But she didnt have any problem recognizing him.
It was Manga.
Bloody hell, hed been having some creepy fucking nightmares. Last time theyd been caused by the snake venom, and this time by the pills, at a guess. They were meant for horses, not people, which probably explained quite a lot.
The long wait in the flat was driving him mad. No Xbox, Playstation or any other games console to while away the time with, and all hed managed to come up with by way of television was a huge old box with just the basic channels. He couldnt handle any more Emmerdale or Days of Our Lives, and hed already had two anxiety-driven wanks, and a third was guaranteed to give him friction burns on his joystick. But, as luck would have it, at least he had a decent supply of cigarettes.
He lit yet another Marlboro and set off on his little stroll round the flat. Living room, kitchen, hall – then back again.
A few seconds respite, to give him time to think.
One of the gang was supposed to be a traitor, if he was to trust the mysterious A.F. who had sent him the message – through Noras smartphone.
A.F.
Friend?
No-one outside their little group knew that Noras phone had been in the flat he was borrowing. So, logically, A.F. should also to be one of the group.
A friend.
An enemy.
The problem was that no-one could be ruled out.
Jeff had hated him since the incident in Birkagatan, and their relationship had hardly improved over recent days.
Hasselqvist with a Q and a V may have declared that bygones were bygones, but that could very easily be a complete lie. He had demolished the guy out on the E4. Sprayed teargas in his face, humiliated him, and snatched his End Game away from him.
You didnt forget an injustice like that, not even if you were an obsequious little Kent.
Nora was harder to make out. She had evidently been behind the fires, probably both the one that almost killed him up in his flat, and the smaller one in Mangas shop.
And he hadnt entirely dropped the idea that she might have poisoned him with those pills.
The last name on the list was his old friend, Farook Al-Hassan, a.k.a. Magnus Sandström.
Good old mythomaniac Manga who, with the blessing of the Game Master, had stuffed him so full of lies that he couldnt even begin to work out how much of everything he had experienced over the past two years was actually real.
All in all, not a bad collection of suspects – good luck with that case, Columbo!
So, why not just stay at home? Why take the risk of getting involved in this lunatic project? Yep – another two questions that he had no good answer to …
Peter Falk would obviously have to put in a bit of overtime.
Rebecca reached the bottom of the escalator just as the warning signal went off, and she made it inside the jam-packed underground train seconds before the doors closed.
Sweaty tourists, most of them with bum-bags, caps and bottles of water, so they were probably Americans. She found herself in the middle of a group of people, with nothing to hold onto.
Someone pushed into her from behind and she tried to move as far as she could to one side.
To judge by the noise, at least the air conditioning seemed to be switched on, but, together with the sound of the train, it made it hard to hear what anyone was saying.
The person behind her pushed again, and she was just about to turn round and explain that she couldnt move any further when she heard a familiar voice in her ear.
Dont turn round!
Manga, what the f … ?
She glimpsed a baseball cap and pair of sunglasses from the corner of her eye.
No, no, for fucks sake, dont turn round … ! He put his hand on her back.
Okay. She went on staring in the opposite direction.
This was ridiculous, to put it mildly, and if he hadnt sounded so worried she would have ignored his plea.
Ive sent you something, he whispered. Read it and youll understand how everything fits together …
Really, Manga, this is completely … She turned her head.
No, no, you mustnt turn round. Theyre watching you, hes watching you!
Who is, Manga? Whos watching me?
Sammer, of course! His voice sounded scared.
And why would he be doing that, Manga? As far as I can work out, hes got his hands full looking for you. I daresay hed be quite pleased if I brought you together …
The carriage lurched and for moment she almost fell, but the tightly packed bodies around her helped her stay upright.
Dont make jokes about that, Becca, he said quietly.
Im not joking, Manga. Henriks already tried to convince me that Uncle Tage is the Game Master, so now its your turn. But, unlike the two of you, Tage Sammer has actually helped me, hes saved my skin a couple of times …
The loudspeaker announced a station that she didnt catch the name of, and the train began to slow down.
