ednesday, 25th May–Thursday, 26th May 2005

The Egyptian sailor who had offered the smelly remains of Bengt ‘Bolt’ Bylund to the fish in the Red Sea had finally reached Djibouti for three days of leave.

In his back pocket he had Bolt’s wallet with 800 Swedish crowns. The seaman had no idea what that could be worth, but he had his hopes, and now he was looking for somewhere to change money.

The capital city in Djibouti is, rather unimaginatively, called the same as the country itself, and is a young and lively place. Lively because Djibouti is strategically placed on the Horn of Africa, right next to where the Red Sea joins the ocean, and young because the people who live in Djibouti don’t live very long. Reaching your fiftieth birthday is something of an exception.

The Egyptian sailor stopped at the city’s fish market, perhaps intending to eat something deep-fried before continuing his search for a place to change money. Right next to him stood a sweaty man, one of the locals, restlessly switching his weight from one foot to the other, and with a feverish and roaming look in his eyes. The sailor didn’t find it strange that the sweaty man was so sweaty; it was after all at least 35°C in the shade, and besides the sweaty man was wearing two sarongs and two shirts under his pulled-down fez.

The sweaty man was in his mid-twenties, and did not have the slightest ambition to become any older. His soul was in revolution. Not because half the population of the country was unemployed, nor because every fifth citizen had HIV or Aids, nor because of the hopeless shortage of drinking water, nor because of the way the desert was spreading across the nation and swallowing the pathetically small amount of arable land. No, the man was furious because the USA had established a military base in the country.

In that respect, the USA was not alone. The French Foreign Legion was already there. There was a strong link between France and Djibouti. The country used to be called French Somaliland (in French of course) until it was allowed to go into business on its own in the 1970s.

Next to the Foreign Legion’s base, the United States had now negotiated the right to establish its own base at a convenient distance from the Gulf and Afghanistan, and indeed from a whole row of Central African tragedies just around the corner.

Good idea, thought the Americans, while nearly all the Djiboutians couldn’t care less. They were fully occupied with trying to survive yet another day.

But one of them had evidently had time to reflect upon the American presence. Or perhaps he was simply a bit too religious for his own, worldly good.

Whatever the reason, he was now wandering about in the centre of the capital city on the look-out for a group of American soldiers on leave. During his walk he nervously fiddled with the string he was to pull – at the right time – so that the Americans would be blown to hell while he himself would sail off in the opposite direction.

But, as we have already heard, it was hot (as it tends to be in Djibouti). The bomb itself was taped onto his stomach and back and covered by a double layer of garments. The suicide bomber must have been boiling in the sun, and the combination of heat and nerves led him to fiddle a little too much with his string.

In so doing, he transformed himself and the unfortunate people who happened to be standing near him into mincemeat. A further two Djiboutians died from their wounds and ten or so were badly injured.

None of the victims was American. But the man standing closest to the suicide bomber seemed to have been a European. The police found his wallet in sensationally good condition next to the remains of its owner. Besides eight hundred Swedish crowns in banknotes, the wallet contained a passport and a driver’s licence.

The following day, the Swedish honorary consul in Djibouti was informed by the city’s mayor that all the evidence suggested that Swedish citizen Erik Bengt Bylund had fallen victim to the mad bomb attack in the city’s fish market.

Regrettably the city was unable to hand over the remains of the said Bylund because the body was too badly damaged. The pieces had, however, immediately been cremated, under respectful circumstances.

The honorary consul did receive Bylund’s wallet, which contained his passport and driver’s licence (the money had disappeared en route). The mayor expressed his regrets that the city had not been able to protect the Swedish citizen, but he did feel obliged to point out something, if the honorary consul would permit an observation.

Bylund had been in Djibouti without a valid visa. The mayor didn’t know how many times he had raised the problem with the Frenchmen and for that matter with President Guelleh. If the French wanted to fly in legionnaires directly to their base, that was their business. But the very same moment a legionnaire left the base to go into the city of Djibouti (‘my city’ as the mayor put it) as a civilian, he must have valid documentation. The mayor did not for a second doubt that Bylund was a foreign legionnaire. He knew the pattern all too well. The Americans followed the rules, but the French behaved as if they were still in Somaliland.

The honorary consul thanked the mayor for his condolences, and lied and promised on a suitable occasion to discuss the matter of visas with the French representatives.

It was a horrendous experience for Arnis Ikstens, the unfortunate man in charge of the car crushing machine at the scrap yard in the southern suburbs of Riga, the capital of Latvia. When the last car in the row was squashed completely flat he suddenly noticed a human arm sticking out of the cubic metal package that until recently had been a car.

Arnis immediately phoned the police, and then went home, even though it was the middle of the day. The image of the dead arm would haunt him for a long time to come. He prayed to God that the person was already dead before he squashed the car in his crushing machine.

The Chief of Police in Riga personally informed the ambassador at the Swedish Embassy that their citizen Henrik Mikael Hultén had been found dead in a Ford Mustang at the car scrap yard in the southern suburbs of Riga.

That is, they had as yet been unable to confirm that it was him, but the contents of the wallet the dead man carried on him would suggest that such was his identity.

At 11.15 in the morning on 26th May, the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Stockholm received a fax from the honorary consul in Djibouti, containing information and documentation concerning a deceased Swedish citizen. Eight minutes later, a second fax arrived, on the same theme, but this time dispatched from the embassy in Latvia.

The official on duty in the ministry immediately recognised the names and pictures of the dead men – he had recently read about them in the tabloids. A bit strange, the official reflected, that the men had died so far from Sweden, because that hadn’t been the impression given in the newspaper. But that was for the police and prosecutor to sort out. The official scanned the two faxes and then created an e-mail containing all the relevant information about the two victims.

Prosecutor Ranelid’s life was about to fall apart. The case of the triple-murdering centenarian was to be the professional breakthrough that Ranelid had waited such a long time for, and that he so richly deserved.

But now it transpired that victim number one, who had died in Södermanland, died again three weeks later in Djibouti. And that victim number two, who died in Småland, did the same again in Riga, Latvia.

After ten deep breaths through the open office window, Prosecutor Ranelid’s brain started to work again. Must phone Aronsson, Ranelid concluded.

And Aronsson must find victim number three. And there must be some DNA-link between the centenarian and number three.

Otherwise Ranelid had made a fool of himself.

When Chief Inspector Aronsson heard Ranelid’s voice on the phone, he immediately started to tell him how he had just located Allan Karlsson and that the said Karlsson was now under arrest (even though he was spending that arrest standing in the kitchen brewing some coffee for Aronsson).

‘As regards the others, I suspect that they are in the vicinity, but I think it is best that I should first call in reinforcements…’

Prosecutor Ranelid interrupted the inspector’s report and told him despairingly that victim number one had been found dead in Djibouti, and victim number two in Riga, and that the chain of circumstantial evidence was disintegrating.

‘Djibouti?’ said Chief Inspector Aronsson. ‘Where is that?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Prosecutor Ranelid, ‘but as long as it is more than twenty kilometres from Åker’s foundry village it weakens my case dramatically. Now, you have to find victim number three!’

At that very moment a newly awoken Per-Gunnar Gerdin stepped out onto the veranda. He nodded politely but somewhat warily towards Chief Inspector Aronsson, who stared at him wide eyed.

‘I think that number three has just found me,’ he said.