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

sometimes, and the Reverend Ferguson always interpreted it to mean that he should think for himself. Admittedly, it didn’t always work out well when the priest thought for himself, but you couldn’t just give up.
    After two days and two nights of deliberation, Mr Ferguson came to the conclusion that for the time being he should make his peace with the heathen in the next bed. And he informed Allan that he now intended to speak to him again.
    Allan said that although it had been nice and quiet while the priest kept silent, it was probably preferable in the long run that when one man spoke, the other answered.
    ‘Besides, we’re going to try to get out of here, and it would perhaps be best if we can do so before the murder boss gets back from London. So we can’t just sit, grumpily, in our corners, can we?’
    The Reverend Ferguson agreed. When the murder boss came back, they would probably face a short interrogation and then simply disappear. That was what the Reverend Ferguson had heard happened.
    The holding cell was not in a real prison, with all the security and locks that went with that. On the contrary, the guards sometimes didn’t even bother to lock the door properly. But there were never fewer than four guards at the building’s entrance and exit, and they were unlikely to just stand and stare if Allan and the priest tried to slip out.
    Would it be possible to create some sort of tumult or distraction? Allan wondered. And then sneak out in the midst of the general disarray?
    Allan wanted peace to work, and he therefore assigned the priest the task of finding out from the guards how long they had. That is, exactly when would the murder boss be back?
    The priest promised to ask as soon as he got an opportunity. Perhaps even right away, because there was a rattling sound at the door. The youngest and kindest of the guards stuck his head in and with a sympathetic look said:
    ‘The prime minister is back from England and it’s time for questioning. Which of you wants to go first?’
     
    The head of the department of domestic intelligence and security was in a dreadful mood.
    He had just been to London where he had been told off by the British. He, the prime minister (well as good as), head of a government department, one of the most important elements of Iranian society, had been told off by the British!
    The shah did nothing but make sure that the arrogant Englishmen were kept happy. The oil was in the hands of the British, and he himself made sure they weeded out everybody and anybody who tried to bring about change in the country. And that was no easy matter, because who was really satisfied with the shah? Not the Islamists, not the communists and definitely not the local oil workers who literally worked themselves to death for the equivalent of one British pound a week.
    And for this he had now been told off, instead of being praised!
    The secret police chief knew he had made a mistake when a while ago he had been a little heavy-handed with a provocateur of unknown origin. The provocateur had demanded to be set free because the only thing he was guilty of was insisting that the line in the butcher’s shop should be for everyone, not just employees in the state’s secret police.
    When the provocateur had put forward his case, he folded his arms and refused to answer any more questions. The police chief didn’t like the look of the provocateur (it was indeed provocative), so he made use of a couple of the CIA torturemethods (the police chief admired the inventiveness of the Americans). It was only at that point that it transpired that the provocateur was an assistant secretary in the British Embassy and that, of course, was most unfortunate.
    The solution was first to tidy up the assistant as best they could, then let him go, but only so that he could immediately be run over by a truck which then disappeared from the scene. That is how you avoid diplomatic crises, the police chief reasoned, pleased with himself.
    But the British Embassy picked up what was left of the assistant secretary, and sent all the pieces to London where they went through them with a magnifying glass. After which the police chief was summoned and asked to explain how the assistant secretary suddenly turned up on a street outside the head office of the secret police and was immediately so drastically run over that marks of the torture he had previously been subjected to were barely visible.
    The police chief had of course