The Beast (ewert grens)

by Anders Roslund

  Despite being that kind of community, or maybe because of it, over the following months Tallbacka was to become the most clear-cut example, among many others, of what was a new legal phenomenon. It was here that people demonstrated the vacuum separating legally correct court proceedings and the public’s interpretation of exactly what they signified.

  This was a remarkable summer, one nobody would want to remember.

  Göran was known locally as Flasher-Göran. He was forty- four years old, a trained teacher, who had never worked since his practitioner’s term at a nearby school twenty years ago.

  Twenty years was nearly half his lifetime, but he still hadn’t been able to work out why he did it.

  One afternoon, his duties done for the day, he had stopped in the schoolyard and undressed. He took off one piece of clothing after another. Standing stark naked, just a few metres away from the patch of ground set aside for smokers, he sang the national anthem, both verses, loudly but badly. Then he dressed again, wandered off home, prepared the lessons for the following day and went to bed.

  They had allowed him to finish his training and sit the examination, which he passed. During the few years that followed, he applied for every teaching post that came up within a radius of a hundred or so kilometres of Tallbacka. Despite endless labour at hot copiers, producing more pages of his ever more polished curriculum vitae, he never even got an offer of an interview. There was no need to copy his sentence, which always floated up on top of his applications somehow, obscuring the rest of the documentation. He had paid a fine, but it had not helped to mitigate the never-to- be-forgotten shame of having exposed himself in front of under-age school children, in the schoolyard and during school hours.

  Many times he had considered leaving and going somewhere far away, where he could apply for jobs untainted by rumours and speculation. Like many others in Tallbacka, he was too gutless, too muddled, too local.

  The day was very warm. True, it had felt even hotter yesterday, when he’d been away buying roof tiles, but anyway, he was sweating and couldn’t be bothered changing from shorts to trousers. The three hundred metres to the shop seemed a long way.

  He heard them when he crossed the road. He had known several of them since they were toddlers, but now they were big boys of fifteen or sixteen, with voices like grown males.

  ‘Show your knob then!’

  ‘Fucking peddo! Come on, flash!’

  They emptied any Coke left and threw away the cans, to start a performance of shouting and rubbing their crotches rhythmically with both hands.

  ‘Flash cock. Flash cock. Peddo, peddo, peddo.’

  He didn’t look their way. He was determined not to look, whatever. They shouted louder and louder. Someone threw a can at him.

  ‘Fucking peddo show-off! Go home. Get it out and wank!’

  He walked on, just a short stretch to go now, for once he was round the corner of the old post office they wouldn’t be able to see him anymore and the shop wouldn’t be far away. It was the only shop left, now that it had seen off its two rivals. It stood there alone, displaying red sale price tags and today’s special bargains.

  He was tired, just as he had been every day this long, hot summer. After his hurried walk, breathing heavily, he sat down on the seat outside the shop, to watch the passers- by with their carrier bags. They were all people he knew at least by name. On the next seat along sat two girls of about twelve or thirteen; one was his neighbour’s daughter, the other her friend. They were giggling the way girls do, laughing too hard to stop. They had never shouted at him, they simply didn’t see him except as ‘him next-door’, the man who came round to cut the grass sometimes.

  Christ, there was the Volvo. On the road going past the shop.

  He always got a tummy ache when he spotted it. It meant trouble. Someone would have a go at him.

  The driver slammed on the brakes and the car shuddered to a halt. Bengt Söderlund climbed out. He was a large, powerfully built man of about forty-five, who wore denims with a pocket for a measuring rod, hammer and Stanley knife, and a cap with the text Söderlund Contractor. He walked up to the girls and spoke loudly to them, and to Flasher-Göran and to Tallbacka at large.

  ‘You two, come on! Get into the car. Now!’

  He grabbed each girl by the nearest shoulder. They crouched a little, sensing anger, twisted to get away, gave up, ran off towards the car.

