LÅ: According to the third chapter of the penal code first paragraph the one who deprives another of life shall be sentenced to murder and imprisonment for ten years to life.
was demanding life in prison and his lawyer
KB: According to chapter twenty-four of the penal code, first section of the first paragraph, an act committed in self-defense is a crime only if it, in regard to the nature of the act, the significance of what is acted upon and general circumstance, is indisputably indefensible.
was claiming self-defense, and the lay judges didn’t seem to be listening, and the journalists behind him were writing and taking notes that he wouldn’t be allowed to read. He didn’t know who they were or what reality they represented. Behind them, the audience, the curious, who he’d come to hate, who pounded their knees in delight to be close enough to stare unrestrainedly at the father who killed his daughter’s murderer.
LÅ: Fredrik Steffansson spent four days planning the murder of Bernt Lund. Steffansson, therefore, had plenty of time to consider his actions. Steffansson committed murder to, in his own words, rid society of a mad dog.
He avoided looking behind him. Just a few times to see Micaela. He wanted to say something, show something,
KB: An emergency exists when the danger threatens life, health, property, or anything else protected by law. We believe that the apparent danger to two girls’ lives existed, and that Fredrik Steffansson’s actions saved two young lives.
but he had been afraid of those curious eyes and sniffing noses and so he’d given up trying. He’d sat there, hour after hour, staring straight ahead, refusing to watch or listen, and seeing Marie in a body bag on a table at the Forensic Medicine building, her face beautiful and her chest taped together and her abdomen cut to pieces by something metallic and her feet too clean with traces of saliva—he could hear the one speaking for and the one speaking against and answered their questions, but it was as if it wasn’t happening, and a girl in a body bag on a table was all he had the strength to care about.
Summer was slowly dying out.
The heat that reigned, week after week, had dissolved, cooler air had replaced it, and when the downpours became persistent, damp crept in under the tanned skin, and shorts and tank tops turned to long pants and jackets. But Charlotte van Balvas breathed easily. She’d been waiting to be able to walk quietly along the streets of Stockholm without squinting in the sun—soon it would be perfectly acceptable to be pale again, her fair complexion turned an angry red when exposed to the sun. Every day she’d lingered in the courtroom longer than she needed to, then hid out in restaurants and libraries, waiting to take to the streets again, just like everyone else. They all looked so happy.
She was forty-six years old, and she was scared.
She’d seen what happened to the prosecutor, Ågestam, how he’d been threatened, his home vandalized, simply because he represented society and was doing what had to be done: insisting on life imprisonment for a premeditated murder. She was the judge in this case and probably just as scrutinized and hated. In addition, she was joined by three lay judges, who lacked any legal background and who had been appointed after long and faithful political service. It was the lay judges she’d be facing in a moment in a meeting room behind the courtroom. She was going to try to convince them that the father, according to the laws they’d all agreed to follow, was guilty of murder and, therefore, should be punished with a long prison term.
She had no choice.
She was society, and society had no place for lynch mobs administering their own justice.
She crossed Kungsholm Square, nearing the courthouse. She observed them, crouching under their umbrellas, and wondered what they were thinking. What if they had fired the shots, if it had been their choice? Did they think one person had more right to live than another one? She wondered if they recognized her. All of their pictures had appeared widely in the news, both hers and the lay judge’s.
They Determine the Outcome in the Pedophile Trial
Is Killing Right? They Decide
The Court That Might Make the Death Penalty Part of Swedish Law
She’d bought the papers, seen the headlines, but never read beyond that.
She’d been studying the father’s face for five days, so fragile, so damaged. He’d tried to avoid the hyenas on the witness benches and so constantly kept his eyes focused straight ahead. She’d liked what she saw. She’d even read one of the father’s books in the evening and realized he was exactly as he claimed. He had almost certainly prevented Lund from desecrating two girls. She also understood that this could be why he’d shot him. Dear Lord, she could caress that fragile face, he didn’t scare her, and she believed him when he said he had shot his daughter’s killer not in revenge, but so that other parents wouldn’t have to experience the same thing.
One of the lay judges had asked her how she would have reasoned if it had been her own child he’d saved, if she’d been the one living near that nursery school in Enköping.
She had no children.
But she wasn’t so stupid that she didn’t understand how she might have felt differently, so she’d avoided answering him.
The courthouse, she could see it. She was close now.
At that very moment the rain started falling harder. Large drops rapidly formed into large puddles. A thunderstorm.
Her clothes were getting soaking wet. She stood still.
The water ran down her cheeks, along her neck, and it calmed her, gave her courage. She was going to be able to make it through these deliberations where, very soon, she’d try to influence the other judges to sentence a grieving father to life imprisonment.
It was raining outside. Fredrik stood by the grating of the window, trying to find whatever was making that annoying clattering sound. A piece of the windowsill hanging loose? He could see the copper-colored metal, tried to count the drops of rain beating against it. He lay down on the bed—the dirty ceiling, the bare walls, the locked door and closed hatch. He tried to close his eyes, escape, but had slept so much in recent days that he was unable to disappear into that trance anymore. It was impossible to sleep away the hours.
