The Beast

Later that afternoon the door was unlocked. He had waited for six hours by then. Two bulky prison officers, truncheons at their belts, marched in with heavy steps. New prisoners were the order of the day for them and they were all set to show who was in charge round here. Respect was due, and proper conduct. One of them, he wore spectacles with blue frames, leafed through a document he had brought.

'Steffansson, that's you, right?'

'Yes.'

'Right. You'll come with us now. We'll take you to your unit.'

Fredrik staying where he was.

'Listen, I've been sitting here for a long time. Getting on for seven hours now.'

'And?'

'Well, why?'

'No whys about it.'

'Are you trying to get a message to me?'

'What?'

'Is there some reason for making me wait?'

'No reason, pal. You wait till you're told to go. That's all.'

Fredrik sighed and got up.

'Where am I going?'

'I said. To your unit.'

'What kind of unit is it?'

'Normal.'

'Sure. But what kind of people are kept there?'

The officers stared at him, trying to stay calm. Then blue specs looked around the bare cell.

'You're a one for asking questions.'

'I want to know.'

'What can I tell you? It's a normal unit. The lads are doing time for every kind of offending. Except sex. That kind we house separately, in specialist units.' He shrugged. 'You'll have to accept this, Steffansson. The unit is your home now. And the lads are company.'

They walked Fredrik along a smelly basement corridor, slowly enough to let him take in the colourful daubs on the walls, presumably meant to be prisoner therapy, but otherwise meaningless images. He counted the steps and calculated that the corridor was at least four hundred metres long.

Every time they passed through doors the routine was the same: a glance towards the camera, a clicking sound as the guard flicked the switch in his cubicle and a nod to the camera, a kind of thanks.

Now and then they met other prisoners being escorted somewhere. They nodded to him and he nodded back.

In the last section of the corridor they turned into a stairway with a sign saying Unit H. His unit, he assumed. Inside the smell of food was the first thing he noticed. Frying something, fish maybe.

'They've just finished supper,' one of the officers said. 'You'll get yours later.'

Another ugly, bleak corridor. Off it he could see a TV room, where a group of prisoners were sitting about, some on chairs and sofas, others playing cards at a table. Ahead, the corridor narrowed and there were cell doors along both its sides. Most of the doors were open. At the far end was another room with a table-tennis table.

'You're in cell fourteen, that's over there, almost at the end.'

The card-players looked up when he walked past. One of them, who had dark hair and wore a gold chain round his neck, had been speaking loudly. Now he fell silent and fixed his eyes on Fredrik. The others consisted of one big one, with muscles like a body-builder and long hair tied at the back of his neck; opposite him a foreigner of some kind, short and dark-skinned and moustachioed, maybe a Turk or a Greek; and the fourth man was one of those emaciated types who had junkie written all over them.

His cell door was open. Apart from being slightly larger, it looked exactly like the one he had left in the remand prison. Same bare furnishings, same barred window, same gloomy colours, dirty pale green and diluted piss yellow. The bed wasn't made. At one end a rolled-up blanket, one sheet and a pillow without a pillowcase.

He reacted as he had this morning, slapped his hand against the wall and started to laugh. The pain went away for a moment.

The officer fingered his blue specs.

'You're laughing. What's up?'

'Nothing's up. Is laughing forbidden?'

'I thought you were having a breakdown or whatever.'

Fredrik started making the bed. He wanted to close the door, lie down, rest, stare at the ceiling.

'Hey. You were right before, you know.'

Fredrik looked at the officer.

'You were kept waiting in reception for quite a long time. Now, do you want to shower? I'll get you a towel if you do.'

'Why not? OK, yes.'

'Hang on then. I'll be back.'

Fredrik held out a hand.

'Wait. Is it safe?'

'Safe?'

'I mean, safe to shower. Or will somebody have a go? You know.'

The officer grinned.

'Take it easy, Steffansson. No fear. No poofs or pervs in straight Swedish prisons. Nobody will try to fuck you in the shower.'

Fredrik stopped making the bed, sat down on it to wait, counting the lines in a long row that someone had drawn with red biro on the skirting board. He had got as far as one hundred and sixteen when the officer came back with a towel and a pair of plastic flip-flops.

Outside his cell two men shook hands with him and said they lived next door. From the card table voices were raised in an argument. The junkie was nagging about how there was one king too many in the deck and the man with the gold chain told him to shut it. Then he noticed Fredrik standing there and stared at him; his eyes were looking mad. He hated, and Fredrik could not work out why he should.

Then he was alone in a large tiled room with four showers. He closed the door to shut out all sounds and turned on the water, which would help him to absent himself for a while.

Dickybird checked out the new one. He remembered what the screws had been saying, how excited they had been. When the perv came out with his towel, he suddenly put his hand down in mid-game.

'Got to go to the john. Fucking nuisance. Hey, Skane!'

'What's that?'

'You play, but don't miss a trick.'

He gave Skane his cards and went off towards the toilets. A quick glance to make sure the players were staying put, the coast was clear, then he went on to the shower-room. He stayed there for a minute maybe, not much longer.

It had sounded like a blow against the door. At least that was how the first prison officer on the scene described it afterwards. As if someone had struck the closed door to be heard, to be let out. When he saw Fredrik come out, or rather fall out, the first thing he noticed was that the prisoner was holding his hand pressed against his lower stomach area. That was where the knife had cut most deeply, where the heaviest flow of blood was coming from. The officer rang the alarm and ran towards the injured man, who was lying on the floor trying to say something, with blood being expelled rhythmically from his mouth. When words would not form, he had looked towards Dickybird Lindgren with fear in his eyes. That was how the officer described it; he called the look in the dying man's eyes fearful, or frightened. Two colleagues had turned up on the run and together they had stopped the bleeding. Then someone felt for his pulse.

They pulled him up from the floor, all agreeing that they were lifting a dead body.

The cards were in untidy piles on the table. The game ended immediately when the new prisoner fell to the