The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules (26 page)

Martha woke up with a start. She had had yet another strange dream. It was about Dolores walking around with a shopping trolley on a car deck. She walked round and round in circles and sang about her millions. When she went too far along the
car ramp and was close to falling into the water, Martha woke up and sat up in bed, confused. It was still dark and dawn was many hours away. But her brain had been working. The shopping trolley and the ferries to Helsinki …

At breakfast, Martha sat down beside Dolores with a cup of tea. They talked about the weather and the food a while until Martha thought the time was ripe.

‘Your son, he has been at sea all his life, did you say?’

‘Yes, all the time. He is so clever. He works on the car deck.’

‘Oh, that’s good. Better than being a captain. Because the captain has such responsibility, and what if the ship runs aground? Then he would be in trouble,’ Martha explained.

‘He has never run aground.’

‘No, I didn’t mean that, Dolores, my dear.’

‘I am not your dear. Just because you get older, you shouldn’t have to be called my dear, should you?’

Martha hesitated. This was not a good start.

‘And it’s even worse when people say old dear, don’t you think?’ she said, trying to appease the older woman.

Dolores didn’t answer her. She had become grumpy. Martha tried again.

‘What a lovely shopping trolley you have, with a blue handle and all.’

‘My son gave it to me. He looks after his old mother, he does that!’

Martha moved a little closer and stole a furtive glance at the trolley. An Urbanista. A black one too, just like the ones they had received the ransom money in. But this one was dirty and scratched, and it had a blue handle. Of course it could
have been spray-painted later. The bag itself was shiny on top, as if it had been splashed with oil.

‘Shall we ask Katia to buy a layered cake?’ Martha suggested. ‘A lovely cream layered cake with marzipan?’

‘Cake? No, I’m tired. Now I’m going to my room.’

‘Let me help you …’ Martha said, reaching out along the trolley handle to feel if there was a hole for a reflector arm.

‘Don’t touch my trolley! That’s my money!’ Dolores shouted angrily. She got up, grabbed the trolley and stormed into her room. Everybody smiled indulgently and went back to what they were doing while Martha looked at the closed door, deep in thought.

Dolores didn’t come out all afternoon, and the next morning Katia said she was ill. Nobody was to disturb her. She had asked Katia to phone for her son, and he had promised to come. Then Martha asked first Anna-Greta and later Christina to knock on Dolores’s door to get a closer look at the trolley, but Dolores refused to open it for anyone. Not even Katia was allowed to go in. For the evening meal, a serving trolley with a plate of food was put outside her door, and the next morning everything had been eaten. But Dolores didn’t show herself. Martha sighed. It was all starting to get very complicated, and she really had no idea what she should do.

That night, Martha couldn’t sleep. She
must
get a look inside that shopping trolley. If Dolores’s son arrived the next day, he might even take it away with him. Before then, she must
be certain that the trolley really did have their money in it. Martha still had the master key. Of course, it wasn’t the done thing to break into somebody else’s room, but she could have opened the wrong door by mistake, couldn’t she?

Sleepily, she put her dressing gown on and crept out through the lounge up to Dolores’s door. She felt the door handle and discovered that the door wasn’t locked. She cautiously pushed the door open but then stopped on the threshold. Oh my God, she could hardly see anything; she had forgotten that her night vision wasn’t what it used to be. Silently, she went back into her own room and looked for the cap she had been given by Brains. She fumbled with it for a few moments before getting it to fit and then returned to Dolores’s door. Once inside the room, she closed the door behind her, took a deep breath and pressed the peak of the cap. A weak blueish light spread through the room and ghost-like shadows fluttered on the walls. Martha took a few terrified steps backwards and almost fainted with fright before realizing that it was the LED lights that were the cause.

Dolores was asleep and every breath she took ended with a loud, hissing snore. Martha looked around her to find the trolley. Oh damn, it was by the bedside table right next to Dolores’s face. What would they have said at Hinseberg? What is the best way to sneak up on somebody? Martha found it hard to think straight and decided it was best not to think too much at all, but rather just to get on with it. Without a sound, she approached the bed and stretched her hand out towards the trolley. Dolores was breathing deeply but suddenly she turned over so that her nose almost touched the handle of the trolley. Martha halted abruptly, turned off her cap lights and stood completely still. At any moment Dolores might open her
eyes and cry out, but soon she started breathing deeply again. When she started snoring once more, Martha finally dared to get hold of the handle and drag the shopping trolley slowly out of the room.

Once back in her own room, Martha parked the trolley and opened the lid. Rarely had she felt so excited. Dolores’s son worked on the Finland ferries and that stain looked like oil. Just think … As she put her hand in, there was a rustling of newspaper and some old blankets fell onto the floor. Impatient, Martha stuck her hand in deeper. She felt even more newspaper and even more blankets. Good God, was this Dolores’s millions?

