Staffan nodded. Was this boy... the victim? He had wanted to ask this, but in his haste couldn"t think of a reasonable way to put the question. Had to a.s.sume Holmberg had taken the boy"s name and other information, judged it best to let his mother come in and take over, accompanying him to the ambulance, crisis intervention, therapy. Protect these Thy smallest. Protect these Thy smallest.
Staffan kept going down the corridor, ran up the steps while inside his head he recited a prayer of thanks for the Lord"s mercy and for strength to meet the challenges ahead.
Was the murderer really still in the building?
Outside the changing rooms, under a sign with the single word MEN, there were, appropriately enough, three men talking to constable Holmberg. Only one of the three was fully dressed. The other two both lacked some item of clothing: one had no pants, the other had no shirt.
"I"m glad you got down here so fast," Holmberg said.
"Is he still here?"
Holmberg pointed at the changing room door.
"In there."
Staffan gestured at the three men.
"Are they?..."
Before Holmberg had time to say anything, the man without pants on took a half step forward and said-not without some pride-"We"re witnesses." Staffan nodded and looked inquiringly at Holmberg.
"Shouldn"t they?..."
"Yes, but I thought I"d wait until you got down here. Apparently he"s not violent." Holmberg turned kindly to the men and said, "We"ll be in touch. The best thing you can do now is go home. Oh, and one more thing. I understand this may not be easy but try not to discuss this among yourselves."
The man without pants on half-smiled, nodding in agreement.
"Someone could overhear us, you mean."
"No, but you could start to imagine that you have seen something that you didn"t really see, only because someone else did."
"Not me. I saw what I saw and it was the most h.e.l.lish . . ."
"Believe me. It happens to the best of us. And now you"ll have to excuse us. Thank you for you help."
The men walked off down the corridor, mumbling. Holmberg was good at this kind of thing. Talking to people. That was what he did most. Went around in schools and talked drugs and police work. Wasn"t pulled into this kind of thing very often nowadays.
A metallic noise, as if a sheet of metal had fallen to the ground, came from inside the changing room. Staffan flinched and listened intently.
"Not violent, you said?"
"Badly injured, apparently. Poured some kind of acid onto his face."
"Why did he do that?"
Holmberg"s face became blank; he turned to the door.
"I guess we"ll have to go in and ask."
"Armed?"
"Probably not."
Holmberg pointed to a large kitchen knife with a wooden handle on a nearby window ledge.
"I didn"t have a bag on me. And anyway the guy without pants had managed to stand there handling it for a while before I came. We"ll have to deal with it later."
"Are we just going to let it stay there?"
"Got a better idea?"
Staffan shook his head and in the ensuing silence he perceived two different things. A soft, irregular blowing sound coming from inside the changing room. Wind whistling through a chimney. A cracked flue. That, and a smell. Something that he had at first a.s.sumed to be a part of the ubiquitous chlorine scent that permeated the whole building. But this was different. A sharp, stinging smell in his nostrils. Staffan wrinkled his nose.
"Should we?..."
Holmberg nodded but didn"t make a move. Married, with children. Sure. Staffan pulled his gun from the holster, let his other hand rest on the door handle. It was the third time in his twelve years of service that he was entering a room with his weapon drawn. Didn"t know if he was doing the right thing but no one would be likely to criticize him. A child killer. Cornered, perhaps desperate, no matter how injured.
He gave Holmberg a sign and opened the door.
The fumes overwhelmed him.
They stung so much his eyes started to water. He coughed. Took a handkerchief out of his pocket and held it over his nose and mouth. A few times when he had been a.s.sisting the fire department at a fire he had experienced something similar. But here there was no smoke, only a light mist suspended in the air.
Good G.o.d, what is this?
The repet.i.tive, hacking sound could still be heard from the other side of the row of changing lockers in front of them. Staffan signalled for Holmberg to go around the lockers from the other side so they would be approaching from two directions. Staffan went up to the edge of the locker row and peeked around the corner with his gun held down along his side.
He saw a metal trash can kicked over on its side and next to it a p.r.o.ne, naked body.
Holmberg appeared on the other side, signalled to Staffan to take it easy, there didn"t appear to be any immediate danger. Staffan felt a twinge of irritation that Holmberg was trying to take over command of the situation now that it didn"t appear dangerous any longer. He breathed in through his handkerchief, took it away from his mouth, and said loudly, "This is the police. Can you hear me?"
The man on the floor gave no sign of comprehension, just kept on making that repept.i.tive noise with his face turned down into the ground. Staffan took a few steps forward.
"Put your hands where I can see them."
The man didn"t move. But now that Staffan was closer he could see that the body was twitching all over. That part about the hands was unnecessary. One arm lay curled over the trash can, the other sprawled over the floor. The palms were swollen and cracked.