He’d been locked up here for almost three weeks.
The guards laughed when he complained. They said Sweden had some of the world’s longest detention times, but he was already having his case tried. Some spent months, almost a year, in here before their trials began.
He’d been lucky, they said, because he shot a famous pedophile and all that media attention moved things along faster. He had no fucking clue how that endless waiting with no end in sight was able to make people commit suicide in the night.
Somebody was here, despite the fact that there was still an hour left until lunch. He looked toward the door. Someone was standing out there.
Eyes in the hatch.
“Fredrik?”
“Yes?”
“You have a visitor.”
He sat up, fiddling with his hair a bit. It was the first time in several days he’d thought about how he looked. The cell door opened.
A priest and a lawyer. Rebecka and Kristina Björnsson. They entered at the same time. And it was as if they were beaming.
“Hello.”
He didn’t have it in him to answer. They were people he liked and he should greet them, but he no longer had the energy. They meant well, but this space was his. Even the fluorescent lamp that made it even uglier was his.
“What is it?”
“It’s a good day.”
“I’m just tired. The damn rattling.”
He pointed toward the window.
“Do you hear it?”
They listened for a moment, nodded affirmatively. Rebecka fidgeted with her clerical collar for a moment, then put her hand on his shoulder.
“Fredrik, I want you to listen to me now. Kristina has good news.”
Kristina Björnsson sat down on the bed beside him. Her round body, her calm voice.
“This is how
it is, Fredrik, you’re a free man.”
He heard her. He said nothing.
“Do you understand? Free! You were acquitted just a moment ago. A divided district court ruled that you acted in self-defense, nothing else. So you can leave this room, take off that uniform. Tonight, you only lock the door if you want to.”
He stood up again, went to the window, where the windowsill was clattering even louder than before. The rain was falling harder. There was going to be thunder.
“I don’t know.”
“What did you say?”
“I’m not sure that it matters.”
“What doesn’t matter?”
“I’d just as well stay here.”
For some reason, he thought of his military service. How he’d hated every minute of it, then one day it was over, and he’d walked out empty and silent from the open gate, all joy and longing, the anticipation gone. It had helped him to survive, and then it was gone.
Just like that all over again.
“I don’t think you understand.”
Rebecka and Kristina looked at each other.
“No. We probably don’t.”
He didn’t want to explain, but they were worth the effort.
“I had a child. She doesn’t exist anymore. Her genitals were slashed apart by someone who’d done exactly the same thing before. I had a certain view of humanity. It doesn’t exist anymore. I thought life was sacred—then I killed a man. I don’t know. I just don’t fucking know. If you lose your life—what else is there?”
They’d stayed there on his bed waiting while he changed his clothes, changed his world.
He didn’t belong here anymore.
He nodded to the guard with the staring eyes, stopped in the corridor on his way out, bought a coffee in a plastic cup from a vending machine that whined softly, continued in the entrance straight past twenty waiting journalists. It was just like in the courtroom—they wanted his face, and he said nothing, showed nothing. He hugged Rebecka and Kristina on the pavement and sat down in the waiting taxi.
Bengt Söderlund ran as fast as he could through Tallbacka. He dashed from his home, hip aching, the taste of blood in his mouth, just like when he won his school championship, not because he’d been the strongest or the most fit, but because he was the most determined to win. Now he was running again. It was as if he couldn’t get there fast enough, as if every second had to be utilized, saved. He could see Ove and Helena’s house in the distance. They were home, their car in the driveway, the lights on in the kitchen. He hurried up the stairs, didn’t ring the doorbell, just stepped into the hall instead, waved the paper in his hand, and shouted toward the living room.
“Now, dammit, now!”
Helena was sitting naked in a chair. She was reading a book and looked in fright at the man shouting from her hallway. He’d never seen her naked before, and if he’d really looked, he would have seen that she was beautiful. But he didn’t, because he couldn’t stop, couldn’t stand still. He went into the living room and walked around, waving the paper and trying to see through the window if Ove was in the garden, if he was home at all.
“Where is he?”
“What is it?”
“Where is he?”
“In the basement. He’s taking a shower.”
“I’ll go and get him.”
“He’s coming up soon.”
“I’ll go and get him.”
He opened the door to the basement, took a clumsy and noisy step down the steep stairway. He knew where the shower was. He’d borrowed it several times some years ago when they redid their bathroom—Elisabeth had wanted a bigger one, he’d knocked down a closet, and she got her hardwood floor. He opened the next door, went over to the shower curtain, large birds on a blue background, and pulled it to the side. Ove stumbled and cringed until he saw who it was.
“Here. Here, we have it! Now, dammit!”
Ove turned off the shower, dried himself haphazardly, and walked up the stairs with the towel wrapped carelessly around his waist, behind Bengt, who held the paper in the air: a first prize for the public that needed to be celebrated. They moved quickly through the hall and into the living room. Helena was still sitting there, quiet, but with her dressing gown on now.
