Let The Right One In aka Let Me In

Wednesday

21 October 1981

And what do you think this might be?"

Gunnar Holmberg, police commissioner from Vallingby, held up a little plastic bag of white powder.

Maybe heroin, but no one dared say anything. Didn't want to be suspected of knowing anything about stuff like that. Especially if you had a brother or a friend of your brother who did it. Shoot horse. Even the girls didn't say anything. The policeman shook the bag.

"Baking powder, do you think? Flour?"

A mumble of answers in the negative. They didn't want him to think class 6B was a bunch of idiots. Even though it was impossible to determine what was really in the bag, this lesson was about drugs, so you could draw certain conclusions. The policeman turned to the teacher.

"What do you teach them in Home Economics these days?"

The teacher smiled and shrugged her shoulders. The class laughed; the cop was OK. Some of the guys had even been allowed to touch his gun before class. It wasn't loaded, but still.

Oskar's chest felt like it was about to burst. He knew the answer to the question. It hurt him not to say anything when he knew. He wanted the policeman to look at him. Look at him and tell him he was right. He knew it was a dumb thing to do, but he still put his hand up.

"Yes?"

"It's heroin, isn't it?"

"In fact it is." The policeman looked kindly at him. "How did you know?"

Heads turned in his direction, curious as to what he was going to say.

"Naw… I mean, I've read a lot and stuff."

The policeman nodded.

"Now there's a good thing. Reading." He shook the little bag. "You won't have much time for it if you get into this, though. How much do you think this little bag is worth?"

Oskar didn't feel the need to say anything else. He had been looked at and spoken to. Had even been able to tell the cop he read a lot. That was more than he had hoped for.

He let himself sink into a daydream. How the policeman came up to him after class and was interested in him, sat down next to him. Then he would tell him everything. And the policeman would understand. He would stroke his hair and tell him he was alright; would hold him and say…

"Fucking snitch."

Jonny Forsberg drove a hard finger into his side. Jonny's brother ran with the drug crowd and Jonny knew a lot of words that the other guys in the class quickly picked up. Jonny probably knew exactly how much that bag was worth but he didn't snitch. Didn't talk to the cop.

It was recess and Oskar lingered by the coat rack, indecisive. Jonny wanted to hurt him-what was the best way to avoid it? By staying here in the hallway or going outside? Jonny and the other class members stormed out the doors into the schoolyard.

That's right; the policeman had his car parked in the schoolyard and anyone who was interested could come take a look. Jonny wouldn't dare beat him up when the policeman was there.

Oskar walked down to the double front doors and looked out the glass window. Just as he thought, everyone in the class had gathered around the patrol car. Oskar would also have wanted to be there but there was no point. Someone would knee him, another pull his underpants up in a wedgie, policeman or no policeman.

But at least he was off the hook this recess. He went out into the schoolyard and snuck around the back of the building, to the bathrooms.

Once he was in the bathroom he listened, cleared his throat. The sound echoed through the stalls. He reached his hand into his underpants and quickly pulled out the Pissball, a piece of foam about the size of a Clementine that he had cut out of an old mattress and put a hole in for his penis. He smelled it.

Yup, he had pissed in his pants again. He rinsed it under the tap, squeezing out as much water as possible.

Incontinence. That was what it was called. He had read about it in a pamphlet that he had sneaked from the drugstore. Mostly something old women suffered from.

And me.

There were prescription medicines you could get, it said in the pamphlet, but he did not intend to use his allowance so he could humiliate himself at the prescription counter. And he would definitely not tell his mother; she would feel so sorry for him it would make him sick.

He had the Pissball and it worked for now.

Footsteps outside, voices. Pissball in hand, he fled into the nearest stall and locked the door at the same time as the outer door opened. He soundlessly climbed up onto the toilet seat, curling into a ball so his feet wouldn't show if anyone looked under the door. Tried not to breathe. Pig-gy?

Jonny, of course.

"Hey Piggy, are you here?"

Micke was with him. The worst two of the lot. No, Tomas was worse but he was almost never in on stuff that involved physical blows and scratches. Too smart for that. Was probably sucking up to the policeman right now. If the Pissball were discovered, Tomas was the one who would really be able to use it to hurt and humiliate him for a long time. Jonny and Micke, on the other hand, would just beat him up and that was fine with him. So in a way he was actually lucky…

"Piggy? We know you're in here."

They checked his stall. Shook the door. Banged on it. Oskar wrapped his arms tightly around his legs and clenched his teeth so he wouldn't scream.

Go away! Leave me alone! Why can't you leave me alone?

Now Jonny was talking in a mild voice.

"Little Pig, if you don't come out now we have to get you after school. Is that what you want?"

It was quiet for a while. Oskar exhaled carefully.

They attacked the door with kicks and blows. The whole bathroom thundered and the lock on the stall door started to bend inward. He should open it, go out to them before they got too mad, but he just couldn't.

"Pi-ggy?"

He had put his hand up in class, a declaration of existence, a claim that he knew something. And that was forbidden to him. They could give a number of reasons for why they had to torment him; he was too fat, too ugly, too disgusting. But the real problem was simply that he existed, and every reminder of his existence was a crime.

They were probably just going to "baptize" him. Shove his head into the toilet bowl and flush. Regardless of what they invented, it was always such a relief when it was over. So why couldn't he just pull back the lock, that was in any case going to tear off at the hinges at any moment, and let them have their fun?

He stared at the bolt that was forced out of the lock with a crack, at the door that flung open and banged into the wall, at Micke Siskov's triumphantly smiling face, and then he knew.

That wasn't the way the game was played.

He couldn't have pulled back the lock, they couldn't simply have climbed over the sides of the stall in all of three seconds, because those weren't the rules of the game.

Theirs was the intoxication of the hunter, his the terror of the prey. Once they had actually captured him the fun was over and the punishment more of a duty that had to be carried out. If he gave up too early there was a chance they would put more of their energy into the punishment instead of the hunt. That would be worse.

Jonny Forsberg stuck his head in.

"You'll have to open the lid if you're going to shit, you know. Go on, squeal like a pig."

And Oskar squealed like a pig. That was a part of it. If he squealed they would sometimes leave it at that. He put extra effort into it this time,

afraid they would otherwise force his hand out of his pants in the process of punishing him and uncover his disgusting secret.

He wrinkled up his nose like a pig's and squealed; grunted and squealed. Jonny and Micke laughed.

"Fucking pig, go on, squeal some more."

Oskar carried on. Shut his eyes tight and kept going. Balled his hands up into fists so hard that his nails went into his palms, and kept going. Grunted and squealed until he felt a funny taste in his mouth. Then he stopped and opened his eyes.

They were gone.

He stayed put, curled up on the toilet seat, and stared down at the floor. There was a red spot on the tile below. While he was watching, another drop fell from his nose. He tore off a piece of toilet paper and held it against his nostril.

This sometimes happened when he was scared. His nose started to bleed, just like that. It had helped him a few times when they were thinking about hitting him, and decided against it since he was already bleeding.

Oskar Eriksson sat there curled up with a wad of paper in one hand and his Pissball in the other. Got nosebleeds, wet his pants, talked too much. Leaked from every orifice. Soon he would probably start to shit his pants as well. Piggy.

He got up and left the bathroom. Didn't wipe up the drop of blood. Let someone see it, let them wonder. Let them think someone had been killed here, because someone had been killed here. And for the hundreth time.

Hakan Bengtsson, a forty-five-year-old man with an incipient beer belly, a receding hairline, and an address unknown to the authorities, was sitting on the subway, staring out of the window at what was to be his new home.

It was a little ugly, actually. Norrkoping would have been nicer. But having said that, these western suburbs didn't look anything like the Stockholm ghetto-suburbs he had seen on TV: Kista and Rinkeby and Hallonbergen. This was different.

"NEXT STATION: RACKSTA."

It was a little softer and rounder than those places. Although, here was a real skyscraper.

He arched his neck in order to see the top floors of the Waterworks' administrative building. He couldn't recall there being any buildings this tall in Norrkoping. But of course he had never been to the downtown area.

He was supposed to get off at the next station, wasn't he? He looked at the subway map over the doors. Yes, the next stop.

"PLEASE STAND BACK FROM THE DOORS. THE DOORS ARE CLOSING."

Was anyone looking at him?

No, there were only a few people in this car, all of them absorbed in their evening newspapers. Tomorrow there would be something about him in there.

His gaze stopped at an ad for women's underwear. A woman was posing seductively in black lace panties and a bra. It was crazy. Naked skin wherever you looked. Why was it tolerated? What effect did it have on people's heads, on love?

His hands were shaking and he rested them on his knees. He was terribly nervous.

"Is there really no other way?"

"Do you think I would expose you to this if there was another way?"

"No, but…"

"There is no other way."

No other way. He just had to do it. And not mess up. He had studied the map in the phone book and chosen a forested area that looked appropriate, then packed his bag and left.

He had cut away the Adidas logo with the knife that was lying in the bag between his feet. That was one of the things that had gone wrong in Norrkoping. Someone had remembered the brand name on the bag, and then the police had found it in the garbage container where he had tossed it, not far from their apartment.

Today he would bring the bag home with him. Maybe cut it into small pieces and flush it down the toilet. Is that what you did?

How is this supposed to work anyway?

"THIS IS THE FINAL STATION. ALL PASSENGERS MUST DISEMBARK."

The subway car disgorged its contents and Hakan followed the stream of people, the bag in his hand. It felt heavy, although the only thing in it that weighed anything was the gas canister. He had to exercise a great deal of self-restraint in order to walk normally, rather than as a man on the way to his own execution. He couldn't afford to give people any reason to notice him.

But his legs were leaden; they wanted to weld themselves onto the platform. What would happen if he simply stayed here? If he stood absolutely still, without moving a muscle, and simply didn't leave. Waited for nightfall, for someone to notice him, call for… someone to come and get him. To take him somewhere.

He continued to walk at a normal pace. Right leg, left leg. He couldn't falter now. Terrible things would happen if he failed. The worst imaginable.

Once he was past the checkpoint he looked around. His sense of direction wasn't very good. Which way was the forested area? Naturally he couldn't ask anyone. He had to take a chance. Keep going, get this over with. Right leg, left leg.

There has to be another way.

But he couldn't think of any other way. There were certain conditions, certain criteria. This was the only way to satisfy them.

He had done it twice before, and had messed up both times. Hadn't bungled it quite as much that time in Vaxjo but enough that they had been forced to move. Today he would do a good job, receive praise.

Perhaps a caress.

Two times. He was already lost. What difference did a third time make? None whatsoever. Society's judgement would probably be the same. Lifetime imprisonment.

And morally? How many lashes of the tail, King Minos?

The park path he was on turned a corner further up, where the forest started. It had to be the forest he had seen on the map. The gas container and the knife rattled in the bag. He tried to carry the bag without jostling the contents.

A child turned onto the path in front of him. A girl, maybe eight years old, walking home from school with her school bag bouncing against her hip.

No, never!

That was the limit. Not a child so young. Better him, then, until he fell dead to the ground. The girl was singing something. He increased his pace in order to get closer to her, to hear.

"Little ray of sunshine peeking in Through the window of my cottage…"

Did kids still sing that one? Maybe the girl's teacher was older. How nice that the song was still around. He would have wanted to get even closer in order to hear better, so close in fact that he would be able to smell the scent of her hair.

He slowed down. Don't create a scene. The girl turned off from the park path, taking a small trail that led into the forest. Probably lived in a house on the other side. To think her parents let her walk here all alone. And so young.

He stopped, let the girl increase the distance between them, disappear into the forest.

Keep going, little one. Don t stop to play in the forest.

He waited for maybe a minute, listened to a chaffinch singing in a nearby tree. Then he went in after her.

Oskar was on his way home from school, his head heavy. He always felt worse when he managed to avoid punishment in that way, by playing the pig, or something else. Worse than if he had been punished. He knew this, but couldn't handle the thought of the physical punishment when it approached. He would rather sink to any level. No pride.

Robin Hood and Spider-Man had pride. If Sir John or Doctor Octopus cornered them they simply spit danger in the face, come what may.

But what did Spider-Man know, anyway? He always managed to get away, even if it was impossible. He was a comic book action figure and had to survive for the next issue. He had his spider powers, Oskar had his pig squeal. Whatever it took to survive.

Oskar needed to comfort himself. He had had a shitty day and now he needed some compensation. Despite the risk of running into Jonny and Micke he walked up toward downtown Blackeberg, to Sabis, the local grocery store. He shuffled up along the zigzaging ramp instead of taking the stairs, using the time to gather himself. He needed to be calm for this, not sweaty.

He had been caught shoplifting once at a Konsum, another grocery chain, about a year ago now. The guard had wanted to call his mother but she had been at work and Oskar didn't know her number, no, really he didn't. For a week Oskar had agonized every time the phone rang, but then a letter arrived, addressed to his mother.

Idiotic. It was even labeled "Police Authorities, District of Stockholm" and of course Oskar had ripped it open, read about his crime, faked his mother's signature, and returned the letter in order to confirm that she had read it. He was a coward, maybe, but he wasn't stupid.

What was cowardly, anyway? Was this, what he was about to do, cowardly? He stuffed his down coat full of Dajm, Japp, Coco, and Bounty chocolate bars. Finally he slipped a bag of chewy Swedish Cars between his stomach and pants, went to the checkout, and paid for a lollipop.

On the way home he walked with his head high and a bounce to his step. He wasn't just Piggy, whom everyone could kick around; he was the Master Thief who took on dangers and survived. He could outwit them all.

Once he walked through the front gate to the courtyard of his apartment complex he was safe. None of his enemies lived in this complex, an irregular circle of buildings positioned inside the larger circle formed by his street, Ibsengatan. A double ring of protection. Here he was safe. In this courtyard nothing shitty had ever happened to him. Basically.

He had grown up here and it was here he had had friends before he started school. It was only in fifth grade that he started being picked on seriously. At the end of that year he had become a full-fledged target and even friends outside his class had sensed it. They called more and more seldom to ask him to play.

It was during that time he started with his scrapbook. He was on his way home to enjoy that scrapbook right now.

