The Beast (12 page)

    Micaela
had left early. He must have been asleep. Night after night he performed the
same ritual of listening to the sounds coming through the window until the town
slowly started to wake up, the noises made by the first newspaper boys, the
first lorries. Then, at about half past five, he fell asleep. His body gave in
at last, exhausted by the restless hours when his mind had been crowded with
thoughts. Suspended in empty space, he dreamed on until late in the morning.

    Vague
mental images of the morning; Micaela lying naked on him and him not
responding, her whispering
you boring old thing,
kissing his cheek,
leaving him for the shower; Marie's room on the other side of the bathroom
wall, the hissing of water through the pipes awakening her and David; Micaela
making them all breakfast while he stayed put, his legs refusing to get him out
of bed, then slowly slipping back into that isolated space and dreaming again.

    At
eleven o'clock he was woken by the shrieks and yells of the creatures in one of
Marie's videos and finally got up.

    He
must start sleeping at night. He couldn't carry on like this.

    Couldn't.

    He no
longer did any work, and he didn't engage with the people close to him. The
morning used to be his best time for writing, either at home or in his writer's
den on Arnö Island. Not any more. Marie had learned to amuse herself in the
mornings. Thank God, Micaela worked in Marie's nursery school and had persuaded
her colleagues that it was fine for the child not to turn up until after lunch,
day after day.

    But
he felt so ashamed, like an alcoholic who's promised eternal sobriety in the
evening and wakes up with a hangover the morning after. And his head ached.

    Tomorrow
would be different.

    'Hello,
Daddy.'

    His
lovely little daughter. He lifted her up.

    'Hello,
sweetheart. Am I getting a morning kiss?'

    Marie
pressed her moist lips against his cheek.

    'David's
gone now.'

    'Has
he?'

    'His
daddy came to pick him up.'

    But
they know I'm a responsible person, he thought, they know me. Oh, never mind.
He shrugged and put Marie down.

    'Have
you had anything to eat?'

    'Micaela
gave us things.'

    'But
that was hours ago. Aren't you hungry?'

    'I
want to eat in school.'

    How
long did they keep the food for the children? It was quarter past one now. Ten
minutes to get dressed, five minutes to get there if they took the car.

    'So
you shall. Let's get dressed.'

    Fredrik
pulled on a pair of jeans and a white shirt. A bit warm for a hot day, but he
felt he looked silly in shorts, his legs were so pale. Marie came running to
show him a pair of shorts and a T-shirt.

    'Fine,
that's nice. And which shoes?'

    'The
red ones.'

    He put
them on her feet and fastened the metal buckles with some kind of buttons
underneath.

    Ready
to go.

    The
phone rang.

    'Daddy.
The phone!'

    'Leave
it. We must go.'

    'Wait.'

    Marie
ran to pick up the phone in the kitchen, standing on tiptoe in her shiny red
shoes to reach. Her face lit up when she heard who it was.

    'Daddy,
it's Mummy!'

    He
nodded, and listened while Marie told a long story about the Big Bad Wolf and
how it chased the pigs but they won anyway, and how they'd run out of bath foam
except they hadn't, because she knew where there was another bottle, two
bottles, on the bottom shelf in the cupboard. She was laughing most of the
time. Then she gave the receiver a smacking kiss and handed it to him.

    'It's
for you. Mummy wants to talk.'

    His
mind was still too drowsy to separate the woman's voice he heard now from his
body's memory of the naked Micaela. The voice belonged to Agnes, a woman he had
once desired more than anyone else and who had asked him to leave her; her
voice and the sensation of Micaela's young body drifted together and merged,
and he felt slightly dizzy and breathless. Then he had a strong erection and
turned away, Marie mustn't see it.

    'Yes?'

    'When
are you turning up?'

    'What
do you mean?'

    'Marie
is with me today.'

    'No
she isn't. It's not until Monday. We swapped, remember?'

    'We
did nothing of the sort.'

    He
was too tired. Not now. Not today.

    'Agnes,
this is too much. I'm tired and in a hurry. I won't argue, Marie is just next
to me.'

    He
handed the receiver to Marie, at the same time twirling his hands in the air.
It was their special sign for being in a hurry.

    'Mummy,
I can't. I'm late for school.'

    Agnes
was too good a mother to show Marie how irritated she was. She always put
Marie's interests first and he loved her for it.

    'Bye,
Mummy. Must go now.'

    She
didn't quite manage to put the receiver back and it crashed against the top of
the microwave oven. He caught hold of it.

    'There,
sweetheart. Let's go!'

    He
caught sight of the kitchen clock. They could still be there by half past one
and they would let her stay until quarter past five. It meant she would get her
lunch, though a bit late, and then she could play outside for a bit in the
afternoon. It would feel almost like a whole day and she'd be pleased when he
picked her up.

