It was Friday evening and he’d been starting to wonder if he ought to get in touch with Becca. He missed her more than he was prepared to admit. But last time he got her mixed up in the Game he almost managed to kill her – quite literally, in fact.
Talking of the Game …
That morning when he woke up the phone was on the little writing desk.
After a few moments of blind panic he suddenly remembered that he’d taken it out when he’d got up for a pee during the night. But he couldn’t quite remember why …
Bloody lucky that there was no charge left in it, anyway …
He was suddenly interrupted by a cautious knock at the door.
Strange: he hadn’t ordered any grub, and the cleaner only came once a week.
He put the safety-chain on and carefully opened the door. A skinny little man in oversized pilot’s glasses, Brylcreamed grey hair and a Hep Stars t-shirt nodded at him.
‘Hi. I’m out of fags and got no money. Wondered if I could cadge a couple …?’
HP looked at the man in amusement. Who the hell was this? Rock-granddad?
The bloke seemed distinctly unthreatening, and for some reason it just didn’t feel right to slam the door shut in his face.
‘Sure, come in …’
He took the safety chain off and opened the door wide.
‘Cheers!’ the man nodded when HP, in a sudden attack of generosity handed him an unopened packet of Marlboros.
‘I’m Nox. You’re new here, aren’t you?’
HP opened his mouth to reply, but after a couple of seconds’ reflection he shut it again without saying anything but an indistinct mumble. However much he might have liked to chat to this funny little gnome, he realized that this wasn’t the time. If this whole undercover routine was going to work, he had to avoid making up any more lies than was strictly necessary. It was hard enough to keep track of the ones he was juggling at work, and now all of a sudden he regretted opening the door. He seemed to have a serious problem with his impulse control …
‘Okay, cool, man. You’re not the type of guy who wants to say much, I respect that.’
Nox, as rock-granddad evidently wanted to be called, put his hand to his chest.
‘But if there’s anything you need, just knock on my door, down at number twenty-four.’
He gestured along the narrow corridor.
‘I’m one of the regulars, yeah …’
HP nodded thoughtfully.
Maybe he could squeeze something useful out of this little Nescafé visit.
‘I suppose you have a pretty good idea of who lives here …?’ he began. ‘… who comes and goes, I mean?’
‘Of course! You, for instance, have been here almost three weeks, and social services came past with a couple of new arrivals the day before yesterday …’
‘Great, look, maybe you can do me a favour and keep an eye out for me? If anything unusual happens, I mean. People who don’t seem to fit it, and so on …’
‘Only people who don’t fit in live in a place like this …’ Nox grinned. ‘But I get what you mean.’
HP tossed him another packet of fags and the funny little man caught it midair. On his way out he tapped his nose with one finger.
‘Just say if you need anything, man, Nox is at your service!’
‘Okay,’ HP said hesitantly. ‘Well, maybe I could ask another favour …?’
Nox stopped in the doorway.
‘It might be worth a couple of cartons.’
‘Sure, you name it! …’
‘You see, I need help to store something. There’s something I need to get out of the house, if you get what I mean …’
‘Aren’t you Rebecca? Rebecca Pettersson? Erland’s daughter?’
He was standing on the pavement right in front of her and she had no choice but to stop. An older gentleman in a dark overcoat and hat.
‘Normén,’ she mumbled as she tried to work out who the man was.
‘Of course, yes, how silly of me. You changed your name after your mother … You don’t recognize me, do you?’
She looked at him carefully. He was slightly taller than her, around 1.80 metres, and at a guess somewhere round sixty.
There was undeniably something familiar about the man’s posture and stiff features, but she couldn’t quite place him. He was probably one of her father’s colleagues from the reserve unit.
‘Tage, Tage Sammer, but you and your brother used to call me Uncle Tage. You came to stay at my summer cottage up in Rättvik years ago, if you remember?’
He smiled and something in his look made her do the same.
‘Of course, yes,’ she said through her smile. ‘Uncle Tage, how are you?’
‘Very well, thanks. I was just going to ask you the same thing?’
‘Fine, thanks,’ she lied.
‘Are you still working for the Security Police?’
She was taken aback, and he seemed to notice.
‘Your father had a lot of friends, Rebecca, and we’ve done our best to keep an eye on you both. As a last favour to Erland. He would have been so proud of you, you were always his favourite.’
He smiled again and suddenly she felt a little lump starting to form in her throat.
She swallowed to get rid of it.
‘By the way, I’m sorry I couldn’t come to your mother’s funeral,’ he went on. ‘We sent a wreath, I hope it arrived?’
She nodded, she could remember the wreath clearly.
A last farewell from your old friends.
‘I was on service abroad in Africa. Unfortunately I was injured and was unable to travel …’
He nodded at his leg, and only now did she notice the stick in his right hand.
‘A very sad story, both your dad and your mum,’ he went on. ‘Erland didn’t deserve to be taken from us so early. And certainly not under those circumstances …’
She frowned and opened her mouth to say something, but he interrupted her.
‘Well, it was very nice to bump into you like this, Rebecca.’
