The Complete Game Trilogy: Game, Buzz, Bubble

We got this idiot to almost kill his sister, then confess everything to the boys in blue! Cold-hearted bastards.

So what wouldn’t they be capable of if he carried on breaking the rules? If, in spite of the warning, he didn’t stick to rule number one?

‘Please, Becca, please! You’ve got to go, right now!’ he yelled.

Okay, at least he was being honest now, she could see that. And he was utterly terrified, but the question was: why? Who was he in trouble with? She opened her mouth to ask, but he got there before her.

‘You owe me, Becca,’ he said, more composed now, suddenly staring straight at her.

‘You know why,’ he added, his heart sinking like a stone over the boundary he had crossed.

A few seconds later he heard the front door slam shut. For the first time in years he was close to …

Tears! That’s what it felt like, as if she was close to tears. She hadn’t cried since Mum’s funeral.

Fucking bloody Henke!

Even back when it was all happening, she hadn’t shed a single tear, but now she could feel them burning behind her eyes and she blinked hard to compose herself. She wasn’t about to start crying now, that much was certain!

They had never properly talked through everything that happened out in Bagarmossen, the pair of them always tiptoeing round the subject, but now, out of nowhere, he had suddenly thrown it back in her face. Reminding her that her debt was in no way forgotten and that thirteen years was nowhere near long enough for things to have settled.

How could she have been stupid enough to think any different?

He was right, of course, it had been her fault but he had taken the consequences. She was in his debt, and always would be.

Because she was a murdering little whore.

Although it was ten o’clock, HP went back to bed and put his head between the pillows. He was tired, run down, utterly exhausted, but he still couldn’t get back to sleep.

Thoughts were rolling round his head like they were in that huge tumble-dryer down in the laundry-room.

Slowly tumbling round and round.

The Game, the assignments, the list, the money, the business at Lindhagensplan, the pretend cops, his sister, then the drum completed its cycle and he was back where he had started.

The Game.

They’d tricked him, made him think he was someone, only to pull the rug from under him. Bolin and the apes were probably just hired actors who had been following a script. Or, even worse: other players who had been given the job of breaking him! And they’d done a bloody good job of that … Christ, what a monumental fucking stitch-up he’d fallen for!

The really sick thing was that even though he understood that he’d been royally fucked up the arse, that he was the Game’s very own little prison bitch, he still couldn’t help toying with the thought …

What if it could all be put right? Say sorry, make amends and reinstate number 128?

Get back in the Game.

Even when he had been in the Twilight Zone corridor and he had almost pissed himself, part of him had still refused to accept that it was finished, that he’d fucked up big-time. Presumably that was why he hadn’t left the mobile there.

Because he still had it, didn’t he?

He had to get up and check.

Yes, the silver-coloured little rectangle was still on the hall table where he had left it. The LED light was dark, which was only to be expected. He was now a non-person.

Fredo Fucking Corleone.

He hunted irritably through various jacket pockets and finally dug out a crumpled packet of Marlboros.

Sitting at the kitchen table he smoked three, one after the other, while the tumble-dryer in his head carried on tumbling.

So what the hell was he going to do now?

He was woken up by a clatter from the letterbox.

What the hell was the time?

The clock-radio on the bedside table said 15:36. He’d been asleep most of the day.

The tumble-dryer had finally slowed down enough for him to go back to bed and get a few more hours of much needed sleep.

A rustling noise was still coming from the letterbox.

Either he was getting a lot of bills or else the new Ikea catalogue wouldn’t quite fit.

He rolled over and pulled the pillow over his head. The rustling went on for a few more seconds, then everything went silent.

He wondered about getting up, but couldn’t think of a good reason why he should. His head and arm were still aching after their treatment the day before, he had no money, and seeing as the Game was over now, there was no reason at all for crawling out of bed.

What a wonderful life!

It was all pretty tragic really …

Then he noticed the smell. A faint but unmistakable smell of burning. Something’s boiled dry, he thought. Had he left the ring on when he boiled the water for the coffee? It wouldn’t be the first time.

