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.
'It was only a matter of time before Bernt Lund would attempt another crime. We are all agreed that this is the case, after studying his personality profile. My client is convinced that by taking Lund's life he saved the life of at least one child.'
'Too fucking true!'
Ove smiled, leaned over to plant a kiss on his wife's cheek.
The eager reporter tried again, the question that she hadn't been allowed to put earlier.
'How does your client feel?'
'As well as can be expected in the circumstances. I don't need to remind you that he has lost his little daughter in the most distressing way possible. Also, as a citizen, he is deeply disappointed that society failed to protect not only his child, but also other potential victims. Instead he himself is locked up and will stand trial. He is taking the consequences of ineffective law enforcement.'
Helena stroked her husband's cheek. Then she took his hand and pulled him up, as she rose from the table.
'He did the right thing.'
She lifted her glass in a toast, turning first to Bengt, then to Ola and Klas and, finally, to her husband.
'Do you know what he is, that Fredrik Steffansson? Do you? He's a hero, a real old-fashioned hero. Here's a toast to Fredrik Steffansson!'
They all followed her lead, silently raised their glasses and emptied them.
They stayed in the pub for longer than they usually would. Jointly they arrived at a decision, not the means of bringing it about, but that it would happen. They had passed the critical stage and the process would continue.
It was their Tallbacka, their community, the very stuff of how they lived day after day.
Lars Ågestam was bewildered, even though there weren't that many people about, but then he never had been any good at big stores. Six floors, escalators, free offers and tastings, rumbling messages over the loudspeaker system, credit card machines, queuing numbers. All the time, the pressure to buy buy buy. The queuing customers were daunting, too many; someone smelled strongly of sweat, someone's kids made a noise, some people acted as lost as he felt, a woman dropped the clothes she had picked to try on, a bloke kept searching for something in sportswear, and everything everything everything had been transported from elsewhere to end up here, neatly packaged and priced.
Simply being inside this living hell floored him, but he couldn't think of another place to go. He never bought music, mainly because he had no time to listen, except to the car radio. The music department fazed him completely, shelf after shelf of recordings by alleged celebrities he'd never heard of. He spotted a young woman at an information counter. She was probably very pretty, though it was hard to tell behind the make-up and a hair-do that covered her eyes.
'Siw Malmqvist, have you got anything by her?'
She smiled. Was it a friendly smile or a sneer? How do young women smile?
'I think so, somewhere in the Swedish section. I'll have a look.'
She stepped outside her enclosure and waved to him to follow. He watched her back and blushed. Her clothes were, well… revealing.
She held out a CD. The cover photo showed a woman, young back then, long ago.