Beatrice Bergh was as frightened as she had reason to be.
Sweden
Business was booming. The order phone even rang at weekends. Like now, a Saturday afternoon.
‘Die with Pride, but perhaps not immediately,’ said Allan, who happened to have the business phone on a small table beside the sofa he so seldom left.
Beatrice Bergh from the morgue in a neighbouring town introduced herself in a panicked tone. She and Allan didn’t know each other. But he knew Sabine had delivered coffins there a few times, most recently the day before.
‘Why, hello and good day, Madame Morgue Manager. Calling on a Saturday? Is someone in a hurry to get underground?’
Beatrice Bergh didn’t respond. She said something, but it was hard to get a grip on exactly what it might have been. The woman seemed thoroughly out of balance. Her words came all in a jumble. At last she gave up and began to cry. ‘Forgive me,’ she sobbed. ‘Forgive me!’
Allan had sat up on his sofa. This didn’t seem to be just another typical call. ‘I’m sure I’ll forgive you, Mrs Bergh,’ he said. ‘But that will be easier to do if I know what I have to forgive. Is it calling on a Saturday? In that case, just hang up and we’ll let bygones be bygones.’
He let her cry a little longer, figuring that she needed to get it out. But at last he grew weary of her. ‘I think it’s about time for you to pull yourself together, Mrs Bergh. Otherwise I may have to reconsider the forgiveness. Tell me what’s going on.’
‘Thank you, okay, well … Oh dear,’ said Beatrice Bergh.
And did, in fact, manage to tell the tale.
It was easy to work alone on the Saturday shift at the morgue. Still, on that particular day there were two deceased to distribute for burial, which was two more than usual. One was a young girl: the family had chosen Saturday so her classmates could come. The other … something entirely dreadful.
‘Well, I’m sure you know which coffins I’m thinking of, sir, since your colleague Sabine Jonsson painted them both.’
Allan didn’t know the details of Julius and Sabine’s doings, but he did recall the twelve-year-old girl’s coffin: it was lovely. Allan had thought, when he saw it, that he would have been happy to donate some of his hundred-and-one years to the twelve-year-old if only it were possible, which of course it wasn’t. What the morgue manager was referring to by a dreadful coffin, he didn’t know.
‘Was it Elvis?’ he said.
‘No!’ said Beatrice Bergh. ‘It was one with swastikas and white power and God knows what. I’ve worked here for eighteen years. Eighteen years. There’s never a mistake!’
‘Until now?’ Allan guessed.
‘Until now.’ Beatrice Bergh was on the verge of crying again. But she did manage to report that transport one had received number two’s coffin while transport two had received number one’s.
‘That’s all?’ Allan said. ‘Can’t they just be redirected?’
No. What’s done was done, and it was too late to fix it.
She had received two phone calls within a few minutes of each other. The first was from an outraged pastor, who had stopped the twelve-year-old girl’s funeral before her family could see the most horrid coffin imaginable. And a minute later one from … Beatrice Bergh dropped off mid-sentence.
‘From?’ said Allan.
‘From a man who said he was on his way over to kill me! He was calling to find out where I was.’
And she sobbed again.
But Allan had no intention of suffering through another round of tears. ‘There, there, Mrs Bergh. If someone is on his way to kill you – which is not to be believed – then isn’t it better to leave, instead of sitting there making phone calls without quite getting to the point?’
‘I’m not the one who has to leave,’ cried Mrs Bergh. ‘You are!’
* * *
Allan summoned the lovebirds Jonsson and Jonsson from upstairs. Because he was standing up, instead of lying on the sofa when they came down, they surmised it was important.
‘Apparently we made a coffin with swastikas and Hitler and that sort of thing?’ he said.
Sabine and Julius nodded.
‘Not Hitler himself, but in that spirit,’ said Sabine.
‘I was just speaking with the morgue. The swastika coffin went astray and was replaced by the lovely one you made, Sabine, with doves and clouds and all that. The purchaser of the swastikas is now upset, as I understand it. He called the morgue some time ago and wanted to kill the woman behind the mix-up.’
