The Beast (43 page)

    The
demonstrators got up and ran towards the new vehicles, packed with policemen in
full riot control gear, who found themselves locked in, surrounded. The buses
shook as the crowd threw themselves against them, rocked them a couple of times
and then pushed them over on their sides.

    The
men outside lined up, some with their trousers down. When the flak-jacketed
police officers crawled out, they were pissed on.

    He
wasn't put in the same cell. This one was on another floor, and higher up.
Apart from that, it looked identical: the same size, the same furnishings, a
bed, a table and a washbasin. He had changed into the sack-like prison uniform.
The same restrictions applied: no papers, no radio, no TV and no visitors.

    He
didn't mind at all.

    There
was no way this kind of thing would break him. This was how it was. He didn't
want to read the papers anyway, or meet anybody. He didn't want to long for
anything.

    When
they escorted him to his cell, another prisoner had spoken to him. Fredrik
recognised him by sight; he was one of the nation's pet criminals. An engaging
character, who charmed the public but seemed unable to stop himself from
committing some simple-minded new crime every time he was released from prison.
Maybe he was trying to avoid the other society, the one outside the walls. This
prison pro looked startled and then walked straight up to Fredrik, slapped his
back and said that as far as he was concerned Fredrik was a hero. 'You mustn't
let the bastards get to you,' he said, adding, 'If the screws don't treat you
right, just let us know and we'll have it fixed so you're looked after
properly.'

    The
screws did treat him right. It might have been their own decision or there
might have been forces pushing them, but there was definitely less of the
staring through the bloody observation panel, and he got mugs of coffee more
often than he should've, and when he was taken to the wire cage on the roof for
his exercise session he got more than his allotted hour; he knew that and the
screw knew that. Some days he actually got a double ration, two hours spent
behind a fence with razor wire on top, but with the sky above.

    Every
second day Kristina Björnsson visited him, speaking about documentation and
strategy. Actually there was nothing more to present now than there had been
the first time round, and the arguments in the Court of Appeal would be no
different from those she had presented previously. Her reason for coming along
was to keep Fredrik's courage up, give him greetings and messages from Micaela
and try to persuade him that there was a future for him.

    He
appreciated it. She was just as able and as kind as he had been told she would
be.

    Still,
he saw through her efforts to cheer him up. This time it would not be like the
magistrates' court, where the one reservation about freeing him had come from
the only person with legal training, the judge. This time everyone with any
influence on his sentence would be lawyers, men and women who evaluated reality
in terms of the written law. What mattered this time was paragraphs and praxis.
He was resigned to a heavy sentence.

    He
told Kristina that, which upset her very much. She told him that this in itself
would condemn him, because the court could sense when the accused expected a
conviction. It had the same effect as a confession. And the reverse was true
too. There were several examples, many of which he recognised. She had defended
clients who had committed the most imbecile crimes, but who went free because
they felt they should, and what they felt became shared by everyone in the
courtroom.

    The
duty officer knocked on his door. He had brought a tray of food, meat and two
veg, a glass of juice. Fredrik shook his head, he simply wasn't interested.
Yes, it looked very tasty, but no, he wasn't hungry. He felt eating was somehow
disgusting, and a betrayal, as if to eat was to pretend that nothing had really
changed. If he didn't eat, he didn't join in. This was not his life. He had had
no choice in the matter.

    When
the trial began, he was transported every morning to a new high-security court,
also located in Berg Street. The threat from demonstrators had been noted and
acted on. This time the interrogations in court were shorter and the
questioning stricter. Some witness statements were replaced by tape recordings.
He sat in the same place as before and gave in principle the same answers. He
felt they were all in a play and that the last time round had been a rehearsal.
Now it was time for the premiere and their performances would get expert
reviews. He tried his best to sit straight, keep calm and look convinced of his
right to be freed in the end. The last bit was hard, because he didn't care. He
wasn't at all sure that he wanted to go back home. Could they read that? It
must show.

    The
trial took only three days.

    He
was done with longing. Every night he lay on the bed in his cell, trying to
trace something worth living for in the piss-coloured ceiling.

    One hour.

    He
didn't have many friends, not now and not ever, really. The ones he remembered
lived far away now, in other towns, and didn't share his daily life. If he did
time in prison, it would not change his relationship with them that much.