Wheeee!

He heard a whirring sound and something bumped into his feet. A dark red radio-controlled car was backing away from him. It turned and drove up the hill toward the front doors of his building at high speed. Behind the prickly bushes to the right of the front door was Tommy, a long antenna sticking out from his stomach. He was laughing softly.

"Surprised you, didn't I?"

"Goes pretty fast, that thing."

"Yeah, I know. Do you want to buy it?"

"… how much?"

"Three hundred."

"Naw, I don't have that much."

Tommy beckoned Oskar closer, turned the car on the slope and drove it down at breakneck speed, stopping it with a huge skid in front of his feet, picked it up, patted it, and said in a low voice:

"Costs nine hundred in the store."

"Yes."

Tommy looked at the car, then scrutinized Oskar from top to bottom.

"Let's say two hundred. It's brand new."

"Yes, it's great, but…"

"But what?"

"Nothing."

Tommy nodded, put the car down again, and steered it in between the bushes so the large bumpy wheels shook, let it come around the large drying rack and drive out on the path, going further down the slope.

"Can I try?"

Tommy looked at Oskar as if to evaluate his worthiness, then handed over the remote, pointing at his upper lip.

"You been hit? You've got blood. There."

Oskar wiped his lip. A few brown crusts came off on his index finger.

"No, I just…"

Don't tell. There was no point. Tommy was three years older, a tough guy. He would only say something about fighting back and Oskar would say "sure" and the end result would be that he lost even more respect in Tommy's eyes.

Oskar played with the car for a while, then watched Tommy steer it. He wished he had the money so they could have made a deal. Have that between them. He pushed his hands into his pockets and felt the candy.

"Do you want a Daim?"

"No, I don't like those."

"A Japp?"

Tommy looked up from the remote. Smiled.

"You have both kinds?"

"Yeah."

"Swiped 'em?" … yeah.

"OK."

Tommy put his hand out and Oskar gave him a Japp that Tommy slipped into the back pocket of his jeans.

"Thanks. See you." Bye.

Once Oskar made it into the apartment he laid out all the candy on his bed. He was going to start with the Dajm, then work his way through the double bits and end with the Bounty, his favorite. Then the fruit-flavored gummy cars that kind of rinsed out his mouth.

He sorted the candy in a long line next to the bed in the order it would be eaten. In the refrigerator he found an opened bottle of Coca-Cola that his mom had put a piece of aluminum foil over. Perfect. He liked Coke even more when it was a little flat, especially with candy.

He removed the foil and put the bottle next to the candy, flopped belly down on his bed, and studied the contents of his bookcase. An almost complete collection of the series Goosebumps, here and there augmented by a Goosebumps anthology.

The bulk of his collection was made up of the two bags of books he had bought for two hundred kronor through an ad in the paper. He had taken the subway out to Midsommarkransen and followed the directions until he found the apartment. The man who opened the door was fat, pale, and spoke in a low, hoarse voice. Luckily he had not invited Oskar to come in, just carried out the two bags, taken the two hundred, nodded, said "Enjoy," and closed the door.

That was when Oskar had become nervous. He had spent months searching for older publications in the series in the used comics stores along Gotgatan in South Stockholm. On the phone the man had said he had precisely those older volumes. It had all been too easy.

As soon as Oskar was out of sight he put the bags down and went

through them. But he had not been cheated. There were forty-five in all, from issue number two to forty-six.

You could no longer get these books anywhere. And all for a paltry two hundred';

No wonder he had been afraid of that man. What he had done was no less than rob him of a treasure.

Even so, they were nothing compared to his scrapbook.

He pulled it out from its hiding place under a stack of comics. The scrapbook itself was simply a large sketchbook he had swiped from the discount department store Ahlens in Vallingby; simply walked out with it under his arm-who said he was a coward?-but the contents…

He unwrapped the Dajm bar, took a large bite, savoring the familiar crunch between his teeth, and opened the cover. The first clipping was from The Home Journal: a story about a murderess in the US in the forties. She had managed to poison fourteen old people with arsenic before she was caught, tried, and sentenced to death by electric chair. Understandably, she had requested to be executed by lethal injection instead, but the state she was in used the chair and the chair it was.

That was one of Oskar's dreams: to see someone executed in the electric chair. He had read that the blood started to boil, the body contorted itself in impossible angles. He also imagined that the person's hair caught on fire but he had no official source for this belief.

Still, pretty amazing.

He turned the page. The next entry was from the newspaper Afton-bladet and concerned a Swedish murderer who had mutilated his victims' bodies. Lame passport photo. Looked like any old person. But he had murdered two male prostitutes in his home sauna, butchered them with an electric chain saw, and buried them out back behind the sauna. Oskar ate the last piece of Dajm and studied the man's face closely. Could have been anybody.

Could be me in twenty years.

Hakan had found a good place to stand watch, a place with a clear view of the path in both directions. Further in among the trees he had found a

protected hollow with a tree in the middle and there he had left the bag of equipment. He had slipped the little halothane gas canister into a holster under his coat.

Now all he had to do was wait.

Once I also wanted to grow up

To know as much as Father and Mother…

He hadn't heard anyone sing that song since he was in school. Was it Alice Tegner? Think of all the wonderful songs that had disappeared, that no one sang anymore. Think of all the wonderful things that had disappeared, for that matter.

No respect for beauty-that was characteristic of today's society. The work of the great masters were at most employed as ironic references, or in advertising. Michelangelo's "The Creation of Adam," where you see a pair of jeans in place of the spark.

The whole point of the picture, at least as he saw it, was that these two monumental bodies each came to an end in two index fingers that almost, but not quite touched. There was a space between them a millimeter or so wide. And in this space: life. The sculptural enormity and richness of detail of this picture was simply a frame, a backdrop, to emphasize the crucial void in its center. The point of emptiness that contained everything.

And in its place someone had superimposed a pair of jeans.

Someone was coming up the path. He crouched down with the sound of his heart beating in his ears. No. An older man with a dog. Two wrongs from the outset. First a dog he would have to silence, then poor quality.

A lot of screams for so little wool, said the man who sheared the pig.

He looked at his watch. In less than two hours it would be dark. If no one suitable came along in the next hour he would have to settle for whatever was available. Had to be back home before it got dark.

The man said something. Had he seen him? No, he was talking to the dog.

"Does that feel better, sweetpea? You really had to go, didn't you. When we get home daddy will give you some liverwurst. A nice thick slice of liverwurst for daddy's good little girl."

The halothane container pressed against Hakan's chest as he leaned

his head into his hands and sighed. Poor bastard. All these pathetic lonely people in a world without beauty.

He shivered. The wind had grown cold over the course of the afternoon, and he wondered if he should take out the rain jacket he had stowed away in his bag as protection against the wind. No. It would restrict his movement and make him clumsy where he needed to be quick. And it could heighten peoples' suspicions.

Two young women in their twenties walked by. No, he couldn't handle two. He caught fragments of their conversation.

"… she's going to keep it now…"

"… is a total ape. He has to realize that he…"

"… her fault because… not taking the pill…"

"But he, like, has to…"

"… you imagine?… him as a dad…"

A girlfriend who was pregnant. A young man who wasn't going to take responsibility. That's how it was. Happened all the time. No one thought of anything but themselves. My happiness, my future was the only thing you heard. Real love is to offer your life at the feet of another, and that's what people today are incapable of.

The cold was eating its way into his limbs; he was going to be clumsy now, raincoat or no raincoat. He put his hand inside his coat and pushed the trigger on the canister. A hissing noise. It was working. He let go of the trigger.

He jumped in place and slapped his arms to get warm. Please let someone come. Someone who was alone. He looked at his watch. Half an hour to go. Let someone come. For life's sake, for love.

But a child at heart I want to be

For children belong to the Kingdom of God.

By the time Oskar had read through the whole scrapbook and finished all the candy it was starting to get dark. As usual after eating so much junk, he felt dazed and slightly guilty.

Mom would be home in two hours. They would eat dinner, then he would do his English and math homework. After that he would read a book or watch TV with her. But there wasn't anything good on TV tonight. They

would have cocoa and sweet cinnamon rolls and chat. Then he would go to bed, but have trouble falling asleep since he would be worried about tomorrow.

If only he had someone he could call. He could of course call Johan, in the hope that he wasn't doing anything else.

Johan was in his class and they had a good time when they hung out, but if Johan had a choice, he never chose Oskar. Johan was the one who called when he had nothing better to do, not Oskar.

The apartment was quiet. Nothing happened. The concrete walls sealed themselves around him. He sat on his bed with his hands on his knees, his stomach heavy with sweets.

As if something was about to happen. Now.

He held his breath, listening. A sticky fear crept over him. Something was approaching. A colorless gas seeping out of the walls, threatening to take form, to swallow him up. He sat stiffly, holding his breath, and listened. Waited.

The moment passed. Oskar breathed again.

He went out into the kitchen, drank a glass of water, and grabbed the biggest kitchen knife from the magnetic strip. Tested the blade against his thumbnail, just like his dad had taught him. Dull. He pulled the knife through the sharpener a couple of times, then tried it again. It cut a microscopic slice out of his nail.

Good.

He folded a newspaper around the knife as a stand-in holster, taped it up, and pushed the packet down between his pants and left hip. Only the handle stuck up. He tried to walk. The blade was in the way of his left leg and so he angled it down along his groin. Uncomfortable, but it worked.

He put his jacket on in the hall. Then he remembered all the candy wrappers that lay strewn around his room. He gathered them all up and stuffed them into his pocket, in case mom came home before he did. He could hide the wrappers under a rock in the forest.

Checked one more time to make sure he hadn't left any evidence behind.

The game had already begun. He was a dreaded mass murderer. He had already slain fourteen people with his sharp knife without leaving a single clue behind. No hair, no candy wrapper. The police feared him.

would have cocoa and sweet cinnamon rolls and chat. Then he would go to bed, but have trouble falling asleep since he would be worried about tomorrow.

If only he had someone he could call. He could of course call Johan, in the hope that he wasn't doing anything else.

Johan was in his class and they had a good time when they hung out, but if Johan had a choice, he never chose Oskar. Johan was the one who called when he had nothing better to do, not Oskar.

The apartment was quiet. Nothing happened. The concrete walls sealed themselves around him. He sat on his bed with his hands on his knees, his stomach heavy with sweets.

As if something was about to happen. Now.

He held his breath, listening. A sticky fear crept over him. Something was approaching. A colorless gas seeping out of the walls, threatening to take form, to swallow him up. He sat stiffly, holding his breath, and listened. Waited.

The moment passed. Oskar breathed again.

He went out into the kitchen, drank a glass of water, and grabbed the biggest kitchen knife from the magnetic strip. Tested the blade against his thumbnail, just like his dad had taught him. Dull. He pulled the knife through the sharpener a couple of times, then tried it again. It cut a microscopic slice out of his nail.

Good.

He folded a newspaper around the knife as a stand-in holster, taped it up, and pushed the packet down between his pants and left hip. Only the handle stuck up. He tried to walk. The blade was in the way of his left leg and so he angled it down along his groin. Uncomfortable, but it worked.

He put his jacket on in the hall. Then he remembered all the candy wrappers that lay strewn around his room. He gathered them all up and stuffed them into his pocket, in case mom came home before he did. He could hide the wrappers under a rock in the forest.

Checked one more time to make sure he hadn't left any evidence behind.

The game had already begun. He was a dreaded mass murderer. He had already slain fourteen people with his sharp knife without leaving a single clue behind. No hair, no candy wrapper. The police feared him.

Now he was going out into the forest to select his next victim.

Strangely enough he already knew the name of his victim, and what he looked like. Jonny Forsberg with his long hair and large, mean eyes. He would make him plead and beg for his life, squeal like a pig, but in vain. The knife would have the last word and the earth would drink his blood.

Oskar had read those words in a book and liked them.

The Earth Shall Drink His Blood.

While he locked the front door to the apartment and walked out of the building with his hand resting on the knife handle he repeated these words like a mantra.

"The earth shall drink his blood. The earth shall drink his blood."

The entrance he had used on his way into the yard lay at the right end of his building, but he walked to the left, past two other buildings, and out through the entrance where the cars could drive in. Left the inner fortification. Crossed Ibsengatan and continued down the hill. Left the outer fortification. Continued on toward the forest.

The earth shall drink his blood.

For the second time this day Oskar felt almost happy.

There were only ten minutes left of Hakan's self-imposed time limit when a lone boy came walking down the path. Thirteen or fourteen, as far as he could judge. Perfect. He had been planning to sneak down to the other end of the path and then come walking toward his intended victim.

But now his legs had really gotten stuck. The boy was walking nonchalantly along the path and Hakan was going to have to hurry. Every second that went by reduced the chance of success. Even so his legs simply refused to budge. He stood paralyzed and stared at the chosen one, the perfect one, who was moving forward, who was about to pull up next to where he was standing, right in front of him. Soon it would be too late.

Have to. Have to. Have to.

If he didn't do it, he would have to kill himself. Couldn't go home empty-handed. That's how it was. It was him or the boy. Go ahead and choose.

He finally got going, too late. Now he made his approach by stumbling

through the forest, straight at the boy, instead of simply meeting him calmly on the path. Idiot. Clumsy oaf. Now the boy would be on his guard, suspicious.

"Hello there!" he called out to the boy. "Excuse me!"

The boy stopped. He didn't run away, he could be grateful for that. He had to say something, ask something. He walked up to the boy who was standing on the path, alert, uncertain.

"Excuse me… Could you tell me what the time is?"

The boy's gaze went to Hakan's watch.

"Yes, well, mine has stopped, you see."

The boy's body was tense as he checked his watch. He couldn't do anything about that. Hakan put his hand inside his coat and rested his index finger on the trigger while he waited for the boy's answer.

Oskar walked down the hill past the printing company, then turned onto the path into the forest. The weight in his belly was gone, replaced with an intoxicating sense of anticipation. On his way to the forest the fantasy had gripped him and now it felt like reality.

He saw the world through the eyes of a murderer, or so much of a murderer's eyes as his thirteen-year-old's imagination could muster. A beautiful world. A world he controlled, a world that trembled in the face of his actions.

