The Beast Read Online Free PDF

Not today. And
sooner or later it would all go to hell, whatever.
        He
ripped off the seatbelt, opened the door. Ulrik realised what was up, but
didn't have time to act. Åke was going to beat the shit out of the nonce. Lund
would get it harder than any of them ever had. Not that Ulrik minded. He stayed
where he was, smiling to himself.
    ----
       

        
        The
town was never more silent than a few minutes past four in the morning. After
the last customers had left Hörnans Bar to make their way noisily from the harbour
along the Promenade towards the old bridge to Toster Island, there was this
quiet space, until the newspaper boys delivering the Strängrtäs Gazette fanned out to sprint along Stor Street, opening porch doors and letterboxes.
        Fredrik
Steffansson knew it all, he hadn't slept through the night for ages. He kept
the window open, so he could lie in bed and listen to the little town falling
asleep and waking again, to the movements of people he mostly knew, or at least
recognised. That's how it is when your world is small-scale. Everything crowds
in on you. He had lived here almost all his life. Sure, he had read a lot of
books by the right people and gone off to live in Stockholm's South End,
studying comparative religion at the university. Then he had worked in a
kibbutz in northern Israel, a few miles from the Lebanese border. But once all
that was over and done with, he returned to Strängnäs and the people he knew,
or at least recognised. He'd never truly got away, never left growing up here
behind him. His memories and his lasting sadness at the loss of Frans tied him
to this town. It was here he had met Agnes. He had fallen madly in love with
her, she was so sophisticated, exclusively dressed in black, always searching
for something. They started living together, but had been about to part when
Marie arrived and made them rediscover each other, so that, for almost a year,
the three of them were a family. Then Fredrik and Agnes separated for ever, not
as enemies, but they spoke only when Marie was to be delivered or collected.
She had to travel from one city to another, because Agnes had moved to
Stockholm, living among her beautiful friends, where she really belonged.
        Someone
was walking down there in the street. He checked the time. Quarter to five.
Bloody nights. If only he could think of something that made sense, his next
piece of writing, just the next two pages, but no, it seemed impossible. He
couldn't think at all, the empty time passed as he listened to what seeped in
through the window, taking note of when doors closed and cars started.
Meaningless accountancy. He had hardly any energy left for writing. When he had
delivered Marie to nursery school and settled down at his computer with the day
stretching ahead of him, the hours without sleep attacked, tiredness engulfed
him. Three chapters in two months was simply disastrous, his powerful publisher
wouldn't put up with it and was already sending out feelers to find out what
was up.
        A
truck. That sounded like that truck. But it usually didn't run before half past
five.
        Such
a thin partition to Marie's room. He could hear her. She was snoring. How come
little children snore like fat old men? Fragile five-year-olds with piping
voices, as cute as anything? He used to think it was just Marie, but whenever
David slept over they made twice as much noise, filling the silences between
each other's breaths.
        It
wasn't a truck. A bus, that was it.
        He
turned away from the window. Micaela slept in the nude, blanket and sheet
bundled up at her feet as always.
        She
was just twenty-four, so young. She made him feel loved, often randy, and, at
times, so old. It would hit him suddenly, often when they were talking about
music or books or films. One of them would make a remark about a composition,
or someone's writing, or a play, and it would become obvious that she was young
and he was