Buzz: A Thriller (26 page)

Right outside her door, the evening she had been run down.

Coincidence?

Hardly.

♦  ♦  ♦

The floral arrangements in the little cemetery were so imposing that they made the urn look tiny. The whole thing resembled a mafia funeral. Loads of people in dark overcoats and raincoats, with black umbrellas swaying above them to fend off the worst of the sleety snow.

All that was missing were a bunch of feds writing down car license numbers over in the parking lot.

HP had always hated funerals.

Well, “always” was pushing it . . .

He’d actually only been to two. He hardly remembered his dad’s, mainly because he had been seriously stoned. One last farewell
fuck you
for the old man to take with him on the express train south, that was how he had reasoned.

He had vague memories of Wagner on the church organ, and a load of faces that smelled of drink and old-fashioned aftershave, all staring at him. One old man in uniform who must have been one of Dad’s colleagues from the reserve unit had even tried to straighten him out at the reception after the funeral.

“Your father was a great man, Henrik. A true patriot. You should be proud of him.”

Yeah, right . . .

As if draping the coffin with the Swedish flag and singing the national anthem in three-part harmony were suddenly going to get him to see the old bastard in a new light . . .

Mom’s funeral had been considerably calmer.

Just him, Becca, Dag, and Aunt Britt.

Becca and Dag close together, his heavy paw around her shoulders. But his arm wasn’t there to comfort her, any idiot could see that. It looked more like Dag was keeping hold of Becca—hard, almost as if he were afraid she might try to escape if he let go. As if his sister would have dared. The sunglasses she was wearing were almost certainly not there to hide her tears or protect her from the weak spring sunshine.

That was actually when he made up his mind. The moment the sick fucker had given him one of his usual supercilious grins over his sister’s head, HP had realized what he had to do. Mom had been Becca’s last lifeline, the only thing stopping Dag from taking complete control.

Apart from him . . .

“Come on, it’s our turn.”

Rilke tugged gently at his arm and they went up to Philip and Monika.

He still hadn’t really worked out what sort of relationship they had, him and Rilke. He had spent the past few nights at hers. Cuddled up on the sofa in front of the television, having breakfast together.

So were they a couple now?

The jury was still out on that point. But he was hoping for a yes . . .

After the incident in the Laundry he had kept a low profile, doing his job impeccably and trying as hard as he could to avoid suspicion. It seemed to have worked.

♦  ♦  ♦

“Sorry for your loss,” he muttered to Anna Argos’s sister.

She kept hold of his hand for a few seconds and gave him a long look.

“You must be Magnus?”

“Mmm.” He nodded.

“Did you know my sister?”

“No . . . er, I’ve only been with the firm for a month or so,” he mumbled, trying to avoid eye contact. He didn’t usually have any trouble lying, but for some reason it felt as though she could see right through him. He wondered how she’d react if he told her the truth?

I don’t know if I really knew her, that depends on how you look at it. Your little sister bonked the crap out of me in a hotel suite in Dubai, then just after that I was arrested on suspicion of killing her. So I suppose you could say that we were acquainted . . .

Monika suddenly let go of his hand, almost as if it were burning her. She gave him an odd look as he hurried off to catch up with Rilke.

“Magnus.”

Philip held out his hand.

“It’s good of you to come, thanks for the beautiful wreath.”

HP nodded in reply as he tried to rediscover the funeral expression that Monika had almost made him forget.

“My . . .
our
pleasure!” he corrected himself, giving Rilke a short sideways glance.

Philip still hadn’t let go of his hand, and had actually raised the stakes by taking a firm grasp of HP’s elbow.

“Yes, I’ve noticed that you seem to enjoy each other’s company . . .”
He smiled. “Friendship is important, almost as important as loyalty. Wouldn’t you say, Magnus?”

♦  ♦  ♦

She didn’t really understand why she’d said yes. Dinner with a stranger? As if she didn’t have enough to think about already. But there was something appealing about John, something that made her forget her troubles, for a short while, at least.

