Pike said that he wasn’t so sure that he had the necessary respect for the internal revenue authorities and their taxes to be able to run a company in partnership with a police chief inspector, but that he nevertheless thanked Allan for the advice.
The mood had thus immediately become jovial. And it didn’t get worse when Benny and The Beauty joined them, and shortly after, Julius and Bosse too.
They talked about all manner of things there on the veranda, except how the events of the past month fitted together. Allan scored a success when he suddenly led an elephant around the corner and together with Sonya put on a short dance performance. Julius became more and more pleased not to be wanted by the police any longer, and started to cut off the beard that he had felt obliged to cultivate before he had dared show himself in Falköping.
‘To think that I have been guilty all my life and now I am suddenly innocent!’ said Julius. ‘What a delightful sensation!’
And Bosse, for his part, thought this was reason enough to fetch a bottle of genuine Hungarian champagne for his friends and the chief inspector to toast each other. The chief inspector lamely protested that he had his car at the farm. A room was reserved at the central hotel in Falköping, but as a chief inspector he could hardly drive there if he was a bit tipsy.
But then Benny came to the rescue and said that teetotallers in general – according to Allan – were a threat to world peace, but that they were useful to have at hand when you needed a lift somewhere.
‘Have a glass of champagne, Inspector, and I shall make sure that you get safely to your hotel.’
The inspector didn’t need further persuading. He had long suffered from a chronic lack of social life and now that he finally found himself in pleasant company he couldn’t sit there and sulk.
‘Well now, a little toast for the innocence of all of you, I suppose the police force can go along with that,’ he said. ‘Or even two toasts if necessary; there are quite a lot of you…’
Thus passed a couple of hours of general merriment before Chief Inspector Aronsson’s telephone rang again. Once more, it was Prosecutor Ranelid. He told Aronsson that on account of unfortunate circumstances in the presence of the press, he had just announced that the three men and the woman were innocent, and he had done so in a manner that hardly allowed for retraction. Besides, within less than twenty-four hours he must know what had actually happened between the day when the old geezer Karlsson climbed out of his window and the present day, because that was what the press were being summoned to hear at three tomorrow.
‘In other words, you are well up shit creek,’ said the slightly drunken chief inspector.
‘You must help me, Göran!’
‘How? By moving corpses geographically? Or by killing people who have had the poor taste to not be as dead as you would have wished them to be?’
Prosecutor Ranelid admitted that he had already considered that last solution, but that it probably wouldn’t work. No, he hoped that Göran could cautiously sound out Allan Karlsson and his… accomplices about whether Ranelid would be welcome at the farm the following morning for a little – completely informal – chat about this and that in order to bring clarity as to what had recently taken place in the forests of Södermanland and Småland. And for good measure, Prosecutor Ranelid promised that he would apologize to the four innocent citizens on behalf of the Södermanland Police Force.
‘The Södermanland Police Force?’ said Chief Inspector Aronsson.
‘Yes… Or, no, on my own behalf,’ said Prosecutor Ranelid.
‘Understood. Just take a deep breath, Conny, and I’ll ask. I’ll call you back in a few minutes.’
Chief Inspector Aronsson turned to his companions and announced the happy news that Prosecutor Ranelid had just held a press conference where he had emphasized how innocent Allan Karlsson and his friends were. And then he passed on the prosecutor’s request to visit.
The Beauty reacted with an animated lecture saying that no good would come of describing in detail the developments of the last few weeks for the prosecutor. Julius agreed. If you had been declared innocent, then you were innocent, and that was that.
‘And I’m not used to that. So it would be too bad if my innocence lasted less than twenty-four hours.’
Allan said that he wished his friends would stop worrying about every little thing. The newspapers and TV would certainly not leave the group in peace until they had their story. So wouldn’t it be better to tell it to a solitary prosecutor, than to have journalists all over the place for the next few weeks?
‘Besides, we’ve got all evening to come up with a story,’ said Allan.