He put his hand in his inside pocket and took out a neat little business card.
‘Feel free to get in touch, it would make an old man very happy.’
‘I promise, Uncle Tage.’
They shook hands, then, acting on impulse, she took a step forward and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. He smelled of cigars and aftershave, almost exactly the same smell as her dad, and for a few seconds the lump was back again.
‘By the way,’ he said just before they parted. ‘Your brother, Henrik, do you ever hear from him?’
‘So, Manga, Frank says you’re our new hotshot down in the Mine …’
Their party had been put in a separate room some way from the entrance, which suited HP perfectly.
His role as Manga may have been good enough to fool strangers, but he wasn’t sure if people who knew him would be as easily deceived. But on the other hand neither his nor Manga’s friends tended to hang out at posh places like this.
They had finished eating, and had already got through several beers. All the departmental bosses apart from the Goth Queen were there. Unfortunately HP had arrived too late to be able to sit next to Rilke. Instead he had to make do with Beens, who seemed to have loosened up already with a few pints.
But it didn’t matter much. The guy obviously liked talking almost as much as he liked drinking beer.
‘Yep, it’s going pretty well. Interesting company, ArgosEye!’ HP gave Beens a crooked smile and tried to sound humble.
‘Mmm, the company’s quite an unusual workplace, but I’m sure you’ve already worked that out. Hardly anyone ever leaves – at least not voluntarily. All of us here have been there from the start.’
Beens pointed at the others round the table.
‘Dejan and Rilke have worked with Anna for almost ten years, and Stoffe, who’ll be back in a couple of weeks, came over with Philip from Burston. Frank and I worked together for another company but Anna recruited
us at roughly the same time. Our little gang has more or less built ArgosEye from the ground up. We’re actually all partners – Philip’s idea.’
Beens’s garlic breath was no trifling matter, and to make matters worse he was the sort who liked to lean a bit too close when he talked, but HP grinned and bore it.
‘I don’t think I got the chance to meet Anna …?’ he attempted, then held his breath.
Dejan shook his head and took a couple of gulps from his glass of beer.
This was the first time anyone had even mentioned Anna’s name, and HP hadn’t been able to resist the temptation. Damn, this clearly wasn’t the right moment to start talking about the dead …
Beens put his glass down and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘No, we don’t see much of her since she and Philip got divorced …’
HP jerked involuntarily, and shuffled on his chair in an attempt to disguise the fact.
‘Ouch. The bad sort of divorce?’ he went on, trying to project just the right level of interest.
‘You could say that. Neither of them is really the compromising type …’
The waitress walked past and HP gestured to her to bring another round.
Did Beens really not know that Anna was dead, or was he just putting it on?
It was impossible to tell.
‘So did things get better once Anna pulled out?’ he went on, as neutrally as he could.
Beens shrugged his shoulders.
‘I’m not sure that she pulled out, exactly, but with her gone Philip can run the company the way he wants.
‘The way we all want,’ he added, draining his glass. ‘The only problem is that Anna still owns a share of the company. As long as that’s the case, we can’t …’
Beens stopped abruptly and HP noticed Rilke giving him a quick look. The others round the table also seemed to have heard the comment – conversation around them suddenly died away. But instead of staying quiet Beens tried to make good his mistake.
‘Look … don’t get me wrong. Anna’s been bloody important for the company. But, I mean, really …’
He held his hands out in front of him, as though hoping the others would agree with him.
‘… in purely business terms, everyone stands to gain if she vanished for good.’
16
Whispers, rumours and reports
Pillars of Society forum
Posted: 30 November, 10:53
By: MayBey
Little Regina Righteous has really messed things up for herself.
Rumour suggests her boss had an affair with the wife of a certain Internal Investigator. If I were Regina, I’d have a lot of trouble sleeping these days …
This post has 23 comments
Rebecca read the post several times before the words actually sank in.
She pushed her chair back half a metre, then sat there rocking on it as she made up her mind.
What a fucking mess she’d got caught up in. Okay, so she only had herself to blame for most of it. Instead of simply showing up quietly at the interview, she ought to have taken along the union and a sharp lawyer. And put a bit of pressure on those Internal Investigation vultures right from the start, not played along with their little game. Then she’d most likely have escaped this whole disaster.
And she should have stood her ground much more firmly within the department, particularly after they returned from Darfur. She should have insisted on them doing the debriefing together as a team, whether or not she was suspected of any wrongdoing. But, just like when Runeberg persuaded her to take the job as head of the unit, she had been too busy proving what a good girl she was. Nodding and not saying anything and sticking to her role as over-achieving Rebecca, the way everyone expected her to, while the rest of the world evidently did whatever they felt like.
God, she was so sick of herself!
‘Can you stay on this evening, Manga? There’s a big job on the way and we need to start by rolling out a bit of artificial grass.’
HP had no idea what his boss was talking about, but nodded anyway. But Frank picked up on his hesitation.
‘Artificial grass, Astroturf, yeah? We roll out a carpet of opinion via a number of different channels, and try to get other people to play along, as part of the plan, on our turf, so to speak …’
‘Cool!’ HP said, even though he still wasn’t quite sure what this was all about. ‘So what’s the message?’
