The Beast (15 page)

    'The
queen is high.'

    'Nope.'

    'No?
What the fuck?'

    He
put his last card down. King of clubs.

    'There.'

    Dragan
started waving his hands about.

    'What
the fuck! The king went before.'

    'Too
bad. Here goes another one.'

    'You
can't have two fucking kings of clubs.'

    'Can't
I? Seems I can.'

    Dickybird
pushed Dragan's hands away.

    'That's
my lot now. Goes to the top card. You owe me, girls.'

    He
laughed out loud and banged on the table. The screws in the guards' box, three
guys who passed most of their working time chatting, turned round to place the
source of the noise. They watched as Dickybird threw a pile of matches high in
the air and tried to catch them in his mouth. They shrugged, turned away.

    Hilding
walked along the corridor from the toilet. He moved slowly, but seemed more
alert than before. He was holding a sheet of paper.

    'Hi
there, Wildboy, listen to this, who do you think scooped the whole fucking pot?
Who's sitting here with thousands of smackers owing to him, eh?'

    Hilding
wasn't listening; instead he showed Dickybird the paper.

    'Look
at this, you should read it, Dickybird. It's a letter. Milan got it today. He
showed it to me in the crapper. Thought I'd better tell you. It's from Branco.'

    Dickybird
collected the matches, put them into a matchbox.

    'Oh fuck
off, sweetie. I can't be arsed reading letters that aren't to me.'

    'I
think you should. And Branco thinks you should.'

    Dickybird
stared at the sheet of paper in his hand, turned it over, tried to give it
back.

    'Forget
it.'

    'OK,
just read the last bit. From there.'

    Hilding
pointed and Dickybird looked.

    'Errr…
I…' He cleared his throat. '"I hold… hope…" My eyes aren't right
today, they're aching something awful. Hilding, you read this shit.'

    He
carried on rubbing energetically while Hilding read the last few lines.

    'It
says, "I hope there are no misunderstandings about where Jochum Lang fits
in. He is my friend. Here is a piece of good advice for you. You treat him
nicely. Signed Branco Miodrag." And I recognise the handwriting.'

    Dickybird
had been listening in silence, standing very still. Now he held out his hand,
took the letter and made his eyes follow the ink pattern of the signature. A
Serb or some other fucking wog. He threw the letter on the floor, then the
matchbox, and stamped on the lot. He looked up and towards the cell doors in
the corridor, then met the eyes of the men around him. Hilding slowly shook his
head. Skåne did the same, and so did Dragan and Bekir. Dickybird was bending to
pick up the paper with the black imprint of the sole of his shoe when he heard
a cell door open at the far end of the corridor.

    It
was like the guy had been hanging around inside, just waiting for the right
moment. Jochum walked towards the still half-kneeling Dickybird.

    'Fuck's
sake, Jochum, no need for any papers. You don't need to show me nothing. We
thought we'd just fool around a bit.'

    Jochum
kept walking past him, not looking his way, but just as he passed he whispered
something, and it sounded like a shout in the silence.

    'You
had a letter then,
tjavon?
'

    The
nursery school was called The Dove. It had always been called The Dove, but the
reason why was unclear. There were no living birds anywhere near. Was it Dove
as in Love or as in Peace? No one knew, not even a redoubtable lady from the
local council who had been around for ever, or at least ever since The Dove had
opened, the first modern day- nursery school in town.

    It
was four o'clock in the afternoon, normally the time for outdoor play, but the
school had shut itself off from the onslaught of the heat and the children were
allowed to stay inside. It had become obvious a while ago that their small
bodies couldn't cope in the open playground. With thirty degrees in the shade,
it must have been fifteen more in the full sun.

    Most
of the twenty-six children didn't want to go outside, but Marie did. She was
bored with playing Indians and having her face painted, because none of the
others were any good at painting; they did lines and picked colours like brown
or blue. She thought red rings were great, but nobody else liked them, they
just didn't want to do rings at all. She almost kicked David when he said no,
he didn't want to, but then she remembered he was her best friend and you
weren't meant to kick your best friend, not for little things anyway. So she
changed into her outdoor shoes and went outside to play because the pedal-car
was free. It was bright yellow.

