Anders Roslund - The Beast

Bengt was watching from the window, Helena and Ove at his side. He was almost hysterical, applauding his dog and shouting to it.

‘Good dog! Well done, Baxter! The peddo is where he belongs. Baxter! Watch!’

The dog stopped barking, sat down and fixed its eyes on the door handle.

Bengt, laughing now, clapped his hands for a little longer. Then he turned away from the window and caught the look in Elisabeth’s eyes, saw how much she despised him. She shook her head slightly at him.

He suddenly realised that she was ugly, old and ugly, with her sneering face and flabby tits.

She could never make him want her, long for her again, not any more.

The cool release brought by the rain seemed a distant memory now. The heat was back. It was more obvious in the prison, where the high perimeter wall trapped the air over the flat expanse of the gravel yard. Hilding had gone out for a walk, wearing a pair of shorts and nothing on the bony upper half of his body. No one else was around. He was worried. Dickybird would soon discover it, he’d know who’d done it, and that it was his closest friend and ally would mean zilch. Hilding would be worked over. He expected it. If you nick from your mate you get hammered, simple as that. And he had nicked something important.

He had got Axelsson out of harm’s way. The peddo had got the message, crawled off to the screws and licked arse. They saw his point right enough and tucked the fucking nonce away in seg wing. Sure enough, Dickybird had lost it when he heard; he figured the beast had been warned off, but couldn’t be sure. Above all, he couldn’t be sure who’d done it. He went berserk, screaming and kicking at the wall. Still, he had calmed down afterwards. He even agreed to a couple of games and magically got two tens of diamonds in one of the rounds.

Hilding scratched his sore and kept walking, from one pair of goal posts to the other. He counted each round. Sixty-seven so far. Thirty-three left.

He shouldn’t have gone and smoked all the shit. But what the fuck, the Axelsson business had taken it out of him, he’d had it by then. He had earned just a small one, like a prize, kind of. Alone in the shower-room, he got the resin out and rolled himself one. It had been as fucking bloody marvellous as last time, his body felt all relaxed, he smoked another small one and then, somehow, the rest went the same way. It felt brilliant. But that night he suddenly realised that this time he was really asking for it. Afterwards he stayed awake, waiting for the morning and the beating that would come. Except it didn’t.

Two days ago that was. Soon he’d attack. Hilding waited and scratched.

One more round. The hundredth.

Sweat was pouring off him. Maybe he should do another hundred. It was almost like getting high, this steady walking in the hot sun. His thoughts flowed slowly and easily. He decided to keep going until someone else came outside.

After one hundred and fifty-seven goes, the Russian turned up with a ball under his arm. Hilding went to take a cold shower; the water burned in his sore. Then he put on clean kit, pants, socks and shorts, and started walking in the corridor, driven by his anxiety. Three hundred times he passed the cells, reached the pool table and turned back. Everything was quiet, apart from the telly. It was on, as usual. The news was about the murder of the little girl and then about Lund. He forced himself to listen to distract himself from his growing fear.

He hadn’t been in such a state for years, ever since he came under Dickybird’s protection. But now he was the one who’d screwed up. He had to do something different, blow his mind. Must.

He knocked on the door to Jochum’s cell, first once, then again when there was no reply. Jochum opened up. He had been asleep, it showed.

‘What the fuck?’

‘I’m Hilding.’

‘So what? Beat it.’

‘Just wondered if you were thirsty.’

He had made up his mind. He had to do it, anything to get rid of that piss-awful ache inside him. So it meant more stealing. It would help if Jochum came along. Dickybird had too much respect to mess with him.

Jochum came outside.

‘Where is it?’

‘Come. I’ll show you.’

Jochum went back inside his cell, then came out again wearing a pair of slippers. He closed the cell door behind him.

That sod never left the door open. No one ever caught as much as a glimpse inside his cell. Hilding led the way along the route he had just walked three hundred times, past the kitchen, the shower-room, the pool corner.

Fixed to the corridor wall was a fire-fighting contraption, a pipe made of red-painted metal attached to a black hose. The instructions for use ran into too many words to take in, especially with flames raging around you. Hilding looked around. No screws. He produced a toothbrush mug from the pocket of his shorts and unscrewed the stopper on the pipe.

‘Try this. Plain fucking water, a loaf and some apples.’ He filled the mug. The brew smelled bad; he almost retched. ‘This stuff is rotgut. Tastes like shit! But what the fuck!’ He swallowed the murky fluid. ‘It kicks. Just don’t fucking taste it!’

He filled the mug again and handed it to Jochum.

‘It’s been settling for almost four weeks. It’s clearing. And must be ten per cent, easily.’

Jochum swallowed, gagged, held out the mug.

‘Another one.’

They got through five mugs each. Warmth began to spread through their bodies, and calm; the alcohol was reaching their souls.

They used to brew in the bucket at the back of the cleaners’ cupboard, but doing it in the emptied fire-gadget was better, it was a closed container and easier to get at. The loaf was for alcohol, and the fruit helped the taste a bit.

‘Screw coming!’

Skåne had been on the alert this time, warning everyone. It was rare for them to turn up in the unit so suddenly. Hilding put the stopper in place and they wandered off; they met a screw on the way, he looked hard at them but didn’t stop them.

Hilding and Jochum, nicely pissed now, went along to sit on the sofa, united for a while by booze; no one says no to a drink with a mate.

The TV news was still chewing over the Lund murder; the whole unit had followed the hunt and by now most people had had enough. The kid’s dad had blown the head off the fucking nonce, showing the beasts what the score was. Hilding and Jochum took no notice of the flow of words and images, just sat back feeling relaxed.

‘Where’s that tinker mate of yours anyway? I haven’t seen him for days.’

‘Dickybird?’

‘Yeah. The Diddler.’

Jochum grinned. Hilding grinned. Fucking good that, the Diddler.

‘Holing up in his cell, he can’t hack all that. The shit on the telly.’

‘He can’t stand the fucking telly?’

‘It’s like… I don’t know. The stuff about the girl and the nonce. It spooks Dicky. Or something. Like, he knows he could’ve done Lund in himself. Before he scarpered.’

‘So what? It’s been done.’

‘But the kid wouldn’t have been… you know.’

‘Happens.’

Hilding looked around, noted the screw on his way out and lowered his voice.

‘Dicky has a daughter too. That’s why.’

‘And so?’

‘He’s got to think like that.’

‘Why just him? Lots do. Don’t you?’

‘Sure. But his daughter lives near where it happened. Strängnäs. Well, Dicky thinks so, anyway.’

‘Thinks? Doesn’t he know?’

‘Never even clapped eyes on her in his life.’

Jochum slid his hand across his shaved scalp, turned away from the TV for a moment to look at Hilding.