Chief Inspector Aronsson would have preferred not to hear the last bit. He got up from his chair to emphasize his presence and stop them from saying any more. It was time to call it a day, he said. If Benny would be so kind as to drive him to his hotel, he would be most grateful. From the car, Aronsson intended to phone Prosecutor Ranelid and tell him that he would be welcome at about ten o’clock the following morning, if that was what the group agreed upon. In any case, Aronsson intended to come in a taxi, if only to collect his car. Incidentally, would it be possible to have another half-glass of that exquisite Bulgarian champagne before he left? What? It was Hungarian? Well, it didn’t really matter, to be honest.
Chief Inspector Aronsson was served yet another glass, filled to the brim, which he downed in all haste before rubbing his nose and then getting into the passenger seat of his own car, already driven up to the door by Benny. And then, he declaimed some lines from the Swedish poet Carl Michael Bellman about good friends and Hungarian wine.
Benny, an almost-expert on literature, nodded.
‘John 8:7, don’t forget that tomorrow morning, Chief Inspector,’ Bosse called out in a sudden burst of inspiration. ‘In the Bible, John 8:7.’
Chapter 25
Friday, 27th May 2005
It takes time to get from Eskilstuna to Falköping. Prosecutor Conny Ranelid needed to get up at dawn (and after sleeping badly all night too) to get to Bellringer Farm by ten o’clock. And the meeting couldn’t run longer than one hour or his plan would be ruined. The press conference was supposed to start at three.
Conny Ranelid was close to tears as he drove down the road. The Great Victory of Justice, that was what his book would have been called. Hah! If there was any justice at all in this world, then lightning would strike that damned farm and everyone there would burn to death. Then Prosecutor Ranelid could say whatever he wanted to the journalists.
Chief Inspector Aronsson slept late. He woke up at nine, with a bit of a bad conscience about the events of the previous day. He had drunk champagne with the potential delinquents, and he had clearly heard Karlsson say that they would make up a story for Prosecutor Ranelid. Was he about to become an accomplice — accomplice to what, in that case?
When the chief inspector had reached his hotel the previous evening, he looked up John 8:7 in the Gideon Bible in his room. This had been followed by a couple of hours of bible reading in a corner of the hotel bar, in the company of a gin and tonic, followed by another gin and tonic followed by another gin and tonic.
The chapter in question was about the woman who committed adultery and whom the Pharisees had taken before Jesus to place him in a dilemma. If according to Jesus the woman should not be stoned for her crime, then Jesus was rejecting Moses (the Book of Leviticus). If, on the other hand, Jesus was on the same side as Moses, then he would be battling with the Romans who had the monopoly on the death sentence. Would Jesus go against Moses or the Romans? The Pharisees thought that they had the Master cornered. But Jesus was Jesus and after thinking it over he said:
‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone!’
Jesus had thus avoided arguing with Moses and with the Romans, or for that matter with the Pharisees. The Pharisees went off, one by one (men, in general, are of course not in the slightest bit free of sin). Finally, only Jesus and the woman remained.
&
nbsp; ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’
‘No one,’ she answered.
‘Then neither do I condemn you,’ Jesus declared. ‘Go now and sin no more.’
The chief inspector still had his policeman’s sense of smell intact and he was sure he could smell a rat. But Karlsson and Jonsson and Ljungberg and Ljungberg and Björklund and Gerdin were, as of yesterday, declared innocent by Prosecutor Ranelid, and who was Aronsson to call them delinquents? Besides, they were actually a rather appealing bunch and – as Jesus so rightly pointed out – who was in a position to cast the first stone? Aronsson thought back to some darker moments of his own life, but above all he grew angry over how Prosecutor Ranelid had wished the thoroughly pleasant Pike Gerdin dead, just to serve his own purposes.
‘No, damn it! You’ll have to sort this out yourself, Ranelid,’ said Chief Inspector Aronsson and headed for the hotel’s breakfast room.
Cornflakes, toast and egg were washed down with coffee and the two big national dailies, both of which cautiously suggested that the prosecutor had made something of a fiasco of the case of the disappearing centenarian who was eventually both accused of murder and declared innocent. The newspapers did, however, have to admit that they didn’t know enough about it. The centenarian himself couldn’t be found, and the prosecutor didn’t want to tell them any more until Friday afternoon.
