hursday, 26th May 2005

Prosecutor Ranelid had to try to salvage what could be saved of his career and honour. He arranged a press conference that same afternoon to say that he had just cancelled the warrant for the arrest of the three men and the woman in the case of the disappearing centenarian.

Prosecutor Ranelid was good at lots of things, but not at admitting his shortcomings and his mistakes. The prosecutor turned and twisted in his explanation, which consisted of the information that while Allan Karlsson and his friends were not under arrest (they had, incidentally, been found that same afternoon in Västergötland), they were probably guilty anyway, that the prosecutor had acted properly, and that the only thing that was new was that the evidence had changed so dramatically that the arrest warrants for the time being were no longer valid.

The representatives of the media wondered in what way the proof had changed, and Prosecutor Ranelid described in detail the new information from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with regard to the fate of Bylund and Hultén in Djibouti and Riga respectively. And then Ranelid finished by saying that the law sometimes required that arrest warrants be withdrawn, however offensive that may feel in certain cases.

Prosecutor Ranelid sensed that he had not closed the matter entirely. And that impression was immediately confirmed when the representative of the major national Dagens Nyheter peered over his reading glasses and reeled off a monologue containing a host of questions that made the prosecutor especially uneasy.

‘Have I understood correctly that despite the new circumstances you still consider Allan Karlsson guilty of murder or manslaughter? Does that mean that you believe that Allan Karlsson, one hundred years old as we know, has forced the thirty-two-year-old Bengt Bylund to follow him to Djibouti on the Horn of Africa and there blown the said Bylund – but not himself – to bits as recently as yesterday afternoon, and then in all haste gone to Västergötland? Can you describe what means of transport Karlsson is meant to have used, considering that to the best of my knowledge there are no direct flights between Djibouti and the west of Sweden, and considering that Allan Karlsson is said not to have a valid passport?’

Prosecutor Ranelid inhaled deeply, and said he had not made himself clear. There was no doubt whatsoever as to the fact that Allan Karlsson, Julius Jonsson, Benny Ljungberg and Gunilla Björklund were innocent of what they were accused of.

‘No doubt whatsoever, as I said,’ Ranelid repeated, having at the last second managed to convince himself of the matter.

But those damned journalists were not satisfied with that.

‘You have previously in some detail described the chronology and geography of the three presumed murders. If the suspects are now suddenly innocent, what does the new course of events look like?’ wondered the reporter from the local paper.

Enough was enough. The representative of the local paper should not think he could beat up on Prosecutor Ranelid.

‘For technical reasons in connection with the investigation, I am unable for the time being to say any more,’ was Prosecutor Ranelid’s closing comment before he got up from his chair.

‘Technical reasons in connection with the investigation’ had more than once saved a prosecutor in a tight spot, but this time it wouldn’t work. For several weeks, the prosecutor had trumpeted the reasons why the four were guilty, and now the press thought it only right that he devote at least a minute or two to explaining their innocence. Or as the know-it-all from Dagens Nyheter put it:

‘How can it be secret “for technical reasons” to tell us what a number of innocent people have been doing?’

Prosecutor Ranelid stood there on the edge of a precipice. Almost everything indicated that he would fall over, straight away or in a day or two. But he had one advantage over the journalists. Ranelid knew where Allan Karlsson and the others were holed up. After all, Västergötland was a large county. This would be his final chance. Prosecutor Ranelid said:

‘If for once you could let me have my say! For technical reasons in connection with the investigation I am, for the time being, unable to say any more. But at three tomorrow, I shall arrange a new press conference in these premises and on that occasion I intend to describe exactly what happened, as you have asked me to do.’

‘Where exactly in Västergötland is Allan Karlsson just now?’ asked one journalist.

‘I am not saying,’ said Prosecutor Ranelid and left.

How could it possibly have ended up like this? Prosecutor Ranelid sat in his room with the door locked and smoked a cigarette for the first time in seven years. He had been going down in Swedish criminal history as the first prosecutor to convict murderers whose victims’ bodies had not been found. And then suddenly, the bodies had turned up. And in the wrong places too! And besides, victim number three was still alive, the one who had been the deadest of them all. Just think, what damage number three had done to Ranelid.

‘I should kill the devil as a punishment,’ the prosecutor muttered to himself.

But now it was a matter of saving his honour and his career, and for that reason a murder was not the best solution. The prosecutor went over the catastrophic press conference in his mind. In the end, he had been very clear about the fact that Karlsson and his henchmen were innocent. And all of this was because he… actually didn’t know. What had actually happened? Bolt Bylund must have died on that inspection trolley. So how the hell could he die again several weeks later a whole continent away?

Prosecutor Ranelid cursed himself for being so quick to meet the press. He ought to have talked to Allan Karlsson and his henchmen first, investigated everything – and then decided what the media needed to know.

And in his current predicament – in the aftermath of the catastrophic statements about the innocence of Karlsson and his henchmen – if he were to pull them in ‘to help with enquiries’ it would be seen as simply harassing them. Yet Ranelid didn’t have many options. He had to find out what had happened… and he had to do so before three the following day.

Otherwise, in the eyes of his colleagues he would no longer be a prosecutor but a clown.

Chief Inspector Aronsson was in excellent spirits sitting in the hammock at Bellringer Farm drinking coffee, and with a pastry to dip into it too. The hunt for the disappearing centenarian was over; besides, the sympathetic old man no longer had a warrant out for his arrest. Why the old guy had climbed out of his window almost a month ago, and what had happened since then remained to be discovered, if it needed to be discovered at all.

