The Beast (11 page)

    'Fuck
it, Dickybird, it's my turn.'

    Dickybird
had another fit of the giggles, threw the pipe in the air, caught it and handed
it to Hilding, who dragged deeply, twice.

    'I
told you to listen. So, the nonce is in the shower. I go in first, or Skåne,
anyway, someone kicks the freak in the balls to get him down and we start
giving it to him. Then we cut his throat. And then we butcher the stiff, carve
him into small, small pieces. Break any fucking leftover bits of bone and
unscrew the crapper and push all the bits down the pipe. And then we fix the
seat on again and pull the chain. Flush the bits down. Use the shower to wash
the blood away!'

    By
now Hilding had forgotten about smoking, though he still held on to the pipe.
He looked uneasy. His face was usually empty, uncertain, almost mask-like, but
now it expressed something that was disgust mixed with pleasure. He sensed
Dickybird's hate, it was like a drug trip and it was exciting to hate along
with him. It was just that somehow Dickybird had slipped too close to the edge.
Hilding remembered when the last perv had got his comeuppance in the gym,
fucking dead meat, he'd been beaten over and over with bells and discs until he
stopped twitching.

    'Fuck
it, Dickybird, you're kidding.'

    Dickybird
grabbed the pipe, drew happily.

    'No
kidding. Why the fuck should I? I'd like to try it. Test it on the first beast
who turns up. I want to have a go, feel what it's like to jab with the ice-pick
and get it in and twist it.'

    Lennart
Oscarsson was in a hurry. He had spent far too long behind the shed by the
water-tower. It had been hard to leave, Nils hadn't wanted to let go of him and
he had not wanted to leave his lover either. He swept past the guard, bloody
Bergh again, didn't they have anyone else?

    Lennart
was on his way to A Unit, which housed twenty sex offenders, all sentenced for
gross acts of violation, men who couldn't be placed with normal prisoners. This
was the type of inmate that is always found on the lowest rung of the prison
hierarchy, the type that breeds hatred, lust to inflict pain. If I torment one
of them, I don't have to torment myself.

    Bergh
waved. Then he did a thumbs-up, possibly an attempt at irony. Or maybe he was
too much of an idiot to work out that for a few minutes of that news programme,
Lennart had been stripped naked on camera. He couldn't be bothered to do or say
anything in response.

    Hurrying
along the first corridor, he decided to turn right, walk upstairs to H Unit. By
taking a short cut through H he'd gain quite a bit of distance and a few extra
minutes. He took two steps at a time, thinking about Karin and the lie he'd
have ready for her at breakfast tomorrow, and about Nils, who had begged him to
break free from his marriage, Nils, who did that every time they made love,
saying that he would become Lennart's new family, and then about Åke Andersson
and Ulrik Berntfors, two men he had worked with for many years and who, for
some reason, must have opened the rear door of the van and allowed out one of
the most dangerous people in the country, Bernt Lund, now at liberty to go
where he liked, full of obscure desires, looking for little girls. Then facing
the media came back into his mind, the press conference he had spent several
years preparing himself for, but which had turned into a rape.

    Not,
of course, that anyone had touched him, but the humiliation inflicted by the
camera and the mike just felt so bad. had turned up believing that he was to be
a participant, not stripped and shown off. It took a while before it dawned on
him that he was simply being used.

    Only
a few waking hours had passed of this day. How bloody complicated life could
be.

    Sometimes
he felt too weary to carry on. He was losing the race against time, middle age
was catching up and soon old age would. He had found no way to slow down and
reflect quietly, he seemed unable to calm down, to tell himself his task was
completed, he was done, somebody else could take over. But no, it was forever
must do this in order to get on with that, and then it was the next thing. He
wanted to close his eyes and wait for it all to stop, he wanted to do just what
he did when he was little, close his eyes and withdraw until whatever it was
had been decided and done because Mum and Dad were at home and had fixed
everything.

    He
unlocked the door to H Unit, knowing perfectly well that everyone, colleagues
and inmates alike, disapproved of what he was doing, too much bloody pointless
running about, but he felt he had to use the short cut this time. He saw a
couple of colleagues, couldn't recall their names but said hello vaguely,
nodded at some of the lads who were playing cards in the TV corner.

    He
passed the shower-room door and just outside it almost ran into Dickybird
Lindgren and his seedy little sidekick. Stoned out of their heads, both of
them. Blankly staring eyes, fluttering movements, there was even hash in the
air, wafting out from the showers.

    The
sidekick mumbled
Hi, Hitler.
Dickybird Lindgren was giggling
uncontrollably, wanted to shake, offered congratulations, fancy being on the
telly. Lennart ignored the hand held out towards him. Lindgren had beaten one
of his charges to death in the gym, no question; he was certain who had done
it, and so were his colleagues. Sadly, no one had seen or heard anything at
all, and even in prison, you get nowhere without evidence.

