little or no family and not too many close friends. Stop me if you think I’m going too wide of the mark …’
He glanced quickly at HP before carrying on, using the fingers of the other hand:
‘You’re also desperate for approval and/or seriously short of cash. How am I doing so far?’
HP was speechless.
How the fuck could this hermit know all that?
Had he checked him out somehow, or had someone blabbed?
‘Easy, my friend,’ Erman chuckled. ‘I’m not a mind-reader. It’s just that the qualities I’ve listed are the things that are valued in a Player – in other words, someone like you makes a good Player.’
He nodded to emphasize what he was saying, as if HP was a bit thick, which irritated HP more than the quick run-through of his personality.
‘Nothing in the Game is a coincidence, you have to remember that!’ Erman went on. ‘You found that mobile phone because they wanted you to find it. They’d already selected you because they thought you had what it took. First you got a couple of easy assignments so that everyone could see what you were like, pretty much like when they warm up horses out at Solvalla: Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen, and then the Game is up and running!’
HP’s head had gone blank.
‘You … you mean they were betting on me, like the horses?’ he eventually managed to say.
‘Congratulations, Einstein, the penny finally drops!’ Erman grinned. ‘The Game is fundamentally nothing more than an advanced betting set-up, only a hell of a lot more exciting than football or horse-racing. They’ve been playing for years, long before the internet. The men placing bets are called the Circle, and they’re all over the world. You can place short-term bets, from assignment to assignment, or you can place a long-term bet on the End Game.’
‘The end game?’ the tumble-dryer in HP’s head had suddenly kicked into action.
‘Good question, maybe you’re not so slow after all!’
Erman got up and started waving his arms about.
‘Players who reach a certain level get to participate in larger scenarios, and all their assignments lead up to some sort of grand finale, the ultimate test. The Circle can bet on the final outcome, the End Game. Will a Player be able to cope with the pressure, or will he buckle, you get it?’
HP nodded uncertainly. His loony radar had started to bleep. This sounded completely crazy …
‘Best of all, Players don’t usually work out how everything fits together but act purely on impulse, which makes the Game even more authentic. A true show of character, you could say.’
Erman took another turn about the cottage before he returned to the kitchen table.
He gave HP a long, searching look, and seemed to be weighing something up seriously before he went on.
‘Okay, like I said, I don’t usually talk to anyone, and above all never about the Game, but you’ve got a pretty good sponsor who guarantees that you’re okay, and you seem a bit too daft to be playing a double-bluff …’
Erman pulled a piece of paper and a pen from a kitchen drawer and started to draw a pyramid.
‘This is what it looks like. Right at the bottom are loads of small-time players who are happy with a little bit of excitement and a reliable source of extra income, they’re called Ants. The Ants are used for small jobs, like getting hold of stuff, or information, preparing and delivering the tools for various assignments, or helping to film them. Ants never aim for the top, they never become real Players, they just play it safe, if you see what I mean?’
HP nodded quickly. He hadn’t missed the fact that Erman had just called him daft, but this was fucking interesting!
‘I bet it was an Ant who left the mobile on the train for you, and filmed your trial. The guy with the umbrella could well have been an Ant, unless he just happened to be there, it’s hard to tell,’ Erman went on.
‘But all the other stuff: the passcard, the tools for the Ferrari, the flash-bang grenade, the locker at Central Station, the key under the table …?’
‘Probably all sorted by Ants!’ Erman confirmed. ‘The entire Game is built on the Ants. Without them nothing would work, and they’re always recruiting more. There are Ants everywhere: in the police, social security, Telia, Microsoft, Google, you name it. So you can be sure they knew anything that was worth knowing about you way before they let you find the mobile.’
Erman drew another layer in the middle of the pyramid.
‘The Ants also help to find Players, people like you. The Ant who found you gets a bonus for each assignment you complete, and the further you get, the richer you make him or her.’
HP held up his hand. He had to pause a bit to digest what he had just heard.
So someone had tipped off the Game about him?
Maybe someone he actually knew?
Erman seemed to be reading his mind.
‘You might not even know your Ant. It could be anyone who stumbled over your credentials, an employer, someone in social services, or who dealt with your unemployment benefit claim.’
For some reason the explanation didn’t make HP feel much better.
For him the whole thing had been just a game, a way of passing the time with a bit of a twist. But this …
‘The Players are a different category to the Ants, and they’re used for more advanced and risky assignments, if you see the difference?’
Oh yes, HP got it. The arson attacks on his flat and the shop weren’t the sort of thing you’d get an Ant to do, that took a lot more balls.
‘As you already know, each Player gets a series of assignments,’ Erman went on, as he drew the top layer in the pyramid.
‘They’re all designed to find out how far you can be pushed, and obviously the Circle bet on what the boundaries are. Over time most of you fall by the wayside, but the Game takes that into account. Players are basically no more than perishable goods, and only a very few have what it takes to stay in the Game. When you sang your heart out to that cop, regardless of whether he was real or not, somewhere in cyberspace was one gang of happy souls who’d bet that you’d crack, as well as a load of others that you seriously disappointed. But you can be sure that someone else has already taken your place in the limelight.’
He drew an arrow through the whole pyramid.
‘The Game goes on always – you’re always playing the game, you get it?’
‘But the high score list, the clips and everything? I mean, I was first Runner-up, that has to mean something?’
He could hear how desperate he sounded, but made no effort to hide it.
Erman let out a slow chuckle.
‘HP,
