The Beast Read online

  At the same time his bloody awful secret had started growing. How he wished he could tell. The outcome couldn't be any worse than now, when the betrayal lived inside his marriage and made every word he and Karin exchanged suspect, filthy.

  He got up, picked up the dirty dishes and stacked the dishwasher. Wiped the table, rinsed the cloth.

  He wore a blue uniform. Officers' uniforms looked the same throughout the Swedish prison service, rather like a cab driver's outfit. He dressed for work in the kitchen: trousers, tie, shirt. Meanwhile he hoped that Karin and he would exchange a few words, about anything as long as it stopped him feeling so bloody hypocritical.

  'Look at the weather, Lennart. It's windy outside. They say it'll stay like this all day. You need your gloves.'

  Karin came close to him and stroked his cheek. He pressed his face against her hand, rubbed against it, needing the contact. She was so beautiful. He wished she knew.

  'It's not cold yet. And I've only got a few hundred metres to go.'

  'You know that's not the point. You'll regret it afterwards, when your joints start hurting.'

  She held out his leather gloves. He put them on. Kissed her, first her lips, then her shoulder. Put on his jacket and stepped outside, looked across to Aspsås. It was only two minutes' stroll away. Its grey concrete wall dominated the village.

  * * *

  When Åke Andersson climbed out of the driver's seat, he was propelled by an emotion different from anything he had felt before. His rage, his damned hatred, had overwhelmed him.

  He had taken a lot of crap from prisoners for thirty years, hated them but stayed in control, silently driven them from police cells to courts, from hospitals to prisons. He had ferried the lowlife but left the talking to his mates, just kept his eyes on the road and minded his own business. But that fucking beast was too bloody fucking much.

  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.'

  '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.'