The Little Old Lady Who Struck Lucky Again! (14 page)

‘Who are going to carry out a bank robbery tomorrow,’ sighed Brains. ‘But seriously, I think we can probably talk with Tompa. It’s one thing reading about crime, but
committing a crime is something quite different. I don’t think he could have the slightest suspicion of what we are doing.’

‘Don’t be too sure. You should never say never,’ said Martha and she sank down on the kitchen chair. Her hands shook. During the round trip, Tompa had hinted that Bandangels
might soon be admitted as members of the real Mad Angels. And even though they hadn’t got that far yet, she had seen the look in Tompa’s face. She had sensed a bottomless cold in those
dark eyes. And from that moment, she knew: this man was dangerous.

When Tompa had taken off his jacket and come into the sitting room, the widescreen TV was blaring at full volume as usual. Jörgen had fallen asleep with the remote in his
hand. He snored loudly but gave a start when Tompa came in.

‘Urrgh,’ Jörgen said by way of a greeting.

Tompa nodded, went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. There he put the milk carton next to the two others they already had.

‘There’s some more beer on the bottom shelf,’ mumbled Jörgen in the direction of the kitchen. He sat up and rubbed his eyes and looked sleepy when his mate came back with
two cans of beer in his hand. ‘Well, what was it like?’

‘The milk trick worked fine. I got to see the house. Seems OK down there – except for the piles and piles of crime books.’

‘So they like crime, then?’

‘Looks like it. And they had mafia books and a book about Mad Angels.’

Jörgen burst out laughing and Tompa joined in. He opened a can of beer and flopped down on the sofa. While he drank, he glanced absentmindedly at the film on the TV.

‘But it makes you wonder. On the way past the garage I saw that Super-Grandpa had put two new seats in that minibus they have,’ he went on. ‘What if more old people are going
to live there? If they like crime, they might start nosing around. They might fancy themselves as detectives.’

‘No, not a chance. They spend all their time indoors, right? I can’t really see why they even need their own minibus. Don’t they usually phone for taxis?’

‘Perhaps they don’t want to travel with others or have to wait for buses that never come on time. They are entrepreneurial types, that lot.’

‘Maybe we ought to keep an eye on them. The calmest of waters can suddenly turn stormy, you know.’

‘Take it easy, man. They are harmless old people.’

Tompa took a few big gulps of the beer, put his feet up on the coffee table again and turned up the volume of the TV. Then he changed his mind and lowered it with the remote. ‘You know
what? The club premises – now we’ve put a floor in and painted it, we must fix it up so we can bring the rest of the gang here.’

‘All it needs is a few pictures on the walls and for us to get some nice furniture.’ Jörgen burped and put his feet up on the coffee table too.

‘And then we’ve got to clean out the garage and sheds so there’ll be room for everything.’

‘But what if our over-the-hill neighbours cotton on to what we’re up to?’

‘They won’t have a clue!’

Jörgen turned the volume of the TV up even further just as the baddie and his mates broke into a bank. The machine guns smattered. A bank robbery. It seemed that this kind of crime had
become popular again.

Brains looked up towards the grey facade with SVENSKA HANDELSBANKEN written on it in large letters. Soon it would be time. He wandered around suspiciously close to the entrance
and glanced at the double glass doors. It ought to work. The equipment in the Zimmer frame was ready and he had prepared himself well. But, nevertheless, a bank robbery was still a bank robbery.
Martha always managed to make their activities sound so harmless but, they were, in fact, criminal acts. And his Zimmer frame might attract attention. It didn’t look like your run-of-the-mill
kind as it had a much stronger construction. If anyone went up to it and lifted up the empty box in the basket, he could be found out. On the other hand, who would do that? No, in a society
designed for thirty-five-year-olds, he could safely feel forgotten – and that was something that suited him perfectly just now.

Just a few more steps. He looked around him. No rain, no snow. You could see the stars and the moon on the wane over Humlegården Park. For a moment he worried about Rake and sincerely
hoped that the fortune-teller’s nonsense hadn’t got a permanent hold of his friend, but then he consoled himself with the thought that they had, after all, managed to persuade Rake to
join them. Rake had apologized and said that of course he would do his bit for the gang, and after a glass of cloudberry liqueur he was back to his old self again.

