'Smells good.'
'Fucking well does.'
Hilding made himself tall, stood on tiptoes and pushed on one of the ceiling tiles, the one nearest the lamp. It gave easily and he pulled out a corn-pipe. He handed it to Dickybird, who scraped the bowl, packed it, lit the mix and dragged to heat it through. Then he had another drag before handing the pipe to Hilding, who put it in his mouth in a hurry.
Every round they had two drags each, handing the pipe over in silence. The only sounds came from a couple of dripping taps. One of the lamps kept blinking. Drip blink drip blink drip blink. It was great stuff, better than last time.
'Fuck it, Wildboy Hilding. Fuck it.'
Dickybird inhaled a couple more times, then held out the pipe and giggled.
'D'you know, Wildboy? We're in this fucking shower- room and smoking great pot and don't think about this place. Like that it's the best place for doing the nonces.'
Dickybird kept giggling. Baffled, Hilding looked at him.
'What are you on about?'
'We didn't ever check it out.'
'The fucking shower-room, is that what you're on about? So what? Fuck's sake, we've whipped any number of nonces and rapists and faggots in here. They say that in the States the cons set on each other in the shit-houses, right there between the crappers. What's so special?'
Dickybird couldn't stop giggling. That was what usually happened once he got started on good pot, he felt kind of childish and then as randy as hell, though in the end the images would come back and start scaring him; he'd be back with all that shit about Per and his cock and getting hold of that ice-pick and Per's screaming and his bleeding balls.
He drew deeply on the pipe, holding on to it to tease Hilding, patting the lad's head with his other hand.
'Wildboy, you don't get it, do you? Poor sap. You see, this ain't about whipping, it's about something else.'
Hilding reached out for the pipe, but Dickybird held on to it stubbornly.
'Listen. Next time we get one of these beasts on the unit we'll lie in wait for the bastard, hang on until he's in the shower. When he's in there, water going all over him, then you start a racket outside in the yard, so all the duty screws go pounding off to deal with it.'
Hilding wasn't in the mood for this stuff. He tried to get at the pipe again.
'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.