Anders Roslund - The Beast

The letters were bounding along, attacking him.

Peddo lover.

You fuck kids.

Arsehole.

Who’s the psychopath?

The words had been painted on both doors. And on the roof. And on the bonnet. Whoever it was had announced his hatred with spray paint and destruction. If something could be broken, it had been. All the car windows were reduced to splinters, the headlamps had been ruined and the mirrors were simply gone.

He remembered vomiting with fear in the CPS toilet when he learned what kind of case he was landed with. Somehow he had foreseen all this.

And then here was his house. It was a solid bungalow from the forties with a finish of yellow render. A bevy of relatives had come to help him put on a coat of fresh yellow paint that summer. Now the black letters screamed at him from the bright background, running all the way across the façade, starting at the kitchen window, over the door and on to the sitting room window. The black spray paint looked the same as on the car, and the writing did too.

That alien hand had written one sentence.

You will die soon, arselicker.

Marina, his wife, was in the front garden, just metres away from the huge, angular letters, swinging in the hammock they had bought in a sale just a week ago.

Her eyes were closed and she seemed utterly detached.

He went up to her, but she said nothing, only coughed nervously. He hugged her.

The trial had been going on for three days. What had to happen finally did. Public awareness of the father who had shot his daughter’s killer and killed him, risking a lifetime in prison, had permeated everything.

That threatening being, the faceless citizen, acted accordingly.

He couldn’t bear to stay in a house with letters sprayed all over it. He had got out of bed to empty his bladder and couldn’t get back to sleep, just lay there, his nakedness uncovered to let Marina have the duvet, searching the shadowy ceiling for answers.

He thought about his battered car. The spray-painted text, telling him what he was.

He was an arsehole. A psychopath. He loved paedophiles. He fucked children.

Marina’s red and swollen eyes had avoided meeting his. She kept looking away. When he asked if she had been frightened, she shook her head, and when he wanted to know if she had been hurt or abused in any way, she shook her head, and when he held her tight, she turned away. In bed she lay facing the wall, leaving him alone with his psychopathy and his ruined car. After a while his breathing deepened, she noticed, but she kept staring at the wall until he had whispered her name again and again and she yielded, slipping into his arms and asking him to forgive her. Their skin, their nakedness touched and they made love for longer than they normally did; afterwards they held each other for a while before she turned back to face the wall again.

He had to get up.

Wandering naked round the house, he checked the time. Half past three. He made himself a mug of coffee, poured a glass of milk and another of orange juice, got out bread and cheese. He started reading yesterday’s papers, looking for what all the media called the paedophilia trial and marvelling at the space allocated to it, page after page of text and pictures.

But it didn’t work; his fears, his restlessness, his anger were whirling inside him and he couldn’t just sit there drinking coffee.

He went back into the bedroom, dressed and picked up his briefcase, then kissed Marina’s shoulder, and when she twitched and opened her eyes he explained where he was going, that he wanted to think in peace while the city woke. She murmured something he couldn’t catch. When he left, her back was almost up against the wall.

He walked slowly, wanting to be alone with his thoughts in the sleeping city. But before he set out, after walking the seven paces along the path of concrete slabs set into the lawn, he turned round to take it all in.

You will die soon, arselicker.

The early-morning light seemed to magnify the letters and make their blackness more prominent. The writing was crude and had an awkward stiffness that made the whole thing look unreal. Surely it would all fade and vanish, dribble off the wall into sticky puddles among the roses in the border?

Then he passed his car, new a year ago. He had borrowed to cover the cost. It was vandalised beyond all hope, wrecked like the cars he’d seen in the far-flung suburbs of Latin American cities. It would be taken away. Would the intrusive words go away?

It took him two hours to walk from the western suburbs to the city centre, carrying his jacket over his shoulder and the briefcase in his hand. His black shoes didn’t fit him too well and pinched here and there, but he had time to think, to try to understand.

What was all this about? He had wanted to be a prosecutor and that was what he did. He had been looking for a big case, and that was what he’d got. End of story. He wasn’t up to it, he was too young, not mature enough. Not good enough.

An important brief meant getting lots of attention. Threats, as well as praise, were a consequence of being in the spotlight. Sure, he knew that. He had seen it affect older colleagues. Why did some vulgar graffiti scare him?

He knew, but couldn’t tell why it should be so, that their lovemaking in the midst of Marina’s silence meant that he was alienated from who he had been. He had lost a dream and would age abruptly as he carried this trial to its conclusion, pushing for the maximum sentence. Afterwards? A desert. Nothing was self-evident any more. But, seemingly, he was on his own.

He got to Scheele Street just after six o’clock. The Old Court was silent and still. A couple of gulls were rifling through the bins. Thanks to a helpful nightwatchman he had spent so many nights and early mornings here that in the end the magistrates had relented and, uniquely, allowed him his own set of keys. The young prosecutor had spent a significant part of his life in the old stone building.

He climbed the massive staircase all the way to the secure courtroom, went to sit in the place he occupied during the trial and opened his folder, spreading out the documents first on the tabletop and then, when he ran out of room, on the floor.

He had been working for forty-five minutes when the door opened.

‘Hey, Ågestam.’

The rough voice was only too familiar. It was actually hateful. He kept his eyes on his work.

‘Look, your wife told me that I could find you here. I’m sorry, I think I woke her.’

Grens didn’t ask if he was welcome. He limped inside. His shoes had hard leather soles and his right footfall echoed round the room. Passing behind Ågestam, he glanced quickly at the pile of papers and went to sit in the judge’s seat.

‘That’s what I do. Start early, when it’s quiet. No fucking idiots around to annoy me.’

Ågestam carried on as he was, checking points of law, memorising questions, arranging observations.

‘Can’t you stop doing whatever it is when I’m talking to you?’

Ågestam turned, furious, facing the intruder.

‘Why should I? You have no fucking time for me. It’s mutual.’

‘That’s why I’m here.’ Grens fiddled with the judge’s gavel and cleared his throat. ‘I’ve made… an error of judgement.’

Ågestam became still, in mid-movement, his eyes fixed on the older man, whose face was strained as he searched for words.

‘When I’ve made an error I admit it.’

‘Very well.’

‘And I was wrong this time. I should’ve taken your ramblings seriously.’

The large, worn courtroom was as silent as the quiet streets outside, this early morning on a warm summer’s day.