The Little Old Lady Who Struck Lucky Again! (20 page)

‘Rake?’ Christina snorted. ‘There’s nothing ailing him, believe me.’

After supper Rake went and fetched a handful of birch logs and laid a fire in the grate in the library. With nimble, practised hands he laid a bed of firewood on some crumpled paper, put the
logs on top in a criss-cross pattern and then lit it. It immediately started burning brightly, and the others smiled in relief. Rake always saw it as a challenge to try to light a log fire with
only one match, and he was just as pleased every time he succeeded.

During the evening they played a hand of bridge, but when Rake didn’t try to cheat, they got a little worried again. No, he still wasn’t his real self and when they asked how he was
feeling, he just grunted. Soon they all felt so tired that they thought it was time to go to bed, so they got up and bid one another goodnight.

Christina went up to her room, put her volume of Gustav Fröding’s poems on the bedside table, and was just about to get undressed when there was a knock on the door. She recognized
the knock. It was Rake.

‘Come in!’ Christina called out.

Rake stood in the doorway, plucking up the courage to start speaking. He had combed his hair and smelt of aftershave.

‘This is not exactly an original gift, but you do like him,’ Rake mumbled and he handed over the rectangular packet he had brought with him from town earlier.

‘Goodness me, Rake!’ said Christina, surprised, and she ripped off the wrapping.

‘A reproduction, of course, but Anders Zorn’s
Summer Delight
is a beautiful watercolour.’

Rake looked pleased but left the room. When he came back, he had a bunch of flowers in his hand. He put them down, fidgeted a great deal with his cravat, and not until Christina opened her arms
did he dare go forward and give her a hug.

‘I apologize,’ Rake said. ‘I’m very sorry, I wasn’t thinking. Can you forgive me?’

And then Christina smiled and gave him a really, really big hug.

Martha paced back and forth in front of the entrance to Diamond House retirement home. She looked expectantly down the hill. At last it was time for Operation Gift Drop. It was
cold and the sun shone from a deep blue sky, but Martha was so excited that she hardly felt the chill in the air. A delivery van approached and she smiled to herself. The delivery seemed to be
working. The van came to a halt by the retirement home.

‘I’m Inspector Siv Petterson from the Ministry of Health’s control unit for standards in retirement homes,’ said Martha walking briskly up to the driver as he opened the
van door. She held up her official identity card, which Christina had produced, with her name and photo.

‘You what?’ The driver, a man in his thirties, stopped abruptly.

Martha now stood in his way, pulled out a ring file and thumbed through the papers.

‘This concerns the goods to be delivered to Diamond House. We must check the delivery system is working correctly,’ Martha said in a friendly manner.

‘Then you’ll have to be quick about it. I’m in a hurry!’ the driver muttered. He looked at his delivery list, opened the back doors and pulled out the trolley.

‘Can I look at the order?’ said Martha in an authoritative tone. She pulled out a copy of the order from her cloth bag, took the list from the driver and checked that they contained
the same items, which she ticked off.

‘This has got nothing to do with you. The goods are for Diamond House,’ the driver grumbled.

‘That is correct, but so many strange things happen today, and in this case the people who made the order have asked us to check the delivery. Things can disappear en route, there are
hijackings and so on.’

‘Hijackings?’

‘Yes, it is really dreadful,’ Martha complained. ‘You must have read about how all those articulated lorries lose their trailers, vehicles are stolen, packages get lost in the
post. So those of us at the control unit have a very important part to play. Now let’s see, it all seems to be in order. I only have to check that the goods in the packages are the same as
what is listed on the order. I’ll come into the retirement home with you.’

The driver swore in Finnish. Martha remained calm and watched closely when the disgruntled man went to fetch the packages. When he had put all the parcels in the goods lift, Martha followed and
walked up to Diamond House with him. Martha discreetly pulled her hat over her wig, adjusted the elegantly shaded glasses and put her gloves on. As long as she didn’t give herself away by
reverting to her childhood accent from the south of Sweden – something she tended to do when she got really excited . . . No, she must concentrate on her task. The driver rang the bell, the
door was opened and Martha recognized the young dark-haired girl from the Lucia Day celebration.

