The Beast

ABOUT NOW
I

Putting on a mask always made him feel very silly. A grown man hiding behind a kid's mask ought to feel silly. But he had watched other men doing it, playing at being Winnie the Pooh or Uncle Scrooge McDuck with some kind of dignity, as if the mask didn't bother them. I'll never get the hang of this, he thought, never get used to it. Won't ever turn into the kind of father I wanted for myself once, the kind I was determined to be one day.

He kept touching the thin, garishly coloured plastic membrane that covered his face. It was held on by a rubber band that fitted tightly round the back of his head and had become tangled in his hair. It was hard to breathe, each breath smelled of saliva and sweat.

'You must run, Daddy! You're not running! You're standing still! Big Bad Wolf's always running!'

She had stopped in front of him, looking at him with her head tilted back, bits of grass and earth scattered in her long blonde curls. She was trying to look cross, but angry children don't smile and she did; she was smiling with the beaming face of a child who has been chased by the Big Bad Wolf, round and round a house in the small town. Chased until her dad couldn't stand it any more, wanted very much to be somebody else, someone who didn't wear a mask with a wolf's plastic tongue and teeth.

'Marie, I can't hack it any more. Big Bad Wolf has to sit down and rest for a bit. The Big Bad Wolf wants to become small and kind.'

She shook her head.

'One more time, Daddy! Just one more.'

'That's what you said last time.'

'This is the last time.'

You've said that before too.'

'It's the last time. For sure.'

'Sure, sure?'

'Sure.'

I love her, he thought. She's my daughter. It didn't happen immediately, I didn't understand at first, but now I do. I love her.

Suddenly he caught sight of the moving shadow. Just behind him. It was slow, crept along. He'd thought the other one was somewhere ahead of him, over by the trees, instead of right behind him, but there he was, moving stealthily at first, then speeding up, just at the moment when the girl with the mucky hair attacked from in front. They pushed him at the same time from opposite directions. He staggered, fell and hit the ground. Now they could both jump on top of him. They stayed as they were, then the girl with mucky hair raised her hand, palm outwards, and the dark- haired boy, the same age as her, raised his hand. Their palms slapped together. High five!

'David, look! He's given in!'

'We won!'

'The Pigs are the best!'

'The Pigs are always the best!'

Attacked by two five-year-olds from opposite directions, the Big Bad Wolf hadn't got a hope. As always. He knew what he must do, and rolled over, the two creatures on top of him following the roll. Lying on his back, he raised his hands to the plastic mask and pulled it off his face, blinking in the strong sunlight. He laughed out loud.

'Isn't it funny? I lose every time. Never win. Have I ever won, just once? Can anyone explain what's going on?'

Waste of breath. The two creatures didn't listen. They had won the prize, the plastic mask. They would try it on first, then celebrate by wearing it for a run-around. Afterwards they would go inside, upstairs to Marie's room on the first floor, to add the mask to their other trophies. They would stand in front of the pile for a moment, a Ducksburg monument to the glory of two five-year-old friends.

As the children wandered away, his eyes followed them. He looked at the boy from next door, then at his daughter. So much life inside them, so many years held in their hands, with months slipping between their fingers. I envy them, he thought. I envy their endless time, their sense that an hour is long, that winter will last for ever.

They disappeared through the door and he turned his face towards the sky. Lying on his back, he searched for different shades of blue, something he had done when he was little and now did again. Any kind of sky held different blues. He'd had a good time back then, when he was just a small boy. His father was a career army officer, a captain, and that meant something. You were in a regiment. Your future promotion was embroidered on the shoulders of your uniform, or so you hoped, at least. His mother was a housewife, at home when he and his brother left for school, and still there when they returned. He'd never understood what she found to do, alone in four rooms on the third floor of a block of flats. How did she endure the sameness of her days?

On his twelfth birthday everything changed. Or, to be exact, on the day after. It seemed that Frans had waited until his birthday celebrations were over, as if he had not wanted to ruin them. As if he knew that for his little brother a birthday was something more than when you were born; it was all your longing concentrated into one day.

Fredrik Steffansson got up and brushed the grass from his shirt and shorts. He often thought about Frans, remembered missing him, more now than he'd used to. From the day after his birthday his brother simply wasn't there. His empty bed stayed made for ever. Their talking together silenced. It was so sudden. In the morning Frans had hugged him for a long time, longer than any time Fredrik could recall. Frans had hugged him, said goodbye and walked off to Strängnäs station in time for the fast train to Stockholm. Next, no more than an hour later, in the metro station, he had bought another single ticket and caught a green line train going south, towards Farsta. At Medborgar Square, he got off, then jumped from the platform on to the track and started walking slowly between the rails into the tunnel towards Skanstull. Six minutes later a train driver caught sight of a human shape in the light of the bright headlamps and threw himself at the brakes, screaming in anguish and terror as the front carriage hit a fifteen-year-old body.

Ever since, they had left Frans's bed untouched, the bedspread pulled tight, the folded red blanket at the foot- end. He never understood why. Still didn't. Maybe to look welcoming if Frans returned. For years he had kept hoping that one day his brother would simply be there, that it had all been a mistake. After all, such mistakes are not unheard of. They can happen.

It was as if the whole family had died that day, on the track in a tunnel between Medborgar Square and Skanstull. His mother no longer spent her days waiting around in the flat. She never told anyone where she went but, regardless of season, she was always back at dusk. His father collapsed in every way. The straight-backed captain looked crumpled and bent, and while he'd been taciturn before, he now became practically mute. He stopped chastising his son. At least, after Frans had died, Fredrik couldn't remember ever being beaten again.

They were back, standing in the doorway. Marie and David. One as tall as the other, five-year-olds' height; he'd forgotten how many centimetres, it had said on the note from the nursery that stated Marie's height and weight, but both kids were presumably as tall as they ought to be; he didn't much care for notes with statistics. Marie's long blonde curls were still full of grass and stuff, and David's short dark hair was sticking to his forehead and temples, which meant that he'd put the mask on while they were inside. Fredrik observed them knowingly and laughed.

'Look at you, so neat and tidy. Not. Just like me. We all need a bath. Do pigs take baths?'

He didn't wait for a reply. Putting one hand on each of their thin bony shoulders, he pushed them gently back into the house, through the hall, past Marie's room, past his bedroom, and into the big bathroom. He filled the old bathtub with water, a high-sided old tub on feet and with two seats inside. He'd found it at an auction of stuff from some grand house. Every night he would sit in the bath, allowing the sauna-like conditions to relax him and thinking, doing nothing for half an hour or so, except planning what he'd write the following day. The next chapter, the next word.

Now he worried about getting the water right for them. Not too hot, not too cold. He squeezed foam from a green Mr Men bottle. It looked soft and inviting. To his surprise they stepped into the bath without any fuss and settled side by side on one seat. He undressed quickly and sat on the seat opposite them.

Five-year-olds are so small. You don't realise quite how small until they're naked. Soft skin, slender bodies, forever hopeful faces. He looked at Marie, her forehead covered in white bubbles that trickled down her nose. He looked at

David, who was holding the empty Mr Men bottle upside down, making more bubbles. He felt he lacked a picture of himself at the age of five, and tried placing his own head on Marie's shoulders. People said that they were strikingly alike, they enjoyed pointing it out. This baffled him and embarrassed Marie. His five-year-old face on her body. He ought to recall something, have a recognition of the way he'd felt then, but all he remembered was the beatings. He and Dad in the drawing room, that fucking awful big hand hitting his bottom, this he did remember, and he remembered too Frans pressing his face against the pane of glass in the drawing room door.

'The foam's finished.'

David held out the bottle to show him, shook it with the spout touching the water.

'I noticed. Now, could that be because you've poured it all out?'

'Wasn't I meant to?'

Fredrik sighed.

'Oh, sure. Of course.'

'You must buy another one.'

He had used to do it too, watch through the pane when Frans was beaten. Dad never noticed either of them, how they'd be observing what happened through the glazed panel in the door. Frans was older. He got hit more times, the beating took longer, at least that was how it felt from a couple of metres away. Fredrik had not remembered any of this until he was an adult. The beatings hadn't happened for over fifteen years and then, suddenly, it all came back, the big hand and the pane of glass. He was almost thirty by that stage and ever since then he'd had to haul his thoughts away from the memory, away from the drawing room. Not that he felt angry, oddly enough not even vengeful; instead he grieved, or at least, the nearest thing to what he felt was grief.

'Dad. We've got more.'

He stared vacantly at Marie. She chased that hollow feeling away.

'Hey! Dad!'

'More what?'

'We've got more Mr Men bath foam.'

'Do we?'

'On the bottom shelf. Two more. We bought three, you see.'

Frans had felt a greater grief. He was older, more time had passed, more beatings. Frans used to cry behind the pane of glass. He cried only when he was watching. Only then. He lived with his grief, hid it, carried it with him, until it became all he was, savagely threatening his self. Its last, conclusive blow struck him that morning, backed by a thirty- ton carriage.

'Here it is.'

Marie had clambered out of the tub and padded over to the bathroom cabinet.

'Look. Two more. I knew that. 'Cause we bought three.'

She pointed proudly.

The floor was awash, foam and water had been pouring off her body but she didn't notice, of course, just climbed back into the tub clutching the Mr Men figure. She got the top off with less trouble than he'd expected. David grabbed the bottle and instantly, unhesitatingly turned it upside down, shouting something that sounded like 'Yippee!' And they did their high-five handclap again.

He hated nonces. Everyone did. Still, he was a professional. A job was a job. He kept telling himself that. A job a job a job.

Åke Andersson had transported criminals to and from assorted care institutions for thirty-two years. He was fifty- nine now, but his greying hair was still thick, well looked after. He carried a kilogram or two more than he should, but he was tall, taller than all his colleagues, and any villain he'd driven. He admitted to 199 centimetres. Actually 202 was nearer the mark, but if you were over two metres tall, folk took you for a freak, one of nature's misfits, and he was fed up with that.

He hated nonces. Perverts who used force to get pussy. Most of all he hated the beasts who forced kids. His feelings were strong and therefore forbidden, but his hatred grew in intensity with each nonce job, the only times in his daily round when he responded emotionally. The aggression he felt frightened him. He had to control his urge to stop, shut down the engine, take a long stride between the front seats and fix the bastard by pushing him against the rear window.

He showed nothing.

No question, he'd had worse scum in the van, or, at least, scum with heavier sentences. He'd seen it all, put handcuffs on every fucking hard man in the headlines, walked them to the bus and driven them, staring vacantly into the mirror. Many of them were complete cretins. Loonies. Only a few had got their heads round the idea that there's a cost. If you buy, you've got to pay, it's that simple. Never mind the suckers outside, with their sermons about care and concern and rehabilitation. You buy and you pay. That's all.

He could spot the perverts, pick them out every single time. There was something about them, which meant he didn't need to know the charge. No paperwork required. He saw and hated. Now and then he had tried to explain it over a beer in the pub, tried to convince people that it was possible to spot them and that he knew how. Trouble was, when his mates asked for details he couldn't say and they reckoned he was prejudiced, possibly homophobic or even anti-everybody. Now he kept his mouth shut: it was too much hassle and not worth the effort. Still, he knew who was who, and the scumbags sensed it, looking away shiftily when his eyes sought theirs.

This nonce in the back had done the rounds. Åke had driven him at least six times. Back in '91, a couple of round- trips between trial court and the cells, then again in '97, after he'd done a runner and been caught once more. Another trip in '99, from Säter secure to wherever it was. Now he was off to the Southern General Hospital, in the middle of the night. He looked at the face in the mirror and the beast looked back, it was like some pointless competition about who could keep staring the longest. As ever, he seemed normal enough. At least, he would've, to most people. A bit shortish, 175 centimetres, say, medium build, close-cropped hair. Calm. Normal. Except, he was a repeat child rapist.

Red lights at the start of the uphill run along Ring Street. Not much traffic at this time of night. Blue lamps materialised behind him. An ambulance, its sirens blaring. He stayed where he was to let it overtake.

