Little Star Read online

  PRAISE FOR JOHN AJVIDE LINDQVIST

  PRAISE FOR HARBOUR

  ‘Fabulously creepy.’ Jennifer Byrne, Sunday Age

  ‘Lindqvist balances horror with credibly drawn feeling—the characters here are also a vulnerable bunch—and of course the setting helps enormously: they make a vivid picture, blood and snow.’ Age

  ‘MUST READ.’ Sunday Telegraph

  ‘Conjures a setting that chills the blood. Yet Harbour is also a love story—several different types of love, each moving in its own way. Intelligent writing, poetic imagery, a deft turn of phrase, this is no slice and dice shocker (except for the chainsaw duel).’

  Adelaide Advertiser

  ‘Effectively mixes the societal tensions found in Scandinavian crime with the supernatural horror of Stephen King.’

  Canberra Times

  ‘Suspense, humour and an enormous climax.’ Sunday Examiner

  ‘A magician of genre fiction…Lindqvist again trips along that thin high wire between supernatural devices and psychological verités…Between monsters outside and demons within, Lindqvist covers the haunted waterfront.’ Independent

  PRAISE FOR HANDLING THE UNDEAD

  ‘Horror fans will rejoice…A macabre and strangely affecting tale, at once compassionate, witty and deliciously gruesome.’ Age

  ‘I would have said his strengths were more cinematic than literary—until I read this. Haunting.’ Weekend Herald NZ

  ‘Unsettling and shocking.’ Who Weekly

  ‘In the end it is its compassion, not just for the dead but for the wounded living, that lends Lindqvist’s haunting postmodern fairytale its power.’ James Bradley, Australian

  ‘Horror is the genre du jour and…Lindqvist is one of the best practitioners around.’ Sunday Telegraph

  ‘So clever that perhaps it could be the one horror novel not to be missed this year…Lindqvist isn’t afraid to touch nerves and violate taboos.’ Courier-Mail

  ‘You’ll be leaving the bedside light on after reading this.’

  West Australian

  ‘Unerringly explores the nature of family relationships, how to cope with loss and literally the nature of life and death.’

  Canberra Times

  ‘Lindqvist’s dark star continues to rise with Handling the Undead, a subversion of the zombie genre whose strange glow is proving similarly mesmeric.’ Listener NZ

  PRAISE FOR LET THE RIGHT ONE IN

  ‘A genuinely gripping read. If you read only one gore-filled, vampire love story complete with rich, dark humour and strong cinematic possibilities this year, make sure it’s

  Let the Right One In.’ Age

  ‘Brilliant and unexpected…not simply shock and gore, but an offbeat exploration of fear and the meaning of violence.’

  Weekend Australian

  ‘Like all good vampire books, you want to gulp it down in one go.’ Bulletin

  ‘Reminiscent of Stephen King at his best.’ Independent on Sunday

  ‘A terrifying supernatural story yet also a moving account of friendship and salvation.’ Guardian

  ‘An unsettling and durable horror tale from the mind of a dangerously imaginative man.’ Herald Sun

  ‘A surprising and sometimes delightful reading experience…

  Lindqvist manages to maintain a light touch in an otherwise bleak landscape.’ Sunday Times

  ‘This was a bestseller in Sweden and could be equally big here. Don’t miss it.’ The Times

  ‘An energetic, noisy, highly imaginative novel that blends the most extreme kind of vampirish schlock-horror with a complicated love story, a profoundly gory sequence of murders and some rather good domestic realism about life in 1980s Stockholm.’

  Kerryn Goldsworthy, Sydney Morning Herald

  ‘A compelling horror story, but it’s also a finely calibrated tale about the pain of growing up.’ Sunday Telegraph

  ‘Lindqvist has reinvented the vampire novel and made it all the more chilling…Immensely readable and highly disturbing.’

  Daily Express

  ALSO BY JOHN AJVIDE LINDQVIST

  Let the Right One in

  Handling the Undead

  Harbour

  JOHN AJVIDE LINDQVIST lives in Sweden and has worked as a conjurer and stand-up comedian. His first novel, Let the Right One In, was published in eleven countries and adapted into two feature films: one by Swedish director Tomas Alfredson, and an English-language version, Let Me In.

  MARLAINE DELARGY is based in the UK. She has translated novels by Swedish writers including Åsa Larsson, Ninni Holmqvist and Johan Theorin—with whom she won the CWA International Dagger 2010 for The Darkest Room.

