The Merman by Carl-Johan Vallgren Page B

window as Gerard disappeared down the corridor. My brother looked awesome in his new trainers. I had given him the jeans, too; they were a little big for him, but at any rate they were a real brand name. He was beaming from ear to ear until he realised it was a bribe, that I really did want him to go to school as usual, despite what had happened. It took a great deal of persuasion to get him to come. I explained how important it was that we didn’t stay away like scaredy-cats, because that would only sharpen their bloodlust.
    Somebody went over to him outside and said something. A lad in his class who suffers from a load of strange tics and is basically unable to keep still. I saw my brother perk up and nod. Maybe he got a compliment on his clothes. I felt like going out to him and keeping him company for a while, and I might have done it too, if I hadn’t had other things to think about.

T ommy’s house stood behind a dense hedge that protected it from the winds off the sea. It was a two-storey detached house with fibre-cement cladding and a grey brick-built annexe, which the family let out to tourists in the summertime. To the left was a driveway leading to the garage and a shed, where they would tinker around with boat engines. There used to be another house on the plot, an old farmhouse, but Tommy’s dad had it torn down when the family built their new house in the Sixties. He was part of the Celes family and was born in the village. Tommy’s mum came from Träslöv, a fishing community some thirty or forty miles north. Through his father, Tommy was related to almost everyone in Glommen. The families had intermingled for generations, and everyone kept track of which branches they belonged to.
    I parked my bike by the gate and went up the gravel path. People freely came and went in each other’s houses down here. Nobody locked their doors, not even in the summer when the place was full of holidaymakers. Tommy had said there were never any break-ins in Glommen; there was no reason to break into an unlocked house.
    I rang the doorbell. When no one opened the door, I went in.
    The bed was made in his room upstairs. His schoolbooks lay on the desk. A pair of jeans hung over one arm of the chair. Dirty tube socks littered the floor. I spent a while looking at a picture hanging above his desk. It showed a fishing boat on its way into Glommen harbour. It was the family’s previous boat. Tommy’s dad had painted it. When he retired, he took up painting in his leisure time. I sat down on the bed and wondered what to do. Wait until he got home, or start searching?
    It struck me that he might be in the basement. His brothers had built a games room down there, with a ping-pong table and a little bar with beer taps. Tommy would sit down there and play video games sometimes, but if his mum or dad suddenly came home it could be awkward if they found me somewhere other than in his room. To say nothing of how weird I would feel if his brothers found me in the basement. They didn’t frighten me, but there was something that made you not want to end up alone with them.
    I went over to the window. I could see the lighthouse a little way off. At night it shone into the room, but it never disturbed Tommy. It might be in his blood, I thought, that love of lighthouses. In every family down here there were tales of some ancestor who had run aground and drowned because of poor light from a lighthouse.
    On the chest of drawers by the window was our school yearbook, open to the page with our class photo. Gerard was sitting in front on the left in his usual uniform: leather jacket, patched jeans and a bandanna round his neck. His scooter helmet was on his lap, and the gloves, as if he had something to hide underneath. Peder, who was seated next to him, seemed to be most inclined to agree in the presence of his boss. He had placed his hands on his thighs; if you looked closely, you could see he was giving the