'That's it, Lund. You've got thirty seconds now, then out. We phoned ahead, a doctor is seeing you straight away.'

Åke didn't talk with nonces. Never did. His colleague knew that. Ulrik Berntfors felt very much the same way, it was just that he didn't hate.

'This way we don't have to wait for our breakfast. And you don't have to sit in the waiting room with all that kit on.'

Ulrik gestured at Lund, at the chain across his stomach. It was part of a transfer waist-restraint, complete with leg- irons. He had never had to use one before. Body-belts, yes. Still, it was an order. Oscarsson had phoned up about it, made a special point. Told to undress, Lund had smiled and waggled his hips. He was fitted out with a metal belt round his waist, joined to the leg-irons with four chains running down his legs and to the handcuffs with two chains along his torso and arms. Ulrik had seen these things on TV and once for real, during a study visit to India. Never in Sweden. Here, the main idea was to control offenders by outnumbering them. More guards than villains. Sometimes handcuffs, of course, but not chains inside shirt and trousers.

'How caring. Thanks a lot. You're great guys.'

Lund was speaking quietly. He was barely audible. Ulrik had no idea if what he said was meant to be ironic. Then Lund shifted position, chains clanking against each other, until he was leaning forward with his head resting on the frame of the glazed hatch separating the front seats from the back of the van.

'Listen, you two. This is no good. I've got chains up my arse. Get me out of this fucking tin body-belt and I give you my word I won't run.'

Åke stared at him in the mirror. He speeded up suddenly, shot along the slope up to the Casualty entrance and then stood on the brakes.

Lund's chin crashed against the sharp edge of the hatch.

'Fucking screws! What the fuck's that for? You cunts!'

Usually Lund spoke calmly and sounded quite educated. Until he felt got at. Then he swore. Åke knew that. It wasn't just that they all looked alike. They were alike.

Ulrik was laughing, but only inside. That bugger Andersson, he wasn't quite right in the head. He kept doing stuff like this, but refused to say a word.

'Too bad,' he said. 'Nothing doing, it's Oscarsson's orders. You see, Lund, you're classed as dangerous. A danger to society. So you'd better lump it.'

Ulrik found it difficult to utter all this. The words seemed to have a will of their own, pushing their way out of his mouth despite his straining facial muscles, tensed to hold back the rumbling laughter inside. If it slipped out and was heard, it would provoke their passenger even more. He spoke, but afterwards, following Andersson's example, stared silently straight ahead.

'If we take the tinsel off you, we'd be ignoring Oscarsson's express order. And that's against the regulations. You know that.'

The ambulance that had overtaken them was parked next to the ramp outside Casualty. Two male paramedics were running up the stairs to the entrance, two steps at a time, carrying a stretcher. Ulrik caught a glimpse of a woman; the blood in her long hair made it stick to the leg of one of the paramedics. Orange and red don't go together, he thought, wondering why they wore orange, they must get blood on their uniforms pretty often. Being upset always made his mind wander.

'Oscarsson's an arsehole! He's fucking lost it. Why won't that motherfucker believe me? I said I won't run! I told him at Aspsås!'

Lund was shouting through the hatch, then backed away only to throw himself against the windowless wall. The chains of his restraint thumped against the metal side of the van, making Åke momentarily think he'd hit something, turn to look for another vehicle that wasn't there.

'I fucking told him, you bastards! So you didn't know? OK, here's another deal. If you don't get this lot of chain- mail off me, I'll be away. Get that, cunts? I'll walk. Understood?'

Åke tried to meet his eyes. He adjusted the mirror to find Lund. He sensed the hatred welling up; he had to hit him, that scum had gone too far, had just said 'cunt' once too often.

Thirty-two years. A job a job a job. But he couldn't hack it any more. Not today. And sooner or later it would all go to hell, whatever.

He ripped off the seatbelt, opened the door. Ulrik realised what was up, but didn't have time to act. Åke was going to beat the shit out of the nonce. Lund would get it harder than any of them ever had. Not that Ulrik minded. He stayed where he was, smiling to himself.

The town was never more silent than a few minutes past four in the morning. After the last customers had left Hörnans Bar to make their way noisily from the harbour along the Promenade towards the old bridge to Toster Island, there was this quiet space, until the newspaper boys delivering the Strängrtäs Gazette fanned out to sprint along Stor Street, opening porch doors and letterboxes.

Fredrik Steffansson knew it all, he hadn't slept through the night for ages. He kept the window open, so he could lie in bed and listen to the little town falling asleep and waking again, to the movements of people he mostly knew, or at least recognised. That's how it is when your world is small-scale. Everything crowds in on you. He had lived here almost all his life. Sure, he had read a lot of books by the right people and gone off to live in Stockholm's South End, studying comparative religion at the university. Then he had worked in a kibbutz in northern Israel, a few miles from the Lebanese border. But once all that was over and done with, he returned to Strängnäs and the people he knew, or at least recognised. He'd never truly got away, never left growing up here behind him. His memories and his lasting sadness at the loss of Frans tied him to this town. It was here he had met Agnes. He had fallen madly in love with her, she was so sophisticated, exclusively dressed in black, always searching for something. They started living together, but had been about to part when Marie arrived and made them rediscover each other, so that, for almost a year, the three of them were a family. Then Fredrik and Agnes separated for ever, not as enemies, but they spoke only when Marie was to be delivered or collected. She had to travel from one city to another, because Agnes had moved to Stockholm, living among her beautiful friends, where she really belonged.

Someone was walking down there in the street. He checked the time. Quarter to five. Bloody nights. If only he could think of something that made sense, his next piece of writing, just the next two pages, but no, it seemed impossible. He couldn't think at all, the empty time passed as he listened to what seeped in through the window, taking note of when doors closed and cars started. Meaningless accountancy. He had hardly any energy left for writing. When he had delivered Marie to nursery school and settled down at his computer with the day stretching ahead of him, the hours without sleep attacked, tiredness engulfed him. Three chapters in two months was simply disastrous, his powerful publisher wouldn't put up with it and was already sending out feelers to find out what was up.

A truck. That sounded like that truck. But it usually didn't run before half past five.

Such a thin partition to Marie's room. He could hear her. She was snoring. How come little children snore like fat old men? Fragile five-year-olds with piping voices, as cute as anything? He used to think it was just Marie, but whenever David slept over they made twice as much noise, filling the silences between each other's breaths.

It wasn't a truck. A bus, that was it.

He turned away from the window. Micaela slept in the nude, blanket and sheet bundled up at her feet as always.

She was just twenty-four, so young. She made him feel loved, often randy, and, at times, so old. It would hit him suddenly, often when they were talking about music or books or films. One of them would make a remark about a composition, or someone's writing, or a play, and it would become obvious that she was young and he was middle-aged. Sixteen years is a long time in the life of guitar solos and film dialogue; they age and fade away and get replaced.

She was lying on her stomach, her face turned towards him. He caressed her cheek, planted a light kiss on a buttock. He liked her very much. Was he in love? He couldn't bear the effort of working it out. He liked that she was there, next to him, that she agreed to share his hours, for he detested being lonely, it was pointless, like suffocating; surely solitude was a kind of death. He moved his hand from her cheek to stroke her back. She stirred. Why did she lie there, next to an older man with a child, a man who wasn't that good-looking, not ugly but certainly not handsome, and not well off, and, arguably, not even fun to be with? Why had she chosen to spend her nights with him, she who was so beautiful, so young and had so many more hours left to live? He kissed her again, this time on her hip.

'Are you still awake?'

'I'm sorry. Did I wake you?'

'I don't know. What about you, haven't you been asleep?'

'You know what I'm like.'

She pulled him close, her naked body against his, sleepily warm, awake but not quite.

'You must sleep, my old darling.' 'Old?'

'You can't cope if you don't sleep. You know that. Come on. Sleep.'

She looked at him, kissed him, held him.

'I was thinking about Frans.'

'Fredrik, not now.'

'I do think about him. I want to think about him, I'm listening to Marie next door and I'm thinking about how Frans too was a child when he was beaten, when he watched me being beaten. When he caught the train to Stockholm.'

'Close your eyes.'

'Why should anyone beat a child?'

'If you keep your eyes closed for long enough you go to sleep. That's how it works.'

'Why should anyone beat a child, who will grow up and learn to understand and judge the person who's been beating it? At least, judge the rights and wrongs of that beaten child.'

She pushed at him to turn him on his side with his back towards her, then moved in close behind him, twisting into him until they were like two boughs of a tree.

'Why keep hitting a child, who will construe the beatings as Daddy's duty and look to its own failings for the reason. I'm not good enough, not tough enough. The child will tell itself that it's his or her own fault, partly at least. Christ almighty, I was into that kind of crap myself. I forced myself to believe it, not to feel violated and abandoned.'

Micaela slept. Her breathing was slow and regular against the back of his neck, so close that the skin became damp. Through the window came the sounds of another bus. It stopped outside, reversed, stopped again, reversed. Perhaps the same one as yesterday, a large coach.

Lennart Oscarsson carried a secret. He wasn't alone in this, but felt as if he were. The pain of it rode him, curled up on his right shoulder, slept inside his chest, occupied all the space inside his stomach. Every evening he decided to let it out the following morning. Once he had set it free, he could sit back quietly, contemplating days without a secret for company stretching out ahead.

He didn't have the strength, couldn't do it. He was screaming, but nobody listened. Maybe to scream properly you actually had to open your mouth?

He did the same things every morning. Sat in the kitchen at their round pine table, spooning yoghurt into his face. Karin was always there at his side. She was his life, this beautiful woman, whom he had loved beyond reason ever since he'd met her for the first time, sixteen years ago. She drank her usual coffee with hot milk, ate rye bread and butter, read the arts pages in the morning paper.

Now. Now!

He should tell her now. Then it would have been said. She had every right to know. Others didn't, but she did. It was so simple. A couple of minutes, a few sentences, that was all. They could finish their breakfasts, leave for their daily work. He would return home that night freed from having to hide it. He put the spoon down, drank the last of the yoghurt straight from the container.

Lennart took pride in his work at Aspsås prison. He held a senior post, chief officer in charge of a unit, and had ambitions to advance further. He took every opportunity for study leave, joined every course, reckoned you had to show willing, and he did, in the knowledge that somewhere, someone was taking notes.

Seven years ago he had taken over the running of one of Aspsås's two units for sex offenders. His working life had become focused on people locked up for violating those whom they had been charged to protect. These men had broken the strongest taboo left in society, they were outcasts; he was responsible for them and for the staff who were employed to care as well as to punish. Punishing and trying to understand, this was what they were meant to do, care and punish and remain aware of the difference. His views were his own, he felt what he felt, but he did show willing, and someone, somewhere, kept notes on his progress.

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.'

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.

'But, young man. Regrettably, forty or not forty, you're going nowhere now.'

Ewert had bad breath. Normally they never got that close.

'You're joking.'

'Let me tell you something.'

Ewert pointed at his visitor's chair. He was impatient, jabbing towards it with his index finger. Sven pulled his hand away and went to perch on the edge of the chair, still ready to leave any minute now.

'I was in it up to my neck, the last time.'

'The girls in the basement.'

'Two girls, both nine years old. He had tied them up, jerked off all over them, raped them, cut them. Just like the time before. They were lying on this bare cement floor, staring at us. The medic confirmed that they'd been alive when Lund cut them, stuck a metal object into them, into the vagina, the anus. I don't believe it, because I can't bear to believe it. Have you thought about that, eh, Sven? That you can believe whatever you like, if you put your mind to it?'

Ewert Grens scared quite a few people. He didn't stay put where you left him. His body was restless inside his creased shirt, his too-short trousers. Sven understood why people kept away from him, he had avoided the man himself. But he always felt that it was wrong to set out planning to humiliate someone. Simple enough rule. Anyway, he'd kept himself to himself until it seemed Ewert had accepted him. Even selected him, not that Sven understood why. The old boy must have needed someone and it happened to be him. Now Ewert didn't seem dangerous any more. Big and grey and intense, but not dangerous.

