The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules (29 page)

‘What’s this?’ Brains put the newspaper down but picked it up again. On his way to afternoon tea at Martha’s he had caught sight of the evening paper and had taken it in with him. Now
he wished that he hadn’t seen it. With a creased brow, he skimmed through the article.

‘“Big security van robbery. No leads”,’ he read out loud. ‘Martha, my dear, I’d been thinking that we’d have a bit of peace and quiet, but—’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘The Yugoslavs –’

‘What is it? Tell me calmly and clearly.’ She got out her knitting. Judging by the look on Brains’s face, he had a lot to talk about. The cardigan was not quite finished; she always found it hard to fit the arms and the back piece together, but now was the perfect opportunity to settle down to her knitting.

Brains cleared his throat.

‘You know that bank robbery that Juro was planning? We talked a bit about it at Asptuna. Instead of shooting with machine guns, I suggested a security van robbery where they would anaesthetize the people in the van. And look at this!’ Brains pointed at the article. ‘They’ve done just like I said. They got hold of twenty million. Twenty million! It must be Juro!’

‘Well, I never. Juro?’ Martha put her knitting aside, got up and started to make some coffee. When the water had boiled, she poured it into the coffee pot, put out some cups and filled a little bowl with chocolate wafers. She served Brains. Then she sat down on the sofa again and if Brains hadn’t snatched away her knitting needles at the last second, she would certainly have sat on them. She put the yarn over her finger and started knitting again. ‘But Brains, what’s worrying you? You can’t be convicted for your good ideas, can you?’

‘No, it’s not that. Juro said he would hide the mailbags in Djursholm and then lie low a while until the heat was off. But the bags won’t be there for ever. If we’re going to strike, we must do so
now
.’

‘Hmm, so it’s time again?’ Martha mused, munching an entire wafer all at once.

‘For the
ultimate crime
, yes, and for that we need the money under the mattress. We must invest.’

When Martha had complained that the bed in her room was too hard, Brains had come up with the idea that she could hide Dolores’s money in there. He had loosened a plank, and between the springs and the base of the bed he had put duvet covers, diapers and pillowcases stuffed full of banknotes. Then he had nailed the plank back in place and, strangely enough, the bed had become more comfortable. But now they needed some cash. Brains clasped his hands together on his tummy.

‘To get the Yugoslavs’ money we need a car to transport the loot in.’

‘Why not a taxi? Nobody would suspect an ordinary taxi.’

‘Better still, I vote for a van. One of those with room for eight or nine people, where you can stand up inside—which would be good for Anna-Greta, who finds it hard to bend down. They have a wheelchair ramp too. We can walk straight in with the walkers and load up what we want.’

‘I’m beginning to get the picture. Twenty million, you said? That would be a lot of mailbags.’

‘On the Internet you can buy vans. A Toyota or a Ford Transit, for example. There’s plenty of room in them.’

‘So we’ve got to invest to be able to commit new crimes?
I’m not sure about that; we aren’t businessmen. It was simpler with paintings,’ said Martha.

‘Perhaps, but this feels more substantial,’ Brains said.

‘We would avoid the cultural responsibility with this type of heist, of course.’ Martha put her cup aside and picked up her knitting again. ‘You know what? It’s high time we called in the others.’

Brains beamed.

‘That’s what is so nice about you. You always understand,’ he said.

After dinner, the League of Pensioners gathered together for a hastily summoned meeting in Martha’s room. When they had all got their cloudberry liqueur, Martha started speaking:

‘It’s about a robbery. The first question is whether we want to risk our place in Diamond House. If we do this, we’ll probably have to stay abroad for several years.’

‘That doesn’t sound very pleasant,’ said Anna-Greta and immediately thought about Gunnar.

‘Unless we can arrange false identities, of course. Nowadays you can buy a new name and a national identity number, did you know that?’ Christina said, having read a crime novel that was called
Not You—the Stolen Identity
.

