Free Bubble: A Thriller by Anders de La Motte Page B

this new information, my client wishes to change his plea to—not guilty!
    He reached up a bit more, got a better grip with his fingertips, and tried to grab hold of the book. But he lost his balance and the book slipped over the edge of the bookcase. The object on top of it fell with it, hitting him hard on the head before tumbling to the floor.
    A phone.
    A shiny, silvery phone, with a glass touch screen.
    ♦  ♦  ♦
    The pass card was white, and unlike the one she had borrowed from Runeberg a couple of days before, it didn’t contain any visible information at all. No name, no logo, and certainly no photograph of its owner. Just a small, plain white card that had appeared in a padded envelope with no sender’s name given.
    Presumably the anonymity was another security measure. A bulky window envelope with a bank logo on it reeked of credit card, and thus must increase the risk of its being stolen by several hundred percent.
    They clearly took security very seriously.
    She handed her driver’s license to the man on the other side of the counter, and he inspected it carefully before typing her ID number into the computer.
    It was the same man as before, but even though only a fewdays had passed since her last visit, he showed no sign of recognizing her. If anything, he actually seemed even more formal than before.
    “Thank you.”
    He handed her license back to her.
    “Are you familiar with the procedure?”
    “No.”
    He moved to the corner of the counter and pointed at the door behind him.
    “I’ll open the door for you, and when you’re inside the air lock you run your card through the reader. Then the far door opens and you can get into the vault . . .”
    She nodded to show that she understood.
    “Inside there are a number of rooms containing safe-
deposit boxes. The doors are kept locked, but the one containing your box will be unlocked. Then you will have to use your key to open the right compartment.
    “You do have your key with you?”
    “Absolutely,” she replied, patting the bag hanging from her shoulder while she did her best to suppress a smile.
    Judging by the look on his face, she didn’t quite succeed.
    “Inside the compartment is a metal box. Usually clients take the box into one of the private booths at the end of the vault. There’s less risk of being disturbed there than out in the vault itself . . .”
    He paused for a moment, but something in her expression seemed to prompt him to go on.
    “The booths aren’t covered by surveillance cameras . . .” he added.
    “I understand,” she replied curtly.
    He pressed a button and the dark steel door behind him swung open.
    Rebecca stepped inside the little air lock. In front of her, only a meter or so away, was another metal door, even sturdier than the one she had just passed through.
    She turned her head slightly and glanced at the security camera in the ceiling, and tried to look as calm as possible. She actually had a perfectly legitimate reason for being there, so why was she so nervous?
    The door behind her closed and the sound made her jump.
    Calm, now, Normén!
    She took a deep breath, held it for several seconds, then slowly breathed out.
    Then she ran the pass card through the little reader. For a couple of seconds there was total silence. Then the steel door in front of her swung open.
    The vault was considerably more exclusive than she had been expecting. Discreet uplights around the concrete walls and a faint smell of lemon, both presumably intended to alleviate any hint of nuclear bunker and of being shut in. It worked fairly well.
    A curved path of fluorescent paint on the shiny marble floor led her between a row of barred gates. In the rooms beyond she could see a great number of brass-colored lockers. At the far end of the vault were what looked like changing-room doors. Presumably the booths mentioned by the guard.
    A green lamp was shining above the fourth gate on the left-hand side. She took hold of the