‘As noted, Ranelid, you’ll have to sort this out yourself,’ Aronsson murmured.
Then the chief inspector ordered a taxi and arrived at Bellringer Farm at 9.51, just three minutes before the prosecutor.
There was no meteorological risk of what Prosecutor Ranelid so devoutly wished for: a lightning strike on Bellringer Farm. But it was cloudy and chilly. So the inhabitants of the farm planned to meet in the spacious kitchen.
The previous evening the group had agreed on an alternative story to present to Prosecutor Ranelid, and to be on the safe side they had rehearsed the story at breakfast too. Now they were reasonably sure of their roles for the morning’s performance, allowing for the fact that the truth is always much simpler to remember than its opposite. He who tells a big lie can easily find himself in big trouble, so now the members of the group had to think carefully before they opened their mouths.
‘Damn and hell,’ was how The Beauty summarized the general tension before Chief Inspector Aronsson and Prosecutor Ranelid were led into the kitchen.
The meeting with Prosecutor Conny Ranelid was more fun for some than for others. This is how it went:
‘Well, to start with I would like to thank you for letting me come,’ said Prosecutor Ranelid. ‘And I must apologize on behalf of… er… on behalf of the prosecutor’s office for the fact that several of you had warrants out for your arrest quite without cause. Having said that, I would very much like to know what happened, from the moment you, Mr Karlsson, climbed out of the window at the Old People’s Home and right up to the present. Would you like to begin, Mr Karlsson?’
Allan had no objection to that. He thought that this might turn out to be fun.
‘I can indeed, Mr Prosecutor, even though I am old and decrepit, and my memory isn’t what it used to be. But I do remember that I climbed out of that window, yes I do. And there were some very sound reasons for that, very sound reasons. You see, Mr Prosecutor, I was on my way to see my good friend Julius Jonsson here, and you don’t show up to visit him without a bottle of vodka and that is exactly what I had been able to obtain after sneaking off to the local state-run alcohol store when nobody was looking. In fact, nowadays you don’t even have to go all the way to the state-run alcohol store, you can simply knock on the door of… well, I won’t tell you his name, Mr Prosecutor, because that isn’t why you are here, but he sells privately imported vodka for less than half the regular price. Anyway, this time Eklund wasn’t at home – oh dear, now I’ve told you his name – and I had no choice but to buy the vodka at the state store. Then I managed to get the bottle into my room and usually at that point I’m home and dry, but this time I was going to take it out again, and the Director was on duty and she has eyes in the back of her head and everywhere else, I can tell you, Mr Prosecutor. It’s not easy to fool Director Alice. So I thought that the window was the best route on this occasion. It was my hundredth birthday that day, and who wants to have his birthday drink confiscated then?’
The prosecutor thought that this might drag on. This old Karlsson geezer had already been babbling for quite a while without really saying anything. And in less than an hour, Ranelid had to be on his way back to Eskilstuna.
‘Thank you, Mr Karlsson, for the interesting insights into your difficulties in acquiring a drink on your big day, but I hope you’ll forgive me for asking you to be more disciplined in the telling, we don’t have much time, as I am sure you understand. What about the suitcase and the meeting with Bolt Bylund at the bus station?’
‘Well, now, how did that happen? Per-Gunnar phoned Julius who phoned me. According to Julius, Per-Gunnar wanted me to take charge of those bibles and I didn’t want to say no because I…’
‘Bibles?’ Prosecutor Ranelid interupted.
‘If you will allow me, Mr Prosecutor, perhaps I can give a little background information?’ said Benny.
‘By all means,’ said the prosecutor.
‘Well, it’s like this. Allan is a good friend of Julius at Byringe, who in turn is a good friend of Per-Gunnar, the man that the prosecutor thought was dead, and Per-Gunnar in turn is a good friend of mine, and I am partly the brother of my brother Bosse, the man who is our host today, partly the fiancé of Gunilla, she is the beautiful lady at the head of the table, and Gunilla busies herself with exegesis and thus has something in common with Bosse who sells bibles – to Per-Gunnar for example.’