He walked along the forest path looking for Jonny Forsberg.

The earth shall drink his blood.

It was starting to get dark and the trees closed around him like a silent crowd, following his smallest movements with trepidation, fearful that one of them was the intended target. But the killer moved through them, past them; he had already caught sight of his prey.

Jonny Forsberg was standing at the top of a hill some fifty meters from the trail, hands on his hips, a grin pasted on his face. Thought it was going to be business as usual. That he would force Oskar to the ground, hold his nose, and force pine needles and moss into his mouth, or some such thing.

But this time he was mistaken. It wasn't Oskar who was walking toward him, it was the Murderer, and the Murderer's hand closed hard around the handle of the knife, preparing himself.

The Murderer walked with slow dignified steps over to Jonny Fors-berg, looked him in the eyes, and said "Hi Jonny."

"Hello Piggy. Are you allowed out this late?"

The Murderer pulled out his knife. And lunged.

Uh, it's… a quarter past five."

"OK, thanks."

The boy didn't leave. Just stood there staring at Hakan, who took the opportunity to step closer. The boy stood still, following him with his gaze. This was going to hell. Of course the boy sensed something was wrong. First a man came storming out of the woods to ask him what the time was and now he had struck a Napoleon pose with his hand inside his coat.

"What do you have there?"

The boy gestured at Hakan's heart region. Hakan's head was empty; he didn't know what he was going to do. He took out the gas container and showed it to the boy.

"What the hell is that?"

"Halothane gas."

"What are you carrying it around for?"

"Because…" He felt the foam covered mouthpiece and tried to think of something to say. He couldn't lie. That was his curse. "Because… it's part of my job."

"What kind of job?"

The boy had relaxed somewhat. He was holding a sport bag similar to the one Hakan had stowed in the hollow up in the woods. Hakan gestured to the bag with the hand that was holding the gas canister.

"Are you on your way to work out or something?"

When the boy glanced down at his bag he had his chance.

Both arms shot out, the free hand grabbing the boy by the back of the head, the other pressing the mouthpiece of the canister against his mouth. Hakan released the trigger. It let out a hissing sound like a large snake and the boy tried to pull bis bead away but it was locked between Hakan's hands in a desperate vice.

The boy threw himself back and Hakan followed. The hissing of the snake drowned out all other sounds as they fell onto the wood shavings on the trail. Hakan's hands were still clenched around the boy's head and he held the mouthpiece in place as they rolled around on the ground.

After a couple of deep breaths the boy started to relax in his grip. Hakan still made sure the mouthpiece was in place, then looked around.

No witnesses.

The hissing sound of the canister filled his head like a bad migraine. He locked the trigger in place and teased his free hand out from underneath the boy, loosened the rubber band and then drew it back over the boy's head. The mouthpiece was secured.

He got up with aching arms and regarded his prey.

The boy lay there with his arms thrown out from his body, the mouthpiece over nose and mouth, and the halothane canister on his chest. Hakan looked around once more, retrieved the boy's bag, and placed it on his stomach. Then he picked him up and carried him to the hollow.

The boy was heavier than he had expected: a lot of muscle. Unconscious weight.

He was panting from the exertion of carrying the boy over the soggy ground while the hissing of the gas cut through his head like a chain saw. He deliberately panted more loudly so as not to hear the sound.

With numb arms and sweat pouring down his back he finally reached his destination. There, he laid the boy down in the deepest part of the hollow and then stretched out beside him. It grew quiet. The boy's chest rose and fell. He would wake up in approximately eight minutes, at most. But he wouldn't.

Hakan lay beside the boy, studied his face, caressed it with a finger. Then he pulled himself closer to the boy, took the floppy body in his arms, and pressed it to him. He kissed the boy tenderly on the cheek, whispered "forgive me," and got up.

Tears threatened to well up into his eyes as he looked at the defenseless body on the ground. He could still refrain.

Parallel worlds. A comforting thought.

There was a parallel world where he didn't do what he was about to do. A world where he walked away, leaving the boy to wake up and wonder what had happened.

But not in this world. In this world he now walked over to his bag and opened it. He was in a hurry. He quickly pulled on his raincoat and got out his tools. A knife, a rope, a large funnel, and a five liter plastic jug.

He put everything on the ground next to the boy, looking at the young body one last time. Then he picked up the rope and got to work.

He thrust and thrust and thrust. After the first blow Jonny had realized this wasn't going to be like those other times. With blood gushing from a deep cut on his cheek, he tried to escape, but the Murderer was faster. With a couple of quick moves he sliced away the tendons at the back of the knees and Jonny fell down, lay writhing in the moss, begging for mercy.

But the Murderer wasn't going to relent. Jonny was screaming… like a pig… when the Murderer threw himself over him and let the earth drink his blood.

One stab for what you did to me in the bathroom today. One for when you tricked me into playing knuckle poker. And I'm cutting your lips out for everything nasty you've ever said to me.

Jonny was bleeding from every orifice and could no longer say or do anything mean. He was long since dead. Oskar finished by puncturing his glassy eyeballs, whack whack, then got up and regarded his work.

Large pieces of the rotting, fallen trees that had represented Jonny's body had been hacked away and the tree trunk was full of perforations. A number of wood chips were scattered under the healthy tree that had been Jonny when he was still standing.

His right hand, the knife hand, was bleeding. There was a small cut right next to his wrist; the blade must have slipped while he was stabbing. Not the ideal knife for this purpose. He licked his hand, cleaning the wound with his tongue. It was Jonny's blood he was tasting.

He wiped the last of the blood on the newspaper holster, put the knife back, and started walking home.

The forest that, starting a few years back, had felt threatening, the

haunt of enemies, now felt like a home and a refuge. The trees drew back respectfully as he passed. He didn't feel an ounce of fear though it was starting to get really dark. No anxiety for the next day, whatever it would bring. He would sleep well tonight.

When he was back in the yard, he sat down on the edge of the sandbox for a while to calm himself before he went back home. Tomorrow he would get himself a better knife, a knife with a parry guard, or whatever it was called… so he didn't cut himself. Because this was something he was going to do again.

It was a good game.

THURSDAY

22 October

H is mom reached over the kitchen table and squeezed Oskar's hand. There were tears in her eyes.

"You are absolutely not allowed to go into the woods by yourself, do you hear me?"

A boy about Oskar's age had been murdered in Vallingby yesterday. It had appeared in the afternoon papers and his mother was completely beside herself when she came home.

"It could have been… I don't even want to think about it."

"But it was Vallingby."

"And you mean to say that someone who is capable of doing this to a child wouldn't be able to go two subway stations? Or walk? Walk all the way here to Blackeberg and do the same thing again? Do you spend a lot of time in the woods?"

"No."

"You are not allowed to go past the yard now, as long as this… Until they've caught him."

"You mean I can't go to school?"

"Of course you can go to school. But after school you come straight here and you don't leave this complex until I get home."

"Big deal."

The pain in his mother's eyes mixed with anger.

"Do you want to be murdered? Do you? You want to go into the woods and be killed and I have to sit here and worry while you're lying out there in the forest and… you're being butchered by some bestial…"

The tears welled up in her eyes. Oskar put his hand on hers.

"I won't go into the woods, Mom. I promise."

His mother stroked his cheek.

"Little sweetheart, you're all I have. Nothing is allowed to happen to you. I would die too."

"Mmmm. How exactly did he do it?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know. The murder."

"How should I know? The boy was killed by some kind of maniac with a knife. He's dead. His parents' lives have been ruined."

"Aren't the details in the paper?"

"I can't bear to read it."

Oskar took the copy of Expressen and flipped through the pages. The crime filled four pages.

"You shouldn't read things like that."

"I'm only checking something. Can I take it?"

"Don't read about it, I'm serious. All that violent stuff you read isn't good for you."

"I'm just seeing what's on TV tonight."

Oskar got up intending to take the paper to his room. His mother hugged him clumsily and pressed her wet cheek against him.

"Sweetheart, can't you understand that I'm worried about you? What if something were to happen to you-"

"I know, Mom, I know. I'm careful."

Oskar hugged her a little back and then carefully extracted himself, went to his room wiping his mother's tears from his cheek.

This was amazing.

From what he could understand the boy had been killed while he was out playing in the woods. Unfortunately the victim had not been Jonny Forsberg, only some unknown boy from Vallingby.

The atmosphere in Vallingby that afternoon had been funereal. He had seen the headlines before he came home and perhaps he was only imagining things but it seemed to him that people in the main square had been talking more, walking more slowly than normal.

In the hardware store he had swiped an incredibly alluring hunting knife that cost three hundred. He had made up an excuse in advance in case he was caught.

"Excuse me, Sir, but I am just so afraid of the killer."

He would probably also have been able to squeeze out a few tears, if it came to that. They would have let him go, no doubt about it. But he had not been caught, and now the knife was tucked into the hiding place next to his scrapbook.

He needed to think.

Could it be that his game had in some way caused the murder to happen? He didn't think so, but he couldn't completely rule out the idea. The books he read were full of things like this. A person's thoughts in one place causing an action somewhere else.

Telekenesis. Voodoo.

But exactly where, when, and above all how had the murder been committed? If it had involved a large number of stab wounds on a prone body he had to seriously consider the possibility that his hands possessed a terrifying power. A power he would have to learn to control.

Or is it… the TREE… that is the link.

The rotten log that he had cut. Maybe there was something special about it, something that meant that whatever you did to the tree… spread further.

Details.

Oskar read all of the articles on the murder. A photograph of the policeman who had been to their school and talked about drugs appeared on one page. He was not able to comment further at this stage. Technical experts from the National Laboratory of Forensic Science had been called in to secure evidence from the crime scene. One had to wait and see. There was a picture of the murdered boy, taken from the school yearbook. Oskar had never seen him before. He looked like a Jonny or Micke. Maybe there was now an Oskar in the Vallingby school who had been set free.

The boy had been on his way to handball practice at the Vallingby gym and never come home. The practice had started at five-thirty. The boy had probably left home at around five o'clock. So at some point in between-Oskar's head started to spin. The time matched up exactly. And the boy had been murdered in the forest.

7s it true? Am I the one?…

A sixteen-year-old girl had found the body around eight o'clock in the evening and contacted the police. She was described as being treated for "extreme shock." Nothing about the state of the body, but if this girl was in a state of extreme shock it indicated the body had been mutilated in some way. Usually they only wrote "shocked."

What was the girl doing in the woods after dark? Probably nothing interesting. Been picking pine cones or something. But why wasn't there anything about how the boy had been murdered? The only thing they offered was a photograph of the crime scene. Police tape demarcated an ordinary wooded area, a hollow with a large tree in the middle. Tomorrow or the next day there would be a photo in this place, lots of candles and signs about "why?" and "we miss you." Oskar knew how it went; he had several similar cases in his scrapbook.

The whole thing was probably a coincidence. But what if.

Oskar listened at the door. His mom was doing the dishes. He lay down on the bed and dug out the knife. The handle was shaped to fit the hand and the whole thing weighed about three times as much as the kitchen knife he had used yesterday.

He got up and stood in the middle of the room with the knife in his hand. It was beautiful, transmitted power to the hand holding it.

The sound of clinking dishes came from the kitchen. He thrust a few times into the air. The Murderer. When he had learned to control the power Jonny, Micke, and Tomas would never bother him again. He was about to lunge again, but stopped himself. Someone could see him from outside. It was dark now and the light was on in his room. He looked out but only saw his own reflection in the glass.

The Murderer.

He put the knife back in its hiding place. This was only a game. These kinds of things didn't happen in reality. But he needed to know the details. Needed to know them now.

Tommy was sitting in an armchair with a motorcycle magazine, nodding his head and humming. From time to time he held the magazine aloft so Lasse and Robban, who were sitting in the couch, could see a particularly interesting picture, with a caption about cylinder volume and maximum speed. The naked light bulb in the ceiling was reflected in the shiny pages, throwing pale cat's eyes over the cement and timber walls.

He had them sitting on pins and needles.

Tommy's mother was dating Staffan, who worked in the Vallingby police department. Tommy didn't like Staffan very much, quite the opposite, in fact. A know-it-all, oily-voiced kind of guy. And religious. But from his mom Tommy got to hear this and that. Things Staffan wasn't really allowed to tell his mom and things that his mom wasn't really allowed to tell Tommy, but…

That was how, for example, he had heard about the state of the police investigation into the radio store break-in at Islandstorget. The break-in that he, Robban, and Lasse had been responsible for.

No trace of the perpetrators. Those were his mom's exact words: "No trace of the perpetrators." Staffan's words. Didn't even have a description of the getaway car.

Tommy and Robban were sixteen years old and in the first year of high school. Lasse was nineteen, something wrong with his head, and he worked at LM Eriksson in Ulvsunda, sorting metal parts. But he had a driver's license. And a white Saab-74. They had used a marker to alter the plates before the break-in. Not that it mattered, since no one had seen the car.

They had stored their bounty in the unused shelter room across from the basement storage area that was their meeting place. They had removed the chain with metal cutters, supplied it with a new lock. Didn't really know what to do with all the stuff since the job itself had been the goal. Lasse had sold a cassette tape to a friend at work for two hundred but that was it.

It was best to lay low with the goods for a while. And not let Lasse handle any selling since he was… a little slow, as his mom put it. But now two weeks had gone by since the caper and the police had something else to occupy them.

Tommy kept turning the pages of the magazine and smiling to himself. Yup, yup. A whole lot of something else to occupy them. Robban was drumming his fingers against his thigh.

"Come on, let's hear it."

Tommy held up the magazine again.

"Kawasaki. Three hundred cubic. Fuel injection and-"

"Get a grip, man. Tell us."

"What… the murder?"

"Yes!"

Tommy bit his lip, pretended to think it over.

"How did it happen?"

Lasse leaned his tall body forward, folding in the middle like a jackknife.

"Uh. Let's hear it."

Tommy put the magazine away and met his gaze.

"Sure you want to hear it? It's pretty scary."

"Phft. So what."

