Anders Roslund - The Beast

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

The car drove off with a roar.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They had talked about that freak Göran many times.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘So we do.’

‘So is it their turn soon?’

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

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

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

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

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

Helena suddenly shouted, so loudly that her voice cracked.

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

Bengt chewed a handful of peanuts. Slowly swallowed.

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

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

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

‘Hey, turn it up!’

‘Fucking make up your mind.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bengt was amazed and delighted. He slapped the table.

‘Did you hear that!’

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