ON THE SECOND floor of Kärngränden 4 in central Helsingborg, a light switch was glowing red, trying to attract attention. But he’d left the lights off. His eyes needed to adapt. Ten minutes later, he stepped into the flat and quietly shut the door behind him.
It was the same flat and yet completely different. Then, when he’d been here to find out who lived on the other side of the window on the far left, it had been tidy, everything in its place. Now, it was showing clear signs of neglect.
That their perfect middle-class existence had been seriously rocked by Assar Skanås’s treatment of their daughter was in one way understandable. But that they’d taken it so hard they couldn’t even be bothered to do dishes and pick up after themselves any more seemed fairly over the top. It was as though they were so busy feeling bad and sorry for themselves, they had no time for anything else.
He stopped outside the door to the parents’ bedroom. Last time, it had stood ajar. Now, it was closed. To make sure there’d be no squeaking or sticking, he pulled out the can of lock dry lube and attached it to the red three-inch nozzle, which he inserted into the keyhole. He gave the lock and the hinges a few squirts each.
The door opened without a sound and he entered and looked around. After seeing the hallway and parts of the kitchen, he wasn’t surprised to find the floor littered with clothes and both nightstands covered with Kleenex, water glasses and open boxes of Zolpidem and Imovane, which reassured him they were fast asleep.
Maybe the fact that they lay facing away from each other at the very edges of the mattress wasn’t entirely surprising either. It wouldn’t be the first time a relationship had foundered after a child was hurt. What was more remarkable was that the little girl in question wasn’t lying between them in bed. That, if anything, would have been expected.
Goddammit. The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind, and now he was standing there with no clue as to what to do next. What if she wasn’t there? Then what would he do? What if they’d shipped her off to her grandparents because they didn’t feel capable of caring for her? What the fuck would he do then?
He went back into the hallway and past the door where wooden letters formed the name Ruben and stopped outside the door on the far left, where the wooden letters spelled out Ester between a number of taped-up drawings of flowers, hearts and, if he had to guess, princesses.
He gave the lock and hinges a once-over with the lock dry lube before opening the door and stepping into the room. To his great relief, she was in her bed, and just like the last time he was here, she was curled up in foetal position with her thumb in her mouth, surrounded by an army of teddy bears.
After closing the door behind him, he moved over to the edge of the bed, where he squatted down and started to empty his backpack. He set the two plastic bottles of water and the bowl to one side. He pulled a rag soaked in paint thinner from a plastic bag and held it close enough to her face to make her breathe in the fumes.
He waited like that for a few minutes before judging that she was sufficiently passed out, then gently pulled her thumb out and covered her mouth and nose with the rag. There was no reaction, not the slightest twitch or attempt at resistance as she drifted further and further into the haze of unconsciousness.
He was probably doing her a favour. Not that he cared. Not in the slightest, actually. The only thing that mattered was that the task set by the dice was carried out to the letter. That little Ester didn’t have to wake up and realize her hours with Assar the Paedo hadn’t been a nightmare was something more akin to a happy side effect. Judging from her parents’ bedroom, she would probably have grown up in a broken home with no clear boundaries and ended up a junkie ready to do anything for another hit.
He unscrewed the bottle caps and emptied the water into the bowl until it was about two inches from the top. He flipped the unconscious girl over on her stomach and turned her until her head was dangling off the side of the bed. Then he picked up the bowl, slowly raised it up to her face and held it there.
There was no reaction to that, either.
Not a sound. No resistance. Nothing but a few bubbles.