Let The Right One In Part 3

"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 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 b.e.s.t.i.a.l..." The tears welled up in her eyes. Oskar put his hand on hers. 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 b.e.s.t.i.a.l..." The tears welled up in her eyes. Oskar put his hand on hers.

"I won't won't go into the woods, Mom. I promise." His mother stroked his cheek. 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 Expressen and flipped through the pages. The crime filled four pages. 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 sc.r.a.pbook.

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 how had the murder been committed? If it had involved a large number of stab wounds on a p.r.o.ne body he had to seriously consider the possibility that his hands possessed a terrifying power. A power he would have to learn to control. had the murder been committed? If it had involved a large number of stab wounds on a p.r.o.ne 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. 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?. . . 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 extreme shock it indicated the body had been mutilated in some way. Usually they only wrote "shocked." 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 sc.r.a.pbook.

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 gla.s.s.

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. 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 La.s.se 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 s.h.i.+ny 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 La.s.se 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. La.s.se 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 bas.e.m.e.nt 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. La.s.se had sold a ca.s.sette 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 La.s.se 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?"

La.s.se 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."

La.s.se 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 La.s.se 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 La.s.se. It had ended with La.s.se s.h.i.+tting himself and giving Robban a black eye under his dark blue eye shadow. After that they had been more careful about scaring La.s.se.

Now La.s.se 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 f.u.c.k-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.

La.s.se'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?" La.s.se 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 bas.e.m.e.nt room was quiet. La.s.se 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 butcher him?" him?"

"Aaaah?" La.s.se 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 La.s.se 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?"