The Accidental Further Adventures of the Hundred-Year-Old Man

by Jonas Jonasson

  Julius was dropped off outside the offices of the public housing authority (which, unlike the available apartment, was not in Rosengård) to express their interest.

  And, to his surprise, he got a no.

  ‘We have rules,’ said the representative of the authority, a woman in her forties.

  ‘And what are those rules?’ asked Julius, who, as a rule, hated rules.

  ‘Well, as I understand it, you are unable to provide a current address or steady income, and that makes things difficult.’

  Julius looked at her. ‘When it comes to a current address, that’s what I’m currently trying to obtain. I can’t exactly report myself as living in one of your apartments until I have access to it, can I?’

  ‘That’s true,’ said the woman. ‘But your age leads me to suspect that you may have lived somewhere else previously but that is not evident from the form you filled in and there are no hits when I search your name in the system.’

  This country! Couldn’t anything be kept private? Was he even allowed to choose a toothpaste on his own? But he didn’t say this.

  ‘Young lady,’ he said instead. ‘As a diplomat in the service of the Department for Foreign Affairs, I have not had an address in Sweden since the Cuban Missile Crisis. I have struggled on many occasions with extreme homesickness. But never have I felt it as strongly as now, when a municipal authority turns its back on me in this manner.’

  And then he placed his Swedish diplomatic passport on the table.

  The woman looked at it. Then opened it. At first, she said nothing. Then: ‘And a steady income? You must understand, sir, that—’

  ‘Naturally I have not taken an income in Sweden,’ said Julius, who felt that he was really getting into the swing of it. ‘Please search for me in the Bank of Investments in the Seychelles, and I’m sure you will find what you’re after.’

  Fortunately for Julius, the woman capitulated at once. He had made up the name of the bank, and he couldn’t have spelled ‘Seychelles’ if she’d asked.

  ‘I believe I understand the dilemma, sir,’ she said hesitantly. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Please hurry, I’m jetlagged,’ said Julius. ‘Just back from a quick trip to the Swedish embassy in New York. I mean Washington.’

  She spoke with her boss for under a minute. However odd it was for a diplomat to wish to reside in Rosengård, the housing authority would welcome him. Furthermore, it was a feather in their cap.

  ‘We’ve decided to overlook the fact that you can’t provide proof of income, Mr Diplomat. You’re welcome to rent the unit in question for three months’ advance rent. That’s not too much, I hope?’

  * * *

  The two-bedroom apartment was on the first floor of a five-storey building. One room for Allan, one for Julius and Sabine, a kitchen, and a living room that would function as a location for séances and spiritual exercises. They bought furniture second-hand; it took two full hearse-loads before everything was at home. Prior to this, Julius and Sabine had carried the white coffin with red roses into the apartment, under cover of darkness.

  ‘It looks nice in the séance room,’ Sabine said, pleased.

  ‘I can’t decide where I want to sleep,’ said Allan. ‘There are blinds in my room, but on the other hand I’ll miss the coffin. Then again, I can always close the lid …’

  ‘You will sleep in the bed we bought for you,’ said Sabine. ‘With the door closed.’

  Sweden

  When it was a weekday again, Inspector Viktor Bäckman with the Märsta police contacted his colleague Holmlund in Eskilstuna, who didn’t even have the energy to be surprised when he heard that the coffin people had been shot at. In fact, he felt a certain amount of sympathy for the perpetrator. Consequently, he answered his colleague’s questions politely and accurately and wished him good luck.

  Allan Karlsson, Julius Jonsson, Sabine Jonsson.

  Viktor Bäckman absorbed this new information.

  Two were members of the Swedish diplomatic corps. At least two had also been involved with the coffin shop in Märsta. Which had been fired upon with at least sixty shots. Whereafter the diplomats had not reported the incident to the police, but taken off for Eskilstuna, only to land at a traffic checkpoint. With one of the three lying in a coffin. Extremely alive.

