Pen 33

by Anders Roslund

  Award-winning journalist Anders Roslund and ex-criminal Börge Hellström are Sweden’s most acclaimed fiction duo. Their unique ability to combine inside knowledge of the brutal reality of criminal life with searing social criticism in complex, intelligent plots has put them at the forefront of modern Scandinavian crime writing.

  Praise for Roslund and Hellström

  “Well written and powerful.” —The Times

  “Gripping, intelligent.” —Guardian

  “Journalist Roslund and ex-criminal Hellström are among Sweden’s most popular thriller writers with a reputation for down-and-dirty detail and an eye for political intrigue and police corruption . . . extraordinarily compelling.” —Daily Mail

  “This is crime writing at its most ambitious and morally complex.” —Financial Times

  “[In Ewert Grens] the authors have created an eccentric, alienated, socially inept hero worthy of comparison with Swedish mystery master Henning Mankell’s Inspector Kurt Wallander.” —Wall Street Journal

  “The Swedish team of Roslund and Hellström is writing explosive crime novels as good, if not better, than those of Stieg Larsson.” —USA Today

  “Roslund/Hellström are among the very best crime novelists around. They write with courage and intensity about the important issues of our time.” —Maj Sjöwall

  Also by Roslund and Hellström

  Box 21

  Three Seconds

  Cell 8

  Two Soldiers

  Three Minutes

  New York • London

  © 2004 by Roslund and Hellström

  English translation copyright © 2016 by Elizabeth Clark Wessel

  Cover design and images © Ghost

  First published in the United States by Quercus in 2017

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of the same without the permission of the publisher is prohibited.

  Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use or anthology should send inquiries to permissions@quercus.com.

  e-ISBN 978-1-68144-056-9

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017953456

  Distributed in the United States and Canada by

  Hachette Book Group

  1290 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10104

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, institutions, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons—living or dead—events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  www.quercus.com

  Publisher’s Note: This book portrays sexual violence involving minors.

  Contents

  Probably Four Years Earlier

  Close to Now: I (Day One)

  II (One Week)

  III (One Month)

  IV (One Summer)

  About Pen 33

  probably four years earlier

  He shouldn’t have.

  They’re coming from over there. They’re coming now. Over the hill, past the jungle gym.

  Twenty meters away, maybe thirty. Near the red flowers, like the ones outside Säter Psychiatric Institution, which he used to believe were roses.

  He shouldn’t have.

  It wasn’t going to feel the same now, because he had. Lesser, somehow. Almost numbed.

  There are two of them. They’re walking side by side, talking—friends. Friends talk to each other in a certain way, with their hands. The dark-haired one seems to be doing most of the talking. She’s eager, wants to say everything, all at once. The blond one mostly listens. As if she’s tired. Or as if she’s the type who doesn’t speak, who doesn’t need to take up space all the time to show she’s alive. Maybe that’s the way it is: one dominates and one is dominated. Isn’t that how it always is?

  He shouldn’t have jerked off.

  But that was this morning. Twelve hours ago. Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe it didn’t make much of a difference.

  He knew this morning, as soon as he woke up. Tonight was going to be a good night for it. Today is a Thursday, just like last time. The day is sunny and clear, just like last time.

  They’re wearing similar jackets. Thin, white, some kind of nylon with a hood on the back; he’d seen quite a few of them since Monday. Two small backpacks slung over their shoulders. All those backpacks, everything in a pile in one large compartment, he can’t understand it, will never understand it. They are close, closer, he hears their conversation, their laughter again, they’re laughing at the same time, the blond one more carefully, not afraid, just taking up less space.

  His choice of outfit was deliberate. Jeans, T-shirt, a cap on backward, just like he’d been seeing in the park since Monday; they wear them that way nowadays, backward.

  “Hi there.”

  They jump, stop. Then silence. The kind of silence that happens when an ambient sound suddenly stops, forcing the ear to listen. Maybe he should have adopted a southern accent? He’s good at that, and some pay more attention, because it sounds important somehow. He’s been collecting voices for three days. No southern accent. No northern accent either. This is a city that speaks what might be called proper Swedish. No diphthongs, and not much slang. Boring, actually. He fingers his cap, rotates it one turn, pressing it a little harder against his neck, still backward.

  “Hi, girls. What are you doing out so late?”

  They look at him, at each other. They attempt to leave. He tries to appear relaxed, leaning slightly against the backrest of the bench. Which animal? Squirrel? Rabbit? A car? Candy? He shouldn’t have masturbated. He should have prepared better.

  “We’re on our way home. We’re allowed to be out this late.”

  ————

  She knows that she’s not supposed to talk to him.

  She’s not supposed to talk to adults she doesn’t know. She knows that.

  But he’s not an adult. Not really. He doesn’t look like an adult. Not really. He’s wearing a cap. And he’s not sitting like an adult. Adults don’t sit like that.

  Her name is Irena Stanczyk. A Polish surname. She’s from Poland. Or, not her, but her mom and dad. She’s from Mariefred.