She should really have called the whole thing off. That would have been the sensible thing to do. But she was tired of being sensible. Tired of always being Regina Righteous . . .

♦  ♦  ♦

“Mange, Mange Sandström? It is you, isn’t it?”

The tall, suntanned man had appeared out of nowhere while everyone was still mingling about with their first drink.

The restaurant was close to Strandvägen and, according to Rilke, Philip lived at the top of the same building. He couldn’t work out if it was the slight hint of admiration in her voice when she talked about their boss, or the fact that she had dropped him like a stone to network among Philip’s business contacts that annoyed him most.

Matters weren’t made any better by the fact that he was forced to stick to orange juice while everyone else was making the most of the free bar . . .

“Hellooo . . .”

He shook the man’s hand and tried to look as if he were searching for the right name.

“Stoffe. Kristoffer Stensson,” the man said helpfully. “You were two years below me at the Royal Institute of Technology,
but I think you’d have been in most of the same classes as us . . . ?”

“That’s right,” HP mumbled. “Stoffe, of course. Good to see you again!”

So this was the famous Stoffe. The bloke actually looked like a Mini-Me version of the boss. Tailor-made pin-striped suit, impeccable white shirt, his blue tie knotted in a perfectly centered double Windsor. Even his glasses and cropped hair were identical, but Stoffe was at least six feet tall, a whole four inches taller than his idol.

“I didn’t actually believe Philip when he said Mange Sandström had started working for us. I thought it must be someone else with the same name, but I recognize you now. I mean, don’t get me wrong . . .”

He held his hands up in front of him.

“ . . . no disrespect to ArgosEye, but you were a bit of a prodigy at RIT. You must have got loads of interesting offers, so I couldn’t understand why you’d want to start from scratch with us . . . ? I mean, someone like you . . . in the Troll Mine, of all places?”

Stoffe was looking at HP as if he were expecting a damn good answer. The problem was just that he didn’t have one.

“Well . . . er,” he began, as he searched his head desperately for a suitable opening. “You see . . .”

“Have you heard? Hell, this is so mental! In Sweden, of all places . . .”

Dejan stumbled in from the left holding his iPhone aloft. HP breathed out. Saved by the bell . . .

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“The bomb! The bombs! Don’t tell me you haven’t heard?”

HP and Stoffe shook their heads in unison.

“Some crazy fucker blew himself up on Drottninggatan half an hour ago. The media have gone completely mad . . .”

He held out his phone to show them what he meant.

NEWSFLASH

SUICIDE BOMBER

IN CENTRAL STOCKHOLM

♦  ♦  ♦

She took a long shower. Slowly increased the temperature a little at a time, gradually rotating to spread the delicious feeling of warmth over her whole body. Around and around until her skin was burning and she couldn’t take any more.

Then she shaved her legs and took the opportunity to trim a couple of other strategic places.

She dug out her best underwear, pulled on a white blouse and the jeans she kept at the back of the wardrobe because they were a bit too tight for her liking.

Then she blow-dried her hair, quickly put on her face in front of the hall mirror, then took a step back to inspect the result.

She hardly recognized herself . . .

♦  ♦  ♦

Philip merely had to stand up for the noise in the private dining room to subside at once. There were about a hundred people there if HP had counted right, most of them apparently business acquaintances.

Neither party in the Argos marriage seemed the type to spend time making real friends.

Business comes first.

“As you’ve no doubt already heard, there have been dramatic events in the city this evening,” Philip began. “It looks as if there are still roadblocks in place, and public transport isn’t running, so getting home might prove difficult. But my good friend Baris here . . .”

He raised his hand toward the restaurant owner who was standing over by the wall.

“ . . . has promised to keep the bar open as long as we need it.”

There was a burst of cheerful chatter, and Philip waited a few moments before going on.

“But for those of you who work for me, I’d just like to say that I want to see section heads tomorrow morning at ten o’clock. I’m aware that it’s Sunday and that you’ve earned a day off, but unfortunately this evening’s events have rather changed things . . .”

