Joel leads the way through the dark streets, down towards the iron bridge over the river. He takes short cuts through rear courtyards and narrow alleys between cold walls. Although it's not necessary, he picks the most roundabout and awkward route he can think of. Clambering over the roof of the shed where the Highways Department keeps its welding equipment is unnecessary, of course. Nor is it essential to struggle through the broken-down greenhouse owned by Mr Under, the horse dealer. But Ture doesn't complain. He follows a couple of paces behind Joel, and Joel notices that he's good at climbing.
They pause outside the block of flats where Otto lives.
'This is where an enemy lives,' says Joel. 'He's been excluded. He's called Otto and he's a real bastard.'
'Excluded from what?' wonders Ture.
The light from a streetlamp illuminates his face, and Joel can see that he is not grinning scornfully.
'You'll find out soon enough,' says Joel. 'How old are you, by the way?'
'Twelve,' says Ture. 'You as well?'
'Nearly,' says Joel.
When they stop the next time they're in the middle of the railway bridge. The enormous arches tower up over their heads.
Joel quickly invents another rule. Too bad if it's a rule that is going to cause pain.
He bends down and touches the ice-cold parapet with his tongue. His tongue sticks to the metal immediately, and it hurts when he pulls it loose.
Then Joel tells Ture about The Secret Society. About who is in it, who has been excluded and who are dead. He talks about the dog he is looking for, but he doesn't mention that he imagines it is on its way to a star. He's not sure why he keeps that back. Perhaps he wants to keep some of the secret for himself?
'Even if you're going to run away in a week's time you can still be a member,' says Joel. 'But there's something you must promise, and another thing you must do. You must hold your tongue against the bridge parapet and count up to fifty. And you must promise to crawl over those enormous iron arches if you betray The Secret Society.'
Without hesitation Ture crouches down and presses his tongue against the freezing cold parapet.
Joel realises straight away that Ture has never done this before. Licked cold iron in the middle of winter. The trick is simply to touch the iron with the very tip of your tongue, so that it doesn't hurt too much when you try to take it away.
Joel is worried. What if he can't get it loose again? What if it sticks fast and is torn off?
When Ture has finished counting to fifty he pulls his tongue away. Joel can see that it hurts something awful, and that Ture wasn't prepared for that at all. He pulls a face and spits blood into the palm of his hand.
'I promise,' he says. 'I'll crawl over the arch if I betray The Secret Society.'
'You have to stand up at the top of the arch and pee into the river as well,' says Joel.
'I have no intention of evading my obligations,' says Ture. 'Now what do we do?'
'Look for the dog,' says Joel.
But there is no sign of the dog that night.
They roam about the little town.
The Old Bricklayer, Simon Windstorm, goes past in his lorry, and Joel explains that the driver is a madman who never sleeps.
'He hasn't slept for thirty-four years,' he says, to make Simon even more mysterious.
'You'll die,' says Ture. 'If you haven't slept for as many years as that, you're dead. That would mean there's a dead man driving around in that lorry.'
'Maybe he is dead,' says Joel. 'We'll look into that one of these nights.'
Outside the Grand Hotel are a couple of drunks, leaning against each other. Joel recognises them. The short fat one is Mr Rudin, the ironmonger. The tall thin one is Walter Kringström who runs a dance orchestra and plays the clarinet.
In the background, in the forecourt of the hotel, Mr Roth, the restaurant owner, is trying to start his car. He can't get the engine to fire, and they hear Roth cursing and swearing as he rummages around under the bonnet.
Rudin and Kringström make their way unsteadily as far as the furniture shop where they come to a halt again, leaning on each other. Joel thinks it looks as if Walter Kringström is crying and the ironmonger is trying to console him.
'Winos,' hisses Ture in his ear. 'Let's get going . . . ' They wander through the empty streets for another hour. Occasionally The Old Bricklayer drives past in his lorry.
Joel is afraid that Ture might get bored. I ought to have hit upon more things to do, he thinks. If only Samuel hadn't come home with that slut in the red hat in tow. . .
