‘In the name of God, get to the point!’ said Prosecutor Ranelid.
‘No blasphemy!’ urged The Beauty.
Prosecutor Ranelid put one hand on his brow while he inhaled deeply a few times. Allan Karlsson went on:
‘Well, Bolt Bylund had phoned Per-Gunnar in Stockholm to say that he was resigning from Per-Gunnar’s Bible Club, and that instead he intended to join the Foreign Legion but that first of all – and at this point you ought to sit down, Mr Prosecutor, because what I am going to say is dreadful – he intended to make a bonfire of the bibles in the main square in Malmköping!’
‘To be more precise, he is said to have yelled “those damn fucking bibles”,’ said The Beauty.
‘No wonder, then, that I was sent out to find Mr Bolt and take the suitcase from him before it was too late. We often have little time, and sometimes we have even less time than we can possibly imagine. Like, for example, on the occasion when General Franco in Spain very nearly got blown to bits before my very eyes.’
‘What has General Franco in Spain got to do with this story?’ wondered Prosecutor Ranelid.
‘Nothing whatsoever, Mr Prosecutor, other than that I let him serve as an illustrative example. You can never have too much clarity.’
‘In that case, what if you, Mr Karlsson, were to bring some clarity to this matter? What happened to the suitcase?’
‘Well, Mr Bolt didn’t want to give it to me, and my physique didn’t really allow me to try to take it by force, not just my physique for that matter. In principle I think it’s terrible the way people—’
‘Stick to the subject, Mr Karlsson!’
‘Yes, my apologies, Mr Prosecutor. Well, when Mr Bolt, in the middle of everything, needed to visit the station’s public conveniences, then I took my chance. Together with the suitcase, I got on the Strängnäs bus which took me to Byringe and old Julius here, or Julle as we sometimes say.’
‘Julle?’ said the prosecutor, as he felt he had to say something.
‘Or Julius,’ said Julius. ‘Nice to meet you.’
The prosecutor sat in silence for a few moments. Now he had actually started making some notes, and he seemed to be drawing connecting lines between the notes.
‘But, Mr Karlsson, you paid for the bus journey with a fifty-crown banknote and wondered how far it would get you. How does that fit in with having a deliberate intention of travelling to Byringe and nowhere else?’
‘Hah!’ said Allan. ‘I know perfectly well what it costs to travel to Byringe. I just happened to have a fifty-crown note in my wallet and I simply had a bit of fun with the driver. That’s not against the law, is it, Mr Prosecutor?’
Prosecutor Ranelid didn’t bother to answer.
‘Briefly, what happened next?’
‘Briefly? Briefly, Julius and I, we had a nice evening together, until Mr Bolt came and tried to unbolt the door, if you will excuse the pun, Mr Prosecutor. But since we had a bottle of vodka on the table, and you will perhaps remember from earlier in my tale that that is what I had with me – a bottle of vodka – and, to be honest, not just one bottle but two, one shouldn’t tell untruths about less important details and anyhow who can judge what is more or less important in this tale, that is for you, Mr Pros —’
‘Go on!’
‘Yes, my apologies. Well, Mr Bolt calmed down when he realised there was roast elk and vodka on the menu. During the course of the late evening, he even decided not to burn the bibles in gratitude for the state of inebriation he had been afforded. Alcohol does indeed have its positive sides, don’t you think, Mr Pros —’
‘Go on!’
‘In the morning, Mr Bolt had the worst hangover. I personally haven’t been there since 1945 when I did my best to drink Vice President Truman under the table with the help of tequila. Unfortunately, President Roosevelt went and died that same day so we had to break off the party early, and that was probably lucky for me because I can’t begin to describe what my head felt like the next day. You could say I only felt slightly better than Roosevelt.’
Prosecutor Ranelid blinked rapidly. In the end, his curiosity got the better of him:
‘What are you talking about? Were you drinking tequila with Vice President Truman when President Roosevelt died?’
‘Perhaps we shouldn’t get bogged down in details, or what do you think, Mr Prosecutor?’
The prosecutor said nothing.
‘Mr Bolt was, in any case, not in a condition to help us pedal the inspection trolley when it was time to travel to Åkers Foundry the following morning.’