Lasse looked all tough, but Tommy saw a flash of concern in his eyes. You only had to make an ugly face, talk in a funny voice, and not agree to cut it out to make Lasse really scared. One time Tommy and Robban had used Tommy's mom's makeup to make themselves look like zombies, unscrewed the light bulb, and waited for Lasse. It had ended with Lasse shitting himself and giving Robban a black eye under his dark blue eye shadow. After that they had been more careful about scaring Lasse.

Now Lasse was sitting up in his seat and crossing his arms, as if to show he was ready to hear anything.

"OK, then. So… this wasn't your usual murder, you understand. They found the guy… strung up in a tree."

"What do you mean? Was he hanged?" Robban asked.

"Yeah, hanging. But not by his neck. By his feet. So he was hanging upside down in the tree. By his feet."

"What the fuck-you don't die from that."

Tommy looked long at Robban as if he had made an interesting point, then he continued.

"No, you're right. You don't. But his neck had been cut open. And that'll kill you. The whole neck, sliced open. Like a… melon." He pulled a finger across his neck to show the path of the knife.

Lasse's hand went up to his neck as if to protect it. He shook his head slowly. "But why was he hanging like that?"

"Well, what do you think?"

"I don't know."

Tommy pinched his bottom lip and made a thoughtful face.

"Now I'll tell you the strange part. First you slice someone's neck open so they die. You'd expect to see a lot of blood, right?" Lasse and Robban both nodded. Tommy paused for a while in the midst of their expectation before he dropped the bomb.

"But the ground underneath… w'here the guy was hanging. There was almost no blood at all. Just a few drops. And he must have gushed out several liters, hanging up like that."

The basement room was quiet. Lasse and Robban stared straight ahead with a vacant look until Robban sat up and said, "I know. He was murdered somewhere else and then brought there."

"Mmmm. But in that case why did the killer bother to hang him up? If you've killed someone you normally want to get rid of the body."

"He could be… sick in the head."

"Yeah, maybe. But I think it's something else. Have you ever seen a butcher's shop? What they do with pigs? Before they butcher them they drain all the blood. And do you know how they do that? The hang them upside down. From a hook. And cut their throats."

"So you mean… what, the guy… that he was planning to butcher him?"

"Aaaah?" Lasse looked uncertainly from Tommy to Robban to Tommy again to see if they were pulling his leg. He found no indication of this, and said,

"They do that? With pigs?"

"Yeah, what did you think?"

"That it was some kind of machine."

"And that would be better, in your opinion?"

"No, but… Are they alive then? When they're hanging up like that?"

"Yeah, they're alive. And kicking around, screaming."

Tommy made a noise like a stuck pig, and Lasse sank back into the couch staring at his knees. Robban got up, walked a few steps back and forth, and sat down again.

"But it doesn't make sense. If the murderer was going to butcher him there would be blood everywhere."

"You're the one who said he was going to butcher him. I don't think so.

"Oh. And what do you think, then?"

"I think he was after the blood. That's why he killed the guy, in order to get the blood. I think he took it with him."

Robban nodded slowly, picked away at the scab of a large pimple in the corner of his mouth. "Yeah, but why? To drink it, or why?"

"Maybe. For example."

Tommy and Robban sank into their respective inner reenactments of the killing and what had happened thereafter. After a while Lasse raised his head and looked at them. He had tears in his eyes.

"Do they die fast, the pigs?"

Tommy met his gaze with equal seriousness.

"No, they don't."

I'm going out for a while."

"No."

"Just out into the courtyard."

"And nowhere else, do you hear?"

"Sure, sure."

"Do you want me to call for you when…"

"No, I'll be back in time. I have a watch. Don't call for me."

Oskar put on his jacket, his hat. He paused as he was putting his boot on. Went quietly back to his room and took out the knife, tucked it inside his jacket. Laced up the boots. He heard his mom's voice again from the living room.

"It's cold out there."

"I've got my hat."

"On your head?"

"No, on my feet."

"This is no joking matter, Oskar, you know how it is…"

"See you in a while."

"… your ears."

He walked out, looked down at his watch. A quarter past seven. Forty-five minutes until the program started. Tommy and the others were probably down in their basement headquarters but he didn't dare go down there. Tommy was alright, but the others… They could get strange ideas, especially if they had been sniffing.

So he went down to the playground in the middle of the yard. Two big trees, sometimes used as a soccer goal, a play structure with a slide, a sandbox, and a swing set consisting of three tire-swings suspended from chains. He sat down in one of the tire-swings and rocked gently to and fro.

He liked this place at night. Hundreds of lighted windows all around him on four sides, himself sitting in the dark. Safe and alone at the same time. He pulled the knife out of the holster. The blade was so shiny he could see windows reflected in it. The moon.

A bloody moon…

Oskar got up, snuck over to one of the trees, talked to it.

"What are you looking at, you fucking idiot? Do you want to die?"

The tree didn't answer and Oskar carefully drove the knife into it. Didn't want to damage the fine smooth edge.

"That's what happens if you so much as look at me."

He turned the knife so a small wedge of wood popped out of the trunk. A piece of flesh. He whispered, "Go on, squeal like a pig."

He stopped, thought he heard a sound. He looked around, holding the knife by his hip. Lifted the blade to his eyes, checked it. The point was as smooth as before. He used the blade as a mirror, and turned it so it reflected the jungle gym. Someone was standing there, someone who had not been there a moment before. A blurry contour against the clean steel. He lowered the knife and looked directly at the jungle gym. Yes. But it wasn't the Vallingby killer. It was a child.

There was enough light for him to determine that it was a girl he had never seen before. Oskar took a step toward the jungle gym. The girl didn't move, just stood there looking at him.

He took another step and suddenly he grew scared. Of what? Of himself. He was on his way toward the girl with his hand tightly closed around the knife, on his way to stab her with it. No, that wasn't true. But that was how he had felt, for a moment. Wasn't she scared?

He stopped, pushed the knife back in its holder, and put it back inside his jacket.

"Hi."

The girl didn't answer. Oskar was so close now that he could see she had dark hair, a small face, big eyes. Eyes wide open, calmly looking at him. Her white hands were resting on the railing.

"I said hi."

"I heard you."

"Why didn't you answer?"

The girl shrugged. Her voice was not as high as he would have expected. Sounded like someone his own age.

There was something strange about her. Shoulder-length black hair. Round face, small nose. Like one of those paper dolls in Hemmets Journal. Very… pretty. But there was something else. She had no hat, and no jacket. Only a thin pink sweater even though it was cold.

The girl nodded her head in the direction of the tree that Oskar had cut.

"What are you doing?"

Oskar blushed, but she probably couldn't tell in the dark.

"Practicing."

"For what?"

"For if the murderer comes along."

"What murderer?"

"The one in Vallingby. The one who killed that guy."

The girl sighed, looked up at the moon. Then she leaned forward again.

"Are you scared?"

"No, but a murderer, that's like… it's good if you can-defend yourself. Do you live here?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"Over there," the girl gestured to the front door next to Oskar's. "Next door to you."

"How do you know where I live?"

"I've seen you in the window before."

Oskar's cheeks grew hot. While he was trying to think of something to say the girl jumped down from the top of the jungle gym and landed in front of him. A drop of over two meters.

She must do gymnastics or something like that.

She was almost as tall as he was, but much thinner. The pink sweater fit tight across her chest, which was still completely flat, without a hint of breasts. Her eyes were black, enormous in her pale little face. She held one hand up in the air in front of him as if she were warding something off that was coming toward her. Her fingers were long and slender as twigs.

"I can't be friends with you. Just so you know."

Oskar folded his hands over his chest. He could feel the contours of the knife through his jacket.

"What?"

One corner of the girl's mouth pulled up in a half-smile.

"Do you need a reason? I'm just telling you how it is. So you know."

"Yeah, yeah."

The girl turned and walked away from Oskar, toward her front door. After a couple of steps Oskar said, "What makes you think I'd want to be friends with you? You must be pretty stupid."

The girl stopped. Stood still for a moment. Then she turned and walked back to Oskar, stopped in front of him. Interlaced her fingers and let her arms drop.

"What did you say?"

Oskar wrapped his arms more tightly around himself, pressed one hand against his knife, and stared down into the ground.

"You must be stupid… to say something like that."

"Oh, I am, am I?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry. But that's just how it is."

They stood still, about half a meter between them. Oskar continued staring into the ground. A strange smell was emanating from the girl.

About one year ago his dog Bobby had gotten an infection in one paw and in the end they had been forced to have him put down. The last day Oskar had stayed home from school, lain next to the sick dog for several hours, and said good-bye. Bobby had smelled like the girl did. Oskar screwed up his nose.

"Is that strange smell coming from you?" I guess so.

Oskar looked up at her. He regretted having said that. She looked

so… fragile in her pink top. He unfolded his arms and made a gesture in her direction.

"Aren't you cold?"

"No."

"Why not?"

The girl frowned, wrinkling up her face, and for a moment she looked much much older than she was. Like an old woman about to cry.

"I guess I've forgotten how to."

The girl quickly turned around and walked back to her door. Oskar remained where he was, looking at her. When she reached the heavy front door he fully expected that she would need to use both hands to pull it open. But instead she grasped the door handle with one hand and pulled it open so hard it banged into the wall stop, bounced, and then closed behind her.

He pushed his hands into his pockets and felt sad. Thought about Bobby and how he had looked in the makeshift coffin Dad had made for him. Thought about the cross he had made in wood shop that had snapped in two as they hammered it into the frozen ground.

He ought to make a new one.

FRIDAY

23 October

Hakan was sitting on a subway train again, on his way downtown. Ten thousand kronor bills in his pocket, secured by a rubber band; he was going to do something good with them. He was going to save a life.

Ten thousand was a lot of money, and when you thought about the fact that those Save The Children campaigns claimed that "One thousand kronor can feed one family for a whole year" you would think that ten thousand could save a life even in Sweden.

But whose life? And where?

You couldn't just walk up and give the money to the first drug addict you bumped into and hope that… no. And it had to be a young person, anyway. He knew it was silly, but ideally it would be a weeping child like in one of those pictures. A child who took the money with tears in his eyes and then… and then what?

He got off at Odenplan and, without knowing why, walked in the direction of the public library. In the days that he had lived in Karlstad, when he was a Swedish teacher at the high school level and still had a place to live, it was generally known that the Stockholm public library was a… good place.

Not until he saw the cupola, familiar to him through pictures in books and magazines, did he know why he had come here. Because it was a good place. Someone in the group, probably Gert, had told him how you went about buying sex there.

He had never done that. Buy sex.

Once Gert, Torgny, and Ove had found a boy whose mother had been brought back from Vietnam by someone Gert knew. The boy was maybe twelve years old and knew what was expected of him, was well-paid for his trouble. And yet Hakan couldn't bring himself to do it. He had sipped his Bacardi and Coke, enjoyed the boy's naked body as he writhed and turned in the room where they had gathered.

But that was the limit.

The others had, one by one, been sucked off by the boy, but when it was Hakan's turn a hard knot formed inside him. The whole situation was too disgusting. The room smelled of arousal, alcohol, and mustiness. A drop of Ove's cum glistened on the boy's cheek. Hakan pushed the boy's head aside when he lowered it to Hakan's groin.

The others had taunted him, called him names, finally threatened him. He was a witness; he needed to be a partner in crime. They taunted him about his scruples, but that wasn't the problem. It was simply too ugly, the whole thing. The single room of Ake's commuter apartment, the four mismatched armchairs arranged for the event, the dance music from the stereo.

He paid for his part of the affair and never saw the others again. He had his magazines and photos, his films. That had to be enough. Probably he also had his scruples, that only showed themselves this once in the form of a distaste for the situation.

Why then am I on my way to the City Library?

He was probably going to take out a book. The fire three years ago had consumed his life, and his book collection. Yes. He could borrow The Queen's Diadem by Almquist, before he performed his good deed.

It was quiet inside the City Library this morning. Older men and students, mostly. He quickly found the book he was looking for, read the first few lines,

Tintomara! Two things are white Innocence-Arsenic and put it back on the shelf. A bad feeling. It reminded him of his earlier life.

He had loved this book, used it in his class. Reading the first few words made him long for his reading chair. And the reading chair was supposed to be in a house that was his, a house filled with books, and he should have a job again and he should and he would. But he had found love, and that dictated his life nowadays. No reading chair.

He rubbed his hands together as if to erase the book they had been holding, and walked into an adjacent reading room.

There was a long table with people reading. Words, words, words. At the very back of the room there was a young man in a leather coat. He had tipped the chair back and was flipping uninterestedly through a book of photographs. Hakan moved in his direction, pretended to be interested in a shelf of geology books, glancing now and then at the youth. Finally the boy lifted his gaze and met Hakan's, raised his eyebrows in a question: Want to?

No, he didn't want to. The youth was around fifteen years old, with a flat, Eastern European face, pimples and narrow, deeply set eyes. Hakan shrugged and walked out of the room.

Outside the main entrance the youth caught up with him, gestured with his thumb and asked "got a light?" Hakan shook his head. "Don't smoke," he said in English.

"OK."

The boy pulled out a lighter, lit his cigarette, and stared at him through the smoke. "What you like?"

"No, I…"

"Young, you like young?"

He pulled away from the youth, away from the main entrance where anyone could come walking by. He needed to think. He hadn't expected it to be this straightforward. It had only been a kind of game, to check if what Gert had said was true.

The youth followed him, came up right next to him by the stone wall.

"How young? Eight or nine? Is difficult, but-"

"No!"

Did he really look like such a fucking pervert? Stupid thought. Neither Ove nor Torgny had looked particularly… remarkable. Normal

guys with normal jobs. Only Gert, who lived on the proceeds of a huge inheritance from his father and could indulge himself in whatever he wanted. After multiple international trips he had acquired a truly appalling appearance. A flaccid mouth, glazed eyes.

The boy stopped talking when Hakan raised his voice, still studying him through narrowed eyes. Took a puff on his cigarette, then dropped it on the ground and crushed it under his foot, stretched out his arms.

"What?"

"No, I just…"

The boy took half a step closer.

"What?"

"I… maybe… twelve."

"Twelve? You like twelve?"

"I… yes."

"Boy."