  Söderlund went up to Flasher-Göran, gripped his collar to pull him upright and shook him hard. It hurt, the shirt collar burned against his neck.

  ‘Caught you at it this time. Now I’ve seen for myself what you’re up to. Swine!’

  The girls in the car stared, too baffled even to attempt understanding.

  ‘I don’t fucking believe it. That’s my daughter. Like to show it to her? Is that it?’

  By now the gang of teenage boys had turned up. They had heard the noises of a car braking and a man shouting. It was a laugh to watch Söderlund set on Flasher-Göran, it made their day. They ran the last bit to get close.

  ‘Hey! Kill the peddo!’

  ‘Kill him!’

  Hands to crotches, wanking.

  Söderlund didn’t look their way, only gave his victim a last shake before dumping him on the seat. Walking back to his car he delivered his final words at the top of his voice.

  ‘Get your fucking head round this. You’ve got two weeks. If you haven’t buggered off by then we’ll kill you. You filthy swine! Two weeks, that’s it!’

  The car drove off with a roar.

  The boys were still hanging about, but they had stopped their act, stopped shouting abuse.

  They had taken in what Söderlund had said and grasped that his words were for real.

  The evening was beautiful, very still and twenty-four degrees in the shade. Bengt Söderlund went outside. He turned towards his neighbour’s house and spat. He had come to detest the sight of it.

  Bengt was a Tallbacka man born and bred, and had worked in the family building firm until he finally took over the running of it. Both his parents had died within a few weeks of each other; their fading away gained speed until they simply weren’t there any more. He had never considered death before. Not his problem, put it that way. Now death invaded his life. After burying his father and his mother he was left alone, facing his past, the time that had made him. His daily round, his safe nest and the venue for his parties and adventures too.

  He and Elisabeth had been in the same class at school and started going out when they were both sixteen. They had three children, two who were old enough now to have moved away, and one late baby, who was growing up too, but still sheltering in the space between the worlds of a child and an adolescent.

  This was his place. He knew what it smelt like, what passing cars sounded like. Time had a special quality here, it was unhurried, and seemed to last for longer.

  At noon the homespun restaurant next to the shop filled with local bachelors spending their luncheon vouchers and chatting; they were working men who had never learned to cook. By late afternoon the cafe transformed into a plain, smoke-filled and rather crummy pub. It was a safe, neutral hang-out for couples who weren’t churchy and had nowhere else to go; it offered a discounted Beer of the Week, with peanuts to go and two gaming machines in a corner.

  Bengt had called round, asking everyone to meet up in the pub that night. He was furious and alarmed and ready to chuck any notion of compromise. Elisabeth didn’t want to join them, they were too worked up for her taste, but Ola Gunnarsson did, and so did Klas Rilke and Ove Sandell and Helena, his wife. Bengt had known these people since their schooldays. The men had all played football for Tallbacka FC, season after season, and got drunk together at parties in the community hall. They were really children, who had stayed on to try out adulthood.

  They had talked about that freak Göran many times.

  In every process there is a stage where either it is halted, or it starts on a new, more or less unstoppable course. That
was where they were at with their local pervert. The future was waiting for their decision.

  Bengt bought his mates a pint of Special each and double portions of peanuts. He was eager to share what occupied his mind, the way Flasher-Göran had been lurking outside the shop and the girls sitting so close and how he had felt and what he had done. Then he paused, looked around and drank deeply. White flecks of foam covered his lips.

  He unfolded a piece of paper he had brought and showed it to the others.

  ‘Look! I got his sentence from the magistrates’ court today. I’ve had it with that bastard, that’s for sure. I was so fucking furious. After I’d given him a piece of my mind I got into the car and headed for town. Drove like a bloody maniac. I got there just when they were shutting up shop. Christ, the time it took; they rooted around in their files and whatever. No computerised records in this day and age, would you believe it?’

  Everyone leaned forward to see, trying to read the text, upside-down if necessary.