Besides, youve got something of mine, Manga, she said.
W-what?
Dont act all innocent. The bank vault on Sveavägen. You stole a metal box that belonged to my dad out of my safe deposit box. I saw a clip of you …
I dont know what youre talking about, Becca, he said, a little too quickly. Let me explain … He leaned closer to her ear. The Game is like a Rorschach test, those ink stains, you know? The brain comes up with its own interpretation and then fills in the gaps itself. You only see the things you want to see, Rebecca …
The train pulled in at the platform, braking sharply, and once again she almost fell.
The doors opened and people pushed past her in all directions.
Once shed regained her balance and looked round, he was gone. It was several minutes before she discovered the mobile phone hed slipped into her pocket. A smooth, silvery thing with a glass touch screen.
23
Spheres of reality
She had most of the puzzle worked out now.
Or at least she thought she did. Her dad, André Pellas, the nuclear weapons programme, the safe deposit box, Tage Sammer … Everything was connected, and the chain could be made even longer if you added the unthinkable: the revolver, Sveavägen and Olof Palme …
For the time being she was trying to keep a grip on her galloping imagination. She went on reciting the chain that she had started putting together a few days ago:
Dad and André / Uncle Tage work for the UN together.
Dad is unfairly dismissed for an action he believes is justified.
Uncle Tage employed Dad on the secret nuclear weapons programme. Sent him on secret missions to the USA to exchange information with the Americans. This carried on for years, long after the defence project was officially shut down. Until a newspaper starts snooping about in the mid-1980s. Then everyone panics, the project is buried once and for all, and without warning Dad was shoved out into the cold again, like hed been shoved out of the UN … everything he believed in ended up in the bin.
And its all the fault of the Palme government …
The nausea that had been stalking her since she had seen the photograph of her dad in Thore Sjögrens claustrophobic little office wouldnt go away. She got up from the sofa and went over to open the window. The street below was dark, no movement at all. The crowns of the trees opposite made it impossible to see more than ten metres into the park. For a few moments she imagined she could see someone standing down there in the shadows, someone watching her. She knew it was just her imagination, but she still couldnt help drawing one of the curtains before she went back to the sofa and her laptop.
It only took a minute or so to dig out the description of the suspect on Wikipedia:
A man, acting alone and suffering from a personality disorder, who is driven by his hatred of Palme. He has probably had difficulty forming relationships all his life, particularly with anyone in positions of authority. He is introverted, lonely and mentally unstable, but not psychotic. His condition is closely connected to the fact that he feels he has failed in life. Adversity makes him depressed, and this has developed into paranoia. When and if people of this sort begin to commit violent crimes, they are usually between 35 and 45 years old …
In 1986 Dad was 45 years old. Motivated, disappointed, a failure and paranoid. And the sort who never forgot an injustice, real or imagined.
Never, ever …
All that was needed was a gun, an OPW. And a bit of help …
Because what if he wasnt alone? What if he got a gentle shove in the right direction from someone he trusted? A phone call, information about a time and a place. Maybe that was all it would have taken? Maybe Dad thought he was being given another chance? That he was going to be part of something bigger once more, where his services were still in demand. That he was still a Player.
Back in the Game.
History repeats itself …
But there was something that wasnt right, a little piece of the puzzle that didnt quite fit. The only problem was that she couldnt work out which piece.
The white van climbed over the brow of a hill, then pulled up in a small paved yard surrounded on two sides by a ramshackle L-shaped farm building.
This is it.
Nora gently put her hand on HPs shoulder, but hed woken up a while back, when the van turned off the tarmac and onto the narrow gravel track.
The sliding door of the barn was already open and Hasselqvist backed the van in with millimetre precision. Mangas little red Polo was already parked inside.
Jeff jumped out quickly and closed the barn door behind them. HP took his time getting out of his seat. He double-checked the lock on the sports bag he had put on the floor, then stretched and breathed in the ingrained smell of cows and old hay.