  Little Star

  John Ajvide Lindqvist

  TRANSLATED FROM THE SWEDISH

  BY MARLAINE DELARGY

  textpublishing.com.au

  The Text Publishing Company

  Swann House

  22 William St

  Melbourne Victoria 3000

  Australia

  Copyright © John Ajvide Lindqvist 2010

  Translation copyright © Marlaine Delargy 2011

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  First published in Sweden as Lilla Stjärna by Ordfront, 2010 First published in English by The Text Publishing Company, 2011

  Cover design by WH Chong

  Page design by Susan Miller

  Typeset in Stempel Garamond 11.25/15.75 by J & M Typesetting

  Printed in Australia by Griffin Press, an Accredited ISO AS/

  NZS 14001:2004 Environmental Management System printer

  Ebook ISBN: 9781921834790

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

  Author: Lindqvist, John Ajvide.

  Title: Little star / John Ajvide Lindqvist.

  ISBN: 9781921758577 (pbk.)

  Dewey Number: 839.738

  Everyone is actually called something else

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  PRAISE FOR JOHN AJVIDE LINDQVIST

  ALSO BY JOHN AJVIDE LINDQVIST

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  PROLOGUE

  THE GIRL WITH GOLDEN HAIR

  In the autumn of 1992

  The girl was lying on

  The range of baby products

  When Laila came out of

  The coffee was finished

  Lennart and Laila

  The room in the cellar

  For the first few days

  Lennart was very busy that

  It was a mild winter,

  Lennart was in the car

  Jerry was named after Jerry

  In the spring the year

  His parents hadn’t said a

  The gig wasn’t quite the

  Two mud-smeared Indians slit open

  Lennart turned down the handful

  Jerry also noticed the change

  Laila knew there had to

  Towards the end of October

  Jerry didn’t get around to

  What had happened? What kind

  By February 2000 greed had

  When Jerry hadn’t been in

  It was a kind of

  After that, Jerry’s visits became

  Jerry didn’t like leaving his

  When the girl was about

  One morning in the middle

  In some ways Jerry was

 
THE OTHER GIRL

  She was born on November

  Teresa was fourteen months old

  By the time Teresa turned

  Since Teresa had been born

  In the October of Teresa’s

  The Svensson family lived in

  A few weeks later they

  Over the winter they met

  In the autumn when Teresa

  The summer between years 5

  The day before she was

  In February a For Sale

  Johannes moved house in the

  Normally the members of the

  Österyd usually had two classes

  During the winter and the

  It must have happened during

  THE GIRL WITH GOLDEN HAIR

  When Jerry looked back on

  During the next few weeks

  After a couple of days

  A couple of days after

  Perhaps it had something to

  You can plan for things,

  THE OTHER GIRL

  The experience with Tora Larsson’s

  Teresa saw things differently these

  Teresa had the weekend to

  BOTH THE GIRLS

  Max Hansen

  The Idol adventure had been

  Two months before Max Hansen

  At the beginning of November,

  As soon as Max Hansen

  There was something not right

  Teresa thought she was in

  When Jerry got back to

  Teresa didn’t know how much

  The wound in Max Hansen’s

  The following weekend they recorded

  If a journey of a

  Two days later, twenty people

  Christmas didn’t turn out the

  The family came home early

  Teresa was taken into care

  ALL THE GIRLS

  What does it take to

  The images did not fade

  Somewhere there has to be

  On Sunday afternoon, when Teresa

  That night Teresa dreamed about

  ‘Theres? When you dream—what do

  Max Hansen was on a

  On Monday morning Teresa went

  ‘He wrote. Max Hansen.’

  Over the next few weeks

  THE DEAD GIRLS

  The album that was released

  Insofar as it is possible

  Just about a week after

  Everyone is actually called something

  On Friday afternoon Teresa went

  Things had changed for the

  While Ronja was in Stockholm,

  Many spent the night crying

  Teresa woke up in her

  Just being with Theres on

  Hitachi DS14DFL

  A person can think murderous

  EPILOGUE

  Mother says I was a

  I’ve been so lucky

  Acknowledgement

  PROLOGUE

  Solliden, Skansen. June 26, 2007. Ten minutes to eight. The presenter is warming up the audience with a sing-along version of ‘I’m Gonna Be a Country Girl Again’. When the song ends a technician asks if all parents could please lift their children down off their shoulders so they won’t be hit by the camera cranes.

  The sun is directly behind the stage, dazzling the audience. The sky is deep blue. The young people crowding the barriers are asked to move back slightly to avoid a crush. Sweden’s biggest music show will be on air in five minutes, and no one must be allowed to come to harm.

  There must be these oases of pleasure, where everyday cares are set aside for a while. Nothing bad can happen here, and every possible security measure has been taken to keep this place of enjoyment safe.

  Screams of pain, of terror, are unthinkable; there must not be blood on the ground or covering the seats when the broadcast is over. There must not be a corpse lying on the stage, with many more on the ground below. Chaos cannot be permitted here. There are too many people. The atmosphere must be calm and pleasant.