Acid... what does he look like...
Staffan held the handkerchief in front of his mouth again and walked up to the man while putting his gun back in his holster, trusting the fact that Holmberg would cover him if something happened.
The body twitched spasmodically and produced a soft smacking sound every time bare skin pulled free from the tile and then reattached itself. The hand lying on the floor flopped around like a flounder on a rock. And all the time this sound issued from the mouth, directed into the floor, "... eeiiieeeeiii..."
Staffan indicated to Holmberg to keep his distance, and crouched down next to the body.
"Can you hear me?"
The man stopped making noise. Suddenly the whole body writhed spasmodically and rolled over.
His face.
Staffan jumped back, lost his balance, and landed on his tailbone. He clenched his teeth not to cry out when the pain fanned out into his lower back. He squeezed his eyes shut. Opened them again.
He has no face.
Staffan had once seen a drug addict who, during a hallucination, had repeatedly smashed his face against a wall. He had seen a man who had welded near a gas tank without emptying it first. It had exploded into his face.
But nothing approached this.
The man"s nose had completely burned away leaving only two holes in his head. The mouth had melted together, the lips sealed with the exception of a small opening in one corner. One eye had melted down over what had been his cheek, but the other ... the other was wide open. Staffan stared into that eye, the only thing that was still recognizeably human in this unshapely ma.s.s. The eye was red and when it tried to blink there was only a thread of skin that fluttered down and up again. Where the rest of the face should have been there were only pieces of cartilage and bone sticking out between irregular shreds of flesh and blackened slivers of fabric. The naked, glistening muscles contracted and relaxed, contorting as if the head had been replaced by a ma.s.s of freshly killed and butchered eels.
The whole face, what had been the face, had its own life.
Staffan felt a retching in his throat and would probably have thrown up if his own body had not been so preoccupied with pumping pain into his lower back. Slowly he pulled his legs back in under him, stood up, leaning on the lockers for support. The red eye stared at him the whole time.
"What the ..."
Holmberg stood with hanging arms and stared at the deformed body on the floor. It wasn"t just the face. The acid had also run down onto the chest. The skin over the collarbone on one side was gone and a piece of the bone stuck out, glowing white like a piece of chalk in a meat stew. Holmberg shook his head, raised and lowered one hand halfway up and down, up and down. Coughed.
"What the ..."
It was eleven o"clock and Oskar lay in his bed. Slowly tapped out the letters against the wall. E...L...I...
E...L...I...
No answer.
FRIDAY.
30 OCTOBER.
The boys in 6B stood lined up outside the school and waited for their gym teacher, Mr. Avila, to give them the go-head. Everyone had some kind of gym bag in his hands because G.o.d save you if you forgot your gym clothes or didn"t have an acceptable reason to sit out gym cla.s.s. They stood at arm"s length from each other like the teacher had told them on the first day in fourth grade when he had taken over the responsibility of their physical education from their home room teacher.
"A straight line! Arm"s length distance!"
Mr. Avila had been a fighter pilot in the war. He had entertained the boys a few times with stories about airborne skirmishes and emergency landings in fields of wheat. They were impressed. They had respect for him.
A cla.s.s that was considered difficult and unruly now stood lined up in a neat row an arm"s length from each other even though the teacher was out of sight. If the line didn"t meet his expectations he made them stand there an extra ten minutes or canceled a promised volleyball game in favor of pull-ups and sit-ups. Like the rest of them, Oskar had a healthy respect for his gym teacher. With his stubbly gray hair, eagle nose, a still-impressive physique, and iron grip, Mr.Avila was hardly predisposed to love or sympathize with a meek, somewhat chubby, and bullied boy. But order ruled during his cla.s.s period. Neither Jonny, Micke, nor Tomas dared to do anything while Mr. Avila was around.
Now Johan stepped out of line, threw a quick glance up at the school building, then gave a heil Hitler salute, and said with a feigned Spanish accent: "Straight lines! Today fire drill! With ropes!"
Some pupils laughed nervously. Mr. Avila had a fondness for fire drills. Once every semester he had his students practice lowering themselves out of the windows with ropes while he timed the whole procedure with a stopwatch. If they managed to beat the previous best time they would be allowed to play The Whole Sea is Raging in their next lesson. If they deserved to.
Johan quickly got back in line. He was lucky because, a few seconds later, Mr. Avila came out of the front entrance and walked briskly to the gym. He was looking straight ahead without giving the cla.s.s so much as a look. When he was halfway across the school yard he made a follow follow me! me! gesture with one hand without breaking his stride, without a backward glance. gesture with one hand without breaking his stride, without a backward glance.
