The whole of Tallbacka flared up the day the trial was concluded. The attack against the man who had exposed himself in the schoolyard twenty years before and been sentenced to a fine was the first of nine acts of violence against alleged paedophiles. The spate of criminal violence was in each case claimed to be an exertion of reasonable force.
Three of the mob attacks, all of which involved grievous bodily harm, led to the death of the victims.
The chief investigator (CI): I will start the interrogation now. Bengt Söderlund (BS): Fire ahead.
CI: The questions concern the events that followed the throwing of the petrol bombs. BS: Aha.
CI: I'm unhappy about your attitude.
BS: What would seem to be the trouble? CI: You appear sarcastic.
BS: If you don't fancy my answers I wouldn't half mind leaving now.
CI: We'll both stay here. I'm prepared to carry on for as long as it takes. This session will be finished faster if you reply to my questions properly. BS: So you say.
CI: What happened after the last bottle was thrown?
BS: The house caught fire.
CI: What did you do?
BS: I read aloud.
CI: What did you read?
BS: A court indictment.
CI: Pull yourself together, man!
BS: I read out a court's judgement.
CI: What judgement would that be?
BS: About the father from Strängnäs. He shot a paedophile who'd killed his daughter. It was what the court said about him.
CI: Why did you read that?
BS: Because society thought he did the right thing when he shot the paedophile. Get it? These perverts must be eliminated.
CI: After you'd read this, what did you do?
BS: I noticed that Flasher-Göran had jumped out. From the kitchen window.
CI: Then what did you do? BS: Set Baxter on him.
CI: You set your dog on him?
BS: Sure.
CI: And what did your dog do?
BS: Bit the fucker.
CI: Describe.
BS: Bit his arm, thighs. Had a couple of good goes at his face.
CI: For how long?
BS: Until I called Baxter off.
CI: Yes, yes. For how long?
BS: Two minutes, maybe three.
CI: Make up your mind.
BS: More like three. Yeah, three.
CI: And then what did you do? BS: We left.
CI: You left. Where did you go?
BS: Home. And we phoned for the fire brigade. That place was going like a bomb and we didn't want it to spread. It was fucking well next door, you know.
Göran from Tallbacka did not survive his injuries, notably a bite across his throat. The fatalities also included a man in Umeå, who had two previous convictions for sex offences. Passing by a playground on the edge of the town, he was set upon by four teenage boys wielding pieces of iron piping, and beaten to death.
The chief investigator (CI): I will start the tape recorder now. Ilrian Raistrovic (IR): Cool.
CI: Are you feeling better now?
IR: Yeah. I just needed, like, a break.
CI: We'll carry on then.
IR: Yeah, sure. No fucking problem.
CI: Did you hit more often than the rest of the gang?
IR: Dunno.
CI: That's what the others said.
IR: Must be OK then.
CI: Why did you hit him?
IR: Fucking peddo, he was asking for it.
CI: Peddo?
IR: Like he'd been at two small chicks, touched their tits, stuff like that. He had kids himself. They were his kid's pals, right?
CI: How did you hit him?
IR: Like, I hit. At him.
CI: How many times?
IR: Dunno.
CI: Try to guess.
IR: Like twenty. Maybe thirty.
CI: Until he died. IR: Yeah, I guess.
In Stockholm, two days later, a particularly gross act of violence was perpetrated against a drunk, who was surrounded by a group of shouting young men equipped with baseball bats.
The chief investigator (CI): Where were you sitting? Roger Karlsson (RK): On the other bench.
CI: What were you doing there?
RK: I was watching him. I know that guy. He's at it all the time. CI: At what?
RK: Doing it to females. Little ones, CI: What did he do?
RK: He screamed at them, there were three coming along. Calling them names. Whores.
CI: He shouted at them that they were whores? RK: He tried to grab their arses when they passed.
CI: Did he do it?
RK: He was too fucking slow. But he did try.
CI: What did you do?
RK: They ran away. He scared them. He always scares females.
CI: But what did you do?
RK: Let him have it. The bat. In his belly.
CI: Were you alone?
RK: Fuck, no. The others came along.
CI: What others?
RK: There were, like, some of us. Waiting, see?
CI: Did everyone bring a weapon?
RK: We all had bats.
CI: What did he do when you first hit him?
RK: He shouted something like, what's that you're doin'?
CI: What did you do?
RK: I shouted back. Told him he was a perv.
CI: And then what happened?
RK: Then we made mincemeat of him. All of us. It didn't take long.
CI: When did he die?
RK: I'd brought a sledgehammer too. When I hit him with that he was a goner.
CI: When did you use the hammer?
RK: Later. To make sure, see? CI: Make sure he was really dead?
RK: That's it. You're allowed to kill mad dogs. That's what they said in court.
The man was practically unidentifiable when the gang had finished with him, but two local police constables assumed, on the basis of what he was wearing, that he was a man called Gurra B, something of an established feature in the park. For the last thirty-odd years, he had sat around shouting and using foul language within the hearing of passing women.
They had taken their clothes off as soon as the front door closed behind them and made love as if they would never stop, holding on to each other, hot and sweaty, their bodies slippery, sticky, not letting go of the other for the rest of that day and the night that followed. Both behaved as if they feared that somebody would step into the room to take their nearness away and then they would die, as if feeling the other's bare skin on your own was not simply comforting but the only way to survive. Fredrik had never taken a woman in this needy way; he had to have her and stay close to her, she was a human being he must unite with absolutely. He inhaled her smells, caressed her, bored into her with his penis, but nothing satisfied him, she wasn't enough. He tried everything to get closer to her, bit her a few times, her buttock, thigh, shoulder. She laughed, but he was serious about wanting all of her, in him.
Fredrik stayed in the house that week, while the journalists were waiting outside with their eager smiles and cameras and questions. He was determined to hide until they'd gone away. Twice Micaela went out to shop for food and they stayed glued to her side all the way to town and back. They followed her into the supermarket, pursuing her up and down the aisles and asking her questions about how he felt. Micaela kept her promise to say nothing. When she got home and closed the door behind her, loud voices were calling her name.
He avoided Marie's room. Yes, she was there. Though she wasn't, not for real. The room kept demanding his attention, he couldn't put it out of his mind, even though he didn't want to think about it. They must move, sooner or later; if there was any life worth living it must be somewhere else, not here, among the remains of the past.
He was free, but still captive. He didn't read the papers or watch TV, it was all too much. A girl had been killed and a father had killed the killer; surely that was all there was to it. He could not see why the public interest should demand yet more publicity.
He had had a life once, but not any more. And they were trying to rob him of the tiny existence he claimed by making it public.
He had clung to Micaela as fiercely on the second day as on the first. They made love many times, mingling energy and grief and comfort and guilt and fear with their love- making. The last few times the act had become almost mechanical intercourse; they were pressing and squeezing in ways which they had learned would please the other and bring on an orgasm quickly. Too tired to look at or truly feel each other, the whole thing had become tense and nervous. In the end they both felt like crying as they looked together at his penis entering her, powerless to change what they were doing and too exhausted to do it again, although they knew that the driving, suffocating anxiety would still be there when they lay back, drained.