Okay, mothafucker, you wanted a reason to get up, and now you’ve got one!

He rolled reluctantly out of bed, scratched his stubble and a couple of other strategic places before stumbling out to the kitchen. The stove was empty, none of the rings was on.

He frowned.

The smell was getting stronger, so what the hell was burning?

A couple of moments later the synapses in his brain made the right connection and he dashed out into the hall.

Thick, acrid smoke hit him when he spun round the corner.

The shabby plastic mat that he had found himself lying on a few hours earlier was completely alight and the metre-high flames were already licking the walls and the inside of the front door. His eyes were stinging and he instinctively took a few steps back.

Get out! his brain was screaming at him.

The flat’s on fire, for fuck’s sake, get out, dialling one-one-two is easy to do, just get out!

But he was paralysed by the flames that were growing bigger and bigger as they took hold of the parquet flooring.

Even if he realized the danger, there was something beautiful, almost enchanting, about it. The orange flames, the black smoke and the crackling sound of fire catching hold of his possessions felt almost liberating.

As if deep down he desired this destruction …

Suddenly there was the sound of banging on the door.

‘Fire!’ he heard someone shout from out on the landing. ‘Can you hear me, your flat’s on fire, for God’s sake!’

The spell was broken instantly and his brain and body were once again in sync.

‘Get to safety, sound the alarm, put it out,’ a childlike voice echoed through his head.

Okay, getting to safety was already buggered, there was nowhere to go if he didn’t feel like jumping out of a second-floor window onto the street.

Next!

Running through the flames was out of the question, and anyway, the door was locked and he’d be fried before he could get it open.

Next!

Sound the alarm?

Hopeless, seeing as he didn’t have a phone.

Unless …

He ran back into the kitchen, picked up the mobile and touched the screen.

It came to life at once.

‘Emergency calls only’, the display said.

‘Ain’t that the truth?’ he snarled through gritted teeth as he made the call.

‘Emergency services, what’s the nature of the emergency?’

‘My flat’s on fire, Maria Trappgränd 7, one person trapped inside,’ he managed to say before the call was cut off.

He was about to redial, when the LED light started to flash.

With a trembling finger he touched the display and the screen came to life again.

Remember rule number one, HP!

The Game Master

He stared at the phone for a few seconds, as if he were having trouble taking in what was happening.

Then he remembered where he was and tossed the mobile aside, grabbed the washing-up bowl with both hands and, with a couple of long strides, was back in the hall where he emptied it in the direction of the fire.

‘Put it out, put it out, put it out,’ the cheerful little voice in his head sang, and with a crash a week’s worth of well-soaked washing-up and a few litres of dirty water landed on the hall-floor.

The fire hissed and spat out a cloud of white smoke, but HP didn’t see that.

He was already back in the kitchen, desperately filling the empty bowl with more water.

Then emptying it, then again, and again, and now he could clearly see the fire getting smaller.

His eyes were stinging, his lungs were burning and his breathing was getting laboured, but he wasn’t about to give up now.

When he was on his fifth bowlful the front door was wrenched open with a crash and a moment later a cloud of foam and white smoke overwhelmed him even before he could put his hands over his face.

Coughing madly, he staggered back towards the kitchen and blinked away the tears enough to get a window open before collapsing on the floor. He was gasping desperately for breath, but his throat had shrunk to the size of a drinking-straw.

Everything was starting to go black.

From down in the street there was the sound of sirens and people shouting orders.

‘Dialling one-one-two is easy to do,’ the child’s voice inside his head chanted just before he lost consciousness.

‘You were lucky, Henrik,’ the doctor said, unaware that she was echoing what her colleague in St Göran had said the night before.

‘You inhaled a bit of smoke, and you have a minor burn on your left hand, but that’s more or less it.’

He nodded mutely from the trolley. It was considerably easier to breathe now, presumably thanks to the oxygen mask.

