went back inside the cottage and looked up the number on the licence-plate, but all he got was a car-hire company out in Solna.
ACME Telecom Services had their own website, a phone number and an email address for inquiries. ACME Telecom Services – A proud member of the PayTag Group.
On the other hand, there was no terrestrial address, but that wasn’t so unusual, there were a lot of companies like that. Feel free to contact us by email or telephone. A good way of avoiding difficult customers.
He went out again to take a closer look at the van. Still no-one in sight, but the engine felt fairly warm, so it couldn’t have been standing there for long.
So where was the driver?
He walked round the van, but was none the wiser. The rear-windows were tinted, and even though he cupped his hands round his eyes he still couldn’t see in. The driver’s cab was a bit easier.
A jacket on the front-seat, neon-yellow with loads of pockets, and when he looked closer he saw that something was sticking out from under it. An oblong silver object. And suddenly he realized what it was! A phone, of course, just like the one he’d left in the computer shop. Which could well mean that the bastards had found him!
He wandered round to get a better view of the mobile, but it was mostly covered by the jacket. He had to know for sure, and tugged hard on the door-handle.
Locked, obviously.
He glanced quickly around, then picked up a stone from a nearby flowerbed. He raised his arm to strike.
‘Hey, you, what do you think you’re doing!’
The man had appeared out of nowhere, a thickset fifty-something in overalls and an orange Bob the Builder helmet.
Manual labourer, model 1A.
‘Nothing,’ HP muttered and let the stone slide down his leg. ‘Just wondered why you’re parked here?’
The man looked at him suspiciously.
‘Working for Telia, broken cable. Broadband’s out across half of Södermalm, haven’t you heard?’
‘No,’ HP muttered, moving slowly away from the van. ‘Okay, see you, then!’
The man shrugged in farewell, then went round the van and unlocked the rear door.
After poking about for a minute or so he emerged with a toolbox, cast a quick glance in HP’s direction, then carefully locked the door before disappearing between two cottages.
HP breathed a sigh of relief. The bloke seemed genuine, false alarm, in other words.
He was getting brainstorms in broad daylight.
Finally out in the fresh air! It may still have been boiling hot, but anything was better than that claustrophobic little computer shop.
She moved off on her bike breathing deeply, then pedalled hard and with the wind in her face she felt the nausea gradually subside as oxygenated blood started to circulate round her body. After just a hundred metres or so she was feeling considerably brighter.
She wasn’t really much the wiser after her conversation with Manga.
Once he’d finally given up his feeble attempts at excuses and agreed to tell the truth, he started by locking the shop door, turning the sign to Closed, then, just to make sure, pulled her right to the back of the shop.
Manga had never been one of the more courageous of Henke’s deadbeat friends, and certainly not one of the coolest, but unlike most of the others he was one of the few who was still left from the old gang.
Vesa had decided to climb up on top of some railway carriages out in Älvsjö when he was high as a kite, and fried himself to death. She remembered Jesus pretty well too, hadn’t he won loads of money and disappeared to Thailand? Yes, that was him. Henke had talked about going with him, but as usual it never got further than a lot of empty talk. The rest of the gang had drifted away. Anyway, Henke wasn’t exactly the sort of person whose company or reliability anyone would really miss.
But for some reason Manga had always stuck in there, even when things had been at their worst. He was the only one of the gang who showed up at the trial, and as far as Rebecca knew he was the only person apart from herself who had visited Henke in prison. One of the few who had cared.
Manga was okay, really, a decent bloke who meant well, and she felt a pang of conscience at having been forced to resort to interrogation tactics to get him to talk. But at least it had worked, and after making sure not once but twice that they really were alone, he had finally told her everything, or at least as much as he knew.
She was left wondering exactly what it was he had told her.
The whole story about a mysterious mobile phone that allocated assignments and a secret reality game with rewards and punishments sounded crazy, and her initial reaction was that Manga had fallen for yet another of Henke’s bullshit stories. But then he had shown her the video clips on the computer and everything had emerged in an entirely different light.
The business with the door, the car wheels and the royal cortège had been bad enough, but when she saw her own car slowly rolling off the Drottningholm road, it had all got too much for her.
Evidently Manga hadn’t known that she was sitting in the Volvo, because he’d hovered outside the toilet door worrying anxiously if she was okay. She only just managed to hold it together, splashing a bit of water on her face and blaming it all on the heat, which he had accepted without comment.
Once she had composed herself again she had asked to see Henke’s mobile phone, and when he reluctantly pulled it out of a locked cupboard she had quickly inspected it and then put it in her bag. For a moment it had looked like Manga was going to protest, but he thought better of it and let her take it without a word.
Before she left, he had also given her the address of Aunt Berit’s allotment cottage, and she was looking forward to a fresh, more detailed conversation with her brother in just a few minutes.
This time she was going to twist the little sod’s arm until he told her the truth about what was really going on!
She cruised through the traffic, crossed Ringvägen and was soon in amongst the trees of the park. She was feeling brighter, enjoying the cool shade. Manga had said it was about fifteen minutes’ walk from the shop, so five minutes or so by bike seemed about right.
When she turned into the road she had to swerve to avoid a white van pulling away at speed and roaring past her way too fast.
‘Bloody idiot!’ she thought as she struggled to keep her balance. For a moment she considered making a note of the number-plate, the speed limit here was actually only thirty. But she didn’t bother, it was far too hot to make the effort to feel properly upset, and besides, she hadn’t seen the whole number. Some sort of company van with a blue logo on the side.
At that moment she caught sight of Aunt Berit’s cottage.
She knocked on the door three times but there was no answer. Maybe he was asleep? It may have been well into the afternoon, but it would hardly surprise her if Henke was taking a little siesta.
She