He thinks he knows where she lives, behind the bookshop, in an attic flat.
He carefully opens the gate leading into the rear courtyard.
'Another enemy lives here,' he informs Ture in a low voice. 'The Lady in the Red Hat. She should be eliminated.'
'Why?' asks Ture. 'Who is she?'
'She serves beer in the local bar,' says Joel. 'She's broken into my flat.'
'Why don't you go to the police?' wonders Ture.
'Not that kind of break-in,' says Joel.
Then he remembers that he's promised to show Ture where he lives.
He's not sure he still wants to, in fact.
What is a shabby old wooden house in need of a coat of paint compared with the district courthouse? He might just as well show Ture the broken-down shed behind the vicarage. Or the earth cellar in the yard behind the pharmacy.
But he acknowledges that he can't get out of it now, and he leads the way back down to the river.
He stops by the gate.
'This is where I live,' he says.
Ture gives the house a long, hard look.
'The whole house?' he asks.
Joel very nearly says yes, but that would have been a dangerous lie. A bad lie that could easily be disproved. It would have been a hopeless piece of boasting.
'Just the top floor,' he says.
Then their nocturnal expedition seems to grind to a halt of its own accord. They go back to the courthouse and say goodbye at the gate.
'I wish it was me,' says Joel. 'Not having to go to school, I mean.'
'Come here after school tomorrow,' says Ture. 'Ring the bell on that door over there, the middle one.' Then he jumps over the gate.
'It squeaks,' he says. 'The caretaker might wake up and think we're burglars.'
Then he spits into the palm of his hand and examines it.
'It's stopped bleeding,' he says. 'Will you be coming tomorrow?'
Joel nods. He stays by the gate and watches Ture disappear into the white house. Then he hurries home. He's so tired, he can hardly keep his eyes open. When The Old Bricklayer comes rattling past in his lorry he doesn't even bother to slink into the shadows. He'd like to know what Ture is thinking. There's something about Ture that makes him insecure . . .
When Joel tiptoes carefully into the kitchen he can sense straight away that something is amiss. He stands perfectly still, listening.
When his eyes get used to the dark, he looks round the kitchen. Nothing has changed. Celestine is in her showcase, his dad's socks are hanging up to dry over the stove, which is still hot. Even so, something is not as it should be.
It's just that I'm tired, he thinks. I'm imagining things . . .
He takes off his boots, dries the wet stains from the floor, and snuggles into bed.
Although he has so much to think about, he falls asleep immediately.
Next day he hesitates for ages at the gate to the courthouse.
Should he go in, or shouldn't he? Had Ture been serious? The house is too big and too posh. He vaguely recalls hearing that the judge's lodgings has eleven rooms. Old Törnqvist used to live there all on his own. In eleven rooms?
In the end he plucks up courage and opens the gate. It squeaks, just as Ture had said. He walks down the stone path and rings the doorbell. Better take my cap off, he thinks, and removes his woolly hat. Ture answers the door, to his relief.
It could have been his mother. Or even
worse, his father.
What on earth do you say to a district judge? You might get hard labour if you say something wrong.
The flat is just as big as Joel had imagined. He follows Ture through the many rooms in his stocking feet. The walls are full of big paintings in gilt frames, and the walls of one room are covered from top to bottom with books. There are thick carpets on all the floors, and a coat of armour stands in one corner. Joel stops to stare.
Fancy a coat of armour ending up in this remote, snow-filled dump.
'The armour is from Scotland,' says Ture. 'That's where our ancestors come from.'
He and Ture seem to be the only ones in the enormous flat.
'Don't you have a mother?' asks Joel?
'Of course I have a mother,' says Ture. 'But she and my two sisters aren't moving here until the summer. It's just Dad and me at the moment. Plus somebody who comes in to clean and do the cooking. She's out shopping just now.'
Of course I have a mother – Joel repeats it to himself. It's not always of course . . .