‘We’re going to rinse your eyes once more, you got covered in a fair bit of foam, but there’s no real danger. Your vision might be a bit fuzzy for a couple of days, but it’ll pass.’

He nodded again.

There was no point trying to talk with the mask on, and besides, what would he say?

‘Well, then,’ the doctor said as she got up. ‘If you haven’t got any questions, I need to get going. Even if you feel fine, keep the mask on until the nurse has rinsed your eyes. You need to breathe pure oxygen to drive out the carbon monoxide you’ve inhaled. Look after yourself, Henrik!’

He nodded a third time, in both confirmation and farewell.

Then he was finally alone.

The tumble-dryer got going again, this time on an advanced setting. But before he had time to concentrate on it there was a knock on the door and two uniformed police officers stepped in. Perfect, just what he needed.

King of the Mounties, Cling and Clang are here to ruin your day. Shit!

They turned out to be called Paulsson and Wöhl, and once he’d asked to see their badges and carefully examined them, even though they were in full uniform, they had a few questions for him.

Did he happen to have any enemies? No, officer, he didn’t.

Could he think of any other reason why someone would want to pour paraffin through his letterbox and set fire to his hall?

Yes, he could certainly think of a reason, but he had no intention of sharing it with a couple of flat-footed cops, or anyone else come to that. He didn’t need any more reminders of the rules, thanks very fucking much!

‘No, officer, I’m afraid not,’ he replied instead with his head tilted to one side and his honest look on his face. Neither of them seemed to buy it, but what the hell!

Apart from what he had told them about the outbreak of the fire, was there anything else he could tell them that could be relevant to their investigation?

Same answer again, for the third time: No, not a thing!

The cops exchanged a knowing glance over their notepads, and after a few final pearls of wisdom they finally gave up.

‘The case will be investigated by the Södermalm Police.’ Great, thanks very much!

He already knew what the result would be. Absolutely zilch.

‘Hi, it’s me … Micke …’ he added, in case she didn’t recognize his voice.

‘Hi,’ she said curtly, then realized that she was actually pleased he had called.

‘How are you?’

He sounded a bit unsure, as if he didn’t really know what to say. It was usually her who phoned.

‘Fine, thanks, just a bit tired. Work’s been a bit busy,’ she found herself saying, surprised at her honesty.

‘Oh, I see … You probably don’t really feel like meeting up, then?’

She was silent for a couple of seconds. Her headache hadn’t given up, her ribs were still sore, and Henke’s final words were still echoing in her head. So no, not really!

‘Sure, I can be round in half an hour,’ she replied, and for the second time in the conversation she surprised herself.

‘I thought maybe we could go out … have a bit of a chat?’ he went on quickly.

Her brain said it was time to pull the hand-brake.

Fucking, yes, talking, no! We don’t have time for that sort of thing, Normén!

‘Sure!’ her mouth replied disobediently, and forty-five minutes later they were sitting in a little Thai place up in Vasastan, and to her surprise she discovered that it was really, really nice just having a bit of a chat for a while.

10

Hazard

Okay, so what the hell was he going to do now?

No job, no money, he’d had a row with his sister, his flat was uninhabitable and, maybe worst of all, he’d been chucked out of the Game!

The Goat had let him crash on his sofa for a couple of days, but all the coming and going and all the fucking dopehead dweebs who seemed to hang around in the flat all the time were driving him mad. Didn’t the bastards have jobs to go to?

He needed time to think, to go through his options and plan his next moves. Not that he had many lined up, exactly …

As usual, Manga was the one who stepped up. His old woman wasn’t exactly happy, but evidently their religion meant they had to be hospitable and generous to the poor, so she didn’t have much choice. But that didn’t mean that Betul missed any opportunity to scowl at him, no, she didn’t exactly hold back there. But HP ignored her from his comfortable lying position on their best Ikea sofa.

HP/Islam 1, miserable witch 0.

