The Beast (ewert grens)

by Anders Roslund

  Face to face. It was him. He knew it was him.

  Now, five cars ahead, driving slowly, a small red car hauling an enormous caravan that tilted dangerously on the bends and made the next car keep a respectful distance. Fredrik kept trying to overtake, but was forced back by the curves in the road.

  A slip-road, a right turn, then the bridge and central Strängnäs.

  He spotted the crowd from far away.

  People were clustering at the gate, in the playground and in the street outside The Dove. Five nursery school teachers, two catering assistants from the kitchen, four policemen with dogs, some parents he recognised and some he didn’t.

  One of them, carrying a small child, was pointing towards the wood. A policeman with a dog went off in that direction, then two more followed.

  Fredrik stopped outside the gate and stayed in the car for a while.

  When he got out, Micaela came towards him. She hadn’t been outside, but had been waiting for him inside the school.

  His coffee was black. No messing about with effing milk, especially no latte or cappuccino or any of that fashionable crap, just no-frills, real Swedish black coffee, filtered to get rid of the dregs. Ewert Grens contemplated the coffee machine; he wouldn’t pay a penny extra to get a dollop of evil-tasting emulsified muck in his mug, but Sven had to have his dose of the glop, he was prepared to pay good money to get this pale-brown chemical-flavoured stuff in his cup. Ewert kept the plastic cups well apart in case Sven’s was toxic and limped gingerly back along the shiny corridor floor to his room. Sven was slumped in the visitor’s chair. He looked exhausted.

  ‘Your poison. Here.’

  Sven roused himself enough to take his cup.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Ewert stopped in front of him; there was something new in Sven’s eyes.

  ‘What’s up with you? It can’t be that fucking bad to work on your fortieth.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So what’s wrong?’

  ‘Jonas called me. While you were struggling with the coffee machine.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He asked why I hadn’t come home. I’d told him I would. He said grown-ups lie all the time.’

  ‘What did he mean, lie?’

  ‘It seems he saw the TV news about Lund. So he asked why grown-ups lie, like they tell a child they’ll show it a dead squirrel or a nice doll, but all the grown-up wants is to do bad things to the child with his willy and then hit the child. That’s word for word what Jonas said to me.’

  Sven sank back in his chair and sipped his coffee in silence. Absently, he started swivelling the chair, left, then right, back again. Ewert was rooting among his tapes.

  ‘So how do you reply? Daddy lies, all grown-ups lie, some of them lie and poke at you with their willy and hit you. I can’t stand this, Ewert. It’s too bloody awful.’

  Siw was singing now. ‘Seven Great Guys’, with Harry Arnold’s Radio Band, 1959.

  They listened. My first friend was slender, built like an arrow, My second was blonde and I loved him so much

  The song was bland and silly, but offered a kind of escape because it was so pointless. Ewert closed his eyes, wagging his head to the beat. For a few minutes he was in another, more peaceful time.

  There was a knock on the door.

  They exchanged glances. Ewert shook his head irritably, but there was another, firmer knock.

  ‘Yes!’

  It was Ågestam. Ewert recognised the neatly combed fringe and the ingratiating face in the doorway; he had no time for busy little boys and especially none for the busy boys who pretended to be public prosecutors but couldn’t wait to get on and up in the world.

  ‘What are you after?’

  Ågestam was visibly taken aback, though it wasn’t clear what bothered him most, Ewert’s bad temper or the room resounding with Siw’s voice.

  ‘It’s about Lund.’

  Ewert put his coffee cup to the side.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He has turned up.’

  Ågestam explained that the duty officer had just concluded a telephone conversation with someone who’d reported a sighting outside a nursery school in Strängnäs, just a few hours ago. The father of one of the children had called on his mobile; he had sounded sane and articulate, but very frightened, after realising that he had recognised the man wearing a baseball cap who had been sitting on a bench outside the school gate. He had seen this man when he delivered his daughter to the school, and now the girl had disappeared.