‘Oh, can you indeed? Then I’m on board,’ said Anna-Greta, and Rake nodded in agreement.

‘The bank and others who are affected will be compensated,’ Martha went on.

‘The bank? Is that necessary?’ protested Rake. ‘I don’t want to give to those who steal from others.’

‘But unless everybody is satisfied, it wouldn’t be the perfect crime, would it?’ said Martha.

‘The
ultimate
crime,’ Anna-Greta corrected her. ‘So we are going to do a robbery that won’t hurt the bank. Have I understood this correctly?’

‘Not really. We aren’t the people who will do the robbery. It has already been done. We shall simply fetch the money,’ Brains clarified.

‘You always make it sound so easy,’ Anna-Greta said with a sigh.

‘Of course there’ll be risks. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?’ put in Rake, fiddling with the new cravat around his neck. This time he had one in silk.

There followed a several-hour-long discussion about the future, and after two bottles of liqueur and when everybody had had their say, each and every one of them had acquired very rosy cheeks.

‘To think that finally we are going to steal again,’ said Christina. ‘Delightful. And I was so scared that the rest of my life would be boring. Now they should see me in Jönköping. Incidentally, do you think they’ll write a book about us in the future?’

‘Absolutely,’ Rake reassured her. ‘People love reading about real events.’

They all smiled and, despite it being so late in the evening, they had to sing a few songs. They were thoroughly enjoying themselves when suddenly the door was wrenched open.

There stood Nurse Barbara.

‘What on earth do you think you are doing! You’ll wake up the whole house. You ought to have turned off your lights long ago.’

The five of them stared at one another. Nurse Barbara?

‘But where is Katia?’ Martha stuttered.

‘She has been moved. Diamond House is now entirely my responsibility.’

Since Katia had been sacked, nothing was the same. The girl had written a letter to thank them for the last few weeks, and she had said that she was sorry she had been forced to leave them. The League of Pensioners lamented the fact too, because nobody, absolutely nobody, wanted to return to how things had been before.

During Katia’s reign at the retirement home, the old people who lived there had regained their zest for life. Now they were seething with defiance, and Nurse Barbara got nowhere with them. When she said it was time to go to bed, they didn’t obey, and when she tried to lock the doors, they stood in the way and demanded more staff. It the food didn’t taste good, they complained loudly and refused to eat it, and more and more of the pensioners asked for the key to the gym. A lot of them questioned their medication, and only when they were completely convinced would they take their pills. When Nurse Barbara was so insensitive as to try to cut down on the coffee to only two cups a day, they knocked over
the coffee pot. So while the League of Pensioners was fully occupied with planning new crimes, everything at Diamond House was going to rack and ruin. Martha saw what was happening and treated everybody to her fruit pastilles.

Nurse Barbara stared at the elderly residents through the glass partition and listened absentmindedly to the cackle out there. Anna-Greta was playing her records, Dolores was singing and two of the old guys were snoring. Now it was a bit calmer, but earlier in the day there had been such a lot of noise and bustle that she had very nearly lost control of herself. In the new retirement homes, she would make sure that she got an office with a door and a window onto the yard, not facing the lounge like here. As soon as they bought the new retirement homes, she and Ingmar could administer them together and everything would be better. Then he would give her more freedom so that she could reorganize and make everything better. They needed more staff, that was unavoidable, but Ingmar held back. In fact, he wanted to make further cuts. She pondered this. Immigrants were, after all, good at looking after their own relatives. What if she could get them to work here without pay? That would lower their costs even more. Ingmar would love her for that suggestion; he wanted big profits and quick results. Regardless of that, for now she would have to try to appease the oldies with friendly words. She got up and went into the lounge.

‘What lovely weather we have today, haven’t we?’ she started off.

‘Yes, we want to get out into the sun. And have better food. Not listen to a load of promises and empty talk. You can’t fool
us,’ said Henrik, who was ninety-three, giving her the finger. Nurse Barbara went back into the office. It was calmer there.

