The Beast (36 page)

    'Anyone,
as long as he or she doesn't wear a uniform.'

    The
officer sighed.

    'Make
up your mind. Yes or no. She's right here, next to me.'

    'That's
news. I'm stuck in here to isolate me from everybody else, some motherfucker's
decided that I'm a danger to society, isn't that so? Or is everybody else a
danger to me? Tricky. Do you know who I am, anyway?'

    He
sat up on the edge of the bed abruptly. Then he kicked the tray. Bright yellow
orange juice spread all over the floor.

    The
officer sighed, he had seen this so often. The prisoners who broke down started
by being aggressive, irrational, threatening, then they collapsed and pissed
their pants. Steffansson was cracking up, obviously.

    Fredrik
splashed the liquid around with his foot and went on talking.

    'You
haven't got a clue, have you? That my crime is deliberate execution of a foul
child-killer. A maniac who might've come round to fuck your baby to death. And
now it's your job to keep tabs on me. Enjoying yourself, are you? Feeling
socially useful?'

    He
picked up the juice glass and threw it at the open panel. It shut just in time,
before the glass hit and splintered into fragments.

    The
next moment the panel pulled back and the eyes stared at him again.

    'I
should call in support; what you just did is enough for

    a
spell in restraints. But you asked a question and I'm going to answer it.'

    The
officer paused and swallowed; the words wouldn't come at first. Fredrik waited.

    'And
the answer is no, I don't think what I'm doing to you is any use. Fact is, I
don't think you should be here. And I think you did the right thing, shooting
that bastard. But that's neither here nor there. You're inside and that's that.
Now, do you want the chaplain?'

    A
locked door. He is on one side, everyone else on the other.

    Images
floating in the empty space inside his head, closed doors, himself on one side,
everyone else on the other, how he had hated it, no panel in that door but
panes to look through, three blurry sheets of glass, like in toilet windows,
but you could see things if you pushed your face close, what Dad and Frans did
in there, in the sitting room, the TV was on loud but he could hear Dad shout
that Frans should undress, take it all off, then Dad hit the naked body again
and again, he watched the hand moving, the glass distorted everything, making
it look absurd, and Frans never uttered a sound. It was their mum who had
snitched, she had told Dad why Frans must be punished, and then she just left
them to it, went to sit in the kitchen, drinking tea and smoking her endless
Camel cigs, while Dad hit and hit and hit until Frans shouted defiantly that he
wasn't strong enough, he didn't feel it, hit harder. Dad often stopped
altogether then.

    A
locked door. Someone staring.

    'For
the last time, mate. Yes or no?'

    Fredrik
closed his eyes to make the door disappear.

    'Let
the duty-saint in then.'

    The
door opened, he opened his eyes to look, at first unable to take in what he
saw.

    'Rebecca?
You?'

    'Hello,
Fredrik. I've worked here before, you know, but this time I asked. I wanted to
be here for you, since you won't be allowed to see anyone else you know. Do you
mind?'

    'Please
come in.'

    He
felt so ashamed. Ashamed of being in this bleak cell awash with spilt juice, of
wearing sack-like prisoner's kit, of throwing a tantrum in front of her, of
having urinated in the washbasin not very long ago. The joy of seeing her
brought tears to his eyes, and that too shamed him.

    But
she hugged him and stroked his hair, telling him that she understood and that
she'd seen locked-up men and women behave much worse.

    He looked
at her, tried to smile.

    'Do
you think I did wrong?'

    'Yes,
I do,' she replied after a pause. 'You had no right to decide about life and
death.'

    Fredrik
nodded. He had expected her to say that.

    'Despite
saving two children, or more, from Lund?'

    Once
more, she took her time. She meant a lot to this man and had known him for so
long. Her responsibility to him weighed heavily.

    'That
is such a difficult question, Fredrik. I…'

    She
was silenced because Fredrik had started to hyperventilate. She put her hand on
his chest, and he sank down on the bed, his whole body trembling.

    'I'm
sorry, I can't help myself. It's all so meaningless.'

    Marie's
funeral. The cemetery. The cold floor and the organ filling the church with
sound. The little coffin, so very small. Rebecca had stood next to it and
spoken. Marie was inside the coffin. The lid was on but he knew they had made
her look pretty.

    He
steadied his breathing and started to speak.

    'Marie
is no longer. Everything that was her is gone, her senses, her thoughts. Gone,
absolutely. For ever. Do you understand what I am trying to express?'

    'I
hear you and I understand, but you know I don't believe that.'

    The
noise of the panel sliding back. The eyes.

    'Seems
to be plenty going on in there. Everything all right?'

    'Yes,
it's all right,' Rebecca called back.

    'Fine.
Just give us a shout in case.'

    Fredrik
had stopped trembling, but was still stretched out on the bed, taking deep
breaths.