He was sad, grieving over the two girls. He didn't cry, not tears yet.

'I did the questioning. I kept trying to look Lund in the eye: No way. No fucking way. He stared above me, past me, through me. I interrupted the session several times to demand that he look straight at me.'

Grens, you don't get it.

Grens, listen.

I thought you were one of the guys who'd get it.

I don't get the hots for all kids.

You've no reason to say that.

I only go for some of them, the ones who're a bit… bigger.

Like that blonde, plump one.

You know the kind.

That's important, Grens.

They're whores.

Little slags with small feet.

Who think about cock.

They fucking well shouldn't do that, you know.

Fucking little slags with tight cunts, they shouldn't be thinking about cock all the time.

Human beings looked at each other when they talked. But no, not him. No way.

He looked at Sven. Sven looked at him. They were human.

'I understand. And I don't. If he's one of those who don't look at you, then why wasn't he locked up in a special psycho institution? Like Säters secure? Or Karsudden? Or Sidsjön?'

Ewert bent to pick up the bin. He pulled out the tobacco from under his upper lip.

'That's what used to happen. His first time inside he got three years in Säter. But last time he was caught his mental disorder was diagnosed as minor. And then it's off to the jug like everyone else. These days. Sex offenders' unit, not a secure madhouse.'

Ewert swallowed whatever it was. Not quite tears.

Then, back to normality.

He changed the tape. More of Siw's singing, of course. 'Jazz Bacillus, 1959'. He stood in front of the loudspeaker for a moment with his eyes closed. He turned the volume up, crouched to pick up the rubbish, returning it to the bin. Then he straightened, took three steps back to get maximum impact, aimed and kicked the bin again. This time it went further, hitting the wall by the window.

He started speaking again.

'Sven, get this fucking message. -Understand it if you can. Minor mental disorder, that's what this man has. He gets his kicks from torturing and killing two little girls. He carves them up. So he's suffering from a minor mental disorder, is he? Are you hearing me, Sven? Tell me then, what the fuck is a major mental disorder?'

It was still morning, but already hot, twenty-four degrees in the sun. Another summer's day that would maybe reach thirty degrees in the afternoon, for the third week in a row. 'Augustin'. Time: 2.08. The Swedish entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 1959.

He caught him in his arms. Held him close. They were of the same height and it was easy to reach him, to caress his shoulders, the back of his neck, his cheeks. To kiss him. His lips were soft.

'I do need you.'

'I'm here for you.'

Lennart Oscarsson kissed him again, out of lust and out of habit. He was so glad that they were together this morning, trusting each other, this fucking awful morning.

'Nils. Did you close the door?'

'Yes, sure.'

'Thanks.'

He looked at Nils, at his colleague who was his lover and his appalling secret, the man he could not look at without being reminded of Karin, his wife who was his lover and his whole life.

Nils sat down in the senior-status leather armchair and tugged at Lennart to make him sit down in his lap. They hugged.

'Come on. Take your clothes off.'

'I want to. Believe me, my whole body wants to, but it's not on. Not now. I can't, I must be at that press conference, ready to answer their questions. I've no choice. Fact.'

'There's time enough.'

'I love you, Nils. And I want you. But there isn't time, not now.'

Nils gave up, but Lennart knew, he saw his lover's disappointment. It was harder for Nils, he thought, who didn't have someone at home waiting for him, somebody to lie close to in bed, to make gentle love with. Nils dreamed with Lennart in mind, only him. No secrets to mull over, only a future when it was simply Nils and Lennart, nothing and nobody else.

Lennart stroked his cheek, kissed his forehead. Nils was so beautiful, proud-looking somehow. Two years older, there were some grey streaks in his dark hair.

'I must be off.'

'Any chance of meeting up later today?'

'Afterwards I've got to see Bertolsson. He's asked me out to lunch. Maybe it's to be nice to me, but on the other hand – maybe not. It might be a threat. When I come back, what about a walk to the water-tower?'

'I'll wait for you there.'

Lennart held him for longer than he should. Let him free, slowly. Stood up.

The grey concrete wall was seven metres high. It loomed at the edge of the forest and then snaked along for one and a half kilometres, enclosing five low brick buildings.

Some people were kept inside. Others stayed outside.

Aspsås was one of Sweden's twelve Category-B prisons, a medium security rating. The lifers, murderers and heavy drug-traders were locked up in Cat-A's. Small-time traders hid inside Aspsås, where there were no long-term men, only fixed-termers coming and going with sentences between two and four years. One hundred and sixty men, in eight of the ten units in the wings. Most were repeat offenders with drug-habits, who would do a house-job to land some dosh, get fixed, do a job for more dosh, more fixes, do a job, get nicked and twenty-six months inside, then release, a job, some dosh, fixes, a job, dosh, fix, the pigs and thirty-four in the jug, release, a job.

Here, just as everywhere. Me against you, you against the screws. Only two rules, don't grass and don't fuck mates who don't want to.

The other two units housed sex offenders. Hated, always under threat. Nonces fuck people who don't want to.

It was as if the prisoners' joint shame and self-disgust had to find an outlet, as if being despised by society outside the wall was so hard to take that the only thing that could make up for it was to humiliate someone else. We, the straights, will breathe more easily if we fall in with the ancient prison compact everywhere that these sex freaks are nastier, more damaged, more excluded and that I, the murderer, rank more highly than you, the rapist, and that I, having robbed someone of the right to live, have more dignity than you, who fucked some sad cunt senseless. Though I've violated, it's not the way you did it and, surely, you're worse than me.

Maybe in Aspsås hatred was greater than in many other prisons because it was a mixed institution, where a couple of wings had one unit for normal prisoners and one for sex offenders. Because every Aspsås prisoner was suspect, a placement there was a potential death sentence for a man doing time for something straight, like eighteen months for grievous bodily harm. Transfer from Aspsås to another prison was bad news and could mean a serious beating unless you had papers to prove you were clean. Without your sentence up front to show anything different, every incomer was convicted of sex crimes until proven innocent.

H Unit was one of the eight normal units, which housed the ordinary lot of small-time crooks and street drug-dealers, assorted robbers, quite a few with GBH convictions, and the odd fraudster. These men were either on their way up in the criminal hierarchy and could expect longer sentences next time round, or had settled for doing the same pathetic stuff over and over, but were unsuitable for mixing with drunk drivers and minor first offenders in Category-C prisons. The unit looked like every other unit in any Swedish middling-grade prison. A locked, armoured door to the stairwell. A corridor with a linoleum floor in institutional yellow. Along it, ten cells on each side, their doors half-open. A small kitchen. Next door, a few tables to eat at and a TV corner and the green baize of the snooker table. Men slowly shuffling about, going away and coming back again, wandering off to somewhere to kill time, trying not to think of the hours that had passed and the hours that remained, only the present. Longing for zero hour is longing away your life. Staying alive and passing the time is all that is left when the prison gate is locked behind you.

Stig Lindgren had settled in the TV corner. The set was on, some channel or other, the sound was turned down and a deck of cards was on the table in front of him. He was about to deal to the five other players waiting for their hands.

Stig collected his cards. Grinned. His gold-crowned front tooth gleamed.

'No shit. All aces to me. Again. You're playing like right tossers.'

The others said nothing. Checked their cards. Flicked them about.

'Fuck's sake. Don't show me your cards.'

He was forty-nine, but looked older, lined and worn. Thirty-five years of drug abuse had lodged amphetamine twitches in his face, spasms pulling his cheek towards his eye, the eye blinking out of sync. His dark hair thinning. A thick gold chain round his neck. He weighed eighty kilograms now, well muscled after nineteen months at Aspsås.

Once he was outside again and back on speed he'd soon be down to sixty.

He got up suddenly and flapped about, looking for the remote control among the cards and newspapers on the table.

'Where's the fucker?'

'Are you playing fucking cards or what?'

'Shut it. Where's the thing? The remote. Go get it, Hilding. Dump the cards. Gotta find it!'

Hilding Oldéus quickly put his cards down and started pulling nervously at the same newspapers that Dickybird had just been over. Thin and short, with a high-pitched, edgy voice, ten trips in eleven years. When he was on heroin, he had started scratching an itch near his right nostril and somehow couldn't stop. Now it was a chronically infected sore.

The remote wasn't on the table. Hilding ran around, searching at random on tables and windowsills. Dickybird pushed the coffee table out of the way, stepped forward between the irritated but silent card-players and turned the volume up.

'Quiet, girls! Hitler is on now.'

In the TV corner, in the kitchen, in the corridor, everywhere, people stopped doing whatever it was. Hurrying to the TV, they lined up behind Dickybird. The midday news programme. Somebody whistled appreciatively when the next item was announced.

'You heard. Shut up.'

Lennart Oscarsson. Someone held out a microphone. Behind him, Aspsås prison.

Oscarsson looked stressed. He was unused to TV cameras, unused to having to explain why something he was responsible for had been utterly buggered up.

… how was Lund able to escape…

… as I was trying to say…

… this prison is allegedly secure but…

… it didn't happen here…

… what do you mean, 'not here'…

… a hospital visit, to the Southern General, under

guard…

… under guard…

… two of our most experienced warders… only two…

… two of our most experienced warders and a waist restraint…

… on whose recommendation…… he beat them both down and… who considered two guards enough… and escaped in the prison transport van… Oscarsson's face was shown in close-up. He was sweating, his moist, nervous face held on screen for a long time, the camera enjoying his nakedness, picking out the drops of sweat on his forehead.

Television is all surface and immediacy. Oscarsson had been on leadership training courses and been filmed in media practice sessions, but this was for real. He was gripped by a deep-seated, churning anxiety; he was very tense and kept swallowing, his eyes had an uncertain, shifty look. He took too long to think up answers, stumbled over his words too often and forgot to come out with his prepared statements, despite knowing that you must have something definite to say and keep repeating it, regardless of what you're asked. The situation was so in-your-face, fear had flooded his mind and drowned the lessons he had learned; what with the camera and the microphone and the insistent reporter, he was exposed with his trousers down to every backwoods citizen watching the news. He tried to produce sensible answers, but his mind was taken up by images of Nils, or of Karin, watching him on screen. Would he embarrass them? Did they understand what it was like? He longed to feel close to one of them, longed to feel hands touching his face, his neck, stroking his chest, his hips.

'What a fucking loser!'

Dickybird had issued a command. Hilding heard it and cut the silence in the room.

'Hitler's coming across like a fucking retard.'

Dickybird moved and landed his fist hard on the back of Hilding's head.

'Shut the fuck up! Got that? I'm listening!'

Hilding twisted nervously in his chair, picked at the sore on his nose and said nothing.

He had learned his lesson the first time inside, only seventeen years old and on an eight-month stretch for robbery; he had done a central Seven-Eleven shop, as high as a kite but would need to buy more horse soon, he knew, and was close to panic. He threatened the shop assistant, a young woman, with a kitchen knife and robbed the till, didn't get much, just two 500-kronor notes. Still, it was enough for a deal with the trader round the corner; he was negotiating when the police arrived on the scene. Back then prison had seemed strange and very frightening. He quickly tired of looking out for himself and adjusted to the fact that there would always be at least one man who ran the show and protected a faithful arselicker. He had been brown-nosing Dickybird in other prisons, once in '98 and then again in '99, and he was no worse than the other unit bosses.

The TV image switched to a different setting. Oscarsson's pained face was still there, but further away, with the Aspsås wall in the background. The camera panned slowly from the top of the wall to the sky and back again, a visual cliché in the quickly produced news item. A voiceover, factual to the point of dreariness, reiterated some points. Bernt Lund had been given permission to visit hospital and had escaped from a secure transport that morning; he had been found guilty of several brutal rapes of underage girls, a series that had culminated in the so-called basement murders, when his victims had been two nine-year-olds; he had served four years of his sentence in solitary confinement at Kumla, but had recently been moved to one of the special units for sexual offenders at Aspsås, and since he was classified as very dangerous, it was in the public interest to show a picture of him.

