Free The Merman by Carl-Johan Vallgren Page B

a genuine Walkman. It was in an open box with the headphones plugged in. There was a price tag on the door of the cassette compartment: 1,199 kronor.
    â€˜Is that the one you’re thinking of?’ Robert asked as we stood outside the shop.
    â€˜Yeah.’
    â€˜Over a grand. Can you get sent to prison for that? If you can, I don’t want you to do it.’
    He looked properly scared.
    â€˜Don’t worry. I’m not fifteen yet. That means they can’t do anything.’
    â€˜How do you know that?’
    â€˜I just do. Come with me.’
    In order to reach the cassette player, you had to bend over a metre-high screen without anyone noticing. There mustn’t be anyone walking past in the street and no one could notice anything inside the shop. The good thing was that the small display window was in a fairly remote part of the shop, behind some shelves of electrical goods that shielded the view from the till.
    We cautiously walked past along the outside of the shop. It was half full inside. I was going to need Robert’s help to manage this, but I was no longer sure it was worth the risk. If I got caught, the police would get involved straight away. The thought of a foster home popped up in my mind again – the worst horror scenario: being split up from my brother.
    We sat down on one of the park benches outside, and I explained the situation to him.
    â€˜I think we should do it,’ he said. ‘Think about Gerard.’
    I was doing just that: thinking about Gerard and his sick mind, where anything at all could happen in a fraction of a second. Gerard on one side of the balance, the cops on the other. I really had no choice.
    â€˜Right, I’ll go in first,’ I said. ‘And then you go in a little later. But don’t wait too long, a minute maximum. And stay right by the door or by the tills. Check out the record players or something. Pretend you don’t know me. Don’t even look in my direction. And when it’s time, you ask the guy at the till if he can help you.’
    â€˜With what?’
    Anything. A record needle. The price of a tape deck.’
    He nodded earnestly.
    â€˜If they spot me, you run like hell. Don’t think about me, just get out of there, as fast as you can. Then I’ll see you at home.’
    There was music playing over the loudspeakers as I stepped over the threshold. An assistant was bending over a cabinet, getting something out for a customer. Some kids were crowded round the ghetto blasters. There was an older man standing at the cash desk, talking on the phone. The manager, I thought. He looked like one anyway, dressed in a suit and tie, with a name badge on his chest.
    Just behind him, in a glass display case, was where the portable cassette players were kept. The one in the window, I thought, was the only one in all of Falkenberg that it was possible to nick without having to break in.
    I waited for him to hang up, and then I went up to the counter.
    â€˜Have you got any ordinary extension leads? I’m supposed to buy one for my dad... ’
    He nodded towards the smaller display window. Thick black strands of hair stuck out from his shirt cuffs: he was hairy all the way down to his fingers.
    â€˜Three-way plugs and cables are on the bottom shelf.’
    There was a ding from the door as I went over towards the corner. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my brother come into the shop.
    I was over in the electrical department now, right by the display window. The guy behind the counter could still see me. But he only had to move a metre and the coast would be clear – if he turned his attention to Robert, or if some other customer waved him over. I picked up an extension lead, pretended to look at it doubtfully, as if I were hoping to discover some defect that might make them reduce the price. The hairy bloke cast a glance in my direction.
    Then I heard my brother say something, and the manager left his station