uesday, 10th May 2005

The spring sun shone brightly for the ninth day in a row and even though it was cool in the morning, Bosse set the table for breakfast out on the veranda.

Benny and The Beauty led Sonya out of the bus and into the field behind the farmhouse. Allan and Pike Gerdin sat in the hammock sofa and rocked gently. One of them was one hundred years old, and the other just felt as if he was. His head throbbed, and his broken ribs made it hard to breathe. His right arm was good for nothing, not to mention the worst of all – the deep wound in his right leg. Benny came by and offered to change the dressing on the leg, but he thought it was perhaps best to start with a couple of strong painkillers. They could then resort to morphine in the evening if necessary.

After which Benny returned to Sonya and left Allan and Pike to themselves. Allan thought that it was high time that the two men had a more serious conversation. He was sorry that – Bolt? – had lost his life out there in the Södermanland forests and that – Bucket? – ended up under Sonya. Both Bolt and Bucket had however been threatening them, to put it mildly, and perhaps that could be a mitigating factor. Didn’t Mr Pike think so?

Pike Gerdin answered that he was sorry to hear that the boys were dead, but that it didn’t really surprise him that they had been overpowered by a hundred-year-old geezer, with a little assistance, because they had both been hopelessly daft. The only person who was even more daft was the fourth member of the club, Caracas, but he had just fled the country and was well on his way to somewhere in South America, Pike wasn’t really sure where he came from.

Then Pike Gerdin’s voice grew sad. He seemed to feel sorry for himself, because it was Caracas who had been able to talk to the cocaine sellers in Colombia; now Pike had neither interpreter nor henchmen to continue his business. Here he sat, with God knows how many broken bones in his body, and without a clue as to what he should do with his life.

Allan consoled him and said that there was surely some other drug that Mr Pike could sell. Allan didn’t know much about drugs, but couldn’t Mr Pike and Bosse Baddy grow something here on the farm?

Pike answered that Bosse Baddy was his best friend in life, but also that Bosse had his damned moral principles. Otherwise, Pike and Bosse would by now have been the meatball kings of Europe.

Bosse interrupted the general melancholy in the hammock by announcing that breakfast was served. Pike could at last get to taste the juiciest chicken in the world, and with it watermelon that seemed to have been imported directly from the Kingdom of Heaven.

After breakfast, Benny dressed Pike’s thigh wound and then Pike explained that he needed to have a morning nap, if his friends would excuse him?

The following hours at Bellringer Farm developed as follows:

Benny and The Beauty moved things around in the barn so that they could rig up a fitting and more permanent stable for Sonya.

Julius and Bosse went off into Falköping to buy supplies, and while there became aware of the newspaper headlines about the centenarian and his entourage who had evidently run amok across the country.

Allan returned after breakfast to the hammock, with the aim of not exerting himself — preferably in the company of Buster.

And Pike slept.

But when Julius and Bosse came back from their shopping expedition, they immediately summoned everyone to a big meeting in the kitchen. Even Pike Gerdin was forced from his bed.

Julius told them what he and Bosse had read in the newspaper. Anyone who wanted to could read it in peace and quiet after the meeting, but to sum up, there were warrants out for their arrest, all of them except Bosse who wasn’t mentioned at all, and Pike who according to the newspapers was dead.

‘That last bit isn’t entirely true, but I am feeling a bit under the weather,’ said Pike Gerdin.

Julius said that it was, of course, serious to be suspected of murder, even if it might end up being called something else. And then he asked for everyone’s views. Should they phone the police, tell them where they were, and let justice run its course?

Before anyone could say what they thought about that, Pike Gerdin let out a roar and said that it would be over his half-dead body that anyone voluntarily phoned and reported themselves to the police.

‘If it’s going to be like that, then I’ll get my revolver again. What did you do with it, by the way?’

Allan answered that he had hidden the revolver in a safe place, bearing in mind all the weird medicines Benny had given to Mr Pike. And didn’t Mr Pike think that it was just as well that it remained hidden a little longer?

Well, okay, Pike could go along with that, if only he and Mr Karlsson could stop being so formal.

‘I am Pike,’ said Pike, and shook hands with the centenarian.

‘And I’m Allan,’ said Allan. ‘Nice to meet you.’

So by threatening to use weapons (but without a weapon) Pike had decided that they wouldn’t admit anything to the police and prosecutor. His experience was that Justice was rarely as just as it ought to be. The others agreed. Not least on account of what would happen if Justice this time should turn out to be just.

The result of the short discussion was that the yellow bus was immediately hidden in Bosse’s huge warehouse, together with a lot of as yet untreated watermelons. But it was also decided that the only person who could leave the farm without the group’s permission was Bosse Baddy – that is, the only one among them who wasn’t wanted by the police or presumed dead.

As for the question of what they should do next, what for example should happen to the suitcase of money, the group decided to postpone the decisions until later. Or as Pike Gerdin said:

‘I get a headache when I think about it. At the moment I’d pay fifty million for a painkiller.’

‘Here are two pills,’ said Benny. ‘And they are free.’

It was a hectic day for Chief Inspector Aronsson. Thanks to all the publicity, they were now drowning in tips about where the presumed triple-murderer and his companions were holed up. But the only tip-off that Chief Inspector Aronsson had any faith in was the one that came from the deputy chief of police in Jönköping, Gunnar Löwenlind. He reported that on the main road somewhere near Råslätt, he had met a yellow Scania bus with a badly dented front and only one functioning headlight. If it hadn’t been for the fact that his grandson had just started throwing up in his babyseat in the back of the car, Löwenlind would have phoned the traffic police and tipped them off.

Chief Inspector Aronsson sat for a second evening in the piano bar at the Hotel Royal Corner in Växjö and once again made the mistake of analysing the situation while under the influence.

‘The northbound road,’ the chief inspector reflected. ‘Are you going back into Södermanland? Or are you going to hide in Stockholm?’

He decided to check out of the hotel the next day and set off home to his depressing three-room apartment in the centre of Eskilstuna. Ronny Hulth from the bus station at least had a cat to hug. Göran Aronsson didn’t have anything, he thought and downed the last whisky of the evening.