A Porsche swooshed past with the radio on at full volume and an old lady walked slowly and laboriously round the corner into Karlavägen. Brains waited until the coast was clear. He most
certainly didn’t want any unnecessary witnesses. The street was empty again. Right, then, now it was time at last! There was a mat on the floor in the entrance lobby of Handelsbanken
announcing that you were welcome inside. And he was going to go inside, but absolutely not in the way that the bank management had intended. His wrinkled hand inside his mitten felt for the button
on the Zimmer frame handle and then pressed it. With a thud, a home-made battering ram shot out from underneath the Zimmer frame and went straight into the door of the bank.

The prosthesis, reinforced with steel, met its target and made a hole in the door. Brains took a few unsteady steps forward to catch the hard-to-steer walking aid. But the engine didn’t
turn off like it should have; instead it was so strong that the Zimmer frame spun round a few times before the alarm in the bank went off. The racket gave Brains a jolt.
And that’s
supposed to be bullet-proof glass
, he mused when he saw the size of the hole in the glass door and the bits of broken glass below it. He hastily pressed the handle of the Zimmer Frame again and
the prosthesis quickly retracted back under the basket of the Zimmer Frame, parking itself with a click. Brains was really proud of his new invention, which had been inspired by a computer game
about sea battles during antiquity. In those days, the ships had a pointed battering ram right at the front and then they rowed at full speed into the enemy boats and tried to sink them. Of course
his invention wasn’t quite in that class, but he was pretty sure it would confound the police. No unnecessary fingerprints here, no way. Or as Martha had put it, an artificial leg is a lot
more effective than fake guns.

Brains raised his hat and set off down the street in the direction of Stureplan, before turning towards Humlegården Park again. The alarm made such a shockingly loud noise that just then
he was happy he wasn’t a professional criminal – you could get tinnitus for less!

Some distance away, Martha had noted when Brains raised his hat and she pulled out her mobile phone. She quickly punched in 112. When they answered, she shouted into the phone as loud as she
could.

‘The alarm has gone off at Handelsbanken on the corner of Sturegatan and Karlavägen. It’s a bank robbery, Constable. Come at once!’

She put the phone back in her bag and followed Brains into the park. At the other end of the park, outside the National Library, stood a regular ambulance along with a military vehicle with a
large red cross on it – an ambulance bus. Anders was waiting for them there.

‘Nobody saw me borrow this,’ he said with a wide grin as he patted the military vehicle on the bonnet. ‘The security at Karlberg Castle isn’t very efficient. The army is
not as attentive as it ought to be,’ Anders added, as he opened the back doors.

‘Suits us fine,’ said Brains and he rolled in his Zimmer frame. When he had done that, Anders handed over a small Christmas tree. The needles had all dropped off but somehow it still
had its decorations. With the tree in one hand and Martha in the other, Brains set off back through the park towards the bank. He stood up on Flora’s Rise with Martha by his side so they
would have a good view of what was happening. Not far away, Rake, Christina and Anna-Greta had already taken up positions, pretending to be scared observers. Now and then they looked at each other
while they waited, but they were careful not to stand too near to one another. The League of Pensioners had consisted of five members, and even though they now jokingly called themselves Outlaw
Oldies to try and disguise their identities, they hadn’t forgotten that they were still on the Wanted list.

Meanwhile, Anders locked the military ambulance bus and went into the smaller ambulance where Emma was already sitting behind the wheel.

‘Well, then, now we only have to wait,’ said Emma and she felt in her pocket for her packet of cigarettes. Luckily, she had managed to get a babysitter and didn’t have to worry
about little Malin. Emma couldn’t reach her cigarettes. Then she remembered that she shouldn’t have any cigarettes and nor should she smoke now. Why hadn’t she thought of bringing
along nicotine chewing gum? The activities of her mother and her friends did make her rather nervous.

Up on Flora’s Rise the atmosphere was charged too.

‘So far, not a sign of Securitas or the police. It’s like we thought. Five minutes ought to be enough for the robbery,’ Martha noted. Six minutes after the alarm had sounded, a
police car arrived on the scene. It came up Sturegatan, turned right into Karlavägen and stopped outside Handelsbanken. Martha put her hand on Brains’s arm.