  Ewert scrunched up the plastic mug, threw it in the bin.

  ‘Christ bloody fucking almighty.’

  Those interrogations came back to him. The worst ever, the ugliest.

  The man in front of him, there was something about him that wasn’t human. Those eyes that evaded his own.

  Grens, you must fucking listen to me.

  Lund, I want you to look at me.

  Grensie, they’re sluts, you should know that.

  I’m interrogating you, Lund. And I want you to look at me.

  Sluts. Little ones, really small horny sluts, needing it.

  Look at me now. Or else I’ll suspend the interrogation immediately.

  You want to know this. About their tight tiny cunts. I knew you would.

  Why not look at me? Don’t you dare?

  The cunts want cock inside. Hard cock.

  Good. Now we’re looking at each other.

  Small, very small cunts. They want plenty of seeing to.

  How do you feel now, when you’re looking me in the eye?

  And you’ve got to teach them, you know. They mustn’t think of fucking all the time.

  You can’t stand it much longer now. Your eyes look shifty. Cowardly.

  The smallest cunts are the worst, they’re the horniest. That’s why you’ve got to be firm, teach them a lesson.

  You want me to switch the tape recorder off and have a go at you. You want me to lose control.

  Grens, have you ever tasted cunt on a nine-year-old?

  He turned the music off. Removed the cassette gently, put it away in the proper plastic box.

  ‘So he’s allowed himself to be seen before he’s got hold of a kid. If he’s that desperate the risk is that all his inhibitions have gone west.’

  He took his jacket from its hook by the door.

  ‘I was in charge of interrogating Lund. I know how his mind works. And I’ve read the forensic psychiatrist’s report. It just confirmed what I knew already. Lund has got pronounced sadistic tendencies.’

  Actually, he had not only read the psych report, he had gone through it word by word because he was determined to understand any fucking ghastly thing there was to be understood. Nobody and nothing had affected him like the sessions with Lund; during the interrogations and afterwards, the man evoked hatred and fear and more.

  Ewert would willingly admit that his years in the police had made him rather cold, even hard and difficult; allowing himself to have feelings would have made most days pretty hellish. But Lund’s crimes and total alienation had made him want to give up, crawl away, sensing for the first time that his job might be of no use. He had talked to the psychiatrist who wrote the report, discussed Lund and his sadistic rapes and the anger that drove his sexuality, fusing lust with inflicting pain, pleasure with forcing submission. Ewert had asked if Lund had some kind of insight into what he was doing; did he have any understanding of the feelings and reactions of the child and its parents and others who got involved? Cautiously, the psychiatrist had shaken his head and gone on to speak about Lund’s childhood, how he’d been abused from an early age and how, in order to stand it, he had shut out other people.

  Still holding the jacket, Ewert turned and pointed at Sven, then at Ågestam.

  ‘But what was the final conclusion? Minor psychological disorder. Do you get that? He rapes little girls, but the diagnosis is minor psychological disorder.’

  ‘I remember, I was a law student at the time.’ Åg
estam sighed. ‘We were amazed and furious.’

  Ewert pulled on his jacket and commanded Sven to get the car.

  ‘Off we go. Strängnäs. And keep your foot down.’

  Ågestam had stayed where he was, obstructing the doorway.

  ‘I’ll join you.’

  Ewert disapproved of the young prosecutor; he had shown it before and did so again.

  ‘What’s your angle exactly? Chief interrogator?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Then you’d better move over.’

  The sun was sinking slowly, but it was still as hot as ever. The strong light stung their eyes as they drove south-westwards along the E4. They left the centre behind, then the inner suburbs, then the commuter towns. At last, the E20 to Strängnäs. Sven relaxed a little and breathed more easily. Ewert stopped urging him to go faster and moaning about the sun-visors. The quieter road and change of direction, away from the sun, meant that Sven could increase his speed.