‘I’m Inspector Siv Petterson,’ said Martha and they shook hands.

‘I’m Nurse Anja. What can I help you with?’

Martha described the purpose of her visit, showed her identity card and, after Anja had signed the delivery list, they went into the large sitting room. Martha looked around the familiar
surroundings. The stuffy smell and the same old furniture from when she and her friends had lived there were still there. Diamond House was just about as appealing as an old, run-down school. I
must remember to send some new furniture, Martha thought, and jotted it down on her notepad. The driver rolled in the goods while Anja went round and gathered the residents. It took a while, but
eventually about twenty people clustered around the big ornate table in the dining room. They looked sleepy and confused and Martha wrinkled her eyebrows.

‘Have you given them anything? They seem so sleepy.’

‘Just some tranquillizers,’ said Anja.

‘If you take care of old people, they don’t need tranquillizers, do they?’ Martha muttered. ‘What about gym exercises?’

‘Gym exercises? I don’t know anything about that,’ Anja answered.

‘And the kitchen? Have you got a new kitchen yet?’

‘We’ve got the microwave ovens . . .’

‘There should at least be a new kitchen here! Don’t you communicate with Director Mattson?’

‘Director Mattson and Nurse Barbara? They own so many retirement homes now, and most of the time they are away on business trips.’

‘I want to get hold of them.’

‘That won’t be so easy.’ Anja gave a little laugh. ‘We’ve tried to present them with our complaints, but we never get any answers. They have an address in New
Jersey.’

Martha felt a burning anger and the knuckles around her notebook turned white. The money that she and her friends had sent from Las Vegas might have disappeared, but she had learned that the
management of Diamond House Enterprises had made a profit of more than seventy million kronor last year. Martha had hoped that they had reinvested some of the money in the retirement homes. But no.
She opened her big cloth bag.

‘My friends!’ Martha said, pulling out a bundle of gift cheques from a company that Anna-Greta had found on the Internet. They stocked and delivered all sorts of equipment.

‘These cheques are valid for a whole year and I’ll mail copies of them to Diamond House Enterprises. Now you can buy ovens, cookers, sink units, dishwashing machines, yes, all the
kitchen equipment you need. In two months, our control unit will return and check that everything is installed.’ Martha signed the delivery list and put her pen back in her bag. ‘Surely
you realize, Nurse Anja, that conditions should be as nice as possible when you are old.’

The girl turned red in the face and was just about to say something when they heard a strange noise from the big sitting room. They all rushed in. Dolores had lent her Rippy all-round knife to
Henrik, also in his nineties. To the accompaniment of jolly cheers, he cut through the tape around the parcels. Anja had never been in a situation like this before. She hadn’t read a word in
the regulations about what you should do in the event of gifts and contributions from outsiders.

‘Ooooh!’ could be heard from the residents at Diamond House. Like children at Christmas, they ripped off the wrapping paper and threw it aside. With exclamations of joy, the
residents pulled out iPads, iPhones, books and DVD films. Some Belgian chocolates fell onto the floor and Martha realized that Christina must have been responsible for that particular order. She
herself had ordered yoga mats, stretching bands, dumbbells and lots of other exercise equipment, while Rake had wanted to bring joy to the residents with computer games, model boats and garden
tools. Brains, for his part, had ordered workshop tools as well as anti-slip mats, magnifying glasses, talking watches and walking-stick holders to attach to Zimmer frames. Right at the bottom of
one of the packages lay a packet wrapped in gold paper. Everyone became silent.

‘What’s this?’ the driver wondered out loud, and he looked on the back of the packet. ‘It says here that this package shall be opened in the presence of the Ministry of
Health’s control unit for standards in retirement homes.’

‘Yes, that’s correct,’ said Martha and ticked an item in her notebook. Henrik, the man whom Dolores was evidently rather fond of, offered to open it. He untied the string,
slowly and carefully took off the paper wrapping, and opened the packet.

‘It’s full of envelopes,’ he mumbled, pushing his glasses up to the top of his nose and looking more closely.