‘You know what? She won’t be able to put up with this much longer,’ said Martha a week later when she heard Nurse Barbara’s heels echo in the corridor. ‘Even Dolores hisses at her.’

‘Let the awful woman be. As long as things are chaotic here, she won’t care about what we are up to,’ said Brains, putting his paintbrush down. Like the others, he had started painting and was now really keen on it. Half-completed canvases were leaning against the wall, and he had spilt paint all over the floor. He leaned back and admired the painting in front of him. The canvas was covered with thick layers of paint and was very modernist. ‘Oh, it’s such fun to paint,’ he went on. ‘A pity I didn’t start up earlier.’

‘It smells of oil paint everywhere. Can’t you use another type of paint?’ Martha wondered.

‘Not for our purposes,’ said Christina. ‘You can do a lot with oil. I told Barbara that we had named our little artists’ group “Competent Oldies”. She didn’t answer, just glared at me.’

‘And another thing, did you know that she has gone back to three cups of coffee a day?’ Anna-Greta interposed.

‘Has she indeed? She’s trying to ingratiate herself with us. Anyhow, soon we can ignore her. It’s time we were off,’ said Rake.

‘With the van,’ said Martha. ‘Think what we could fit in that—paintings, mailbags and entire ATMs, if we wanted.’

‘And the walkers!’

Martha and Brains looked at each other and smiled. For every new adventure they planned, they felt all the better. What stimulated them most of all was new challenges. Any day now, they would put their plan into action.

‘This certainly wasn’t what we had in mind when we applied to the Police College!’ Inspector Lönnberg sank his teeth into the hamburger and looked out through the windshield. It was raining; it had been raining every day for the last few weeks. A greasy sliver of tomato had fallen onto his trousers and he knocked it off onto the floor of the car. ‘Now we’ve been sitting outside this damned old folks’ home for several days without anything happening.’

‘But something has happened—they got a cat,’ said Strömbeck. He popped a portion of tobacco under his gum. ‘Unless I’m mistaken, you were the one who suggested we should shadow them. Pensioners in a retirement home …’

‘Not me. It was orders from above. One of Petterson’s brilliant ideas. Incidentally, you smell of tobacco. Couldn’t you try another brand?’ Lönnberg opened his mouth wide and some bits of pickle landed on the seat. He brushed them off too and threw a glance at Strömbeck. The man never seemed to need to eat anything, he lived on nicotine. That tobacco and nicotine chewing gum. On the other hand, it had been even worse before because then he had smoked cigarettes. Then he really did stink. But Inspector Lönnberg liked Inspector Strömbeck—he was
reliable. He had a wife and two kids, and when he was at home he seemed to help with everything. He belonged to that new generation of men who changed diapers and did the cooking. Lönnberg himself had been brought up according to the old adage that it was the man who decided. The woman should be at home, have children and keep house. Why had they changed that? As soon as he had told his girlfriends that they would be housewives, his relationships had started to go wrong. A long time ago he had given up the idea of getting married, and he was happy with his life, his garden and his books. Above all, he lived for his work, and at the moment he was frustrated with these old people. He had got nowhere with them, and quite honestly, he didn’t know how he should handle the situation. But since they might lead him to the missing money, he couldn’t give up. He had never believed the story that the banknotes had blown off the Finland ferry. These old people were cunning and he could feel in his bones that they had hidden the ransom money somewhere.

This time had been worse than any of the previous times he had brought Martha in for questioning. Petterson made no progress with her at all. Dressed in a well-fitting two-piece suit with a matching scarf and shoes, Martha had come into the interrogation room. She had smiled encouragingly all the time and assured Petterson that she hadn’t seen the money, but that she would do all she could to help him. If she heard or saw the tiniest thing that was suspicious, she would immediately get in touch. He was certain that she was laughing behind his back. In the end, the boss had decided to put a watch on them all. Petterson assumed that the pensioners were ‘goalkeepers’ for a criminal organization and that sooner or later the police would discover their secret links. Criminals normally used
social outcasts or the local drunkards, but using elderly pensioners like this was perhaps a new trend.

