Let the Right One In Read online

  PRAISE FOR JOHN AJVIDE LINDQVIST

  AND LET THE RIGHT ONE IN

  ‘It would be a very bold move to declare the book of the year with the first Easter egg barely scoffed, but Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist is a book to inspire such boldness…Both a grisly horror-filled mystery and a very touching and human love story, it also boasts wonderfully dry, black humour…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, there are some truly scary bits in the book that will haunt your dreams. Best read by sunlight.’

  Independent on Sunday

  ‘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…Lindqvist, while he seems to be mostly having fun with the idea, has also thought carefully about the issues of blood, death, infection and starvation that sit at the heart of the vampire myth; to say nothing of the close connection between vampirism and eroticism.’

  Kerryn Goldsworthy, SMH

  ‘A surprising and sometimes delightful reading experience… Lindqvist manages to maintain a light touch in an otherwise bleak landscape.’

  Sunday Times

  ‘Combines an atmospheric coming-of-age story set in Stockholm in 1981 with a shocking (and very gory) thriller. His vampire is an original, both heart-breakingly pathetic and terrifying. This was a bestseller in Sweden and could be equally big here. Don’t miss it.’ The Times

  ‘Gets my vote as one of the books of the year.’

  Illawarra Mercury

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

  Guardian

  ‘One of the creepiest and most imaginative horror stories of the decade…Echoes Stephen King at the apex of his story-telling powers. An unsettling and durable horror tale from the mind of a dangerously imaginative man.’

  Herald Sun

  ‘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…An immensely readable and highly disturbing book in which grim levels of gore and violence are tempered by an unexpected tenderness.’

  Daily Express

  ‘Lindqvist’s style is deceptively low-key. The plot is complex, at some points as precisely timed as a farce. The pace is brisk, the narrative grabs you from the start and won’t let go…The way Lindqvist manages to pull what amounts to a happy ending out of his conjurer’s hat is one of the many impressive things about a genuinely remarkable book.’

  SFX

  ‘Alluring, fascinating and undeniably weird.’

  Gay Times UK

  ‘Impressive…Lindqvist has attempted to update the ancient vampire myth and in telling the story of a most bizarre friendship, the book succeeds fantastically well.’

  Birmingham Post

  John Ajvide Lindqvist was born in 1968 and grew up in Blackeberg, an outer suburb of Stockholm. Let the Right One In (Lat den rätte komma in) is set in Blackeberg. It has been sold to numerous countries and a feature film is to be made in 2007. Before becoming a bestselling novelist, John Ajvide Lindqvist was a stand-up comedian and a writer of plays and TV scripts. He lives in Sweden with his wife and children.

  Ebba Segerberg is a freelance translator based in St Louis, USA. She has translated novels by Swedish crime writers Henning Mankell and Kjell Eriksson.

  LET

  THE RIGHT

  ONE IN

  John Ajvide Lindqvist

  TRANSLATED FROM THE SWEDISH BY EBBA SEGERBERG

  The Text Publishing Company

  Melbourne Australia

  The paper used in this book is manufactured only from wood grown in sustainable regrowth forests.

  The Text Publishing Company

  Swann House

  22 William St

  Melbourne Victoria 3000

  Australia

  www.textpublishing.com.au

  Copyright © John Ajvide Lindqvist 2004

  Translation copyright © Ebba Segerberg 2007

  Published by agreement with Ordfronts Föelag, Stockholm, and Loenhardt & Høier Literary Agency aps, Copenhagen.

  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 in 2004 by Ordfront

  First published in English by The Text Publishing Company 2007

  This edition published 2008, reprinted 2009 (three times), 2010

  Design by Chong

  Typeset in Stempel Garamond by J & M Typesetting

  Printed by Griffin Press

  ISBN 978 1 921351 37 2

  To Mia, My Mia

  The Location

  Blackeberg

  It makes you think of coconut-frosted cookies, maybe drugs. ‘A respectable life.’ You think subway station, suburb. Probably nothing else comes to mind. People must live there, just like they do in other places. That was why it was built, after all, so that people would have somewhere to live.

  It was not a place that developed organically, of course. Here everything was carefully planned from the outset. And people moved into what had been built for them. Earth-coloured concrete buildings, scattered about in the green fields.

  When this story begins, Blackeberg the suburb had been in existence for thirty years. One could imagine that it had fostered a pioneer spirit. The Mayflower; an unknown land. Yes. One can imagine all those empty buildings waiting for their occupants.

  And here they come!

  Marching over the Traneberg Bridge with sunshine and the future in their eyes. The year is 1952. Mothers are carrying their little ones in their arms or pushing them in prams, holding them by the hand. Fathers are not carrying picks and shovels but kitchen appliances and functional furniture. They are probably singing something. The Internationale, perhaps. Or ‘We Come unto Jerusalem’, depending on their predilection.

