The Beast (29 page)

    'OK,
Sven. Give me the full story.'

    'The
media have focused on Ewert Grens. You've done the interviews. I haven't been
part of the picture for most people outside the force. A few officials or
technicians have met me, but apart from people like that, only Marie
Steffansson's friends and relatives fit the bill and they're the only ones with
a motive. I started by checking out the father, and stopped with him.'

    Ewert
nodded and waved his hand impatiently.

    'I've
spoken to Fredrik Steffansson's partner, Micaela

    Zwarts.
She hasn't seen Fredrik since the funeral. Naturally she's worried, she knows that
he has been in very bad shape and isn't likely to get any better because he
hasn't allowed himself to mourn. Just kept himself to himself. She feels no one
can reach him. He came home yesterday morning and left a note for her,
basically saying "Back soon". That was all.'

    He
caught his breath. Ewert flapped his hand again.

    'Right.
OK. Next I phoned Marie's mother, Agnes Steffansson. The call was switched to
her mobile, because she was in Strängnäs to collect Marie's things from The
Dove. She is distracted with grief, but sensible and quick on the uptake. She
confirmed everything Zwarts said. Apparently Fredrik phoned her a couple of
times and she thought it was just about trying to stay in touch. My call got
her worried. Then she suddenly broke off, saying she had to check something and
would call me back. Twenty minutes later she did. She explained that she'd
driven across town to her deceased father's old flat. Fredrik had asked her
about some of her father's possessions, which had been left bundled up in the
attic.'

    Sven
cleared his throat, he was upset and had a hard time organising what he had to
say.

    'Her
father's hunting rifle had been kept there. It's a biggie - a 30-06 Carl
Gustav, powerful enough for elk hunting, good optics, with long-range laser
sight. People will keep dangerous weapons in a fucking unlocked storeroom!'

    Ewert
waited. Sven delayed, as if his silence might stop bad things from happening.

    'By
then she was very frightened, crying. The rifle had gone.'

    Lars
Ågestam felt sick. He had left his desk at the Crown Prosecution Service to go
and lean over a basin in the toilet. Everything had looked so straightforward,
so good. He had got the brief of his dreams. To top it all, his knowledge of
the taxi business would help to catch Lund, and at the same time he had scored
against that bitter old has-been of a policeman.

    One
call from Sven Sundkvist had ruined everything. Suddenly he was landed with a
case of a father out to avenge the murder of his daughter.

    It
was only too easy to see what would happen next. For the media, and the public
at large, the Marie story was about right versus wrong. The sexual violation
and murder of a five-year-old girl had no shades of grey, no areas of doubt.
But now there was this new player, a father distracted with grief and equipped
with a gun good enough to hit a reasonably still human target at three hundred
metres. The image of the mourning parent, that was something else. Ågestam knew
that if he ended up prosecuting Marie's father, he'd be regarded as spitting in
the face of goodness itself. He would embody the nightmarish state executioner
who acts regardless of the ordinary citizen. His big brief had become a noose
round his own neck.

    The
thought made his need to vomit acute. He stuck his fingers down his throat to
get it over with. He must be able to think clearly, as he usually did.

    He
had been sitting in the car watching for half an hour by now. It was getting
close to five o'clock. Another hour to go before the nursery school called
Freja would close.

    Freja's
location was pretty, in a valley with low hills rising on every side. When he
arrived Fredrik had parked his car in a meadow near the top of the highest
hill, which gave him a clear view of the whole site. Just as at the other
schools, he began by going off to search the grounds, circling the building
systematically.

    It
was when he returned to his hillside vantage point and was about to open the
car door that he had seen him, quite close, crouching down.

    They
had picked the same sight-line, but he had settled on a slight rise a little
further down the slope, some two hundred metres from the two white school
buildings. Wearing a green tracksuit and sheltering behind low bushes, with his
back protected by the roots of a fallen tree, he was well hidden. He was
sitting there motionless, holding a pair of binoculars trained on the school
playground, observing the children playing inside the fence. Fredrik had looked
him over through his own binoculars. There was no question in his mind. This
was the man he had nodded to six days ago, this was Lund.

    Everything
fitted: his face, his build, something about his posture.

    That
man had killed his child, taken her away for ever. There he was. Fredrik had
tried to stop feeling, to chase the pain into hiding.

    Down
there, two fed-up police officers were counting the endless dull hours of
watching a locked gate. Their patrol car must be blisteringly hot and stuffy.
In the last half an hour alone, both officers had got out twice. The smoke of
their cigarettes hung in the still air.