"Yes."

"OK. You wait. Number Two." Excuse me?

"Number two. Toilet."

"Oh. Yes."

"Ten minutes."

The boy zipped his leather jacket and disappeared down the steps.

Twelve years old. Booth number two. Ten minutes.

This was really, really dumb. If a policeman came by. They must know about these transactions after all these years. That would be the end. They would connect him to the job he had done yesterday and that would be the end. He couldn't do this.

Go over to the bathroom and take a look, that's all.

The bathroom was empty. A urinal and three booths. Number two had to be the one in the middle. He put a one crown coin in the lock, turned it, and walked in. Closed the door behind him and sat down on the toilet seat.

The walls of the booth were covered with scribbles. Not at all what you would expect from the City Library clientele. Here and there a literary quotation:

Harry me, Marry me, Bury me, Bite me

but mostly obscene drawings and jokes:

Killing for peace is like fucking for virginity.

Here I sit

I am elated

Came to shit

Ejaculated

as well as an impressive selection of telephone numbers that one could call for a variety of interests. A few of them had the sign and were probably authentic. Not just someone trying to have a joke at someone else's expense.

So, now he had checked it out. He should leave. Never knew what the young man in the leather jacket would think of. He stood up, urinated into the toilet, sat down again. Why had he urinated? He didn't really need to go. He knew why he had done it.

Just in case.

The outer door opened. He held his breath. Something in him hoped it was a policeman. A large male policeman who would kick open the door to the booth and beat him up with the baton before he arrested him.

Low voices, soft steps, a light knock on the door.

"Yes?"

Another knock. He swallowed a glob of saliva and unlocked the door.

A boy about eleven or twelve stood there. Blond hair, heart-shaped face. Thin lips and large, blue eyes devoid of expression. A red puffy jacket that was a little too big for him. Right behind him was the older boy in the leather coat. He held up five fingers.

"Five hundred."

The way he said "hundred" sounded like "chundred."

Hakan nodded and the older boy carefully guided the younger one into the booth and shut the door. Wasn't five hundred a bit much? Not that it mattered but…

He looked at the boy he had bought. Hired. Was he on drugs? Proba-blv. The look in his eyes was far away, unfocused. The boy stood pressed up against the door half a meter away. He was so short that Hakan didn't need to tilt his head to look into his eyes.

"Hello."

The boy didn't answer, just shook his head, pointed to his groin, and

made a gesture with his finger: unzip your pants. He obeyed. The boy sighed, made a new gesture: take out your penis.

His cheeks grew hot as he obeyed the boy. That was how it was. He was following the boy's orders. He had no will of his own. He wasn't the one doing this. His small penis was not in the least erect, hardly made it down to the toilet lid. A slight tickle when the head touched the cold surface.

He narrowed his eyes, tried to imagine the boy's gestures so they more closely resembled his beloved. It didn't work so well. His beloved was beautiful. This boy, who now bent down and pushed his head toward his groin, was not. His mouth.

There was something wrong with the boy's mouth. He put his hand to the boy's forehead before he reached his goal. "Your mouth?"

The boy shook his head and pushed on his hand so he could continue his work. But now Hakan couldn't. He had heard about this kind of thing. He put his thumb against the boy's upper lip and pulled up. The boy had no teeth. Someone had knocked or pulled them out in order to make him more fit for his work. The boy stood up, a frothy, whispering sound as he crossed his arms across his chest in the puffy jacket. Hakan tucked his penis back into his pants, zipped them, and stared onto the floor. Not like this. Never like this.

Something came into his line of vision. An outstretched hand. Five fingers. Five hundred.

He took the pack of bills out of his pocket and handed it to the boy. The boy took off the rubber band, ran his pointed finger across the ten pieces of paper, replaced the rubber band and held the packet aloft. "Why?"

"Because… your mouth. Maybe you can… get new teeth." The boy smiled a little. Not a wide grin, but the corners of his mouth pulled up. Perhaps he was only smiling at Hakan's folly. The boy thought for a moment, then took a thousand kronor note from the packet and put it in his outer pocket. Put the rest in an inner pocket. Hakan nodded.

The boy unlocked the door, hesitated. Then he turned to Hakan, stroked his cheek.

"Sank you."

Hakan put his hand over the boy's, held it against his cheek, and closed his eyes. If only someone could.

"Forgive me."

"Yes."

The boy pulled his hand back. Its warmth was still on Hakan's cheek when the outer door banged shut after the boy. He stayed in the booth, staring at something someone had written on the wall.

Whoever you are. I love you.

And right underneath it someone had written,

Do you want some cock?

The warmth had long since left his cheek when he made his way back to the subway and bought an evening paper for his last few kronor. Four pages were devoted to the murder. Among others was a picture of the hollow where he had done it. It was full of lighted candles, flowers. He studied the picture and didn't feel much.

If you only knew. Please forgive me, but if you only knew.

On his way home from school Oskar stopped under the two windows of her apartment. The closest one was only three meters from his own room. The blinds were drawn and the windows formed light gray rectangles against the dark gray concrete walls. Looked suspicious. Probably they were a… strange kind of family.

Drug addicts.

Oskar looked around, then walked in the front door and looked at the list of names. Five surnames neatly spelled out in plastic letters. One line was empty. The name that had stood there before, hellberg, had been there so long you could read it from the dark contours left against a sun-bleached background. But no new letters, not even a note.

He jogged up the two sets of stairs to her door. Same thing there. Nothing. The name plate attached to the mail slot was blank, the way it looked when an apartment was unoccupied.

Maybe she had been lying. Maybe she didn't live here at all. But she had walked in this entrance. Sure. But she could have done that anyway. If she-

The front door downstairs opened.

He turned away from her door and quickly walked down the stairs. Let it not be her. She would think that he was somehow… But it wasn't her.

Halfway down the stairs Oskar met a man he had never seen before. A short, stocky man who was half bald and smiled in an unnaturally wide way. The man saw Oskar, lifted his head and nodded, his mouth still pulled up in that clownlike smile.

Oskar paused in the front entrance, listening. Heard keys pulled out and a door open. Her door. That man was probably her dad. Granted, Oskar had never seen a real life drug addict, but that man looked sick. No wonder she was strange.

Oskar went down to the playground, sat on the edge of the sandbox, and kept an eye on her window to see if the blinds had been pulled up. Even the bathroom window looked like it had been covered on the inside. The frosted glass was much darker than in other peoples' apartments.

He took his Rubik's Cube out from his pocket. It creaked and squeaked as he turned it. A copy. The original was much more supple, but cost five times as much and could only be found in the well-guarded toy store in Vallingby.

Two sides had been completed, all one color, and on a third side only one little bit was out of place. But he couldn't get it there without destroying the two completed sides. He had saved an article from Expressen that described the various kinds of turns-that was how he had managed to solve two sides, but after that it was much harder.

He looked at the Cube, tried to think out the solution instead of just turning. He couldn't. His brain couldn't manage it. He pressed the Cube against his forehead, as if to delve into its interior. No answer. He placed the Cube on a corner of the sandbox half a meter away. Stared at it. Glide, glide, glide.

Telekenesis, that was the name for it. In the USA they had run experiments. There were people who could do stuff like that. ESP. Extra Sensory Perception. Oskar would have given anything to be able to do something like that.

And maybe… maybe he could.

Today at school hadn't been so bad. Tomas Ahlstedt had tried to pull his chair out in the cafeteria, but he had seen it in time. That was all. He

was going to go out into the forest with his knife, to that tree. Make a more serious attempt. Not get all carried away like yesterday.

Cut into the tree calmly and methodically, hack it apart and concentrate on Tomas Ahlstedt's face in his mind the whole time. But… there was the whole thing with the murderer. The real murderer who was out there somewhere.

No, he had to wait with this until the murderer was caught. On the other hand, if there was a normal murderer then the experiment was useless. Os-kar looked at the Cube, imagined a line connecting his eyes to the Cube.

Glide, glide, glide.

Nothing happened. Oskar stuffed the Cube into his pocket, got up, brushed some sand from his pants, and looked at her window. The blinds were still drawn.

He went inside to work on his scrapbook, to cut out and paste the articles about the Vallingby murder. There would probably be a lot of them, in time. Especially if it happened again. He was hoping a little that that would be the case. Hopefully in Blackeberg.

So the police would come to his school, the teachers would be serious, concerned, that kind of atmosphere. He liked it.

Never again. No matter what you say."

"Hakan…"

"No. It's just-no."

"I'll die."

"Then die."

"Do you mean that?"

"No. I don't. But you could do it yourself."

"I'm still too weak."

"You're not weak."

"Too weak for-that."

"Well, then I don't know. But I won't do it again. It's so-horrible, so…

"I know."

"You don't know. It's different for you, it is…"

"What do you know about how it is for me?"

"Nothing, but at least you're…"

"Do you think I like it?"

"I don't know. Do you?"

"No."

"No, of course not. Well, anyway… I'm not doing it again. Maybe you've others who have helped you who have been… better at this than me."

"Have you?" "Yes." I see. "Hakan?" "I love you." "Yes."

"Do you love me, even one little bit?" "Would you do it again if I said I loved you?" "No."

"I should love you anyway, you mean." "You only love me to the extent I help you stay alive." "Yes. Isn't that what love is?"

"If only I thought you would love me even if I didn't do it…" "Yes?"

"… maybe I would do it again." "I love you." "I don't believe you."

"Hakan. I can manage for a few more days but then…" "Make sure you start to love me, then."

Friday night at the Chinese restaurant. It's a quarter to eight and the whole gang is there. Everyone except Karlsson who's at home watching the TV quiz show Nutcrackers and just as well. No great loss there. He's the sort who'll probably roll in when everything's over and tell you how many questions he knew the answers to.

In the corner table for six nearest the door there's Lacke, Morgan, Larry, and Jocke. Jocke and Lacke are talking about what kinds of fish can live in both fresh and salt water. Larry is reading the evening paper and Morgan is swinging his leg in time to some song other than the Chinese Muzak softly piped in through the hidden loudspeakers.

On the table in front of them are some more or less full glasses of beer. Their faces are hanging on the wall above the bar.

The restaurant owner was forced to flee China in conjunction with the cultural revolution, on account of his satirical caricatures of people in power. Now he has instead transferred his talents to his regulars. On the wall there are twelve tenderly drawn felt-pen sketches of them.

All the guys. And Virginia. The pictures of the guys are close-ups, where the irregularities of their physiognomies have been exaggerated.

Larry's lined, almost hollowed-out face, and a pair of enormous ears that stick straight out from his head, make him look like a friendly but starving elephant.

In Jocke's picture it is his large eyebrows that meet in the middle that have been emphasized and transformed into a rose bush and a bird, perhaps a nightingale.

Because of his style, Morgan has been given features from the young Elvis. Big sideburns and a "Hunka hunka burnin looooove, baby" expression. The head is perched on a small body holding a guitar, in Elvis-pose. Morgan is more pleased with this picture than he wants to admit.

Lacke looks mostly worried. Here the eyes have been enlarged and given an intensified expression of suffering. He has a cigarette in his mouth and its smoke has gathered into a rain cloud above his head.

Virginia is the only one who appears in full body. In an evening gown, shining like a star in her sparkling sequins, posed with outstretched arms, surrounded by a flock of pigs gazing at her in bewilderment. At Virginia's request the restaurant owner has made a duplicate of this picture that Virginia has taken home.

Then there are a few others. Some who aren't part of the gang. Some who have stopped coming. A few who have died.

Charlie fell down the stairs in his building on his way home from the restaurant one night. Cracked his head on the mottled concrete. The Gherkin got cirrhosis of the liver and died of an internal hemorrhage.

One evening a few weeks before he died he had pulled his shirt up and showed them a red spider's web of blood vessels branching out from his navel. "Damn expensive tattoo," he said, and he died soon thereafter. They had honored his memory by putting his picture on the table and making toasts to it all evening.

There is no picture of Karlsson.

This Friday night is going to be the last one they will ever have all together. Tomorrow one of them will be gone forever. One more picture will be nothing more than a memory. And nothing will ever be the same.

Larry lowered the newspaper, put his reading glasses on the table and sipped some beer from his glass. "I'll be damned. What's going on inside the head of a person like that?"

He showed them the paper with the headline children in shock above a picture of the Vallingby school and a small inset of a middle-aged man. Morgan glanced at the paper, pointed.

"Is that the guy?"

"No, it's the principal."

"Looks like a murderer to me. Just the type."

Jocke stretched a hand out for the paper. Let me see.

Larry gave him the paper and Jocke held it at arm's length, studied the snapshot.

"Looks like a conservative politician to me, guys."

Morgan nodded.

"That's what I'm talking about."

Jocke held up the newspaper to Lacke so he could see the photograph.

"What do you think?"

Lacke looked at it reluctantly.

"Ah, I don't know. I get creeped out by that kind of thing."

Larry breathed on his glasses and polished them against his shirt.

"They'll get him. You don't get away with something like that."

Morgan tapped his fingers on the table, stretched his hand out for the paper.

"How did Arsenal do?"

Larry and Morgan switched to talking about the currently pathetic state of English soccer. Jocke and Lacke sat quietly, nursing their beers, lighting cigarettes. Then Jocke started in on the whole cod thing, how the cod was going to die out in the Baltic. The evening wore on.

Karlsson didn't turn up, but just before ten another man came in, someone none of them had ever seen before. The conversation was more intense at this hour and no one noticed him until the man was sitting alone at a table at the far end of the room.

Jocke leaned toward Larry.

"Who's that?"

Larry looked over discreetly, shook his head.

"Don't know."

The new guy got a big whisky and quickly emptied it, ordered another. Morgan blew air out through his lips with a low whistle.

"This guy means business."

The man did not appear to notice that he was being observed. He simply sat motionless at the table, studying his hands, looking like all the trouble in the world had been stuffed into a backpack and strapped onto him. He quickly downed his second whisky and ordered a third.

The waiter leaned down and said something to him. The man dug around in his pocket and showed him a few bills. The waiter made a gesture as if to say that wasn't what he meant, when of course that was exactly what he had meant, and then he walked off to fill the man's order.