“Can you believe it? Can you believe it?!”
He put the paper on the table, unfolded it while Ove and Helena moved closer.
“I printed it out from the internet. A news agency website. It was announced twenty minutes ago. Or nineteen, actually. Look, eleven o’clock precisely.”
Ove and Helena were reading. Two pages, large text. Bengt waited impatiently, walked back and forth across the room.
“Are you done? Can you believe it? They acquitted him! Self-defense! He shot that fucking pedophile and saved the lives of those little girls and the district court ruled it was self-defense! He went home. He’s sitting at home right now having a drink. Three against one, only the judge had any reservations, the others didn’t hesitate.”
Ove read again, Helena leaned back in her chair, Bengt hugged her and pounded Ove on the back.
“Now, dammit! Now he’s gonna go away! It’s our fucking right! He’s going, it’s self-defense, now, goddammit, it’s self-defense!”
————
They waited until it was dark. They’d been sitting at Bengt’s all afternoon, not saying much, just passing the time together. They knew what they were going to do. One more cup of coffee, each with a bun to dip, then it was half past nine—darkness had fallen, not black, but enough to obscure faces.
They converged in the garden—Bengt, Ove, Helena, Ola, Klas—let their eyes get used to the lack of contours. It was quiet. Days began and ended early here. Bengt asked the others to wait while he went back to the house, into the kitchen, snapped his fingers, and felt Baxter’s tongue against his hand. They approached the garden shed in a line, opened the padlock, and lifted out the two boxes. First twenty tightly packed wine bottles and twenty soda bottles, all filled halfway with gasoline, a piece of fabric pressed into the glass necks, then the smaller box with ten cigarette lighters inside. Ove and Klas helped to balance the box of bottles, Ola took care of the lighters, he kept two for himself, gave the others two each.
A few more meters. The house next door, fully illuminated. They stayed hidden and could see him walking around inside, from kitchen to living room, from the living room into the bathroom. When the light in the bathroom turned on, Bengt made a sign to Baxter to stay put, took several steps forward, started to climb up the pole in front of him. He was agile and fast, reached the top quickly and hung there, grabbed a pair of pliers out of the side pocket of his work pants and used them to cut the telephone lines. The bathroom light was bright. The house’s owner stood by the sink. Bengt slid down, stinging his hands. He moved to the next pole and used a square key to open an electrical box a few meters up, identical to his own, the master switch.
The house went completely dark. They waited.
It took longer than they’d anticipated. First, a pair of candles was lit, one placed in each room. Then, the flashlight. Its light flickered along the walls.
A few more seconds.
The flashlight neared the hall, the entrance door.
Bengt held Baxter by the collar. The dog knew it was time to attack. That his master would soon give him the command.
“Baxter! Get ’im!”
The flashlight shone on a door being opened.
Bengt released Baxter at the precise moment Flasher-Göran went down the front steps. The dog ran across the lawn, barking loudly, and Flasher-Göran turned, tore open the door again as the dog reached the steps, and slammed it as the animal took a run at it.
“Stay, Baxter.”
The dog stopped barking and sat at the front door, ready.
Bengt tried to follow the shadow running through the house, glimpsed it several times through the windows. He was fairly sure that Flasher-Göran had stayed in the kitchen.
He screame
d in that direction.
“Are you scared, Göran? Now when it’s dark and cold? We’re going to help you, Göran. We’re gonna give you some light and heat again.”
He pointed to Ove, Ola, and Klas, who quickly moved over to the open garden shed and retrieved the oil drum of gasoline. It was heavy. They lifted together and carried it over the lawn, turned it on its side, and rolled it up to Flasher-Göran’s house. Ove hit it with a screwdriver, removing the lid, and lifted up the barrel again, just enough for the gas to pour out. They carried the container around the house, emptying it of its contents, gas in the flowerbeds and on the gravel path.
Helena, meanwhile, lifted up the glass bottles and put them in five equal piles. They lit the fabric pieces and waited quietly for the Molotov cocktails to light, then a signal from Bengt, and they threw five flaming bottles.
They hit various parts of the house. But the explosion was one and the same.
They threw again, at the same time, hitting new places. One by one, eight bottles each. The house was on fire already, the fire devouring it from several directions at once.
Bengt took a piece of paper from the same pocket as the pliers, and while the house burned fiercely in front of them, he started reading out loud. He read from the district court’s judgment against Fredrik Steffansson. If a father murdered his daughter’s murderer, preventing a pedophile from violating more children, and was acquitted because his act was a service to society, it was to be regarded as self-defense.
When he was finished, he opened the kitchen window. Flasher-Göran screamed and threw himself out.
He landed heavily and lay there. Bengt was convinced that Elisabeth would have understood if only she’d seen. She should have been here next to him.
Flasher-Göran started to move, and Bengt shouted to Baxter, who was still guarding the front door. The dog ran down the stairs, toward the man who was on his way up from the ground, threw himself onto him, and tore apart the arm Flasher-Göran was trying to use to protect himself.
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