The Beast (16 page)

    DD:
The same ones.

    SS:
The same as when?

    DD:
The same that she had on when she came to school.

    SS:
Can you remember what Marie had on? Colours and so on?

    DD:
She had a green T-shirt. Humpie has got one just like that.

    SS:
And?

    DD:
Her red shoes. Her best. With metal things,

    SS:
Metal things?

    DD:
For closing them. So they stay on.

    SS:
Trousers? Skirt?

    DD: I
can't remember,

    SS:
Maybe a skirt?

    DD:
Maybe. Not proper trousers, it was too hot.

    SS:
What about the man? What was he like?

    DD:
Big. And strong, he could lift the pedal-car out of the sandpit.

    SS:
Can you remember what he was wearing?

    DD:
Trousers. And a top. I think. And a baseball cap.

    SS:
What kind?

    DD:
The kind you have on your head.

    SS:
Can you remember anything about the cap?

    DD:
Yes. It was like the ones they sell in Statoil garages.

    SS: What
did Marie and the man do next?

    DD:
They walked away.

    SS:
Where did they go?

    DD:
To the gate. And the man fixed the thing.

    SS:
What did he fix?

    DD:
The lock-thing on the gate.

    SS:
The hook on top that you've got to lift straight up to open the gate?

    DD:
Yes. He did that,

    SS:
Then what did they do? DD: They went outside in the street. SS: Do you remember
which way they walked?

    DD:
Just out. I couldn't see.

    SS:
Why did they leave?

    DD:
Don't know. We're not allowed. To go out, I mean. It's not allowed.

    SS:
How did they look? What mood were they in?

    DD:
Not angry.

    SS:
No? Not angry, but instead…?

    DD:
They were pleased, a bit.

    SS:
Did they look pleased when they left?

    DD:
Not angry, anyway.

    SS:
How long could you keep watching them?

    DD:
Not long. Not after the gate,

    SS:
So they disappeared?

    DD:
Yes.

    SS:
Is there anything else you want to tell me?

    DD:
(inaudible)

    SS:
David?

    DD:
(silence)

    SS:
Never mind. You've been very, very helpful, David. You're very good at
remembering things. Would it be all right if I left you here for just a little
while? I'd like to speak to some other men.

    DD:
I'm all right.

    SS:
Afterwards I'll go and get your mummy and daddy. They're waiting for you
downstairs.

    Fredrik
caught the two o'clock ferry. The ferries, in their moss-green and sun-yellow
livery, set out every hour on the hour. Crossing the strait between Okö and
Arnö took only four or five minutes, but marked the divide between mainland and
island. For him, it symbolised a shift from time that raced to time that
lingered. He had bought an old cottage on the island a month or so before Marie
was born, when writing at home had looked like becoming impossible. The cottage
had been half ruined, and surrounded by a jungle, but it was only fifteen
minutes away by car. During the first couple of summers Agnes had helped him
recreate a house and a garden from this ruin in the wilderness. Eventually a
novel trilogy had emerged from it, books that had sold rather well and were now
being translated into German, which really pleased his publishers, only too
aware that the market for foreign publication rights was tough.

    Fredrik
knew he wouldn't be able to write anything today, but had made up his mind to
pretend to himself he might. He went through the routine, settled down in front
of the little square screen with his pile of untidy notes at hand. Quarter of
an hour passed, half an hour, three quarters of an hour. He turned on the
television in the room next door, it was companionable to have it mumbling away
at low volume. It joined the commercial radio station that was playing worn pop
tunes, too familiar to attract any attention.

    After
a while he decided to take a short walk. He went down to the water's edge and
observed people messing about in boats, a simple but pleasing show that was
always on.

    Still
nothing written, not a word. He must stay until he had one phrase that looked
worth keeping on paper.

    The
telephone rang.

    These
days it was always Agnes. Everybody else had stopped trying. Knowing what a rude
bastard he was when someone disturbed him in mid-sentence, it was amazing that
he hadn't realised sooner that people had been scared off. It was only when the
writer's block had tightened its grip and the screen stayed forever blank that
he discovered how emptiness had crept up on him. He didn't know what to think
about it, his isolation seemed both beautiful and ugly.