A black-and-white still came on screen; it showed Bernt Lund dressed in a white shirt and dark pants, and smiling at the camera.

Dickybird stepped closer to the set.

'See that bastard from hell? That's the beast I kicked the shit out of in the gym yesterday. That fucking arsehole!'

Dickybird was screaming and those standing closest to him jumped and moved away a bit. They had been around at other times when he had freaked out about the nonces.

'What are the bastards fucking well coming here for? Why here?'

As he screamed, he shoved the memories into the back of his mind. He did that every time. Home in the Svedmyra house, that sodding awful image of his uncle at his dad's funeral. He was five. Per's hand suddenly stroking his back and then slipping down to his bum.

'I'll cut their cocks off!'

Memories, crowding his head, he was forced to think about them, see them in his mind's eye, relive them. Per said they should pop into Dad's workshop, put his hand on top of the little boy's best trousers, right in front, then pulled the trousers down, and the underpants. And pulled down his own trousers. Held him close, pushed at his bum with his knob.

'Hilding, it's got to be done. Cut it all off. Balls, the lot!'

He cleared his throat thoroughly and collected plenty of juice, spat it at Bernt Lund's smiling black-and-white face on the TV screen, then stared at the splattered face, watching as the saliva trickled down across that cold smile behind the glass screen and dripped on to the floor.

The group scattered. Some retreated to their cells, some ambled off down the corridor, some stayed and picked up the cards again. Dickybird sat back in his old chair, but shook his head when Hilding gave him his hand of cards. The images in his head were refusing to go; somehow they resisted, however hard he tried to concentrate, calling out and slapping his thighs hard. Still an out-of-control mechanism projected one image after another. Per in their small holiday house in Blekinge; his big hands had been doing the same things, the boy was bleeding heavily and he hid his underpants so Mum wouldn't see them. She never looked in the old cupboard in the shed.

'Shit, Dickybird, come on, let's play.'

'Forget it. Not me. You carry on.'

'Bugger Hitler. Come on, let's start.'

'Bugger yourself. Leave me alone or you'll get it where it hurts. Again.'

Images. Now he was thirteen and stoned out of his mind, he had mixed beer and preludin. He got Larren to come along, Larren who was a big boy and quite fearless. They hitchhiked to Blekinge, walked to the house, stepped inside, passed Laila, who was washing up, and found Per in the sitting room. No one realised what was happening, not until Larren grabbed hold of Per and he himself started stabbing at Per's balls with an ice-pick.

'House!'

'What the fuck?'

'Eights and sixes.'

'That's no fucking house.'

'It fucking well is. Dickybird, explain to that shithead.'

'You heard me. I'm not interested. Play with yourselves.'

Keys were rattling. Two screws coming through the main door.

Dickybird checked them out. They'd brought somebody new. Meant to replace Bojo, he guessed. This morning Bojo's cell had been empty, he'd been transferred to Hall in a hurry. The lads had got it in for him, but someone had alerted the screws and the wing boss responded instantly. No blood on the floor in this unit, at least not for a bit.

The new guy was a big bugger. Shaved head, shit-coloured skin, one of them tanning-shop poofs. Dickybird sighed as he watched the group of men step inside, the screws keeping an eye. They walked past the TV corner and the card-players took note now. The new guy stared straight ahead, dead to the world. He was taken to Bojo's cell, went inside but left the door open.

'Who's that fucker?'

Dickybird pointed. Hilding drew a deep breath, tried to remember.

'Don't know. Never saw him before. Has anybody?'

Dragan shook his head. Skåne shrugged. Bekir picked up two cards from the table.

'Fucking leave it. Let's play, I've got a good hand.'

Dickybird focused on the open cell door and waited. That was what he usually did, waited until they came out. Then he told them the score.

One hour passed. One hour and twenty minutes. Then he came out.

'Oy, you! Over here.'

Dickybird waved, it was a command. The new inmate heard him, but kept his eyes ahead, ignored the hectoring voice. He walked almost demonstrably slowly into the kitchen and drank water straight from the tap. The large shiny head glistened with scattered drops.

'Hey! Over here!'

This was irritating, it was Dickybird's unit and he decided who did what. That skinhead had no fucking rights.

'Here!'

Dickybird pointed at the floor in front of his chair, waited. The new man didn't shift.

'Now!'

He didn't get it, that shaved moron didn't fucking get it.

Hilding could sense the silence and glanced nervously at Dickybird, grabbed the deck of cards, sticking a finger up to show the others that they should hold it. But Dragan and Skåne and Bekir had caught on long ago; it was time to teach the skinhead a lesson. Not that the beating was their problem, they just had a grandstand view! They too could sense the silence; it looked like a fight, quite a few good rounds coming up.

They squared up to each other. The new guy was walking towards Dickybird and stopped when there was only a hand's breadth separating them.

Dickybird had never been faced down before and had no intention of letting it happen now. The skinhead was taller than he was, probably one hundred and eighty-five, and had this fucking big scar running from his left ear down to the corner of his mouth. It was clean, could've been a knife but more likely a razor. He had seen razor scars before, they looked like that.

'I'm Lindgren, Dickybird Lindgren.'

'And?'

'We usually say who we are, round here.'

'Fuck off.'

The images started up in his mind, Per and Larren, Per's balls bleeding something fucking awful, Auntie Laila over by the sink screaming her head off, Dickybird himself running about with the ice-pick lifted shouting that if anyone wanted a taste he'd stick it in, Per wailing; he had jabbed with the ice-pick at his eyes when Larren suddenly let his uncle go. Not eyes, that was Larren's bottom line.

Dickybird was trembling. He tried to hide it but everyone noticed; he shook and hesitated and spat, this time on the floor.

'Where are you from?'

The new guy yawned. Twice.

'Police cells.'

'So fucking what, of course it's the cells, don't mess with me. Do you have your papers?'

Once more.

'Listen, Icky-dicky. That's you, isn't it? You must know I'm not allowed to bring my sentence in here.'

Dickybird shifted his weight from left to right leg. Per was dead long ago, a corpse with not much left of its balls. The ice-pick had been kept as evidence, shown over and over to the authorities, on the long way from Blekinge to the young offenders' institution.

'Fuck your sentence, I'm not interested. What I want to know is what's the score. Like, I don't want no sodding nonces or faggots in this place.'

Weird how a room can suddenly shrink, how sounds become words that turn into spoken messages that bounce off the walls and take up space, suck up energy until there is no more, only intakes of breath in the silence, and piled- up expectations.

The new guy shouldn't have been able to get any closer but somehow he did. He was hissing, sending a shower of saliva into the air between them.

'You asking for special treatment then? Is that it?'

One of them must give way, look down or away, but they stayed facing each other.

'There's just one thing you've got to fucking remember, Dickybird. No one, and I mean no one, calls me a faggot or a nonce. And if it comes from some shot-up, junk-crazed old wanker, then there'll be bad, bad trouble.'

The skinhead poked at Dickybird's chest with his index finger, several times, hard. Still hissing, he mumbled something incomprehensible.

'Hotikar di rotepa, burobengf

Prison lingo.

Then he poked Dickybird's chest once more, turned and walked back to the cell with the wide-open door.

Dickybird stood quite still.

His unseeing eyes followed the newcomer until he had disappeared. Then he focused, first on Hilding and then on the rest of them, and shouted down the empty corridor.

'What the fuck. What the fuck.'

No one showed. Nothing but an open door.

That finger poking at his chest. Dickybird shouted again.

'You fucking listen. Racklar di romani, tjavon?'

Lennart saw him, waiting by the tower on the east side of the wall. It was their usual meeting place, at lunchtime or in the afternoon, when the shifts had changed over. Nils looked young, in shirtsleeves with his jacket thrown over one shoulder. A mere boy, waiting for his sweetheart.

Only a few seconds left to watch him unnoticed. Lennart slowed down. Nils was facing the other way, the way Lennart normally took; today was different because he had gone out for lunch at the old inn on the village square, he and Bertolsson had feasted on steak and fresh garden peas. Bertolsson had dropped him off halfway to the prison, because Lennart had said that he wanted to walk, needed time to think over what had happened, to try to get his mind round the note-scribbling and the microphones and the camera being shoved into his face. Strange to think that for a few minutes of midday news he had been inside all those homes, with his ready-made statements about how criminals ought to be managed.

It was still windy, a change after weather dominated by high pressure for the best part of a month. It had been an eternity of stagnant heat, sweating and irritation, always something itching, always something troubling around the corner.

Nils smiled. He had caught sight of Lennart and couldn't wait. He started strolling towards his lover, came close, held him and wouldn't let go, kissed his forehead and then his cheek.

'Did you see it?'

'I did.'

They walked across the grassy slope, keeping a space between them. Seventy metres to go before they were safely into the wood. Behind the first fir tree they reached out and found each other's hand. They walked on, holding hands tightly.

'We've done all we could. At all levels of the service.'

'Stop worrying.'

'Environmental adjustment training. Pills. Group therapy. Person-to-person stuff.'

'It wasn't about that, I mean, not about what you or the service had done or not done. It was television, for Christ's sake, a reality entertainment show. Point the camera at the culprit, strip him naked, make him sweat and lose his cool and jabber. Make him look shifty. Then the editorial people think it's a red-hot show and your average couch-potato enjoys every minute, because it lets him forget his own bloody awful life. He can laugh at the bureaucrat who's looking sad and stupid and dead ignorant. Screw them all. It's not about content and meaning, it's about scoring points, making people look weird.'

'Nils, you don't see what I'm after. We did try, we threw everything we've got at Lund. What happened? He grabs the first chance he gets, makes mincemeat of two guards and runs off. Now he's on the loose some damned place. All he's after is getting to toss off on dead little girls.'

They were out of the wind now, following a path that wound its way through the dense, untidy forest of fir and spruce to the water-tower on the hill. It was a two-and-a- half-kilometre round-trip. Walking briskly, they'd have half an hour to themselves behind a shed near the tower; now and then they made love there. Few walkers came that way and were easily spotted because the path was the only possible route. Everywhere else the forest formed an impenetrable wall.

Nils clutched Lennart's hand harder, pulling him towards the shed.

'Come on.'

'Listen, I can't. I'm really sorry. I said different, I know, but I can't now. I needed to talk, quite simply. Freely, away from the damned camera. That's all. Talk to you, Nils. You're so sane. Please help me. Explain things to me.'

Nils stroked his temples, then his hair.

'My beloved.'

Lennart closed his eyes, feeling Nils's breath as he spoke.

'Listen, it's over now, done. Finished. No one can hope to understand people like Bernt Lund and that's what makes him so dangerous. To us, but also a danger to himself too. Sometimes it's impossible to defend oneself against another human being. They are there. Man is the only species of mammal capable of such acts against itself, of cold-blooded killings, to the point of extinction. We're worse than animals, more like demons, uniquely prepared to self-destruct. It's incomprehensible, but true.'

They held each other.

Someone was walking along the path, and was about to pass the shed without noticing them, tricked as usual by the wall of spiky conifers. Lennart clung to Nils, who hugged him tight, and was overwhelmed by a sudden wave of longing, of desire for Karin, of wanting her body. He could see her thighs, her breasts. He felt for her, and missed her.

They both wanted to tug at the foil wrapping, their probing fingers colliding, fumbling.

Inside the foil was a square piece of blackish-brown, glassy resin. They had ordered top-class pressed kif. It gave best sucks, each single drag kicked like a fucking horse.

It had been hard putting up with waiting for it, and once they knew it was there, they had longed to telescope the empty spaces of Aspsås, the hours of waiting.