    She
drove for quite a long time, twice round the house, and three times round the
play-shed, and up and down the long path, and then she tried it inside the
sandpit but the silly car wouldn't do it, so she kicked it like she'd wanted to
kick David and said nasty things to it. But it didn't move. And then a dad
came, the one who'd been waiting on the bench all day. Her daddy had nodded to
him, like saying hello. The dad seemed nice. He asked if it was OK to lift the
car, and she said yes please and then he did. She said thank you and he smiled,
but then he looked sad and said did she want to look, there was a tiny dead
baby rabbit next to the seat and it was such a shame.

    Officer
in charge of the interrogation Sven Sundkvist (SS):

    Hello
there.

    David
Rundgren (DR): Hello,

    SS:
My name is Sven. What's yours? DR: I… (inaudible)

    SS:
Did you say David?

    DR:
Yes.

    SS: That's
a nice name. I've got a son who's almost your age. Two years older. His name is
Jonas.

    DR: I
know someone called that too.

    SS:
Do you like him?

    DR:
He's one of my friends,

    SS:
Do you have lots of friends?

    DR:
Yes. Quite a lot.

    SS:
That's very good. Brilliant. Is one of your friends called Marie?

    DR:
Yes.

    SS:
Did you know that I wanted to talk to you about Marie especially?

    DD:
Yes I did. We're to talk about Marie.

    SS:
Brilliant. Do you know what I want to do first? I'd like you to tell me how
school went today.

    
DD: OK.

    SS:
Nothing unusual happened?

    DD:
What?

    SS:
Was everything like it always is?

    DD:
Yes. Like always.

    SS:
Everybody played with different things?

    DD:
Yes. Mostly we all played Indians,

    SS:
Everybody played Indians?

    DD:
Yes. Everybody. I had blue lines,

    SS:
Did you? Blue lines… and everybody played, all the time?

    DD:
Well, almost. Almost all the time.

    SS:
Marie too? Did she play all the time?

    DD:
Yes, at first. But not later on.

    SS:
Not later on? Please tell me why she didn't play any more.

    DD:
She didn't like (inaudible) lines. I did. Then she went outside. She was cross
because she wanted rings. Nobody else wanted rings 'cause everybody liked lines
better. Lines like my (inaudible). And then I said to her that you must have
lines too and she said no, I want rings, but nobody wanted to paint rings. And
then she went outside. Nobody else wanted to go outside. It was too hot. We
were allowed to stay in and we did. And we played Indians,

    SS:
Did you see when Marie went outside?

    DD:
No.

    SS:
Not at all?

    DD:
She just went. She was cross, I think,

    SS:
Did you see Marie later?

    DD:
Yes. Through the window.

    SS: What
did you see through the window?

    DD:
Marie and the pedal-car. She's almost never had it. And she got stuck.

    SS:
How do you mean, stuck?

    DD:
Stuck in the sandpit.

    SS:
She was in the pedal-car and it was stuck in the sandpit.

    So
what did Marie do next?

    DD:
She kicked it. The car.

    SS:
She kicked the car. Did she do anything else?

    DD:
And she said something,

    SS:
What did she say?

    DD: I
didn't hear.

    SS:
And what happened afterwards, after she had kicked the car and said something?

    DD:
The man came,

    SS:
What man?

    DD:
The man who came.

    SS:
Where were you?

    DD:
Inside. Looking out through the window.

    SS:
Was it far… were they far away?

    DD:
Ten.

    SS:
Ten what?

    DD:
Ten metres.

    SS: Marie
and the man were ten metres away?

    DD:
(inaudible)

    SS:
Do you know how far away ten metres is?

    DD:
It's quite far.

    SS:
But you're not quite sure exactly how far?

    DD:
No.

    SS:
Tell you what, David. Come over here to this window.

    Look
at the car over there. OK?

    
DD: OK.

    SS:
Is that car as far away as Marie and the man?

    DD:
Yes.

    SS:
Really truly?

    DD:
Yes, that's how far it was.

    SS:
And when the man had come along, what happened?

    DD:
He helped Marie lift the pedal-car. He was quite strong.

    SS:
Did anybody else see the man lifting the car?

    DD:
No. It was only me there. In the hall.

    SS:
No teacher?

    DD:
No. Only me.

    SS:
What did the man do afterwards?

    DD:
He said things to Marie.

    SS:
What did Marie do?

    DD:
She said things to him. They talked.

    SS:
What clothes did Marie have on?