Having got this far in Benny’s story, Julius was beginning to worry that it might lead to all-too-personal questions from The Beauty, such as how Benny had ended up with Julius and Allan. But The Beauty didn’t bother with the details, thanks to the beer and the bitters. Instead, she had to admit that she was feeling a bit infatuated, old as she was.
‘So what else have you almost become over the years, besides a vet?’ she asked with sparkling eyes.
Benny understood just as well as Julius that the developments of the last few days shouldn’t be described in too much detail, so he was grateful for the direction of The Beauty’s question. He couldn’t remember everything, he said, but you can cover a lot if you sit at a school desk for three decades, and do your homework once in a while. Benny was an almost-vet, almost-doctor, almost-architect, almost-engineer, almost-botanist, almost-language-teacher, almost-sports-coach, almost-historian and almost quite a few other things. And for a bit of variety he had taken some shorter courses of varying quality and importance. Sometimes he had even taken two courses at the same time.
Then Benny remembered something else that he almost was. He leapt to his feet, facing The Beauty, and declaimed in very poetic Swedish:
From my pauper’s gloomy life
In my loneliness I sing
An air for you, my lovely wife
Royal jewel and glittering bling
Complete silence followed; then The Beauty mumbled an inaudible expletive while she blushed.
‘Erik Axel Karlfeldt,’ Benny explained. ‘With those words I would like to thank you for the food and the hospitality. I don’t think I said that I am an almost-literary-expert too?’
Benny might have gone too far when he asked The Beauty if she would like to dance in front of the fire, because she quickly said no, adding that there must be some damned limit to these stupidities. But Julius noticed that she was flattered. She zipped up her tracksuit jacket and smoothed it down to look her best for Benny.
After which Allan retired for the night while the other three moved on to coffee, cognac optional. Julius happily said yes to the entire offer, while Benny settled for half.
Julius showered The Beauty with questions about the farm and her own story, partly because he was curious, partly because he wanted to avoid the subject of who they were, where they were going, and why. But he didn’t have to worry. The Beauty had now got up steam and was talking about her childhood, about the man she married when she was eighteen and kicked out ten years later (that part of the story contained even more expletives), about never having children, about Lake Farm which had been her parents’ summer house before her mother died seven years ago and her father had let The Beauty take it over, about her sincerely uninspiring job as a receptionist at the health clinic in Rottne, about the inheritance that was starting to run out and about it soon being time to move on.
‘I’m already forty-three,’ said The Beauty. ‘That is damn well halfway to the grave.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that,’ said Julius.
The dog-handler gave Kicki new instructions and she moved away from the trolley, sniffing constantly. Chief Inspector Aronsson hoped that the corpse in question would turn up somewhere in the vicinity, but only thirty metres inside the grounds, Kicki started walking in circles, and seemed to be searching at random, before looking up pleadingly at her handler.
‘Kicki says she’s sorry, but she can’t figure out where the corpse has gone,’ the dog-handler translated.
The dog-handler did not convey this message as precisely as he perhaps should have. Chief Inspector Aronsson interpreted the answer as meaning that Kicki had lost track of the corpse as soon as she walked away from the trolley. But if Kicki had been able to talk, she would have told him that the body was definitely moved a few metres into the grounds before disappearing. And then Chief Inspector Aronsson might have investigated whether any shipments had left the foundry in the last few hours. The answer would have been just one: a tractor trailer with a container bound for Gothenburg harbour. Then, the police could have been notified and the tractor trailer intercepted on the main road. But now the corpse had disappeared beyond the borders of Sweden.
Almost three weeks later, a young Egyptian watchman sat on a barge which had just emerged from the southern end of the Suez Canal. He noticed a terrible stench from the cargo.
Finally he couldn’t stand it any longer. He wet a rag and tied it around his nose and mouth. In one of the wooden boxes he found the explanation: a half-rotten corpse.
The Egyptian seaman deliberated. He had no desire to leave the corpse there to ruin the rest of the journey. Besides he would almost certainly be subjected to long police interrogations in Djibouti, and everybody knew what the police were like in Djibouti.
Moving the body himself wasn’t a pleasant thought either, but in the end he made up his mind. First he emptied the corpse’s pockets of everything of value – he deserved something for his trouble – and then he shoved it overboard.
And that is how what had once been a young man of slight build, with long blond and greasy hair, a scraggly beard and a denim jacket with the words Never Again on the back, was turned with a splash into fish food in the Red Sea.
The group at Lake Farm split up just before midnight. Julius went upstairs to sleep, while Benny and The Beauty got into the Mercedes to visit the health clinic in Rottne after hours. Halfway there they discovered Allan under a blanket on the back seat. He woke up and explained that he had gone out for a breath of fresh air and once outside he had realised that the car would be a good place to sleep because the stairs up to the bedrooms were a bit too much for his shaking knees, after such a long day.
‘I’m no longer ninety,’ he said.
