Marching past Rebecca, they grabbed Fredrik and pinned him to the bed, holding him down until he stopped pushing his head forward into the empty air.
It rained on the first day of the trial, only the second time during that long, hot summer. It was a quiet, persistent rain of the kind that is there before sunrise and keeps being there until dark.
Rain or no rain, it was the most sensational trial in Sweden for years and the queue outside the Stockholm Old Court building had already grown long early that morning. Proceedings were scheduled for the high-security courtroom and attendance was limited to four rows of numbered seats. Only the bigger media companies had been allowed to reserve places and a scrum of journalists led the crowd in the stone-flagged entrance hall.
The security was extensive. Uniformed and plainclothes police were everywhere, reinforced by staff from private firms. Over the weeks that had passed since Lund's escape, a looming sense of threat had been taking the shape of a faceless citizen, frustrated, aggressive, fuelled by a generalised hatred of paedophiles. This figure embodied a collective engagement by people who did not usually do much more than follow the news and comment from a safe distance, but who were now waiting and watching and preparing for action.
Micaela had got there early, just after seven. It had been chilly and raining a little harder then. She hadn't seen Fredrik since Marie's funeral. Now she knew that he had been hunting Lund and then kept in custody with no privileges.
More than anything else she felt frightened. This was her first experience of a court case and she knew she would have to stay still while the man she loved sat alone, just a few metres away from her, charged with murder and interrogated by a prosecutor out to get a lifetime sentence.
Once, not long ago, she had been part of a family. She had slept by Fredrik at night and learnt to hold on to him. Marie had become almost her own child, she had cared for her, fed and clothed and taught her. All gone now, in a few weeks.
She tried to smile at the guard who was checking her handbag, but he didn't smile back. The electronic checker wouldn't let her through, she tried three times and it howled every time, until she realised that she still had one of Marie's bicycle keys in her pocket. Her seat was good though, in row three, just behind the radio and TV reporters. She actually recognised some of them. Instead of speaking to camera from some dramatic location, they were busy taking notes. She peeped; everybody seemed to write in a personal scrawl, very short sentences, but always with a note of the time for each entry. Two artists were sitting right in front, their pencils moving with fleeting ease over their white sheets of paper as they sketched in the background features of the courtroom.
There was Agnes, in the last row, across the aisle. Micaela had turned to look for a fraction too long and had been seen. They nodded politely at each other. It was strange, the way they had kept themselves to themselves. She had answered the phone a couple of times when Agnes called Marie, but all that meant was a brisk exchange of This is Agnes, I'd like to speak to Marie please and One moment,
I'll get her, the sum total of knowing each other for three years.
Then she spotted the two policemen who had asked questions of everybody in and around the school that day. The older one with the limp was the boss. The younger one was nice and patient, he might be religious, free church probably. They had seen her and nodded, so she nodded back.
The room was almost full and she could hear protesting shouts from people outside, who realised they wouldn't get in. Someone was booing at the guards, someone else was calling them 'Fascist pigs'.
There was a door at the back of the dais, which she hadn't noticed until it suddenly opened and the officials of the court filed in. The judge came first, a woman called van Balvas, followed by the magistrates, who all looked rather elderly, local politicians mostly, on their way out of active life. She had read about these people in the paper. There had been quite a lot about the prosecutor too, and she had seen him on the telly, such a puffed-up young man, somehow sounding like a precocious kid. He was maybe a couple of years older than herself, which made her feel very young. The defence lawyer was different, her manner as calm and in control as it had been when they had talked in her office.
Then Fredrik, last of all, flanked by two court officers.
They had made him wear a suit and tie, not like his usual style at all. How pale he was. He looked so frightened. He felt like she did. His eyes stayed fixed to the floor, avoiding the crowd in front of him.
Van Balvas (VB): Your full name, please.
Fredrik Steffansson (FS): Nils Fredrik Steffansson. VB: And your address?
FS: Hamngatan 28, Strängnäs.
VB: Are you aware of the reason why we are here today?
FS: What a weird question.
VB: I will ask you again. Do you understand why we are here today?
FS: Yes.
She smoked three cigarettes during the break in a sad- looking lobby with sombre oak-panelled walls and worn seating. One of the journalists spoke to her, he wanted to know how Fredrik was feeling and she explained that she had not been allowed to see him because she was only his partner. The journalist had offered her cigarettes of that strong kind without filters that people in southern Europe smoke. Just one ciggie made her feel dizzy. Fredrik detested her smoking and she hadn't touched a cigarette for months.
Agnes had been standing alone a bit away, sipping mineral water. They both avoided eye contact; what was the point of seeking each other out? They had so little in common. They did not even share points of reference, except this, an experience complete in itself.
A young journalist with thinning hair and earphones was sitting on one of the wooden benches taking notes from a tape-recording. Next to him, an older reporter. One of the court artists was showing him a drawing of a moment she recognised from the hearing. There was Fredrik, making a gesture with his hand as the prosecutor held up a photo of the nursery school in Enköping, taken from the place where Fredrik had been when he shot that man.
Lars Ågestam (LÅ): Mr Steffansson, there is something I don't understand. Why did you not inform the police officers, who were only a few hundred metres away, exactly in your line of sight?
FS: There was no time.
LÅ: No time?
FS: I knew that two guards couldn't control Lund when he was a prisoner in chains. What chances had two policemen, half asleep anyway, against an unrestrained, armed Lund?
LÅ: So you didn't even try to contact them?
FS: I couldn't run the risk of him getting away. And maybe taking another girl with him. LÅ: But I still don't understand. FS: Don't you?
LÅ: Why did you have to murder Bernt Lund?
FS: What's so fucking difficult about that?
VB: Mr Steffansson, sit down. And please refrain from swearing.
FS: Do you have a problem hearing what I say? The massed forces of law and order couldn't treat Lund out of his madness or keep him safely locked up or catch him after he had murdered Marie. I don't have to explain myself any more, surely?
VB: For the second time, Mr Steffansson, sit down. Perhaps your lawyer can help?
Kristina Björnsson (KB): Fredrik, calm down. If you want to state your case, you must be allowed to stay in here. FS: Could someone get rid of these two?
KB: If you remain seated and calm, the officers will sit down too.
Once only did their eyes meet. It was during the prosecutor's first interrogation, which had started after the opening statements. Fredrik had become very angry, but they had made him sit down again and then he turned round, looking for her and Agnes, and he had tried to smile a little, she was sure he did. She had lifted her fingers to her lips to throw him a kiss. Her sense of loss seemed to solidify in her belly; she missed him so much and it was horrible to see him there in his suit and tie, white-faced, ready to be taken away.