    One
hour.

    His
parents were gone. He had no brothers or sisters.

    One
hour.

    He
had Micaela. He loved her, surely he did? But she was still young and it wasn't
right for her to have to be with someone in endless mourning for his lost
child.

    One
hour.

    Micaela
said that she wanted to be with him, always. Of course he believed her when she
said that, but it could so easily change in the future. One day she would have
to go on, to leave him behind. No one could bear having a violated
five-year-old pushed down her throat every day.

    One
hour.

    That
ceiling really was just the same colour as urine.

    One
hour

    So
strange.

    One
hour.

    He
had been running all his life, trying to pack every minute with significance,
fearful of facing emptiness and of not existing any more.

    One
hour.

    He
had kept his days fully booked, from restlessness and fear of being alone.

    One
hour.

    Back
then, when he depended on people near him, and sought them out.

    One
hour.

    Then
it all changed. He had no need for the fucking here and now. He had what he
needed here. That piss-yellow ceiling. Time on his hands. His thoughts. He was
powerless to influence or change anything and it made him calm, calmer than he
had ever been, like someone dead.

    The
court took almost a week to arrive at his sentence. It was postponed twice;
every note mattered and every word was charged with meaning. This was a
judgement that would be exposed to media scrutiny from the word go. The broadsheets
would print the statement in full and legal experts with screen savvy would
analyse it on TV. The case of the dad who shot the murderer of his
five-year-old daughter would be followed by people who shared his grief over
the loss of a child by people who thought murder was murder, never mind who was
killed by people who celebrated his courage, which removed a threat from
society which its forces of law and order had been unable to cope with by
people who saw his act as an indefensible vengeance and felt only a long prison
sentence would be sufficient warning against private militias by people who had
tormented and killed presumed sex offenders, on the basis of the sentence
reached in the first instance.

    On the
Saturday, at fourteen minutes past nine in the morning, the court's
deliberations were complete. Copies of the sentence in its entirety were
available from the porters' room outside the secure courtroom in Stockholm Old
Court.

    The
journalists were queuing early, mobile phones at the ready to contact the
editors and with photographers in tow to record images of the bundles of paper
from every angle. The prosecutor was there, and the defence lawyer, and a
handful of curious onlookers.

    Fredrik
was told through the observation panel he hated so much. The officer who had
favoured him with extra coffee and exercise time opened the flap and whispered
loudly to him that it was a fucking disgrace, there would be a riot, that was
for sure. A ten-year stretch.

    The
Court of Appeal had sentenced him to ten years in prison.

    Dickybird
felt depressed about beating up Hilding like that; the guy was dead meat now.
Why had Hilding been such a stupid bastard? It was fucking idiotic, doing all
that stuff. He'd had it coming to him. Nicking all the kif, for a start, then
hanging out with that bloody hard man and getting rat-arsed on the brew from
the fire extinguisher. Hilding must've known he'd get a working over, had to.
Fuck's sake, what would the lads say if Hilding got away with the lot and kept
farting about as usual, without being taught a lesson? No way. No way! But he
shouldn't have smashed the little shit up, not like that. Hilding had looked a
right misery. They'll stitch him back together again, that's for sure, but he
won't come back here. He'll transfer to Tidaholm, maybe. Or to Hall. That's how
they always handled it.

    And
that fucking peddo Axelsson got away when he was warned off. He's hiding in seg
now.

    Not
many of the gang left. Hilding off to the sick wing. Bekir on release. Skåne is
still around, and Dragan, but that's no fucking company. Then there's the
Russian and all the other useless sods.

    He
felt bad about it. He shouldn't have kept hitting the poor guy, just stopped
when he'd got a bit hurt.

    He
looked out though the window.

    Still
pissing out there. No change for weeks. The weather's gone from bad to worse,
first weeks and weeks when it's so hot your dick sags, and then more weeks of
raining too hard to stick your nose outside. Bloody awful.

    The
rain was pouring off the tall wall and the goalposts were cracking.

    Two
men were out in the yard, trudging round the track. He couldn't make out who
they were, in their raincoats with hoods pulled down over their foreheads.

    In here
four of the lads were playing pool. The Russian wandered about, grunting from
time to time, chalking his cue and sinking some balls. Then Janoz, more
grunting; he sank the black and lost.