The Complete Game Trilogy: Game, Buzz, Bubble. Литагент HarperCollins USD

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      This was major-league stuff! Both of these on their own were exotic enough for some serious betting.

      Could you persuade someone to set light to a church, a sacred place? What were the odds on that?

      Of course you could, no question. But what about the next step, if you were to believe Erman’s theories?

      Who would have commissioned a job like that?

      Someone who would dearly have loved to have the honour of rebuilding a famous Stockholm landmark? A politician, a company or a wealthy businessman with a dodgy reputation to clean up?

      A quick look at the foundation that was responsible for the restoration listed a whole load of heavyweights who had opened their wallets. They’d even persuaded parliament to cough up some money, although this was strictly a local Stockholm issue. Anyway, didn’t the Swedish Church have more than enough money stashed away to pay for the whole thing themselves?

      A conspiracy?

      Well, you couldn’t exactly rule it out. Plausible, in other words. A bit of a long shot, but certainly possible if you had a bit of imagination and dared to think outside the box. A bit like the Da Vinci Code, basically.

      But what about the Social Democrats’ and Folk Party’s own little Watergate, then?

      That took a bit more thought.

      A well-placed Ant inside the Social Democrats could easily fix the log-in details. Most people were stupid enough to scribble them down on a post-it note stuck under their desk so they could get back into the system after their summer holiday.

      But who would have wanted it to happen?

      Who benefited?

      Short-term, obviously the Folk Party, so they were potential customers.

      But surely the whole thing favoured the Social Democrats in the long term?

      A bit more clicking seemed to support that angle. The Folk Party was reduced almost by half in the parliamentary election a few weeks later, and their collapse almost reversed the entire shift of power from left to right. So there were at least two possible conspiracy options here.

      Someone on the blue side wanted to get at confidential information, and someone on the red wanted to catch the blues red-handed, so to speak.

      The result?

      Plausible, certainly, and ultimately less far-fetched than the first. Christ, what a story this was turning into!

      Worst of all was the very last item he stumbled upon. He read it a couple of times before it sank in properly. Once it had, he came close to shitting himself.

       The description of the perpetrator that was presented in the 1994 inquiry concluded that the murder was carried out by a person acting alone, an individual with a personality disorder, driven by hatred or anger. He had probably had problems with relationships throughout his life, and particularly with any form of authority. He was introverted, isolated and narcissistic, but not psychotic, and probably lacked close family and friends. His condition was connected with a feeling of having ‘failed’ in life, the perception of being ‘an outsider’ whose abilities had never been appreciated or allowed to reach their full potential.

      The profile could perfectly easily have been written to describe him!

      Okay, it wasn’t exactly easy to admit, and navel-gazing wasn’t one of his favourite pastimes. But after everything that had happened, his near-death experience in the flat and the whole business out in the sticks, he had started to look at himself in the mirror in a new way.

      And what he found wasn’t exactly an attractive sight …

      If he was honest, his life wasn’t really much to write home about. In general terms, he was a pretty good match for that description. Acting alone, outsider, few close relationships, egocentric, it all fitted pretty well.

      A bit too well, really …

      But it wasn’t actually his fault that everything had gone to hell. He had had opportunities, prospects, the same as anyone. He could have been someone, someone important!

       A fucking contender!

      He had done one genuinely unselfish thing in his life, and what had he got for it? How had the world thanked him, rewarded him for his heroism? Yep, ten months in prison, straight to jail without passing go, thank you very fucking much! Because in the land of semi-skimmed milk, obviously no good deed must go unpunished.

      And, after his stretch inside, that was it, all the opportunities were gone. The doors were all closed and the future royally fucked. Low-level hustling or some shitty McJob were pretty much the only options. So maybe it wasn’t so weird that you didn’t give a damn after that sort of let-down, and just focused on number one. And according to Erman, people like him were exactly the sort that the Game sent the Ants out to look for. Chancers who fitted the list of prerequisites. Or, to be more accurate, the profile …

      ‘They’ve been playing for years, long before the internet,’ Erman had said.

      What if they were already playing back in February ’86, when a certain prime minister was assassinated? Conjured up a three-five-seven, stashed it somewhere suitable, then sent someone out. A Player, a nobody like him, who’d already had his boundaries shifted so far they were no longer anywhere in sight. An innocent-sounding call from a well-placed Ant would be enough.

      The nine o’clock screening, Grand Cinema!

      Then: lights, camera, action!

      The hairs on the back of HP’s neck stood up. The cottage suddenly felt too small, the ceiling was too low, threatening to suffocate him. He needed air. He had to get out!

      It’s all a fucking game! the charred corpse in his head was screaming as he chucked up over the flowerbed.

      Okay, she was seriously worried now. After several days of foolishly thinking that he would get in touch, she had finally gone round to his flat. But the door was covered in plywood and under the smell of paint she could still detect a faint smell of smoke.

      The next-door neighbour – dreadlocks, a goatee beard, obviously doped-up – had told her about the fire, that someone had poured lighter-fluid through Henke’s letterbox and set light to it.

      But clearly Henke had survived, a day in hospital then he was okay.

      That at least was a relief.

      So where was he now?

      The rasta couldn’t enlighten her, and at this point in the conversation his addled brain seemed to have finally picked up the cop vibe and he quickly slammed the door on her.

      After a bit of thought she had at least managed to work out who was likely to know more. Manga Sandström, of course, Henke’s best friend since primary school.

      Didn’t he have a computer shop somewhere near Skanstull?

      A quick call to the Regional Communication Centre and she had the address and was on her way.

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