The Beast (3 page)

    The
first thing she notices is that the padlock has been forced. And the padlocks
on either side as well, on both 32 and 34. She'd better find out who owns them;
after seven years in the house she wouldn't even recognise her neighbours. But
now they've got forced padlocks in common. Now they can talk to each other.

    The
next thing she notices is the bike. Or rather, that the bike isn't there.
Jonathan's expensive five-geared black mountain bike. And to think that she was
going to sell it; it should have been worth at least 500 kronor. Now she's got
to phone him, he's with his father, but better tell him now so he'll have time
to calm down before he comes to stay with her.

    Afterwards
she cannot explain why she didn't see them. Why she was worrying about the
owners of pens 32 and 34, about Jonathan's bike. As if she did not want to see,
was unable to see. When the police asked what she had noticed first on entering
the pen, wanting her crucial first impressions, she started laughing
hysterically. She laughed for a while, started to cough and then explained,
with tears flowing down her cheeks. Her first reaction had been that Jonathan
would be upset, because his black mountain bike was gone and he wouldn't be
able to spend the money he'd get from-selling it on the PlayStation game he
wanted. It cost at least 500 kronor.

    Of
course, she had never seen death before, never come across anyone so still,
looking at her without breathing.

    That's
what they did. They looked at her. They were lying on the cement floor with
their heads propped up on upturned flowerpots, like rigid pillows. Two little
girls, younger than Jonathan, no more than ten years old. One blonde, one dark.
There was blood all over them, on their faces, chests, thighs, between their
legs. Dried blood everywhere, except their feet; their feet were so clean,
almost as if they had been washed.

    She
had never seen them before. Well, maybe. They lived nearby, after all. Sure,
she might have seen them. In the shop, maybe, or in the park. Always so many
children in the park.

    They'd
been on the floor in her storage pen for three days and two nights, that's what
the police doctor said. Semen had been sprayed all over them, in vagina and
anus, on chest and hair. Vagina and anus had received what the doctor called sharp
trauma. A pointed object, probably made of metal, had been repeatedly forced
inside, causing severe internal haemorrhaging.

    They
might have been in the same school as Jonathan. Crowds of girls there, all
looking alike, girls do, alike as a thousand sisters.

    They
were naked. Their clothes had been arranged in front of them, just inside the
door of the pen. One piece of clothing after another, lined up like exhibits.
Jackets folded, trousers rolled up, T-shirts, panties, tights, shoes, a hair-
ribbon, everything was very neatly and precisely placed with about two
centimetres between each item. Just about exactly two centimetres apart.

    The
girls had been looking at her. But they had not been breathing.

    Putting
on a mask always made him feel very silly. A grown man hiding behind a kid's
mask ought to feel silly. But he had watched other men doing it, playing at
being Winnie the Pooh or Uncle Scrooge McDuck with some kind of dignity, as if
the mask didn't bother them. I'll never get the hang of this, he thought, never
get used to it. Won't ever turn into the kind of father I wanted for myself
once, the kind I was determined to be one day.

    He
kept touching the thin, garishly coloured plastic membrane that covered his
face. It was held on by a rubber band that fitted tightly round the back of his
head and had become tangled in his hair. It was hard to breathe, each breath
smelled of saliva and sweat.

    'You must
run, Daddy! You're not running! You're standing still! Big Bad Wolf's always
running!'

    She
had stopped in front of him, looking at him with her head tilted back, bits of
grass and earth scattered in her long blonde curls. She was trying to look cross,
but angry children don't smile and she did; she was smiling with the beaming
face of a child who has been chased by the Big Bad Wolf, round and round a
house in the small town. Chased until her dad couldn't stand it any more,
wanted very much to be somebody else, someone who didn't wear a mask with a
wolf's plastic tongue and teeth.

    'Marie,
I can't hack it any more. Big Bad Wolf has to sit down and rest for a bit. The
Big Bad Wolf wants to become small and kind.'

    She
shook her head.

    'One
more time, Daddy! Just one more.'

    'That's
what you said last time.'

    'This
is the last time.'

    You've
said that before too.'

    'It's
the last time. For sure.'

    'Sure,
sure?'

    'Sure.'

    I
love her, he thought. She's my daughter. It didn't happen immediately, I didn't
understand at first, but now I do. I love her.

    Suddenly
he caught sight of the moving shadow. Just behind him. It was slow, crept
along. He'd thought the other one was somewhere ahead of him, over by the
trees, instead of right behind him, but there he was, moving stealthily at
first, then speeding up, just at the moment when the girl with the mucky hair
attacked from in front. They pushed him at the same time from opposite
directions. He staggered, fell and hit the ground. Now they could both jump on
top of him. They stayed as they were, then the girl with mucky hair raised her
hand, palm outwards, and the dark- haired boy, the same age as her, raised his
hand. Their palms slapped together. High five!

    'David,
look! He's given in!'

    'We
won!'

    'The
Pigs are the best!'