Inspector Lönnberg looked at the hamburger in his hand, did a quick calculation and popped the rest of it into his mouth. A shower of lettuce and mayonnaise dropped onto his trousers. He swore, pulled out his handkerchief and wiped the debris onto the floor. Then he turned to Strömbeck.

‘The League of Pensioners, what contacts could they have with the underworld?’

‘I’ve no idea who they cooperate with. But they were proud of the art robbery.’

‘Hell, I’m getting fed up with this. Shadowing somebody with a walker …’ Lönnberg tried to loosen a bit of lettuce that had got stuck between his teeth.

‘That’s why the boss has called this Operation Undercover. He said nobody must find out what we’re doing.’

‘Proper villains are more substantial, so to speak,’ said Lönnberg.

‘Yes, then it’s real police work. But this? The last few days we have followed them to the chiropodist five times.’

‘And the public reading at the library.’

‘Don’t forget the water gymnastics and the religious services.’

‘What if they’ve had secret meetings with somebody? We really do have to shadow them across the board,’ said Lönnberg.

‘But what were you thinking of when you ordered back-up to go to the Eros Rosen Massage Centre? Next time we’ll be accused of procuring!’

‘But—’ He turned silent. Martha Andersson and her two lady friends had come out of the retirement home, closely followed
by the two elderly men in their group. They stood there on the pavement as if they were waiting for something. He prodded his colleague.

‘Listen, Strömbeck. Something fishy is going on. I can feel it in my bones.’

A green van approached, slowed down and stopped right outside Diamond House. A light-haired man in his fifties jumped down from the driver’s seat, opened the door and let down the ramp. The three ladies went in with their walkers, followed by the two men.

‘Five elderly people get into a van. Now, Lönnberg, we’ve got them. They’ll certainly be going to rob a bank,’ said Strömbeck.

Lönnberg pretended not to hear the irony but put his hands on the steering wheel. When the driver had put the ramp up again, closed the back doors and got back up into the driving seat, Strömbeck pulled out his binoculars.

‘Now they’re off. We’ll follow them,’ he said.

‘Roger, you’re the boss.’

‘But drive carefully so they don’t see us.’

‘Hell, sure. I won’t use the blue light.’

The green van rocked its way forward while the windshield wipers worked at full speed. The five had affectionately named the van the Green Menace and were all very pleased with it. Martha was the only one who wasn’t in the best of moods. She had backed the van into a parked handicap vehicle outside Diamond House, which had led to something of a tumult. After various diplomatic euphemisms, Christina had suggested that they should ask Anders to drive instead, and the others
had mumbled and muttered so much that finally Martha had let him take the wheel. Martha knew that this was probably for the best. Rake and Brains had—in a physical sense—long since passed their best-before date, and when it came to heavy lifting it would be good to have Anders along with them. But even though he was Christina’s son, Martha was not sure they could rely on the boy. He seemed so young—forty-nine. Could he deal with this? Or what if they got hold of the twenty million and then he drove off with it all? Then they wouldn’t have lost just
half
the loot, but
all
of the loot. Martha had tried to console herself with the thought that a trusted civil servant like Anders would not steal. Then she thought about their own backgrounds and became worried again. Regardless, now it was too late to change anything because Christina had let the cat out of the bag and Anders had understood that the five of them were planning new crimes.

‘Don’t you have any conscience at all?’ he had asked.

‘That is just what we do have,’ Christina explained, and then she told him about the
ultimate crime
and the Robbery Fund.

