Fredrik decided to pee in the basin, rather than asking the guard out there to take him to the toilet. He'd just have to deal with their questions about his sentence.
Ten years.
He couldn't get his mind round it. Kristina had visited him yesterday afternoon, wanting to go through the sentence, explain the motivations and persuade him that they should appeal again, take his case to the Supreme Court. She wanted to test the limits of the plea of 'reasonable force' and set up a precedent. He had refused, said he simply wasn't interested. He had had enough. Chewing over past events was meaningless to him. Prison, no prison, what the hell, it didn't bother him.
Ten years from now he'd be almost fifty.
He washed his hands and went to stand in the middle of his cell.
His little girl had been fouled, torn to pieces by a sadistic killer, who would have done what he wanted with other little girls if Fredrik hadn't killed him. The consequence for him was ten years of solitude, isolated from the world. He had to laugh.
He kicked the bed, laughing until his chest hurt.
The prison officer, still the man who had made Fredrik his favourite, pulled back the flap in the door.
'Hey! What's going on here?'
'Why worry?'
'You're making a fucking din.'
'Is laughing forbidden?'
'Laugh away. I just don't want you to do something stupid.'
'Leave me alone. I won't do anything I shouldn't.'
'It's that sentence of yours. Hearing they've got a long stretch can make people do all sorts. Wrong things.'
'I'm fine, honestly. Just laughing.'
'Good. Anyway, I'll be back soon. Time to pack.'
'How do you mean, pack?'
'Your placement has come through.'
He sat down on the edge of the bed and looked around. Ceiling, walls, floor, all grimy and familiar. Now he had to leave.
Pack what? His soap, toothbrush and toothpaste went into a plastic bag. There, done.
The officer knocked and opened the door. He was young, about twenty-five, with hair like a shaving brush and a ring in one nostril. He was a musician, or, at least, a wannabe. He spoke about this quite a lot, to show that guards weren't just official bodies, but real human beings with dreams of their own. He was just hanging on in here, he'd explain, while he and his mates in the group were plotting to get a recording contract. He'd keep waiting, at least until he was thirty. Then he'd be too old.
Now he put his hand on Fredrik's shoulder.
'Listen. I'm sorry. You know what I think.'
'Yes, yes. But I'm not really that interested.'
'It's a crazy world, but locking you up is the worst.'
'Never mind.' 'We all agree, you know. And I mean all. Officer or prisoner, it makes no difference. I don't think we've agreed on anything before.'
'Look, I've packed,' Fredrik said and held out the plastic bag.
'True, it can't be much comfort to you that we're all rooting for you.'
'I'm ready to leave.'
'You should've been freed.'
'Let's go.'
'You'll see, there are quite a few people out and about. Lining the roads to where you're going.'
'I don't know where that is.'
'There's enough of us who do, don't you fear. Word gets about. There'll be protests, loud and clear.'
'You know, all this is no comfort. You were right about that.'
Then he was handed back his own clothes and left alone again. He changed into what he would wear for a couple of hours at most. Then his things would be locked into a cupboard for ten years and he would be given the other kind of gear, the prison suit that hung loosely on him.
The door opened; no one knocked this time. Two uniformed police, two prison officers, and behind them Grens and Sundkvist.
'What's this? Why?'
Grens looked blank, pretending not to understand.
'Why the crowd?'
Sven, who wasn't into pretending, told him.
'We can't take any risks. We're escorting you to Aspsas prison. There might be some trouble on the way.'
'Aspsas?' Fredrik was startled. 'Isn't that where… he was there, wasn't he?'
'Yes, but you'll go to another unit, a normal one. Lund was kept in a special unit for sex offenders.'
Fredrik took a step towards Sven and the two policemen moved forward, grabbing his arms. Fredrik backed into the cell, shaking his arms until they let go.
'You mentioned risks? Do you think I'm going to try to escape?'
'Your transport will have a police escort. That's all I can tell you at present.'
It was still early in the morning. It was raining, the drops tapping insistently on the loose piece of guttering. That sound had accompanied his thoughts for several days now.
He might even miss it.
It rained so hard that Fredrik got practically soaked walking the short distance to the prison transfer van that was waiting with its engine running outside the Kronoberg gate. He took longer to get there because his leg-irons cut him when he tried to lengthen his stride.
He was considered unlikely to repeat his crime or to try to escape, but nonetheless his transfer had been classified as a maximum security operation. Two police cars with rotating blue lamps drove ahead of the prison van and behind were two uniformed officers on motorbikes. The violent demonstration outside Kronoberg had taken place only a few weeks ago and was remembered vividly and fearfully. Police guns in the wrong hands, demonstrators being run over, overturned buses, humiliated police. It was too much, no more of that.
Fredrik sat in the back seat, flanked by Sundkvist and Grens. He had begun to feel close to these two men, who knew so much about him. They had turned up at The Dove and interrogated people there, stood by Marie's body in the forensic mortuary and attended her funeral, decently dressed in black. They had collected him for his retrial, played Siw for an hour and delivered him back to remand prison. And now again on this journey, the last one. Afterwards they'd be finished with him.
He ought to make contact with them. Say something, anything.
But it was too hard.
There was no need.
But they might have felt something similar, because Sundkvist, always the more forthcoming, started speaking.
'I'm forty years old. My birthday was on the day your daughter was murdered. I had wine and a cake in the car, but I still haven't celebrated.'
This baffled Fredrik. Was this man pulling his leg? Did he want to be pitied? He couldn't think of anything to say.
But Sundkvist didn't seem interested in starting a dialogue.
'I've been in the force for twenty years, that is, for my entire adult life. It's a weird job, but it's all I know. All I'm trained to do.'
They had a fifty-kilometre drive ahead, maybe thirty-five or forty minutes of sitting side by side, but Fredrik had had enough. No more talk. He wanted to close his eyes and start counting the hours. Ten years to go.