  They didn’t talk much. There wasn’t much to say, apart from the fact that Lund had been seen outside a nursery school and that a five-year-old girl was missing. In their minds, they mulled over what was known and what events might have followed, every scenario ending with the hope that the child had been found in a forgotten play-room and that the father who raised the alarm had allowed his terror to fuel his imagination, as so often was the case.

  They made it in record time. The moment they were within sight of the school it became obvious that nothing had sorted itself out. It had not been a false alarm. Something had happened, and it could be the worst. People were milling around; some must be teachers and nursery nurses, some parents of the children who were running, jumping, playing everywhere. There were uniformed men and impatient dogs standing near two patrol cars, and seen from a distance everything about the people round the playground fence told them of confusion, of questions and fears and perhaps, because of all this, a sense of community.

  Sven stopped the car a little way away, to give Ewert and himself another minute, a moment of stillness before pandemonium broke loose, a little silence before the bombardment of questions started up. From inside their metal shell, he observed the restless crowd. Worried people keep on the move. He watched them; they kept tramping about and, framed by the car window, they looked like extras in a play. He glanced at Ewert, realising that he too was watching and analysing, trying to become part of the talk out there without having to leave the car.

  ‘What do you think has happened?’

  ‘What I can see has happened.’

  ‘What’s that, then?’

  ‘Things couldn’t be worse. Up shit creek.’

  They got out and two of the policemen immediately came towards them to shake hands. First was a large young man with crew-cut dark hair. Like others of his age, maybe just over thirty, his bearing had a self-aware confidence, a kind of brittle invulnerability.

  ‘Hi. Leo Lauritzen. From Eskilstuna, the nearest station. We got here twenty minutes ago.’

  ‘I see. Sven Sundkvist. And this is Ewert Grens.’

  Lauritzen smiled, surprised, and held Ewert’s hand a fraction too long.

  ‘Great! I’ve heard of you.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘It’s like, you know, meeting a celebrity. But you’re shorter than I imagined. No offence.’

  ‘People imagine too much. Have you got anything sensible on your mind as well? What’s the situation here, for instance? Or are you as thick as you look?’

  Lauritzen’s colleague, who’d been hanging back a little, now took a few steps forward. She didn’t bother with any greetings. Her blonde hair was glued to her temples; she was sweating copiously after working hard in the oppressive heat.

  ‘We got the first message about an hour ago. The Stockholm duty officer rang to say that one of the kids in this nursery had gone missing. A few minutes later more info came through. Bernt Lund had been seen in connection with the school and at the time of the disappearance. That was enough for us; a major alert went out. We mobilised members from the local Working Dog Owners’ club to search the woodland between the school and Enköping. Two helicopter crews are scanning the Lake Mälaren beaches near here. A team is lined up for a detailed area search. They’ll get going soon, but we’re holding off for the moment. The dogs need to check out the scents, before half Strängnäs starts combing the place.’

  She apologised and went off to speak to the dog owners next, a group set apart by having the club emblem sewn on to their anoraks.

  Sven and Ewert looked at each other; both held back from starting work, both reluctant to enter into the waiting darkness. Then Ewert cleared his throat and turned to Lauritzen.

  ‘The parents of the missing child. Where are they?’

  Lauritzen pointed at a man wearing a brown corduroy suit and with his long hair gathered in a ponytail, who was seated near the end of a bench by the school gate. He rested his elbows on his knees and leaned his head in his hands, staring at the gate or maybe at a shrub just behind it. A woman was sitting next to him, her arm round his shoulders, now and then stroking his cheek.

  ‘That’s the girl’s father, the man who phoned to say he’d seen Lund. Seen him twice, in fact, with some fifteen to twenty minutes between the sightings. Lund sat on that seat, in full view.’

  ‘His name is?’

  ‘Fredrik Steffansson. Divorced. Agnes Steffansson, the girl’s mother, lives in Stockholm. She’s got a flat in Vasastan, I believe.’

  ‘And who’s the woman?’

