The Beast (6 page)

    Åke
had nearly lost it last time he had had to transfer that animal, knowing that
he was holed up in the back of the van, knowing about the tortures he'd carried
out, what the girls had looked like when he'd finished with them. Afterwards,
his sneering grin and utter callousness haunted Åke's dreams, the crimes were
replayed over and over again, throughout the nights; one bad morning he didn't
get to the loo in time and threw up in the hall, as if his enforced control had
congealed and swelled his stomach until there was no more room.

    It
was that third 'cunt' coming through the hatch that tore it. Åke lost his grip,
had no idea what he should do next, no sense of duty left. He couldn't answer
for the consequences now; his mind was filling with images of the little girls,
their cut-up genitals, they'd been tortured with a pointed metal object. His
big body hurled itself towards the back door of the van.

    Ulrik
Berntfors had driven Lund once before, that was all, on the second day of the
girls-in-the-basement trial. He'd been new to the job and the trial was the
biggest he'd been involved in, lots of journalists and photographers crowding
the reserved seats. Two nine-year-old girls; it pulled at the heartstrings and
sold newspapers. He was ashamed of his reaction at the time, he hadn't really
thought about the girls, not understood, had been too inexperienced. He had
simply felt special, almost proud, as he walked along at Lund's side. But
afterwards his own daughter asked him why Lund had killed the two girls, why
he'd wanted to destroy them. She was only a year older than the victims and had
read every piece of news carefully, formulating questions for her dad, who knew
the man who had done it and had walked next to him, as seen on TV, lots of
times. Of course he couldn't answer her, but understanding was dawning on him.
His daughter's fears and her questions had taught him more about his job than
any course he had attended.

    Åke
hated, Ulrik knew that. Not that they'd ever talked about it, but it hadn't
been hard to work out. And maybe one day Ulrik would too, when scum like Lund
had screamed 'cunt' at him once too often. He had done the person-to- person
contacts, so far. Someone had to. Driving these people was a job. But when Lund
shouted 'cunts' for the third time, he realised that this was it. He knew, from
the moment Andersson got up.

    Maybe
if he kept observing the steps leading up to the Casualty door, he wouldn't
have to see whatever was going on. If it came to an inquiry, he didn't want to
have to lie.

    The
area in front of Casualty was quiet, no parked cars, no people. That's what Åke
said afterwards, adding that even if it hadn't been so deserted, even if other
people had been about and able to watch what he did, he probably wouldn't have
noticed. Running to the back of the bus, rage and hatred blinkered him.

    He
pulled the door open. The handle was small. His hand was made on the same scale
as the rest of him and it was hard to push it in between metal and metal.

    Then
everything went horribly wrong.

    Bernt
Lund was screaming 'cunt, cunt' over and over, in a high falsetto voice. He hit
out with the chains gripped in one hand, the long chains that ran under his
clothing, linking handcuffs, leg-irons and belt. Åke didn't have time to see,
to take in what was happening, as the heavy iron links tore into his face and
ripped it open. He fell to the ground and Lund leapt out of the van, swinging
the chains against the fallen man's head and face until his victim passed out.
Then he used his boots, kicking belly, kidneys, crotch, kicking and kicking
until the tall guard lay quite still.

    Ulrik
had kept staring straight ahead. Åke was taking his time beating the hell out
of the nonce. Lund was still screaming 'cunt'; he could obviously take a lot.
Then Ulrik began to feel bad about it. Åke had been at it for too long, enough
now for Christ's sake, or things might go seriously wrong. When he opened the
door to climb out and stop him from causing some kind of emergency, Lund moved
in. Using a long chain he broke the window, hit Ulrik in the face, pulled him
outside and kept hitting. All Ulrik remembered afterwards was the hellish
screeching voice and the moment Lund pulled his trousers down to hit his
exposed penis with the chain, screaming that he would have buggered them if
they hadn't been such big bastards. Too big for him, only little whores would
take him inside, only small arses were good enough.

    The
distance between his front door and the steel gate leading to his place of work
was 180 paces. Lennart Oscarsson counted them almost every time. Once he'd done
the distance in 161 paces, his record. It was a few years ago, when he was
really fit. Until the assault he used to train with the inmates in the gym.
Then, early one morning, someone beat a sex offender to pulp with dumbbells and
barbells. The medic had said the marks were clear and easy to identify. No one
had known the first thing about the incident, of course. Not one single fucking
soul had noticed that a human being was being clubbed, presumably screaming his
head off, unseen and unheard, until the final darkness fell. The
weight-training area was awash with blood afterwards, yet apparently no one had
the faintest idea why. For a long time afterwards he didn't go there. Not
because he was frightened; nobody was quite cretinous enough to risk a new
round of sentencing just to get even with a boss. It wasn't fear, it was
disgust, he couldn't bear being in a room where one of the men in his charge
had been robbed of his right to a life.

    He
rang the bell, waited for a sense of being watched in the small camera above
his head and a voice coming through the loudspeaker. Turning round, he looked
at his home, at the sitting room and bedroom windows. All dark, roller blinds
halfway down. No face to be glimpsed, no body moving about.

    'Yes?'