The prosecutor sat there with a pen in his hand, but it had all been said so quickly that he hadn’t jotted down a single word.
‘Exegesis?’
‘Yes, the interpretation of the Bible,’ The Beauty explained.
Interpretation of the Bible? thought Chief Inspector Aronsson, who sat in silence beside the prosecutor. Was it even possible to interpret the Bible when you swore as much as Aronsson had heard The Beauty swear the previous evening? But he said nothing. This was for the prosecutor to sort out, once and for all.
‘Interpretation of the Bible?’ said Prosecutor Ranelid, but decided in the very same second to move on. ‘Never mind, tell me instead what happened with the suitcase and Bolt Bylund at the bus station.’
Now it was Per-Gunnar Gerdin’s turn to get in on the act.
‘Would you, Mr Prosecutor, allow me to say something?’
‘Absolutely,’ answered Prosecutor Ranelid. ‘As long as what somebody says will shed some light on this business, the devil himself can have a say.’
‘Please mind your language,’ said The Beauty and rolled her eyes. (The chief inspector was now completely certain that they were making fun of the prosecutor.)
‘I don’t think “the devil” is a fully adequate description of my humble self since I found Jesus,’ said Per-Gunnar Gerdin. ‘You, Mr Prosecutor, will of course have heard that I led an organisation called “Never Again”. The name originally referred to the fact that its members would never find themselves behind bars again even though there might be no lack of legal reasons for such a measure, but as of late the name has acquired another meaning. Never Again shall we be tempted to break the law, not that written by man and absolutely not that written in Heaven!’
‘Is that why Bolt smashed up a waiting room, beat up an official and then kidnapped a bus driver and his bus?’ asked Prosecutor Ranelid.
‘Oh dear, now I can definitely feel a certain sarcasm in the air,’ said Per-Gunnar Gerdin. ‘But just because I myself have seen the light, doesn’t mean that my colleagues have done the same. One of them has indeed gone to South America to do missionary work, but the two others came to an unfortunate end. I had entrusted Bolt with the task of collecting the suitcase with
two hundred bibles on Bosse’s route from Uppsala home to Falköping. I was going to use the bibles to spread joy among the worst villains in the country, if you will excuse my language, Mr Prosecutor.’
Up until now, the owner of Bellringer Farm, Bosse, had kept quiet. But at this juncture he placed a heavy grey suitcase on the kitchen table and opened it. Inside lay a large number of super slim bibles bound in genuine black leather, with golden lettering, notations, three marking ribbons, maps in colour and more besides.
‘You will not encounter a more magnificent bible experience than this, Mr Prosecutor,’ said Bosse Ljungberg with conviction. ‘Would you allow me to present you with a copy? We must all seek the light, Mr Prosecutor!’
Unlike the others, Bosse actually meant what he said. And the prosecutor must have had an inkling of that, because he began to waver in his conviction that all this bible talk was just pretence. He accepted Bosse’s bible and thought that immediate salvation might be his only option.
‘Can we once and for all get back to the business at hand?’ he asked. ‘What happened to that damned suitcase in Malmköping?’
‘No swearing!’ lectured The Beauty.
‘Perhaps it’s my turn again?’ Allan said. ‘Well, you see, I went to the bus station a little earlier than I had expected, because Julius asked me to. Bolt Bylund had previously phoned Per-Gunnar in Stockholm and had been – if you, Mr Prosecutor, will again excuse my language – a bit tipsy! And as you will know, Mr Prosecutor, or perhaps as you may not know because I don’t know your drinking habits, but anyhow… where was I? Yes, you know, Mr Prosecutor, how when vodka goes in, common sense goes out, or whatever the saying is. I, myself, in a state of inebriation, have said more than I should have in a submarine at a depth of two hundred metres in the middle of the Baltic Sea…’
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared Page 30