‘Good, that’s as it should be. The box contains an envelope for each and every one of you,’ said Martha. She picked up a bundle and handed them out. The rustle of envelopes
being opened could be heard, and then Henrik exclaimed:

‘I can’t believe this. An electric scooter! I’ve got an electric scooter!’

‘Right. The same present for everyone,’ said Martha. ‘The scooter is for walks here in the vicinity and there is also a voucher for a package tour to Gran Canaria.’ She
again dipped her hand into her floral bag, pulled out a brown envelope and handed it over to Anja. ‘This is for the management, it’s a list of all the things that have been donated to
you today. The donator wishes to remain anonymous. And in addition . . .’ Martha took a deep breath, because what she was now going to say was extremely important. ‘In addition,’
she said again, ‘to enable these gifts to be made proper use of, here is a special cheque to pay for two new members of staff who will assist in looking after the residents here. The money is
specifically for that purpose. We at the Ministry of Health’s control unit for standards in retirement homes will return to check that the donation has been used for the purposes
stipulated.’

Anja’s eyes were like saucers, and several of the residents started to shed tears of joy. Martha, too, found it hard to hold back the tears and for quite a while couldn’t find any
words at all. But the driver, who was getting impatient, broke the silence.

‘Right, that was the lot. Thank you and goodbye.’ He walked towards the door. Martha stopped him.

‘I know you have a lot of other deliveries today. I just happen to have been told to check those deliveries too. If I can follow along with you in your van, it will be quicker.’

‘What?’

‘Yes, mark my words. Our control unit often checks deliveries. When it comes to money, it is always necessary to check where it goes.’

Ever since Tompa and Jörgen had seen their elderly neighbours carry those bodies into the earth cellar, they had been extremely worried. They didn’t want the police
to come to the neighbourhood, and if there really were dead bodies, they would soon be facing a serious sanitary problem as soon as the spring thaw set in. Then it wouldn’t be long before
that nosey fortune-teller down the hill called the police. No, they had to deal with this themselves. Jörgen and Tompa kept a watch on the big old house and waited impatiently for an
opportunity when all five of the elderly occupants were out at the same time. They waited and waited and, finally, early one Monday morning, the whole gang climbed into their old Volkswagen
minibus, with the wheelchair ramp on the back, and set off from the house. When the sound of the engine faded away, Tompa realized that this was the chance they had been waiting for. Excellent!

‘They’ve gone. The coast is clear,’ he called out into the room. ‘Come along, let’s go straight there.’

Jörgen Smäck peered out of their window. His hair stuck out at all angles, and he had dark rings under his eyes. He had been busy doing woodwork in the club premises long into the
night.

‘Let’s go! Have you got the headlamps?’

Tompa nodded.

‘I just hope there aren’t any corpses down there. We’d better put our gardening gloves on.’

The men went down into the hall, put on scarves and jackets and pulled on their heavy boots. The cold air hit them when they left the house, and Tompa wished he had a woolly cap on too. But of
course, bikers weren’t known for going around in woolly hats, so he would just have to suffer the cold. Even motorcycle helmets were frowned upon in the club. And now he suddenly regretted
having shaved his scalp. A mop of hair did at least give you a
bit
of warmth.

‘It’s locked!’ said Jörgen when they got to the cellar. There was a gap in the door and it would be easy to force it open, so Jörgen looked around for an iron bar,
but then remembered that they shouldn’t leave any trace of their activities. ‘OK, we’ll have to lift the door off.’

Together they managed to bend the door a little so that they could get a good grip, which enabled them to lift the door off its hinges. They carefully leaned in against the wall and went inside.
There was a smell of earth and potatoes, and when they got a bit further inside, their nostrils were filled with the smell of alcohol. Somebody must have dropped a whole box of vodka bottles, Tompa
thought, as he adjusted his headlamp and let the ray of light illuminate the wall. Or rather the boxes. Postal packages, unopened boxes, IKEA packets, and carton upon carton of whisky and champagne
had been stacked up against the walls. Furniture too, garden tools, reading lamps and various other boxes of goods were lined up along the cellar wall.

‘When did all this stuff arrive?’ Jörgen wondered out loud.