"I'm only saying it for your sake. Probably feels a little better if..."

"f.u.c.k it. And come on."

Roger found the right key and unlocked the door. Before he walked in he pointed to the teacher and said: "You probably shouldn't be sitting like that. Probably can't breathe if you do."

Prebbe slid off his chest, sat down next to the body with his weight at the ready in case Avila tried something.

Roger searched through the pocket of the coat he found inside the office, pulled out a wallet with three hundred kronor. In a desk drawer that, after a short search, he found the key in, there were also ten unstamped subway cards. He took them as well.

Not much in the way of bounty. But that wasn't what this was about. Pure payback.

Oskar was still in the corner of the pool blowing bubbles in the water when Jonny and Jimmy walked in. His first reaction wasn't fear, but annoyance. They were wearing their outdoor clothes.

They hadn't even taken their shoes off, and Mr. Avila who was so concerned about... When Jimmy stopped at the edge of the pool and started looking out over the pool, the fear came. He had met Jimmy a few times, briefly, and thought he seemed horrible even then. Now there was also something about his eyes ... the way he was moving his head ...

Like Tommy and those guys when they have.. .

Jimmy's gaze found Oskar's and he realized with a shiver that he was... naked. Jimmy had clothes on, armor. Oskar was in the cold water and every centimeter of his body was exposed. Jimmy nodded to Jonny, Jonny, made a semicircular movement with his hand and, one on either side of the pool, they started to walk toward Oskar. While he walked Jimmy screamed to the others: made a semicircular movement with his hand and, one on either side of the pool, they started to walk toward Oskar. While he walked Jimmy screamed to the others: "Get out of here! Everyone! Out of the water!" The others were standing still or treading water, indecisive. Jimmy placed himself at the edge of the pool, took a stiletto out of his jacket pocket, unfolded it, and held it like an arrow directed at a group of boys. Thrust it in the direction of the other end of the pool.

Oskar was pressed up into the corner, watching shivering while the other boys quickly swam or waded their way to the other end and left him alone in the pool.

Mr. Avila... where is Mr. Avila ...

A hand gripped him by the hair, fingers taking hold so firmly that his scalp stung and his head was forced forced back all the way into the corner. Above him he heard Jonny's voice. "That's my brother, you f.u.c.ker." Oskar's head was banged backward a couple of times against the tile ledge and water splashed up into his ears while Jimmy walked over to the corner of the pool and crouched down with the stiletto in his hand. back all the way into the corner. Above him he heard Jonny's voice. "That's my brother, you f.u.c.ker." Oskar's head was banged backward a couple of times against the tile ledge and water splashed up into his ears while Jimmy walked over to the corner of the pool and crouched down with the stiletto in his hand.

"Hi there Oskar."

Oskar took in a mouthful of water and started to cough. Every shaking motion of his head that the cough induced made his scalp, which Jonny had grasped even more firmly, burn more. When his coughing spell was over Jimmy clinked the blade against the tiled edge.

"You know what? I was thinking like this. That we should have a little compet.i.tion. Now don't move ..."

The stiletto pa.s.sed right above Oskar's forehead as Jimmy handed it over to Jonny, taking over the grip on Oskar's head. Oskar didn't dare do anything. He had looked into Jimmy's eyes for a few seconds and they looked completely crazed. So filled with hate he couldn't look at them. Oskar's head was pressed into the corner of the pool. His arms were helplessly fumbling in the water. Nothing to grip. He looked for the other boys. They were standing at the shallow end of the pool. Micke was in front, still smiling, in antic.i.p.ation. The others looked mostly scared.

No one was going to help him.

"So here's the deal... it's pretty easy, see. Easy rules. You stay under the water for... five minutes. If you can do that we'll just put a little scratch in your cheek or something. A keepsake. If you can't do it... well, then when you come up I'll take out one of your eyes. OK? Understand the rules?"

Oskar got his mouth above the surface. Water was spurting out of his mouth as he said, shivering: "... can't do it..."

Jimmy shook his head.

"That's your problem. You see that clock. We'll start in twenty seconds. Five minutes. Or your eye. Better take a breath now. Ten ... nine ... eight... seven ..."

Oskar tried to push away with his legs, but he had to stand on tiptoe to even get his whole head above the water and Jimmy's hand was holding him by his hair, making all movement impossible.

If I pull my hair away. .. five minutes...

When he had tried it on his own he had managed three at most. Almost.

"Six ... five ... four ... three ..."

Mr. Avila. Mr. Avila will come back before...

"Two ... one ... zero!"

Oskar only managed to take half a breath before his head was pushed down under the water. He lost his foothold and the lower half of his body slowly floated up until he lay with his head bent toward his chest a few decimeters under the surface, his scalp burning like fire as the chlorinated water came into contact with the rips and tears in the skin. No more than a minute could have gone by before the panic came. He opened his eyes wide and only saw light blue ... veils of pink that swirled from his head past his eyes when he tried to take hold with his body, although it was impossible, since there was nothing to hold onto. His legs were kicking up at the surface rippling the pale blue in front of his eyes, refracted in light waves.

Bubbles rose from his mouth and he threw his arms out, floating on his back, and his eyes were pulled to the white, to the swaying halogen tubes' glow in the ceiling. His heart was throbbing like a hand against a gla.s.s pane, and when he happened to draw water in through his nose a kind of calm started to spread in his body. But his heart was beating harder, more persistently, wanted to live, and again he thrashed desperately, tried to get a grip where there was no grip to be had. And his head was pushed down further. And strangely enough he thought: Better this. Than an eye.