Ture has a large room under the roof. Joel thinks it's odd that he's unpacked all his things and arranged them so neatly if he's going to run away shortly. And is he really going to cart all this with him when he does leave? He would need The Old Bricklayer's lorry to carry everything as far as the station.
For Joel, going into Ture's room is like entering a hitherto unknown world. It's almost as big as all the rooms in the flat Joel shares with his father put together. One wall is covered in books, another one in maps. Big model aeroplanes are suspended from the ceiling. Standing on a long table stretching from one corner to the other are Meccano models: steam engines and strange machines, the likes of which Joel has never seen before. There are two radios by the bed, and earphones hanging from some kind of pulley arrangement over the pillow. This room contains everything apart from toys.
Joel stands in the middle of the room, gaping at it all.
'You have a hole in your sock,' says Ture. 'Mind your big toe doesn't run away.'
'I like to keep my toes well aired,' says Joel.
He says it as nonchalantly as he can. He doesn't want to give the impression that he's embarrassed.
There is a picture hanging over the bed. It depicts a man with a long beard and an almost bald head. Joel thinks it looks like one of those old priests that are hanging in the sacristy at church.
'Who's that?' he asks, but regrets it the moment he's said it. Perhaps it's somebody he ought to recognise?
'Leonardo,' says Ture. 'The one and only Leonardo da Vinci. He's my idol.' Joel has never heard of him. Now he takes a big risk. If Ture starts asking questions, he'll be rumbled.
'Everybody knows who he is,' he says, as convincingly as he can. He's got away with it. Ture doesn't ask any more questions, but starts showing him his maps.
'I ought to have been born in another age,' he says. 'When there were still mountains and rivers and deserts to discover. No matter where you go nowadays, there's always somebody who's been there before you. I'm living too late.'
'You live when you live,' says Joel.
'Do you never dream?' asks Ture.
'No,' says Joel. 'Not very often.'
'You're lying,' says Ture.
'Oh no I'm not,' says Joel.
'I have my own ideas about that,' says Ture. 'But what do you want to be when you grow up?'
'A sailor, I think,' says Joel. 'Like my dad.'
'But there can't be any sailors living round here, surely?' says Ture. 'There's no sea.'
'He lives here even so,' says Joel.
'Is he a captain?' asks Ture.
Joel would prefer not to answer. If he does, he'll have to lie even more. He doesn't want to say that his dad is only an Able Seaman.
'His last voyage was as captain on a boat called Celestine,' he says. 'They were transporting live horses.'
He suddenly feels angry with his father. Why isn't he a captain? Then they could have lived in a big house, like this one.
'I might become an engineer,' says Ture. 'Or maybe I'll work for the UN.'
Joel has only a vague idea of what the UN is. A sort of place where people give speeches for the rest to listen to. But he doesn't ask.
I can go to the library and look them up, he thinks. Leonardo da Vinci and the UN.
'Why do you have two radio sets?' he asks, so as to avoid having to talk about the UN.
'So that I can listen to two programmes at the same time,' says Ture. 'Sweden and foreign stations at the same time.'
Once again Joel is angry with his dad. Here we have a boy aged twelve with two radio sets. His dad is over forty, but he has only one. And that's much older than the two Ture has.
'What kind of a radio do you have?' asks Ture.
'A Luxor,' says Joel.
Ture sits on the floor, on a cushion. 'The Secret Society is good,' says Ture. 'But we could do more than just look for a dog.'
'But you're going to run away soon,' says Joel. 'I thought we could find that dog while you're still here.'
'A Secret Society must create fear,' says Ture. 'We have to show that we're dangerous.'
'How?' asks Joel.
'I can show you tonight,' says Ture.
In fact Joel had intended staying at home tonight. He's frightened of falling asleep at his desk if he goes out every night. But he doesn't say that.
They agree to meet at midnight, among the goods wagons. Then Joel has to leave. The stove and potatoes are waiting for him.