The duo had become a trio for the nocturnal exercise, but it didn’t matter. The Beauty described her plan in more detail. They would get into the clinic with the help of the key The Beauty had forgotten to return when she resigned. Once inside, they would log in to Doctor Erlandsson’s computer and in Erlandsson’s name send a prescription for antibiotics, made out in The Beauty’s name. For that you needed Erlandsson’s password, but that was no problem said The Beauty, because Doctor Erlandsson was not just pompous, he was also a fool. When the new computer system was installed a couple of years earlier, it was The Beauty who had to teach the doctor how to file electronic prescriptions, and she was the one who chose his username and password.
The Mercedes arrived at the intended crime scene. Benny, Allan and The Beauty got out and inspected the surroundings before committing the actual crime. At that moment a car passed slowly by. The driver was as surprised by the trio as they were by him. A single living being awake at that time of night in Rottne was a sensation. On this particular night there were four.
But the car drove on and darkness and silence settled on Rottne once more. The Beauty led Benny and Allan in through the staff entrance in the back, and then to Doctor Erlandsson’s room. There she turned on Doctor Erlandsson’s computer and logged in.
Everything went according to plan and The Beauty giggled happily until suddenly, she let loose a long stream of curses. She had just realised that you couldn’t simply send a prescription for ‘one kilo of antibiotics’.
‘Write Erythromycin, Rifamin, Gentramicin and Rifampin, two hundred and fifty grams each,’ said Benny. ‘Then we can attack the inflammation from several different angles.’
The Beauty looked admiringly at Benny. Then she invited him to sit down and spell it all out. Benny did and added various other medicines, useful to have on hand in case of future bad luck.
Breaking out of the clinic was just as easy as breaking in. And their journey home was without incident. Benny and The Beauty helped Allan upstairs and when it was almost half-past two in the morning, the last light was turned off at Lake Farm.
After ten at night there weren’t many people awake in that sleepy area. But in Braås, about twenty kilometres from Lake Farm, a young man lay in bed turning
restlessly, desperate for a cigarette. It was Bucket’s little brother, the new leader of The Violence. Three hours earlier, he had finished his last cigarette and soon felt an unstoppable need to have another. He cursed himself for having forgotten to buy fags before everything shut for the evening.
At first he had intended to hold out until the following morning, but by midnight he couldn’t stand it any longer. That was when he got the idea of reliving old times, of simply gaining entry to a newspaper kiosk with the help of a crowbar. But it couldn’t be in Braås, where he had a reputation to uphold. Besides, he would be suspected of the crime almost before it was discovered.
It would be best to go a bit further afield, but he needed a smoke so badly that he had to compromise. And the compromise was Rottne, about fifteen minutes away. Dressed inconspicuously he rolled slowly into the little town in his old Volvo 240, a little after midnight. When he drove past the health clinic he was surprised to see three people on the pavement: a woman with red hair, a man with a ponytail and just behind them a terribly old man.
Bucket’s little brother didn’t analyse the event deeply. (He rarely analysed anything deeply, or even superficially.) Instead, he drove on, stopped under a tree quite close to the newspaper kiosk he’d been seeking, failed to break in because the owner had secured the door against crowbars, and then drove home again, just as desperate for a smoke as before.
When Allan woke up just after eleven o’clock the next morning he felt reinvigorated. He looked out of the window where the forest spread out around a lake. The landscape reminded him of Södermanland. It looked like it was going to be a nice day.
He got dressed, putting on the only clothes he had, and thought that he could perhaps afford to renew his wardrobe a little. Neither he nor Julius nor Benny had even managed to bring a toothbrush with them.
When Allan came downstairs, Julius and Benny were eating breakfast. Julius had been out for a walk while Benny had slept deeply and for a long time. The Beauty had put out plates and glasses and left written instructions about self-service in the kitchen. She herself had gone to Rottne. The note ended with an order that the gentlemen should make sure to leave a reasonable amount of breakfast on the plates, so Buster could have some too.
Allan said good morning and received the same greeting in return. After which Julius added that he had had the idea of staying another night at Lake Farm because the surroundings were so enchanting. Allan asked if perhaps the private chauffeur had had some influence over that decision, considering the passion that had been in the air the previous evening. Julius answered that Benny had indeed given a wealth of reasons for staying on at Lake Farm for the rest of the summer, but that the conclusion was his own. Where would they go anyway? Didn’t they need an extra day to think? All they needed in order to stay was a plausible story explaining who they were and where they were going – and The Beauty’s permission, of course.
Benny followed Allan and Julius’ conversation with interest, clearly hoping that it would end with another night at the same place. His feelings for The Beauty had not diminished since the previous day. On the contrary he was disappointed she wasn’t around when he came down for breakfast. But she had written ‘thanks for last night’ in the letter. Could she have been referring to the poem that Benny had recited? If only she would come back soon!
But it was almost an hour before The Beauty turned into the yard. When she climbed out of her car, Benny saw that she was even more beautiful than the last time he saw her. She had exchanged her red tracksuit for a dress and she might even have been to the hairdresser. He took some eager steps towards her, and exclaimed:
‘My beauty! Welcome home!’