‘Oh, isn’t it exciting! Just like in a film,’ she said. ‘But, of course, this is for real.’

Equally enthusiastic, Brains took her hand. It felt so nice and cosy here in the cold. Yes, with Martha by his side he always felt so much stronger.

A police constable got out of the car and went up to the broken door. The uniformed officer leaned down and examined the hole in the double glass. Then he spoke into his mobile phone.

‘He’ll be telling them that somebody has kicked a hole in the door,’ said Brains with a low, cackling laugh. ‘If only he knew that it was an artificial leg!’

‘Made of steel!’ Martha added.

The next moment, a Securitas van drove up and two guards got out, unlocked the door and entered the bank. They turned off the alarm and the two men and the policeman talked for a while. They
were shaking their heads as if to indicate that there was nothing to be concerned about, before returning to their vehicles and driving away.

‘Perfect,’ Martha muttered and she raised her hat twice, before putting it back on her head again. Anna-Greta noticed the signal and waited another six minutes before she came out
from among the trees. Calm and composed, she crossed over Sturegatan to the pavement on the other side. Christina quickly looked all around her, and just as she passed the bank she pretended to
slip on a patch of ice and fell helplessly backwards against the door. Christina had, of course, protested at having to fall down again, but they had all insisted that nobody could fall down better
than her, and in the end she had given in. She landed elegantly on her back and was propped up by one arm. Martha had coached both her and the others in several different balancing exercises, so
Christina was able to get back onto her feet quickly. When Anna-Greta got hold of the door, the alarm went off again and with her hands on the bottom of her spine she shuffled round the corner and
disappeared down the street. Martha fished out her mobile phone and punched in 112 again.

‘Is this the police? You must come at once! The alarm is going at full blast here at Handelsbanken on Karlavägen. I think they are robbing the bank,’ she shouted into the phone.
Then she put it back in her pocket and with a smile looked at Brains.

‘Now we’ll see how long it takes them this time.’

The League of Pensioners waited a while before they caught sight of a Securitas van heading at high speed towards the bank. Martha looked at her watch. Five minutes and thirty seconds. Then a
police car slowed down outside the bank shortly afterwards. A constable lowered a side window and stuck his head out. The policeman briefly spoke to the Securitas man, not even bothering to get
out, before he drove off again. Shortly afterwards, the alarm stopped and the Securitas van disappeared again too. Everything was as before, and the few curious people who had come to look at what
was happening just shrugged their shoulders and hurried on. Martha glanced at her watch.

‘So far, so good,’ she said, but even she could hear that her voice sounded more tense than usual. ‘Now we only have to wait another fifteen minutes. Then bingo!’

It was beginning to feel really cold and the following minutes were the longest Martha had ever experienced. Time after time, she looked at her watch and found herself thinking too much about
all the trouble she had caused. And now she had got her friends involved in something fishy once more. What if they ended up in prison again and couldn’t see each other for several years? And
even if prison was a great deal better than a retirement home, they really were very comfortable in their big old house. Besides, Martha had heard that prisons were lowering their standards now
too. She looked at her watch again. Sixty seconds to go. She took a firm grip of her wide-brimmed hat and started counting to herself. Then she nodded at Brains. He moved his head slightly in
answer and took a firm grip of the little Christmas tree with its decorations and crackers still hanging on.

‘Well, then, Happy Christmas!’ Brains said cheerily and, dragging the Christmas tree behind him, he walked towards the entrance to Handelsbanken. Martha, Rake and Christina followed
him but kept their distance. Just as he reached the entrance, he pretended to get his breath back while he leaned the decorated tree closely against the hole that the artificial leg had made. He
discreetly loosened the specially prepared Christmas crackers and dropped them one after the other into the hole in the broken glass door. The Christmas decorations with their pictures of lit
candles and smiling Santa Claus figures rolled around for a moment and then detonated in muffled explosions, followed by the sound of broken glass. Yet again, the alarm started up and even
Anna-Greta, who was somewhat hard-of-hearing, could clearly hear it.