She made up her mind as she left the restaurant. This was the end for her and Bengt, she had given up on her husband for good.
She walked straight back home and told her daughter, the one child she was responsible for, to pack just what she could carry. Then she filled two suitcases with their clothes and put everything in the car; she had to take that.
The summer evening was darkening, turning into night, when she left Tallbacka for ever.
The cell was one hundred and seventy centimetres wide, two hundred and fifty centimetres long, and contained a narrow bed, a small bedside table and a washbasin handy for pissing at night and washing in the morning. He was wearing a greyish, sagging suit, with the prison initials stamped on the sleeves and trouser-legs. Full restrictions applied, which meant no newspapers, no TV or radio and no visitors, except the chief interrogator, the prosecutor, the defence lawyer, the prison chaplain and prison officers. Fresh air was permitted for one hour daily; it amounted to a supervised stroll in a steel cage on the roof. Just now the heat up there was suffocating and he had asked to be let off the last half-hour every day so far.
He was lying on the bed. There was not a thought in his head. He had tried to eat and given up after a few mouthfuls. It tasted like shit, all of it. The tray with the plate and the glass of orange juice stood on the floor. He hadn't eaten since Enköping. Anything he tried had come back up, as if his stomach wanted to be left in peace.
The walls around him were grey, empty. His eyes had nothing to look at and nothing to look away from. The harsh light from the fluorescent tube in the ceiling somehow got behind his closed lids, coating his eyeballs with a bright membrane.
The observation panel on the door squeaked; someone was looking in at him.
'Steffansson, you wanted to see the chaplain, right?'
Fredrik met the staring eyes.
'Call me Fredrik. I don't like being a surname.'
'OK, start again. Fredrik, do you want to see the chaplain?'
'Anyone, as long as he or she doesn't wear a uniform.'
The officer sighed.
'Make up your mind. Yes or no. She's right here, next to me.'
'That's news. I'm stuck in here to isolate me from everybody else, some motherfucker's decided that I'm a danger to society, isn't that so? Or is everybody else a danger to me? Tricky. Do you know who I am, anyway?'
He sat up on the edge of the bed abruptly. Then he kicked the tray. Bright yellow orange juice spread all over the floor.
The officer sighed, he had seen this so often. The prisoners who broke down started by being aggressive, irrational, threatening, then they collapsed and pissed their pants. Steffansson was cracking up, obviously.
Fredrik splashed the liquid around with his foot and went on talking.
'You haven't got a clue, have you? That my crime is deliberate execution of a foul child-killer. A maniac who might've come round to fuck your baby to death. And now it's your job to keep tabs on me. Enjoying yourself, are you? Feeling socially useful?'
He picked up the juice glass and threw it at the open panel. It shut just in time, before the glass hit and splintered into fragments.
The next moment the panel pulled back and the eyes stared at him again.
'I should call in support; what you just did is enough for
a spell in restraints. But you asked a question and I'm going to answer it.'
The officer paused and swallowed; the words wouldn't come at first. Fredrik waited.
'And the answer is no, I don't think what I'm doing to you is any use. Fact is, I don't think you should be here. And I think you did the right thing, shooting that bastard. But that's neither here nor there. You're inside and that's that. Now, do you want the chaplain?'
A locked door. He is on one side, everyone else on the other.
Images floating in the empty space inside his head, closed doors, himself on one side, everyone else on the other, how he had hated it, no panel in that door but panes to look through, three blurry sheets of glass, like in toilet windows, but you could see things if you pushed your face close, what Dad and Frans did in there, in the sitting room, the TV was on loud but he could hear Dad shout that Frans should undress, take it all off, then Dad hit the naked body again and again, he watched the hand moving, the glass distorted everything, making it look absurd, and Frans never uttered a sound. It was their mum who had snitched, she had told Dad why Frans must be punished, and then she just left them to it, went to sit in the kitchen, drinking tea and smoking her endless Camel cigs, while Dad hit and hit and hit until Frans shouted defiantly that he wasn't strong enough, he didn't feel it, hit harder. Dad often stopped altogether then.
A locked door. Someone staring.
'For the last time, mate. Yes or no?'
Fredrik closed his eyes to make the door disappear.
'Let the duty-saint in then.'
The door opened, he opened his eyes to look, at first unable to take in what he saw.
'Rebecca? You?'
'Hello, Fredrik. I've worked here before, you know, but this time I asked. I wanted to be here for you, since you won't be allowed to see anyone else you know. Do you mind?'
'Please come in.'
He felt so ashamed. Ashamed of being in this bleak cell awash with spilt juice, of wearing sack-like prisoner's kit, of throwing a tantrum in front of her, of having urinated in the washbasin not very long ago. The joy of seeing her brought tears to his eyes, and that too shamed him.
But she hugged him and stroked his hair, telling him that she understood and that she'd seen locked-up men and women behave much worse.
He looked at her, tried to smile.
'Do you think I did wrong?'
'Yes, I do,' she replied after a pause. 'You had no right to decide about life and death.'
Fredrik nodded. He had expected her to say that.
'Despite saving two children, or more, from Lund?'
Once more, she took her time. She meant a lot to this man and had known him for so long. Her responsibility to him weighed heavily.
'That is such a difficult question, Fredrik. I…'
She was silenced because Fredrik had started to hyperventilate. She put her hand on his chest, and he sank down on the bed, his whole body trembling.
'I'm sorry, I can't help myself. It's all so meaningless.'
Marie's funeral. The cemetery. The cold floor and the organ filling the church with sound. The little coffin, so very small. Rebecca had stood next to it and spoken. Marie was inside the coffin. The lid was on but he knew they had made her look pretty.
He steadied his breathing and started to speak.
'Marie is no longer. Everything that was her is gone, her senses, her thoughts. Gone, absolutely. For ever. Do you understand what I am trying to express?'
'I hear you and I understand, but you know I don't believe that.'
The noise of the panel sliding back. The eyes.
'Seems to be plenty going on in there. Everything all right?'
'Yes, it's all right,' Rebecca called back.
'Fine. Just give us a shout in case.'
Fredrik had stopped trembling, but was still stretched out on the bed, taking deep breaths.
'It was when I knew that Lund would do it all again that I made up my mind to kill. Get there first. Eliminate him.' He searched for the right words. 'You all thought it was a revenge killing, but it wasn't. It wasn't personal. You see, I died with Marie. I only came alive to kill him.'
He sat up and slapped his hand on the table, then bent forward and started hitting his forehead against the edge of it until he bled.
'I killed him. What am I meant to live for now?'
The door opened and this time there were two officers. They wore the same uniforms and identical expressions on their faces.