Nevertheless, there was surely time for a little more small talk first. The man who had been run over and killed and was now risen from the dead, Per-Gunnar ‘The Boss’ Gerdin, turned out to be a perfectly regular sort of guy. He had immediately proposed that they should drop the formal titles, and be on first-name terms, and that he in that case preferred to be called Pike.

‘That’s fine with me, Pike,’ said Chief Inspector Aronsson. ‘You can call me Göran.’

‘Pike and Göran,’ said Allan. ‘That rolls off the tongue nicely, perhaps you two should go into business together?’

Pike said that he wasn’t so sure that he had the necessary respect for the internal revenue authorities and their taxes to be able to run a company in partnership with a police chief inspector, but that he nevertheless thanked Allan for the advice.

The mood had thus immediately become jovial. And it didn’t get worse when Benny and The Beauty joined them, and shortly after, Julius and Bosse too.

They talked about all manner of things there on the veranda, except how the events of the past month fitted together. Allan scored a success when he suddenly led an elephant around the corner and together with Sonya put on a short dance performance. Julius became more and more pleased not to be wanted by the police any longer, and started to cut off the beard that he had felt obliged to cultivate before he had dared show himself in Falköping.

‘To think that I have been guilty all my life and now I am suddenly innocent!’ said Julius. ‘What a delightful sensation!’

And Bosse, for his part, thought this was reason enough to fetch a bottle of genuine Hungarian champagne for his friends and the chief inspector to toast each other. The chief inspector lamely protested that he had his car at the farm. A room was reserved at the central hotel in Falköping, but as a chief inspector he could hardly drive there if he was a bit tipsy.

But then Benny came to the rescue and said that teetotallers in general – according to Allan – were a threat to world peace, but that they were useful to have at hand when you needed a lift somewhere.

‘Have a glass of champagne, Inspector, and I shall make sure that you get safely to your hotel.’

The inspector didn’t need further persuading. He had long suffered from a chronic lack of social life and now that he finally found himself in pleasant company he couldn’t sit there and sulk.

‘Well now, a little toast for the innocence of all of you, I suppose the police force can go along with that,’ he said. ‘Or even two toasts if necessary; there are quite a lot of you…’

Thus passed a couple of hours of general merriment before Chief Inspector Aronsson’s telephone rang again. Once more, it was Prosecutor Ranelid. He told Aronsson that on account of unfortunate circumstances in the presence of the press, he had just announced that the three men and the woman were innocent, and he had done so in a manner that hardly allowed for retraction. Besides, within less than twenty-four hours he must know what had actually happened between the day when the old geezer Karlsson climbed out of his window and the present day, because that was what the press were being summoned to hear at three tomorrow.

‘In other words, you are well up shit creek,’ said the slightly drunken chief inspector.

‘You must help me, Göran!’

‘How? By moving corpses geographically? Or by killing people who have had the poor taste to not be as dead as you would have wished them to be?’

Prosecutor Ranelid admitted that he had already considered that last solution, but that it probably wouldn’t work. No, he hoped that Göran could cautiously sound out Allan Karlsson and his… accomplices about whether Ranelid would be welcome at the farm the following morning for a little – completely informal – chat about this and that in order to bring clarity as to what had recently taken place in the forests of Södermanland and Småland. And for good measure, Prosecutor Ranelid promised that he would apologize to the four innocent citizens on behalf of the Södermanland Police Force.

‘The Södermanland Police Force?’ said Chief Inspector Aronsson.

‘Yes… Or, no, on my own behalf,’ said Prosecutor Ranelid.

‘Understood. Just take a deep breath, Conny, and I’ll ask. I’ll call you back in a few minutes.’

Chief Inspector Aronsson turned to his companions and announced the happy news that Prosecutor Ranelid had just held a press conference where he had emphasized how innocent Allan Karlsson and his friends were. And then he passed on the prosecutor’s request to visit.

The Beauty reacted with an animated lecture saying that no good would come of describing in detail the developments of the last few weeks for the prosecutor. Julius agreed. If you had been declared innocent, then you were innocent, and that was that.

‘And I’m not used to that. So it would be too bad if my innocence lasted less than twenty-four hours.’

Allan said that he wished his friends would stop worrying about every little thing. The newspapers and TV would certainly not leave the group in peace until they had their story. So wouldn’t it be better to tell it to a solitary prosecutor, than to have journalists all over the place for the next few weeks?

‘Besides, we’ve got all evening to come up with a story,’ said Allan.

Chief Inspector Aronsson would have preferred not to hear the last bit. He got up from his chair to emphasize his presence and stop them from saying any more. It was time to call it a day, he said. If Benny would be so kind as to drive him to his hotel, he would be most grateful. From the car, Aronsson intended to phone Prosecutor Ranelid and tell him that he would be welcome at about ten o’clock the following morning, if that was what the group agreed upon. In any case, Aronsson intended to come in a taxi, if only to collect his car. Incidentally, would it be possible to have another half-glass of that exquisite Bulgarian champagne before he left? What? It was Hungarian? Well, it didn’t really matter, to be honest.

Chief Inspector Aronsson was served yet another glass, filled to the brim, which he downed in all haste before rubbing his nose and then getting into the passenger seat of his own car, already driven up to the door by Benny. And then, he declaimed some lines from the Swedish poet Carl Michael Bellman about good friends and Hungarian wine.

Benny, an almost-expert on literature, nodded.

‘John 8:7, don’t forget that tomorrow morning, Chief Inspector,’ Bosse called out in a sudden burst of inspiration. ‘In the Bible, John 8:7.’