    'It
was when I knew that Lund would do it all again that I made up my mind to kill.
Get there first. Eliminate him.' He searched for the right words. 'You all
thought it was a revenge killing, but it wasn't. It wasn't personal. You see, I
died with Marie. I only came alive to kill him.'

    He
sat up and slapped his hand on the table, then bent forward and started hitting
his forehead against the edge of it until he bled.

    'I
killed him. What am I meant to live for now?'

    The
door opened and this time there were two officers. They wore the same uniforms
and identical expressions on their faces.

    Marching
past Rebecca, they grabbed Fredrik and pinned him to the bed, holding him down
until he stopped pushing his head forward into the empty air.

    It
rained on the first day of the trial, only the second time during that long, hot
summer. It was a quiet, persistent rain of the kind that is there before
sunrise and keeps being there until dark.

    Rain
or no rain, it was the most sensational trial in Sweden for years and the queue
outside the Stockholm Old Court building had already grown long early that
morning. Proceedings were scheduled for the high-security courtroom and
attendance was limited to four rows of numbered seats. Only the bigger media
companies had been allowed to reserve places and a scrum of journalists led the
crowd in the stone-flagged entrance hall.

    The
security was extensive. Uniformed and plainclothes police were everywhere,
reinforced by staff from private firms. Over the weeks that had passed since
Lund's escape, a looming sense of threat had been taking the shape of a
faceless citizen, frustrated, aggressive, fuelled by a generalised hatred of
paedophiles. This figure embodied a collective engagement by people who did not
usually do much more than follow the news and comment from a safe distance, but
who were now waiting and watching and preparing for action.

    Micaela
had got there early, just after seven. It had been chilly and raining a little
harder then. She hadn't seen Fredrik since Marie's funeral. Now she knew that
he had been hunting Lund and then kept in custody with no privileges.

    More
than anything else she felt frightened. This was her first experience of a
court case and she knew she would have to stay still while the man she loved
sat alone, just a few metres away from her, charged with murder and
interrogated by a prosecutor out to get a lifetime sentence.

    Once,
not long ago, she had been part of a family. She had slept by Fredrik at night
and learnt to hold on to him. Marie had become almost her own child, she had
cared for her, fed and clothed and taught her. All gone now, in a few weeks.

    She
tried to smile at the guard who was checking her handbag, but he didn't smile
back. The electronic checker wouldn't let her through, she tried three times
and it howled every time, until she realised that she still had one of Marie's
bicycle keys in her pocket. Her seat was good though, in row three, just behind
the radio and TV reporters. She actually recognised some of them. Instead of
speaking to camera from some dramatic location, they were busy taking notes.
She peeped; everybody seemed to write in a personal scrawl, very short
sentences, but always with a note of the time for each entry. Two artists were
sitting right in front, their pencils moving with fleeting ease over their white
sheets of paper as they sketched in the background features of the courtroom.

    There
was Agnes, in the last row, across the aisle. Micaela had turned to look for a
fraction too long and had been seen. They nodded politely at each other. It was
strange, the way they had kept themselves to themselves. She had answered the
phone a couple of times when Agnes called Marie, but all that meant was a brisk
exchange of
This is Agnes, I'd like to speak to Marie please
and
One
moment,

    
I'll
get her,
the sum total of knowing each other for three years.

    Then
she spotted the two policemen who had asked questions of everybody in and
around the school that day. The older one with the limp was the boss. The
younger one was nice and patient, he might be religious, free church probably.
They had seen her and nodded, so she nodded back.

    The
room was almost full and she could hear protesting shouts from people outside,
who realised they wouldn't get in. Someone was booing at the guards, someone
else was calling them 'Fascist pigs'.

    There
was a door at the back of the dais, which she hadn't noticed until it suddenly
opened and the officials of the court filed in. The judge came first, a woman
called van Balvas, followed by the magistrates, who all looked rather elderly,
local politicians mostly, on their way out of active life. She had read about
these people in the paper. There had been quite a lot about the prosecutor too,
and she had seen him on the telly, such a puffed-up young man, somehow sounding
like a precocious kid. He was maybe a couple of years older than herself, which
made her feel very young. The defence lawyer was different, her manner as calm
and in control as it had been when they had talked in her office.

    Then
Fredrik, last of all, flanked by two court officers.

    They
had made him wear a suit and tie, not like his usual style at all. How pale he
was. He looked so frightened. He felt like she did. His eyes stayed fixed to
the floor, avoiding the crowd in front of him.

    Van
Balvas (VB): Your full name, please.

    Fredrik
Steffansson (FS): Nils Fredrik Steffansson. VB: And your address?

    FS:
Hamngatan 28, Strängnäs.

    VB:
Are you aware of the reason why we are here today?