Do you have any children?
Afterwards, he confronted the rest of them. The public. People had watched, listened, read. Now they shouted at him, threatened him, phoned him to say vile things. Every time he put the receiver down the phone rang again, demanded more of him.
You're a shit. Establishment lackey.
I'm only doing my job.
Fucking tin soldier. Paragraph-crazy bureaucrat.
If someone is suspected of breaking the law, it is my duty to prosecute that person.
You're a dead man if you go for that dad.
What you just said is intimidation and against the law.
DIE!
Intimidation is a punishable offence.
We'll kill your family, one by one.
He was frightened. All this was for real. The menacing callers were mad, of course, but also representative of a wider public hatred. And they meant what they said. This was serious.
He went off in search of Ewert Grens.
Their last talk, when he had exposed his worries about the prosecution, should have changed things, opened doors to a new understanding. Or so he had hoped. Not at all; the old boy was just as difficult, just as unapproachable. In fact, he received the news that Ågestam was scared by threats to himself and his family with a broad grin. The young prosecutor was close to tears, he didn't want to be, not here of all fucking places, but Grens pretended he hadn't noticed. Instead he said that threats were par for the course, something a tough prosecutor had to expect, and when there was something more concrete than voices on the phone to report, he was welcome back.
Lars slammed the door behind him when he left.
A slow walk back through the hot, stale city air. He had been passing concentrated, dark-yellow urine for days; he supposed it was because the heat and humidity made him sweat so much. Stopping at a newsagent's for a bottle of mineral water and a copy of the big morning paper, he saw that his picture was on the front page, under the headline Prosecutor insists: life for popular hero.
Everyone stared at him, even the tourists; he met droves of them, dripping with cameras and camcorders and whatever.
He walked as fast as he could, quick march all the way to the CPS office.
He stepped into his room and the phone rang.
He just looked at it. It rang eight more times.
He focused on the police investigation documents, read and reread, until the ringing stopped.
Bengt Söderlund went over the story about Baxter again, how the dog had been nailed to the spot all day, all evening and through the night until the following morning, when he obeyed his master's command to leave. They had heard all this twice before, Elisabeth who didn't want to hear at all, Ove and Helena, who had seen it from the beginning, Ola Gunnarsson and Klas Rilke, who laughed louder every time. The same thing had happened in school, when someone had found out something new about a teacher, maybe a smart nickname, and they kept having hysterics about it all through upper school; or in the men's locker room at the Tallbacka Sports Club, when they fixed boot-studs and put on embrocation for aching muscles, going over and over the time the opponents' fat, useless goalie had been kicked in the balls.
This evening they had spent some time playing the gaming machines in the bar and then wandered off to sit at their usual table, before they lost too much of their hard-earned money. Everyone had a beer, enjoyed being there and toasted Baxter, who had made them laugh.
They were only halfway through the first pint; a warm- up, there was more to come, at least another three or four.
The discussion would take off, alcohol stimulated the flow of words.
Bengt drank more slowly than usual. He had made up his mind during the week and prepared himself properly by reading a lot of deadly dull law handbooks. He had the evening all worked out in his head.
He raised his glass to his companions.
'Drink up, boys and girls. I've got something to say afterwards.'
They drank. Bengt signalled to the barman to bring another round, and then he began.
'I've been thinking. Drawn up a plan of action, you might say. We had better get some law and order round here.'
The others moved closer, stopped drinking and sat still. Elisabeth clenched her jaw and stared down at the tabletop. Her face was flushed.
'Remember last time we were here? Remember what Helena said?'
He smiled at Helena.
'Right at the end, before closing time, she stood up and asked us to listen. The late-night news was all about the killing of the paedophile, the father who shot that sex maniac. Afterwards Helena said something that stayed with me. She said, that man is a hero. A hero of our time. He wasn't going to let a fucking pervert get away with murder. He didn't hang about waiting for the police. They had messed up before, so he took it in his own hands to act.'
Helena beamed.
'I meant what I said. That man is a hero. Good-looking, too.'
She pushed playfully at her Ove, smiled at him. Bengt nodded impatiently. He had more on his mind.
'The trial will start soon. It will take five days and the sentence will come at some point during the last couple of days. We'll be around when it is.'
He looked around triumphantly.
'The defence is pushing for something called "reasonable force", and so are ordinary folk all over the country; they'll fucking riot if the court comes out in favour of locking him up. I bet it won't take the risk. The set-up will be the usual, only the judge has law training and the rest are magistrates, not trained in the law so they won't stick to paragraphs. See what I'm saying? He might well go free, and that's when we strike. Then it's our turn.'
The rest of the group round the pub table still didn't see the point, but figured Bengt had checked things out, as he usually did.
'Yeah? If the girl's dad is let off, that's it. The moment we hear, we have a licence to act, to deal with that perv once and for all. I, for one, won't put up with having a paedophile around this place. Not as a neighbour, not any- fucking-where in this community. We'll let him have it and then claim that we acted with reasonable force.'
The overweight barman, ex-owner of one of the defunct grocer's shops, brought them another round, carrying three glasses in each hand. They got stuck in, feeling good, but then Elisabeth spoke up.
'Bengt, listen. You're going over the top.'
'Christ, we've been over this before. Go home if you don't like it.'
'How can you think it's right to kill someone just to solve a problem? That dad is not a hero at all. He's setting a bad example.'
Bengt slammed his glass down on the table.
'So what does madam think he should've done then?'
'Well… talked to the man who did it.'
'What?'
'You can always get somewhere by talking.'
'Now I've fucking heard it all!'
Helena turned to face Elisabeth, her eyes narrowing with dislike.
'I must say I don't understand you, Elisabeth. Do you have a problem with seeing things the way they really are or what? Exactly what are you supposed to talk about with a crazy sex killer who's just murdered your own child? Maybe his tragic childhood? Maybe he had the wrong kind of toys? Lousy potty training? You must tell us.'
Ove rose and put his hand on his wife's shoulder.
'Fuck's sake, what do you think he was there for, outside that school? Well, I can tell you one thing, it wasn't the time and place for some kind of psycho session about what-a- very-sad-upbringing-blah-blah.'
Helena had put her hand over Ove's and started to speak when her husband stopped to draw breath.
'You can say the dad had no right to shoot that paedophile. But he would have been even more wrong not to kill him. That's obvious to me, anyway. OK, life is precious, I agree with that, but circumstances alter cases. If I'd been where he was and had a gun I could handle, I would've done just the same. What is it you don't understand about that, Elisabeth?'