  ‘Look at it! Here it is, in black and white. Swinging his dick in front of the kids. Fuck’s sake, there’s nothing between him and the beast that got shot in Enköping.’

  Bengt let his packet of cigarettes do the round, lit one himself.

  ‘Ove, remember? Your little sisters were among the kids, you know.’

  He fixed his eyes on Ove Sandell, knowing that he felt the same way.

  ‘That’s right. He showed off his cock, right in front of them. Filthy. If I’d been there I would’ve killed him. Blasted him there and then. No problem.’

  They drank to that. A group of boys came in, the lads from outside the shop, the mock-wankers. The gang drifted over to the gaming machines, hung around watching the players, applauded when anyone won anything. One or two tried it on, went to the counter to order a beer. No go. Nobody even tried to get change for the machines, that line cut no ice. The limit was eighteen for drink and gambling, and that was that, even in Tallbacka.

  Helena, Ove’s wife, was impatient. She knocked on the tabletop to catch their attention and then looked at each one of them, in the end addressing her husband.

  ‘Ove, we’ve got girls of our own now.’

  ‘So we do.’

  ‘So is it their turn soon?’

  ‘They should’ve cut his balls off back then, after the sentence.’

  Bengt nodded, then rose and pointed in the direction of his house.

  ‘I don’t get it, there are two thousand decent people in this place. Who’s my neighbour? A filthy paedophile! What can I do? Will someone kindly tell me what I’m meant to do!’

  The gang of wankers were getting fed up with peering over the shoulders of the gamers. Instead they got hold of the remote control and switched the telly on. The sound was too loud and Bengt waved irritably at them until the volume was low enough.

  ‘You don’t answer. What am I supposed to do? Fuck’s sake, we can’t keep someone like that here. No way.’

  Helena suddenly shouted, so loudly that her voice cracked.

  ‘Away with him. He’s got to go. Ove! Do you hear me?’

  Bengt chewed a handful of peanuts. Slowly swallowed.

  ‘Right. We must get him out of here. If he won’t, we’ll shove. What I’m saying is, if he isn’t gone in two weeks’ time I’ll do him in.’

  Another round, Bengt paid again and kept the receipt. He was going to write it off against the firm’s expenses. Meals, he called it.

  They started drinking from the large cool glasses, but were stopped short when Ove suddenly wolf-whistled. The piercing sound cleaved through the smoke-laden air. Instant silence. Ove pointed at the telly and shouted in the direction of the boy with the remote.

  ‘Hey, turn it up!’

  ‘Fucking make up your mind.’

  ‘We want to hear this. Turn up the telly or I’ll clock you one.’

  The camera had been following Fredrik Steffansson, being escorted slowly along one of the corridors in the Kronoberg remand prison. He had pulled his jacket over his head.

  ‘It’s that father, the one who shot the paedophile. Killed the beast.’

  Stillness had fallen over the pub, as most people stared at the screen. Fredrik Steffansson waved dismissively at the camera, shook his head and then stepped outside the image. A woman came along, then stood in front of him. The camera moved to close-up and a microphone materialised in front of her mouth. It was Kristina Björnsson, the defence lawyer.

  ‘You’re quite right. My client does not deny the actual event. He did shoot Bernt Lund. It was a deliberate killing, planned several days ahead.’

  The camera panned in even closer. A reporter tried to get a question in, but she raised her voice and continued.

  ‘This was not murder, however, but something quite different. It was reasonable force, used in extreme circumstances.’

  Bengt was amazed and delighted. He slapped the table.

  ‘Did you hear that!’

  As he looked around, the others nodded slowly. They followed every camera-move keenly, took in every new argument by Steffansson’s lawyer.

  ‘It was only a matter of time before Bernt Lund would attempt another crime. We are all agreed that this is the case, after studying his personality profile. My client is convinced that by taking Lund’s life he saved the life of at least one child.’

  ‘Too fucking true!’

  Ove smiled, leaned over to plant a kiss on his wife’s cheek.

  The eager reporter tried again, the question that she hadn’t been allowed to put earlier.