They had ordered from the Greek, pooling enough dough to pay for half the order, which meant owing more than was really healthy. They should've kept their heads down and stuck to ordinary compressed Moroccan or even green mix, but Hilding had been eager, nagged and pleaded and brown-nosed until Dickybird caved in. When the pure hashish order had been placed all they could do was sit around waiting for three days.

The Greek had delivered. Glowing with satisfaction, they held the piece of hash close to the shower-room lamp and admired the shiny fragments.

'Hey! Spot the glass?'

'Course I fucking spotted it.'

'Looks like good shit.'

Hilding produced a lighter and handed it to Dickybird, who used the flame to heat the foil from underneath. About one minute usually did the trick. The flat brown lump softened enough to be kneaded and shaped with his fingertips. Hilding had brought tobacco. Three-quarters baccy to one Turkish worked just fine.

'Smells good.'

'Fucking well does.'

Hilding made himself tall, stood on tiptoes and pushed on one of the ceiling tiles, the one nearest the lamp. It gave easily and he pulled out a corn-pipe. He handed it to Dickybird, who scraped the bowl, packed it, lit the mix and dragged to heat it through. Then he had another drag before handing the pipe to Hilding, who put it in his mouth in a hurry.

Every round they had two drags each, handing the pipe over in silence. The only sounds came from a couple of dripping taps. One of the lamps kept blinking. Drip blink drip blink drip blink. It was great stuff, better than last time.

'Fuck it, Wildboy Hilding. Fuck it.'

Dickybird inhaled a couple more times, then held out the pipe and giggled.

'D'you know, Wildboy? We're in this fucking shower- room and smoking great pot and don't think about this place. Like that it's the best place for doing the nonces.'

Dickybird kept giggling. Baffled, Hilding looked at him.

'What are you on about?'

'We didn't ever check it out.'

'The fucking shower-room, is that what you're on about? So what? Fuck's sake, we've whipped any number of nonces and rapists and faggots in here. They say that in the States the cons set on each other in the shit-houses, right there between the crappers. What's so special?'

Dickybird couldn't stop giggling. That was what usually happened once he got started on good pot, he felt kind of childish and then as randy as hell, though in the end the images would come back and start scaring him; he'd be back with all that shit about Per and his cock and getting hold of that ice-pick and Per's screaming and his bleeding balls.

He drew deeply on the pipe, holding on to it to tease Hilding, patting the lad's head with his other hand.

'Wildboy, you don't get it, do you? Poor sap. You see, this ain't about whipping, it's about something else.'

Hilding reached out for the pipe, but Dickybird held on to it stubbornly.

'Listen. Next time we get one of these beasts on the unit we'll lie in wait for the bastard, hang on until he's in the shower. When he's in there, water going all over him, then you start a racket outside in the yard, so all the duty screws go pounding off to deal with it.'

Hilding wasn't in the mood for this stuff. He tried to get at the pipe again.

'Fuck it, Dickybird, it's my turn.'

Dickybird had another fit of the giggles, threw the pipe in the air, caught it and handed it to Hilding, who dragged deeply, twice.

'I told you to listen. So, the nonce is in the shower. I go in first, or Skåne, anyway, someone kicks the freak in the balls to get him down and we start giving it to him. Then we cut his throat. And then we butcher the stiff, carve him into small, small pieces. Break any fucking leftover bits of bone and unscrew the crapper and push all the bits down the pipe. And then we fix the seat on again and pull the chain. Flush the bits down. Use the shower to wash the blood away!'

By now Hilding had forgotten about smoking, though he still held on to the pipe. He looked uneasy. His face was usually empty, uncertain, almost mask-like, but now it expressed something that was disgust mixed with pleasure. He sensed Dickybird's hate, it was like a drug trip and it was exciting to hate along with him. It was just that somehow Dickybird had slipped too close to the edge. Hilding remembered when the last perv had got his comeuppance in the gym, fucking dead meat, he'd been beaten over and over with bells and discs until he stopped twitching.

'Fuck it, Dickybird, you're kidding.'

Dickybird grabbed the pipe, drew happily.

'No kidding. Why the fuck should I? I'd like to try it. Test it on the first beast who turns up. I want to have a go, feel what it's like to jab with the ice-pick and get it in and twist it.'

Lennart Oscarsson was in a hurry. He had spent far too long behind the shed by the water-tower. It had been hard to leave, Nils hadn't wanted to let go of him and he had not wanted to leave his lover either. He swept past the guard, bloody Bergh again, didn't they have anyone else?

Lennart was on his way to A Unit, which housed twenty sex offenders, all sentenced for gross acts of violation, men who couldn't be placed with normal prisoners. This was the type of inmate that is always found on the lowest rung of the prison hierarchy, the type that breeds hatred, lust to inflict pain. If I torment one of them, I don't have to torment myself.

Bergh waved. Then he did a thumbs-up, possibly an attempt at irony. Or maybe he was too much of an idiot to work out that for a few minutes of that news programme, Lennart had been stripped naked on camera. He couldn't be bothered to do or say anything in response.

Hurrying along the first corridor, he decided to turn right, walk upstairs to H Unit. By taking a short cut through H he'd gain quite a bit of distance and a few extra minutes. He took two steps at a time, thinking about Karin and the lie he'd have ready for her at breakfast tomorrow, and about Nils, who had begged him to break free from his marriage, Nils, who did that every time they made love, saying that he would become Lennart's new family, and then about Åke Andersson and Ulrik Berntfors, two men he had worked with for many years and who, for some reason, must have opened the rear door of the van and allowed out one of the most dangerous people in the country, Bernt Lund, now at liberty to go where he liked, full of obscure desires, looking for little girls. Then facing the media came back into his mind, the press conference he had spent several years preparing himself for, but which had turned into a rape.

Not, of course, that anyone had touched him, but the humiliation inflicted by the camera and the mike just felt so bad. had turned up believing that he was to be a participant, not stripped and shown off. It took a while before it dawned on him that he was simply being used.

Only a few waking hours had passed of this day. How bloody complicated life could be.

Sometimes he felt too weary to carry on. He was losing the race against time, middle age was catching up and soon old age would. He had found no way to slow down and reflect quietly, he seemed unable to calm down, to tell himself his task was completed, he was done, somebody else could take over. But no, it was forever must do this in order to get on with that, and then it was the next thing. He wanted to close his eyes and wait for it all to stop, he wanted to do just what he did when he was little, close his eyes and withdraw until whatever it was had been decided and done because Mum and Dad were at home and had fixed everything.

He unlocked the door to H Unit, knowing perfectly well that everyone, colleagues and inmates alike, disapproved of what he was doing, too much bloody pointless running about, but he felt he had to use the short cut this time. He saw a couple of colleagues, couldn't recall their names but said hello vaguely, nodded at some of the lads who were playing cards in the TV corner.

He passed the shower-room door and just outside it almost ran into Dickybird Lindgren and his seedy little sidekick. Stoned out of their heads, both of them. Blankly staring eyes, fluttering movements, there was even hash in the air, wafting out from the showers.

The sidekick mumbled Hi, Hitler. Dickybird Lindgren was giggling uncontrollably, wanted to shake, offered congratulations, fancy being on the telly. Lennart ignored the hand held out towards him. Lindgren had beaten one of his charges to death in the gym, no question; he was certain who had done it, and so were his colleagues. Sadly, no one had seen or heard anything at all, and even in prison, you get nowhere without evidence.

He hurried on, one more locked door, then across the yard to the next building, up two flights. He was in his own territory, the sex offender reserve.

They were waiting for him, lined up in the meeting room.

'I'm sorry I'm late. Far too late. It's been one of those days.'

They all smiled, sympathetically he supposed. The television set in the lobby had been on when he passed through, so they had presumably watched him. Five new trainees with their pens and notebooks, due to start work tomorrow among the paedophiles and rapists in the special units, waiting for the induction talk seated at the standard-issue meeting-room table.

The first day of their new life.

Beast.

This was the word he always began with, writing it on the shiny whiteboard with a solvent-smelling green pen.

B-E-A-S-T.

Silence. All five fiddled with their pens, trying to decide the pro and cons: do I write that down? Is note-taking seen as a good thing? Or would I make an ass of myself? The beginners were feeling lost and he didn't help them. He continued with his talk, now and then turning to the board to note down a key word, or a few figures.

'Nonces, beasts, are kept in two units here. They stay for two to ten years, roughly, depending on how bad the act was. How sick they are.'

Silence. This time it lasted longer than usual.

'In this sad little country of ours there were fifty-five thousand criminal convictions last year. I don't know how people fit it all in. Of that lot, five hundred and forty-seven were for sexual offences. The courts handed out a prison sentence in less than half of these cases.'

Some of them were happily taking notes. Figures were easier to deal with. Statistics don't require judgement.

'Since we're all aware that Swedish prisons accommodate about five thousand inmates at any one time, the current lot of two hundred and twelve sex offenders shouldn't cause any strain on the system. It is only in the order of four per cent, if you think about it, or one in every twenty-five. But these men do create trouble. Each and every one is a problem, because each one is hated, and a target for acts of aggression. That's why they're put in separate units. Here at Aspsås, for instance. But there's a but. Now and then we don't have a free place and then any new customers must be hidden in one of the normal units. And if, or when, the rest of the so-called straight villains get to know that there's a nonce around in the unit for some reason – yes, it has happened here – then we're all in deep trouble. They'll keep beating him up until we move in and take him away.'

A man in his forties, presumably retrained from some other job, put his hand up like a schoolboy.

'Now, that word, beast. You wrote it on the board, you use it, and other words of that kind.'

'And?'

'Is it important?'

'I couldn't say. But we use these words here. In a day or two, you will too. We know what it is about. Bestial acts.'

Lennart paused. He knew what would come next and wondered who'd start. Maybe the young woman sitting near him, she looked the part. The younger they were, the longer they had ahead of them, so they were the most hopeful for ways to bring about change. They had yet to contend with time, which saps energy and strength but, by way of compensation, builds up experience and adaptability.

But no, it was the re-trainee again.

'Do you think you've got the right to be that cynical?' He was upset. 'I don't get it. So far, my training has reinforced what I knew already, which is that people are individuals, and must not be objectified. It alarms me that you, my prospective boss, should express such views.'

Lennart sighed. He had played his role in these performances many times before. If he met them later on in their careers, a few years older and in a new job, they'd joke about it and agree that it was perfectly reasonable for a beginner to have such unfulfilled ambitions.

'Look, your views are your own,' he said. 'Call me cynical if you get off on that, but first tell me just one thing: did you come here, to the sex unit at Aspsås, because you want to work with nonces and deobjectify them, because it's your dream to make them better people?'

The man, due to start in A Unit tomorrow, quietly put his hand down.

'Did you say something?'

'No.'

'So, the reason you came here was…?'

'I had to.'

Lennart tried to hide his satisfaction. His was the leading part in this piece of theatre and he knew how the play would end. He looked at his pupils one at a time. Everyone had reacted somehow, sulked or tried to find new numbers to write down or shifted uneasily in their seats.

'All of you, then. Who has applied to work in the sex units at Aspsås? Of your own free will, that is. Honestly now.'

He knew the answer. After seventeen years he had yet to meet one single colleague who had dreamed of a successful career among the paedophiles in A and B Units. You were told to do time here, and you applied elsewhere immediately to get away from here. Lennart had agreed to the head warder's post, attracted by the hitch in salary and the hope of using his seniority to bounce into a boss position somewhere else. He walked slowly behind his five trainees, intending to leave the question and the possible answers for them to think about. Once they were sure, they might accept their placement during the coming months.

He stopped by the window, turning his back to the meeting room. The sun was high in the sky and it hadn't rained for a long time. Clouds of dust rose from the exercise yard, where the inmates were walking or jogging alongside the barbed-wire fence or playing football. In a far corner he spotted two men strolling very slowly, with oddly jerky movements. It was Lindgren and his henchman, obviously still too high to walk normally.