‘And?’ Julius asked, worried.
‘And … Well, she saved her own skin by blaming us. Complete with the address. It seems we have an angry Nazi on the way. As I recall from history, one must watch out for angry Nazis. Or Nazis in general.’
‘What the hell?’ said Julius. ‘Couldn’t you have led with that? We have to get out of here! Now!’
‘That sounds like an accurate analysis,’ said Allan. ‘I suppose we should gather up—’
He was about to say ‘the essentials’, by which he meant the black tablet he already held. But he didn’t have time to finish his sentence before all hell broke loose. The three shop windows shattered, one after the next. A loud rat-a-tat suggested that someone was out on the street, shooting straight into the shop with an automatic weapon. Allan, Julius and Sabine survived the first salvo and managed to crawl through the door to the courtyard, all in a line. After a brief interlude, the shooting on the other side of the building resumed.
Julius helped Allan into the back of the hearse as Sabine got behind the wheel. A few seconds later, Julius settled into the passenger seat.
‘Go!’ he said, a second after Sabine had set off.
‘It’s crowded back here,’ said Allan. ‘Is someone in the coffin, or can I climb in?’
* * *
The hearse raced away from Märsta, heading south on the E4 highway. Allan moved into the white coffin painted with red roses that would never be delivered the following Monday. With a few minor adjustments, it would be truly comfortable. If they could only arrange for sufficient oxygen intake, he might close the lid and keep it that way each time the lovebirds got cosy with each other. But it would be best to hold off on suggestions of that sort. The man in the front seat seemed thoroughly shaken by the hail of bullets that had rained over them. That must have been Julius’s first time. Allan recalled Guadalajara in 1937 as if it were yesterday, where you’d had to keep your head down if you wanted it to stick around. Those were the days. Franco had taken quite a pasting. And then what happened had happened, until it was over. That was life.
While Allan let his mind wander eighty years back in time, Julius sat next to Sabine in silence, his heart pounding, his mind a total blank.
Sabine speeded up a bit. Allan wrestled his way out of his jacket and placed it under his head. Then he took out his black tablet – what luck that it had escaped without a scratch.
‘Shots fired in Märsta!’ he reported, after some time.
‘Really?’ said Sabine.
Allan had his tablet; Sabine had the wheel. Julius had nothing more than a slowly recovering brain. He forced himself to recount the trio’s situation, as self-therapy.
‘Here’s where we stand,’ he said to the others, and took a breath.
Die with Pride AB was now a business without operations and couldn’t expect any further income. The firm had perhaps a hundred thousand untaxed kronor in the bank, and there they were welcome to remain. Untaxed. Further, the three representatives of the company were on the run from a Nazi who evidently wanted nothing but to kill them. Their escape was being undertaken in a vehicle recognizable from many hundred metres away. The Nazi was probably after them on the same road.
‘We’re not switching cars, are we?’ Allan said nervously. ‘I’m comfortable here.’
‘Let’s start by switching roads,’ Sabine said, exiting the E4 in Upplands Väsby, without seeking approval from the others.
Sweden
&n
bsp; It had simply become too emotionally charged. Johnny stood on the pavement, shooting from the hip, instead of calmly and quietly walking in among the coffins and making funeral fodder of everyone who got in his way.
The only thing he managed to kill was a laptop that had been left on a table near the coffins. The store was otherwise devoid of anything of value. Above all, it was devoid of people.
Still, Johnny glimpsed a black hearse leaving the courtyard, an old lady behind the wheel and an old man beside her.
Five minutes had passed since their departure. It was impossible to know where they were heading, but a reasonable guess was the southbound E4. He ought to be able to catch up with a hearse, even if it had had a five-minute head start.
He got into his BMW and drove towards Stockholm at 175 kilometres per hour, staring straight ahead and keeping a lookout for the back of the black car.