    Half
past one. Sven stared at the green alarm clock on Ewert's desk. Technically, he
had been off duty for two hours. The bottles of wine and the gateau were
waiting for him in the car. He was ready to go home, he wanted to be with Anita
and Jonas, have a nice meal with them. It was his fortieth, after all.

    Sven
felt that working for the Metropolitan Police was much less important now than
he used to think. Once, not that long ago, he wouldn't have hesitated to work
on his wedding night, even to divorce, rather than compromise about taking on
the late shifts.

    He
had begun to confide in Ewert how he felt now, especially during the last year,
when they had become closer. Sven had tried to explain his totally out-of-order
indifference about which moron had carried out which moronic offence, and
whether it was that one or some other useless bugger who was arrested for it.
Tough. Shit happens. He was a man in his middle age but ready for retirement,
he was bored with the detecting and the caring. All he wanted to do was things
like relaxing over breakfast in the garden, taking long walks on the beach and
being there for Jonas when he came running home from school with his young life
in his backpack.

    Twenty
years of work done, twenty-five more to go. It practically made him
hyperventilate, just thinking of that unbearable passage of time inside dull
police stations, among the files of incomplete bloody awful investigations.
When he was finally allowed to retire, Jonas would be thirty-two. Fuck's sake!
What would they say to each other then?

    Ewert
understood, even though he had no family and his time in uniform, for him, was
his entire life. He ate, drank, breathed police work. Even so, he too had felt
that it was meaningless, but, worse luck for him, having made policing part of
his being meant he would cease to exist when it ended. He understood all right,
but couldn't be bothered with his insights.

    'Ewert.'

    'Yes.'

    'I
want to go home.'

    Ewert
had gone down on his knees, collecting the scattered rubbish from his second go
at the wastepaper basket. Mushy pieces of banana peel had left stains on the
pale brownish carpet.

    'I
know you do. And so you will. As soon as we've got Lund.'

    His
head popped up over the edge of the desk, looking at the alarm clock.

    'It's
been six and a half hours now and we still know bugger all. Nil. Looks like
you'll have to wait for your birthday cake.'

    
'Care
For My Heart', originally called 'Pick Up the Pieces', with choir and
orchestra, recorded in Sweden, 1963.
Siw Malmqvist, her third mixed tape.
On the box, an out- of-focus photograph of Siw, beaming at the admiring camera.

    'I
took that picture, did you know that? In the Kristianstad Palais, back in
1972,.'

    He
bowed to Sven, made a sweeping gesture with one arm.

    'Would
you like to dance?'

    Then
he turned round and began a solo dance. Strange to behold, the tough old
policeman with his limp, weaving round his desk to the tune of early sixties
folk pop.

    They
used Sven's car. The box with the gateau and the carrier bag with the bottles
were pushed away on the rear window shelf. The heatwave had emptied the centre
of the capital, anyone who could, got away, longing for parks, beaches, open
water, a breeze. The hot dark tarmac was unresponsive, everything bounced off
it, even breath.

    They
were heading for the E18 route north-westwards out of town. Sven drove fast,
past two lights on amber, then two on red, and the few cars waiting for green
hooted angrily every time he ignored the signals. A national alert was on, two
dozen constables from the City Police were at their beck and call, but still
they hadn't learned one single new thing.

    'He
licks their feet, you know.'

    Ewert,
staring straight ahead, had broken the silence in the car. Sven shivered,
almost slipping out of the overtaking lane and into a bus.

    'Never
seen anything like it. I've seen raped children, murdered children, even
children tortured with sharp metal objects, but this… never. Lying there on the
concrete floor, looking as if they'd been thrown there, covered in muck and
blood, but with perfectly clean feet. The medic confirmed that their feet were
coated in saliva, lots of it. He had been licking them for minutes on end,
probably before and after killing them.'

    Sven
drove faster. The bottle bag slipped about on its shelf, rattling insistently.

    'The
shoes too. Their clothes were in neat piles, a few centimetres apart, shoes
last. A pair of pink leather shoes and a pair of white trainers. The clothes
were as dirty as the girls. Gravel, dust, blood. Not the shoes. They shone.
Plenty of saliva, more than their feet. He must have been at it for even longer
with the shoes.'

    The
summer lull affected even the traffic on the E18. Sven stayed in the fast lane,
overtaking all other cars at speed. He could not bear talking, didn't want to
ask questions about Lund, didn't want to learn more about him. Not just now. He
almost missed the junction with the much smaller road to Aspsås, stamped on the
brakes and wrenched the car across three lanes.

    Lennart
Oscarsson was waiting in the parking lot, ready to greet them. He looked
haunted and nervous. He knew what Grens thought about his decision to leave two
guards with the responsibility of transporting Lund across the city at night.