Micaela had left early. He must have been asleep. Night after night he performed the same ritual of listening to the sounds coming through the window until the town slowly started to wake up, the noises made by the first newspaper boys, the first lorries. Then, at about half past five, he fell asleep. His body gave in at last, exhausted by the restless hours when his mind had been crowded with thoughts. Suspended in empty space, he dreamed on until late in the morning.

Vague mental images of the morning; Micaela lying naked on him and him not responding, her whispering you boring old thing, kissing his cheek, leaving him for the shower; Marie's room on the other side of the bathroom wall, the hissing of water through the pipes awakening her and David; Micaela making them all breakfast while he stayed put, his legs refusing to get him out of bed, then slowly slipping back into that isolated space and dreaming again.

At eleven o'clock he was woken by the shrieks and yells of the creatures in one of Marie's videos and finally got up.

He must start sleeping at night. He couldn't carry on like this.

Couldn't.

He no longer did any work, and he didn't engage with the people close to him. The morning used to be his best time for writing, either at home or in his writer's den on Arnö Island. Not any more. Marie had learned to amuse herself in the mornings. Thank God, Micaela worked in Marie's nursery school and had persuaded her colleagues that it was fine for the child not to turn up until after lunch, day after day.

But he felt so ashamed, like an alcoholic who's promised eternal sobriety in the evening and wakes up with a hangover the morning after. And his head ached.

Tomorrow would be different.

'Hello, Daddy.'

His lovely little daughter. He lifted her up.

'Hello, sweetheart. Am I getting a morning kiss?'

Marie pressed her moist lips against his cheek.

'David's gone now.'

'Has he?'

'His daddy came to pick him up.'

But they know I'm a responsible person, he thought, they know me. Oh, never mind. He shrugged and put Marie down.

'Have you had anything to eat?'

'Micaela gave us things.'

'But that was hours ago. Aren't you hungry?'

'I want to eat in school.'

How long did they keep the food for the children? It was quarter past one now. Ten minutes to get dressed, five minutes to get there if they took the car.

'So you shall. Let's get dressed.'

Fredrik pulled on a pair of jeans and a white shirt. A bit warm for a hot day, but he felt he looked silly in shorts, his legs were so pale. Marie came running to show him a pair of shorts and a T-shirt.

'Fine, that's nice. And which shoes?'

'The red ones.'

He put them on her feet and fastened the metal buckles with some kind of buttons underneath.

Ready to go.

The phone rang.

'Daddy. The phone!'

'Leave it. We must go.'

'Wait.'

Marie ran to pick up the phone in the kitchen, standing on tiptoe in her shiny red shoes to reach. Her face lit up when she heard who it was.

'Daddy, it's Mummy!'

He nodded, and listened while Marie told a long story about the Big Bad Wolf and how it chased the pigs but they won anyway, and how they'd run out of bath foam except they hadn't, because she knew where there was another bottle, two bottles, on the bottom shelf in the cupboard. She was laughing most of the time. Then she gave the receiver a smacking kiss and handed it to him.

'It's for you. Mummy wants to talk.'

His mind was still too drowsy to separate the woman's voice he heard now from his body's memory of the naked Micaela. The voice belonged to Agnes, a woman he had once desired more than anyone else and who had asked him to leave her; her voice and the sensation of Micaela's young body drifted together and merged, and he felt slightly dizzy and breathless. Then he had a strong erection and turned away, Marie mustn't see it.

'Yes?'

'When are you turning up?'

'What do you mean?'

'Marie is with me today.'

'No she isn't. It's not until Monday. We swapped, remember?'

'We did nothing of the sort.'

He was too tired. Not now. Not today.

'Agnes, this is too much. I'm tired and in a hurry. I won't argue, Marie is just next to me.'

He handed the receiver to Marie, at the same time twirling his hands in the air. It was their special sign for being in a hurry.

'Mummy, I can't. I'm late for school.'

Agnes was too good a mother to show Marie how irritated she was. She always put Marie's interests first and he loved her for it.

'Bye, Mummy. Must go now.'

She didn't quite manage to put the receiver back and it crashed against the top of the microwave oven. He caught hold of it.

'There, sweetheart. Let's go!'

He caught sight of the kitchen clock. They could still be there by half past one and they would let her stay until quarter past five. It meant she would get her lunch, though a bit late, and then she could play outside for a bit in the afternoon. It would feel almost like a whole day and she'd be pleased when he picked her up.

Half past one. Sven stared at the green alarm clock on Ewert's desk. Technically, he had been off duty for two hours. The bottles of wine and the gateau were waiting for him in the car. He was ready to go home, he wanted to be with Anita and Jonas, have a nice meal with them. It was his fortieth, after all.

Sven felt that working for the Metropolitan Police was much less important now than he used to think. Once, not that long ago, he wouldn't have hesitated to work on his wedding night, even to divorce, rather than compromise about taking on the late shifts.

He had begun to confide in Ewert how he felt now, especially during the last year, when they had become closer. Sven had tried to explain his totally out-of-order indifference about which moron had carried out which moronic offence, and whether it was that one or some other useless bugger who was arrested for it. Tough. Shit happens. He was a man in his middle age but ready for retirement, he was bored with the detecting and the caring. All he wanted to do was things like relaxing over breakfast in the garden, taking long walks on the beach and being there for Jonas when he came running home from school with his young life in his backpack.

Twenty years of work done, twenty-five more to go. It practically made him hyperventilate, just thinking of that unbearable passage of time inside dull police stations, among the files of incomplete bloody awful investigations. When he was finally allowed to retire, Jonas would be thirty-two. Fuck's sake! What would they say to each other then?

Ewert understood, even though he had no family and his time in uniform, for him, was his entire life. He ate, drank, breathed police work. Even so, he too had felt that it was meaningless, but, worse luck for him, having made policing part of his being meant he would cease to exist when it ended. He understood all right, but couldn't be bothered with his insights.

'Ewert.'

'Yes.'

'I want to go home.'

Ewert had gone down on his knees, collecting the scattered rubbish from his second go at the wastepaper basket. Mushy pieces of banana peel had left stains on the pale brownish carpet.

'I know you do. And so you will. As soon as we've got Lund.'

His head popped up over the edge of the desk, looking at the alarm clock.

'It's been six and a half hours now and we still know bugger all. Nil. Looks like you'll have to wait for your birthday cake.'

'Care For My Heart', originally called 'Pick Up the Pieces', with choir and orchestra, recorded in Sweden, 1963. Siw Malmqvist, her third mixed tape. On the box, an out- of-focus photograph of Siw, beaming at the admiring camera.

'I took that picture, did you know that? In the Kristianstad Palais, back in 1972,.'

He bowed to Sven, made a sweeping gesture with one arm.

'Would you like to dance?'

Then he turned round and began a solo dance. Strange to behold, the tough old policeman with his limp, weaving round his desk to the tune of early sixties folk pop.

They used Sven's car. The box with the gateau and the carrier bag with the bottles were pushed away on the rear window shelf. The heatwave had emptied the centre of the capital, anyone who could, got away, longing for parks, beaches, open water, a breeze. The hot dark tarmac was unresponsive, everything bounced off it, even breath.

They were heading for the E18 route north-westwards out of town. Sven drove fast, past two lights on amber, then two on red, and the few cars waiting for green hooted angrily every time he ignored the signals. A national alert was on, two dozen constables from the City Police were at their beck and call, but still they hadn't learned one single new thing.

'He licks their feet, you know.'

Ewert, staring straight ahead, had broken the silence in the car. Sven shivered, almost slipping out of the overtaking lane and into a bus.

'Never seen anything like it. I've seen raped children, murdered children, even children tortured with sharp metal objects, but this… never. Lying there on the concrete floor, looking as if they'd been thrown there, covered in muck and blood, but with perfectly clean feet. The medic confirmed that their feet were coated in saliva, lots of it. He had been licking them for minutes on end, probably before and after killing them.'

Sven drove faster. The bottle bag slipped about on its shelf, rattling insistently.

'The shoes too. Their clothes were in neat piles, a few centimetres apart, shoes last. A pair of pink leather shoes and a pair of white trainers. The clothes were as dirty as the girls. Gravel, dust, blood. Not the shoes. They shone. Plenty of saliva, more than their feet. He must have been at it for even longer with the shoes.'

The summer lull affected even the traffic on the E18. Sven stayed in the fast lane, overtaking all other cars at speed. He could not bear talking, didn't want to ask questions about Lund, didn't want to learn more about him. Not just now. He almost missed the junction with the much smaller road to Aspsås, stamped on the brakes and wrenched the car across three lanes.

Lennart Oscarsson was waiting in the parking lot, ready to greet them. He looked haunted and nervous. He knew what Grens thought about his decision to leave two guards with the responsibility of transporting Lund across the city at night.

Ewert didn't hold out his hand at once; he hung back for a few seconds because it amused him to shame one of the many idiots that cluttered up his life.

'Hello there,' he said finally.

They shook hands quickly, Sven was introduced and the three of them started walking together towards the main entrance. Bergh was in the guard's post and nodded at Ewert, a familiar face. Sven was different.

'Where do you think you're going?'

Lennart turned back.

'Come on, Bergh. He's with me. City Police,' he said irritably.

'I've no notification.'

'They're investigating Lund's escape.'

'None of my business. Unlike who gets in here, which is. So why no notification, then?'

Sven intervened, just in time to stop Oscarsson from shouting something he'd regret later.

'Look, here's my ID. OK?'

Bergh studied the mug shot and entered Sven's ID number in the database.

'Hey, it's your birthday today. What are you doing here, mate?'

'Never mind. Are you letting me in?'

Bergh waved him through and they filed into the corridor. Ewert laughed.

'What a tosser! Why do you keep such an idiot around? He makes it harder to get in than out of this place.'

His mood changed as they walked along the regulation passageways with their regulation murals. Some showed a bit more talent than others; all were would-be therapeutic projects led by hired consultants. He sighed. Always blue background, always the obvious symbolism of open gates and birds flying free and more liberation shit of that sort. Organised graffiti for grown-ups, signed Benke Lelle Hinken Zoran Jari The Goat 1987.

Lennart opened a metal door. Inside, a noisy gang of inmates were being escorted to the gym by two officers in front and two behind. Ewert sighed again. He knew quite a few of the villains, had interrogated them or testified against them. There were even a couple of ancient lags that he had run in during his days on the beat.

'Hi there, Grensie. On the chase, are you?'

It was Stig Lindgren, one of the inhabitants of the World of Outcasts. He was a permanent fixture behind the walls and would never survive anywhere else. Lock him up and throw the key away, the old fucker had no other options. Ewert had grown fed up with his type.

'Shut your gob, Lindgren, or I'll tell your useless mates why you're called Dickybird.'

Then upstairs to A Unit, sex offenders only.

Lennart walked ahead, Ewert and Sven followed, looking about. Regulation stuff again: television corner, snooker table, kitchen, cells. But the crimes were different in that they aroused as much hatred in the World of Outcasts as among ordinary citizens.

They reached cell number eleven. Alone among the others in the corridor this door was bare. The temporary occupants of the rooms behind all the other doors had decorated them laboriously with posters and newspaper cuttings and photos.

Ewert had time to think that he should have been here six months ago. He should have stepped inside the door to Lund's cell. At the time he had been investigating a child pornography ring, which had given him his first real insight into the closed society of new-style paedophiles, structured round internet connections and databases and secret mail addresses. He had seen their images of naked or partly undressed children, penetrated and humiliated children, tortured children, lonely children. Initially, he and his colleagues had thought that this pornography exchange was part of a foreign network of dark vice and profit and inscrutable agreements, but it turned out differently, more discreet, smarter and more challenging.

Just seven men, a select society of serious, recidivist sex offenders. One locked up, most of them just released from prison.

They had created their own virtual display cabinet. Their contributions to the show were downloaded on the net and run on their computers at set times, as if following a performance schedule. Once a week, same time, Saturday, at eight o'clock. They sat in front of their screens, waiting for that week's images, and every week their demands escalated. Next time must somehow offer more than last time; naked children had been enough but not any more, children sitting still had to start moving and touching each other. Then touching wasn't enough; the children had to be raped, then raped more viciously. The next set of photographs must score more highly than the previous lot, at any cost. Seven paedophiles, a closed circle, showing off their own crimes in their own neatly scanned and formatted pictures.

