The Accidental Further Adventures of the Hundred-Year-Old Man

by Jonas Jonasson

  The plan would just have to be to keep watch until Sabine Jonsson and crew appeared.

  ‘No rash decisions, Johnny,’ he said to himself. ‘No rash decisions.’

  It was almost one o’clock. Esmeralda was waiting just blocks away.

  Johnny decided to carry out the visit. Again: ‘No rash decisions.’

  * * *

  For some unfathomable reason, then, the Nazi with the automatic weapon in Märsta had now surfaced in Malmö and hunted down Esmeralda the Medium. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Unless it was a coincidence. It had to be a coincidence!

  No matter how the friends racked their brains, they couldn’t find a single crack in their façade. There was no link between Sabine Jonsson on the one hand and the apartment seven kilometres south-east of central Malmö on the other.

  Julius was the one listed on the rental contract. There was no connection anywhere between him and Sabine. Not in her company, not for the apartment in Märsta.

  ‘There’s literally no way …’ said Julius.

  At which point he realized that Allan, Julius and Sabine had presented ID, all three of them, to the police in Eskilstuna. And with that, he was listed on the police system along with his friends. But did this Johnny have access to that?

  Still, their conclusion was that the Nazi had booked an appointment with Esmeralda in order to execute as many of them as he could during the séance.

  But in that case why the hell had he booked it under his own name?

  Their revised conclusion was that it was impossible to draw any conclusions. The friends decided to go with the flow. Perhaps the Nazi really had just sought out one of many mediums and only happened to be in Malmö. There was really no way they could believe this. But it wasn’t possible either to believe the alternative.

  ‘I’m going mad,’ said Julius.

  ‘Me too,’ said Allan, to appear supportive.

  ‘You already are,’ said Sabine.

  So this was how it would go.

  During the séance, Sabine, a.k.a. Esmeralda, would receive Johnny the Nazi on her own while Allan and Julius hid in the apartment, as armed as the circumstances would allow. If the mood turned threatening, they would step forward and … Well, what?

  A weak plan, as all three were aware. Still, Julius went shopping and returned with a baseball bat and an airgun.

  ‘Not exactly Kim Jong-un, are we?’ Allan said. ‘And I can’t lift the bat. Hand over the pistol!’

  Meanwhile, Sabine prepared herself in her own way. She made coffee and ground four sleeping pills into a mug. It couldn’t hurt for their potential murderer to become sleepy before he started murdering. She became dizzy just from taking a test sip of the mixture. She couldn’t taste anything funny.

  At the last moment, she thought of moving the hearse four blocks away. On the off chance that luck was on their side, they might as well let sleeping dogs lie.

  The minutes crept by. Eleven. Quarter past. Seventeen past. Ten to twelve. Twenty past. Twenty to.

  At one on the dot, the doorbell rang.

  This was it.

  Allan in the kitchen with the airgun. Julius with the baseball bat in the hall cupboard. Sabine, fully equipped with medallions and all. The séance room was reasonably dark, with a tasteful coffin in one corner, and myrrh, a crimson cloth and warm stones on the table.

  Sabine opened the door nervously, and welcomed—

  ‘Minister Wallström? What are you doing here?’

  ‘Oh, I see you recognize me. I’m looking for a Julius Jonsson. And his friend Allan Karlsson. We’re acquaintances, and I have a few questions I need to ask.’

  Sabine thought she’d been ready for anything. But not this. Had the minister for foreign affairs used a fake name to request …

  Before she could ride that train of thought any further, another person popped up behind the minister. Her bodyguard? No.

  ‘Hi, I’m Johnny. Am I in the right place?’

  Sweden

  The minister for foreign affairs had scared Inspector Bäckman off any further investigation of Karlsson and Jonsson. But that didn’t mean she could let the matter go. What had happened to them since their return to Sweden? Someone had fired an automatic weapon into a shop where they were presumed to be?