He raised his glass.

“Now that that’s out of the way, Monika and I would like to thank you all for coming here this evening to honor our beloved Anna. Anna was, as you all know, a very special person. ArgosEye was her dream, her life’s work, and I’m convinced that she would want nothing more than for us to continue to develop the company in the direction that she had staked out. A toast, to Anna!”

“To Anna!”

♦  ♦  ♦

Instead of calling for a taxi she had pulled her jacket on and trudged up to the hot dog kiosk. They stayed open late and gave a discount to police officers and taxi drivers, which meant that one way or the other she was bound to get a lift. But that
evening, unusually enough, there was only one taxi parked outside. The driver was actually on his way home, but after a bit of feminine persuasion he agreed to drive her. Fixed price with the meter switched off, the sort of thing that usually made her pull out her police ID.

He was the one who told her about the bombs. A suicide bomber, albeit something of a failure as such. But still . . .

In Stockholm, of all places.

Completely crazy!

According to the taxi driver, the whole of the city center was pretty much cordoned off, and the subway wasn’t working. The entire city was a blur of flashing blue lights and police, and they had to take a long detour to get to where she was going. Two bombs, and the only fatality so far was the bomber himself, but until further attacks could be ruled out every single police officer would be on duty.

For a moment she wondered if she should ask him to drive her to Police Headquarters instead of Östermalm. But she was still suspended, and however much she might want to help they probably wouldn’t let her through the door.

The bombs weren’t her problem, and this evening she was going to do her best to forget the mess that her life had become. Hand over control to someone else.

♦  ♦  ♦

He got back from the toilet to see Monika Gregerson on her way out of the main door, and found himself sighing with relief. He had noticed the way she had looked at him a couple of times during dinner, and there was something in her eyes that made him feel uneasy. As if they could bore right through his expensive Mange disguise and see him as he really was.

If he were still trying to find out what had happened to Anna, obviously he ought to have tried to talk to her. But somehow the restaurant seemed to have organized a whole fleet of taxis and before HP could push his way through to the door she was already gone.

Maybe that was just as well . . .

How smart would it have been to pump Monika for information right under Philip’s nose? And how would he actually have opened the conversation?

So who do you think killed your sister?
Or
Did Anna ever mention someone called the Game Master?

Maybe not . . .

Besides, he had pretty much made up his mind to put his investigation on ice for a while, at least until things had calmed down. And maybe even longer than that . . .

He caught sight of Rilke in the bar and headed in that direction. Most of the outsiders seemed to have left already, or were on their way, so the bar was almost entirely populated by people he knew.

“Hey, Mange, want a beer?”

He shook his head at the offers that rained down on him as he elbowed his way through various conversations toward Rilke.

“Don’t you get it . . . ? If it all works out we’ll soon be able to fix anything. Googlebomber, whistle-blowers—you name it. It won’t matter how many channels they use, we’ll still have enough muscle to hold them down on the mat . . .”

HP jerked his head quickly. Beens, of course. Who the hell else? In the middle of a flock of his closest disciples from the Laundry, but HP also saw a couple of faces he didn’t recognize.

Damned idiot, what the hell did he think he was doing?

Without really knowing why, he forced his way into the circle and grabbed the top of Beens’s arm.

“What the hell are you up to, Beens? We don’t talk about company business with outsiders, you know that perfectly damn well,” he hissed in the other man’s ear.

“What?!” Beens took a step back, giving HP a lungful of brewery-sponsored breath. “None of your fucking business, and anyway, what the hell do you know about company business? You only started the day before yesterday. Read the blasted manual before you open your mouth, newbie!”

He turned back to his supporters with a grin, and clearly found the hesitant laughter he got in return enough to make him go on:

“You’re only so damn cocky because you’re screwing Rilke, but here’s a newsflash for you.”

He moved his red-flushed face closer to HP’s.