    'Oscarsson
here.'

    'Opening
up.'

    He
stepped inside, blinked, inside an enclosed world now. The other one of his two
worlds. Standing in front of the next door, he knocked on the windowpane of the
guardroom and waved to Bergh, who was taking his time. Stupid bugger, what made
Bergh tick was a mystery. At last he waved back and pressed a button. The door
buzzed open; the long corridor behind it smelled of disinfectant and something
else, something unmistakable.

    A
boring day ahead. Unit meeting, communication. The staff were well on their way
to losing themselves in a labyrinthine schedule of meetings that they had imposed
on themselves. Each meeting made endless pointless decisions about pointless
routine matters that landed everyone within an ever more rigid framework.
Actual problem-solving needed a different approach, needed sharp minds and
driving energy. The meetings fed a sense of security, but created nothing.

    And
the coffee machine was fucked up as well. He kicked it. Then he fed coins into
the soft-drinks machine. Coke apparently contained caffeine too.

    'Morning,
Lennart.'

    'Morning,
Nils.'

    Nils
Roth, senior wing officer. He and Oscarsson had come to Aspsås at the same time
and advanced in the service side by side. Together they had experienced the
anxiety of the novice change into the weary calm of the veteran. They walked
into the meeting room together. The room with its long table, overhead
projector, whiteboard could have belonged to any management outfit.

    Everybody
greeted each other; all eight senior wing officers were there, and the prison
governor, Arne Bertolsson. Quite a few were drinking coffee. Lennart looked
hard at the mugs and turned to the new man, what was his name, Månsson.

    'Where
did you get that?'

    'The
machine.'

    'It's
out of order.'

    'Not
when I tried it. Only minutes ago.'

    Arne
Bertolsson called them to order, sounding irritable. He had been fiddling with
the overhead projector. It made a noise, but that was all. The screen stayed
blank.

    'This
thing's bloody useless.'

    Bertolsson
crouched down to examine whatever buttons he might push next. Lennart looked at
him, then at the line-up of men at the table. Eight of them, his immediate
colleagues, people in whose company he spent hours and hours, day after day,
but had never got close to. Apart from Nils, that is. As for the rest, he
hadn't been to their homes and none of them had visited his. A beer in town,
the odd football match, but never at home. What did that make them? Not
friends, anyway. But they were all of about the same age, and looked alike too.
A room full of middle-aged taxi drivers.

    Bertolsson
gave up.

    'Sod
this. And the agenda too. Who wants to start?'

    Nobody,
it seemed. Månsson drank a mouthful of his coffee. Nils scribbled on a notepad.
No one spoke. The routine of these meetings had broken down and everyone felt
at a loss.

    Lennart
cleared his throat.

    'I'll
start.'

    The
others breathed sighs of relief; something was on the agenda at least.

    Bertolsson
nodded.

    'I've
been on about this before, but the fact is, I know what I'm talking about. I suppose
no one has forgotten the fatality in the gym? No? Exactly. But has it made any
flaming difference whatsoever? The men from the normal units are shuttling in
and out of the gym at the same time as my lot. There was another incident
yesterday. It might've turned nasty if Brandt and Persson hadn't stepped in
promptly.'

    Not a
peep from the bench of the accused. But he bloody well wouldn't back down. He
had seen what the weights could do to a human body.

    Having
watched everyone in turn as he spoke, Lennart's eyes lingered on the only woman
in the room. Eva Barnard and he had clashed more than once before. He couldn't
relate to her in any way, she only knew the textbook stuff and not the
traditions, the unspoken rules, which drew their power from simply having been
there, always.

    Bertolsson
had picked up the accusation in Lennart's eyes, but wanted to avoid trouble.
Not another row, not again. He interrupted.

    'More
coordination between wings, is that what you want?'

    'Yes,
it is. Coordination outside the walls is a different matter. This is a jail.
It's an unreal place, the exception is the rule inside. Everyone here knows it.
At least, ought to know it.'

    Lennart
kept his eyes fixed on Eva. Bertolsson hated conflicts, but that was too bad.
No way would he be allowed to hide this problem out of sight.

    'If
the wrong type from a normal unit comes across one of my lot, that's it. End of
story. Everything goes straight to hell, that's well known. If a nonce gets
killed, it's applause all round.'

    He
pointed at Eva.

    'The
old lag who stirred it yesterday was a case in point. He's from your unit.'

    Now
they were both angry. Eva never took the coward's way out, he had to admit
that. She didn't scare easily and now she was staring back at him. Ugly and
stupid, but brave.

    'If
you mean 0243 Lindgren, why not say it straight out?'

    'I
mean Lindgren all right.'

    'Lindgren
can be a bastard when he's in the mood. The rest of the time he's a model
prisoner, calm and quiet. Does zilch in fact. Lies in his cell smoking
handrolls, lets the hours pass, doesn't read or watch the telly. He has served
forty- two different sentences, and done a total of twenty-seven years inside.
Look, he's one of the few who still can speak the old prison lingo. He only
stirs up trouble when somebody new turns up. Has to show who's done most time,
who knows the score. It's all about hierarchy. Hierarchy and respect.'