“Hohahah!” Holger cackled and licked his glasses clean.
He knew you couldn’t get a single sensible word out of Helge, his orphaned grandson, and besides, the boy loved his Grandpa.
I said: Holger, we know you killed the oldwhores. You’re so crazy, not even the lice will have you. Be that as it may: if you’ll just admit that you stole the thresher from poor Aron and scribbled nasty words in the Childrens Bible, well temper justice with mercy and let you go home, right after we’ve lit up your ass with our paddywackers. Everything we said was recorded quick as fuck on a tripewriter by some little touslehead who tasted like cinnamon between the thighs. Pursing his lips, Holger saw right through my bullshit. It was obvious, though, that the sap had started rising when I promised him a spanking. Still, he was sly, the old pike, and just shook his head and waved his hands dismissively.
“I didn’t do a thing!” he shrieked, at the same time semaphoring like the deaf homos on Novaya Zemlya. “I never went near the oldbags and I’m sad and scared!”
He grinned, so we shivered, and a seasoned chiropracticconstable puked up some undigested buggratin on the coffeeandnookiegirls knee.
“There are witnesses, Holmlund, who saw you dressed in sexy lingerie at the old folk’s home in Rökgroven on the same day the urwhores disappeared!”
“Who’s been badmouthing me?”
“Oskar Lindkvist from Kåge, Norrlands largest soap-and sun-drydealer.”
“He’s lying! May his balls shrivel to two raisins and his dick get stuck in a waffleiron!”
“We want what’s best for you, Holmlund. You need help and you know it. Take the chance we’re offering!”
His freshlaid lawyer sat there apathetically pulling hairtufts from his downy forelock. His name was Erika Åmärg and he’d lost his cock in a foxtrap. But he was educated. Holmlund elbowed him in the side and shouted that he wanted to leave.
“Hell, you’ve got no evidence against him!” Erika said abruptly. “Let him go, before I start swinging!”
And there wasn’t much else we could do, because Grandpa was too smart for us.
Also, not too long ago, some jackass mixed woodalcohol in the communionrum at Kusmark’s church, so that two people died and five were declared braindead. Holger Holmlund had run a couple of small errands to the pigchurchsty the day before, and left the priest — who was gullible as a girl after his cerebralhemorrhage — with the impression that he was newlysaved and hungry for a round with Jesus. But we came up emptyhanded, because Holger produced a testimonial from the districtnurse.
And then, in the mid-sixties, some firebrand had wholeroasted an oldfogey on a stake on the edge of the garbagedump in Kåge. Holger was passed out just a pissthrow from there and had burnson his lips to boot. Still, some crackpot claimed responsibility and was electroshocked to death before we could find out who else was in on it.
Pentecost day of ’87, a tallshit and a littlelump, each wearing homemade eggcarton and potatostamp masks, which were supposed to look like Auntie Anita and Televinken, stole a delivery-van full of bakedgoods, although they tossed out everything but the tastiest pastries. Then they drove to Anderstorp’s dascenter and lured eighteen retards into the van before the personnel there could do anything about it. A couple of days later, a groggy sour-puss found the van on Kyrkvägen between Kåge and Ersmark. Inside it were the CP-kids, who’d been gassed to death. The porky ones had had the ham sliced off them while they were still alive. And when we paid a little visit to Holmlund, he offered us rim-sugared bacon. He even cried cobalt tears when we told him about the massmurder.
“God, it’s so terrible,” he moaned. “How those lardbags must’ve suffered!”
We didn’t press him any further and left with our errand unfinished. However, it’s as certain as my raging hardon that me and Kent-Håkan got a taste of freshsmoked mongoflesh that day.
Holger was also the prime suspect in an incident at the beginning of the eighties: a railthin man kidnapped a playschool group of about a dozen three to four year olds. He nabbed them while the teacher was getting some in a lilacbush, then took them to the sulfurmine in Appojaure under the false pretense that they were going to learn how to hunt for fossilized cocks. Apparently he started by forcing the tiny tykes to stick cactuses up the little girls’downy muffs until they fainted from the pain. Then he stuck his veiny furuncle into each tykes’ mouth, laid a spermdab on every tongue, and recited Satanic oaths. After that, he made them take each other under his expert supervision, and the most proficient at it got themselves a pair of lacehose, a French tickler, and, after he’d shaved their hair off, a skullbrand. He burned in three sixes, so they’d be sure of a place at the Lord’s left hand. The kids said the tall, mean geezer took off on a scooter to the south. After questioning some wellrespected Norrbotten pedophiles, we got the order: pick up Holmlund and grill him like a fucksick broiler. So that’s what we did, and if memory serves, those noobconstables were downright optimistic, because this time they had something to go on. The thing was, the perpetrator had bit a couple of the children pretty bad in the face, so they thought that all they had to do was take a dentalimpression from Holmlund and it’d be case closed. We caught Holmlund at the home of C-H Midlothian. Grumbling and half-naked, he came along to the station, playing the part of the indignant elderly gentleman. Then he bit into a piece of modelclay and then I told him to answer some questions.
This is how an interrogation with Holger Holmlund can sound. I’m reading right from the record:
“So, Holmlund … let’s start at the beginning … what were you doing on the tenth of June?”
“I don’t remember.”
“But you just said …”
“Yeahyeahyeah! Me and Helge were celebrating Eilert’s seventy-fifth birthday, and what a day. On that day, God dressed in pink crinoline and drank himself silly. Greatgrayshrikes quipped, wagtails climaxed, and wolfs foot and valerian grew so that it was a delight to behold. Eilert got a nightrajah and a lacy blouse, just perfect for when suitors come a-calling, and he looked so damn good I couldn’t control myself. I tore off his skirt and started licking him like a cat laps milk. Before I could say heil, though …”
“That’s enough! If I had my way, old buggerfucks like you would get nailed in your stinking assholes with icecold monsterdildos of steel.”
“But Ubbe, you’re scaring me! Aoww! Are people supposed to strike their elders?”
“Hold your tongue before I beat it with crushedglass into a pyttepanna! Where were we … oh yes. Now, you know very well what were investigating, and I don’t think you understand the mess you’re in …”