They had been at it for almost a year before they were caught.

All the time they had been competing with each other, running qualifying heats in child pornography.

Bernt Lund had been one of the seven. He was the only one in prison, the only one who could solely contribute photos that had been taken in the past, but his crimes meant that his high status was beyond dispute, as was his right to join the ring.

When the ring was broken, three of the others were convicted and sent off to serve fairly long prison sentences. A fourth, a man called Håkan Axelsson, was being tried, but the remaining two had not been charged because the evidence was so patchy. Everyone knew about them but that was neither here nor there; the 'not proven' classification was sufficient to free them. And so they were free to recruit new child porn contacts in the shadowy marketplace that had grown up around the investigation.

There were lots of them out there. For each one down, there was one ready to go.

Ewert was cursing himself. He should have inspected Lund's cell then. But the police had been constantly pushed for time, always under media pressure, invariably targets for public outrage. He had felt too harassed to visit Aspsås himself and had sent two junior colleagues to interrogate Lund, whose cell had been stacked to the ceiling with his illegal handiwork. Mostly CDs with thousands of pictures showing tormented children. It was all very bad, and conclusive enough, but if he had gone himself he would have picked up more about the man. Maybe he wouldn't have been at such a loss now that Lund had got ahead of them.

Lennart unlocked the door.

'There. All yours. Tidy is one word for it.'

Ewert and Sven stepped inside and then stopped. Despite its standardised ordinariness – about eight square metres, one window, the usual furnishings – the room was very odd indeed. Full of objects, all lined up, as if for an exhibition. Candlesticks, stones, pieces of wood, pens, bits of string, items of clothing, folders, batteries, books, notebooks, all were arranged in lines stretching along the floor, across the bedspread, the windowsill, the shelves. Each object was separated from the next by what looked like exactly two centimetres. It made Ewert think of an unending row of dominoes, upright until one piece is moved out of place and it's all over.

Ewert's diary had a small ruler marked along its edge. He aligned it with a row of stones. Two centimetres, twenty millimetres exactly, between the stones. The pens on the windowsill were twenty millimetres apart. On the shelves, the books were twenty millimetres apart too, and the same went for the bits of string on the floor and between the battery and the notebook and the packet of cigarettes. Everywhere, twenty millimetres.

'Does it always look like this?'

Lennart nodded.

'Yes, it does. Before taking off the bedspread at night he puts the stones on the floor, one by one, measuring the distances as he goes along. In the morning he goes through the whole performance in reverse after he's made the bed and put the bedspread back on.'

Sven moved some of the pens. Dead ordinary biros. The stones were ordinary stones, one more pointless than the next. Plain, empty folders and notebooks.

'This is too much. I don't get it.'

'Nothing to it. What is it you don't get?'

'I don't know. Something. Why? Why does he lick children's feet, for instance?'

'Why do you think it matters to know why?'

'It matters who this guy is, inside. Where he's going, what it's for. But the bottom line is, I want to find the motherfucker so I can go home and eat some cake and drink a glass. Or three.'

'You'll never know what he's like inside. Not a hope, I'm sorry. There's nothing like a reason in any of all this. He doesn't know himself why he licks the feet of his victims, dead or alive. I'm convinced he doesn't have a clue why he lines things up two centimetres apart either.'

Ewert was holding up his diary at face level. He put his thumb as a marker at the two-centimetre mark, forcing them all to look.

'Control. That's all. They're like that, all of them. They enjoy rape, because when they do it they call the shots. Power and control. Though this one is extreme, he's actually just like the rest. His rows of stones and so forth are all about order, structure, being in charge.'

He lowered the diary, placed it at the end of the row of stones and swept the lot down on to the floor.

'But we know that. And we know he's a sadist. We know what power does to men like Lund. His cock goes hard, that's how it works. He controls someone, that person is powerless. Only he decides how to hurt them and how much. It's what gives him his kicks, makes him come in front of tied-up, broken nine-year-olds.'

He did his trick with the diary to the biros on the windowsill. One by one they hit the floor.

'Come to think of it, the pictures. The computer ones. Did he sort them too?'

Lennart fixed his gaze on the piled-up biros on the floor. No sign of order now. Then he met Ewert's eyes, looking surprised, as if the question was new to him.

'Sorted? How do you mean?'

'Well, how did he do it? I can't fucking remember. Faces, eyes, yes. How bloody abandoned they all looked. But not distances, how the images were related to each other.'

'I don't know. I should, maybe, but I don't. Didn't even think about it. But I will find out, if you think it's important.'

'Yes it is. It's important.' Lennart sat down on the bed. 'Tomorrow, will that do?' 'Not really.'

'OK, later. When we're done here. The file is in my room.'

They turned the cell inside out. They inspected every corner of what had been Bernt Lund's home for four years, touched everything, sniffed around.

There was no information to be had. He had not had a plan.

He had not known that he was going somewhere.

Fredrik opened the car door. He had driven far too fast, stayed in seventy on the Tosterö Bridge with its thirty- kilometre limit, but he had promised Marie they would be in school by one thirty so there was nothing else for it.

And it was good that she went to school, because Daddy was working today. Actually, it was a lie. It had been a lie yesterday. She went to nursery school because it was important for her to keep the place, and because having a daddy who worked was part of the scene. Even better, a daddy who worked hard at writing and needed to be alone when he was thinking complicated thoughts. He hadn't had even a single thought worth thinking for months, and he hadn't written a word for weeks. He was in the grip of writer's block and had no idea how to wrench free.

That was why Frans haunted him at night. That was why he could not make love to the beautiful, naked young woman lying close to him, instead constantly comparing her with someone who filled his thoughts but who didn't want him, with Agnes. For a long time working, writing, had kept memory and reflection at bay. And perhaps that was what he had always done, avoided emotion through work work work, his mind turning over like an engine racing. Only by moving forward could he be sure to leave the past behind.

Fredrik had pulled in right in front of the school and parked on a double yellow line despite having been caught once already. It was worth it, rather than driving about aimlessly, looking. He helped Marie out of her seat in the back. On the way up the path to the school door she skipped and jumped in front of him. It was a lovely warm day, what a remarkable summer it had been, and she looked so happy; she hopped on both feet, then her right foot, then both, then her left foot. Micaela and David and all the others were waiting inside, twenty-five children whose names he'd never learned. He should have.

Just outside the gate a man was sitting on the park bench; must be somebody's dad, because he'd surely seen that face before. He nodded at the man while he tried fruitlessly to match him with one of the little faces in the crowd inside the school.

Micaela was standing next to the coat-hangers in the hall. She kissed him, asked if he was properly awake now, and had he missed her? He said yes, he'd missed her. Had he? At night when he couldn't sleep and sought out her soft body, then he would've missed her if she hadn't been there; he needed her so much and felt less frightened when he could stay close to her and borrow her warmth. Daytime was different. Looking at her, he saw how young she was, too young and too lovely. He didn't deserve her. Surely her lover should match her youth and beauty? Or did he actually believe all that crap?

These were things he mulled over all the time. These and, deep inside, the beatings.

The first time he had sought her out was after the divorce. She greeted the children when he brought Marie to school, and she was there morning after morning. Then, one day, they walked together for a while, long enough for him to tell her about the pain and loss of separation. She listened. They took more walks together, he kept confessing and she kept listening. Then the day came when they went to his house and made love all afternoon, while Marie and David ran around playing on the other side of the closed bedroom door.

He helped Marie to change into her indoor shoes, white fabric slip-ons. He took off the red shoes with the shiny buckles and put them on her shelf. Her sign was an elephant. The others had chosen bright red fire engines and football stars and Disney figures, but she had wanted an elephant and that was that.

She grabbed his arm.

'Daddy, you mustn't go.'

'But… you wanted to come, didn't you? Micaela is here. And David.'

'Please stay. Please, nice kind Daddy.'

He held her in his arms, lifted her up.

'My little sweetheart. But… Daddy must work. You know that.'

Her eyes met his, her forehead wrinkled. Her whole face pleaded with him.

He sighed.

'Right you are, I will stay. But just a tiny little while.'

Marie stayed close to him while she gave her elephant a kiss and followed the contours of its body with her finger: its legs, along its back and all the way down its trunk. Fredrik made a what-can-I-do gesture to Micaela. This was how it had been ever since Marie had started at the nursery almost four years ago, after Agnes had moved away. Every time he had hoped that this would be the day he could leave easily, just say goodbye and go without having a bad conscience about it.

'And how long are you staying today?'

This was the only thing they really disagreed about. Micaela wanted him to go, to establish that even if he did, he would still be back in the afternoon to pick Marie up. Never mind a few tears, the crying would pass. He always

told her that since she didn't have children herself she couldn't possibly know what he felt like.

'Quarter of an hour. At most.'

Marie heard him and tightened her grip on his arm.

'Daddy must stay. Stay with me.'

Then David came along, running, his face covered in warpaint stripes in garish poster paints. He ran past Marie, but called to her to come along. She let go of Fredrik's arm and followed him.

Micaela smiled.

'Look how easy it is! It's the best I've seen. She's forgotten about you already.'

She stepped closer, very close.

'But I haven't.'

A light kiss on his cheek. Then she turned and went away too.

Fredrik was at a loss. He watched her go, then went into the play-room. Marie and David and three other kids were piled up together, painting each other's faces, shouting about Sioux Indians or something. He waved at Marie, she waved back. When he left, their war cries followed him to the door.

The sun hit his face. What about a coffee in the shade? After picking up a paper from the newsagent at the main square? But he made up his mind to go to his writer's den on Arnö Island, just, to sit there and wait. He'd start the computer, read his notes, probably write nothing but at least be prepared.

He opened the gate, nodded again to the father on the bench, who must be waiting for someone, and went to get his car.

He liked this nursery. It had looked just the same four years ago. The little gate, white-painted wooden walls and blue shutters.

He had been sitting on this seat for four hours. There must be at least twenty kids in there. He had watched as the children came and went, always with a mother or a father, no kids on their own. A pity, it was easier then.

Three of the girls had gym shoes on. Two had weird sandals with long straps tied round their legs. Some were barefoot. So the heat was fucking unbearable, but he didn't like this going barefoot thing. One of them had worn red leather shoes, shiny, with metal buckles. They were the best, really beautiful. She had turned up late, her dad had brought her. A blonde little whore. Her hair had natural curls, she tossed them about while she was speaking to her dad. Not much on, just shorts and a plain T-shirt, she must've dressed herself. She seemed happy. Whores were always happy. This one had hopped and jumped all the way to the front door and her dad had nodded to him, a kind of greeting, and he had returned it, it was only polite. The dad had taken longer to come back out than the rest of them, and when he passed, he had nodded again. What a weirdo.

He tried to spot the blonde whore through the window. Lots of heads came past but not the blonde with curls. She'd come looking for cock; whores like plenty of hard cock. She was hidden in there, only shorts and T-shirt on, and her red shoes with metal buckles, bare legs. Good. Whores should show skin.

Dickybird was holed up in the TV corner. He felt knackered, like he always felt after he had smoked pot, and the classier the shit was the more dog-tired he got. Pure kif had the biggest effect and this lot had been the fucking best ever. The Greek, who flogged it, had spoken nothing but the truth when he said he'd never sold better, no argument with that, it was good shit and Dickybird knew what he was talking about, he had been through some in his day.

He looked at Hilding in the chair opposite. Wildboy Hilding wasn't so wild now, that was for sure; he looked shagged, with that spaced-out look on his face, and he didn't even scratch that fucking awful sore of his, his hand that was usually somewhere at nose height was resting on his knee. Dickybird bent over and tapped his mate on the shoulder, Hilding's eyes opened and Dickybird signed, one thumb up and index finger pointing towards the showers. Good stuff, and more in there, behind the tile next to the strip-light. Enough for at least two more goes. Hilding got the message, his thumb went up and he smiled, before sinking deeper into his armchair.

