The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules (25 page)

Martha’s first temporary release didn’t turn out as she had intended. She had planned to put on some sort of discreet disguise, walk into the Princess Lilian suite and then check everything was OK with the drainpipe. Instead of having several hours to herself, she had to drag along two supervising warders with her. One of them was the ponytail screw, the stone face who had searched her when she arrived at Hinseberg. This humourless being didn’t let her prisoner out of her sight, and she followed her so closely that Martha continuously found herself almost running over her with the walker.

‘Be careful!’ Martha hissed, full of defiance, but she realized that she must control herself. The guard with the ponytail would be happy to nail her if she could. The more months that Martha spent behind bars, the happier the ponytail would be. There were people like that. Martha was really meant
to spend her first temporary release in Örebro, but she had specially asked to visit Stockholm. She had mentioned her old age and complained that she got dizzy sometimes and had problems with her balance. Now she wanted to see the royal palace one last time in her life.

‘And you can see it best of all from the Grand Hotel,’ she said when they reached the city.

‘First we must deal with your errands at the social welfare office and visit Diamond House,’ said the ponytail guard.

‘But please, the palace is sooo beautiful,’ Martha appealed, and she nagged until she got her way. It took a bit of time to walk there, because Martha was making herself look as frail as possible. It was necessary not to reveal just how trim she actually was. While she walked, she worried about the money in the drainpipe. What if Anna-Greta’s tights had been too old, or Rake had forgotten an important loop in his knots? The worry gnawed at her, and Martha was keen to get to the Princess Lilian suite straight away. She turned to the ponytailed guard.

‘When I stayed at the Grand Hotel, I lost my mother’s gold bracelet. I’d like to ask in reception whether they have found it,’ she said, and she steered her walker towards the entrance to the hotel.

‘Now? We haven’t time for that,’ answered the woman.

‘But the hotel has an elevator from the street and it’s easy for me to quickly reach reception. It won’t take long, I promise.’

Her two supervisors looked at each other and nodded.

‘Okay, I suppose we can do that.’

Martha was relieved, and soon the walker was rolling
along on the familiar blue carpet with the gold crowns. It was rather embarrassing to return there as a criminal, but she had to put up with that. In reception, she explained her errand.

‘It would be wonderful if I could find the bracelet,’ she ended her explanation.

‘Your name?’

‘Martha Andersson.’

Martha blushed; she realized that she must give them her real name to get up into the suite.

‘Martha Andersson, yes, you stayed in the suite in March this year, right?’

‘At the end of March.’

‘Martha Andersson, here is the entry.’ The girl clicked on the computer and scrolled down lists on the screen. ‘There were three of you sharing the Lilian suite, is that right?’

Martha nodded.

‘No, we don’t have a bracelet, I’m afraid.’

‘But I think I know where it is. It won’t take long to—’

‘Sorry.’ The girl shrugged her shoulders. ‘The suite is occupied.’ Her voice suddenly sounded harsh and deprecatory. ‘Also,’ said the girl after a deep breath, ‘we don’t have any other room available either. Not for you.’

Martha became sulky. The receptionist had realized who she was, but there was no reason for her to be impolite on that account. Then she remembered. They had left the suite without paying, and the hotel had been forced to take the money from Anna-Greta’s bank account. But Martha was not going to give up.

‘The bracelet was my mother’s and it means a lot to me. It is a family heirloom.’

The ponytailed guard looked uncomfortable and indicated that they should leave, but Martha stubbornly stood her ground.

‘No, we won’t let anyone into the suite,’ the receptionist repeated, but then stopped. ‘Wait a moment. Martha Andersson, you said—’ The girl disappeared behind the counter and returned with a letter.

‘This has been here a while,’ she said and handed it over to Martha. ‘We were going to forward it, but you got here first.’

It wasn’t Brains’s handwriting, but it did say Martha Andersson on the envelope. The address was written on one of those labels you can print out from a computer. Martha ripped open the envelope before the guard could come up to her. In the envelope lay a little note:

Martha didn’t have time to read more before she heard her supervisors behind her. She pretended to have a coughing attack and between coughs she quickly chewed and gobbled down the note. Usch, how horrible it tasted, but that was what they did in crime novels. She turned around.

‘Weird, an envelope without anything in it,’ she said. Martha then got another coughing attack because a bit of paper had stuck in her throat.

No, it couldn’t be true! Nurse Barbara trembled with indignation. The criminal choir gang was on its way back! They had evidently been model prisoners and after a few months in an open prison they would be living at Diamond House again. The problem was that they had paid for their rooms all the time they’d been away and, according to the social welfare office, she had no possible grounds to refuse them. On top of it all, Ingmar hadn’t considered it a problem—on the contrary, he had been very pleased.

‘What luck for us,’ he had said. ‘Now the spotlight will be on us. The media will be bound to follow the oldies and write articles. Can you imagine better publicity? Diamond House will be so well known everywhere that we can hike up the charges. Darling, see the possibilities!’

Nurse Barbara had tried to explain that the five were a decidedly poor example for others, and she had warned of the chaos they would create. But he seemed unable to grasp what she meant.

