Anders Roslund - The Beast

‘Now we’ll fucking go for it!’ he shouted.

Helena looked up, startled. She had been reading a book, curled up naked in an armchair.

He had never seen her naked before. If he had, he would have realised that she was beautiful, but he couldn’t stop for a proper look now, he was walking round her, holding up his paper, casting eager glances through the window. Was Ove in the garden? Where was he?

‘Bengt, what’s the matter? What’s up? Ove is in the basement bathroom, showering.’

‘I’ll fetch him.’

‘Hang on. He’ll be here soon.’

‘I’ll go.’

He went down the basement steps clumsily, hurriedly. No problem about finding the way; he and Elisabeth had been using that shower during the time when he was rebuilding their bathroom. She had wanted a larger one, and he had pulled all the stops out, ruined a cupboard, but she got her effing bathroom.

He pulled back the shower-curtain, big birds against a blue background. Ove turned round so quickly he almost fell, crouching, until he took in who it was.

‘Here! See this! Now we’ll fucking go for it!’

Ove dried himself quickly, wrapped the towel round his hips and followed Bengt back upstairs. Bengt was still waving his paper, his trophy held up for the admiration of the audience. Back in the sitting room, Helena was waiting for them. She had put on a dressing gown.

‘You have no idea! This is it!’

He spread out the paper on the table and they bent forward to read.

‘I pulled it from the TV site on the web, the news page. Just twenty minutes ago. Actually, nineteen minutes. Look at the time, eleven a.m.’

While they read, Bengt paced about impatiently.

‘Are you done? Do you get it? They let him out. On grounds of reasonable force! He shot that monster and saved the lives of two little girls. And the verdict was “reasonable force”! He’ll be back home tonight knocking back a drink, I’d say! Four votes against one, you know, only the judge didn’t go along with it, but the other lot didn’t hesitate!’

Ove started reading the whole thing again from the beginning. Helena relaxed back in her armchair, holding her hands in the air in a gesture of amazement.

Bengt leaned over her and hugged her. Then he slapped Ove on the back.

‘Now’s the time! We’ll do him now! It’s our fucking right. Now we’ll get him! Reasonable force, of course! No more, no less! Reasonable force!’

They waited until darkness had fallen. All five of them spent the afternoon in Bengt’s house, sitting around, chatting at times and drinking cups of coffee. Darkness, when it came around half past ten, was not pitch-black, just dark enough to make people faceless.

They went out into the garden to acclimatise their eyes to the blurred outlines. It was very quiet. Tallbacka was always quiet at that time of night and many windows had already gone dark, because it was a place where the day began and ended early. Bengt went inside for a moment, snapped his fingers and felt Baxter’s tongue licking his hand.

Then they went together to the shed, unlocked the padlock, lifted out the boxes, first the heavy one with the petrol-filled bottles, then the small box with the cigarette lighters. Ove and Klas minded the bottle-box. Ola distributed the lighters, two each.

They walked far enough to be able to see into the house next door. All the lights were on, and from were they stood they could follow him wandering about, from the kitchen to the sitting room and then towards the bathroom. When the bathroom light went on, Bengt ordered Baxter to sit and walked the few steps to a telephone pole. He climbed up far enough to reach the wire. He was surprisingly agile and got there quickly. From one of the many pockets in his jeans, he produced a pair of pliers and cut the wire.

The bathroom lamp still glowed when Bengt slid down and moved to the next pole, which had a locked box halfway up. He opened it with the key to his own, identical box and located the mains switch.

The house next door went dark.

They waited. It took longer than they had expected.

But Flasher-Göran finally got a couple of candles going.

Then he found the torch. They watched the light flickering across the walls.

A few more seconds, as the torchlight lit up the hall. It was moving towards the front door.

Bengt had a grip on Baxter’s collar. The dog knew what he was meant to do, soon. Attack. When his master ordered.

‘Baxter. Get him.’

The torchlight behind the glass panel in the door, and the door opening.

Bengt let Baxter go at the same moment as Flasher-Göran stepped outside. Baxter ran, barking loudly.

The man in the doorway realised the danger and managed to slam the door shut just as the dog got near enough to jump at him.

‘Baxter. Watch.’

The dog settled down in front of the door, ready to spring.

Bengt tried to follow the shadow of the man as he ran through the house and decided that Flasher-Göran must have gone into the kitchen. He shouted in that general direction.

‘Was that scary, Göran? All dark and cold for you? Help’s coming. You’ll get heat and light soon enough, Göran.’

He pointed at Ove, Ola and Klas, who quickly went back into the shed and hauled the heavy petrol container out on to the lawn. From there they rolled it across to Flasher- Göran’s house. When they were close enough, they unscrewed the top before rolling it right round the house, letting the petrol soak into gravel paths and flower borders.

Meanwhile Helena had completed her job. She had placed the petrol-filled bottles in five equal groups.

They all lit the rags in their bottles, one by one, holding each one still just long enough for the flame to take, and then began fire-bombing the house in front of them.

Five explosions at roughly the same time, but all in different parts of the house.

And five more, and again and again. Eight times. Always new small fires, slowly growing and meeting.

Bengt produced a piece of paper from one of his pockets. In a loud voice, to be heard above the roaring of the fire, he read out the court’s judgement on Fredrik Steffansson, the man who shot to kill, but who went free because he had killed the paedophile who had violated his daughter.

Just as he had finished, the kitchen window opened. Flasher-Göran leapt out, screaming. He fell heavily to the ground.

Bengt had time to think that if only Elisabeth had been here to watch, she would have understood what it was all about.

Flasher-Göran was moving where he lay, and Bengt called Baxter away from his watch at the front door. The dog ran towards the man, who was trying to get up, jumped on him, sank his teeth into the arm with which the man tried to protect himself, and started tearing it apart.

The whole of Tallbacka flared up the day the trial was concluded. The attack against the man who had exposed himself in the schoolyard twenty years before and been sentenced to a fine was the first of nine acts of violence against alleged paedophiles. The spate of criminal violence was in each case claimed to be an exertion of reasonable force.

Three of the mob attacks, all of which involved grievous bodily harm, led to the death of the victims.

The chief investigator (CI): I will start the interrogation now. Bengt Söderlund (BS): Fire ahead.

CI: The questions concern the events that followed the throwing of the petrol bombs. BS: Aha.

CI: I’m unhappy about your attitude.

BS: What would seem to be the trouble? CI: You appear sarcastic.

BS: If you don’t fancy my answers I wouldn’t half mind leaving now.