Just south of Upplands Väsby, he was able to take a more sober look at his situation. He should have caught up with them by now if they were planning to use central Stockholm as their hideout. But he hadn’t.
Somewhere between Sollentuna and Kista, he gave up and slowed down. He realized he’d already passed a dozen exits that went in all different directions. It would be pointless to continue. Better to head home and plan his next step.
* * *
Their journey took them down Mälarvägen to Highway 267 and onto the E18 headed for Oslo.
‘I’ve never been there,’ said Allan.
‘And so it will remain,’ said Sabine. ‘What would we do in Oslo?’
The question was where they would go instead. And what would they do with their lives?
After a few dozen kilometres in the direction of the Norwegian capital, Sabine aimlessly turned south again. Twenty minutes later, Allan discovered a serious news item on his tablet. A possible terrorist attack was under way in Stockholm. An out-of-control truck had driven into a crowd and there were scattered reports of shots fired.
For once, Julius and Sabine wanted Allan to tell them more.
Well, it had happened a few hours ago and the driver of the truck had managed to escape. It seemed no one had been apprehended. Blockades everywhere; the police were evacuating the city centre. Several were feared dead. The tablet didn’t have much more to say on the topic.
It sounded terrible. Julius was ashamed when he not only allowed himself a full-body shudder but also had the thought that if there had to be a tragedy, at least it had come at an opportune time. With police and blockades everywhere, the Nazi ought to be lying low, while they were putting increasing distance between themselves and the beleaguered capital.
He had just finished that thought, but had come no further, when Sabine drove straight into a police checkpoint.
‘I’ll close the lid,’ said Allan.
One of the two officers saluted and informed them that the checkpoints had been set up to inspect vehicles and people on account of a dramatic incident in Stockholm.
‘We just heard about it,’ said Sabine. ‘Truly awful.’
The police officer looked at her and Julius. His gaze moved to the coffin in the back and he said he understood that they were out on official business.
‘Yes,’ said Sabine.
‘Official business,’ Julius confirmed.
It was just that the female driver and the man at her side were not dressed for a delivery of this sort. He was wearing a colourful jacket, a crumpled shirt, and shabby gabardine trousers. She looked more like a retired hippie with medals around her neck.
Caution was not only a virtue, but also a police duty.
‘May I see your IDs, please?’
‘Of course,’ said Sabine. ‘Of course not, now that I think about it. I’m afraid I left my wallet at the funeral parlour. Some tasks are more urgent than others, even in our line of work.’
But Julius had discovered Sabine’s handbag on the floor at his feet. A stroke of luck. He dug out her driving licence and handed it over with his own passport.
‘You’re a diplomat?’ the officer asked Julius, sounding as surprised as he was.
‘Just home from the embassy in New York,’ Julius said.
‘Isn’t the embassy in Washington?’
‘Just home from the UN building in New York, and prior to that the embassy in Washington.’
The policeman looked at him for a long time. ‘One moment,’ he said, walking back to his colleague. They exchanged a few words, then both returned to the hearse.
‘Good day,’ said the colleague, who was just as much of a police officer.
‘Good day,’ said Sabine. ‘We have an urgent delivery, so to speak. Is there a problem, Constable?’
‘Inspector,’ said the colleague. ‘There’s no problem, certainly not, but we have to follow orders. Would you please open the back?’
That was just about the last thing Sabine wanted to do.
‘Oh, please, Inspector!’ she said. ‘Think of the sanctity of the grave!’
The inspector said that what he had to think of first and foremost was the nation’s security. And then he opened the back and studied the white coffin and the rails it rested on. He pulled the coffin out, apologized for what he was about to do – and opened the lid.
‘Peace be with you, Constable,’ said Allan. ‘Or Inspector, I mean. Please excuse me for lying down while I greet you.’
The inspector stumbled backwards and landed on his rear. His colleague swore in shock. When the smoke cleared, the two alleged undertakers and their far-too-animate corpse had been escorted to the police station in Eskilstuna for questioning.
