have been a left-hook and he had no way of defending himself. Wham, right on his cheekbone, and his head thudded into the side-window.
‘What the f …!’ he managed to say before the next blow struck. A right-hook this time, straight at the middle of his face, and he felt his nose crack.
‘This can’t be happening, this only happens in films!’ he managed to think before the third punch blurred his vision.
When he came round they were already down in the garage, and they were dragging him out of the car. Metal doors, a lift, a couple of blue-shirts hurrying past, then a long, brightly-lit corridor with beige plastic flooring. Doors, voices, a lot of rushing about, and finally a small interview room.
The handcuffs were removed and the belongings that they had taken off him when he was arrested were emptied onto the table. House-keys, ID card and a few crumpled twenty-kronor notes, as well as the mobile, of course.
Blood was trickling from his nose and one of the gorillas tossed him a wad of paper tissue before sitting down on a chair opposite.
HP managed to pull himself together and regain some of his devastated self-confidence.
‘I want a lawyer,’ he said, but the last word sounded more like ‘doyer’ because of his swollen nose.
The gorilla grinned.
‘Didn’t you hear, I want a lawyer.’ This time slightly less nasal as he rubbed the red marks on his wrists.
The gorilla stood up quickly and HP twitched instinctively on his chair. The cop saw his fear and grinned. He wagged a fat, hairy index finger towards HP.
‘I think you should shut up, my friend,’ he said exaggeratedly slowly, and there was no mistaking the underlying threat.
HP decided to heed his advice and revert to his original plan. Besides, the lead interviewer ought to be along soon, then all this shit would be over.
Sure enough, the door opened a couple of minutes later and another man came in, also in plain-clothes. This one was shorter, wore glasses and was considerably skinnier than the two gorillas, and it was immediately obvious who was in charge.
He glanced at HP’s swollen face and then gave the hairiest ape a disdainful look.
‘You can go now, Wiklander. Haven’t you and Molnar here got a report to write up?’
The gorilla muttered something but went out at once, giving HP the evil eye on the way.
HP nodded happily. This bloke was more to his taste.
‘Bolin, duty officer,’ he said by way of introduction. ‘And you’re Henrik Pettersson, known as HP, is that right?’
HP nodded again.
‘I’m going to turn on the tape-recorder now and we’ll do the introductions once more, but this time I want you to answer verbally, have you got that?’
HP shrugged. He wasn’t planning on saying more than just one sentence.
Bolin started the tape-recorder that was on the table in front of them.
‘Interview with Henrik HP Pettersson concerning suspicion of attempted murder and grievous bodily harm against a public official at the junction of Drottningholmsvägen and the Essinge motorway. Lead interviewer Detective Inspector Bolin, interview commenced at 23:12. Right, Henrik, can you tell me your response to our suspicions?’
HP sighed. Now that the apes had been driven out, the normal order was restored and he was back on familiar territory. His head was starting to clear and the sharp pain in his arm had shifted to a rumbling ache.
‘I’m innocent and want a lawyer present,’ he said as clearly as he could, leaning over towards the tape-recorder to make sure that it didn’t miss a single syllable. ‘I want a lawyer, and I want to report that I was beaten up by that gorilla, the one you called Wiklander.’
He gently touched his swollen nose demonstratively. He still had some tissue-paper stuffed up one nostril. Bolin gave no sign of having understood HP’s request.
‘A lawyer, I said,’ HP clarified once more, seeing as what he had said evidently hadn’t sunk in. Were all cops this slow?
Bright-spark Bolin was still staring at him across the table. Then the police officer slowly smiled and there was something reptilian about the smile that scared HP considerably more than the two trolls in the car had managed to do. He suddenly remembered a Discovery documentary he had seen about poisonous snakes. How they sometimes settled down quite coolly to wait once they had bitten their prey as it used up the last of its energy in a meaningless attempt to escape.
He shivered. Bolin leaned forward slowly and switched off the tape-recorder.
‘Listen carefully now, Pettersson,’ he said in a low voice. ‘You don’t seem to appreciate exactly how bad your situation is, so let me explain. You rode a moped to Lindhagensplan, stopped on the flyover above Drottningholmsvägen, and from a PE bag clearly marked with your name you pulled out a stone which you then threw at the windscreen of a police car passing below. Both police officers are now in St Göran, one of them in a pretty bad way, so with a bit of luck you may have graduated to cop-killer before the night is over,’ he concluded with another of his unnerving snake-smiles.
HP had turned pale, but he continued to stay quiet.
Oh yes, he’d realized that he’d hit a police car, the flashing blue light had been a bit of a giveaway even before he threw the stone. What the hell, did they think he was stupid or something? It was true, on the other hand, that he hadn’t really given much thought to the consequences. But so what?
If you were a cop, you had to put up with a few risks, that much was obvious from the papers. Besides, it was hardly his fault that they were driving so fast, was it? Anyway, wasn’t the speed limit seventy along there? The Volvo must have been doing a ton, so in a way it was the cops’ own fault that things turned out so badly, wasn’t it? He glanced at the mobile phone on the table in front of him, just to one side. The screen was facing up and he was well aware of what was engraved on the other side. Number one hundred and twenty-eight, one of the chosen ones, that was who he was, and rule number one applied, no matter what world you moved in.
But what was it Bolin had said about the PE bag, he had almost missed that? His name? Bolin must have read his mind, because out of nowhere he conjured up the striped bag and tossed in on the table.
For a couple of seconds HP just stared at it, then curiosity got the better of him. He opened the bag. It was empty, apart from a bit of dirt.
Suddenly he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. There, on the inside of the lining, was a bit of fabric he’d almost forgotten. A scrap of cloth that his mum had sewn in during the short period when she was actually his mum and not just Maj-Britt the invalid and drunk. A printed tag you could order through school from some company, the sort all well-meaning mothers sewed into all their kids’ stuff so that it wouldn’t get lost. All mothers except his, because Mum had been replaced more and more by Maj-Britt, and this bag was the only thing she ever managed to sew a name-tag into, the bag he himself had made in sewing class.
Property of Henrik Pettersson 08-6636615, it said in blue lettering.
HP