    'The
Pigs are always the best!'

    Attacked
by two five-year-olds from opposite directions, the Big Bad Wolf hadn't got a hope.
As always. He knew what he must do, and rolled over, the two creatures on top
of him following the roll. Lying on his back, he raised his hands to the
plastic mask and pulled it off his face, blinking in the strong sunlight. He
laughed out loud.

    'Isn't
it funny? I lose every time. Never win. Have I ever won, just once? Can anyone
explain what's going on?'

    Waste
of breath. The two creatures didn't listen. They had won the prize, the plastic
mask. They would try it on first, then celebrate by wearing it for a
run-around. Afterwards they would go inside, upstairs to Marie's room on the
first floor, to add the mask to their other trophies. They would stand in front
of the pile for a moment, a Ducksburg monument to the glory of two
five-year-old friends.

    As
the children wandered away, his eyes followed them. He looked at the boy from
next door, then at his daughter. So much life inside them, so many years held
in their hands, with months slipping between their fingers. I envy them, he
thought. I envy their endless time, their sense that an hour is long, that
winter will last for ever.

    They
disappeared through the door and he turned his face towards the sky. Lying on
his back, he searched for different shades of blue, something he had done when
he was little and now did again. Any kind of sky held different blues. He'd had
a good time back then, when he was just a small boy. His father was a career
army officer, a captain, and that meant something. You were in a regiment. Your
future promotion was embroidered on the shoulders of your uniform, or so you
hoped, at least. His mother was a housewife, at home when he and his brother
left for school, and still there when they returned. He'd never understood what
she found to do, alone in four rooms on the third floor of a block of flats.
How did she endure the sameness of her days?

    On
his twelfth birthday everything changed. Or, to be exact, on the day after. It
seemed that Frans had waited until his birthday celebrations were over, as if
he had not wanted to ruin them. As if he knew that for his little brother a
birthday was something more than when you were born; it was all your longing
concentrated into one day.

    Fredrik
Steffansson got up and brushed the grass from his shirt and shorts. He often
thought about Frans, remembered missing him, more now than he'd used to. From
the day after his birthday his brother simply wasn't there. His empty bed
stayed made for ever. Their talking together silenced. It was so sudden. In the
morning Frans had hugged him for a long time, longer than any time Fredrik
could recall. Frans had hugged him, said goodbye and walked off to Strängnäs
station in time for the fast train to Stockholm. Next, no more than an hour
later, in the metro station, he had bought another single ticket and caught a
green line train going south, towards Farsta. At Medborgar Square, he got off,
then jumped from the platform on to the track and started walking slowly
between the rails into the tunnel towards Skanstull. Six minutes later a train
driver caught sight of a human shape in the light of the bright headlamps and
threw himself at the brakes, screaming in anguish and terror as the front
carriage hit a fifteen-year-old body.

    Ever
since, they had left Frans's bed untouched, the bedspread pulled tight, the
folded red blanket at the foot- end. He never understood why. Still didn't.
Maybe to look welcoming if Frans returned. For years he had kept hoping that
one day his brother would simply be there, that it had all been a mistake.
After all, such mistakes are not unheard of. They can happen.

    It
was as if the whole family had died that day, on the track in a tunnel between
Medborgar Square and Skanstull. His mother no longer spent her days waiting
around in the flat. She never told anyone where she went but, regardless of
season, she was always back at dusk. His father collapsed in every way. The
straight-backed captain looked crumpled and bent, and while he'd been taciturn
before, he now became practically mute. He stopped chastising his son. At
least, after Frans had died, Fredrik couldn't remember ever being beaten again.

    They
were back, standing in the doorway. Marie and David. One as tall as the other, five-year-olds'
height; he'd forgotten how many centimetres, it had said on the note from the
nursery that stated Marie's height and weight, but both kids were presumably as
tall as they ought to be; he didn't much care for notes with statistics.
Marie's long blonde curls were still full of grass and stuff, and David's short
dark hair was sticking to his forehead and temples, which meant that he'd put
the mask on while they were inside. Fredrik observed them knowingly and
laughed.

    'Look
at you, so neat and tidy. Not. Just like me. We all need a bath. Do pigs take
baths?'

    He
didn't wait for a reply. Putting one hand on each of their thin bony shoulders,
he pushed them gently back into the house, through the hall, past Marie's room,
past his bedroom, and into the big bathroom. He filled the old bathtub with
water, a high-sided old tub on feet and with two seats inside. He'd found it at
an auction of stuff from some grand house. Every night he would sit in the
bath, allowing the sauna-like conditions to relax him and thinking, doing
nothing for half an hour or so, except planning what he'd write the following
day. The next chapter, the next word.

    Now
he worried about getting the water right for them. Not too hot, not too cold.
He squeezed foam from a green Mr Men bottle. It looked soft and inviting. To
his surprise they stepped into the bath without any fuss and settled side by
side on one seat. He undressed quickly and sat on the seat opposite them.