  She has two sisters. Diana and Izabella. Older, almost married, they don’t live at home anymore. She misses them; it was nice to have two sisters at home, but now she’s alone with Mom and Dad, and they’re more worried now, always asking where she’s going, who she’s meeting, what time she’s coming home.

  They need to stop that. She’s nine years old now.

  ————

  It’s the dark one who does all the talking. The one with long hair held back by a pink headband. Almost as if she’s talking back. Foreigner. With an attitude. She looks down on the chubby blond one. It’s the dark one that decides—he sees that, feels it.

  “Girls as little as you? I don’t believe it. What could you be up to at this time of day?”

  He likes the chubby blond one best. She has cautious eyes. He’s seen those kinds of eyes before. Now she dares, she glances at the other one first, then at him.

  “We were practicing, actually.”

  ————

  It’s still just Irena talking. She always says what they think.

  Now it’s
her turn. She’s also going to speak.

  He doesn’t seem dangerous. Not angry. He’s wearing a nice cap, just like Marwin, her big brother. Her name is Ida and she knows why. Her brother Marwin picked it. He read it in a book by Astrid Lindgren. So ugly. That’s what she thinks. Sandra is prettier. Or Isidora. But Ida. That’s the name of the girl Emile hoisted up a flagpole.

  She’s hungry. It has been a long time since she’s eaten. School lunch today had been disgusting, some kind of meat casserole. She’s always hungry after she trains.

  They usually rush home to eat, but now Irena is just talking and talking, and the man in the cap keeps asking.

  ————

  No animal. No car. No candy. He doesn’t need that. They’re talking to him. He knows it’s settled now. If they talk to him, it’s settled. He looks at the blond chubby one. She dared to speak. He didn’t think she would. The one who is naked.

  He smiles. He always does that. They like that. You put your trust in people who smile. You smile when someone smiles at you. Just the chubby blond one. Just her.

  “So you were training? Doing what, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  The chubby blond one smiles. He knew it. She looks at him. She looks just above him. He knows. He grabs his cap, turns it half a turn until the brim appears. He bows, takes it off, lifting it up, holding it in the air above her head.

  “Do you like it?”

  She raises her eyebrows, glancing up without moving her head, as if she might bump it against an invisible ceiling. She hunches up, making herself smaller.

  “Yeah. It’s nice. Marwin has one like that.”

  Just her.

  “Marwin?”

  “My big brother. He’s twelve.”

  He lowers the cap. The invisible ceiling, he passes through it. He swiftly strokes her fair hair. It’s shiny and quite soft. He puts his cap on her head. On its shiny softness. The red and green suits her.

  “You look nice. It suits you.”

  She doesn’t say anything. The dark one is about to say something, so he continues hurriedly.

  “It’s yours.”

  “Mine?”

  “Yeah, if you want it. You look beautiful in it.”

  She looks away. She takes the dark one by the hand. She wants to pull them away, away from the park bench, away from the man who has just given her a red-and-green cap.

  “You don’t want it?”

  She stops, lets go of the dark one’s hand.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well then.”

  “Thank you.”

  She curtsies. It’s so rare these days. Girls used to do that. Not anymore. Now everyone is supposed to be equal, no curtsying, no bowing either.

  The dark-haired one has been silent longer than usual, now she firmly grabs hold of the blond one’s chubby little hand. She almost jerks it, both stumble.

  “Come on. Let’s go now. It’s just a fucking guy in a stupid backward cap.”

  The blond chubby one looks at the dark-haired one, then at him, then defiantly back at the dark-haired one again.

  “Soon.”

  The dark one raises her voice.

  “No. Now.”

  She turns toward him. Runs her hand through her long hair.

  “And besides. It’s ugly. Probably the ugliest cap I’ve ever seen.”

  She points to the red-and-green cap. Presses her finger hard against it.

  An animal. Soon. A cat. A dead cat maybe. They are nine or maybe ten years old. A cat is fine.

  “You never said what you did at the gym.”

  The dark one holds her hands at her waist. Like an old lady, a shrill old lady. Like the old lady at Säter Institution, the first time. The kind who wants to raise you and change you. He can’t be changed. He doesn’t want to be changed. He is who he is.

  “Gymnastics. We’ve been practicing gymnastics. We do it all the time. Now we’re leaving.”

  They walk away, the dark-haired one first, the blond one second, not as quickly, not as determined. He looks at their backs, their naked backs, bare buttocks, bare feet. He runs after them, past them, stands in front, stretching out his hands.

  “What are you up to, fucking cap guy?”

  “Where?”

  “What do you mean, where?”

  “Where do you train?”

  Two elderly ladies are walking up the hill. They are almost at the flowers that aren’t roses. He looks at them. He looks down, counts to ten hastily, looks up again. They’re still there, but about to turn, take another path, toward the fountain.

  “What are you up to, fucking cap guy? Are you having a stroke?”

  “Where do you work out?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  The blond chubby one stares angrily at her friend. Irena is talking for both of them again. She doesn’t agree. She doesn’t think they need to be so mean.