  ‘How does your client feel?’

  ‘As well as can be expected in the circumstances. I don’t need to remind you that he has lost his little daughter in the most distressing way possible. Also, as a citizen, he is deeply disappointed that society failed to protect not only his child, but also other potential victims. Instead he himself is locked up and will stand trial. He is taking the consequences of ineffective law enforcement.’

  Helena stroked her husband’s cheek. Then she took his hand and pulled him up, as she rose from the table.

  ‘He did the right thing.’

  She lifted her glass in a toast, turning first to Bengt, then to Ola and Klas and, finally, to her husband.

  ‘Do you know what he is, that Fredrik Steffansson? Do you? He’s a hero, a real old-fashioned hero. Here’s a toast to Fredrik Steffansson!’

  They all followed her lead, silently raised their glasses and emptied them.

  They stayed in the pub for longer than they usually would. Jointly they arrived at a decision, not the means of bringing it about, but that it would happen. They had passed the critical stage and the process would continue.

  It was their Tallbacka, their community, the very stuff of how they lived day after day.

  Lars Ågestam was bewildered, even though there weren’t that many people about, but then he never had been any good at big stores. Six floors, escalators, free offers and tastings, rumbling messages over the loudspeaker system, credit card machines, queuing numbers. All the time, the pressure to buy buy buy. The queuing customers were daunting, too many; someone smelled strongly of sweat, someone’s kids made a noise, some people acted as lost as he felt, a woman dropped the clothes she had picked to try on, a bloke kept searching for something in sportswear, and everything everything everything had been transported from elsewhere to end up here, neatly packaged and priced.

  Simply being inside this living hell floored him, but he couldn’t think of another place to go. He never bought music, mainly because he had no time to listen, except to the car radio. The music department fazed him completely, shelf after shelf of recordings by alleged celebrities he’d never heard of. He spotted a young woman at an information counter. She was probably very pretty, though it was hard to tell behind the make-up and a hair-do that covered her eyes.

  ‘Siw Malmqvist, have you got anything by her?’

  She smiled. Was it a friendly smile or a sneer? How do young women smile?


  ‘I think so, somewhere in the Swedish section. I’ll have a look.’

  She stepped outside her enclosure and waved to him to follow. He watched her back and blushed. Her clothes were, well… revealing.

  She held out a CD. The cover photo showed a woman, young back then, long ago.

  ‘Siw’s Classics. Will this do?’

  Surely this was the right thing. He said he’d take it.

  By now she was smiling very broadly. He blushed again, but felt cross. Was she laughing at him?

  ‘What’s the joke?’

  ‘Oh, nothing.’

  ‘I get the impression you’re finding this funny.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Yes you do.’

  ‘It’s just that you don’t look right. I mean, like the type of person who buys Siw’s songs.’

  Now he was smiling too.

  ‘What do they look like then? Older than me?’

  ‘I… yeah, not such… a suit.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Like, cooler.’

  Safely outside in the street, he bought an ice-cream and decided to walk to Kung Island, then past the Crime Prosecution Service building, his place of work, and on to Scheele Street and the Violent Crime Squad offices.

  He felt quite tense, hung back a little and then almost forgot to knock. The familiar irritable voice.

  Ewert Grens was sitting behind his desk, but had swung the chair sideways and was leaning forward with his elbows resting on his thighs. His glaring eyes told his visitor to get lost, he wasn’t welcome. No one was.

  ‘I’ve got something for you. Here.’ Lars put the CD down on the desk. ‘I’m sorry I was so rude about the music last time.’

  Grens said nothing.

  ‘I hope you haven’t got all the songs in this collection.’

  Still no response.

  ‘I’d like to talk to you for a while. I’ll be straight with you, just as I was on Monday. I think you’re bloody difficult, and a real bastard at times. But I need you. I haven’t got anyone else to turn to in this case, no one who’ll offer me the resistance I must learn to deal with. No one who will ask the right questions.’