The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

during the evening and night since the centenarian was lightly dressed and possibly in a state of confusion, Detective Chief Inspector Göran Aronsson rang Ronny Hulth’s doorbell. The dog had clearly indicated that the geriatric had gone into the waiting room, and Mr Hulth who had been in the ticket office ought to be able to say whether the old man had left Malmköping by bus.
    But Ronny Hulth did not open the door. He sat in his bedroom with the blinds drawn, hugging his cat.‘Go away!’ Ronny Hulth whispered towards the front door. ‘Go away!’
    And in the end that is precisely what the chief inspector did. Partly he agreed with his boss’s belief that the geriatric was wandering about locally, or that if the old guy had got on a bus, he was presumably capable of looking after himself. Ronny Hulth was probably visiting his girlfriend. The first task tomorrow morning would be to seek him out on the job. If the geriatric hadn’t turned up by then, that is.
     
    At 9.02 p.m., the county police received a call:
    – My name is Bertil Karlgren and I’m calling… I’m calling on behalf of my wife you could say. Well, yes, anyway, my wife, Gerda Karlgren, has been in Flen for a few days visiting our daughter and her husband. They’re going to have a baby… So there’s always a lot to do. But today it was time to go home and she took, I mean Gerda, Gerda took the early afternoon bus, and the bus goes via Malmköping, we live here in Strängnäs… Well, this might not be anything, the wife doesn’t think so, but we heard on the radio about a hundred-year-old man who’d disappeared. Perhaps you’ve already found him? You haven’t? Anyway, the wife says that there was an incredibly old man who got on the bus in Malmköping and he had a large suitcase as if he was going for a long journey. The wife sat at the back and the old man sat right at the front so she couldn’t see so well and she didn’t hear what the old man and the driver talked about. What did you say, Gerda? Well, Gerda says that she isn’t one of those people who listen to other people’s conversations… The old man got out only halfway to Strängnäs. Gerda doesn’t know what the bus stop is called, it was sort of in the middle of the forest…
    The conversation was recorded, transcribed and sent by fax to the detective chief inspector’s hotel in Malmköping. 

Chapter 6
    Monday, 2nd May–Tuesday, 3rd May 2005
    The suitcase was stuffed with bundles of 500-crown notes. Julius did some quick arithmetic in his head: ten rows across, five rows high, fifteen bundles in every pile…
    ‘Thirty-seven point five million if I counted correctly,’ said Julius.
    ‘That’s a decent amount of money,’ said Allan.
    ‘Let me out, you bastards,’ the young man shouted from inside the freezer.
    The young man was acting crazy in there; he yelled and kicked and yelled some more. Allan and Julius needed to collect their thoughts about the surprising turn of events, but they couldn’t do it with all that noise. In the end, Allan thought it was time to cool the young man’s temper a little, so he turned on the freezer fan.
    It didn’t take many seconds for the young man to notice that his situation had worsened. He quieted down to try to think clearly, not something he usually had much aptitude for, let alone when trapped in a rapidly cooling freezer with a pounding headache.
    After a few minutes’ deliberation, he decided that threatening or trying to kick his way out of the situation was unlikely to be effective. All that was left was to call for help from outside. All that was left was to call the boss. It was a dreadful thought. But the alternative seemed even worse.
    The young man hesitated for a minute or two, while it got colder and colder. Finally, he pulled out his mobile phone.
    No signal.
     
    The evening turned into night, and the night became morning.Allan opened his eyes but couldn’t figure out where he was. Had he gone and died in his sleep, after all?
    A chipper male voice wished him a good morning and informed him that there were two pieces of news to be conveyed, one good and one bad. Which did Allan want to hear first?
    First of all, Allan wanted to know where he was and why. His knees were aching, so he was alive despite everything. But hadn’t he… and didn’t he then take… Was the man called Julius?
    The pieces were falling into place; Allan was awake. He lay on a mattress on the floor in Julius’ bedroom. Julius