  “We practice at Skarpholm Hall. You know. The one over there.”

  She points to the hill, the direction they just came from. The cat. The dead cat. Fuck it. Fuck animals.

  “Is it a nice gym?”

  “No.”

  “It’s even grosser than you are.”

  They’re both taking the bait. Not even the dark one can stay quiet.

  He’s still standing in front of them. He lowers his arms. Runs one hand over his black mustache. Almost petting it.

  “I know a new gym. A brand-new gym. It’s close to here. Actually, over there, by the high rise, the white building next to it, do you see it? I know the guy who owns it. I usually go there myself. Maybe you can train there? Your whole club could, as well.”

  He points excitedly, and they follow his arm and finger, the blond chubby one curiously, the dark-haired slut with attitude.

  “There’s no gym over there, fucking cap guy. There isn’t.”

  “Have you been there?”

  “No.”

  “Well then. There is a gym there. A brand-new one. And it’s not gross.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Lying?”

  “Lying.”

  ————

  Irena just keeps talking. It’s always her doing all the talking. She shouldn’t talk for other people. She shouldn’t be so mean. It’s because she didn’t get a cap.

  She believes him. She got his red-and-green cap. He knows the guy who owns the gym. She doesn’t like Skarpholm Hall—it smells old, the carpets smell almost like vomit.

  “I believe you. Marwin said there’s a new hall there. It would be nicer to practice there.”

  ————

  Ida really believes there’s a new gym. She believes everything she hears. It’s just because she got an ugly cap.

  She knows what new gyms look like. She saw one in Warsaw when she was there with her mom and dad.

  “I know there’s no new gym there, cap guy. I know that you’re lying. If there’s no new gym there when we get there, I’m gonna tell my mom and dad.”

  ————

  It’s a beautiful day. June, sunny, warm, a Thursday. Two little sluts are walking in front of him down a park path. The dark-haired one is everybody’s slut. The blond chubby one is his slut alone. Sluts sluts sluts. With their long hair, their thin jackets, their tight pants. He shouldn’t have touched himself.

  The blond chubby slut turns around and looks at him.

  “We have to be home soon. We have to eat. Mom and Marwin and me. I’m so hungry, I’m always hungry after gymnastics.”

  He smiles. They like that. He reaches for the cap sitting on her head, pulling gently on the brim.

  “Come on, this will be super quick. I promise you that. We’re almost there. So you can see if you like it; if you want to train there. It smells new, you know how it smells when something smells like new?”

  They go in. He’s been sleeping there for three nights. It was easy to break the door open. A basement filled with storage rooms full of useless crap: boxes of kitchen utensils and books, strollers
, IKEA bookshelves, rugs, an occasional floor lamp. Just shit. Except the second farthest from the back, number thirty-three, a black children’s five-speed bike that he sold for two hundred and fifty kronor; a full basement and one shitty kids’ bike. He grabs them by the arms when they walk through the cellar door. He holds tight, one in each hand, they scream just like they always scream, he holds on even tighter. He’s the one who decides. He does the deciding, and sluts do the screaming. He’s been sleeping there for three nights, he knows nobody goes down here, not to the cellar, not during the evenings. Two mornings he heard people in the cellar entrance, someone in a storage space, then silence. Sluts can scream. Sluts should scream.

  ————

  She thinks about Marwin. She thinks about Marwin. She thinks about Marwin. About Marwin’s room. Is he there now? She hopes that he’s there, in his room. At home. With Mom. He’s probably lying in bed reading. He usually does that in the evening. Mostly Donald Duck comic books. Still. He read the Lord of the Rings trilogy not too long ago. But he likes Donald Duck comics the most. He’s probably there, she just knows it.

  ————

  Fucking fucking cap guy. Fucking fucking cap guy. Fucking fucking cap guy.

  She’s not supposed to talk to his kind. Mom and Dad ask her all the time, and she always says she never talks to someone like him. And she doesn’t. She just gets kind of cocky. Ida doesn’t dare. But she dares. Mom and Dad are going be angry when they find out she spoke to a guy like this. She doesn’t want them to be angry.

  ————

  Number thirty-three is the best. That’s where he found the bike. That’s where he’s been sleeping.

  They’re not screaming anymore. The blond chubby slut is crying, snot running from her nose, her eyes red. The dark-haired slut stares defiantly at him, challenging him, hating him. He binds their hands to one of the white pipes running along the gray concrete wall. It’s hot, probably a water pipe, it burns the skin of their forearms. They kick at him, and every time they kick, he kicks back. Until they learn. Then they don’t kick anymore.

  They sit still. Sluts should sit still. Sluts should wait. He’s the one who decides. He takes off his clothes. T-shirt, jeans, underwear, shoes, socks. In that order. He does it in front of them. If they don’t look at him, he kicks them until they do. Sluts should look. He stands in front of them naked. He’s beautiful. He knows he’s beautiful. A fit body. Muscular legs. Firm buttocks. No belly. Beautiful.