The Game Trilogy

by Anders de la Motte

  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 then he 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 call 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 colourful 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 …’ Monika 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 constant 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, you know?’

  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, to
ld 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 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 protégées, 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 redistribution was Philip’s idea, but Anna actually 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 favour 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 hire-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?

  She didn’t really know. She might just as well find a nice big stone and chuck it through his window. An eye for an eye, so to speak … After all, that was the sort of thing he liked …

  She had just started looking round for a suitable projectile when suddenly a little dog came sniffing through the snow between the trees. The wind must have been in the wrong direction, because the animal didn’t notice her until it was almost upon her. Then it suddenly lurched backwards and started barking madly.

  ‘Tarzan? Tarzan!’ she heard someone should from the illuminated path some hundred metres away to her right. Then she saw two silhouettes approaching quickly through the trees.

  Shit, she had no inclination to explain what she was doing hiding in the woods to a couple of dog-walkers.

  The figures were approaching fast, two men, she guessed. The larger of them was carrying a torch, and a much smaller one was running ahead. She waited for them to reach her while Tarzan went on barking hysterically.

  ‘Shhhh,’ she tried. ‘Nice doggy, good Tarzan.’

  She took a couple of steps towards the little dog, squatting down in an attempt to calm it down a bit. But the dog just launched itself furiously at her legs and she stood up rapidly.

  Little bastard!

  ‘There you are, Tarzan …!’

  The shorter of the men grabbed the little dog and picked it up, almost like a child. The dog fell silent at once and started to lick the man’s face.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Tarzan’s not used to bumping into anyone when he runs around here in the evening. I’m sorry if he startled you …’

  ‘No problem,’ she muttered. ‘I think he was probably more scared.’

  The other man caught up with them. His torch was pointing down at the snow-covered ground. But the light was still strong enough for her to recognize him from the police station gym. It was Peter Gladh.

  33

  Mirage

  ‘Have you ever heard about the PayTag Group?’

  The name sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it.

  ‘It’s a global consultancy firm that specializes in internet security, among other things. Somehow Philip managed to negotiate a huge bid from PayTag for a majority stake in ArgosEye. Philip and the others will all become rich, while the company acquires considerably more muscle, in purely business terms …’

  HP leaned back on the sofa. So that’s what Beens’s little performance in the bar had been about? With a global company behind them and millions of fresh dollars in the kitty, they’d be able to expand, develop even better tools. Get even more control …

  But apparently Anna hadn’t agreed with the proposal. Just like Monika, she had found herself increasingly disapproving of the direction the company was going in.

  She herself was one of the first IT entrepreneurs, and had literally built her career out of the development of the internet. And now she was going to help to limit it, muzzling people and hiding uncomfortable truths through the exploitation of the internet’s own mechanisms.

  Yep, he could understand perfectly why Anna had opposed the deal. And according to Monika she had had one last trump card. Even if the tribal council voted her out, she had evidently come up with a new way to stick a spanner in the works. Fucking up the whole deal right in front of the greedy little bastards’ noses …

  ‘Somehow Philip must have found out about it and confronted her …’ Monika said as she came back from the kitchen with a fresh pot of tea.

  ‘I’ve got no idea what happened, all I know is that Anna was scared, utterly bloody terrified, if you’ll excuse my language …’

  She took a sip of her tea.

  ‘Was that why she left the country?’

  Monika nodded.

  ‘Anna called me from London, and just said she was going to be gone a few weeks, without giving me any explanation. But I could tell from the tone of her voice … Sometime later she called from Dubai and told me a bit more. Afterwards I worked it out – that was the evening when she …’

  Monika fell silent.

  ‘So that story Philip told everyone, about her year off …’

  ‘Completely made up, just like the whole thing about her death being an accident. The police down there are sure Anna was murdered. They’ve even released an arrest warrant for their main suspect.’

  He wriggled uncomfortably, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘But Philip was very firm on that point. Nothing was allowed to get out that could jeopardize the deal, not under any circumstances. After what had happened to Anna, I didn’t dare disagree. Anyway, I’m dependent upon his goodwill …’

  ‘In what way?’

  HP leaned forward keenly.

  ‘I’m Anna’s closest relative, our parents are dead, which means that I inherit her shares in the company.’

  He frowne
d.

  ‘How can that be a problem? I mean, you’ll get a lot of money for them once the deal goes through.’

  She snorted.

  ‘Anna didn’t want to take their money. No matter what happened, she was planning to keep hold of her shares and stop PayTag from swallowing up her life’s work, at least as long as she could …’

  Monika got up from the sofa and started to clear their still half-full cups. Then she suddenly stopped and turned to him.

  ‘Would you have anything against coming out onto the terrace with me? I feel I need a cigarette …’

  ‘But you’re bleeding!’ the man holding the dog said.

  Gladh shone the torch at her leg. A small red stain was starting to show through her jeans on one of her calves, just above the top of her boot. She lifted her leg, pulled off her glove and touched it with her finger.

  The man was right.

  ‘Naughty Tarzan!’ the man with the dog said. ‘I really am very sorry …’

  Gladh moved the beam of the torch slightly higher.

  When it reached her face she noticed him tense up.

  ‘My name’s Pierre, and this is Peter,’ the man with the dog said. ‘We live over there.’

  He pointed towards the house behind them.

  ‘Come back with us and we can patch you up, and obviously we’ll pay for new jeans …’

  ‘There’s really no need …’ she began, but the man interrupted her.

  ‘No, no, I insist, it really is the least we can do, isn’t it, Peter?’

  ‘Well, if she doesn’t want to …’ Gladh muttered.

  ‘Nonsense!’ said the man whose name was apparently Pierre. ‘Come along!’

  He took hold of her arm, not remotely unpleasantly, more like they were old friends, and started to steer her back towards the path. Tarzan protested mildly at her presence, but Pierre hushed him.