The Beast (7 page)

    'Come
off it. Yesterday he wasn't trying to impress a newcomer. He would have killed
my man if he hadn't been spotted in time.'

    The
other officers were becoming restive. What was happening to the proper agenda?
Bertolsson let this confrontation run on without comment. Maybe he found it
interesting. Maybe he was too fed up to bother.

    'Let
me finish,' Eva went on. 'Sex offenders are different, Lindgren goes wild at
the sight of them. It's something stronger than disgust. I've been through his
file and found some reasons why he tries to kill them. For one thing, he was
abused himself as a child. Many times.'

    Lennart
drained the last drop of sweet bubbly muck from the can. Caffeine. He knew
perfectly well who Stig 'Dickybird' Lindgren was, no need to lecture him.
Dickybird had been a dealer, mostly smalltime, in whatever came his way. By now
he was so institutionalised that he was terrified every time he was released.
He'd piss against the prison wall hoping that the gate staff would see him. If
that didn't do the trick he'd beat up the driver of the first likely bus into
town, like the last time out. One way or another he'd be back inside within a
few weeks, back to the only place where he felt at home, the only place where
people cared enough to know his name.

    Lennart
told himself that he must stop eyeballing that silly frump. Look at Nils
instead. But Nils kept his eyes down, scribbling away, no, he was doodling. How
did he take this? Did he feel uneasy? Ashamed? Lennart knew that Nils didn't
care for the way he challenged Eva and had said so, asking him to leave it.
Fuelling the general dislike of her just meant that they would never take any
notice of the good work she often did. Admittedly.

    Lennart
knew that he wanted to talk to Nils about that bloody awful secret, their
secret. And he waited to see if Nils would look up, just for a moment. I need
your help now, Nils, look at me, what the fuck do we do next? I must tell
Karin.

    'Did
I hear you mention something about a prison language? You said Stig Lindgren
could speak it.'

    Månsson,
the new recruit from Malmö, sounded interested. What was the man's first name?
Now he wanted to know more.

    'That's
right.'

    'Could
you explain?'

    Eva
was pleased that the exchange with Lennart was over, and that she had the upper
hand now. She was in charge. As she turned to Månsson, she smiled in the
self-satisfied way she had, which fuelled the general dislike.

    'I
suppose it's natural that you wouldn't know.'

    This
Månsson boy was new, but he had just learned something useful. Which was not to
mess with her.

    'Sorry.
Forget it.'

    'No,
no. No problem. This prison-speak was used by the inmates all the time. It was
a special communication, for cons only. By now it's practically extinct. Only
old lags like Lindgren know it. Men who've led their lives more inside than
outside the walls.'

    She
felt good. Lennart had jumped on her, suggesting that she was ignorant of
prison life. She'd shown everyone that she knew all right. What a loser, he'd
been so stupid he reckoned he could muzzle her. Must have forgotten that she
got the last word every time he tried it on.

    Bertolsson
had managed to start the overhead and an image showed on the screen. The
agenda. He looked as relieved as he felt. This meeting had been about to run
off the rails, but now he was back in control. He acknowledged the ironic
applause from his colleagues.

    Then
a phone rang. It wasn't his mobile. He had switched it off, as everyone should
have done. The governor, already fed up, was close to blowing a fuse.

    Lennart
got up.

    'Sorry.
It's mine. Christ, I forgot all about it.'

    A
second ring. He didn't recognise the number. A third. He shouldn't answer. A
fourth. He gave in.

    'Oscarsson
here.'

    Eight
people were listening in. Not that it bothered him.

    'And?'
He sat down. 'What the fuck are you saying?'

    His
voice had changed. It sounded screechy. Upset.

    Nils,
who knew him well, was instantly convinced that this was serious. He couldn't
remember Lennart ever sounding so alarmed.

    'Not
him!' A cry, in that high-pitched voice. 'Not him! It can't be! You heard me,
it can't be.'

    His
colleagues were very still. Lennart seemed close to a breakdown. He, who was
always cool and collected. And now he was shaking.

    'Bloody
fucking hell!'

    Lennart
ended the call. His face was flushed, he was breathing through his mouth. His
dignity had gone. The room waited.

    Lennart
got up, took one step back, as if to take in the whole scene.

    'It
was the man on the gate, that idiot Bergh. Told me we've got a runner. One of
mine, on transfer to Southern General Hospital. Bernt Lund. He beat up both
guards and went off in the van.'

    Siw
Malmqvist's winsome voice was flooding the police station at Berg Street in
Stockholm. At least, the corridor at the far end of the ground floor was awash,
as it was every morning. The earlier it was, the louder the voice. It came from
a huge, ancient cassette player, as big as any ghetto-blaster. The old plastic
hulk had run the same tapes for thirty years, three popular compilations with Siw's
voice singing her songs in different combinations. This morning it was
'My
Mummy is Like Her Mummy' followed by 'No Place is as Good as Good Old Skåne',
A- and B-sides of the same 1968 Metronome single,
with a black-and-white
shot of Siw at a microphone stand, holding a broom and wearing a mini version
of a cleaner's overall.

