THE BYPASS TOOL slid into the letter box unhindered and he managed to catch the thumb turn on the inside on the second attempt. Then he just had to turn it, open the door and enter.
There was no way of knowing for sure, but something told him this might be his very last hurrah. That what had started as a rash overreaction, and then slowly but surely evolved into a severe addiction, was irrevocably coming to an end.
The flat looked as expected. Two rooms, bathroom and kitchen. Most of the rooms could have done with a renovation. Ikea furniture, a bookcase with no books in it and a few Tarantino posters on the walls. A TV with a video game console, a pair of hand weights and a rolled-up yoga mat.
That was exactly why it was so important to get everything right. Not just superficially and generally, but down to the smallest detail. His plan was complex and full of steps that could go wrong. But if he pulled it off, it would not only provide release for all the pent-up energy raging inside him – it had been over two months, after all – he would also free himself of all suspicion. Not even Risk would think to look his way.
The fuse box was located in the hallway, and though the fuses were unmarked, finding the one for the bathroom didn’t take long.
The reason was that he didn’t really have time to do this. Even though night had fallen, he had so many things to get to it was virtually impossible to plan and execute something of this magnitude, and in a way, this made him immune to suspicion.
After unscrewing the fuse and replacing it with his own modified one, he went over to the kitchen and searched the cupboards and pantry until he found what he was looking for.
As far as choosing his victim was concerned, he’d imposed only one criterion, that they were sufficiently different from Moonif, Molly and all the rest of them to fit the pattern; and after searching various databases, he’d identified the perfect candidate.
The bucket was one-third full. He poured half of the powder into the sink, rinsed it out and mixed in his own. Then he snapped the lid back on and put the bucket back on the bottom shelf of the pantry.
Mattias Larsson of Tryckerigatan 27B. The address was in Planteringen – a forgotten neighbourhood in south Helsingborg surrounded by motorways and adjacent to the South Harbour, an industrial port. The flat was on the second floor of a square brick house with recessed balconies.
There was no outlet by the basin in the bathroom, so he had to run a cable from the light socket in the ceiling all the way down behind the bath.
Mattias Larsson was a twenty-seven-year-old plumber. He hadn’t been able to find an active Facebook profile, and hadn’t had the time to try to worm his way in through friend requests anyway. It had to happen today, or, rather, tonight.
He stripped the last six feet of cable and removed the insulation at the end of the brown and blue wires. Then he secured one with sturdy tape a few inches from the foot of the bath and the other at the same height at the head.
Luckily, he’d been able to find Mattias Larsson on Instagram. Even better, he had a public profile where he was in the habit of posting an endless series of pathetic workout selfies. If Instagram was to be believed, he put his poor body through the wringer practically every day, and on Tuesday nights it was all about legs.
Grounding the bath was slightly more complicated because the floor was covered in dark green vinyl and the pipe leading down into the floor drain was plastic. He had no other choice than to connect the yellow and green wire to the ground of the light socket and tape the other end to the bottom of the bath.
After sealing the bath’s overflow drain with silicone, he just had to mix the two-component glue, fasten the metal loop to the bottom of the bath and test how far he had to turn the tap to make approximately three litres per minute come out. Then he could sit down on the none-too-clean floor and wait.
On this particular night, Mattias Larsson had plans to take his girlfriend, Hanna Brahe, out to dinner to celebrate the third anniversary of their engagement. At least, if the girlfriend, who seemed to live at the gym and also had a public Instagram account, was to be believed.
He didn’t have to wait long on the bathroom floor. After only six and a half minutes, he heard a key turn in the front door lock, followed by the sound of the door opening and a second later closing again and being locked.
Mattias Larsson had come home a full twenty minutes earlier than expected. Perhaps he wanted extra time to prepare for his date. Or maybe he hadn’t been able to complete his leg session. It didn’t matter. He was ready for him.
At least he had come home alone. There were no voices, only a thud as his gym bag hit the floor and a hummed, off-key rendition of the summer hit ‘Somebody that I used to know’.
The first time he’d heard it on the radio, he’d liked it. Remarkable in itself, since he didn’t usually like any music written after the eighteenth century. But after hearing it just a few more times, he’d been so sick of it, the guitar intro alone was enough to ruin his mood.
But not this time. This time the humming, which came through louder and louder as Mattias Larsson moved further into the flat, filled him with pure joy.
It sounded like he’d stopped outside the open bathroom door. But he didn’t come in. Instead, judging by the sound, he pulled off his gym clothes in the hallway and tossed them onto the bathroom floor. Even his smelly underwear came off.
But apparently not his headphones, because the humming continued as he moved into the kitchen, where the door to the pantry creaked open and the bucket of protein powder from the bottom shelf was picked up and put down on the kitchen counter.
Only then did he stop humming. He was probably reacting to the fact that he was almost out of powder. But he must have concluded that he was misremembering, because soon enough the humming resumed and there were sounds of a bottle being filled with water and shaken. Then he flipped the lid up with a click and drank so loudly even the swallowing could be heard in the bathroom.
After that, it wasn’t long before he heard the sound of the bottle hitting the floor, followed seconds later by the sound of the muscular, 190-pound body collapsing.