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

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.
    Allan asked Julius if he had any ideas which, unlike previous attempts, would not just make The Beauty even angrier. Julius answered that the only way they could save the situation was by inviting The Beauty to partake in some sort of part-ownership of the suitcase. Allan agreed, although he pointed out that no good would come of telling one person a day that he and Julius stole people’s suitcases, killed them when they wanted to get it back and then sent the corpses neatly packaged in wooden boxes to be transported to Africa.
    Julius thought Allan was exaggerating. So far only one person had paid with his life and surely he got what he deserved. If they could just stay hidden until things calmed down, then nobody else need meet the same fate.
    Upon which Allan said that he himself had had a new idea. He thought that it might be an idea to divide the contents of the suitcase into four: Allan, Julius, Benny and The Beauty. Then there would be no risk of the last two talking too much to the wrong people. And as a bonus they would all be able to stay at Lake Farm for the summer, by which time the motorcycle gangwould certainly have stopped looking for them, if they were looking for them at all, which one must assume they were.
    ‘Twenty-five million for a few months room and board and a chauffeur,’ Julius sighed. But he accepted Allan’s suggestion.
    The meeting in the kitchen was finished. Julius and Allan went back into the living room. Allan asked The Beauty and Benny for another thirty seconds’ patience, while Julius went up to his room and returned with the suitcase trailing behind him. He put it on the long table in the middle of the living room and opened it.
    ‘Allan and I have decided that the four of us will share this equally.’
    ‘Jesus bloody Christ!’ said The Beauty.
    ‘Have a seat, and I’ll explain,’ said Julius.
    The Beauty found it just as hard as Benny had to digest the part about the corpse, but she was impressed with Allan for climbing out of a window and just disappearing from his earlier life.
    ‘I should have done the same after fourteen days with that arsehole I married.’
    Calm returned to Lake Farm. The Beauty and Buster went off again to pick up supplies. She bought food, drink, clothes, toiletries and lots of other stuff. She paid for everything with a wad of 500-crown notes.
     
    Chief Inspector Aronsson questioned the witness from the service station in Mjölby, a woman in her fifties. Her profession and the way she described what she had seen made her a credible witness. She could also identify Allan in pictures from an eightieth birthday party at the Old People’s Home a week or two earlier, pictures that Director Alice had been kind enough to provide not only to the police but also to the press.
    Chief Inspector Aronsson was forced to admit to himself that he had wrongly dismissed this tip the day before. But there was no point in looking back. Instead, Aronsson concentrated on hisanalysis. From a flight perspective, there were two possibilities: either the old men and the hot-dog-stand proprietor knew where they were going, or they were simply travelling south at random. Aronsson preferred the first alternative given that it’s easier to follow someone who knows where he’s going. But with these people it was hard to know. There seemed to be no obvious link between Allan Karlsson and Julius Jonsson on the one hand, and Benny Ljungberg on the other. Jonsson and Ljungberg might be acquaintances; after all they only lived about twenty kilometres apart. But it was possible that Ljungberg had been kidnapped and forced to drive the car. The centenarian too could have been forced to follow along, although that interpretation had two strikes against it: 1) the fact that Allan Karlsson had got off the bus at Byringe Station and, it