‘Lower VAT leads to more jobs. You can probably guess who the client is,’ Frank grinned.
‘No problem, I’m up for it, I can go all night if necessary!’
‘Great! Philip usually comes down to check, so tonight we really need to be on top of our game.’
‘So you lied to me about Westergren …!?’
He flew up from his chair behind the desk, rushed past her and closed the door to his office.
‘Calm down, for God’s sake, Rebecca, people can hear you!’ he hissed, taking hold of her arm.
She shook his hand off.
‘I’ve got no intention of calming down until you tell me what the hell you’re up to. You lied to me about Westergren. You and his wife …’
His eyes suddenly turned black and she stopped. For a couple of seconds they stood facing each other, exchanging angry glares.
‘Sit down,’ he ordered, pointing at a chair.
Rebecca folded her arms.
‘Sit down!’ he repeated, louder this time, but she still didn’t move from the spot.
Her boss let out a deep sigh.
‘Please, sit down, Becca,’ he said in a considerably friendlier voice, and this time she did as he asked. She sat down exaggeratedly slowly on the chair.
Runeberg returned to his side of the desk.
‘You look tired. Do you want anything, coffee, tea …?’
She shook her head.
‘Okay …’ he said. ‘What have you heard, and who from?’
‘Three, two, one. GO, GO, GO!!’
Ten keyboards began to clatter at almost exactly the same moment. The tame trolls were set loose and gradually began to roll out the artificial turf over the pitch. Twenty different discussion forums were the targets. Eight newspapers, five political websites and seven general discussion boards. All the trolls were supposed to post short comments that either supported lowering the rate of tax, or attacked their opponents’ arguments.
HP was in his element. He’d worked out that a special program bounced their comments off a load of different servers out in cyberspace, spreading their posts among a mass of different IP addresses so that they all looked genuine. As if the grassroots really had risen up to push this particular issue. The blog gang would join in over the next few days, and probably a couple of the newspaper columnists that had been bought and paid for. Then they just needed the radio and television news to pick up on it, and the game would become reality and their artificial turf would be transformed into a real grass pitch.
‘This is the nine o’clock news. In the past few days an increasing number of voices have been raised calling for the VAT rate to be lowered. Now the government has responded with a proposal…’
He hadn’t had this much fun since … Well, he didn’t actually know how long it had been.
What he and the others in the office were engaged in was nothing more than a massive scam, a manipulation of public opinion on a huge scale that he was absolutely delighted to be part of. That feeling of having the upper hand, not just over your average Svensson, but the whole media elite. Being part of something bigger, something smarter, that only a few select individuals were aware of.
Such a familiar feeling, but still so fucking sweet!
He let his fingers dance over the keyboard, sending out troll after troll to grab their part of the turf. Making comments and contributions according to the script Frank had handed out.
‘If VAT on restaurants was lower, more people could afford to eat out …’
Enter, bang, switch windows and ont
o the next troll.
‘I’d be able to employ at least three more people if we had lower tax …’
Send, then Alt+tab.
‘My employer couldn’t afford to take me on fulltime after my probationary period …’
‘Calm down, Manga,’ his boss called from his desk.
But HP wasn’t listening. He opened new cages, letting more tame trolls loose, and sending them out into the fray at once.
‘Erik Hagström’, ‘Millan S’, ‘50cParty’, ‘L Berntsen’ and ‘Benjyboy’ all made their cyber voices heard before he quickly rushed to the next cellblock.
‘Hatta42’, ‘Stefan Johnsson’, ‘TronGuy’ and ‘VAO’.
Setting them all free.
‘Manga, slow down, the rest us can’t keep up …’
Beads of sweat began to form on his brow but HP didn’t notice. His fingers were flying over the keyboard. Another set, even more voices added to the crowd. He’d long since given up following the script.
‘Down with VAT on bars!’
Send!
‘It’s the small businesses that keep our economy afloat …’
Post!
‘Completely agree with the previous post…’
Comment!
‘Nurture, not neuter!’
Add!
‘Time to fight the tax monster …’
Enter!
Then back to the stable for reinforcements. New recruits he had created himself specifically for an occasion like this.
‘Knotty’, ‘Lisel8’ and ‘DPtr0t’.
Their voices melded together in his head, becoming a single carpet of noise. Sweat was pouring off him, tickling his eyebrows, but instead of stopping typing he leaned his head forward and wiped his brow on his shirtsleeve.
There, done!
New window – new voices. Fuck, this was cool! He was the Lord of Astroturf. The buzziest bee in the hive. Troll-handler with a capital T. Per fucking Gynt, that was who he was …
‘MANGA!!’
HP looked up from his screen reluctantly. The room was completely silent and Philip Argos was standing in the doorway.
‘My office in ten minutes,’ he said abruptly, pointing at HP.
‘It really isn’t as black and white as you seem to think,’ Runeberg muttered. ‘Therese and I had known each other since Police Academy, we used to flirt back then, I suppose you could say. But nothing ever came of it.’
The Game Trilogy Page 44