The Beast

'I wish you'd skip this.'

Fredrik didn't answer, just clenched his jaw tight and stared back.

'Fine. Glare away. It doesn't change what I think.'

Vincent rose, took the two mugs and wandered off to the machine in the corridor outside. Fredrik looked at his disappearing back for a moment. Then he picked up one of the two phones and dialled her number.

'Hi. It's me.'

He had woken her.

'Fredrik?'

'Yes.'

'Not now. I took a sleeping tablet, I'm still too weary.'

'Just one thing, a question. When we cleared your dad's flat there were two sacks full of stuff. Where did they go?'

' What's this about? '

'I simply want to know.'

'I don't have them. The sacks were left in the attic, back in Strängnäs.'

Vincent came back carrying the refilled mugs. Fredrik put the receiver down.

'Agnes – it wasn't easy.'

'How is she?'

'Terrible.'

Vincent nodded, handed Fredrik a mug, drank some coffee himself.

'Let's do whatever has to be done; it's hotting up out there. A plane has come down near Moscow.'

He started searching the Trade Register, essentially listings of small and medium-sized businesses. Again the ID number was the magic key opening all locks to a stranger's life.

'B. Lund Taxis.'

'What?' Fredrik had heard, but asked anyway.

'It's a cab firm, registered as B. Lund Taxis. It hasn't been deregistered.'

Fredrik came over to read for himself.

'Look. It was set up in 1994.'

Fredrik laughed, just a short bark.

'Now what?'

'Nothing.'

'You're laughing at fucking nothing, are you? Remember who I am?'

'Absolutely nothing.' Fredrik laughed again.

'Come off it. You turn up here, just twenty-four hours after you buried your daughter, still wearing your funeral suit, and you stand around having a giggle. At nothing. Excuse me for asking. And shut up.'

'Calm down.'

'Calm down? That's so fucking great. Fantastic. Now what do you want? Business data?'

'That's enough.'

'Collaterals? Registration numbers?'

'Nothing more. It's fine.'

It was raining.

The last three weeks had been dry, but now, suddenly, he felt drops hit his forehead. He took shelter in the car and started the windscreen wipers, but after a little while the shower was over. Getting out of town was easy this early on a Saturday morning and he drove quickly across the Liljeholm Bridge and on towards Strängnäs.

He had put his notes on the dashboard and kept stealing cautious glances at them as he drove. A provincial block of flats. An address in the far north, then in Enköping, which was near Strängnäs, then in central Stockholm. All that seemed irrelevant. But B. Lund Taxis, that was something else, a company of several years' standing.

Stockholm's dull outskirts made him want to listen to music, and he started rooting around in the box under the driver's seat. He would put on Creedence and 'Proud Mary'. He would sing aloud and forget that his grief was refusing to join in.

When he arrived in Strängnäs it was pouring with rain. The water was washing off a dull membrane that had grown to cover buildings and people and all other life-forms. Everyone seemed to feel released and joyous. Despite the downpour he had seen no umbrellas anywhere in the town and no one running for shelter. Now, after parking the car, he observed the man just in front of him and the woman walking a bit further away, saw both slowing their pace and letting their clothes get soaked through as they turned their smiling faces upwards. His own wet suit came away from his body and he stepped out lightly, breathing in the damp, oxygen-rich air. He walked slowly towards his house, wanting the rain to wash away three weeks of heat and dust.

When he opened the front door, she was there, waiting for him in the hall, holding a couple of masks, one with the grin of the Big Bad Wolf, the other one with a Little Pig's snout. She called to him, Daddy! Come and play, hurry, please, Daddy, eager as all five-year-olds are.

He went to the fridge, took a carton of orange juice and sat down on a kitchen chair, drank three large glasses, listening to the silence of the house. It seemed to demand something of him.

He moved the chair to get closer to the phone. Micaela would be back soon, so he had to get on with it. Just two calls, that was all.

First the number. It was in the Yellow Pages; he recognised the big company logo from calls he had made before. A woman answered.

'Enköping Taxis.'

'Hello. My name is Sven Sundkvist. Could you please put me through to your personnel department?'

'One moment.'

Fredrik waited. A woman introduced herself as Liv Steen.

'Good afternoon. I am Sven Sundkvist, detective inspector with the Stockholm City Police, violent crime squad.'

'What can I do for you?'

'I'm looking for information about one of the local firms you sometimes use. The owner is a Mr Bernt Lund, ID 640517-0350. His company is called B. Lund Taxis.'

'I still don't quite understand what you want.'

'I need information quickly. Specifically, which routes did you have him booked for?'

'Look, this was several years ago.'

'Very well. Could you just check any bookings to primary schools or day nurseries?'

'I see… well. Look, we usually don't provide this kind of information just for the asking.'

Fredrik hesitated. This woman was doing the right thing. He was unused to lying and didn't like it; it was so complicated to work out where the limit went and if he had passed it.

'Ms Steen, this is a murder case.'

'Is that supposed to make a difference?'

'It has been covered in the media recently. A sex crime, the victim was a little girl.'

It was very hard to say. He couldn't stand much more of this. The woman hesitated.

'Detective Inspector… Sundkvist, is that right?'

'Yes.'

'Is it OK for me to phone you back?'

'Of course. If it makes you feel better.'

A long pause.

'I don't want to cause any trouble. I'll deal with it now.'

'Thank you.'

He heard her looking through files, heard the clicking sounds as metal ring-bindings opened and snapped shut. His wet suit was sticking to him again and he had started to sweat.

'Sorry to keep you waiting. Here we are. Eight bookings to day nurseries, four in Strängnäs, and four in Enköping.'

'And the addresses, please.'

She turned more pages in her files, then read them out to him.

He recognised all four in Strängnäs; one of them was The Dove. Lund knew it well after driving there for almost a year. After escaping he had returned to a familiar place, where he knew how the children came and went, where the exits and entrances were.

Fredrik thanked Liv Steen for her help. Now his second call.

'Agnes, it's me again.'

'I don't feel any better now.'

'I know. Don't worry. Just one thing. The key to that attic. Do you know where it is?'

'There is no key because there's no lock. I never bothered.

Somehow it was Dad's things and had nothing to do with me.'

'Good. Thanks.'

He wanted the call to end there, now that he knew all he needed to know.

'Why do you ask?'

'He had some things of Marie's. Things she made at school and gave him. I want to take care of them.'

'Why?'

'I just do. Must I argue the case for everything?'

He was thirsty and drank most of a second carton of juice. Then he wrote a note, just a few lines to explain he'd be away for a while but would come back home as soon as he could. He stuck it on the fridge with a magnet shaped like a ladybird.

It was still raining, but less hard.

He walked across the street to the block of flats opposite and took the lift to the attic floor.

He got up from the seat.

It was hard, made from thick wooden planks covered in graffiti. He had been sitting there all morning, for four hours by now, and he felt uncomfortable, stiff all over.