The line started moving, all the while trying to retain the arm"s length distance between people. Tomas, who was behind Oskar, stepped on Oskar"s heel so the shoe slid off in the back. Oskar kept on walking. Since the incident with the whips the day before yesterday they had left him alone. Not that they had gone so far as to apologize or anything, but the wound on his cheek was very visible and they probably felt it was enough. For now.
Eli.
Oskar bunched his toes up inside his shoe in order to keep it on, marching toward the gym. Where was Eli? Oskar had kept a lookout from his window last night to see if Eli"s dad made it home. Instead he had seen Eli slip out around ten o"clock. Then he had had hot cocoa and rolls with his mom and maybe he had missed seeing her come home. But she had not answered any of the messages he tapped into the wall. The cla.s.s lumbered into the changing room and the line dissolved. Mr. Avila stood waiting for them with crossed arms.
"Well, well. Today physical training, with bar, pommel horse and jump rope."
Groans. Mr. Avila nodded.
"If it is good, if you work hard, next time we can play spock-ball. But today: physical training. Get a move on!"
No room for discussion. You had to make do with the promise of ghostball, and the cla.s.s hurried up and changed. As usual Oskar made sure he had his back turned to the others as he changed his pants. The p.i.s.sball made his underpants look a little strange.
Up in the gym hall the others were busy putting out the pommel horses and lowering the bars. Johan and Oskar carried out mats. When everything was arranged to his liking Mr. Avila blew his whistle. There were five stations, so he divided them into five groups of two. Oskar and Staffe were grouped together, which was good since Staffe was the only kid in the cla.s.s who was worse at gym than Oskar. He had raw strength but was clumsy. Chubbier than Oskar. Even so, no one teased him. There was something about the way Staffe carried himself that told you if you messed with him something bad would happen to you.
Mr. Avila blew his whistle again and everyone set to work.
Pull-ups on the bar. Chin over the bar, then down, then up again. Oskar managed two. Staffe did five, then gave up. Whistle. Sit-ups. Staffe just lay on the mat and stared at the ceiling. Oskar did cheater sit-ups until the next whistle. Jump rope. Oskar was good at this. He kept jumping while Staffe got tangled up in his rope. Then regular push-ups. Staffe could do these till the cows came home. Then the pommel horse, the d.a.m.ned pommel horse.
It was a relief to be paired with Staffe. Oskar snuck a peek at Micke and Jonny and Olof, how they flew over the horse via the springboard. Staffe geared up, ran, bounced so hard off the springboard that it creaked and still he didn"t make it up onto the horse. He turned to walk back. Mr. Avila came up to him.
"Up on pommel."
"Can"t do it."
"Then you do over."
"What?"
"Do over. Do over. Do over. Go jump! Jump!" Go jump! Jump!"
Staffan grabbed the pommel horse, heaved himself up onto it and slid like a slug down the other side. Mr. Avila waved go! go! and Oskar ran. Somewhere during his run up to the pommel he made up his mind. He would try. and Oskar ran. Somewhere during his run up to the pommel he made up his mind. He would try.
Once, Mr. Avila had told him not to be afraid of the pommel horse, that everything hung on his att.i.tude. Normally he didn"t jump from the springboard with full force, afraid of losing his balance or of hitting something. But now he was going to go all out, pretend pretend as if he could do it. Mr. Avila was watching and Oskar ran with full force toward the springboard. as if he could do it. Mr. Avila was watching and Oskar ran with full force toward the springboard.
He hardly thought of the jump off the springboard, so focused was he on the aim of clearing the pommel horse. For the first time, he pushed his feet into the springboard with full force, without braking, and his body took off by itself, his hands stretched out to steady himself and steer his body on. He flew over the horse with such force that he lost his balance and tumbled headfirst when he landed on the other side. But he had cleared it!
He turned and looked at his teacher, who was definitely not smiling, but who nodded encouragingly.
"Good, Oskar, but more balance."
Then Mr. Avila blew his whistle and they were allowed to rest for a minute before trying again. This time Oskar managed both to clear the pommel horse and keep his balance when he landed.
Mr. Avila ended the lesson and went to his office while they put the equipment away. Oskar folded out the wheels under the pommel horse and wheeled it into the storage room, patting it like a good horse that had finally allowed itself to be tamed. He put it up against the wall and then walked to the changing room. There was something he wanted to talk to Mr. Avila about.
He was stopped halfway to the door. A noose made from a jump rope went over his head and landed around his stomach. Someone held him in place. Behind him he heard Jonny"s voice saying, "Giddy up, Piggy!" Oskar turned so that the loop slid over his stomach and lay against his back. Jonny was standing in front of him with the ends of the jump rope in his hands. He waved them up and down.
"Giddy up, giddy up."