‘He wasn’t even wearing shoes, I understand,’ said the prosecutor. ‘How can you explain that, Karlsson?’
‘If you, Mr Prosecutor, had only seen what a hangover Mr Bolt had that morning… He could just as well have been sitting there in nothing but underpants.’
‘And your own shoes, Karlsson? They were later found in Julius Jonsson’s kitchen.’
‘Yes, I borrowed some shoes from Julius of course. If you are one hundred years old, you sometimes find yourself going out in slippers, as you’ll discover yourself, Mr Prosecutor, if you wait forty or fifty years.’
‘I don’t think I’ll survive that long,’ said Prosecutor Ranelid. ‘The question is whether I’ll survive this conversation. How do you explain that when the inspection trolley was found, a police dog could smell traces of a dead body?’
‘You tell me, Mr Prosecutor. Mr Bolt was of course the last person to leave the trolley, so perhaps he could have told us himself, if he hadn’t had the misfortune to die over there in Djibouti. Do you, Mr Prosecutor, think that I might be the origin of that smell? I’m not dead, that much is for sure, but I am dreadfully old… Can the smell of a dead person sort of come a bit early?’
Prosecutor Ranelid was getting impatient. So far they had covered less than one of the twenty-six days. And ninety per cent of what came out of the mouth of the old geezer was pure nonsense.
‘Go on!’ said Prosecutor Ranelid.
‘Well, we left Mr Bolt sleeping on the trolley and went for a refreshing walk to the hot-dog stand, which of course was run by Per-Gunnar’s friend Benny.’
‘Have you also been in prison?’ asked the prosecutor.
‘No, but I’ve studied Criminology,’ said Benny quite truthfully, before making up a story about how he had once interviewed inmates in a big prison and had then met Per-Gunnar.
Prosecutor Ranelid seemed to note something down again, after which he monotonously ordered Allan Karlsson to ‘go on!’
‘By all means. Benny was originally going to drive me and Julius to Stockholm so that we could give the suitcase with bibles to Per-Gunnar. But now Benny said he wanted to make a detour via Småland to see his fiancée, Gunilla…’
‘Peace be with you,’ said Gunilla and nodded towards Prosecutor Ranelid.
Allan went on:
‘Benny was of course the one who knew Per-Gunnar best and Benny said that Per-Gunnar could wait a few days for the bibles, he didn’t think there was anything with a topical news value in them, and you have to admit he is right about that. But you can’t wait in all eternity, because when Jesus actually returns to Earth then all the chapters on his imminent return become obsolete…’
‘Stick to the subject!’
‘Of course, Mr Prosecutor! I shall absolutely stick to the subject, otherwise things can go badly wrong. I probably know that better than anyone. If I hadn’t stuck to the subject in front of Mao Tse-tung in Manchuria then I would almost certainly have been shot then and there.’
‘That would undeniably have saved us a lot of trouble,’ said Prosecutor Ranelid.
‘Anyhow, Benny didn’t think that Jesus would have time to return while we were in Småland, and to the best of my knowledge Benny was right about that —’
‘Karlsson!’
‘Oh yes. Well, the three of us drove to Småland without first telling Per-Gunnar, and that of course was a mistake.’
‘Yes, it was,’ Per-Gunna
r Gerdin added at this point. ‘I suppose I could have waited a few days for the bibles, that wasn’t the issue. But, you see, Mr Prosecutor, I thought that Bolt had come up with something stupid together with Julius, Allan and Benny. Because Bolt had never liked the idea that Never Again should start spreading the Gospel. And of course I didn’t feel any better after reading the papers!’
The prosecutor nodded. Perhaps there was something here that resembled logic after all. Then he turned to Benny:
‘But when you read about a suspected kidnapping of a centenarian – why didn’t you contact the police?’
‘Well, the thought did occur to me. But when I raised it with Allan and Julius they refused to allow it. Julius said that on principle he never spoke to the police, and Allan said that he was on the run from the Old People’s Home and absolutely didn’t want to be returned to Director Alice just because the newspapers and TV had got this and that wrong.’
‘You never talk with the police on principle?’ said Prosecutor Ranelid to Julius Jonsson.