'Why are you in such a hurry?' asks Ture.
'That's a secret,' says Joel.
He's in a bad mood when he goes home. He has too many lies to keep track of. And it's all his dad's fault. He's not a captain, he has only one radio set, and he hasn't got a wife which means that Joel hasn't got a mum.
Samuel has nothing. Only an axe that he uses to cut down trees in the forest.
Even worse, he's never said anything about who Leonardo da Vinci is, or what they do at the UN.
And to top it all he comes home with that slut in the red hat in tow.
Joel remembers that he has to go to the shop. As he's nearly home, he has to retrace his steps. That makes him even angrier.
I'm going to move in with Jenny, my mum, he thinks. I don't care what she looks like, I don't care what she does. Nothing can be worse than living with Samuel. The only thing he'll take with him is Celestine.
He'll take that blue stool he got for his birthday to the railway bridge and hurl it into the river.
There's a queue in the shop. Svenson smells of strong drink as usual, fumbles with the goods and has trouble in working out the bills. Joel waits and waits.
It will never be his turn. That's his dad's fault as well.
When Joel gets home he starts the fire in the stove, then lies down on the kitchen bench while he's waiting for the potatoes to boil. He falls asleep, and is woken up by his father shaking him by the shoulder.
The meal is ready and the table set. Samuel is in an extremely good mood. He's humming one of his sea shanties. He keeps smiling at Joel.
After dinner he gets shaved. That's enough to worry Joel. His dad only ever gets shaved once a week, on Saturday afternoons. It's only Wednesday today. Samuel is humming away non-stop.
Joel decides he'll have to keep a close eye on his father.
Can Sara with the red hat really put him in such a good mood? Or is it something else?
After dinner Joel takes out his thirteen tin soldiers and builds a fort out of some books. But he finds it hard to concentrate because he can hear his dad humming away in his room all the time.
In the end he gives his model soldiers a kick and they all end up under the bed.
They can stay there until they're buried in dust, he thinks.
Then he goes into his father's room. Samuel is lying on his bed, listening to the radio and wiggling his toes.
'Hi, Joel,' he says. 'What are you playing with?'
'I'm not playing,' says Joel.
'I want to know who Leonardo da Vinci is.'
'Who?'
'Leonardo da Vinci.'
'That's a name I've heard before. Why do you want to know who he is?'
'I just do.'
'Hang on, I'll have to think a bit. Leonardo da Vinci . . . '
Joel stands in the doorway, waiting. His dad wiggles his toes and thinks.
'He was an inventor, I think. And a painter. A long time ago. He knew everything. He invented cannons and aeroplanes long before anybody else.'
'I'm going to be like him.'
'Nobody can be like him. You can only be who you are.'
'Why did you never become a captain?'
'I didn't have any schooling. I just had my hands. That means you can only be an Able Seaman.'
Joel thinks he ought to tell him to stop wiggling his toes. Stop smiling, stop humming sea shanties. But he just stands in the doorway and says nothing.
'I'll go back to my room, then,' he says.
His father doesn't answer. He's closed his eyes and is humming a tune.
If he's lying there thinking of Sara, I'm off, Joel thinks. If he brings her home one more time, I'm getting out of here.
He will need to find out where his mother lives. He'll have to ask his dad about that. It's the most important of all the questions currently occupying his mind. He wishes it was the only thing he had to worry about. Most of the time nothing at all happens, he thinks, but just now far too much is happening that he needs to think through. It gets more difficult to cope with life for every year that passes, he thinks. Not the least difficult thing is understanding grown-ups, understanding his father.
He wishes he could creep into Samuel's head and sit down in the middle of all his thoughts. Then he would be able to compare what his dad says with what he actually thinks.
Perhaps being a grown-up means not saying what you really think.
Or knowing which lies are least dangerous. Learning to avoid untruths that can too easily be found out . . .
He takes his alarm clock into bed with him and wraps it inside a sock before placing it under his pillow, next to his ear. Then he switches off the light.