After a strained opening, the tone of the interrogation became rather milder. Credit for this was due to lead interrogator Holmlund, who understood that while the situation was beyond strange, in all likelihood it had nothing to do with the terror attack in Stockholm.
Sabine explained that the members of the group were producers of coffins, that they had business to attend to in the south, and that it had taken creative problem-solving to fit three people into the two-seat vehicle.
‘Not just creative,’ said Holmlund. ‘Illegal. All passengers in a vehicle must be belted in. In the front seat since 1975, and in the back seat since 1986.’
‘Of course, I wasn’t sitting,’ Allan said. ‘I was lying. And what is the definition of a back seat? I’d say I was in the boot.’
But this wasn’t Holmlund’s first rodeo.
‘Karlsson, was that your name? I had been about to let it go this time, but if you think backchat a good idea, perhaps I should reconsider.’
‘No, no,’ said Julius. ‘Karlsson here is a hundred and one years old, but he’s as daft as a hundred-and-eleven-year-old. Pay no attention to him. We’ll definitely belt in the old man, we promise. The fact is, we’ve already considered a straitjacket.’
‘Come now,’ said Allan. ‘But certainly, Mr Interrogating Officer, I hear what you’re saying although my hearing is pretty bad. I apologize on behalf of myself and young Jonsson here.’
Lead interrogator Holmlund nodded. He had no time for fools on a day like this. And there was no reason for a more thorough investigation. It had been proved that the woman owned a company in the coffin industry.
‘Off you go, then,’ he said. ‘And if Karlsson’s going to crawl back into that coffin, he damn well better be strapped in. As long as he’s alive. After that I don’t give a hoot what you do with him.’
Back at the car, Julius pointed out that they had to find some sort of belt for Allan in the back.
‘Oh,’ said Allan, ‘forget about it. I’ll just play dead next time.’
Sweden
Too much had happened for one day. East of Eskilstuna, Sabine found a pension where they could check in to catch their breath and take stock.
The problem was, they had just lost their home, workshop, business and future. All that remained: one hearse.
The manager of the pension, Mrs Lundblad, was a plump woman of around seventy-five. She was
glad to receive unannounced guests. ‘Of course I have available rooms for Messrs and Mrs Undertaker. There are five rooms in all and all five happen to be empty, so take your pick. Would you like dinner? I can offer pea soup with ham, or … Well, pea soup with ham.’
In Allan’s opinion, pea soup with or without ham had never brought anyone joy. But perhaps there was something to wash it down with. ‘That sounds good,’ he said. ‘What will be served in the glasses? Beer, perhaps?’
‘Milk, of course,’ said Mrs Lundblad.
‘Of course,’ said Allan.
After the soup, Sabine called a meeting in the room she was sharing with Julius. She began by stating what Julius had already realized: their coffin operation was as dead as someone out there wanted them to be. One had to assume that the Nazi at least knew Sabine’s name: she was, after all, the firm’s frontwoman. Unless he was totally useless he would have found Allan as well, via the Companies Registration Office. But not Julius.
‘We need a new source of income,’ said Sabine. ‘New lives altogether. Preferably before we run out of money. Any ideas?’
Julius had touched upon an idea earlier, without being very serious about it. At the time. But now? ‘What about honouring the memory of your mother and starting again in the clairvoyance industry?’
Allan was on the verge of becoming excited. He thought it sounded thrilling to talk to the dead: what came out of the living was seldom of much interest. There were exceptions, of course. At the old folks’ home back in Malmköping, the man in the neighbouring room had dug trenches in Finland’s Winter War. An intriguing job. Or not, really, but the man told a good story. They’d had one ten-minute break per hour, which they devoted to more digging so they didn’t freeze to death.
Sabine turned off her ears to Allan while she thought.
‘Would that be a feasible path?’ Julius asked.
‘Trenches?’
Sabine glared at the hundred-and-one-year-old and replied to Julius. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Or maybe. It depends.’
The Accidental Further Adventures of the Hundred-Year-Old Man Page 20