‘I have had a little bad luck in my relations with the police over the years. But there have been exceptions, like my time with Chief Inspector Aronsson yesterday, and for that matter with you, Mr Prosecutor, today. Would you like some more coffee?’
Yes, the prosecutor would indeed. He needed all the energy and strength he could muster to get this meeting into some sort of order and then to be able to present something to the media at three o’clock. Something that was true, or at least credible.
But the prosecutor didn’t want to let Benny Ljungberg off the hook.
‘And why didn’t you phone your friend Per-Gunnar Gerdin? You must have realised that he would read about you in the newspaper.’
‘I thought that perhaps the police and prosecutor were not yet aware of the fact that Per-Gunnar had met Jesus, and that therefore his telephone line was bugged. And you, Mr Prosecutor, have to admit that I was right.’
The prosecutor mumbled something, made a note, and regretted that he had happened to let that detail slip out to the journalists, but done was done. He turned to Per-Gunnar Gerdin.
‘Mr Gerdin, you seem to have been tipped off as to where Allan Karlsson and his friends were situated. Where did that tip come from?’
‘Regrettably, we’ll probably never know. My colleague took that information with him to his grave. Or to the scrap yard to be exact.’
‘And what was the tip?’
‘That Allan, Benny and his girlfriend had been seen in Rottne in Småland. A friend of Bucket called, I think. I was mainly interested in the information as such. I knew that Benny’s girlfriend lived in Småland and that she had red hair. So I ordered Bucket to make his way to Rottne and stand outside the supermarket. Because you have to eat…’
‘And Bucket was happy to oblige, in the name of Jesus?’
‘Well, not exactly, you’ve hit it on the head there, Mr Prosecutor. One can say a lot about Bucket, but… religious? No, he was never that. He was, if anything, even more upset than Bolt as to the new direction the club had taken. He talked of going to Russia or the Baltic countries and getting into the narcotics business there… Have you ever heard anything so dreadful? He might have done so, but you’ll have to ask him yourself… No, that’s not possible…’
The prosecutor looked somewhat suspiciously at Per-Gunnar Gerdin.
‘We had a tape recording, exactly as Benny Ljungberg just assumed. In it, you refer to Gunilla Björklund as an “old biddy” and a little later in the conversation you swear as well. What does the Lord think about that?’
‘Ah, the Lord is quick to forgive, as you will soon see if you open the book you have just been given.’
‘“Whoever’s sins you forgive, they are forgiven,” says Jesus,’ Bosse chipped in.
‘The Gospel according to John?’ said Chief Inspector Aronsson, who thought he recognised the quote from the hours he spent in the corner of the hotel bar the previous evening.
‘Do you read the Bible?’ Prosecutor Ranelid wondered in amazement.
Chief Inspector Aronsson didn’t answer, but smiled piously at Prosecutor Ranelid.
‘I spoke in that way – swearing and suchlike – because I wanted Bucket to recognise the style from the old days; I thought that it might make him follow orders,’ explained Per-Gunnar Gerdin.
‘And did he?’ wondered the prosecutor.
‘Yes and no. I didn’t want him to make himself known to Allan, Julius, Benny and his girlfriend, because I thought that his rather uncouth manner wouldn’t really go down well with the group.’
‘It certainly didn’t,’ The Beauty added.
‘How come?’ wondered Prosecutor Ranelid.
‘Well, he came charging up to my farm and was smoking and swearing and wanted alcohol… I can put up with a great deal, but I can’t abide folk who have to resort to expletives.’
Chief Inspector Aronsson managed to avoid choking on his cake. The Beauty had as recently as the previous evening been sitting on the veranda and swearing almost without a pause for breath. Aronsson felt more and more certain that he never wanted to find out the truth in this mess. Things were all right as they were. The Beauty went on:
‘I am pretty sure he was drunk already when he arrived, and, just think, he came in a car too! And then he went around waving his pistol to show off, boasting and saying that he was going to deal drugs in… Riga, I think it was. So I roared out, yes, Mr Prosecutor, I roared out “No weapons on my land!” and made him put his gun down on the veranda. I don’t think I’ve ever met a more bad-tempered and unpleasant man…’
‘Perhaps it was the bibles that made him lose his temper,’ Allan said. ‘Religion can so easily stir up people’s feelings. Once, when I was in Tehran —’
‘Tehran?’ the prosecutor blurted out.