  The minister was struck by a dizzying thought. What if the North Korean security service were operating in Swedish territory and trying to execute Swedish citizens? After all, it was only recently that the life of a North Korean had been taken in Malaysia – it was a long step from there to doing the same to a Swede in Sweden, but perhaps not too long?

  But … the method? Going from poison to shooting wildly?

  And why hadn’t Karlsson and Jonsson reported the incident to the police? Because they were afraid? They hadn’t seemed particularly terrified in front of either Kim Jong-un or Donald Trump. Who could be worse than them?

  All of this and more nagged at the minister. She had a Malmö address for Julius Jonsson, but couldn’t see herself travelling all the way from Stockholm for some sort of private investigation of two diplomats to whom she herself had wrongly supplied diplomatic passports.

  Not until she happened to have reason to go there on business.

  For more than a year, border patrol between Denmark and Sweden had been a source of irritation to both nations. Refugees in need journeyed all the way through Europe, and when they arrived in Denmark, the Danes gladly helped send them on across the Sound to Sweden.

  That worked, until it didn’t any more. Once little Sweden had accepted more refugees than all the rest of Europe combined, with the exception of Germany, the system collapsed. There was nowhere for the refugees to live. The country was unable to investigate their refugee status within a reasonable amount of time, much less offer them a dignified future. What was more, a frighteningly large percentage of the children who arrived alone were seventeen-year-old boys, whether or not they were seventeen. They had been sent off as vanguards by family somewhere in the most miserable corner of the world, whose head of household had, as the only remaining source of pride, the task of making sure the whole family survived. Others had grown up on the street and were schooled in crime but nothing else. Still others were heroin addicts: how else could they have endured?

  The rest of Europe laughed at silly Sweden. Few came to the inverse conclusion: that if the rest of the EU countries had followed the lead of Sweden and Germany, the refugee situation would have been manageable. Trying to collect gold stars in heaven, before the Day of Judgment, was out.

  Anyway. At last Sweden forcibly closed its border with neighbouring Denmark. No one was let across the bridge without first being thoroughly inspected. Thousands of people who commuted between the countries experienced terrible delays.

  This got immediate results. Sweden lost its reputation as heaven on earth and the number of asylum-seekers decreased from everyone to almost no one. Meanwhile daily life between the big cities of Malmö and Copenhagen was disrupted. For the first time in decades, it became clear that Sweden and Denmark were two different countries that you couldn’t randomly travel between as you wished. No matter the colour of your skin.

  But now, however, it was time for a thaw in the relationship. Sweden planned to stop requiring ID from everyone who wanted to come over from the Danish side. This would be replaced with more effective border control in Sweden. Thus the Swedish border police needed fresh resources, and the long and the short of it was that the prime minister had asked Minister for Foreign Affairs Wallström to travel to Malmö to speak with the border police about the new government policy. And, if possible, reassure anxious civil servants who didn’t understand how they could be ready in time. She would strike a tone of international perspective and help the hardworking civil servants understand that they were an important part of a greater whole.

  Marking oneself present, as politicians called it.

  The minister took a commercial flight between Stockholm and Malmö, and after the meetin
g with the border police was over and had even gone well, she had three hours of free time. After considering it for a while, she informed her security team that she was planning to take a brief private side trip in Malmö before their journey home.

  A side trip? Just like that? The bodyguards wanted to know more. The minister told them that the people she wished to see were old acquaintances (exactly how old, she didn’t say), and posed no threat to her. At this, they all agreed that she would be escorted to the desired address but left alone from the front door of the building onwards. Security was important, but so was personal integrity.

  Sweden

  Johnny Engvall thought he recognized one of the two women in the hall. It was obvious which one was Esmeralda – the one with the knick-knacks around her neck. The other looked more like a businesswoman, and she was the one who seemed familiar somehow.

  Margot Wallström had done an about-face. Suddenly she didn’t feel quite so secure in this situation. The man who’d come up behind her was wearing a lot of leather and gave a generally rough impression. She turned back to Sabine.

