The Beast

Fredrik saw them go, his last link with the world outside.

Two prison officers took him into the reception for registration. He undressed in front of them and, after donning rubber gloves, they felt around his mouth and parted his buttocks to probe his anal canal. His clothes were packed in plastic bags and he was handed his droopy suit, told to dress and then wait in a small, cell-like room with a barred window. They told him that he would have to stay there until someone came to fetch him. Then they locked the door.

He had changed, become a prisoner, one of them inside.

He had been sitting on the hard chair in the locked cell for an hour. Sometimes he watched between the bars as the rain splashed into the puddles on the lawn and streamed down the tall wall.

He had tried to think about Marie, but she wouldn't materialise in his thoughts. She had become elusive, her face blurred and her voice somehow inaudible; he couldn't hear her.

A knock on the door. Keys rattling. The door opened and another prison officer stepped inside. He seemed familiar. Fredrik felt that he knew him, that he had at least seen him somewhere.

Then the officer made for the door again.

'Sorry,' he said. 'I was looking for someone else.'

Fredrik was ransacking his mind. Who was this?

'Hello. What did you want?'

The officer turned round.

'Nothing. I said so. A mistake.'

'I recognise you. Can you think of any reason why I should?'

The man hesitated. He had tried to cope with his sense of guilt for months and now it got its claws into him again.

'My name is Lennart Oscarsson. I'm in charge of one of the units here. For the pervs, as they say. One of the two units housing sex offenders.'

Of course, the TV interviews. Fredrik had placed him now.

'It was your fault.'

'Lund was my responsibility. I authorised his transport and he escaped.'

'It was your fault, all of it.'

Lennart looked at his accuser. Not much time had passed since Lund's escape and since this father had lost his daughter. Back then Lennart had already been burdened with guilt, because by trying to love two people and betraying them both, he had cheated on Karin and failed to acknowledge his feelings for Nils. The whole thing had become utterly unbearable. When Lund did a runner, and then when his little victim was found in a wood, coping with the guilt was no longer possible. All these people haunted his dreams at night and perched on his shoulder in the daytime. For a while he had simply gone into hiding, staying in bed all the time.

'I've spoken about you often, with a colleague of mine, someone I trust. Well, now he's my partner as well. I take everything he says seriously, we agree on this anyway, and it's something you should know. When Lund was here, we did everything possible to treat him, to cure him, if you like. We tried every kind of therapeutic intervention in the book.'

He half turned to go, but stayed in the doorway. His forehead glistened with sweat, which made his fringe damp.

'I'm sorry,' he went on. 'I could not regret more what happened.'

'It was your fault.'

Oscarsson held out his hand.

'I'm sorry. And I wish you well.'

Fredrik looked at the hand in front of him.

'You can put that somewhere else. I will never shake hands with you.'

His words landed like a blow. Oscarsson sagged, his breathing became laboured and he kept looking at Fredrik in mute appeal. His hand stayed extended. It was trembling.

Fredrik looked away.

Oscarsson waited for a while, gave in, put his hand briefly on Fredrik's shoulder and then left the cell, locking the door behind him.

By early afternoon the tapping sound of drops on the pane ceased abruptly. It had been the only sound in the cell for what felt like hours, and after several days of nonstop rain the silence seemed odd, empty. Peering out, Fredrik saw that the cloud cover was breaking up.

Later that afternoon the door was unlocked. He had waited for six hours by then. Two bulky prison officers, truncheons at their belts, marched in with heavy steps. New prisoners were the order of the day for them and they were all set to show who was in charge round here. Respect was due, and proper conduct. One of them, he wore spectacles with blue frames, leafed through a document he had brought.

'Steffansson, that's you, right?'

'Yes.'

'Right. You'll come with us now. We'll take you to your unit.'

Fredrik staying where he was.

'Listen, I've been sitting here for a long time. Getting on for seven hours now.'

'And?'

'Well, why?'

'No whys about it.'

'Are you trying to get a message to me?'

'What?'

'Is there some reason for making me wait?'

'No reason, pal. You wait till you're told to go. That's all.'

Fredrik sighed and got up.

'Where am I going?'

'I said. To your unit.'

'What kind of unit is it?'

'Normal.'

'Sure. But what kind of people are kept there?'

The officers stared at him, trying to stay calm. Then blue specs looked around the bare cell.

'You're a one for asking questions.'

'I want to know.'

'What can I tell you? It's a normal unit. The lads are doing time for every kind of offending. Except sex. That kind we house separately, in specialist units.' He shrugged. 'You'll have to accept this, Steffansson. The unit is your home now. And the lads are company.'

They walked Fredrik along a smelly basement corridor, slowly enough to let him take in the colourful daubs on the walls, presumably meant to be prisoner therapy, but otherwise meaningless images. He counted the steps and calculated that the corridor was at least four hundred metres long.

Every time they passed through doors the routine was the same: a glance towards the camera, a clicking sound as the guard flicked the switch in his cubicle and a nod to the camera, a kind of thanks.

Now and then they met other prisoners being escorted somewhere. They nodded to him and he nodded back.

In the last section of the corridor they turned into a stairway with a sign saying Unit H. His unit, he assumed. Inside the smell of food was the first thing he noticed. Frying something, fish maybe.

'They've just finished supper,' one of the officers said. 'You'll get yours later.'

Another ugly, bleak corridor. Off it he could see a TV room, where a group of prisoners were sitting about, some on chairs and sofas, others playing cards at a table. Ahead, the corridor narrowed and there were cell doors along both its sides. Most of the doors were open. At the far end was another room with a table-tennis table.

'You're in cell fourteen, that's over there, almost at the end.'

The card-players looked up when he walked past. One of them, who had dark hair and wore a gold chain round his neck, had been speaking loudly. Now he fell silent and fixed his eyes on Fredrik. The others consisted of one big one, with muscles like a body-builder and long hair tied at the back of his neck; opposite him a foreigner of some kind, short and dark-skinned and moustachioed, maybe a Turk or a Greek; and the fourth man was one of those emaciated types who had junkie written all over them.

His cell door was open. Apart from being slightly larger, it looked exactly like the one he had left in the remand prison. Same bare furnishings, same barred window, same gloomy colours, dirty pale green and diluted piss yellow. The bed wasn't made. At one end a rolled-up blanket, one sheet and a pillow without a pillowcase.

He reacted as he had this morning, slapped his hand against the wall and started to laugh. The pain went away for a moment.

The officer fingered his blue specs.

'You're laughing. What's up?'

'Nothing's up. Is laughing forbidden?'

'I thought you were having a breakdown or whatever.'

Fredrik started making the bed. He wanted to close the door, lie down, rest, stare at the ceiling.

'Hey. You were right before, you know.'