  It is big. It is new. It is modern.

  But that wasn’t the way it was.

  They came on the subway. Or in cars, moving vans. One by one. Filtered into the finished apartments with their things. Sorted their possessions into the measured cubbies and shelves, placed the furniture in formation on the cork floor. Bought new things to fill the gaps.

  When they were done they lifted their eyes and gazed out onto this land that had been given unto them. Walked out of their doors and found that all the land had been claimed. Might as well adjust oneself to how things were.

  There was a town centre. There were spacious playgrounds allotted to children. Large green spaces around the corner. There were many pedestrian-only walking paths.

  A good place. That’s what people said to each other over the kitchen table a month or so after they had moved in.

  ‘It’s a good place we’ve come to.’

  Only one thing was missing. A past. At scho
ol the children didn’t get to do any special projects about Blackeberg’s history because there wasn’t one. That is to say, there was something about an old mill. A tobacco king. Some strange old buildings down by the water. But that was a long time ago and without any connection to the present.

  Where the three-storeyed apartment buildings now stood there had been only forest before.

  You were beyond the grasp of the mysteries of the past; there wasn’t even a church. Nine thousand inhabitants and no church.

  That tells you something about the modernity of the place, its rationality. It tells you something of how free they were from the ghosts of history and of terror.

  It explains in part how unprepared they were.

  No one saw them move in.

  In December when the police finally managed to track down the driver of the moving truck he didn’t have much to tell. In his records he had only noted ‘18 October. Norrköping-Blackeberg (Stockholm)’. He recalled that it was a father and daughter, a pretty girl.

  ‘Oh, and another thing. They had almost no furniture. A couch, an armchair, maybe a bed. An easy job, really. And that…yeah, they wanted it done at night. I said it would be more expensive, you know, with the overtime surcharge and that. But it was no problem. It just had to be done at night. That seemed real important. Has anything happened?’

  The driver was informed of the events, of whom he had had in his truck. His eyes widened, he looked down again at the letters on the page.

  ‘I’ll be damned…’

  He grimaced as if he had developed a revulsion for his own handwriting.

  18 October: Norrköping-Blackeberg (Stockholm).

  He was the one who had moved them in. The man and his daughter.

  He wasn’t going to tell anyone about it, not for as long as he lived.

  Contents

  PART ONE

  Wednesday 21 October 1981

  Thursday 22 October

  Friday 23 October

  Saturday 24 October

  PART TWO

  Wednesday 28 October

  Thursday 29 October

  Friday 30 October

  Saturday 31 October

  PART THREE

  Thursday 5 November

  Saturday 7 November

  Saturday 7 November (Evening)

  Saturday 7 November (Night)

  PART FOUR

  Sunday 8 November

  Sunday 8 November (Evening)

  Sunday 8 November (Evening/Night)

  Monday, 9 November

  PART FIVE

  Monday 9 November

  Tuesday 10 November

  Wednesday 11 November

  Thursday 12 November

  Epilogue Friday 13 November

  PART

  one

  Lucky is he who has such a friend

  Love trouble

  will burst your bubble

  boys!

  SIW MALMKVIST, ‘LOVE TROUBLE’

  I never wanted to kill.

  I am not naturally evil.

  Such things I do

  Just to make myself

  More attractive to you.

  Have I failed?

  MORRISSEY, ‘LAST OF THE FAMOUS

  INTERNATIONAL PLAYBOYS’

  Wednesday

  21 October 1981

  ‘And what do you think this might be?’

  Gunnar Holmberg, police commissioner from Vällingby, held up a little plastic bag of white powder.

  Maybe heroin, but no one dared to say anything. Didn’t want to be suspected of knowing anything about stuff like that. Especially if you had a brother or a friend of your brother who did it. Shoot horse. Even the girls didn’t say anything. The policeman shook the bag.

  ‘Baking powder, do you think? Flour?’

  Mumbled answers in the negative. They didn’t want him to think class 6B was a bunch of idiots. Even though it was impossible to determine what was really in the bag, this lesson was about drugs so you could draw certain conclusions. The policeman turned to the teacher.

  ‘What do you teach them in Home Economics these days?’

  The teacher smiled and shrugged her shoulders. The class laughed, the cop was OK. Some of the guys had even been allowed to touch his gun before class. It wasn’t loaded, but still.

  Oskar’s chest felt like it was about to burst. He knew the answer to the question. It hurt him not to say anything when he knew. He wanted the policeman to look at him. Look at him and tell him he was right. He knew it was a dumb thing to do, but he still put his hand up.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s heroin, isn’t it?’