Something to be pleased about, anyway. That and the fact that he now had plenty of time to think. Betul didn’t like computers, which was pretty absurd when you considered what her husband did for a living. But seeing as she was head of the Al-Hassan family, there was no Playstation, no PC, nor any film channels to disturb his concentration, leaving HP with time to think at last.

A job could wait, he still had a few days left on unemployment benefit and something was bound to turn up. The flat would be fixed in a week or so. New paint, new floor and a new front door, all paid for by the insurance. Bloody lucky that Becca had kept up with the most important bills when he was short of cash.

So how could he make it up to her?

Sadly there was no good answer to that question.

Becca was furious with him, and for good reason. He’d crossed the line the other day, seriously marched over it. But he hadn’t actually had any choice. She mustn’t get caught up in this, at least not any more than she already was.

But it already looked like it was too late. They must have been watching him somehow. And saw her visiting him and thought he was spilling the beans again. Somewhere a mobile phone had flashed and a player, maybe even some fucking rookie, had been given the task of teaching the grass a lesson, the same way he had done with the door over in Birkastan.

A little home delivery, à la Game Master.

According to the cops, his wasn’t the first call to the emergency services. Someone had rung a few minutes earlier, probably around the time that they started the fire, so they presumably didn’t want to kill him. Not this time, anyway.

Which led him back to his original question. What was he going to do now? Did they really expect him just to forget everything, keep his mouth shut and never think about the Game again? Could he do that even if he wanted to?

Apart from the business with the stone and his sister, he had been run over, beaten up, given the third degree, had the shit scared out of him and then his flat set fire to.

So in other words, he had plenty of reasons to be pissed off.

But the sickest thing in this whole mess was that in spite of everything they’d done to him, he was still dreaming about getting back in, being forgiven and allowed to carry on playing.

Step back out onto the track to the applause of the spectators.

He could see it was wrong, that it was completely insane, in fact, but he still couldn’t shake the thought.

What if he could get in touch with someone, the Game Master himself perhaps? Say he was sorry and maybe get another chance? The question was just how to go about it? There was no contact list, sadly, and he had a fair idea that he wouldn’t have any luck with the Yellow Pages or Google.

Okay, he still had the mobile phone, but that had been dead since the fire. The battery must be exhausted by now. But all those hours on the sofa had at least given him one idea. Every modern mobile was a sort of little computer. They had at least two different types of memory where it ought to be possible to dig out something useful, if you only knew what you were doing.

Luckily he had the right man for the job. Straight out of One Thousand and One Nights: his own reluctant host, the world’s most browbeaten husband, the artist formerly known as … Manga!

‘I know you’re keen to have a look at this, Mangalito,’ he said an hour or so later, tossing the mobile on the shop counter. ‘It’s all yours. All I need to know is who’s been sending me messages and how I can turn the tables and contact them.’

Manga looked at him lazily over a copy of that day’s Metro without moving a finger, but he couldn’t fool HP. HP could see the corner of one of his friend’s eyes literally start to twitch. And, just like when they were playing poker, all you had to do was sit it out.

Easy peasy!

‘On one condition,’ Manga said after a few seconds of trying to look uninterested.

‘Whatever …!’

As long as it doesn’t break rule number one, HP thought to himself.

Manga grinned.

‘That from now on you call me Farook!’

‘Deal!’ HP said in relief, before he realized what he’d agreed to.

Oh well, if it would make the towel-head happy …

It had been a nice meal. Very good food, and a decent atmosphere. Thai, but without being kitsch the way Asian restaurants often were. There had been no trace of ‘Love Me Tender’ in Thai, or concertina lanterns with selected words of Buddhist wisdom. No, it had all been really good, in fact.

They’d done just the right amount of talking, had kept quiet while they were eating, and he hadn’t even raised an eyebrow when she declined the wine, just as he hadn’t questioned her explanation of a minor traffic accident to cover her injuries. Afterwards they’d exchanged a quick kiss, then they had each gone back home on their own.

She realized that it was the first time that had happened.

