‘Hey, Hugh, I understand what you’re saying. Believe me, I don’t feel good about it. But I repeatedly warned everyone in the bank not to try to stop me or I’d have to use the weapon. And the poor guy took no notice. I figured it was his decision …’
At this moment there is a noise outside and Kai is immediately on his feet pulling out a handgun and taking cover. Gyrth goes to the door, opens it and steps outside.
‘It’s OK,’ he says as he comes back inside the house. ‘Probably some animal wandering around.’
Kai puts the gun away and carries on from where he was.
‘… so I had to react. I think he’s gonna pull through. They say he’s off the critical list now.’
A little later everyone has relaxed and after some wine we set up the amps and play some music. Gyrth’s house is isolated in the middle of the country so there’s no fear of the noise disturbing any neighbours. A bit later, after more wine and some dope, we are all checking out the handgun, which is a new experience for me, probably for everyone except Kai. I have an idea. I have recently met a young journalist who lives in Malmö.
‘Hey, Kai, how do you fancy doing an interview with a newspaper while you’re on the run? I know a cool jour no who would do it, and we could get him to help the band in return. We need a PA system for our gigs and he can guarantee the loan. I’ve already tried but it’s a lot of money and they need someone Swedish to sign it.’
‘Sure, it would be a gas,’ he says. ‘Anything to help the band.’
The journalist agrees to do the interview in return for signing the loan, knowing that his career will take off with this interview. I pick him up, blindfold him and drive him out to Gyrth’s house. He has a camera with him so he can take some photos of Kai. The interview goes well. Kai has the ‘I’m a misunderstood criminal, and although I rob banks, I don’t mean to harm anybody, and I warned the guard beforehand’ angle down and pictures are taken of him and the journalist together, throwing all the money around like kids playing in the snow. I re-blindfold the journalist and drive him home. The following Sunday the interview is all over the front page of the national newspaper and they’ve used the picture of Kai throwing the money up in the air. It’s an exclusive interview with Sweden’s ‘No.l Most Wanted Criminal’ and it sells truckloads. The journalist’s career is made overnight and we go into the music shop the following week and sign the papers for the PA system. By the way, the guard makes a full recovery from his gunshot wound.
About two weeks later I am just getting up at the house when Jan wanders into the kitchen.
‘There seems to be an armed soldier in the garden, with a rifle aimed at the house,’ he remarks casually.
I’m not sure if I’ve heard correctly, having just got up, so I follow him to the living room window and look out. Sure enough, I see the same soldier squatting down with his weapon pointing at us, just like in a war exercise. My immediate thought is … hide the dope.
I collect up all the bits and pieces lying around and bury them at the bottom of a packet of cornflakes. There is a knock at the door. Jan and I look at each other, both thinking, you go and open the door.
I decide that, as the legal tenant of the property, it is my responsibility to open the door whatever or whoever is on the other side of it. I descend the stairs to the ground floor and open the door. A rather thin gentleman with a faint smile stands in front of me. He is wearing a suit that smells of bureaucracy and he has a limp macintosh on top.
‘Mr Cornwell?’ he asks.
‘Yes,’ I admit nothing.
‘Good morning. I am Sergeant Persson of the Lund Constabulary and I have a warrant to search this house. May I come in?’ he asks affably.
I open the door fully and three or four armed soldiers appear from behind him and storm up the stairs. I wonder what they were expecting. Then the penny drops (finally) about a mile inside my dope-soaked brain. I decide to be as helpful as I can without behaving suspiciously; after all, I am an alien, however legal my presence in Sweden appears to be.
‘Please come in, Sergeant,’ I offer.
We go up to the kitchen where Jan is standing by watching the soldiers comb every inch of our living space. It seems that about another five or six soldiers have come in on our tails and there is a lot of milling about, and I have to avoid bumping into the marauding soldiers whilst entertaining Sergeant Persson.
‘When was the last time you saw Kai Hansson?’
‘Oh, about a year ago. We used to play music together downstairs in the cellar.’
I offer to show him the cellar and do so. We go back upstairs to the kitchen where one of the soldiers has found two dried marihuana branches (left over from our crop of fine Georgian grass which we had harvested the summer before from the field outside the house – more later, see ‘Drugs’ chapter). He waves the evidence under my nose.
‘Of course, this would normally be an offence but at the moment I am looking for something else. Are you sure you haven’t seen or heard from Hansson since last year?’ he says.
Before I can answer, a soldier comes up and excitedly reports something he has unearthed. Persson seems more alert.
‘There seems to be a bed in the attic which has been slept in recently. What have you got to say?’ he demands.
‘Ah!’ I reply, ‘My waterbed has developed a leak and I’ve been forced to sleep up there.’
Persson is thinking a likely story until I show him my poor waterbed, which I should have built a frame for to limit the pressure on the seams, but never got around to. It looks very sorry for itself and I show him the leaking seams, like a doctor showing off a special patient to a student. Sergeant Persson is not looking that happy. He’s been here half an hour and hasn’t come up with any leads, just a few leaks. He seems to have accepted my story about when I last saw Kai, and after about an hour he musters the troops and they make a bedraggled exit from the house. They take with them:
A pair of crutches which remain the property of the hospital. Jan has forgotten to take them back to the hospital in Lund after a broken leg had healed up;
A pair of temporary number plates which Freddy Hässelvick (one of our lodgers) had neglected to take back, once he had re-registered his VW Beetle after moving from Switzerland; they belong to the Swedish licensing authority; and two dried marihuana branches.
Jan and I watch the convoy of about six vehicles leave the property and check if they turn left or right at the main road. If they turn right we guess they are heading for Gyrth’s; if they turn left they are heading back to Lund to get the search warrant for Gyrth’s. They turn left.
Jan and I sum up their performance: apart from taking away their ‘booty’, they have failed to locate my dope at the bottom of the cornflakes packet (ha, ha, the old hiding places are always the best) and haven’t even taken statements from Jan and myself – surely not standard police procedure, but maybe Sweden has a different set of procedures? (Note: I must look that one up). Plus, they must have been aware of the fact that Gyrth was just as much of a suspect as me, so why did they not have their warrant ready for him at the same time? In fact, I would have carried out the two raids simultaneously. We decide to award them: NULS POINTS.
We immediately phone Gyrth up and warn him that he can expect a visit in a couple of hours, so he buries a fresh delivery of hashish out in the woods. Sure enough, at around midday Sergeant Persson drops in for tea at Gyrth’s house with a few friends and finds nothing. Fortunately, Kai had already left Gyrth’s for another trip around Europe – he even sent me the occasional picture postcard from Greece and Italy. I was genuinely pleased to receive them and realized how fond I was of him. I was even looking forward to seeing him again.
At the end