  What was going on?

  None of the three was suspected of any crime, but Inspector Bäckman wished to question them for information.

  Sabine Jonsson and Allan Karlsson were listed as living at the same address as the shop in Märsta, while Julius Jonsson had, earlier that day, listed himself at an apartment in Malmö. A visit for clarification purposes was in order. But first he wanted to finish digging through what was available for digging.

  Viktor Bäckman elected not to contact the Security Service; they never responded to the regular police’s questions anyway. Instead he called the Ministry for Foreign Affairs to confirm that there truly were diplomats by the names of Allan Emmanuel Karlsson and Julius Jonsson, no middle name.

  The inspector was transferred from the operator to someone else and then another someone else. Then he had to wait one minute, and then another three. At last his call was taken.

  ‘Margot Wallström, how may I be of service?’

  Inspector Bäckman was perfectly astonished, but recovered quickly. He began by apologizing for bothering the minister for foreign affairs; that had not been his intention. It was just that he needed to confirm two identities, those of Diplomats Karlsson and Jonsson.

  It wasn’t as if Margot Wallström picked up the phone for each incoming call to the ministry, but her ears had pricked up when Karlsson and Jonsson’s names began bouncing off the walls and the civil servants couldn’t find them in the system. She found it best to break in before anything unmanageable broke out.

  ‘I can confirm that those gentlemen exist and that they are diplomats,’ said Margot Wallström. ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Inspector Bäckman. ‘Just that someone seems to have shot at them with an automatic weapon, and they have been missing ever since.’

  Margot Wallström was immediately struck by a vision of her career falling to pieces. Should she have left those strange beings to their fate in Pyongyang? No, no matter what was happening now. The alternative would have been that Kim Jong-un risked being supplied with more powerful weapons than he already had. That must be of more value than …

  ‘What did you say? Shot at them? Did they shoot back?’

  Inspector Bäckman explained in greater detail. The diplomats hadn’t fired any shots. Neither was there any indication that they had been harmed. However, eight coffins had been perforated. Plus a laptop.

  The story was as unbelievable as its main characters. A good offence is the best defence, Margot Wallström thought, praying to a higher power that she would land on her feet.

  ‘Bäckman, is that the name? Great. First, I will tell you, Inspector Bäckman, that in my capacity as minister for foreign affairs I have no intention of doing your job for you. If Diplomats Karlsson and Jonsson are under suspicion of any crime, it is certainly your right – or, rather, duty – to investigate further. If not, I have a bit of discreet information to share.’

  Inspector Bäckman reiterated that, for the moment, the gentlemen were not suspected of anything, but that he would appreciate the opportunity to speak to them.

  ‘Unfortunately I can’t help you there,’ said Margot Wallström. ‘The last time I saw either of them was during a secret meeting with President Trump in New York. You are, of course, free, Inspector, to do whatever you see fit with that information. But I will permit myself to hope that you keep it to yourself, in the name of world peace.’

  Viktor Bäckman regretted his call to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Margot Wallström had just placed the responsibility for world peace at his feet, and that was more than he would wish upon his worst enemy. ‘I hear what you’re saying, Madame Minister,’ he said. ‘Once again, since
the diplomat gentlemen are not suspected of any crime, I have no reason to begin a search for them. May I just take the opportunity to ask if you might have any suspicion about who would have shot at them?’

  The truth was, Margot Wallström had no idea. ‘I have no idea,’ she said. ‘But I would consider checking with President Trump and Secretary General Guterres to see if they know. Shall I ask either of them to contact you, Inspector, if it turns out that they do?’

  She was taking a chance. But it worked.

  ‘Oh, shit, no,’ Viktor Bäckman let slip.

  Enough was enough! Viktor Bäckman was recently engaged. He and his girlfriend were planning a golfing trip to Portugal. In his free time he coached a girls’ football team for Märsta IK, which, the previous autumn, had found success in the Märsta Games tournament. Once a week he attended an evening class in leadership and organizational theory, in the low-key hope that this would help him secure a promotion in the future. On the last Saturday of each month he and the guys met for an evening of beer and poker.