  ‘As I was saying, I’m looking for Julius Jonsson and Allan Karlsson. But I see you have a visitor, so perhaps it would be better for me to return later.’

  Sabine thought fast. ‘There’s no one by those names here.’

  But Johnny Engvall had overheard. And he was on his way to understanding.

  ‘Allan Karlsson?’ he said slowly.

  The hearse was parked just a few blocks away. What an idiot he was.

  ‘I know an Allan Karlsson,’ Johnny went on. ‘He’s on the board of a company north of Stockholm that makes coffins. And it has a connection to another company in the clairvoyance industry …’

  ‘I have no idea what—’ Sabine said, but she was interrupted.

  ‘And Karlsson’s hearse is parked around the corner.’

  ‘Hearse?’ Sabine tried.

  ‘Hearse?’ Minister Wallström said, more genuinely.

  But by now the strange man had produced a knife.

  ‘May I ask you ladies to back slowly into the apartment? We have a few things to discuss. I think today is my lucky day.’

  That last bit wasn’t accurate, but there was no way he could know it.

  Johnny felt sad inside when he realized that the rest of the day would lead somewhere that didn’t involve making contact with his big brother. His sadness turned to rage. He got into gear and changed his tone.

  ‘I haven’t stabbed anyone to death for several years, so this will be nice. But first you’ll have to tell me where the man who took my coffin order is. His name was Karlsson, right? I want to do away with both of you at the same time, if possible. And you, into the bargain, I think,’ Johnny said, turning to the minister for foreign affairs. ‘Have we met before?’

  Margot Wallström had learned the hard way that Allan Karlsson and his friends were to be avoided. But it was too late now. Suddenly the bodyguards down on the street seemed very far away. The question was, would she increase or decrease her chances of survival if she told him who she was? At last she made up her mind.

  ‘Interesting,’ she said. ‘I recognize you too. Is there any chance you were once the Swedish ambassador in Madrid? If so, perhaps we’re colleagues. I’m the head of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Stockholm.’

  Johnny Engvall was flustered. For one second.

  ‘You’re the minister for foreign affairs?’ he said. ‘What the hell is going on?’

  Sabine seized her chance. ‘Can you two be quiet, please? I can feel that I’m making contact. Kenneth? Is that you, Kenneth?’

  Her distraction had the intended effect. Johnny’s eyes went wide as Sabine raised both hands in the air and looked up. Her movements were almost eerie in the dim light. And long shadows were falling on a nearby coffin.

  It’s possible it wouldn’t have taken Johnny more than ten seconds to see through Sabine’s trick, but since the minister for foreign affairs needed only half of that time to think through the situation, things went as they did. She spent the first two and a half seconds wondering if she could scream so loudly that the bodyguards outside would hear and come to the rescue. She spent the next abandoning that idea in favour of grabbing the table lamp off the bureau next to her and slamming its base into the Nazi’s head.

  Johnny Engvall dropped to the floor, unconscious or dead – which it was remained to be seen.

  ‘Hands in the air!’

  Allan had entered the room by way of the kitchen door, with his airgun.

  ‘You were supposed to distract him before I got him in the head with the bat, not after,’ said Julius, who had just come in from the other direction.

  ‘And you were supposed to bat him in the head before the minister for foreign affairs did the same with the lamp,’ said Sabine.

  She had really scored quite a hit, that minister. Now she stood there with the table lamp in hand, feeling totally empty.

  ‘Well done, Margot,’ said Julius. ‘If I may call you Margot?’

  The minister nodded. ‘By all means,’ she said.

  Questions of etiquette were way down her list.

  Allan and Julius had heard the drama playing out from their respective positions. Where on earth had the minister for foreign affairs come from?

  According to the original plan, Allan was to make use of one of the entrances to the living room, the one from the kitchen, and wave his gun. During the seconds it would take the Nazi to realize the gun was as harmless as the hundred-and-one-year-old holding it, Julius would knock him out with the baseball bat.

  ‘Well, it all turned out okay in the end,’ was Julius’s summary. ‘No thanks to slowcoach Allan.’