It wasn't surprising to them that the man's credit had been in question. His clothes were wrinkled and stained as if he had slept in them, in some uncomfortable place. The ring of hair around his bald spot was straggly and hung halfway to his ears. The face was dominated by a large pink nose and a jutting chin. Between them were a pair of small, plump lips that moved from time to time as if he were talking to himself. His expression didn't change at all when the whisky was placed in front of him.

The gang returned to the subject they had been discussing: if Ulf Adel-sohn would be worse than Gosta Bohman had been. Only Lacke looked over at the lone man from time to time. After a while, when the man was on his fourth drink, he said, "Shouldn't we… ask him if he wants to join us?"

Morgan glanced at the man, who had sunk together even more. "No, why? What's the use? His wife has left him, the cat is dead and life is hell. I know it all already."

"Maybe he'll offer to buy us a round."

"That's a different story. Then he's allowed to have cancer as well." Morgan shrugged. "It's OK by me."

Lacke looked at Larry and Jocke. They made small gestures of assent and Lacke got up and walked over to the man's table.

"Hello."

The man looked up at Lacke, bleary-eyed. The glass in front of him was almost empty. Lacke rested his hands on the chair on the other side of the table and leaned down toward the man.

"We were just wondering if maybe… you wanted to join us?"

The man shook his head slowly and made a befuddled, dismissive gesture, brushing the suggestion away.

"No, thank you, but why don't you sit down?"

Lacke pulled the chair out and sat down. The man drained the last of his drink and waved the waiter over.

"You want something? It's on me."

"In that case. Same as you, then."

Lacke didn't want to say the word "whisky" since it sounded presumptuous to ask someone to buy you something expensive like that, but the man only nodded, and when the waiter came closer he made a V-sign with his fingers and pointed to Lacke. Lacke leaned back in the chair. How long had it been since he had last ordered whisky in a bar? Three years? At least.

The man showed no signs of wanting to start a conversation, so Lacke cleared his throat and said, "Some cold weather we're having."

Yes.

"Could snow soon."

"Mmm."

Then the whisky arrived and made further conversation unnecessary for the moment. Even Lacke got a double, and he felt the eyes of the gang burning in his back. After a few sips he raised the glass.

"Cheers. And thanks."

"Cheers."

"You live around here?"

The man stared out into space, as if this was something he had never thought about before. Lacke couldn't determine if the nodding of his head indicated an answer to the question or if it was part of an inner dialogue.

Lacke took another sip and decided that if the man didn't answer the next question then he wanted to be left alone, not talk to anyone. If that was the case, Lacke would take his drink and return to the others. He had done his duty. He hoped the man wouldn't answer.

"So, then. What do you do to make the time go by?"

The man furrowed his brow and the corners of his mouth were lifted spasmodically into a grin, then relaxed again.

"… I help out a little."

"I see. With what kind of thing?"

A spark of alertness flashed under the man's transparent cornea. The man looked straight at Lacke, who felt a shiver at the base of his spine, as if a black ant had bitten him just above the tailbone.

Then he rubbed his hand over his eyes and pulled a few hundred kro-nor bills out of his pocket, laid them on the table and stood up.

"Excuse me, I have to…"

"OK. Thanks for the drink."

Lacke raised his glass to his host but he was already on his way over to the coat rack. He got his coat down with clumsy hands and walked out. Lacke stayed put with his back to the gang, looking at the heap of bills in front of him. Five one hundred kronor bills. A tumbler of whisky cost sixty kronor and this outing had consisted of a total of five, maybe six.

Lacke looked surreptitiously to the side. The waiter was busy settling the bill of an older couple, the only dining customers. While Lacke stood up he crumpled one of the notes into a ball, slipped it into his pocket and walked back to his regular table.

Halfway there he turned back, emptied the remaining whisky from the man's glass into his own, and took it with him.

A successful evening all around.

“But Nutcrackers is on tonight!"

"Yeah, but I'll be back for it."

"It starts in… half an hour."

"I know."

"Where are you going?"

"Out."

"Well, you don't have to watch Nutcrackers, of course. I can watch it by myself. If you really have to go out."

"But… I'll be back for it."

"I see. I guess I'll wait on heating up the crepes."

"No, you can… I'll be back later."

Oskar was torn. Nutcrackers was one of the highlights of their TV week. Mom had made crepes with shrimp filling to eat in front of the TV. He knew he was disappointing her by going out instead of sitting here… and sharing the anticipation with her.

But he had been standing by the window since it got dark and just now he had seen the girl come out of the building next door and walk down toward the playground. He had immediately pulled back from the window. He didn't want her to think that he…

Therefore he had waited five minutes before putting on his clothes and heading out. He didn't put on a hat.

He couldn't see her on the playground. She was probably sitting high up on the jungle gym somewhere, like yesterday. The blinds in her window were still drawn but there was light coming from the apartment. Except for the bathroom window, a dark square.

Oskar sat down on the sandbox ledge and waited. Like he was waiting for an animal to come out of its hole. He was simply planning to sit here for a while. And if the girl didn't come out he would go back in again, play it cool.

He got out his Rubik's Cube, started to twist it in order to have something to do. He had gotten tired of having that one corner piece to

worry about and so he mixed up the cube completely so he could start over.

The creak from the Cube was amplified in the cold air; it sounded like a small machine. In the corner of his eye Oskar saw the girl get up from her perch in the monkey bars. He kept working, creating a new one-colored side. The girl stood still. He felt a flicker of worry in his stomach but took no notice of her.

"You here again?"

Oskar lifted his head, pretending to be surprised, let a few seconds pass and then:

"You again."

The girl said nothing and Oskar twisted the Cube again. His fingers were stiff. It was hard to tell the colors apart in the dark and so he only worked with the white side that was easiest to differentiate.

"Why are you sitting here?"

"Why are you up there?"

"I came here to be by myself."

"Me too."

"So why don't you go home?"

"You go home. I've lived here longer than you."

Take that. The white side was done now and it was harder to keep going. The other colors were one big dark gray blur. He kept moving pieces, at random.

The next time he looked up the girl was standing on the railing and getting ready to jump. Oskar felt a quiver in his tummy when she hit the ground; if he had tried the same jump he would have hurt himself. But the girl landed as softly as a cat, walked over to him. He turned back to the Cube. She stopped right in front of him.

"What's that?"

Oskar looked up at the girl, at the Cube, then back at the girl.

"This?"

"Yes."

"You don't know?"

"No."

"It's a Rubik's Cube."

"What did you say?"

This time Oskar overenunciated the words.

"Ru-bik's Cube."

"And what's that?"

Oskar shrugged.

"A toy."

"A puzzle?"

"Yes."

Oskar held the Cube out to her.

"Want to try it?"

She took the Cube from his hand, turned it, examined it from all sides. Oskar laughed. She looked like a monkey examining a piece of fruit.

"You really haven't seen one before?"

"No. What do you do?"

"Like this…"

Oskar got the Cube back and the girl sat down next to him. He showed her how you turned it and that the point was to get the sides to be one color. She took the Cube and started to turn it.

"Can you see the colors?"

"Naturally."

He snuck glances at her while she was working on the Cube. She was wearing the same pink top as yesterday and he couldn't understand why she wasn't freezing. He was starting to get cold from sitting still, even though he was wearing his jacket.

Naturally.

She talked funny too, like a grown-up. Maybe she was older than him, even though she was so puny. Her thin white throat jutted out of her turtleneck top, merged with a sharp jaw bone. Like a mannequin.

But now the wind blew in Oskar's direction and he swallowed, breathed through his mouth. The mannequin stank.

Doesn't she ever take a bath?

The smell was worse than old sweat; it was closer to the smell that came when you removed the bandage from an infected wound. And her hair…

When he dared to take a closer look at her-she was completely absorbed by the Cube-he noticed that her hair was caked together and fell around her face in matted tufts and clumps. As if she had put glue or… mud in it.

While he was studying her, he happened to breathe in through his nose and had to suppress the urge to vomit. He got up, walked over to the swings, and sat down. Couldn't be close to her. The girl didn't seem to care.

After a while he got up and walked over to where she was sitting, still preoccupied with the Cube.

"Hey there, I have to go home now."

"Mmm…"

"The Cube…"

The girl paused. Hesitated for a moment, then held the Cube out to him without saying anything. Oskar took it, looked at her and then handed it back.

"You can keep it until tomorrow."

She didn't take it.

"No."

"Why not?"

"I may not be here tomorrow."

"Until the day after tomorrow, then. But you can't have it for longer than that."

She thought about it. Took the Cube.

"Thanks. I'll probably be here tomorrow."

"Here?"

"Yes."

"OK. Bye."

"Bye."

As Oskar turned and left he heard softs creaks from the Cube. She was going to stay out here in her thin top. Her mother and father must be… different, letting her go out dressed like that. You could end up with a bladder infection.

Where have you been?" "Out."

"You're drunk." "Yes." "We agreed you wouldn't do this anymore."

"You agreed. What's that?"

"A puzzle. You know it isn't good for you-"

"Where did you get it?"

"Borrowed it. Hakan, you have to-"

"Borrowed-from who?"

"Hakan. Don't be like this."

"Make me happy, then."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Let me touch you."

"Alright, but on one condition."

"No. No, no. Not that."

"Tomorrow. You have to."

"No. Not one more time. What do you mean, 'borrowed'? You never borrow anything. What is it anyway?"

"A puzzle."

"Don't you have enough puzzles? You care more about your puzzles than you do about me. Puzzles. Cuddles. Puzzles. Who gave it to you? Who gave it to you?, I said!"

"Hakan, stop it."

"What do you need me for anyway?"

"I love you."

"No, you don't."

"Yes. In a way."

"There is no such thing. You either love someone or you don't."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"In that case I have to think about it."

SATURDAY

24, October

"The suburban mystique is the absence of riddles."

– Johan Eriksson

Three thick bundles of advertising catalogs lay outside Oskar's apartment door on Saturday morning. Mom helped him fold them. Three different pages in every package, four hundred and eighty packages total. For each package he made about fourteen ore. In the worst case he only got one page to deliver, yielding seven ore. In the best case scenario (or the worst in a way, since it involved so much folding prep) he received up to five pages a package yielding twenty-five ore.

He was helped by the fact that the large apartment buildings were included in his district. He could dispatch up to one hundred and fifty packages there per hour. The whole round took about four hours, including a trip home in between to fill up on packets. If it was a day when there were five papers per packet he needed to go home twice.

The packets had to be delivered by Tuesday at the latest but he usually did it all on Saturday. Got it over and done with.

Oskar sat on the kitchen floor, his mom at the kitchen table. It wasn't fun work but he liked the chaos he made in the kitchen. The large mess that bit by bit transformed into order, into two, three, four overstuffed paper bags full of neatly folded packets.

His mom put one more pile of packets into one of the bags, then shook her head.

"Well, I really don't like it." "What?"

"You can't… I mean, if someone were to open the door or something… I don't want you to…" "No, why would I?"

"There are so many crazy people in the world." "Yeah."

They had this conversation, in some form or another, almost every Saturday. This Friday evening his mom had said she didn't think he should make any deliveries this Saturday, on account of the murderer. But Oskar had promised to scream to high heaven if anyone so much as said "hi" to him, and then his mom had given in.

No one had ever tried to invite him in or anything like that. Once an old guy had come out and yelled at him for filling his mailbox "with this garbage" but since then he had just avoided putting anything in the man's mailbox.

The man would have to live without knowing he could get a haircut with highlights for that special event for only two hundred kronor at the hair salon this week.

By eleven-thirty all the pages were folded and he set off on his rounds. There was no point in stuffing the bags into the garbage can or something; they always called and checked up on him, made random tests. They had made that perfectly clear when he called up and signed up for the job six months ago. Maybe it was a bluff, but he didn't dare take the chance. And anyway, he didn't have anything against this kind of work. Not for the first two hours, at least.

He would pretend, for example, that he was an agent on a secret mission, out to spread propaganda against the enemy occupying the country. He sneaked through the hallways, on guard against enemy soldiers who could very well be dressed up as old ladies with dogs.

Or else he pretended that each building was a hungry animal, a dragon with six mouths whose only source of nourishment was the virgin flesh-made to look like advertisements-that he fed it with. The packet screamed in his hands when he pressed it into the jaws of the beast.

The final two hours-like today, just after the second round-he was overcome by a kind of numbness. The legs kept walking and the arms kept moving mechanically.

Put the bag down, place six packets under his arm, open the downstairs door, arrive at the first apartment, open the mail slot with his left arm, put a packet in with his right hand. Second door, and so on…

When he finally came to his own complex, to the girl's door, he stopped outside and listened. He heard a radio on, low. That was all. He put the packet in the mail slot and waited. No one came to get it.

In the usual way, he ended with his own door, put a packet in the mail slot, unlocked the door, picked up the packet, and threw it in the garbage.

Done for the day. Sixty-seven kronor richer.

Mamma had gone to Vallingby to do the shopping. Oskar had the apartment to himself. Didn't know what to do with it.

He opened the cabinets under the kitchen sink, peeked in. Kitchen utensils and whisks and an oven thermometer. In another drawer he found pens and paper, recipe cards from a cooking series that his mom had started subscribing to, and then stopped since the recipes called for such expensive ingredients.

He continued on into the living room, opened the cabinets there.

His mom's crochet-or was it knitting?-things. A folder with bills and receipts. Photo albums that he had looked at a thousand times. Old magazines with unsolved crossword puzzles. A pair of reading glasses in their case. A sewing kit. A little wooden box with his and his mom's passports, their government-issued identification tags (he had asked to be allowed to wear his but his mom had said only if there was a war) a photograph and a ring.

He went through the cabinets and drawers as if he were looking for something without knowing exactly what it was. A secret. Something that would change things. To suddenly find a piece of rotting meat in the back of a cabinet. Or an inflated balloon. Anything. Something unfamiliar.

He took out the photograph and looked at it.

It was from his christening. His mom was holding him in her arms, looking into the camera. She was thin back then. Oskar was dressed in a white gown with long blue ribbons. Next to his mom was his dad, looking uncomfortable in his suit. Looked like he didn't know what to do with his hands and had therefore let them fall stiffly by his side, almost like he was standing at attention. Was looking straight at the baby. The sun was shining on the three of them.