Martha pulled the crumpled newspaper out and felt deeper down. Still more newspaper, but there seemed to be something else too. Martha’s heart beat faster and now she tipped the rest of the contents onto the floor. Goodness gracious! Five-hundred-kronor banknotes! They poured out, and soon there was money all over the floor. Martha had been right: this
was
the second shopping trolley! But what should she do with the money now? She looked around her. The duvet cover on her bed! She quickly took out the duvet and started to stuff the cover with banknotes. Armful upon armful disappeared inside the floral cover, and when that was full she started stuffing the pillows. One or two pillow cases ought to suffice for the reward. She put the rest back into the trolley. Dolores must not be allowed to notice anything.

Martha rapidly mixed in some banknotes with the crumpled newspaper and added some more newspaper from the old papers in her wardrobe. Then on top of it all she put a thick layer of five-hundred-kronor notes and topped this in
turn with blankets and the shawl. When the shopping trolley was full again, she examined it closely from every angle and wasn’t satisfied until it looked exactly like it had before. Then she crept back through the lounge and opened Dolores’s door a few inches to hear if she was still snoring. And she was. Martha then pressed the peak of her cap again to turn the LED lights on. In the weak light she moved into the room as silently as possible. She carefully rolled the trolley up to the bedside table and left it just as she had found it. Dolores suddenly stopped snoring and Martha gave a start. For quite some time she stood absolutely still while Dolores stretched out an arm and seemed to want to get up; she reached out in front of her, opened her eyes and stared straight ahead. Martha arched back, tried to think of an excuse for being there and was just going to open her mouth and say sorry when Dolores closed her eyes again and rolled over onto her side. Then she snorted, pulled the covers over her shoulders and let out a loud fart. Martha didn’t move a muscle. She waited and stared nervously at the bed. Not until Dolores started snoring again did Martha dare make a move. She hurried out through the door. Back in her own room, she sank down on her bed, exhausted.

‘Goodness, what an adventure!’ she exclaimed, but at that very moment she heard a mysterious noise. She winced and was so frightened that she almost fell off the bed. With her hand clenched in front of her chest, she stared at the door. Now it was completely silent. Martha waited. Nothing could be heard, and she became bolder. She put a hand on the bedside table and slowly got up. Then she heard the sound again. It sounded like—yes, of course, she had sat on the banknotes. Before she went to sleep she must make sure she wrapped a blanket
around them so that they wouldn’t rustle. The theft must not be discovered under any circumstances. It would mean the end of their criminal career.

‘I have been longing for this moment,’ said Brains the next day when he had hugged Martha and stood there with his arm around her waist. He wanted to say so much but couldn’t find the right words. Instead he hugged her again and they stood there a long while without saying anything. The glazed entrance to Diamond House looked different now from how he remembered it, not nearly as dreadfully ugly as he had imagined. It had, of course, been built in a boring 1940s style, but, after all, Martha lived there. He felt how she leaned her head against his chest.

‘At last!’ was all she managed to say, and then came the tears. ‘At last,’ she said again, and Brains thought of all the tender words he had heard in films and in TV series. That was just what he felt like, but it sounded so silly to say those words. So he just mumbled, and stroked her hair rather clumsily.

‘Hello, don’t you recognize me?’ Rake called out, coming up to them. As usual, he had his cravat around his neck, and during his prison stay he had even acquired a beard from ear to ear—a Newgate fringe, Martha thought it was called. He grinned happily, patted Brains on the back and gave him a big hug.

Martha smiled as she looked at the friends she hadn’t seen
for so long. It just felt wonderful to be standing beside them again, and the tiredness after the adventure of the previous night meant that she could hardly stop crying. Rake looked great even though he smelt of tobacco. Brains was the one who held her attention, though; after all, he was the only man she had ever written poems to—although admittedly they had mainly been about various ideas for crimes.

‘Martha, dear,’ said Rake, kissing her on both cheeks like a real Frenchman—probably because he wanted to make an impression with his new beard.

‘Oh, that itches,’ Martha couldn’t stop herself from blurting out, but quickly she added something more friendly: ‘How nice it is to see you again.’ Then he smiled and pinched her lovingly on her cheek before returning to Christina. They seemed to greet each other a long time, and Rake’s cravat became crooked and Christina’s eyes had a shiny gleam. Martha had seen how she had stood beside the window all morning and kept a lookout for his arrival, and time after time she had combed her hair even though she had just been to the hairdresser’s. Now he was here at last.