    Only
the odd snatch of birdsong and the distant rumbling from the motorway ruffled
the drowsy calm on the hillside. Fredrik got out, paced round the car and
kneeled in different places, pretending to aim and checking where he could rest
his elbows. His light suit, already crumpled and stained, got greenish patches
at the knees. In the end he found a comfortable position.

    He
was breathing deeply, easily. His body was flexible and willing. He felt alert.

    Next,
he pulled the heavy rifle from the boot. He hadn't used it for many years, not
since he had gone hunting with Birger. That was well before Marie was born,
maybe seven or eight years ago. He and his father-in-law had tried hard to find
something they could share other than their love of Agnes. Hunting was just
about the only thing they could at least pretend to enjoy together.

    Fredrik
balanced the gun in his hand, rocking it up and down. Then he returned to the
place he had located, kneeled and lifted the rifle, his hands steadied by
leaning on the hood of the car. He got Lund in his sights and centred the cross
hairs on his back.

    He
waited. He wanted to hit him from in front.

    Another
quarter of an hour passed and then Lund rose. The roots of the tree and the bushes
no longer protected him as he stretched to exercise his stiffened joints.

    The
laser beam searched him out, moved tremblingly over the breathing body. Fredrik
held it for a moment on the target's crotch. Then upwards.

    Suddenly
Lund discovered the red dot and swatted at it as if at a wasp, pointlessly
flapping his arms about.

    Fredrik
released the trigger. The first shot shattered the silence.

    For a
moment nothing else existed.

    The
flapping arms disappeared. Lund had been thrown violently backwards and crashed
heavily to the ground.

    He
tried to get up, slowly.

    Fredrik
moved the bright dot to the man's forehead, let it rest there for a second.

    The
sight of an exploding head was somehow unexpected.

    Then
the silence closed in again.

    Fredrik
put the gun on the car hood, sagged until he reached the ground, then lay down
holding his head, twisting until he was curled up like a foetus.

    He
wept.

    For
the first time since Marie had gone his tears came. It hurt; the bloody
unbearable grief had grown inside him, out of sight. Now it was pushing its way
out and he screamed the way you do when you are about to lose your life.

    Chief
interrogator Sven Sundkvist (SS): This way, please. Kristina Björnsson,
barrister (KB): Right. Thank you.

    SS:
The interrogation of Fredrik Steffansson is taking place in Kronoberg prison.
The time is twenty fifteen. Present with Steffansson are the chief interrogator
Sven Sundkvist and Steffansson's legal representative, Kristina Björnsson,
solicitor.

    Fredrik
Steffansson (FS): (inaudible)

    SS:
Sorry? What did you say?

    FS:
Please, I'd like some water.

    SS:
It's just in front of you. Help yourself.

    FS:
Thank you.

    SS: Fredrik,
could you please tell us what has happened.

    FS:
(inaudible)

    SS:
Speak up.

    FS:
Bear with me.

    KB:
Are you all right?

    FS:
No.

    KB:
Can you carry on?

    FS:
Yes.

    SS:
Let's start again. Please describe what has happened.

    FS:
You know already.

    SS:
Describe the events in your own words.

    FS: A
previously convicted sex killer murdered my daughter.

    SS: I
would like you to concentrate on what happened in

    Enköping
today, outside the nursery school Freja. FS: I shot my daughter's murderer and
killed him.

    KB:
Sorry, Fredrik, hold it there.

    FS:
What now?

    KB:
I'd better have a few words with you.

    FS:
Yes?

    KB:
Are you sure you should describe today's events in those terms?

    FS: I
don't see what you're driving at.

    KB: I
get the impression that you're about to describe the events in a particular
way.

    FS: I
simply intend to answer the questions.

    KB:
You must be aware that a premeditated murder is punishable by a lifetime prison
sentence. 'Life' means between sixteen and twenty-five years.

    FS:
Right you are.

    KB:
I'm advising you to be careful about how you express things. At least until you
and I have had a long talk, face-to-face.

    FS: I
haven't done anything wrong.

    KB:
It's your choice.

    FS:
So it is.

    SS:
Have you finished?

    KB:
Yes.

    SS:
OK, let's start again. Fredrik, what happened today?

    FS:
It was you who gave me the crucial information.

    SS:
What information?

    FS: After
the funeral, in the churchyard. You were there and the other policeman, the one
with a limp.

    SS:
DCI Grens?

    FS:
That's the one.

    SS:
And what happened in the churchyard?

    FS:
One of you two, the guy with the limp I think, said that the risk that Lund
would do it again was very great. That's when I made up my mind. No more acts
like that. Not another child, not another loss. All right if I get up, move
about?