had framed for Anna’s death?

  The train pulled in to the platform with a good deal of creaking, jolted a few times, and then stopped abruptly.

  “Time to get out,” Elroy muttered in HP’s ear as he grabbed him by the arm. “And just so you know . . .”

  With his free hand he nudged his jacket open to reveal a black metallic object at his hip.

  “Model 88, nine millimeter, nineteen bullets in the cartridge.” He grinned.

  HP gulped a couple of times, then nodded slowly. His pulse was pounding in his ears.

  They walked along the almost empty platform toward the ticket hall. Philip walked a couple of steps ahead, followed by HP, with Elroy glued to his left arm. He already knew where they were heading.

  The same steep flight of steps down to street level, the one he had tried to run up just a few hours before. They were going to drive him out to some secluded place, a gravel pit or some forest clearing. This time he was far more scared. Just like Anna, he was a threat, a risk factor that needed to be dealt with. If he got inside that car he wouldn’t return until some Thai berry picker found his fox-gnawed skull in thirty or forty years’ time, he was sure of that.

  He had to do something!

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  As she headed out across the Lidingö bridge she tried to sort out the radio. A bit of music, that was what she needed. Something to drown out the maelstrom in her head.

  But instead she got the news.

  The Security Police are still declining to comment on the failed bomb attack in the center of Stockholm. The twenty-eight-year-old perpetrator had no previous convictions, and was not known to the police, but the message the man left on Facebook suggests that his actions are linked to international terrorism . . .

  She changed the channel, zapped about for a bit until she found a Babyshambles song she liked.

  In the morning there’s a buzz of flies

  Between the pillows and the skies

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Only ten meters left before the ticket hall, then a few more to the flight of steps. Elroy’s hand was holding him like a vise and he could feel the man’s eyes boring into the back of his neck.

  But he had had an idea. He slowed down slightly, just enough for his former boss to get another meter or so ahead of them.

  The sliding doors opened to let Philip into the hall, and at that moment HP stopped.

  “Don’t stop . . .” Elroy muttered.

  HP obeyed and took a step forward, so that they were in the middle of the doorway. Elroy squeezed his arm tighter and muttered irritably.

  “Come on, come on, come on!!!”

  The doors closed without warning.

  The left-hand door hit Elroy on the arm, forcing him instinctively to take half a step back. At the same time HP took a quick step into the hall and twisted sideways. The right-hand door missed his back and a fraction of a second later crashed onto Elroy’s already caught arm.

  He heard Elroy yelp, felt his grip loosen, and jerked his body quickly.

  He was free!

  Time to do what he did best: run for his life!

  Philip had evidently heard the cry. He spun around and reached out with his arms. But HP had already built up speed. He feinted left, then swerved around Philip’s right side.

  He set off for the escalator leading up to the subway platform, taking the steps two at a time the way he usually did, but he could feel his body protesting. When he reached the top he glanced quickly over his shoulder, only to discover that both Philip and Elroy were already hot on his heels.

  Shit!

  He flew out onto the platform, choosing the right-hand side, which was completely deserted.

  His body felt weak and he was having to make a huge effort not to trip over his own feet.

  A handful of passengers were waiting on the left-hand side of the platform, but obviously none of them was going to help him. Instead he took aim at the far end of the platform, and the long tunnel that led up to Hjorthagen.

  Another glance over his shoulder made his heart rate change gear into panic mode. His pursuers were gaining on him, already close enough for him to see the clenched expressions on their faces. Plumes of breath were puffing from their mouths and noses.

  Freaking hell!

  He could usually outrun pretty much anyone, but he was still injured, and these guys seemed to be phenomenal runners.

  He could forget the tunnel, they’d have caught up with him before he even reached the entrance, and even if by some miracle he did make it, a two-hundred-meter uphill slope was the last thing he needed right now.

  For a second he thought about crossing the empty track and jumping the fence down toward Värtavägen, but the viaduct the platform was built on must be a good fifteen meters up, and there was no way he’d survive a fall like that.

  He needed a new plan, really fast!

  Another glance over his shoulder, they were even closer now.

  His muscles were aching, his lungs and throat burning, and he could clearly feel his movements getting slower. They were going to catch him, he realized. Then he saw the sign announcing an approaching train light up on the left-hand side of the platform, and felt the familiar gust of air.