Oskar brought the image closer to his eyes, studied his dad's expression. He looked proud. Proud and very… unpracticed. A man who was happy to be a father but who didn't know how to act. What you did. You could have thought it was the first time he had seen the baby, even though the christening was a full six months after Oskar's birth.

His mom, however, held Oskar in a confident, relaxed way. Her look into the camera was not so much proud as… suspicious. Don't come any closer, her look said. I'll bite you in the nose.

His dad was leaning forward slightly, as if he wanted to get closer without really daring to. It was not a picture of a family. It was a picture of a boy and his mother. And next to them there was a man, presumably the father, judging by his facial expression. But Oskar loved his dad, and so did his mom. In a way. In spite of everything. How everything had turned out.

Oskar took out the ring and read the inscription: Erik 22/4 1967.

They had divorced when Oskar was two. Neither of them had found another partner. "It just didn't work out that way." They had both used the same expression.

He replaced the ring, closed the wooden box, and put it back on the shelf. Wondered if his mom ever looked at the ring, why she kept it. It was made of solid gold. Probably ten grams worth. Worth about four hundred.

Oskar put his jacket on again, walked out into the yard. It was starting to get dark even though it was only four o'clock. Too late to go out into the forest.

Tommy walked by outside the building, stopped when he saw Oskar.

"Hi."

"Hi."

"Anything going on?"

"I don't know… Delivering flyers, and stuff."

"Any money in that kind of thing?"

"Some. Seventy, eighty kronor. Each time."

Tommy nodded.

"You want to buy a Walkman?"

"Don't know. What kind?"

"Sony Walkman. Fifty."

"New?"

"Yup. In the box. With ear phones. An even fifty."

"I have no money on me. Right now."

"I thought you said you made seventy or eighty doing that stuff."

"Yeah, but I'm paid by the month. One more week."

"OK. You can have it now and then I'll get the money from you later."

"Yeah…"

"OK. Go and wait over there and I'll get it."

Tommy gestured to the playground and Oskar walked over and sat down on a bench. Got up and walked over to the jungle gym. No girl. He quickly walked back to the bench and sat down, as if he had done something forbidden.

After a while Tommy came back and handed over the box.

"Fifty in a week-OK?"

"Mm."

"What are you listening to?"

"KISS."

"What do you have by them?"

"Alive."

"You don't have Destroyer? You can borrow it from me if you like. Tape it."

"Great."

Oskar had the double album Alive by KISS, had bought it a few months ago but never listened to it. Mostly looked at the pictures from their concerts. Their made-up faces were cool. Like live horror figures. And "Beth," the one where Peter Criss sang, he actually liked, but all the other songs were too… there was no melody or anything. Maybe Destroyer was better.

Tommy got up to leave. Oskar squeezed the box.

"Tommy?"

"Yeah?"

"That guy. Who was killed. Do you know… how he was murdered?"

"Yeah. He was strung up from a tree and had his throat slit."

"He wasn't… stabbed? Like the guy had stabbed him. In the chest, I mean."

"No, only his throat-phhhhhssst."

"OK."

"Anything else?"

"No." "See you."

"Yeah."

Oskar stayed put on the bench, thinking. The sky was dark purple, the first star-or was it Venus?-was already clearly visible. He got up and went in to hide the Walkman before his mom got back.

Tonight he would see the girl, get his Cube back. The blinds were still drawn. Did she really live there? What did they do in there all day? Did she have any friends?

Probably not.

Tonight-"

"What have you been doing?" "I took a shower." "You don't normally." "Hakan, tonight you have to…" "No, I told you."

"Please?"

"This isn't about… I'll do anything except that. Say the word. I'll do it. Take some of mine, for God's sake. Here. Here's a knife. No? OK, then I'll have to-"

"Stop it!"

"Why? I'd rather do this. Why did you take a shower? You smell like… soap."

"What do you want me to do?"

"I can't!"

"No."

"What are you going to do?"

"Do it myself."

"And you need to shower for that?"

"Hakan…"

"I would help you if it was anything else. Anything else, I…"

"Yeah, OK. Fine."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah."

"Be careful. I-was careful."

Kuala Lumpur, Phnom Penh, Mekong, Rangoon, Chungking…

Oskar looked at the photocopied map he had just filled out, weekend homework. The names told him nothing, were simply collections of letters. It gave him a certain feeling of satisfaction to sit and look them up in the geography book, to see that there actually were cities and rivers in just that place where they were marked on the photocopy.

Yes, he was going to memorize them and then his mom could test him. He would point to the dots and say the foreign names. Chungking, Phnom Penh. His mom would be impressed. And sure, it was kind of fun with all these strange names for places that were far away, but…

Why?

In fourth grade they had been given photocopies of Swedish geography. He had memorized everything back then too. He was good at that. But now?

He tried to recall the name of even one Swedish river.

Askan, Vaskan, Piskan…

Something along those lines. Atran, maybe. Yes. But where was it? No idea. And it would be the same thing with Chungking and Rangoon in a few years.

It's meaningless.

These places didn't even exist. And even if they did… he would never see them in person. Chungking? What would he do in Chungking? It was just a big white area and a little dot.

He looked at the straight lines that his scrawled letters were balancing on. It was school. That's all. This was school. They told you to do a lot of things and you did them. The whole thing had been invented so the teachers would be able to hand out photocopies. It didn't mean anything. He could just as well be writing Tjippiflax, Bubbelibang and Spitt on these lines. It would be equally meaningful.

The only difference actually would be that his teacher would say it was wrong. That it wasn't the correct name. Then she would point to the map and say "Look, here it says Chungking, not Tjippiflax." Pretty weak argument, since someone had made up the names in the geography book. Nothing spoke for it being true. And maybe the Earth really was flat, but this was being kept secret for some reason.

Ships falling over the edge. Dragons.

Oskar got up from the table. The photocopy was done, filled with letters that his teacher would accept. That was all.

It was past seven, maybe the girl had gone outside? He moved his face to the window and cupped his hands around it so he could see better in the dark. Wasn't there something moving down by the playground?

He went out into the hall. His mom was knitting or maybe crocheting out in the living room.

"Going out for a while."

"You're going out again? I thought I was supposed to test you."

"We can do that in a while."

"Wasn't it Asia this time?"

"What?"

"The worksheet you had. Isn't it Asia?"

"Yes, I think so. Chungking."

"Where is that? China?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know'? But-"

"I'll be back."

"Alright. Be careful. Are you wearing your hat?"

"Sure."

Oskar put the hat in his coat pocket and went out. Halfway to the playground his eyes had grown accustomed enough to the dark that he spotted the girl in her usual place on the jungle gym. He walked up and stood below her, his hands in his pockets.

She looked different today. Still the pink top-did she not have any other?-but her hair didn't look so matted. It lay smooth, black, slick against her head.

"Hey there."

"Hi."

"Hi."

He was never in his life going to say "hey there" to someone ever again. It sounded incredibly stupid. The girl stood up.

"Come up here."

"OK."

Oskar climbed up onto the structure until he was next to her, discreetly drawing air into his nose. She didn't stink anymore.

"Do I smell better today?"

Oskar blushed. The girl smiled and held something out to him. His Cube.

"Thanks for lending it to me."

Oskar took the Cube and looked at it. Looked again. Held it up to the light as best he could, turned it and examined it from all sides. It had been solved. All of the sides were a solid color.

"Did you take it apart?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like… did you take it apart… and then put the pieces back in the right place?"

"Can you do that?"

Oskar tested the pieces to see if they were loosened from having been taken apart. He had done that once, marveled at how few twists it took to lose one's movements and forget how to make the sides all one color again. The pieces had of course not been loose when he took it apart, but did she actually solve this thing?

"You must have taken it apart."

"No."

"But you've never even seen one of these before."

"No, it was fun. Thanks."

Oskar held the Cube up to his eyes, as if it could tell him what had happened. In some way he was sure she wasn't lying.

"How long did it take you?"

"Several hours. If I did it again it would probably go faster."

"Amazing."

"It's not so hard."

She turned toward him. Her pupils were so large that they almost filled the whole iris, the lights from the building reflected in the black surface and it looked like she had a distant city in her head.

The turtleneck sweater, pulled high onto her neck, further accentuated her soft features and she looked like… a cartoon character. Her skin, its quality-he could only compare it to a wooden butter knife that had been polished with the finest sandpaper until the wood was like silk.

Oskar cleared his throat.

"How old are you?"

"What do you think?"

"Fourteen, fifteen."

"Do I look it?"

"Yes. Or-no, but…"

"I'm twelve."

"Twelve!"

For crying out loud. She was probably younger than he was, since he was going to turn thirteen in a month.

"What month were you born?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know? But… when do you celebrate your birthday and that?"

"I don't celebrate it."

"But your mom and dad must know."

"No. My mom is dead."

"Oh. I see. How did she die?"

"I don't know."

"And doesn't your dad know?"

"No."

"So… you mean… you don't get any presents or stuff?"

She stepped closer to him. Her breath wafted onto his face and the city of light in her eyes was extinguished when she stepped into his shadow. Her pupils were two marble-sized holes in her head.

She's so sad. So very, very sad.

"No, I never get any presents. Ever."

Oskar nodded stiffly. The world around him had ceased to exist. Only those two holes, a breath away. Their breaths mingled and rose, dissipated.

"Do you want to give me a present?"

"Yes."

His voice was not even a whisper. Only an exhalation. The girl's face was close. His gaze was drawn to her butter-knife cheek.

That was why he didn't see her eyes change, how they narrowed, took on another expression. He didn't see how her upper lip drew back and revealed a pair of small, dirty white fangs. He only saw her cheek and while her mouth was nearing his throat he drew up his hand and stroked her face.

The girl froze for a moment, then pulled back. Her eyes resumed their former shape; the city of light was back.

"What did you do that for?"

"I'm sorry… I-"

"What did you do?"

Oskar looked at his hand, still holding the Cube, and relaxed his grip on it. He had been squeezing it so hard the corners had left deep imprints in his hand. He stretched it out toward her.

"Do you want it? You can have it."

She slowly shook her head.

"No. It's yours."

"What's… your name."

"Eli."

"My name is Oskar. What did you say your name was? Eli?"

"Yes."

The girl seemed suddenly restless. Her gaze flitted around as if she were looking for something, something she couldn't find.

"I'm… going now."

Oskar nodded. The girl looked him straight in the eyes for a few sec-

onds, then turned to go. She reached the top of the slide and hesitated. Then she sat down and slid to the bottom, started off toward her front door. Oskar squeezed the Cube.

"See you tomorrow?"

The girl stopped and said "Yes" in a low voice without turning, then kept going. Oskar watched her. She didn't go home, though; she walked through the archway that led to the street. Disappeared.

Oskar looked at the Cube again. Unbelievable.

He twisted a section one rotation, broke up the unity. Then he turned it back. Wanted to keep it like this. At least for a while.

Jocke Bengtsson was chuckling to himself on his way home from the movies. Damned funny film, The Charter Trip. Especially that part with the two guys running around the whole movie looking for Peppe's Bodega. When the one pushed his hungover friend in a wheelchair through Customs: "invalido." Damn, that was funny.

Maybe he should go off on a trip like that with one of the guys. But which one.

Karlsson was so boring he made the clocks stop; you'd get sick of him in two days. Morgan could get ugly when he had too much to drink and he was sure to do that when it was cheap. Larry was OK but way too sickly. In the end you'd have to push him around in a wheelchair. "Invalido."

No, Lacke was the only one who would do.

They could have a lot of fun down there for a week. But Lacke was poor as a church mouse, and could never afford it. He could sit and drink beers and smoke every night and that was totally cool by Jocke, but he'd never have the dough for a trip to the Canary Islands.

He may as well face the facts-none of the regulars at the Chinese restaurant were good travel companion material.

Could he go by himself?

Stig-Helmer had done it. Even though he was a total loser. Then he met Ole, and everything. Got together with a chick and all that. Nothing wrong with that. It was eight years since Maria had left him and taken the dog, and since then he had not known anyone in the biblical sense, not one single time.

Would anyone want him? Maybe. At least he didn't look as bad as Larry. Of course the booze was staking its claim in his face and body, even though he had managed to keep it under control to a certain extent. Today for example he hadn't had a single drop yet, even though it was almost nine o'clock. But now he was going to have a couple of gin and tonics before going down to the Chinese restaurant.

He'd have to think more about that trip. It would probably go the way of so much else these past few years: nothing. But you could always dream.

He walked along the park path between Holbergsgatan and Blacke-berg school. It was pretty dark, the streetlights stood about thirty meters apart and the Chinese restaurant glowed like a lighthouse up on the hill to the left.

Should he throw caution to the wind tonight and go directly up to the restaurant and… no. Too expensive. Then the others would think he had won the lottery or something and call him a cheapskate for not buying them a round. Better to go home and get started first.

He passed the commercial laundering center, the chimney with its single red eye, the muted rumble from inside.

One night when he was on his way home-drunk to the gills-he had experienced a kind of hallucination and seen the chimney detach itself and start gliding down the hill toward him, growling and hissing.

He had curled up on the path with his hands over his head, waiting for the attack. When he finally put his arms back down the chimney stood where it always was, magnificent and unmoving.

The streetlight nearest the Bjornsongatan underpass was broken and the path under the street a dark hole. If he had been drunk right now he would probably have walked up the stairs next to the underpass and gone up to Bjornsongatan, even though that was slightly longer. He could get such strange visions in the dark when he had had something to drink. Always slept with the light on for that reason. But right now he was stone sober.

He had a hankering to take the stairs anyway. The drunken visions had started to seep into his perception of the world even when he was sober. He stood still on the path and summed up the situation for himself:

"I'm starting to get soft in the head."

Let me make this clear to you, Jocke. If you don't get ahold of yourself and make it just that little bit further through the underpass, you won't make it to the Canary Islands either.

Why not?