Behind him stood Allan and Julius, enjoying the tender scene. But their smiles disappeared as soon as they saw her demeanour. First she walked straight past Benny and then past the other two, before stopping on the steps of Lake Farm, where she turned round and said:
‘You bastards! I know everything! And now I want to know the rest. Assemble in the living room. NOW!’
Upon which The Beauty disappeared into the house.
‘If she already knows everything, what more does she want to know?’ asked Benny.
‘Just be quiet, Benny,’ said Julius.
‘My words exactly,’ said Allan.
And then they went inside to meet their fate.
The Beauty had started the day by feeding Sonya some newly cut grass and then decided to smarten up a little. Reluctantly, she had admitted to herself that she wanted to be beautiful for that Benny guy. So she had swapped the red tracksuit for a light yellow dress and her frizzy hair had now been tidied into two pigtails. She had also added a little make-up and a touch of fragrance before she got into her red VW Passat to drive to Rottne for supplies.
Buster sat as he always did in the passenger seat and licked his chops when the car headed for the supermarket. Afterwards, The Beauty wondered whether in fact Buster had seen the newspaper headlines – the one for The Express was lit up outside the shop and had two photos, one at the bottom of old man Julius, and one at the top of very-old man Allan. The headline read:
‘Centenarian kidnapped by criminal gang. Hunt on today for notorious master thief – Police’.
The Beauty turned bright red in the face, her thoughts flying in all directions. She was furious and immediately abandoned plans to buy supplies, because those three sly devils would be out of her house before lunch! But first The Beauty went into the pharmacy to pick up the medicine that Benny had ordered the night before, and then she bought a copy of The Express to find out in more detail what on earth was going on.
The more The Beauty read, the angrier she became. But at the same time she couldn’t really piece it all together. Was it Benny who was Never Again? Was Julius a master thief? And who had kidnapped whom? They all seemed to get along so well.
In the end, her anger won over her curiosity. Whatever had happened, she had been conned. And you didn’t con Gunilla Björklund and get away with it! ‘My beauty!’ Hah!
She sat in her car and read the article once more: ‘On his hundredth birthday on Monday, Allan Karlsson disappeared from the Old People’s Home in Malmköping. The police now suspect that he has been kidnapped by the criminal organisation Never Again. According to information received by The Express, the master thief Julius Jonsson is involved.’
This was followed by a mish-mash of information and witness statements. Allan Karlsson had been seen at the bus station in Malmköping, then he had climbed on the bus to Strängnäs, and this had made a member of Never Again furious… But hang on… ‘…blond man in his thirties…’ That did not describe Benny. The Beauty felt… relieved?
The confusion continued when she read that Allan Karlsson had been seen the day before on a rail inspection trolley in the middle of the Södermanland forest, together with master-thief Jonsson and the Never Again member who had been so angry with him. The Express could not give an exact description of the relationship between the three men, but the current theory was that Allan Karlsson was in the clutches of the others. That at least was the opinion of farmer Tengroth in Vidkärr.
Finally, The Express had yet another scoop. According to the assistant at the nearby service station, the proprietor of a local hot-dog stand, by the name of Benny Ljungberg, had disappeared without a trace the day before, close to the last known location of the centenarian and the master thief.
The Beauty folded the paper and placed it in Buster’s mouth. Then she headed back to her farmhouse in the forest, where she now knew her visitors consisted of a centenarian, a master thief and the proprietor of a hot-dog stand. This last one was handsome as well as charming and clearly had some medical knowledge, but there was no room for romance here. For a moment, The Beauty was more sad than angry, but she worked up to fury again just as she drove into her yard.
The Beauty pulled The Express out of Buster’s mouth, unfolded the first page with the pictures of Allan and Julius, and started swearing an
d shouting before reading aloud from the article. Then she demanded an explanation and promised that all three of them would be on their way in five minutes, come what may. Then she folded the paper again and put it back in Buster’s mouth, crossed her arms, and ended with a frigid:
‘Well?’
Benny looked at Allan who looked at Julius who strangely enough broke into a smile.
‘Master thief,’ he said. ‘I’m a master thief. Not bad!’
But The Beauty was not impressed. She was already red in the face and became even redder when she informed Julius that he would soon be a very beaten-up master thief if The Beauty didn’t immediately find out what was going on. And then she told the assembled guests what she had already told herself, namely that nobody conned Gunilla Björklund at Lake Farm and got away with it. To put force behind her words, she pulled an old shotgun down from the wall. It didn’t work, of course, The Beauty admitted, but it would serve well to smash the skulls of master thieves, hot-dog-stand proprietors and old geezers if necessary, and it seemed it would be necessary.
Julius Jonsson’s smile quickly faded. Benny stood there nailed to the floor with his arms hanging limply by his side. As far as he could see, his chance of romance was rapidly evaporating. Then Allan stepped in, and asked The Beauty for time to think. With The Beauty’s permission, he would like to have a private conversation with Julius in the adjacent room. The Beauty agreed with a bit of muttering, but warned Allan not to try any tricks. Allan promised to behave and then he took Julius by the arm and led him into the kitchen, closing the door behind them.
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared Page 9