  He was not prepared to sacrifice all of this to go down in history as the person who had started the Third World War.

  ‘Please excuse my accidental use of a swear word, Madame Minister. But I think I will refrain from any further investigation. At least for now. I do, however, have a possible address for Mr Jonsson if you would be interested. It’s an apartment in Malmö.’

  Margot Wallström mostly wanted to forget about Allan Karlsson and his asparagus-farming friend. But perhaps that would seem suspicious. ‘Extremely interested,’ she said. ‘It’s possible that Theresa May will want something from Jonsson moving forwards, so it would be nice to have an address.’

  The British prime minister? What was this? No, Viktor Bäckman didn’t want to know. He. Didn’t. Want. To. Know. Instead he gave Minister for Foreign Affairs Wallström the address and hurriedly bade her farewell before hurrying off to football practice. He arrived at the sports facility forty minutes before anyone else.

  Margot Wallström felt a bit guilty about the part with Theresa May. But she hadn’t lied, even if the odds that May would want something from Julius Jonsson were small. Partly because she had no idea he existed, partly because she was extremely busy dismantling her country.

  Sweden

  The extensive Facebook campaign in Swedish and Danish brought seven hits in the first week, which in turn led to four appointments. One from Denmark and three from Sweden.

  The offer involved two options: contact with the other side or help with troublesome spirits. The séances were held in the medium’s apartment in Rosengård and priced at three thousand kronor per session. Driving out spirits and the like was, of course, best performed where the spirit actually was; in such cases there were additional charges for travel and lodging for Esmeralda and her assistant.

  Of the first four bookings, all concerned wishes to establish a dialogue between the customer and a deceased loved one. All four came to Rosengård. Three of the séances went well. The fourth case involved a recently drowned fisherman. His despairing girlfriend wanted one last conversation with her beloved. Esmeralda established contact with him, but at that very moment so did the girlfriend. The drowned man had not drowned at all, but had floated to shore on Bornholm with a broken-down boat engine. The first thing he did when he was rescued, of course, was call his sweetheart, who cried with joy, before demanding her money back.

  Sweden

  Johnny was sitting at a café on Gustav Adolfs Torg in Malmö, having his morning cup of coffee. With it he ate a salad, which he’d asked to have rinsed an extra time, since he belonged to the group of neo-Nazis who accepted the research that said the rampant levels of homosexuality in society were caused by toxins in food.

  Perhaps Gustav Adolfs Torg was not the best place to take one’s meals, but you can’t get hung up on every detail. Gustav IV Adolf had been generally useless as king. He’d picked a fight with Napoleon, suffered a resounding defeat, and by the time it was all over he had lost both Finland and his own royal title. He was dethroned, exiled, and died a few years later penniless and alcohol-soaked, at a pub somewhere in Switzerland. He began as a king, was demoted to count, lived for a few years as Colonel Gustavsson, and ended up a drunk. Not exactly an illustrious career.

  After his salad, it was time to take out his city map again, as he’d done every morning for the past few days. Johnny had already worked his way through downtown, the harbour area, and Arlöv and its environs. Next up were the western and southern neighbourhoods. His task was to drive up one street and down the next until he found the hearse, either parked or on the move.

  But it wasn’t easy to concentrate. Johnny kept thinking about his brother. And he couldn’t drop his musings about the pension bitch outside Eskilstuna. Had she really spoken with her dead husband?

  Sabine Jonsson was, after all, chairperson of the board of something called Other Side AB, specialists in clairvoyance. She’d obviously moved from that to the coffin trade, but she had demonstrably returned to the clairvoyant at the pension.