  ‘Micaela Zwarts. She works here in the school, and lives with Mr Steffansson. The missing girl, Marie, sometimes stays with one parent, sometimes with the other, officially half-and-half, but during the last year or so she has apparently preferred to have her main home here in Strängnäs, with Zwarts and Steffansson. She goes to her mother over most weekends. The parents have agreed to this, the girl’s welfare matters most to them. I must say I wish there was more of that attitude about. I mean, I’m divorced myself and…’

  Ewert was not interested.

  ‘Leave it. I’ll have a word with Steffansson.’

  The man on the bench was still leaning forward, his empty eyes gazing blindly ahead. He looked drained, as if the wound inside him had allowed all his strength to leach away and any residual joy of living drip into the grass, creating an ugly stain.

  Ewert Grens did not have any children and had never wanted any. He realised that he would never understand fully what the man in front of him was feeling. But he didn’t need to understand, not now.

  What his eyes told him was enough.

  Rune Lantz would be sixty-six on his next birthday. His first year in retirement had almost passed. In July, a year ago, late one afternoon, he had emptied the big container of the apple juice mixer for the last time. He had done the usual, turned the switch to off, washed the drum out, waited for the night shift and for the mixer guy to put on earmuffs and hairnet. The hard bit of the job was adding the right amount of sugar. ‘Right’ depended on where the juice was going. The least sweetened juice went to Germany, a sweeter mix to Great Britain, an unbelievably sweet one to Italy and an undrinkably sticky concoction to Greece.

  By now he had had the time to discover that his workmates of thirty-four years’ standing were nothing but tea-break friends, bad-mouthing-the-boss friends, doing-the- pools-in-the-lunch-break friends. None of them had been in touch since he had left, but then he hadn’t sought them out either, and he wasn’t sure that he missed any of them. It’s odd, he reflected, how you can pass a lifetime in the company of folk you care so little for and need no more than you need the sitting-room telly on. They’re around because they’re around, become habit. Being with them is almost like a ritual, it covers up emptiness and silence. It reassures you that you exist for them, but they really mean sweet FA. And vice versa, of course. You leave, but nothing changes; they carry on mixing juice and doing the pools and chaffing away over their tea-mugs.

&n
bsp; He held her hand harder.

  He saw her much more clearly now.

  His Margareta was still at work in the factory on the site next to his. She had two years left before retirement, two more years of leaving the house every weekday. He had never realised until now how much he needed her; their time together meant life and the courage to grow old.

  Walking close together and never too far away from home, they followed more or less the same route over the bridge and into the woodland and then back; it was their daily stroll late in the afternoon after she had come home from work. He would wait for her with his outdoor clothes on; the last hour alone was the worst because he longed for her so very much, longed to walk together, stepping out a little and breathing in a shared rhythm. During the dark months of the year they’d follow one of the set tracks marked by little posts with coloured signs, but between late spring and early autumn, when the evenings were light, they strayed, walking on mats of blueberry plants between the tall spruce trees. Life was fading for them both, but it was still fun to try and find new ways on your own.

  They had done just that this afternoon. Holding hands, they left the proper path and set out across the bone-dry, rustling forest floor. The summer had been too hot, for too long. This year would be terribly poor for mushrooming.

  They didn’t talk much, there was no need to after forty- three years of marriage. But they watched. A roe deer. A couple of hares. Birds, one looked like a hawk of some kind. One of them would point, both stopped and waited until the animal moved on. They weren’t in a hurry. Then the ground changed, became hillier, and they breathed more vigorously, enjoying the sense of oxygen-rich blood flowing faster in their veins. They were scrambling up a hillside cluttered with large scree when the air filled with noise.

  It was a helicopter, staying low and circling among the tops of the trees. Then another one. Both carried police markings.

  Rune and Margareta watched, staring without knowing why they did, nor why both of them felt a surge of unease and anxiety. It had something to do with the machines’ intrusiveness and intense engine noise. The police were after something in a hurry, looking for it right here.