While they all hugged each other, Anna-Greta kept herself in the background. She was of course glad to see Brains and Rake, and she had given them a hug as well, but Gunnar was nowhere to be seen. She still hadn’t got over the confusion of the Internet transfers. She looked totally dejected. Martha saw that something was amiss and went to console her.

‘There have been problems with the broadband connection at Diamond House,’ she said.

‘Is that right?’

‘Yes, the whole building has had computer problems. Not
even a fifteen-year-old hacker could have managed to transfer anything.’

‘Oh, you don’t say!’ replied Anna-Greta and immediately looked almost happy.

‘It looks as if the money has sorted itself out anyway,’ said Martha with an artful smile. She didn’t say any more until she was certain that Dolores hadn’t noticed anything.

When they had afternoon coffee, Martha sat with her knitting on her knee, but instead of participating in the conversation she kept looking out of the corner of her eye towards Dolores’s room. When the door opened, she dropped her ball of yarn from pure fright, and not until Dolores started to go around the lounge with her trolley as usual and talk about her generous son did Martha relax. Relieved, she turned to the others and said: ‘Now then. Come up to my room after dinner.’

After a dreadful stew with overcooked beans and cold mashed potatoes in a plastic trough, Martha thought that something tasty would be nice. She laid out coffee and wafer biscuits, a bilberry pie and—of course—cloudberry liqueur. Brains was the first to knock on her door.

‘Do you need any help?’ he asked, placing a carton with an ice cream gateau on the table. ‘I thought we ought to celebrate.’ Then he plucked up courage, leaned forward and gave her a little kiss on the mouth. Martha felt such a warm sensation that she simply had to kiss him back, and they stood there with their arms around each other for such a long time
that they completely forgot about the frozen gateau. If there hadn’t been a knock on the door just afterwards, it would probably have melted and run onto the floor.

‘Shouldn’t that gateau be in the freezer?’ said Rake when he came in, pointing at a pool of pear ice cream already surrounding the carton.

‘But ice cream is tastiest like this,’ Brains maintained and quickly put out some dishes. When they had all sat down, the cups had been filled, and each and every one of them had enjoyed some soft ice cream, Martha knocked on the table.

‘Now please listen. I hope you don’t feel conned now that we have landed back at Diamond House again.’

‘But Martha, for heaven’s sake,’ they exclaimed with one voice. ‘We aren’t going to be here long. Cheers to a fellow villain!’

They all raised their glasses and drank, but this time without having to mime when they sang the traditional drinking songs. They all joined in at full volume. Then they listened patiently while Rake sang ‘Towards the Sea’, after which Anna-Greta did her interpretation of an old pop song.

When they had finished singing and had told of adventures and ridiculous situations from their time in prison, Martha took charge again.

‘I have found the missing shopping trolley.’

‘Really? Fantastic!’ exclaimed Brains.

‘How in heaven’s name did you manage that?’ wondered Rake.

‘Don’t say it was full of money too,’ said Anna-Greta. ‘Impossible, I can hardly believe it,’ Christina said in a muffled voice—she had a bad cold again.

Then Martha described her nocturnal expedition to
Dolores’s room, after which she let on just how much money she had seen.

‘There could have been as much as five million in the trolley.’

Several gasps could be heard, and Rake sat bolt upright.

‘Five million!’

‘Ssshh,’ Martha hushed him, went up to her bed and patted the bedspread. ‘Here’s most of the money. But the person who has the paintings is demanding a reward. “Hide 100,000 SEK in a stroller. Put it near the back entrance to the Grand Hotel at 13.00 on 30 October. Keep away and don’t involve the police,” it said on the note.’

‘Note? Can I see it?’ said Rake.

‘Sorry, but I had to eat it. Destroying the evidence, you know.’

‘Well, you certainly didn’t care about the bureaucracy,’ mumbled Rake.

Martha made her apologies and told them about the warders she had had with her and how she had swallowed the message at the last second.

‘Last night I put aside one hundred thousand in a pillow case. Two hundred five-hundred-kronor notes, if I didn’t lose count. Are we agreed that we should put two hundred beauties in the stroller?’

‘Beauties?’

‘Yes, money of course,’ said Martha.

‘Stroller’—Christina had blown her nose and could manage ‘m’ and ‘n’ again—‘Anders and Emma can certainly help us with that. I’ll say I can babysit for them, and then we’ll borrow their stroller. Malin is six months old now. It will be perfect.’

‘The baby too? Six months and a criminal,’ said Anna-Greta with a joyful pony-like giggle.

‘Now, now, it won’t be as bad as that.’ Martha tried to gloss over any complications, but the plan she had envisaged would mean just that. Six months and a criminal.