  ‘In fact it is.’ The policeman looked kindly at him. ‘How did you know?’

  Heads turned in his direction, curious as to what he was going to say.

  ‘Naw…I mean, I’ve read a lot and stuff.’

  The policeman nodded.

  ‘Now there’s a good thing. Reading.’ He shook the little bag. ‘You won’t have much time for it if you get into this, though. How much do you think this little bag is worth?’

  Oskar didn’t feel the need to say anything else. He had been looked at and spoken to. Had even been able to tell the cop he read a lot. That was more than he had hoped for.

  He let himself sink into a daydream. How the policeman came up to him after class and was interested in him, sat down next to him. Then he would tell him everything. And the policeman would understand. He would stroke his hair and tell him he was all right; would hold him and say…

  ‘Fucking snitch.’

  Jonny Forsberg drove a hard finger into his side. Jonny’s brother ran with the drug crowd and Jonny knew a lot of words that the other guys in the class quickly picked up. Jonny probably knew exactly how much that bag was worth, but he didn’t snitch. Didn’t talk to the cop.

  It was recess and Oskar lingered by the coat rack, indecisive. Jonny wanted to hurt him—what was the best way to avoid it? By staying here in the hallway or going outside? Jonny and the rest of the class stormed out the doors into the schoolyard.

  That’s right; the policeman had parked his car in the schoolyard and anyone who was interested could come take a look. Jonny wouldn’t dare beat him up when the policeman was there.

  Oskar walked down to the double front doors and looked out the glass window. Just as he thought, everyone in the class had gathered around the patrol car. Oskar also wanted to be there but there was no point. Policeman or no policeman, someone would knee him, another pull his underpants up in a wedgie.

  But at least he was off the hook this recess. He went out and snuck around the back of the building, to the bathrooms.

  Once there, he listened, cleared his throat. The sound echoed through the stalls. He reached into his underpants and quickly pulled out the pissball, a piece of foam about the size of a clementine that he had cut out of an old mattress and put a hole in for his penis. He smelled it.

  Yup, he had pissed in his pants again. He rinsed it under the tap, squeezing out as much water as possible.

  Incontinence. That was what it was called. He had read about it in a pamphlet that he had sneaked from the drugstore. Mostly something old women suffered from.

  And me.

  There were medicines you could get, it said in the pamphlet, but he did not intend to use his allowance so he could humiliate himself at the prescription counter. And definitely did not intend to tell his mother; she would feel so sorry for him it would make him sick.

  He had the pissball and it worked for now.

  Footsteps outside, voices. Pissball in hand he fled into the nearest stall and locked the door at the same time as the outer door opened. He soundlessly climbed up onto the toilet seat, curling into a ball so his feet wouldn’t show if anyone looked under the door. Tried not to breathe.

  ‘Pig-gy?’

  Jonny, of course.

  ‘Hey Piggy, are you here?’

  Micke was with him. The worst two of the lot. No, Tomas was worse but he was
almost never in on stuff that involved physical blows and scratches. Too smart for that. Was probably sucking up to the policeman right now. If the pissball were discovered, Tomas was the one who would really be able to use it to hurt and humiliate him for a long time. Jonny and Micke on the other hand would just beat him up and that was fine with him. So in a way he was actually lucky…

  ‘Piggy? We know you’re in here.’

  They checked his stall. Shook the door. Banged on it. Oskar wrapped his arms tightly around his legs and clenched his teeth so he wouldn’t scream.

  Go away! Leave me alone! Why can’t you leave me alone?

  Now Jonny was talking in a mild voice.

  ‘Little Pig, if you don’t come out now we have to get you after school. Is that what you want?’

  It was quiet for a while. Oskar exhaled carefully.

  They attacked the door with kicks and blows. The whole bathroom thundered and the lock on the stall door started to bend inward. He should open it, go out to them before they got too mad but he just couldn’t.

  ‘Pig-gy?’

  He had put his hand up in class, a declaration of existence, a claim that he knew something. And that was forbidden to him. They could give a number of reasons why they had to torment him: he was too fat, too ugly, too disgusting. But the real problem was simply that he existed, and every reminder of his existence was a crime.

  They were probably just going to ‘baptise’ him. Shove his head into the toilet bowl and flush. Regardless of what they concocted it was always such a relief when it was over. So why couldn’t he just pull back the lock that was in any case going to tear off at the hinges at any moment, and let them have their fun?

  He stared at the bolt that was forced out of the lock with a crack, at the door that flung open and banged into the wall, at Micke Siskov’s triumphantly smiling face, and then he knew.

  That wasn’t the way the game was played.

  He couldn’t have pulled back the lock, they couldn’t simply have climbed over the sides of the stall in all of three seconds, because those weren’t the rules of the game.