  ‘Or to you,’ said Sabine.

  ‘It all turned out okay?’ said Minister Wallström. ‘There’s a potentially dead man at my feet. And I potentially killed him.’

  ‘There, there,’ said Allan. ‘Let’s not allow our moods to be darkened by so little.’

  ‘I can hear him breathing,’ said Sabine. ‘By the way, we didn’t get to say a proper hello, Minister. My name is Sabine Jonsson. I’m not married to Julius, even though we have the same last name. But it’s never too late.’

  The minister numbly took Sabine’s extended hand. ‘Margot Wallström,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Do you really want to marry me?’ Julius said, his whole face lighting up.

  ‘Oh yes, dear Julius.’

  This sparked new life into the dumbstruck minister. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Could you propose to each other some other time, before I completely lose my mind?’

  In the company of a minister for foreign affairs on the verge of a breakdown, and two lovebirds who had eyes only for each other, Allan felt it was up to him to take control of matters.

  ‘I think it would be best for Madame Minister to look away as the rest of us clean up as best we can. I imagine it would be of no benefit to her personage or career to be forced to explain to Sweden and the world what she was doing in a séance room in a Malmö suburb along with an unconscious Nazi.’

  ‘But surely I can’t just …’ said the minister.

  ‘Leave? That’s a good idea,’ said Allan. ‘Not least because it was Sweden’s leading diplomat who singlehandedly took out the Nazi. There is much good to be said about what you just did, but it wasn’t very diplomatic. Have you ever heard of such a mess, Madame Minister?’

  No, she hadn’t.

  Allan thought she at least deserved an explanation before she took off. He gave her the short version of how he and Julius had ended up in Märsta, met Sabine, joined forces with her in a brilliant business idea about coffins with a little personality, how it happened to go wrong one measly little time, and how the man now asleep on the floor became upset with them beyond all measure as a result, started shooting wildly, and sent them fleeing.

  ‘Why didn’t you just call the police?’ Margot Wallström asked.

  ‘Not the police!’
said Julius. ‘You don’t call the police unless it’s necessary. And hardly even then.’

  ‘But …’ said the minister.

  That was as far as she got. For now the so recently unconscious man on the floor had begun to stir. He groaned and said something unintelligible. Sabine hurried over.

  ‘Sit up now, Mr Nazi, that’s right, here on the floor is fine. Here’s a cup of coffee to perk you up. Can you believe that lightning struck you in the head like that?’

  ‘Coffee?’ said the minister for foreign affairs. ‘Is that really so …’

  Wise, she was going to say, but by now Johnny Engvall was sitting up with mug in hand.

  ‘Lightning?’ he said, trying to remember where he was.

  He drained the mug with all the sleeping pills and was still out of it enough that he allowed Julius to pin his hands behind his back, albeit under some protest.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Johnny. ‘Who are you? Where am I?’

  ‘There we go,’ said Sabine. ‘He just took four sleeping pills, so in a few minutes he’ll have mumbled his last for some time.’

  And with that, the minister had reached her limit. She didn’t want to know any more. She didn’t want to be a part of any more. She turned to Allan. ‘May I hear your plans for how to move forwards, Mr Karlsson? I have two representatives of the security service outside …’

  ‘Not the police,’ said Julius.

  Allan’s suggestion involved the minister for foreign affairs’ immediate departure, preferably in the company of the bodyguards she didn’t appear to need since she could obviously take care of herself. The rest of them would do their best to deal with the ever-sleepier Nazi on the floor. And there was no reason for Madame Minister to worry. Although it was true that an accident or two had been known to occur in Allan’s vicinity over the years, they would make sure that this character survived the day. Not because he deserved it, but out of general decency.

  General decency? Minister for Foreign Affairs Wallström closed her eyes. She sensed that her career would soon be over. Yet she couldn’t figure out what she’d done wrong. At least, not from a moral standpoint. How could it turn out like this when her sole ambition had been to bring about a little peace on earth?