The Beast (48 page)

    Dickybird
stared. At the text. At the pictures. And then at the photo in the frame and
the magnified one on the wall.

    As if
it were she. His little daughter, on the front pages of the papers.

    He
was still standing.

    He
screamed.

    Writing
a novel sometimes struck us as a very strange thing to do. You rule the world
by tapping on your keyboard, sending out instructions about how it should look.
We used our power to create prisons and woodland and roads that no one will
ever see. We have moved nursery school locations and described nonexistent
rooms in some of the official buildings in Stockholm.

    We
have also written about things which we wished were pure invention, exaggerations,
in order to sell our book on its dramatic plot.

    Not
so.

    Destructive
people who spit on their own humanity and end by exterminating themselves exist
in real life. Men like Bernt Lund, with his sadistic obsessions and inability
to engage emotionally with others, walk the streets. So do men like Dickybird,
abused as a child until he wants to cut down anyone who reminds him of it. The
two Steffanssons, Fredrik and Agnes, are the kind who can lose everything and
still search for a way to survive. There are quite a few Lennart Oscarssons,
who despise the paedophiles they are meant care for. Hilding Oldéus, who has
packed away emotion and keeps the lid on with drugs, who is always afraid and
who turns himself into an arselicker for protection by someone less fearful; he
exists in reality. Flasher-Göran, condemned for life because his one mistake is
never forgotten, and Bengt Söderlund, out to defend his precious property and
his precious children by taking the law into his own hands if necessary; they
exist too.

    All
these characters, absurd as they may seem, walk among us.

    Our
thanks to the many who helped us. Thanks to Rolle, for sharing your thoughts
about being inside. To our publisher Sofia Brattselius Thunfors, for being both
generous and demanding, for keeping our feet on the ground without stopping
occasional flights of fancy. To Fia, reader of our virgin manuscript, for
forcing us to rewrite, and to Ewa, who opened her door to us when we needed it.
To Dick, for giving us the courage to try. And to those of you who have read it
all and put up with us from beginning to end.

    Anders
Roslund and Börge Hellström

    
STOCKHOLM, MARCH 2004