    He
hurried on, one more locked door, then across the yard to the next building, up
two flights. He was in his own territory, the sex offender reserve.

    They
were waiting for him, lined up in the meeting room.

    'I'm
sorry I'm late. Far too late. It's been one of those days.'

    They
all smiled, sympathetically he supposed. The television set in the lobby had
been on when he passed through, so they had presumably watched him. Five new
trainees with their pens and notebooks, due to start work tomorrow among the
paedophiles and rapists in the special units, waiting for the induction talk
seated at the standard-issue meeting-room table.

    The
first day of their new life.

    
Beast.

    This
was the word he always began with, writing it on the shiny whiteboard with a solvent-smelling
green pen.

    
B-E-A-S-T.

    Silence.
All five fiddled with their pens, trying to decide the pro and cons: do I write
that down? Is note-taking seen as a good thing? Or would I make an ass of
myself? The beginners were feeling lost and he didn't help them. He continued
with his talk, now and then turning to the board to note down a key word, or a
few figures.

    'Nonces,
beasts, are kept in two units here. They stay for two to ten years, roughly,
depending on how bad the act was. How sick they are.'

    Silence.
This time it lasted longer than usual.

    'In
this sad little country of ours there were fifty-five thousand criminal
convictions last year. I don't know how people fit it all in. Of that lot, five
hundred and forty-seven were for sexual offences. The courts handed out a
prison sentence in less than half of these cases.'

    Some
of them were happily taking notes. Figures were easier to deal with. Statistics
don't require judgement.

    'Since
we're all aware that Swedish prisons accommodate about five thousand inmates at
any one time, the current lot of two hundred and twelve sex offenders shouldn't
cause any strain on the system. It is only in the order of four per cent, if
you think about it, or one in every twenty-five. But these men do create
trouble. Each and every one is a problem, because each one is hated, and a
target for acts of aggression. That's why they're put in separate units. Here
at Aspsås, for instance. But there's a but. Now and then we don't have a free
place and then any new customers must be hidden in one of the normal units. And
if, or when, the rest of the so-called straight villains get to know that
there's a nonce around in the unit for some reason - yes, it has happened here
- then we're all in deep trouble. They'll keep beating him up until we move in
and take him away.'

    A man
in his forties, presumably retrained from some other job, put his hand up like
a schoolboy.

    'Now,
that word,
beast.
You wrote it on the board, you use it, and other words
of that kind.'

    'And?'

    'Is
it important?'

    'I
couldn't say. But we use these words here. In a day or two, you will too. We
know what it is about. Bestial acts.'

    Lennart
paused. He knew what would come next and wondered who'd start. Maybe the young
woman sitting near him, she looked the part. The younger they were, the longer
they had ahead of them, so they were the most hopeful for ways to bring about
change. They had yet to contend with time, which saps energy and strength but,
by way of compensation, builds up experience and adaptability.

    But
no, it was the re-trainee again.

    'Do
you think you've got the right to be that cynical?' He was upset. 'I don't get
it. So far, my training has reinforced what I knew already, which is that
people are individuals, and must not be objectified. It alarms me that you, my
prospective boss, should express such views.'

    Lennart
sighed. He had played his role in these performances many times before. If he
met them later on in their careers, a few years older and in a new job, they'd
joke about it and agree that it was perfectly reasonable for a beginner to have
such unfulfilled ambitions.

    'Look,
your views are your own,' he said. 'Call me cynical if you get off on that, but
first tell me just one thing: did you come here, to the sex unit at Aspsås,
because you want to work with nonces and deobjectify them, because it's your
dream to make them better people?'

    The
man, due to start in A Unit tomorrow, quietly put his hand down.

    'Did
you say something?'

    'No.'

    'So,
the reason you came here was…?'

    'I
had to.'

    Lennart
tried to hide his satisfaction. His was the leading part in this piece of
theatre and he knew how the play would end. He looked at his pupils one at a
time. Everyone had reacted somehow, sulked or tried to find new numbers to
write down or shifted uneasily in their seats.

    'All
of you, then. Who has applied to work in the sex units at Aspsås? Of your own
free will, that is. Honestly now.'

    He
knew the answer. After seventeen years he had yet to meet one single colleague
who had dreamed of a successful career among the paedophiles in A and B Units.
You were told to do time here, and you applied elsewhere immediately to get
away from here. Lennart had agreed to the head warder's post, attracted by the
hitch in salary and the hope of using his seniority to bounce into a boss
position somewhere else. He walked slowly behind his five trainees, intending
to leave the question and the possible answers for them to think about. Once
they were sure, they might accept their placement during the coming months.

    He
stopped by the window, turning his back to the meeting room. The sun was high
in the sky and it hadn't rained for a long time. Clouds of dust rose from the
exercise yard, where the inmates were walking or jogging alongside the
barbed-wire fence or playing football. In a far corner he spotted two men
strolling very slowly, with oddly jerky movements. It was Lindgren and his
henchman, obviously still too high to walk normally.