    'Yes?'

    'No
need to sound so cross.'

    'I'm
writing.'

    'What
are you writing?'

    'Well.
It's a bit slow at the moment.'

    'That'd
mean nothing, then.'

    It
was no good lying to Agnes. They had seen each other naked too often.

    'Yes,
roughly. I'm sorry. What do you want?'

    'We've
got a daughter, remember? I'd like to know how she is. We do phone each other
at times and it's always about her, you know that. I tried earlier, but you
made Marie put the phone down so I didn't get to hear anything. Now I want some
answers.'

    'Marie
is fine. Really, she is, all the time. For one thing, she's one of those rare
people who don't suffer when it's as hot as it is now. She gets that from you.'

    He
had a vision of Agnes' tanned body, imagined what she looked like now, curled
up in her office chair, wearing a thin dress. He had longed for her every
morning, every day, every night until he learned to control it by shutting her
image away, learned to be brisk and no-nonsense and free.

    'What
about school? What happens when you leave her there now?'

    Aha,
Micaela, you want to know about Micaela. Good! Agnes must be troubled by his
relationship with a woman much younger than either of them. Never mind that it
wouldn't make Agnes come back to him, she wouldn't crawl just because he loved
someone who was as beautiful as that, but he felt good about it. Childish
maybe, but enjoyable.

    'It's
much better now. This morning it took maybe ten minutes and then she was off,
playing Indians with David.'

    'Indians?'

    'Yes,
that's what they're up to now.'

    He
started to wander about holding the phone, left the small kitchen with the
table where he worked and went into the even smaller sitting room to sit down
in an armchair. Her timing had been perfect, he couldn't have endured staring
at the blank computer screen for much longer.

    He
was just about to ask her about her life in Stockholm, how she was getting on,
although this was something he hardly ever did because he feared what she might
say, maybe that she loved her new life and had found somebody special to share
it with, but then his mind suddenly fixed on an image on the mumbling
television set in the middle of the room.

    'Agnes,
wait. Hold it.'

    The
black-and-white still showed a smiling man with short darkish hair. Fredrik
recognised the face. He had seen it recently. He had seen it today: it was the
man on the seat by the school gate, the father waiting outside The Dove. They
had nodded to each other. Now a new image, still of the father, but this time
in colour. The photo had been taken inside a prison; there was a wall behind
the man and he was flanked by two prison guards. He was waving to the camera,
or at least that was what it looked like.

    Fredrik
turned the sound up. The excitable voice of a reporter came on; they were all
taught to sound like that, to rattle off words with the same emphasis on every
one, neutral voices without personality.

    The
voice said that the father on the bench, the man in the pictures, was Bernt
Lund, a thirty-six-year-old who had been convicted in 1991 of several violent
rapes of underage girls, then convicted again in 1997 for more rapes of
children, and finally found guilty of the so-called Skarpholm cellar murders,
two nine-year-old girls who had been sadistically abused and killed. He had
been held in one of the secure units for sex offenders at Aspsås prison, but
today, in the early hours, he had escaped from a hospital transport.

    Fredrik
sat there, silently. He couldn't hear, raised the volume but still couldn't
hear.

    That
man in the picture. Fredrik had nodded to him.

    A man
from the prison had a microphone shoved in his face; he was sweating profusely
and stammered when he spoke.

    An
older, grim-faced policeman said he had no comment and added a plea for the
public to communicate any information about sightings.

    He
had nodded to that man, twice. The man had been sitting there all the time;
Fredrik had nodded on the way into the school, and again on the way out.

    Fredrik
had turned rigid, but now he could hear Agnes shouting in the phone; her sharp
voice hurt his ears. Let her jabber.

    He
shouldn't have nodded. Shouldn't have.

    'Agnes,'
he finally said into the receiver. 'I can't talk any more. I must phone
somewhere. I'll put the phone down now.'

    He
pushed the button and waited for a signal. She was still there.

    'Agnes!
Fuck's sake! Get off the line!' He threw the phone on the floor, ran into the
kitchen, grabbed his mobile and rang Micaela, rang the school.