    Ewert
Glens had been given his music machine for his twenty-fifth birthday and
brought it to the office, putting it on the bookshelf. As time went by he
changed office now and then, but always carried it to its new home, cradling it
in his arms. He was Detective Chief Inspector now, still always the first in
and never later than half past five in the morning; that meant he had two or
three hours without any prats bothering him, invading his space in person or on
the phone. Round about half past seven he would lower the volume; it caused a
lot of bloody moaning from the useless crew pottering about outside. Still, he
would always make them whinge for a while. They fucking well wouldn't catch him
turning the sound down unless someone asked first.

    Grens
was a large man, heavy and tired. His hair had receded to a grey, bushy ring.
He moved in short, brisk bursts, due to his odd gait, a kind of limp. His stiff
neck was due to a near-garrotting, a memento of leading a raid on the premises
of a Lithuanian hitman. They kept Grens in hospital for quite a while
afterwards.

    He
had been a good policeman, but didn't know if he still was. At least, he wasn't
sure if he felt up to it for much longer. Did he hang on to his job because he
couldn't think of anything better to do? Had he inflated the importance of
policing, made too much of it to drop everything when the time came? After a
few years, not one of the buggers round here would remember him. They'd recruit
replacement DCIs, new lads without a history, lacking a sense of what had
mattered before, who had had power back then, informally of course, and why
that was.

    He
often thought that everyone should be taught how to debrief, from the word go,
whatever job you were training for. Novices should learn that the professional
ins-and-outs they came to value were worthless in the end, and that you were
around in your job only for a short while. It was a small part of your life
that was at stake; you were there one moment, gone the next. Look at himself.
There'd been others ahead of him and did he care about them? Hell, no. He
didn't.

    Someone
knocked on the door. Some saddo who had come to plead with him to turn down the
music. Sodding bunnies.

    But
it was Sven, the only one in the house with some steel in him.

    'Ewert?'

    'Yes?'

    'Big
trouble.'

    'What's
happening?'

    'Bernt
Lund.'

    That
got to him. He raised his eyebrows and put down the paper he held.

    'Bernt
Lund? What's with him?'

    'He's
walked.'

    'The
fuck he has!'

    'Again.'

    Sven
Sundkvist liked his old colleague and didn't get fazed by the old boy's
sarcasm. He knew that Ewert's bitterness, his fears, came from being too close
to the day when he'd be forced to stop working, the day when he would be told
that thirty-five years in service amounted to no more or less than precisely
thirty-five years.

    At
least Ewert wanted something. He believed in what he did, unlike most of the
others. So, never mind his surliness, his fits of bad temper, his oddities.

    'Come
on, Sven. Get on with it.'

    Sven
gave an account of Lund's hospital transport, the whole trip from Aspsås to
Southern General's casualty entrance. He described how he had used his elaborate
body- belt chains to batter the two officers. Afterwards he had made off with
the van. Now he was at liberty out there, probably stalking girls, children,
little kids who'd just started school.

    Ewert
got up during this and limped restlessly about the room, waddling round his
desk, manoeuvring his big body between the chair and the stand with potted
plants. He stopped in front of the wastepaper bin, aimed with his good foot and
kicked it hard.

    'How
fucking stupid can you get, letting Lund out with only two escorts? What was
Oscarsson thinking about? If he only could've been arsed to call us, we'd have
sent a car and then that fucking freak wouldn't have been at large!'

    The
kick had sent the bin flying, spewing banana peel and empty snuffboxes and torn
envelopes all over the floor. Sven had seen it all before, and waited for the
next instalment.

    'Åke
Andersson and Ulrik Berntfors,' he said. 'Two good men. Andersson is the tall
one, well over one hundred and ninety-something. Your age.'

    'I
know who Andersson is.'

    'Now
what?'

    'Tell
you in a while. Can't think now.'

    Sven
felt tired. It came over him suddenly. He wanted to go home. Home to Anita, to
Jonas. He had finished for the day and couldn't bear thinking about what had happened,
that a child might be violated any moment now, or anything else to do with
Bernt Lund. After all, he'd swapped to get the morning shift, because they'd
planned to celebrate. He had some bottles of wine and a posh gateau in his car.
They were meant to be drinking his birthday toast, soon.

    Ewert
noticed Sven's tired eyes, his straying thoughts. Damn, he shouldn't have
kicked that effing bin. Sven disapproved of that kind of thing. Better say
something. Be calm, cool.

    'Sven,
you look tired. How are things?'

    'Oh,
all right. I was about to leave. Go home. It's my birthday today.'

    'Is
it? Congratulations! How many years?'

    'Forty.'

    Ewert
whistled, then made a bow.

    'Well
I never. Shake hands!'

    He
held out his hand, Sven grabbed it firmly and they shook for quite a long time.
Then Ewert spoke.