Anders Roslund - The Beast

The thought made his need to vomit acute. He stuck his fingers down his throat to get it over with. He must be able to think clearly, as he usually did.

He had been sitting in the car watching for half an hour by now. It was getting close to five o’clock. Another hour to go before the nursery school called Freja would close.

Freja’s location was pretty, in a valley with low hills rising on every side. When he arrived Fredrik had parked his car in a meadow near the top of the highest hill, which gave him a clear view of the whole site. Just as at the other schools, he began by going off to search the grounds, circling the building systematically.

It was when he returned to his hillside vantage point and was about to open the car door that he had seen him, quite close, crouching down.

They had picked the same sight-line, but he had settled on a slight rise a little further down the slope, some two hundred metres from the two white school buildings. Wearing a green tracksuit and sheltering behind low bushes, with his back protected by the roots of a fallen tree, he was well hidden. He was sitting there motionless, holding a pair of binoculars trained on the school playground, observing the children playing inside the fence. Fredrik had looked him over through his own binoculars. There was no question in his mind. This was the man he had nodded to six days ago, this was Lund.

Everything fitted: his face, his build, something about his posture.

That man had killed his child, taken her away for ever. There he was. Fredrik had tried to stop feeling, to chase the pain into hiding.

Down there, two fed-up police officers were counting the endless dull hours of watching a locked gate. Their patrol car must be blisteringly hot and stuffy. In the last half an hour alone, both officers had got out twice. The smoke of their cigarettes hung in the still air.

Only the odd snatch of birdsong and the distant rumbling from the motorway ruffled the drowsy calm on the hillside. Fredrik got out, paced round the car and kneeled in different places, pretending to aim and checking where he could rest his elbows. His light suit, already crumpled and stained, got greenish patches at the knees. In the end he found a comfortable position.

He was breathing deeply, easily. His body was flexible and willing. He felt alert.

Next, he pulled the heavy rifle from the boot. He hadn’t used it for many years, not since he had gone hunting with Birger. That was well before Marie was born, maybe seven or eight years ago. He and his father-in-law had tried hard to find something they could share other than their love of Agnes. Hunting was just about the only thing they could at least pretend to enjoy together.

Fredrik balanced the gun in his hand, rocking it up and down. Then he returned to the place he had located, kneeled and lifted the rifle, his hands steadied by leaning on the hood of the car. He got Lund in his sights and centred the cross hairs on his back.

He waited. He wanted to hit him from in front.

Another quarter of an hour passed and then Lund rose. The roots of the tree and the bushes no longer protected him as he stretched to exercise his stiffened joints.

The laser beam searched him out, moved tremblingly over the breathing body. Fredrik held it for a moment on the target’s crotch. Then upwards.

Suddenly Lund discovered the red dot and swatted at it as if at a wasp, pointlessly flapping his arms about.

Fredrik released the trigger. The first shot shattered the silence.

For a moment nothing else existed.

The flapping arms disappeared. Lund had been thrown violently backwards and crashed heavily to the ground.

He tried to get up, slowly.

Fredrik moved the bright dot to the man’s forehead, let it rest there for a second.

The sight of an exploding head was somehow unexpected.

Then the silence closed in again.

Fredrik put the gun on the car hood, sagged until he reached the ground, then lay down holding his head, twisting until he was curled up like a foetus.

He wept.

For the first time since Marie had gone his tears came. It hurt; the bloody unbearable grief had grown inside him, out of sight. Now it was pushing its way out and he screamed the way you do when you are about to lose your life.

Chief interrogator Sven Sundkvist (SS): This way, please. Kristina Björnsson, barrister (KB): Right. Thank you.

SS: The interrogation of Fredrik Steffansson is taking place in Kronoberg prison. The time is twenty fifteen. Present with Steffansson are the chief interrogator Sven Sundkvist and Steffansson’s legal representative, Kristina Björnsson, solicitor.

Fredrik Steffansson (FS): (inaudible)

SS: Sorry? What did you say?

FS: Please, I’d like some water.

SS: It’s just in front of you. Help yourself.

FS: Thank you.

SS: Fredrik, could you please tell us what has happened.

FS: (inaudible)

SS: Speak up.

FS: Bear with me.

KB: Are you all right?

FS: No.

KB: Can you carry on?

FS: Yes.

SS: Let’s start again. Please describe what has happened.

FS: You know already.

SS: Describe the events in your own words.

FS: A previously convicted sex killer murdered my daughter.

SS: I would like you to concentrate on what happened in

Enköping today, outside the nursery school Freja. FS: I shot my daughter’s murderer and killed him.

KB: Sorry, Fredrik, hold it there.

FS: What now?

KB: I’d better have a few words with you.

FS: Yes?

KB: Are you sure you should describe today’s events in those terms?

FS: I don’t see what you’re driving at.

KB: I get the impression that you’re about to describe the events in a particular way.

FS: I simply intend to answer the questions.

KB: You must be aware that a premeditated murder is punishable by a lifetime prison sentence. ‘Life’ means between sixteen and twenty-five years.

FS: Right you are.

KB: I’m advising you to be careful about how you express things. At least until you and I have had a long talk, face-to-face.

FS: I haven’t done anything wrong.

KB: It’s your choice.

FS: So it is.

SS: Have you finished?

KB: Yes.

SS: OK, let’s start again. Fredrik, what happened today?

FS: It was you who gave me the crucial information.

SS: What information?

FS: After the funeral, in the churchyard. You were there and the other policeman, the one with a limp.

SS: DCI Grens?

FS: That’s the one.

SS: And what happened in the churchyard?

FS: One of you two, the guy with the limp I think, said that the risk that Lund would do it again was very great. That’s when I made up my mind. No more acts like that. Not another child, not another loss. All right if I get up, move about?

SS: Fine.

FS: I’m assuming that you understand what I’m trying to say. Look, that man was locked up. He escapes. You can’t catch him. He tortures and kills Marie. He is still on the run, police chase or no police chase. You know that he’ll do it again, to some other child. You know. And you know you can’t stop him, you’ve demonstrated that.

Lars Ågestam (LÅ): May I join you?

SS: Please have a seat.

LÅ: I put it to you that your intention was to take revenge.

FS: If society cannot protect its citizens, they have to do it themselves.

LÅ: You wanted to avenge Marie’s death by killing Bernt Lund.

FS: I’ve saved the life of at least one child. Of that I’m convinced. That’s what I did it for. That was my real motive.

LÅ: Do you believe that the death penalty is just, Fredrik?

FS: No.