  A chance . . .

  A tiny, fucking dangerous little chance. But he didn’t exactly have much choice . . .

  He swerved sharply to the left, changing platforms and cruising between a couple of lethargic passengers.

  He heard their angry cries as his pursuers knocked them flying.

  He veered right and carried on down this new platform. Then he saw the lights of the train emerging from the tunnel, heading straight toward him. His pursuers had almost caught him. He could feel their hands grabbing for his jacket and staked his last reserves of energy on a final, violent burst of speed. The train’s brakes were squealing as he saw it getting closer. Hands brushed his back again.

  His lungs felt like they were about to burst, his legs were on the point of giving out, but he forced them out over the edge of the platform. He felt a millisecond of weightlessness as he hung in the air in front of the train.

  Then he heard someone scream, a long, drawn-out scream that merged with the shrieking of the brakes.

  Then ground, tarmac, metal, and, finally: darkness . . .

  35

  THE RABBIT HOLE

  Pillars of Society forum

  Posted: 23 December, 22:49

  By: MayBey

  Maybe you’re right, Regina . . .

  Maybe I am just a ghost?

  But dare you all ignore me?

  Dare you?

  This post has 96 comments

  THE POCKET UNDER the platform wasn’t particularly big. Not quite seventy centimeters across, and maybe half as deep. Just enough for an average-sized person to be able to take cover there.

  The wheels of the train were still rolling just a few centimeters away, and the shriek of the brakes made it almost impossible to think.

  He did a quick check. His body ached, both from the run, the landing, and his dive into the cubbyhole, and his heart was pounding like the bass at a Death Metal concert. But to his immense relief he couldn’t find any amputated stumps spurting cascades of blood. All his limbs seemed to be intact, even if they were badly battered. He tucked his arms under his body and tried to snake his way forward.

  Not very easy . . .

  Vesa had once pointed out the protective pocket to him a long time ago. The guy clearly had a serious train fetish, but you didn’t know about that sort of thing when you were fifteen. He’d eventually met a tragic fate, ending up as charcoal down in Älvsjö. He’d been riding on top of a carriage but hadn’t realized that the power cables sometimes hung lower in the depot than they did out on along the tracks . . .

  But they’d had fun back then.

  They started hitching rides between the carriages, an
d other low-level stuff. They went on a tunnel safari at the abandoned station at Kymlinge. That was where HP tried out the safety pocket for the first time. One of the trains on the blue line had thundered past at almost eighty kilometers an hour, and for a few seconds the pressure wave and the earsplitting noise almost made him crap himself. After that they tried the same stunt in other places, seeing as every station has the same little safety pocket. It was really more of a groove than a pocket, seeing as it ran the entire length of the platform. So he ought to be able to snake his way to the opening of the tunnel while the train stopped anyone seeing what he was doing from above. At least that was the theory . . .

  The train had stopped and he could hear a buzz of agitated voices from the platform.

  “No, no, for God’s sake, you can’t go down onto the track . . .” an authoritative male voice was saying. He guessed that was the train driver.

  “The current has to be switched off before you can do that . . . We’ve got set routines for this sort of thing, we get almost one jumper each week . . . The police and fire brigade are on their way, so can everyone please take a step back?!”

  The voices grew fainter as he snaked away from them.

  He was making slower progress than he had hoped.

  The rough stones beneath him were scraping his knees and elbows, and his thick jacket was making it harder to move. In the distance he could hear sirens approaching. He needed to be a fair way inside the tunnel before the fire brigade shut off the current and got down onto the track.

  He paused for a few seconds, then laboriously wriggled out of his jacket. It would be cold without it, but he didn’t have a lot of choice.

  A quick double check of the pockets to make sure he didn’t forget anything.

  Wallet, keys, and cigarettes.

  All present and correct, and he stuffed them all into the pockets of his jeans. Only the lighter left, and he ran his hands over the jacket until he found it in one of the many little side pockets.

  It was ridiculously difficult to pull out, it seemed like it had slipped inside the lining and for a moment he considered abandoning it. But then he realized that the walk through the tunnel to the next station at Gärdet would be damned long without a cigarette, so he tried again.