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

three’s BMW.
    Although Bosse had just heard in detail how two people had lost their lives, and how the course of events had been concealed in a way that contravened Swedish law, there was just one thing he wanted them to confirm:
    ‘Now, if I’ve understood you correctly… you’ve got an elephant in the bus.’
    ‘Yes, but tomorrow morning she needs to be let out,’ said The Beauty.
    Otherwise, Bosse didn’t find much to comment upon. The law often says one thing, while morality leads to a different conclusion in his opinion and he didn’t think he needed to look further than his own small-scale activities to find examples of how the law can be set to one side as long as you hold your head high.
    ‘A bit like how you dealt with our inheritance, except the other way round,’ Bosse happened to say to Benny.
    ‘Oh yeah, who smashed up my new motorbike?’ Benny countered.
    ‘But that was because you dropped out of the welding course,’ said Bosse.
    ‘And I did that because you lorded it over me all the time,’ said Benny.
    Bosse looked as if he had the answer to Benny’s answer to Bosse’s answer, but Allan interrupted the two brothers by saying that he had been out and about in the world and if there was one thing he had learned it was that the very biggest and apparently most impossible conflicts on earth were based on the dialogue: ‘You are stupid, no, it’s you who are stupid, no, it’s you who are stupid.’ The solution, said Allan, was often to down a bottle of vodka together and then look ahead. But now there was an unfortunate problem in that Benny was a teetotaller. Allan could, of course, look after Benny’s share of the vodka, but he didn’t think it would be quite the same thing.
    ‘So a bottle of vodka would solve the Israel-Palestine conflict?’ asked Bosse. ‘That stretches all the way back to the Bible.’
    ‘For the particular conflict you mention, it is not impossible that you would need more than one bottle,’ Allan answered. ‘But the principle is the same.’
    ‘Would it work if I drink something else?’ asked Benny, feeling – with his total abstinence – as if he was destroying the world.
    Allan was pleased with the development. The argument between the brothers had lost its poison. He remarked on this, and added that the vodka in question, for that very reason, could be used for other things than solving conflicts.
    The liquor would have to wait, Bosse said, since the food was ready. Chicken straight from the grill and roast potatoes with beer for the grown-ups and a soft drink for his little brother.
    While they were starting their dinner in the kitchen, Per-Gunnar ‘Boss’ Gerdin woke up. He had a headache, it hurt when he breathed, one arm was probably broken because it was in a sling, and when he struggled down from the bus’s cabin, a wound in his right thigh began to bleed. Amazingly he found his own revolver in the glove compartment. It would seem that all the people in the whole world were idiots apart from him.
    The morphine was still effective, so he could cope with the pain, but it also made it hard for him to sort out his thoughts. He limped about in the yard and peered in through various windows, until he was certain that all the people in the house were gathered together in the kitchen, including an Alsatian dog. And, it turned out, the kitchen door to the garden was unlocked. The Boss limped in through the door, and with considerable determination and the revolver in his left hand, said:
    ‘Lock the dog in the pantry, otherwise I’ll shoot it. After that I’ve got five bullets left, one for each of you.’
    The Boss was surprised how well he was keeping his anger under control. The Beauty looked unhappy rather than afraid when she led Buster into the pantry and closed the door. Buster was surprised and a bit worried, but above all satisfied. He discovered he had just been shut inside a pantry, and there are worse things to do to a dog.
    The five friends were now lined up. The Boss informed them that the suitcase in the corner belonged to him, and that he was going to take it with him when he left. It was possible that he would leave one or two of the five alive, depending on their answers to his questions, and on how much of the contents of the suitcase had disappeared.
    Allan was the first to speak. He said that a few million were indeed missing from the suitcase, but that Mr Revolver Man could perhaps be satisfied with less, since for