  The orchestra strikes up with ‘Stockholm in My Heart’, and everyone joins in. Hands sway in the air, mobile phone cameras are raised. A wonderful feeling of togetherness. It will be another fifteen minutes until, with meticulous premeditation, the whole thing is torn to shreds.

  Let us sing along for the time being. We have a long way to go before we return here. Only when the journey has softened us up, when we are ready to think the unthinkable, will we be permitted to come back.

  So come on everyone! All together now!

  Through Lake Mälaren’s love of the sea

  a blend of fresh water and brine…

  THE GIRL WITH GOLDEN HAIR

  In the autumn of 1992 there were rumours of a mushroom glut in the forests; it was said that the warm moist weather of late summer had provoked a burst of chanterelles and hedgehog mushrooms. As Lennart Cederström turned off onto the forest track in his Volvo 240, he had a large basket and a couple of plastic bags on the back seat. Just in case.

  He had a mix tape of pop hits on the stereo, and Christer Sjögren’s voice was loud and clear in the speakers: Ten thousand red roses I’d like to give you…

  Lennart grinned scornfully and joined in with the chorus, imitating Sjögren’s mannered bass vibrato. It sounded excellent. Almost identical; Lennart was probably a better singer than Sjögren. But so what? He had been in the wrong place at the wrong time on too many occasions, seen too many golden opportunities snatched away from under his very nose or heard them zip past behind his back. Gone when he turned around.

  Anyway. He would have his mushrooms. Chanterelles, the gold of the forest, and plenty of them. Then back home to blanch them and fill up the freezer, giving him enough for mushrooms on toast and beer every single evening until the Christmas tree was thrown out. Several days of rain had given way to a couple of days of brilliant sunshine, and the conditions were just perfect.

  Lennart knew every bend in the forest track, and he screwed up his eyes and gripped the wheel as he sang.

  Ten thousand roses in a pretty bouquet…

  When he opened his eyes there was something black on the track ahead of him. Sunlight flashed on shining metal, and Lennart only just managed to swerve as it flashed by. A car. Lennart glanced in the rear view mirror to get the registration, but the car was doing at least eighty on the gravel track, sending up clouds of dust in its wake. However, Lennart was pretty sure it was a BMW. A black BMW with tinted windows.

  He drove another three hundred metres to the place where he usually parked, switched off the engine and let out a long breath.

  What the hell was that?

  A BMW out here in the middle of nowhere wasn’t exactly a common sight. A BMW doing eighty along the gravel track leading out of the forest was a unique event. Lennart felt quite excited. He had been a part of something. In the moment when the black object came hurtling towards him, his heart had leapt and then quailed as if anticipating a fatal blow, before opening up and settling down once more. It was an experience.

  The only thing that bothered him was that he couldn’t report the driver. He would probably have given the mushroom picking a miss so he could savour going home and calling the police, giving a detailed description of the encounter on a track with a thirty kilometres per hour limit. But without a registration number, it would be pointless.

  As Lennart got out of the car and picked up his basket and his bags, the temporary rush gave way to a feeling he’d been bested. Again. The black BMW had won, in some obscure fashion. Perhaps it would have been different if the car had been a beaten-up old Saab, but it was definitely a rich man’s car that had covered his windscreen in dust and forced him into the ditch. Same old thing.

  He slammed the car door and tramped off into the forest, head down. Fresh tyre tracks ran along the damp ground in the shade of the trees. Churned-up mud in one place indicated that a car had shot away here, and it wasn’t much of a leap to assume it was the BMW. Lennart gazed at the wide wheel ma
rks as if they might offer him some evidence, or a fresh grievance. When nothing occurred to him he spat in the tracks instead.

  Let it go.

  He strode off into the forest, inhaling the aroma of warm needles, damp moss, and somewhere beneath everything else…the smell of mushrooms. He couldn’t pin it down to an exact spot, or identify a species, but a faint undertone in the usual scent of the forest told him the rumours were true: there were mushrooms here just waiting to be picked. His gaze swept the ground, searching for a difference in colour or shape. He was a good mushroomer, able to spot from a considerable distance a chanterelle hiding beneath undergrowth and grass. The slightest nuance in the correct shade of yellow, and he swooped like a hawk.

  But this time it was a champignon he spotted. Ten metres away from him, a white button sticking up out of the ground. Lennart frowned. He had never come across a champignon around here before; the soil was wrong.

  As he came closer, he saw he was right. Not a mushroom; the corner of a plastic bag. Lennart sighed. Sometimes people who were too idle to drive to the tip dumped stuff in the forest. He had once seen a guy hurl a microwave out of his car window. On that occasion he had made a note of the registration number and reported the incident in writing.