Литагент HarperCollins - The Complete Game Trilogy - Game, Buzz, Bubble

‘I emptied our fire-extinguisher through the hole so it never caught properly. There’ll be a bit of cleaning up, but that’s better than the alternative …’ The policeman shrugged.

HP’s stomach had clenched solid and he was having trouble breathing. The cop’s voice sounded like it was slowed down.

‘A few soaked rags and probably some more paraffin through the hole. It doesn’t look like they were planning a robbery, just wanted to start a fire. I don’t suppose you happen to have acquired any enemies recently, Mr, er … Al-Hassan?’

‘No, not as far as I know,’ Manga replied, giving HP a long look.

They both sat in silence on the way home. Thoughts were whirling through HP’s head, he was desperate for a fag but knew he’d make himself even less popular if he lit up in the car.

This was the second warning, albeit something of a failure, but still. If the cops hadn’t happened to come round the corner when they did, the computer shop wouldn’t be there now. The whole thing would have gone up in smoke, just like that. Whoosh!

And all because he had chosen to break rule number one again.

He’d dragged Manga into this and it had almost cost Manga his shop. In other words, they must have been watching them somehow, either electronically, or else there were people out there following him.

The thought made HP’s skin crawl. He couldn’t help looking in the wing-mirror. There was a car behind them, a Ford, to judge by the lights. It was keeping its distance, didn’t seem to be in any hurry.

‘My mum’s sister’s got a small cottage on a allotment in Tanto,’ Manga said curtly, and it took HP a couple of seconds before he worked out what Manga meant.

‘I’ll move out tomorrow.’

Silence filled the car again.

Another glance in the mirror, the Ford was still there. Its nearside headlight was more yellow than the other one. A replacement rather than the original, HP guessed.

Now Manga seemed to have noticed that something was up, because he too was taking long looks in the rear-view mirror.

‘I need to make a couple of calls,’ he muttered, clutching the wheel. ‘We need to work out who these bastards are, HP, and once we’ve done that, you have to promise me that you’re going to give them some serious payback from me. Kick some ass, you get me?’

HP smiled and nodded.

‘I promise, Manga,’ and this time Manga didn’t correct him.

They fell silent again.

He tried to think. Could he really promise Manga that he’d whip the Game Master’s backside? Sure, he was fucking upset with the way they were treating him, and this latest move on his friend had definitely crossed the line.

But still. What a couple of wankstas they must have sent to do the job! A couple of cretins who didn’t even check the area before they set to work. He’d seen a can of spray-paint in the gutter a few metres away. The cops didn’t seem to have noticed it, or if they had, they hadn’t linked it to the break-in.

But HP got the message, loud and clear. First set light to the shop, then write the message. All of it filmed. That sort of assignment would be worth a thousand points or so, maybe more. Not a job for newbies, in other words.

Give the job to Luca Brasi .

And yet they’d still managed to fuck it up, even though there were two of them! He could have handled something like that solo, but good people are hard to find, even for a Game Master, apparently.

After all, he’d been first Runner-up for a reason, number 128, the man that not even all the king’s horses could stop. If he could just talk to the Game Master, get a chance to explain himself.

He saw Manga cast another anxious glance in the rear-view mirror and decided to park any thoughts of that nature for the time being. Manga was looking completely paranoid now, as if he was going to burst any second, and his foot was on the floor of the battered little Polo, even though it had already had to work hard on its way into the city. It was shaking like it had Parkinson’s and HP quickly pulled on his seatbelt, even though it didn’t actually make him feel much safer.

The Ford was still some fifty metres behind them.

Their slip-road was getting closer, but Manga showed no sign of turning off.

Instead he stuck in the right-hand lane, slowing down a bit so that the Ford almost caught up with them.

Just as they were about to pass the slip-road he changed down a gear and suddenly wrenched the wheel to the right, making HP grab the door-handle in horror to stop himself flying out of his seat. The Polo’s tyres protested loudly and they missed the barrier at the end of the slip-road with the smallest possible margin, swerving up the road and flying through a red light, all without Manga so much as touching the brake-pedal.

‘Calm down, for fuck’s sake!’ HP yelled, trying to make himself heard above the pained howl of the Polo, but Manga didn’t seem to be listening. The knuckles clutching the wheel were white and he was grinding his jaw like he was on acid.

HP twisted his head to look for the Ford, but the road behind them was completely empty.

‘You can calm down, Manga,’ he said in a gentler tone of voice. ‘There’s no-one behind us.’

This time Manga seemed to hear him and, after checking and double-checking in the rear-view mirror, he eased up slightly on the accelerator.

HP sat up in his seat and took a couple of deep, relieved breaths. Manga wasn’t much of a driver at the best of times, and the Jason Bourne manoeuvre he had just pulled could have ended really badly.

The Ford seemed to have been completely halal , the driver hadn’t even swerved in an attempt to follow them, but Manga didn’t seem to have noticed that. Instead he seemed to be looking for new pursuers to flee from. They still had a way to go, and HP had to find a way to snap Manga out of this paranoia if they weren’t going to end up in Huddinge Hospital.

‘Listen, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask …’ he managed to splutter.

‘Shoot,’ Manga muttered, without taking his eyes from the rear-view mirror.

‘This whole carpet-seller routine of yours.’

‘Hmm …’

‘Well, I suppose I’m wondering why, really? I mean … you’ve tried a whole load of different stuff over the years. The vegan thing, local politics, Amnesty … You never stuck with any one thing for too long. Like that screen-saver you’ve got in the shop: If you don’t change …?’

‘… then what’s the point of anything happening to you? ’ Manga concluded, and suddenly took a break from staring in the mirror. ‘Fuck, HP, sometimes you do listen to what I say!’

The trick worked, Manga’s jaw stopped grinding and his rigid grasp of the steering wheel relaxed slightly. A bit of practical philosophy and a few Couplandisms, that was Manga’s bag, he was considerably better at that than street-racing in the suburbs. Best to keep him in his comfort zone …

‘So why did you get hooked on Islam in particular?’ he blurted out, and found himself, to his own surprise, genuinely curious to know the answer. He didn’t really have any idea why Manga had converted. Bloody hell, what sort of a best friend was he, he’d never even asked …?

‘I mean, there’s a whole load of religions out there to choose from …’ he went on rather vaguely.

‘Well, giving to the poor, putting spiritual concerns above worldly ones, helping a brother in need … what’s not to like?’ Manga smiled wryly as the Polo’s speed slowed to a more normal level.

‘Women covered up, suicide bombers, holy war, there are quite a few options, aren’t there …?’

Manga sighed wearily.

‘Most of that has very little to do with religion, if you look below the surface … There are fanatics everywhere, but here in the West we get much more worked up about men in beards burning flags in Damascus than we do about smooth-shaven weirdos with bad haircuts blowing up abortion clinics in Detroit.’