‘The Robbery Fund, Anders, my dear, is important,’ she had said. ‘We who have built up this country want to be comfortable in our old age. We are not real villains, you see. We are helping out where the state has failed to do what it should. We are only borrowing a bit from the rich and giving it to the needy. Yes, you know, people that the state is saving money on—widows, the old and those who are sick longer than the politicians have decided is reasonable.’

Then Anders had hugged Christina and said that he was proud of her, after which he had pointed out how boring and meaningless his civil service job was. By helping the elderly he felt he could do some good. Indeed, that is how
Anders happened to become a handyman for the League of Pensioners. Martha accepted this and thought it was wise to maintain contact with the younger generation so as not to let the group stagnate. However, he could never become a proper member; he was going to be paid for his work. They had also decided that they would administer the Robbery Fund themselves.

‘I’ll be in charge of that bank account,’ said Anna-Greta with her glass-breaking voice, and then there wasn’t so much to add.

Anders hadn’t been able to refrain from spilling the beans to his sister. Emma, in turn, had rolled her eyes and said that their mother seemed to be getting younger and more daring every day. Martha had heard every word when the brother and sister stood smoking on the street outside Diamond House.

‘From now on, I will take better care of Mother,’ said Anders.

‘Me too,’ Emma agreed.

When Martha heard this, she agreed to let Anders join in. And then, at the evening meeting that same day, they realized he was needed.

‘Large detached houses in Djursholm are awkward. The wine cellar is nearly always in the basement down some steps. So it would be great if we could get some help,’ said Brains.

‘And it’ll be good to have a contact in Sweden who can look after our things while we live abroad,’ Christina said. ‘I’m sure there will be lots that must be arranged here.’

Martha agreed with that, because as soon as the five had got their money they were going to fly to the West Indies. They had made that decision a few days earlier. Anna-Greta had already booked the flights and a hotel on the Internet, as well as arranging all the necessary papers. How she had managed that was
more than Martha could fathom, because they ought to be in the criminal register. Then she realized that the system would certainly have weeded them out because of their age. So there were some benefits to being old.

A car in front sounded its horn and Martha wanted to do the same, but then she remembered she was in the passenger seat and wasn’t driving. It was Anders who was steering the rocking van towards the centre of Djursholm and not her. After he had changed to a lower gear and driven past the library, he continued straight ahead and then turned to the left beside the lake path. Martha looked out. They drove past several large, luxury detached houses, each one seemingly larger and more magnificent than the one before. Then they drove past a bay and up a slope.

‘Here it is,’ said Anders. He turned right and parked the van at the side of the road. It had become silent in the van, and they were all filled with the solemnity of the moment. Rather cautiously, they studied the house.

‘Skandiavägen, that’s the right address. I can’t see any lights in the window,’ said Brains. ‘The mother-in-law must have gone away, like Juro said.’

‘It looks completely empty,’ Christina whispered with a shaky voice. ‘But do you really think they have hidden the mailbags here?’

‘We’ll observe first before we strike,’ Martha said.

‘If anybody questions us, we’ll simply say that we thought this was the Crown Retirement Home. Isn’t that what you said, Martha?’ Rake asked.

‘Yes, right. The house is as big as an institution. The Crown sounds perfect. Did you bring your picklock with you, Brains?’

‘Yes, and some extra cellar keys. People often have the fanciest locks you can imagine but forget the cellar.’

‘And the alarm?’ Christina wondered.

‘You know that. It’s my speciality,’ Brains answered.

‘Right then, let’s go in,’ said Christina, putting on a black scarf. If you wore black you couldn’t be seen so easily—that was the first thing she had learned at Hinseberg. Now she looked as if she was going to a royal funeral. The only thing missing was the mourning crêpe.

‘OK, then?’ said Brains, who thought it was unnecessary to remain sitting in the van too long. ‘Everyone ready?’

The very same moment that Martha opened the door, a car drove up the slope. The dark blue Volvo seemed to glide forward and slow down just after it had passed the van.

‘That’s done it,’ Martha said.