So what did that mean? Were they on their way to a proper relationship?

Absolutely not, she decided, firmly interrupting that line of thinking.

They had simply had a nice meal, talked about all manner of things, nothing of any great significance. He had talked about his parents’ farm in Södermanland, and how he had moved to the city to study instead of taking over the farm, and how he had been trying to stay out of the way as best he could.

‘Guilty conscience,’ he had said with a wry smile. Not being able to live up to expectations.

She understood perfectly what he meant. She had listened with interest and occasionally made a comment, though without volunteering the same level of confidence herself. But he had worked that out fairly quickly and hadn’t pushed her in that direction at all.

He was actually a nice guy. Better than she deserved.

‘I’ll call you later in the week,’ he had said, and she hadn’t protested.

She realized that she was looking forward to him calling, in fact.

‘Like some story in a bloody women’s magazine,’ she snorted.

She wondered how Henke was getting on?

But, then again, why should she care?

HP was impressed. After a bit of fiddling about, Manga – no, Farook – had managed to open a compartment on the phone that HP had never even noticed, and had plugged a USB cable into the little socket hidden inside. Obviously he should have known that there had to be a way into it, but he’d been so absorbed by what was happening on the screen that he hadn’t given any thought to the basics, such as how you charged the thing when the battery was exhausted.

As soon as Manga plugged the cable into one of the computers at the back of the shop a little charging light went on, so evidently it would work with any USB power-source.

A bit of nifty typing, then a load of symbols started rolling on one of the computer screens.

HP was by no means a novice when it came to computers, but this was out of his league, no question. Manga was a wiz at computers and maybe he’d be able to find out something useful.

‘This is going to take a while,’ he muttered, and HP agreed without protest to run a few errands in the city. In a fit of generosity, he even brought paper cups of latte back to the shop so they wouldn’t have to drink the bitter brewed coffee from the hotplate.

But when he got back something had changed. Manga seemed to have been practically waiting for him just inside the door. He grabbed HP’s arm and dragged him into the shop, almost spilling the lattes.

‘What the fuck are you doing, calm down!’

But Manga wasn’t listening. Instead he shut the door, locked it and changed the sign to ‘Closed’.

Without a word he pulled HP over to the corner where the computer was.

The three screens were showing a series of film-clips.

HP unscrewing the wheel nuts of a Ferrari.

HP blowing up the Horse-Guards in Kungsträdgården.

HP dropping a stone over a railing at Lindhagensplan and then a car with flashing blue lights rolling over and over until it came to rest with smoke rising from the engine …

His stomach clenched tight.

‘What the fuck are you really up to?’ Manga hissed, giving him an accusing stare.

So much for rule number one, then …

His third transgression in twenty-four hours, this was seriously not good.

Fucking mega not good!

‘Can that thing hear us?’ he said anxiously, pointing at the mobile.

‘What? No, of course it can’t!’ Manga snarled. ‘What the fuck is this about, HP?’

HP gave the phone another quick glance and, just to be sure, pulled Manga with him into the little cubbyhole behind the counter. He licked his lips nervously while he tried to gather his thoughts.

Purely technically, he had only broken the rules once. He hadn’t actually blabbed to his sister, even if the Game seemed to think he had and had punished him accordingly. So really he’d been punished for something he hadn’t done, which meant they owed him one. Besides, he needed Manga, sorry, Farook. Without him he wouldn’t be able to contact the Game.

So you could say that everyone gained from the violation of the rules that he was contemplating. He hadn’t expected Manga to be able to get any pictures out of it. An IP-address, maybe a server host somewhere, that was all he needed to get going. But when it came to technology his old friend was far too smart for his own good. So how could he get Manga to go along with his plan?

‘Okay, it’s like this … Farook,’ he said, tasting the unfamiliar name cautiously.

He had to play this on Manga’s terms …

‘Like I told you, I found the mobile on the train from Märsta the other week, but what I didn’t tell you is that it invited me to play a game. A rather special game, actually …’