‘Yes, it was a few years ago, that’s for sure. Things were more organized down there in those days, as Churchill said to me when we left there by plane.’
‘Churchill?’ said the prosecutor.
‘Yes, the prime minister. Or perhaps he wasn’t prime minister just then, but earlier. And later, in fact.’
‘I know bloody well who Churchill was, I just… You and Churchill together in Tehran?’
‘No swearing, Mr Prosecutor!’ said The Beauty.
‘Well, not together exactly. I was living for a while with a missionary. And he was an expert at getting people to lose their tempers.’
And losing his temper was exactly what Prosecutor Ranelid was doing. He had just realised that he was trying to get the facts out of a hundred-year-old geezer who claimed he had met Franco, Truman, Mao Tse-tung and Churchill. But Ranelid losing his temper didn’t bother Allan. He continued:
‘Young Mr Bucket walked around like a human thundercloud the entire time he was at Lake Farm. He only brightened up once, and that was when he finally left. Then he lowered the window of his car and shouted out: “Latvia, here I come!” We chose to interpret that as meaning he was on his way to Latvia, but you, Mr Prosecutor, are much more experienced in police matters so perhaps you have a different interpretation?’
‘Idiot!’ said the prosecutor.
‘Idiot?’ said Allan. ‘I’ve never been called that before. Dog and rat, yes, Stalin let those two epithets slip out when he was at his angriest, but never idiot.’
‘Then it’s about time,’ said Prosecutor Ranelid.
Per-Gunnar Gerdin interrupted:
‘Now, now, no need to be angry because you can’t just lock up anyone you feel like, Mr Prosecutor. Do you want to hear the rest of the story, or not?’
Yes, the prosecutor wanted to hear it, so he mumbled an apology. Or perhaps ‘wanted’ was not the right word… he simply had to hear it. So he let Per-Gerdin go on:
‘So, about Never Again, Bolt went off to Africa to become a French Legionnaire, Bucket to Latvia to start a drug business, and Caracas went home to… well, he went home. All that is left is little me, all on my own, with Jesus by my side,
of course.’
‘Oh yes? Pull the other one,’ muttered the prosecutor. ‘Go on!’
‘I made my way down to Lake Farm to see Gunilla, Benny’s girlfriend. Bucket had at least phoned and told me the address before he left the country.’
‘Umm, I have some questions about that,’ said Prosecutor Ranelid. ‘The first is to you, Gunilla Björklund. Why did you go off and buy a bus a few days before you left – and why did you leave?’
The previous evening, the friends had decided to keep Sonya out of it all. Just like Allan, she was on the run, but unlike Allan she had no citizen’s rights. She probably would not be regarded as Swedish and in Sweden, just like in most countries, you don’t count for much if you are a foreigner. Sonya would probably be deported or sentenced to life in a zoo or both.
‘It’s true that the bus was purchased in my name,’ said The Beauty, ‘but it was actually Benny and me who bought it together and we bought it for Benny’s brother Bosse.’
‘And he was going to fill it with bibles?’ Prosecutor Ranelid burst out. He was no longer capable of minding his manners and temper.
‘No, with watermelons,’ Bosse answered. ‘Do you want to taste the sweetest watermelons in the world, Mr Prosecutor?’
‘No, I don’t,’ Prosecutor Ranelid answered. ‘I want to bring some clarity to what remains of the story and then I want to go home and quickly get through a press conference and then I want to take a holiday. That’s what I want. And now let’s move on. Why the hell… umm, why on earth did you leave Lake Farm just when Per-Gunnar Gerdin arrived?’
‘But they didn’t know I was on the way there,’ said Per-Gunnar Gerdin. ‘Are you finding it hard to follow, Mr Prosecutor?’
‘Yes, I am,’ said Prosecutor Ranelid. ‘Einstein would find it hard to follow if he had to listen to this nonsense talk.’
‘Now that you mention Einstein…’ said Allan.
‘No, Mr Karlsson,’ said Prosecutor Ranelid in a firm voice. ‘I don’t want to hear what you and Einstein did together. Instead, I want Mr Gerdin to explain how the “Russians” come into the picture.’
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