other words, you’re not exactly the smartest criminal I’ve ever come across,’ Bolin declared, interrupting his train of thought. ‘Besides, we’ve got the stone and it contains two perfect fingerprints in two-stroke oil, and we’re convinced they’re going to match yours.’
He leaned forward towards the deathly–pale HP.
‘So the way I see it, you’re pretty much in the frame for this, my dear Henrik. Is there anything you’d like to say about it?’ he concluded, then switched on the tape-recorder again.
HP’s head was spinning.
Who the fuck had been in his flat?
Why had someone stolen the bag and hung it up on the bridge?
The car that had rammed him had appeared out of nowhere, almost as if it had been sitting just round the bend waiting for him. And it had only hit the moped hard enough for the cops to be able to pick him up.
But who would want to frame him that badly? Okay, he had a few enemies, but no-one in that league. So who could it be? Number fifty-eight?
What if Mr Five-Eight was Swedish and had managed to work out who it was coming up fast behind him on the league-table? And sabotaged the assignment on purpose?
No, that sounded too ridiculous …
His head was aching from the collision, the punches and all the shit that was flying round inside it. He couldn’t make sense of any of this, at least not right now.
He glanced over at the mobile again and decided to stick to rule number one, keep quiet.
‘I have no comment to make, and, like I said a few moments ago, I want a lawyer,’ he repeated, but this time his voice didn’t sound quite so confident.
Bolin sighed and slowly switched off the tape-recorder again.
‘If you like, Pettersson, obviously that’s within your rights. There’s the phone, with the phonebook next to it. I’ll be back in ten minutes.’
He gestured towards a small telephone table in the corner of the room, and stood up to go.
‘You’re damn lucky that officer Normén got away with minor injuries,’ he added as he got to the door. ‘There’s only one thing us cops hate more than a cop-killer, and that’s someone who kills female cops.’
Something suddenly clicked inside HP and he could almost feel the blood rushing from his head.
‘H-hang on!’ he called to Bolin, who was on the point of closing the door.
‘What did you say the officer was called, the woman … the one who got hurt?’
‘Normén,’ Bolin said drily. ‘Rebecca Normén.’
Fuck, fuck, fuck! a little voice in HP’s skull screamed.
Twelve stitches in total. Four in one cut, five in the other, and a few single ones on her face.
Rebecca looked at herself in the little mirror above the wash-basin in the examination room. Two white plasters on her head. A few bits of surgical tape elsewhere, a faint bruise on one cheek and bloodshot eyes from the powder on the airbag.
Add a bit of nausea, a headache and a gnawing pain in her chest and the picture of her injuries was complete.
Kruse was in a worse state. He remained in intensive care, according to Vahtola, who had looked in a while ago, and they were going to be flying his wife up the next day.
And all because of her. She’d been sitting in the passenger seat – and she should have sounded the alarm. She should have listened to her instincts and ordered the convoy to stop at once and retreat. But instead she had hesitated. She had wasted a couple of absolutely vital seconds on worrying about making a mistake instead of focusing on doing the right thing. Kruse had managed to save the day by his own actions, but he had also had to pay the price for her mistake.
Rebecca mechanically gathered together her things, the blue bulletproof vest that had probably saved her ribs, the baton and radio that they took from her before she was put on the stretcher.
A patrol car was waiting outside to drive her home. The debriefing could wait until the morning, Runeberg had decided. That suited her fine. She wanted to go home, take a couple of the knockout pills she had been given, and sleep for a day or so.
Just as she was taking a last look round the room to make sure she’d got everything her mobile phone rang. Number withheld, she noted with a frown.
‘This is Rebecca,’ she said with one hand on the door-handle.
‘Becca?’ the voice at the other end said, and she stopped.
‘Becca, it’s me …’
‘I can’t talk right now,’ she said unnecessarily abruptly. ‘Can I call you back tomorrow?’ She tried to compensate by sounding more friendly.
‘Er, sure, I just wanted to check that you’re … okay?’
‘What d’you mean?’ she replied, and somewhere inside her his tone of voice was setting off alarm bells.
‘Er …’ A few moments of silence followed, but she chose not to fill them. ‘… don’t really know how to say this.’
‘But?’ she cut him off, as her suspicions grew stronger and stronger.
‘That business … out at Lindhagensplan … Well … that wasn’t supposed to happen, or, well … it was, but … I didn’t know it was you, Becca!’
The words came in bursts and his voice rose to a falsetto towards the end. Suddenly she felt utterly exhausted, as if her legs could no longer hold her. Slowly she went back inside the examination room and sank down on the trolley she had only just got up from.
‘Okay, let’s take this from the start, please,’ she said, as calmly as she could while she tried to take in what he’d just said.
‘It wasn’t really serious, sort of a game, I suppose. A game that went a bit wrong.’
‘A game, you say.’
Her voice sounded tired but in spite of that he couldn’t mistake how angry she was.
‘Yeah …’ he replied, aware of how lame it sounded.
‘So you were playing a game, and that’s why my partner’s in intensive care, is that a reasonable summary of the situation?’
She sounded more angry now, as if she’d already got over the initial shock.
‘Well, that wasn’t supposed to happen, like I said. Someone getting hurt, I mean … It’s sort of like an elaborate joke, I suppose.’
His voice was pleading, almost whiney.
‘A joke? Are you taking the piss? Are you completely stupid? For God’s sake, you’re over thirty and you still don’t give a fuck, you’re playing your way through life and you let everyone else pay for it!
