The Beast

The first day of their new life.

Beast.

This was the word he always began with, writing it on the shiny whiteboard with a solvent-smelling green pen.

B-E-A-S-T.

Silence. All five fiddled with their pens, trying to decide the pro and cons: do I write that down? Is note-taking seen as a good thing? Or would I make an ass of myself? The beginners were feeling lost and he didn't help them. He continued with his talk, now and then turning to the board to note down a key word, or a few figures.

'Nonces, beasts, are kept in two units here. They stay for two to ten years, roughly, depending on how bad the act was. How sick they are.'

Silence. This time it lasted longer than usual.

'In this sad little country of ours there were fifty-five thousand criminal convictions last year. I don't know how people fit it all in. Of that lot, five hundred and forty-seven were for sexual offences. The courts handed out a prison sentence in less than half of these cases.'

Some of them were happily taking notes. Figures were easier to deal with. Statistics don't require judgement.

'Since we're all aware that Swedish prisons accommodate about five thousand inmates at any one time, the current lot of two hundred and twelve sex offenders shouldn't cause any strain on the system. It is only in the order of four per cent, if you think about it, or one in every twenty-five. But these men do create trouble. Each and every one is a problem, because each one is hated, and a target for acts of aggression. That's why they're put in separate units. Here at Aspsås, for instance. But there's a but. Now and then we don't have a free place and then any new customers must be hidden in one of the normal units. And if, or when, the rest of the so-called straight villains get to know that there's a nonce around in the unit for some reason – yes, it has happened here – then we're all in deep trouble. They'll keep beating him up until we move in and take him away.'

A man in his forties, presumably retrained from some other job, put his hand up like a schoolboy.

'Now, that word, beast. You wrote it on the board, you use it, and other words of that kind.'

'And?'

'Is it important?'

'I couldn't say. But we use these words here. In a day or two, you will too. We know what it is about. Bestial acts.'

Lennart paused. He knew what would come next and wondered who'd start. Maybe the young woman sitting near him, she looked the part. The younger they were, the longer they had ahead of them, so they were the most hopeful for ways to bring about change. They had yet to contend with time, which saps energy and strength but, by way of compensation, builds up experience and adaptability.

But no, it was the re-trainee again.

'Do you think you've got the right to be that cynical?' He was upset. 'I don't get it. So far, my training has reinforced what I knew already, which is that people are individuals, and must not be objectified. It alarms me that you, my prospective boss, should express such views.'

Lennart sighed. He had played his role in these performances many times before. If he met them later on in their careers, a few years older and in a new job, they'd joke about it and agree that it was perfectly reasonable for a beginner to have such unfulfilled ambitions.

'Look, your views are your own,' he said. 'Call me cynical if you get off on that, but first tell me just one thing: did you come here, to the sex unit at Aspsås, because you want to work with nonces and deobjectify them, because it's your dream to make them better people?'

The man, due to start in A Unit tomorrow, quietly put his hand down.

'Did you say something?'

'No.'

'So, the reason you came here was…?'

'I had to.'

Lennart tried to hide his satisfaction. His was the leading part in this piece of theatre and he knew how the play would end. He looked at his pupils one at a time. Everyone had reacted somehow, sulked or tried to find new numbers to write down or shifted uneasily in their seats.

'All of you, then. Who has applied to work in the sex units at Aspsås? Of your own free will, that is. Honestly now.'

He knew the answer. After seventeen years he had yet to meet one single colleague who had dreamed of a successful career among the paedophiles in A and B Units. You were told to do time here, and you applied elsewhere immediately to get away from here. Lennart had agreed to the head warder's post, attracted by the hitch in salary and the hope of using his seniority to bounce into a boss position somewhere else. He walked slowly behind his five trainees, intending to leave the question and the possible answers for them to think about. Once they were sure, they might accept their placement during the coming months.

He stopped by the window, turning his back to the meeting room. The sun was high in the sky and it hadn't rained for a long time. Clouds of dust rose from the exercise yard, where the inmates were walking or jogging alongside the barbed-wire fence or playing football. In a far corner he spotted two men strolling very slowly, with oddly jerky movements. It was Lindgren and his henchman, obviously still too high to walk normally.

Micaela had left early. He must have been asleep. Night after night he performed the same ritual of listening to the sounds coming through the window until the town slowly started to wake up, the noises made by the first newspaper boys, the first lorries. Then, at about half past five, he fell asleep. His body gave in at last, exhausted by the restless hours when his mind had been crowded with thoughts. Suspended in empty space, he dreamed on until late in the morning.

Vague mental images of the morning; Micaela lying naked on him and him not responding, her whispering you boring old thing, kissing his cheek, leaving him for the shower; Marie's room on the other side of the bathroom wall, the hissing of water through the pipes awakening her and David; Micaela making them all breakfast while he stayed put, his legs refusing to get him out of bed, then slowly slipping back into that isolated space and dreaming again.

At eleven o'clock he was woken by the shrieks and yells of the creatures in one of Marie's videos and finally got up.

He must start sleeping at night. He couldn't carry on like this.

Couldn't.

He no longer did any work, and he didn't engage with the people close to him. The morning used to be his best time for writing, either at home or in his writer's den on Arnö Island. Not any more. Marie had learned to amuse herself in the mornings. Thank God, Micaela worked in Marie's nursery school and had persuaded her colleagues that it was fine for the child not to turn up until after lunch, day after day.

But he felt so ashamed, like an alcoholic who's promised eternal sobriety in the evening and wakes up with a hangover the morning after. And his head ached.

Tomorrow would be different.

'Hello, Daddy.'

His lovely little daughter. He lifted her up.

'Hello, sweetheart. Am I getting a morning kiss?'

Marie pressed her moist lips against his cheek.

'David's gone now.'

'Has he?'

'His daddy came to pick him up.'

But they know I'm a responsible person, he thought, they know me. Oh, never mind. He shrugged and put Marie down.

'Have you had anything to eat?'

'Micaela gave us things.'

'But that was hours ago. Aren't you hungry?'

'I want to eat in school.'

How long did they keep the food for the children? It was quarter past one now. Ten minutes to get dressed, five minutes to get there if they took the car.

'So you shall. Let's get dressed.'

Fredrik pulled on a pair of jeans and a white shirt. A bit warm for a hot day, but he felt he looked silly in shorts, his legs were so pale. Marie came running to show him a pair of shorts and a T-shirt.