Plenty of tramping about in the unit today, no peace for the wicked. First the new one, the skinhead who didn't have a fucking clue about what went and what didn't round here, seemed to fancy that he could just hang out doing his own fucking thing. Name of Jochum Lang, apparently, what kind of piss-awful name was that? But that was what the nice new young screw had said when he asked. One of them hitmen, seemingly, a bloody bailiff, long list of GBH and manslaughter, but a shortish sentence because of all the sad tossers out there who didn't dare to witness against him. Still, he had to learn, no messing about in this unit, he'd have to get used to it.

And then Hitler, who had been pissing himself on the telly, but was thick enough to show his face on the unit afterwards, sneaking a short cut to his sex hellhole. Pissed his pants on-screen, knew he should keep his head down, so he had said fuck all when he ran into them; they had been zonked then and Hitler must've smelled the hash fumes but kept going, trotting along to his bunch of perverts. They should be terminated, the whole lot of them.

To top it all, Grensie. What next? Marched through the unit by Hitler, limping as always; the old copper was a fucking cripple and had been around for longer than was good for him, so maybe he got a hard-on thinking about the old times, but he should be dead by now. He had been one of the Stockholm cops sent down to Blekinge in 1967, he had seen Per's bleeding goolies and escorted the bawling thirteen-year-old to a young offenders' prison.

Bekir shuffled the cards, cut and dealt. Dragan put two matches in the pot and picked up his hand. Skåne did the same. Hilding pushed his cards into a heap and went to the john. Dickybird picked up his cards one by one. Crap cards. Bekir dealt like an old maid. They picked new cards, he swapped all except one, king of clubs, useless but he never gave up all his cards, on principle. The four new ones were crap too. No points. He put out king of clubs, two of hearts, and four and seven of spades. Last trick. Dragan played queen of clubs, and since the ace and the king had both gone he slapped the table in triumph. The matches were his, worth a hundred quid each. He reached out to grab them, but Dickybird raised his hand.

'Hi you! What do you fucking think you're doing?'

'The pool's mine.'

'No way. I haven't shown.'

'The queen is high.'

'Nope.'

'No? What the fuck?'

He put his last card down. King of clubs.

'There.'

Dragan started waving his hands about.

'What the fuck! The king went before.'

'Too bad. Here goes another one.'

'You can't have two fucking kings of clubs.'

'Can't I? Seems I can.'

Dickybird pushed Dragan's hands away.

'That's my lot now. Goes to the top card. You owe me, girls.'

He laughed out loud and banged on the table. The screws in the guards' box, three guys who passed most of their working time chatting, turned round to place the source of the noise. They watched as Dickybird threw a pile of matches high in the air and tried to catch them in his mouth. They shrugged, turned away.

Hilding walked along the corridor from the toilet. He moved slowly, but seemed more alert than before. He was holding a sheet of paper.

'Hi there, Wildboy, listen to this, who do you think scooped the whole fucking pot? Who's sitting here with thousands of smackers owing to him, eh?'

Hilding wasn't listening; instead he showed Dickybird the paper.

'Look at this, you should read it, Dickybird. It's a letter. Milan got it today. He showed it to me in the crapper. Thought I'd better tell you. It's from Branco.'

Dickybird collected the matches, put them into a matchbox.

'Oh fuck off, sweetie. I can't be arsed reading letters that aren't to me.'

'I think you should. And Branco thinks you should.'

Dickybird stared at the sheet of paper in his hand, turned it over, tried to give it back.

'Forget it.'

'OK, just read the last bit. From there.'

Hilding pointed and Dickybird looked.

'Errr… I…' He cleared his throat. '"I hold… hope…" My eyes aren't right today, they're aching something awful. Hilding, you read this shit.'

He carried on rubbing energetically while Hilding read the last few lines.

'It says, "I hope there are no misunderstandings about where Jochum Lang fits in. He is my friend. Here is a piece of good advice for you. You treat him nicely. Signed Branco Miodrag." And I recognise the handwriting.'

Dickybird had been listening in silence, standing very still. Now he held out his hand, took the letter and made his eyes follow the ink pattern of the signature. A Serb or some other fucking wog. He threw the letter on the floor, then the matchbox, and stamped on the lot. He looked up and towards the cell doors in the corridor, then met the eyes of the men around him. Hilding slowly shook his head. Skåne did the same, and so did Dragan and Bekir. Dickybird was bending to pick up the paper with the black imprint of the sole of his shoe when he heard a cell door open at the far end of the corridor.

It was like the guy had been hanging around inside, just waiting for the right moment. Jochum walked towards the still half-kneeling Dickybird.

'Fuck's sake, Jochum, no need for any papers. You don't need to show me nothing. We thought we'd just fool around a bit.'

Jochum kept walking past him, not looking his way, but just as he passed he whispered something, and it sounded like a shout in the silence.

'You had a letter then, tjavon? '

The nursery school was called The Dove. It had always been called The Dove, but the reason why was unclear. There were no living birds anywhere near. Was it Dove as in Love or as in Peace? No one knew, not even a redoubtable lady from the local council who had been around for ever, or at least ever since The Dove had opened, the first modern day- nursery school in town.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon, normally the time for outdoor play, but the school had shut itself off from the onslaught of the heat and the children were allowed to stay inside. It had become obvious a while ago that their small bodies couldn't cope in the open playground. With thirty degrees in the shade, it must have been fifteen more in the full sun.

Most of the twenty-six children didn't want to go outside, but Marie did. She was bored with playing Indians and having her face painted, because none of the others were any good at painting; they did lines and picked colours like brown or blue. She thought red rings were great, but nobody else liked them, they just didn't want to do rings at all. She almost kicked David when he said no, he didn't want to, but then she remembered he was her best friend and you weren't meant to kick your best friend, not for little things anyway. So she changed into her outdoor shoes and went outside to play because the pedal-car was free. It was bright yellow.

She drove for quite a long time, twice round the house, and three times round the play-shed, and up and down the long path, and then she tried it inside the sandpit but the silly car wouldn't do it, so she kicked it like she'd wanted to kick David and said nasty things to it. But it didn't move. And then a dad came, the one who'd been waiting on the bench all day. Her daddy had nodded to him, like saying hello. The dad seemed nice. He asked if it was OK to lift the car, and she said yes please and then he did. She said thank you and he smiled, but then he looked sad and said did she want to look, there was a tiny dead baby rabbit next to the seat and it was such a shame.

Officer in charge of the interrogation Sven Sundkvist (SS):

Hello there.

David Rundgren (DR): Hello,

SS: My name is Sven. What's yours? DR: I… (inaudible)

SS: Did you say David?

DR: Yes.

SS: That's a nice name. I've got a son who's almost your age. Two years older. His name is Jonas.

DR: I know someone called that too.

SS: Do you like him?

DR: He's one of my friends,

SS: Do you have lots of friends?

DR: Yes. Quite a lot.

SS: That's very good. Brilliant. Is one of your friends called Marie?

DR: Yes.

SS: Did you know that I wanted to talk to you about Marie especially?

DD: Yes I did. We're to talk about Marie.

SS: Brilliant. Do you know what I want to do first? I'd like you to tell me how school went today.

DD: OK.

SS: Nothing unusual happened?

DD: What?

SS: Was everything like it always is?

DD: Yes. Like always.

SS: Everybody played with different things?

DD: Yes. Mostly we all played Indians,

SS: Everybody played Indians?

DD: Yes. Everybody. I had blue lines,

SS: Did you? Blue lines… and everybody played, all the time?

DD: Well, almost. Almost all the time.

SS: Marie too? Did she play all the time?

DD: Yes, at first. But not later on.

SS: Not later on? Please tell me why she didn't play any more.

DD: She didn't like (inaudible) lines. I did. Then she went outside. She was cross because she wanted rings. Nobody else wanted rings 'cause everybody liked lines better. Lines like my (inaudible). And then I said to her that you must have lines too and she said no, I want rings, but nobody wanted to paint rings. And then she went outside. Nobody else wanted to go outside. It was too hot. We were allowed to stay in and we did. And we played Indians,

SS: Did you see when Marie went outside?

DD: No.

SS: Not at all?

DD: She just went. She was cross, I think,

SS: Did you see Marie later?

DD: Yes. Through the window.

SS: What did you see through the window?

DD: Marie and the pedal-car. She's almost never had it. And she got stuck.

SS: How do you mean, stuck?

DD: Stuck in the sandpit.

SS: She was in the pedal-car and it was stuck in the sandpit.

So what did Marie do next?

DD: She kicked it. The car.

SS: She kicked the car. Did she do anything else?

DD: And she said something,

SS: What did she say?

DD: I didn't hear.

SS: And what happened afterwards, after she had kicked the car and said something?

DD: The man came,

SS: What man?

DD: The man who came.

SS: Where were you?

DD: Inside. Looking out through the window.

SS: Was it far… were they far away?

DD: Ten.

SS: Ten what?

DD: Ten metres.

SS: Marie and the man were ten metres away?

DD: (inaudible)

SS: Do you know how far away ten metres is?

DD: It's quite far.

SS: But you're not quite sure exactly how far?

DD: No.

SS: Tell you what, David. Come over here to this window.

Look at the car over there. OK?

DD: OK.

SS: Is that car as far away as Marie and the man?

DD: Yes.

SS: Really truly?

DD: Yes, that's how far it was.

SS: And when the man had come along, what happened?

DD: He helped Marie lift the pedal-car. He was quite strong.

SS: Did anybody else see the man lifting the car?

DD: No. It was only me there. In the hall.

SS: No teacher?

DD: No. Only me.

SS: What did the man do afterwards?

DD: He said things to Marie.

SS: What did Marie do?

DD: She said things to him. They talked.

SS: What clothes did Marie have on?

DD: The same ones.

SS: The same as when?

DD: The same that she had on when she came to school.

SS: Can you remember what Marie had on? Colours and so on?

DD: She had a green T-shirt. Humpie has got one just like that.

SS: And?

DD: Her red shoes. Her best. With metal things,

SS: Metal things?

DD: For closing them. So they stay on.

SS: Trousers? Skirt?

DD: I can't remember,

SS: Maybe a skirt?

DD: Maybe. Not proper trousers, it was too hot.

SS: What about the man? What was he like?

DD: Big. And strong, he could lift the pedal-car out of the sandpit.

SS: Can you remember what he was wearing?

DD: Trousers. And a top. I think. And a baseball cap.

SS: What kind?

DD: The kind you have on your head.

SS: Can you remember anything about the cap?

DD: Yes. It was like the ones they sell in Statoil garages.

SS: What did Marie and the man do next?

DD: They walked away.

SS: Where did they go?

DD: To the gate. And the man fixed the thing.

SS: What did he fix?

DD: The lock-thing on the gate.

SS: The hook on top that you've got to lift straight up to open the gate?

DD: Yes. He did that,

SS: Then what did they do? DD: They went outside in the street. SS: Do you remember which way they walked?

DD: Just out. I couldn't see.

SS: Why did they leave?

DD: Don't know. We're not allowed. To go out, I mean. It's not allowed.

SS: How did they look? What mood were they in?

DD: Not angry.

SS: No? Not angry, but instead…?

DD: They were pleased, a bit.

SS: Did they look pleased when they left?

DD: Not angry, anyway.

SS: How long could you keep watching them?

DD: Not long. Not after the gate,

SS: So they disappeared?

DD: Yes.

SS: Is there anything else you want to tell me?

DD: (inaudible)

SS: David?

DD: (silence)

SS: Never mind. You've been very, very helpful, David. You're very good at remembering things. Would it be all right if I left you here for just a little while? I'd like to speak to some other men.

DD: I'm all right.

SS: Afterwards I'll go and get your mummy and daddy. They're waiting for you downstairs.