After two minutes Micke started to feel really uncomfortable. It seemed like ... like they really wanted to ... He looked around at the other boys, but no one seemed prepared to do anything, and he himself only said a half-m.u.f.fled: "Jonny... what the h.e.l.l..." But Jonny didn't seem to hear him. He was absolutely still on his knees next to next to the pool with the tip the pool with the tip of of the the stiletto stiletto directed into the water, at the refracted white shape moving down there. directed into the water, at the refracted white shape moving down there.

Micke looked up at the shower rooms. Why the h.e.l.l wasn't the teacher back yet? Patrik had run up to get him; why wasn't he coming? Micke pulled further up into the corner, next to the dark gla.s.s door that looked out onto the night, folded his arms across his chest.

In the corner of his eye he thought he saw something fall down from the roof outside. Something banged on the gla.s.s door so hard it rattled in its frame.

He stood on tiptoe, peeked out of the window of regular gla.s.s at the very top, and saw a little girl. She lifted her face up to his. "Say'Come in!'"

"W ... what?"

Micke looked back at what was happening in the pool. Oskar's body had stopped moving but Jimmy was still leaned over the edge, holding his head down. Micke's throat hurt when he swallowed. Whatever happens. Whatever happens. Just make it stop. Just make it stop.

A banging on the gla.s.s door, harder this time. He looked out into the darkness. When the girl opened her mouth and shouted at him he could see .. . that her teeth ... that there was something hanging from her arms.

"Say that I can come in!"

Whatever happens.

Micke nodded, said almost inaudibly: "You can come in."

The girl pulled back from the door, disappeared into the darkness. The stuff that was hanging from her arms shimmered for a moment, and then she was gone. Micke turned back to the pool. Jimmy had pulled Os-kar's head out of the water and taken the stiletto back from Jonny, moving it down to Oskar's face, aiming.

A speck of light was visible in the dark middle window and a split second later it shattered. The reinforced gla.s.s didn't shatter like regular gla.s.s. It exploded into thousands of tiny rounded fragments that landed with a rustle at the edge of the pool, after flying out into the hall, over the water, glittering like myriad white stars.

EPILOGUE.

FRIDAY 13 NOVEMBER.

Friday the thirteenth .. .

Gunnar Holmberg was sitting in the empty princ.i.p.al's office, trying to get his notes in order.

He had spent the whole day at the Blackeberg school, studying the scene of the crime, talking with students. Two technicians from downtown and a bloodstain a.n.a.lyst from the National Laboratory of Forensic Science were still securing evidence down by the pool.

Two youths had been killed there last night. A third ... had disappeared. He had even talked to Marie-Louise, the cla.s.s teacher. Had realized that the missing boy, Oskar Eriksson, was the same one who had raised his hand and answered his question about heroin three weeks ago. Holmberg remembered him.

I've read a lot and stuff.

Also recalled that he had thought the boy would be the first to come out to the police car. He would have taken him for a spin in it, maybe. If possible, bolstered his self-confidence a little. But the boy had not shown up.

And now he was gone.

Gunnar scanned his notes from his conversations with the boys who had been at the pool last night. Their accounts basically matched up, and one word had turned up frequently: angel.

Oskar Eriksson had been rescued by an angel.

The same angel who, according to the witnesses, had ripped Jonny and Jimmy Forsberg's heads off and left them in the bottom of the pool. When Gunnar told the crime scene photographer, who had used his underwater camera to eternalize the image of the two heads in the place where they had been found, about this angel he had said: "Hardly one from heaven, in that case."

No...

He looked out the window, tried to think of a reasonable explanation. In the schoolyard the flag was at half-mast.

Two psychologists had been present for the boys' questioning, since several of them were showing worrying signs of talking too lightheartedly about what they had witnessed, as if it were a film, something that had not happened in reality. And that was what one would most like to believe.

The problem was that the bloodstain technician to a certain extent corroborated what the boys had said.

The blood had run out in such a course, left traces in such places (ceiling, beams), that the immediate impression was that it had been made by someone who was... flying. It was this he was now trying to explain. Explain away. And would probably succeed in doing.

The boys' gym teacher was in intensive care with a serious concussion and would not be available for questioning until tomorrow at the earliest. He would probably not give them anything new.

Gunnar pressed his hands against his temples so that his eyes narrowed, glanced down at his notes.

".. . angel. . . wings . . . the head exploded ... the stiletto . . . trying to drown Oskar ... Oskar was completely blue ... the kind of teeth like a lion ... picked Oskar up ..."

And the only thing he managed to think was: I should go away for a while.

Is that yours?"

Stefan Larsson, the conductor on the Stockholm-Karlstad line, pointed to the bag on the luggage rack. You didn't see many of those these days. A real old-fashioned ... trunk.

The boy in the compartment nodded and held out his ticket. Stefan punched it.

"Is someone meeting you at the other end?"

The boy shook his head.

"It's not as heavy as it looks."

"No, of course. What have you got in there, if you don't mind my asking?

"A little bit of everything."

Stefan checked his watch, punched the air.

"It will be evening when we arrive, you know."

"Mmm."

"The boxes. Are they also yours?"

"Yes."

"Look, I don't mean to . . . but how are you going to manage?"

"I'll get help. Later."

"I see. Right. Have a good trip, then."

"Thanks."

Stefan pulled the door to the compartment shut and walked over to the next one. The boy seemed like he knew what he was doing. If Stefan had been sitting there with that much luggage he would hardly have looked so happy. happy.

But then, it's probably different when you're young.