‘But Barbara, dear, it is your job to deal with that sort of thing. That’s what you get paid for. Surely you haven’t forgotten your job description: “to see to the welfare and well-being of the old pensioners”?’

‘But not criminals!’

‘They have atoned for their crime and have every right to return to society. Now we shall show how well we take care of the poor old outcasts. We shall give them all the care and support they need.’

‘But they did actually run away.’

‘Yes, precisely. Take care of them, sweetie, give them tender care.
Care
, you see, is the word the council wants to hear.’

‘What?’ Nurse Barbara gasped for breath. ‘But weren’t we meant to cut costs?’

‘A warm word, a loving pat of the hand … that doesn’t cost anything. As long as the press keeps an eye on us, we shall be perfect. Our retirement home must be a model of excellence. This will be a perfect model for when I open our new retirement homes. I have two deals coming along and there is a lot to do. We need to rationalize. I thought that you could prepare the transaction and take care of the administration. Meanwhile, Katia can take over Diamond House.’

‘Are you suggesting I give up Diamond House?’ A thousand thoughts rushed through Barbara’s head. Had she really heard that correctly?

‘No, no, just for the time being. Don’t think too much about it, darling. Soon you will have a top management position. Three retirement homes will mean more profit than one, and now that I am going to get divorced I’ll need the money. Then, dearest, you’ll want to join me in all this, surely? I need more people in management. As partners. You and me.’

He hugged her and she forgot everything else. He had at last spoken of divorce and indicated a future for them together. When he put his arms around her and whispered hot words in her ear, she pressed the palm of her hand against his chest and whispered: ‘Soon, Ingmar, soon it’ll just be us.’

‘Now here we are, back again. I can’t believe it,’ said Anna-Greta, pushing aside the gauze on her hat and looking around her. In the lounge, the old guys were relaxing as usual with a game of chess, Dolores was dozing in her armchair and two older women that she hadn’t seen before were knitting socks.

‘Don’t people say that the elderly should have peace and quiet? We have been moved from prison to prison only to
finally
end up back at square one again!’ Christina sighed. ‘To think that we’ve landed here. What an anti-climax.’

‘Now, now. Don’t forget the Grand Hotel. You wouldn’t want to have missed that, would you? And this is just temporary. Very temporary,’ said Martha and winked.

‘I don’t understand why they are letting us come back. We are a bad influence on the others,’ neighed Anna-Greta.

‘Diamond House has, for some reason, specifically requested to have us back. The alternative was a placement without Brains and Rake, and we don’t want that, do we? And how would Gunnar find you then?’

‘He will always find me,’ Anna-Greta protested and looked insulted.

‘Be that as it may, this will be a good base for our activities until we find our own solution,’ said Martha, winking again.

They all smiled, and they were indeed pleased to see their rooms, where they had once made a home for themselves and knew where everything was.

‘So this is to be our general headquarters when we plan. Is that how you envisage it, Martha?’ Christina asked.

‘Yes, indeed. We can have meetings here and lay out our plans. Who would suspect a criminal HQ in an old people’s home?’

They put their suitcases in their rooms, tidied themselves up and then went into the general lounge to have a little chat with the others. They had arrived just in time for afternoon coffee and discovered to their surprise that some Danish pastries and three sorts of biscuits were served with it. Katia had evidently come back.

‘I understand that some things happened here that you didn’t like,’ said Katia, sitting down next to them. ‘But now Barbara has been given other duties.’

‘About time too. We were locked in like at a kindergarten,’ said Anna-Greta.

‘That will be changed. Just tell reception when you want to go out so that we know where you are.’

‘Excellent!’ Martha blurted out with decidedly imprudent speed.

‘I also understood that you have made some proposals for improvements.’

‘Yes, but nobody has paid any attention to them,’ said Christina.

‘I shall look at them,’ said Katia.

Martha and the others looked at each other. This was incredible. Would they suddenly find themselves comfortable in the home just now when they had something else in the offing? If Martha had interpreted Brains’s poems correctly, things were getting very hot. The
ultimate crime
of their dreams. He and Rake would arrive any day, and then she would find out more. First of all was the question of the
paintings. They must get hold of one hundred thousand by 30 October.

A few days later, they discussed the matter over a cup of tea in Martha’s room.

‘I do have my savings—even though most of them were spent on the hotel and the cruise trip to Helsinki, of course,’ said Anna-Greta. ‘We can use them for the time being until things get sorted out.’

Martha almost choked on her cake, coughed and stared at her friend.

‘Without interest?’

Anna-Greta dismissed that comment with a wave of her hand.

‘I’ll transfer the money to your accounts so that the withdrawals won’t look suspiciously large,’ she went on. ‘Then we will go to the bank together and withdraw the money. It’s as easy as that.’ She lit a cigarillo. ‘It’s so fantastic with the Internet. You only have to click and everything is arranged.’

‘Yes, computers are fantastic inventions, Anna-Greta …’

‘I can understand that you are surprised about the money, but Gunnar has said that one should live in the present. When you are as old as we are, you must do whatever you can to have a good time. Then you’ll have a richer life.’