  One idea might be to force her to contact Kenneth while holding a knife to her throat. But could he trust her? What if big brother said, during the séance, that little brother ought to let the medium live? In that case, who would be speaking? Kenneth or Sabine Jonsson?

  No, the woman who must die was not an option as a point of contact between the brothers. But there had to be others, right? On the one hand, it was impossible to believe in all this. On the other, Johnny felt that Kenneth was still around, always by his side. That must mean he was out there somewhere, in another dimension. It had to mean it.

  Johnny searched online and got hits all over the country. When he limited the search to southern Skåne, only about two dozen remained. Most could be ruled out because they didn’t offer what Johnny was after. As he sifted through them, it struck him that Sabine Jonsson might show up in an ad. She was already dumb enough to drive around in her hearse, but that extra step of actually informing the person who was searching for her of her whereabouts? No, no one was that stupid.

  At last he had four names left: Bogdan, Angelique, Harriet and Esmeralda.

  Bogdan went out of the window straight away. Harriet didn’t sound enough like a medium. Angelique? That name gave Johnny porn-star vibes. And obviously the porn industry was run by Jews.

  That left Esmeralda. Might be a wog, but he could always find out.

  Sweden

  Nine thousand kronor in, minus half that in start-up costs. It wouldn’t cover the payments to Facebook by a long shot, and since the results of the ad had quickly died down it was obvious that this business idea was not viable in the long term.

  A few days later, though, they received three new enquiries. The first two led nowhere; the third was a request for a séance, a man who wanted to contact his brother, who had died in a tragic accident. As always, background information from the customer was the key to a séance’s success. Esmeralda sat down in the kitchen and called the man via the computer. Her face was white when she joined the old men in the living room. Julius was in the easy chair; Allan had his tablet and was on his back in his white coffin with red roses.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Julius asked.

  Sabine didn’t respond. But Allan did.

  The new president of France had used ugly language when he thought no one was listening. And the German chancellor had given Putin in Moscow a talking to on the topic of various LGBTQ issues. Allan didn’t know what LGBTQ was. It sounded like a North Korean news bureau, but he assumed that couldn’t be right.

  Julius snapped at his friend: he hadn’t been talking to him. Couldn’t Allan see that Sabine was completely distraught?

  No, Allan said, he couldn’t. The lid of the coffin impeded his view. But if Sabine wished to clarify it would be to everyone’s advantage. Was he correct in thinking that her primary concern lay somewhere other than with this LGBTQ question? If so, she had Allan’s full support, especially if she told
him what it meant.

  Sabine tuned Allan out: she’d learned to do so when necessary. Instead she said she had just booked a séance for one Johnny, who wished to contact his brother Kenneth.

  ‘Great,’ said Julius. ‘What do we know about Kenneth?’

  ‘Too much,’ said Sabine. ‘He’s the one who was supposed to be in the Nazi coffin we made.’

  ‘The one who shot at us later?’ Allan asked.

  ‘No, he didn’t do much shooting. That was his brother. He’s coming here tomorrow. At one o’clock.’

  Sweden

  Johnny Engvall didn’t have any luck south of the city either. Eastern Malmö awaited him the next day, but he decided to perform a pre-investigation now. He was on his way to see the medium Esmeralda, as a cry for help with his genuine sorrow over Kenneth.

  What if she really had the gift she claimed? What if Johnny could at least send one final greeting to his brother, and receive one in return? Just think: what if the brothers could even open a two-way line of communication, so that neither would have to feel lonely ever again?

  Johnny was making good time. Apparently Esmeralda’s office was also her home. It was in Rosengård, just four or five blocks away now. But – what on earth?

  Suddenly, there it was.

  The hearse.

  Parked.

  It was the right vehicle. But the nearby buildings were numerous and tall, so he couldn’t just go knocking on doors.

  Johnny climbed out, walked over to the hearse and felt the bonnet, which was warm. It had recently been driven. Since the parking slip displayed on the windscreen was valid until the next morning, it had probably finished moving for the day.