Because you always jump ship at the first sign of a hurdle. The law of least resistance, in every situation. What makes you think you could manage to call a travel agent, get a new passport, buy things for your trip, and above all, take that step out into the unknown if you don't even have the guts to walk this short stretch?

You have a point. But so what? If I walk through the underpass, that means I'll make it to the Canary Islands, that it'll happen?

It makes me think you'll call and book the ticket tomorrow. Tenerife, Jocke, Tenerife.

He started to walk again, summoning images of sunny beaches and drinks with little umbrellas. Damn it, he was going. Wouldn't go down to the restaurant tonight, no. He would stay home and check the ads in the paper. Eight years. Fucking time to pull himself together.

He had just started to think about palm trees, whether or not there were palm trees in the Canary Islands, if he had seen any in the movie, when he heard the sound. A voice. He stopped in the middle of the underpass, listening. A moaning voice was coming from the side.

"Help me…"

His eyes were starting to get used to the dim light, but he could still only discern the contours of the leaves that had blown in and collected in heaps. It sounded like a child.

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

"Help me…"

He looked around. No one in sight. He heard a rustling in the dark, could see movement in the leaves.

"Please, help me."

He felt a strong desire to walk away. But that was impossible. A child had been hurt, had maybe been attacked by someone…

The murderer!

The Vallingby murderer had come to Blackeberg, but this time the victim had survived…

Oh, for heaven's sake.

He didn't want any part of this. He who was on his way to Tenerife and all. But what could he do? He took a few steps in the direction of the voice. The leaves crunched under his feet and now he could see the body. It was curled into a fetal position in the leaves.

Damn, damn.

"What happened?"

"Help me…"

Jocke's eyes were now fully accustomed to the dark and he could see the child stretch out a pale arm. The body was naked, probably raped. No. When he got close he saw that the child was not naked, was simply wearing a pink top. How old? Ten or twelve. Maybe he had been knocked down by his "friends." Or her. If it was a girl that was less likely.

He crouched down next to the girl and took her hand.

"What happened to you?"

"Help me. Lift me up."

"Are you hurt?"

"Yes."

"What happened?"

"Lift me up…"

"Is it your back?"

He had been drafted into the medical corps during his compulsory military training and knew you shouldn't lift people with neck or back injuries unless you secured their heads first.

"It's not your back, is it?"

"No. Lift me."

What the fuck was he supposed to do? If he took the child home to his apartment the police would think…

He would have to take him or her to the restaurant and call an ambulance from there. Yes. That was a plan. The child had a small, thin body- must be a girl-and even though he wasn't in the greatest shape he thought he could manage to carry her there.

"OK. I'll carry you to a place where we can call, alright?"

"Yes… thank you."

That "thank you" stung his heart. How could he have hesitated? What kind of bastard was he? Well, he had managed to keep his head and now

he was going to help the girl. He coaxed his left arm under her knees and put the other arm under her neck. "OK. Up we go." "Mmm."

She weighed almost nothing. It was incredibly easy to lift her up. Twenty-five kilos, at most. Maybe she was malnourished. Problems at home, or anorexia. Maybe a stepfather or something who abused her. Fucking pathetic.

The girl put her arms around his neck and leaned her cheek against his shoulder. He was going to manage this. "How does that feel?"

"Good."

He smiled. A feeling of warmth rushed through him. He was a good person, in spite of everything. He could imagine the others' faces when he came in, the girl in his arms. At first they would wonder what the fuck he was up to and then they would be more and more impressed. "Well done, Jocke," etc.

He turned to start walking up to the restaurant, consumed by his fantasies of a new life, the new start he was in the process of making, when he felt the pain in his throat. What the fuck? It felt like a bee-sting and his left hand wanted to go up and wave it away, examine it. But he couldn't drop the child.

Stupidly he tried to bend his head to see what it was, even though he naturally couldn't see his own throat from that angle. He couldn't bend his head anyway because the girl's jaw lay pressed against his chin. Her grip around his neck grew tighter and the pain stronger. Now he understood. "What the hell are you doing?"

He felt the girl's jaws working up and down against his chin as the pain at his throat grew more intense. A warm trickle of fluid ran down his chest. "Stop it!"

He let go of the girl. It wasn't a conscious thought, simply a reflex: must get this off my throat.

But the girl didn't fall. Instead she established an iron grip around his neck-good god how strong her little body was-and wrapped her legs around his hips.

She clung to him like four hands wrapped tightly around a doll, while her jaws continued to work.

Jocke grabbed her head and tried to pull it away from him but it was like trying to tear a fresh branch from a birch tree with your bare hands. Her head was, like, glued to him. Her grip on him was so strong that it pressed the breath from his lungs and didn't allow him to draw in fresh air.

He staggered backward, desperate for air.

The girl's jaws had stopped working on him; now he only heard a quiet lapping. She had not loosened her grip for a moment, quite the opposite. Her grip on him was even tighter now that she was sucking. A muted crunch and his chest radiated with pain. Several ribs had been broken.

He had no more air for screaming. He pummeled the girl's head with a few feeble blows as he staggered around in the dry leaves. The world was spinning. The distant street lamps danced like fireflies in front of his eyes.

He lost his balance and fell backward. The last sound he heard was the leaves crunching as they were crushed by his head. A microsecond later he hit the stone pavement and the world disappeared.

Oskar lay wide awake in his bed, staring at the wallpaper.

He and his mom had watched The Muppets but he had not followed the story at all. Miss Piggy had been angry about something and Kermit had been looking for Gonzo. One of the sour old men had fallen from the theater balcony-but the reason why he had done so had escaped Oskar. His thoughts had been elsewhere.

Then he and his mom had had hot cocoa and cinnamon buns. Oskar knew they had chatted but couldn't remember about what. Something about painting the kitchen sofa blue, maybe.

He stared at the wallpaper.

The whole wall that his bed was pushed up against was decorated with a photograph wallpaper depicting a forest meadow. Wide tree trunks and green leaves. He would sometimes lie in bed and dream up figures in the leaves nearest his head. There were two figures he always saw as soon as he looked. The others he had to try harder to summon forth.

Now the wall had developed another significance. On the other side, on the other side of the forest, there was… Eli. Oskar lay there with his hand pressed against the green surface and tried to imagine what the other side looked like. Was the room on the other side her bedroom? Was she also lying in her bed right now? He transformed the wall into Eli's cheek, stroked the green leaves, her soft skin.

Voices on the other side.

He stopped stroking the wallpaper, and listened. One high and one low voice. Eli and her father. It sounded like they were arguing. He pushed his ear against the wall to hear better. Damn it. If only he had had a glass. He didn't dare get up and get one because maybe they would stop talking before he got back.

What are they saying?

Eli's dad was the one who sounded angry. You could hardly hear Eli's voice at all. Oskar had to concentrate to catch the words. He only heard the occasional swear words and "… unbelievably cruel." Then there was a thud as if something had been knocked over. Had he hit her? Had he seen them when Oskar stroked Eli's cheek… could that be it?

Now Eli was talking. Oskar could not hear a word of what she was saying, only the soft tones of her voice as it rose and sank. Would she be talking that way if he had hit her? He couldn't hit her. Oskar would kill him if he hit her.

He wished he could vibrate himself through the wall, like Lightning, the superhero. Disappear through the wall, in through the forest and out the other side, see what was happening, if Eli needed help, comforting, anything.

Now it was quiet on the other side. Only the sound of his heart drumming out its sucking whirling beats in his ear.

He got up out of bed, went over to his desk, and poured out a number of erasers from a plastic cup. Took the cup back with him into bed and held the open end against the wall, the closed end against his ear.

The only thing he could hear was a distant clanking, hardly from the room next door. What were they doing? He held his breath. Suddenly there was a loud bang.

A gun shot!

He had taken out a gun and-no, it was the front door, slammed so hard the walls were ringing.

He jumped out of bed and walked over to the window. After a few seconds a man emerged. Eli's dad. He was carrying a bag in his hand and walked with quick, angry strides toward the exit, and disappeared from sight.

What should I do? Follow him? Why?

He went back to bed. It was only his imagination working overtime. Eli and her dad had argued, like Oskar and his mom sometimes. It even happened that his mom stepped out like that afterward if it had been really bad.

But not in the middle of the night.

His mom sometimes threatened to move out when she thought Oskar was being bad. Oskar knew she would never do it, and she knew he knew. Maybe Eli's dad had simply taken this game of threats a step further. Took off in the middle of the night with a bag and everything.

Oskar lay in his bed with his palms and forehead pressed against the wall.

Eli, Eli. Are you there? Has he hurt you? Are you sad? Eli…

There was a knock on Oskar's door and he flinched. For a terrible moment he thought it was Eli's dad coming in to take him on as well.

But it was his mom. She tiptoed into his room.

"Oskar? Are you asleep?"

"Mmm."

"I just have to say… about these new people… what neighbors. Did you hear them?"

"No."

"You must have heard them. He was screaming and banged that door like he was crazy. Good god. Sometimes I'm so relieved I don't have a man in my house. Poor woman. Have you seen her?"

"No."

"I haven't either. Well, I haven't seen him either for that matter. Blinds drawn all day. Probably alcoholics."

"Mom."

"Yes?"

"I want to sleep now."

"Yes, sorry, honey. I just got so… Good night. Sweet dreams."

"Mm."

His mom walked out and closed the door carefully behind her. Alcoholic? Yes, that seemed probable.

Oskar's dad drank too much from time to time. That was why he and mom weren't together anymore. Dad could have tantrums like that when he got too drunk. He never hit anyone but could scream so he got hoarse, bang doors, and break things.

Something in Oskar was cheered by this thought. Ugly, but still. If Eli's dad was an alcoholic then they had something in common, something they shared.

Oskar leaned his forehead and hands against the wall again.

Eli, Eli. I know how it is for you. I'm going to help you. I'm going to save you.

Eli…

The eyes were wide open, staring blindly toward the arched ceiling of the underpass. Hakan brushed a few dry leaves away, revealing the thin pink sweater Eli usually wore, now discarded on the man's chest. Hakan picked it up, at first intending to hold it up to his nose to smell it, but he stopped when he felt that the sweater was sticky.

He dropped it back onto the man's chest, then pulled out his hip flask and took three big swallows. The vodka shot down his throat in fiery flames, licking his stomach. The leaves crunched under his rear end as he sat down on the cold stones and looked at the dead man.

There was something wrong with his head.

He dug around in his bag, found his flashlight. Checked that no one was coming along the path, then turned on the flashlight and directed it toward the man. His face was a pale yellow-white in the beam of light, the mouth hung half-open as if he was about to say something.

Hakan swallowed. The thought that this man had been allowed closer to his beloved than he ever had revolted him. His hand fumbled for his flask, wanted to burn away his anguish, but he stopped himself.

The neck.

There was a wide red mark running around the man's neck like a necklace. Hakan leaned over him and saw the wound Eli had opened in order to get at the blood.

Lips against his skin.

– but that didn't explain the neck… lace…

Hakan turned the flashlight off, drew a deep breath, and involuntarily leaned back in the tight space so that the cement walls scraped against the bald spot in the back of his head. He clenched his teeth together in response to the stinging pain.

The skin on the man's neck had split because… because the head had been rotated 360 degrees. One full rotation. The spine had snapped.

Hakan closed his eyes, breathed slowly in and out to calm himself and to stop the impulse to get up and run far, far away from… all this. The cement wall pressed against his head, the stones underneath him. To the left and right, a path where people who would call the police could come walking along. And in front of him…

It is only a dead body.

Yes. But… the head.

He didn't like knowing that the head was loose. It could fall back, perhaps come off if he lifted the body. He curled up and rested his forehead on his knees. His beloved had done this. With bare hands.

He felt a tickle of nausea in the back of his throat when he imagined the sound it had made. The creaking when the head was twisted around. He didn't want to touch this body again. He would sit here. Like Belacqua at the foot of the Mountain of Purgatory, waiting for dawn, waiting for…

A few people came walking from the direction of the subway. Hakan lay down in the leaves, close to the dead man, pressed his forehead against the ice cold stone.

Why? Why do this… with the head?

The risk of infection. You could not allow it to reach the nervous system. The body had to be turned off. That was all he had been told. He had not understood it then, but he did now.

The steps grew quicker, the voices more distant. They were taking the stairs. Hakan sat up again, glancing at the contours of the dead, gaping face. Did that mean this body would have sat up and brushed the leaves off itself if it hadn't been… turned off?

A shrill giggle escaped him, fluttering like birdsong in the underpass He slapped his hand over his mouth so hard it hurt. The image. Of the corpse rising out of the leaves and sleepily brushing dead leaves from its jacket.

What was he going to do with the body?

Maybe eighty kilos of muscles, fat, bone that had to be disposed of. Ground up. Hacked up. Buried. Burned.

The crematorium.

Of course. Carry the body over there, break in, and do a little burnin on the sly. Or just leave it outside the gate like a foundling and hope thi their enthusiasm for burning was so great they would pop it in without bothering to call the police.

No. There was only one alternative. On his right the path continue on through the forest, toward the hospital, and down to the water.

He stuffed the bloody sweater under the man's coat, hung his bag over his shoulder and pushed his hands under the back and knees of th corpse. Got to his feet, staggered a little, regained his balance. Just as h had expected, the head fell back at an unnatural angle and the jaws shut with an audible click.

How far was it to the water? A few hundred meters maybe. And i someone came by? Nothing to do about that. Then it would be all over And in a way it would be a relief.

But no one came by and once he was safely down by the shore he crept- his skin steaming with sweat-out along the trunk of a weeping willow that grew almost horizontally over the water. With some rope, he had se-cured two large stones from the shore around the feet of the corpse.

With a slightly longer rope wound in a noose around the chest of the corpse he dragged it out as far as he could, then untied it.

He stayed there on the tree trunk for a while, his feet dangling slightly above the water, staring down into the black mirror, now less and less fre-quently disturbed by bubbles.

He had done it.

Despite the cold, drops of sweat ran down his forehead and stung his

eyes. His whole body ached from the strain but he had done it. The corpse lay right under his feet, hidden from the world. Did not exist. The bubbles had stopped rising to the surface and there was nothing… nothing to show that there was a dead body down there. A few stars twinkled in the water.