‘I see, that’s how it is,’ said Christina, who was just as astonished as Martha. But when the friends had managed to remove the expressions from their faces, they thanked Anna-Greta profusely for helping them in an awkward situation. Then they wondered if she might be so kind as to extinguish her cigarillo.

When it became clear that Anna-Greta would fork out the hundred thousand for the reward, a pleasant calm settled over them all. They drank their tea with cloudberry liqueur in Martha’s room and babbled happily about all that had happened to them so far, until Anna-Greta got up saying she had more important things to do.

‘The bank transfers, you know,’ she said in a solemn voice, making it clear that she did not wish to be disturbed. Then all evening she sat in front of her computer and arranged all the money transfers on the Internet. Slowly and conscientiously she divided the money between herself, Christina and Martha, and at breakfast the next day she proudly announced that it was now time to take a taxi to the bank.

There were a lot of people at the bank and the friends walked back and forth quite a long time until it was finally Anna-Greta’s turn. She waved to them to follow her and they went up to the counter. Martha whispered that it would look suspicious if they all trotted up at once, but Anna-Greta insisted. ‘It’s my money, and I decide.’

The teller flashed them a sunny smile when they came tottering across with their walkers, but she paled when she saw their withdrawal slips.

‘We don’t have that much money here.’

‘Oh yes you do. I phoned in advance. You have to when you want to withdraw large sums of money nowadays,’ said Anna-Greta.

The teller hesitated, excused herself and disappeared to
consult a colleague. A few moments later, she returned and looked with regret at Anna-Greta.

‘Unfortunately, there is a little problem. There isn’t enough money in the account.’

‘Don’t try that. I transferred money from my savings account on the Internet yesterday. That’s what you encourage us to do. You don’t want us coming into the bank, do you? Please go and look yourself how much money I have in my savings accounts.’

‘Something must have gone wrong, unfortunately. There is nothing there.’

‘But I took my mouse and clicked,’ Anna-Greta protested.

‘You did what?’

‘MY MOUSE, I said,’ Anna-Greta shouted.

Martha noticed how the teller tried to remain serious.

‘It can be difficult using the Internet sometimes,’ the teller said, trying to calm her.

‘You think that I can’t use my mouse just because I’m older than you?’ Anna-Greta hissed.

From inside the office laughter could be heard and the teller discreetly covered her mouth with her hand.

‘We had some computer problems yesterday. The transfers might not have been registered. We’ll have to check that,’ she said.

‘I can tell you that I worked in a bank, and I have been a customer here for forty years too,’ roared Anna-Greta so that the gauze on her hat fluttered. ‘You can’t treat me just any old way!’

Martha watched the drama. No neighing today, indeed. Anna-Greta had produced her glass-breaking voice.

‘If you find it difficult to use a computer, you might prefer to try our telephone service,’ the teller said in an attempt to be friendly.

‘Telephone service? But, my dear, haven’t you wondered why I talk so loudly? I AM HARD OF HEARING,’ she roared.

The lineup behind them had grown and all the chairs were occupied. The door to the office opened and a smartly dressed man hurried up to them.

‘Come back tomorrow, and by then we shall have sorted this out,’ he said politely, handing over a little pen with the bank’s logo on it. Then he bowed and followed them pleasantly but determinedly to the exit.

When the three returned to Diamond House, they were all somewhat low-spirited. Anna-Greta locked herself in her room and didn’t want to talk to anybody, Martha sat in the general lounge and tried to think and Christina filed her nails obsessively. Nobody said anything. The coffee didn’t taste good and neither did the Danish pastries. By the weekend the stroller had to be full of money, otherwise they wouldn’t get the paintings back. Martha sank back in the armchair and closed her eyes. That usually helped when she had a problem to solve, and now they really were in a pickle. She could hear the distant sound of Katia talking on the telephone and some of the old guys chatting about football. Then she heard Katia’s voice again … problems with the Internet … the connection wasn’t working … service … Martha smiled to herself. Good,
now she could console Anna-Greta. Then she nodded off and dreamed that she had raided the bank in Ystad. But just as she was about to board the ferry to Poland with all the money, she woke up. The door to Dolores’s room had opened with a crash and the old lady had started her usual walk around the lounge with her trolley in tow.

‘My son is the best there is,’ she hummed with a smile on her face. ‘He has sailed around the world and made me a millionaire.’ Then she pointed at the shopping trolley and laughed. A pink blanket and a sock hung halfway out of the opening and a shawl trailed on the floor. Through the opening you could just glimpse some crumpled-up newspaper.

‘That’s nice, Dolores,’ everybody in the room said.

‘Now he has settled back on land. He wanted to be close to his mother, you see. Yesterday he came home from Helsinki.’ Then she sang a little more and did some additional rounds of the room before sitting at the table and helping herself to a biscuit. Martha liked Dolores, who was always jolly and wished everybody well, but just for the moment she couldn’t cope with her. Martha sank deeper into her armchair and closed her eyes again. The reward. How could they pay that?