John Lindqvist - Let The Right One In aka Let Me In

Look at Ragnar."

Holmberg pointed in the direction of Vallingby plaza, where the falling snow was covering the cobblestones in gossamer. One of their regular alcoholics sat on a bench in the square without moving, wrapped in a large coat, while the snow slowly made him into a poorly proportioned snowman. Holmberg sighed.

"We'll have to go take a look if he doesn't move soon. How are you doing?" So so.

Staffan had put an extra cushion on his chair in order to assuage the pain in his lower back. He would rather be standing, or most of all, lying in his bed, but the report of last night's events had to be entered into the homicide register before the weekend.

Holmberg looked down at his pad and tapped his pen on it.

"Those three who were in the changing room. They said that the guy, the killer, before he poured the acid over his face, that he had shouted 'Eli, Eli,' and now I'm wondering…"

Staffan's heart leaped in his chest and he leaned across the desk.

"He said that?"

"Yes, do you know what…"

"Yes."

Staffan sat back suddenly and the pain shot up like an arrow all the way to the root of his hair. He grabbed the edge of the desk, straightened up, and put his hands over his face. Holmberg looked closely at him.

"Damn, have you seen a doctor?"

"No, it's just… it'll be fine in a minute. Eli, Eli."

"Is that a name?"

Staffan nodded slowly. "Yes… it means… God."

"I see, he was calling out to God. Do you think he was heard?"

"What?"

"God. Do you think God heard him? When you consider the circumstances it seems a little… unlikely. But you're the expert. Hm."

"They are the final words that Christ uttered on the cross. My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?"

Holmberg blinked and looked down at his notes.

"Yes, that's right."

"According to the gospels of Matthew and Mark."

Holmberg nodded and sucked on the end of his pen.

"Should we include this in the report?"

When Oskar got home from school he put on a pair of new pants and went down to the Lover's kiosk to get himself a newspaper. There had been talk of the killer getting caught and he wanted to know everything. Clip articles for his scrapbook.

There was something that felt slightly different when he went down to the kiosk, something that wasn't how it normally was, even if you overlooked the snow.

On his way home with the newspaper he suddenly thought of it. He wasn't keeping a lookout. He just walked. He had walked all the way down to the kiosk without keeping an eye out for someone who would be able to hurt him.

He started to run. Ran home all the way with the paper in his hand while the snowflakes licked his face. Locked the front door from the inside. Went to his bed, lay down on his stomach, tapped on the wall. No reply. He would have wanted to talk to Eli, tell her.

He opened the newspaper. The Vallingby Pool. Police cars. Ambulance. Attempted murder. The man's injuries had made identification difficult. A picture of Danderyd where the man had been hospitalized. A run-down on the first murder. No comments.

Then submarine, submarine, submarine. The military on high alert.

The door bell rang.

Oskar jumped off his bed, walked quickly into the hall.

Eli, Eli, Eli.

He hesitated with his hand on the door handle. What if it was Jonny and the others? No, they would never come to his house like this. He opened. Johan was outside.

"Hey there."

"Yeah… hey there."

"Want to do something?"

"Sure… like what?"

"I don't know. Something."

"OK."

Oskar put on his shoes and coat while Johan waited for him on the stairs.

"What Jonny did back there was pretty shitty. In the gym."

"He took my pants, right?"

"Yeah, I know where they are."

"Where?"

"Back there. Behind the pool. I'll show you."

Oskar thought-but didn't say out loud-that in that case Johan could have made the effort to bring him the pants when he came over. But Jo-han's generosity did not extend that far. Oskar nodded and said, "Great."

They walked over to the pool and got the pants, which were hanging

on a bush. Then they walked around and checked things out. Made snowballs and tried to hit a specific target on a tree. In a container they found some old electric cables that they could cut and use as slingshots. Talked about the murderer, about the submarine, and about Jonny, Micke, and Tomas who Johan thought were dumb.

"Completely retarded."

"But they don't do anything to you."

"No, but still."

They walked to the hotdog stand by the subway station and bought two luffare each. One krona apiece; a grilled hot dog bun with only mustard, ketchup, hamburger dressing, and raw onion inside. It was starting to get dark. Johan talked to the girl in the hot dog stand and Oskar looked at the subway trains that came and went, thinking about the electric wires that ran above the tracks.

They started walking toward the school where they would go their separate ways, their mouths reeking of onion. Oskar said:

"Do you think people kill themselves by jumping onto those wires above the tracks?"

"Don't know. I guess so. My brother knows someone who went down there and pissed on a live track."

"What happened?"

"He died. The current went up through the piss into his body."

"No way. So he wanted to die?"

"Nah. He was drunk. Shit. Think about it…"

Johan mimed taking out his dick, peeing, and then starting to convulse. Oskar laughed.

Down by the school they said good-bye, waved. Oskar walked homeward with his newly recovered pants tied around his waist, whistling the signature melody to Dallas. It had stopped snowing but a white film covered everything. The large frosted windows of the swimming pool were brightly lit. He would go there Thursday evening. Start training. Get strong.

Friday evening at the Chinese restaurant. The round, steel-rimmed clock on one wall looks completely out of place among the rice paper lamps

and golden dragons. It says five to nine. The guys are leaning over their beers, losing themselves in the landscapes depicted on the placemats. The snow continues to fall outside.

Virginia stirs her San Francisco a little and sucks on the end of the stirrer, which has a little Johnnie Walker figure on the end.

Who was Johnnie Walker? Where was he walking with such determination?

She taps her glass with the stirrer and Morgan looks up.

"Giving a toast?"

"Someone should."

They had told her about it, everything that Gosta had said about Jocke, the underpass, the child. Then they had sunk into silence. Virginia let the ice cubes in her glass clink, looked at how the dimmed ceiling lights reflected in the half-melted cubes.

"There's one thing I don't get. If all this that Gosta says really happened, where is he? Jocke, I mean."

Karlsson brightened, as if this was an opportunity he had been waiting for.

"Exactly what I have been trying to say. Where is the body? If you're going…"

Morgan held up a finger in front of Karlsson.

"You do not refer to Jocke as 'the body,' understood?"

"Well, what do I call him? The deceased?"

"You don't call him anything, not until we know for sure."

"That's exactly what I've been trying to say. As long as we don't have a

b-… as long as they haven't… found him, we can't." "Who's 'they'?" "Who do you think? The helicopter division in Berga? The police, of course."

Larry rubbed one eye, making a low clucking sound. "That's a problem. As long as they haven't found him they aren't in-terested and as long as they aren't interested they won't find him."