The Little Old Lady Who Struck Lucky Again! (29 page)

‘Exactly, you are right. We never even got a copy of the contract. But, in fact, that’s rather a good thing. If he doesn’t do as we say, we can threaten to reveal his shady
deals.’

‘Goodness, Martha, what an idea! Although that wasn’t a kind thought,’ teased Brains as he leaned forward and gave her a little kiss on the mouth. Martha suddenly became silent
and let herself be filled with a completely different feeling; a really nice one.

Feeling slightly exhilarated, with her hair a bit dishevelled and her cheeks rosy, Martha was on her way to Riddarholmen in the Old Town with Brains. The robbery in the Gold
Room must be prepared for thoroughly and they must go through their plan. A completely crazy plan, which required them to make a few things. They drove slowly along the quayside and stopped at a
little doorway that faced the water.

‘It must be here.’

Brains adjusted his spectacles and looked up. Yes, indeed, that was it: CONSERVATION AND RESTORATION, it said on a large brass plate to the left of the entrance. Martha parked and nodded towards
the building.

‘It’s in there that they make copies of runic stones. I think we can learn a lot here, just you wait and see.’

‘You’re so full of ideas, Martha. There’s never a quiet moment with you. But it is rather exhilarating,’ chortled Brains.

‘I do like you, you know that?’ Martha answered, closing her eyes and leaning against his shoulder. ‘But it isn’t me who’s turned us into criminals. It’s
society. If only they’d taken a bit better care of their citizens.’

‘Yes, but then we wouldn’t have had as much fun, would we, Martha?’ He stroked her cheek and suddenly looked very serious.

Martha became shy and embarrassed, fumbled for the door handle and quickly opened the bus door. They got out, Brains opened the back door, and took out a little plaster statue that they had
bought at a jumble sale – a figure of David with a damaged head and a broken arm. Brains rang the doorbell. They had come to see a restorer and, after announcing the reason for their visit,
they were let in. In the entrance they were met by an assistant who smiled a welcome. They went into an enormous open room which had stuff all over the place and wherever they looked, they saw
something that needed repairing: statues in bronze or plaster, paintings and old furniture. Right at the far end there were some copies of pictorial stones made in PVC plastic which were marked as
belonging to the Swedish Exhibition Agency. Martha gave Brains a little prod in the side.

‘Just as I thought – they still make copies in PVC plastic here.’

‘I’m sorry?’ said the restorer, as he entered the room.

‘I was just saying that you have such beautiful pictorial stones here,’ said Martha. ‘They look just like the real ones.’

‘Yes, they’ll be going out in a travelling exhibition. Handy, aren’t they? And they weigh almost nothing,’ answered the restorer, a bald overweight man wearing a stained
coat.

‘Fantastic! The man I’ve got here was also fantastic before I dropped him on the floor,’ said Martha, stroking the little statue of David. ‘Poor David fell off the table
and, well, you can see for yourself what that resulted in.’

Martha described in detail everything that needed to be repaired, while Brains quietly stepped aside and sneakily photographed all the pictorial stones and runic stones inside the studio on his
phone. He even took pictures of the cans with PVC plastic, hardener and other products used in the studio that he saw on the floor. When he had finished, Martha picked up her plaster statue,
stroked David’s broken arm and said:

‘I’ve got several statues at home that also need repairing. If I bring them in too, perhaps we can get a good price for doing them all?’

‘Yes, of course. I’ll estimate a price for the whole lot,’ said the restorer.

‘Then we shall come back later.’

‘What about the plaster statue?’

‘I’ll bring that with me next time. I am so fond of looking at it,’ said Martha, patting David so hard that another little bit of plaster loosened. Then she smiled the widest
smile she could, nodded to Brains, and together they left the restoration workshop.

On their way home, they stopped at Byggmax in Nacka and purchased boat varnish, PVC plastic and various paints in shades of red, black and grey. With heavily loaded trolleys, they then returned
to the minibus absolutely exhausted, and sat there with their arms around each other for quite a while to get their breath back before they could manage to drive off again. To be on the safe side,
they stopped at Delselius coffee shop for something to restore their energy, and they both had a coffee and a prawn sandwich before driving on. It was lucky they did because, when they got home,
they found the rest of the League of Pensioners full of energy and gathered around the computer. Gunnar and Anna-Greta were explaining something to the others.

‘Oh good, you’ve come just in time,’ said Anna-Greta in a jolly tone when she caught sight of them. ‘We’re busy setting up our secret archives for planning
robberies: Stasi Senior.’

‘Stasi Senior? What a fine name. I assume it is about the preparations for the gold robbery?’

‘Yes, indeed. We’ve got the photos that Brains took in the Gold Room, and I hope that you got some good pictures today too. We’ll put them straight into the
archives.’

Brains handed over his mobile phone so that Anna-Greta could transfer the pictures to the computer.

‘I think we’ve got what we need,’ said Brains. ‘I took pictures of all the pictorial stones in the workshop, including the hardener and other materials they use for their
plastic copies.’

‘It’s amazing how handy it is to store things on the computer. You can get everything in order,’ said Anna-Greta, delighted, and she created a new Stasi folder with the
day’s date. ‘Right, let’s have a look.’

She clicked her way to the photos from the docks, and the rows of luxury boats, Rolls-Royces and other cars appeared on the screen.

‘Goodness me!’ Anna-Greta exclaimed. ‘What on earth are these doing here?’

‘A secret storage place for bribes. Utterly crazy. They store things worth millions and millions,’ said Martha.

‘But why are they all stored there and not being used?’ Gunnar asked.

Martha told them what the part-time security guard had said and they all sighed and shook their heads.

‘What a swindle! At least we’re working for the common good,’ said Christina. ‘Fraudulent use of taxpayers’ money is a serious crime.’

Anna-Greta pulled out the desk drawer and took out a magnifying glass. ‘You can see the registration plates . . .’ she pointed out.

‘That’s what I thought. We must check with the national vehicle registry,’ advised Martha.

Gunnar did some searches on his laptop. After a few minutes he stopped.

‘Mysterious. Most of them belong to a firm of lawyers, Beylings.’

‘Then that security guard with the mobile phone was right,’ said Brains. ‘The firm can’t own all that themselves. Those luxury goods are simply registered under their
name.’

‘But who actually owns the cars and boats? We can’t just let go of this.’ Christina was curious now. ‘Those owners must have something to hide; tax evasion, fraud or even
theft perhaps.’

‘Yes, you’re quite right, we must investigate this further. But first we must rob the Gold Room. Now we must concentrate on that,’ Martha reminded them.

‘Indeed we must,’ Brains agreed. ‘Anna-Greta, can you zoom in on those pictures from the restoration workshop?’

While Anna-Greta clicked her way through the day’s images, Martha fetched some tea and scones. She had also bought some tasty cinnamon buns at Delselius’ that she put on the dish,
together with some oat biscuits and sweets. It was important to keep everyone happy with an afternoon tea. However, nobody bothered to sit down and relax; instead, they each took a cinnamon bun and
then gathered around the screen where they looked at the fantastic copies in full scale of the pictorial stones that Brains had photographed. Thanks to the fact that he had put a box of matches
next to each object in the photos, you could work out exactly how high and wide the pictorial stones were. You only had to measure the matchbox and then you had the scale. Brains had thought of
everything. After they had looked at all the pictures, the whole gang felt so tired that they decided to rest for a while. Then, after a little snooze and a good meal, Brains and Rake went straight
out to the workshop. First they covered the windows with a piece of black board, and then they put on their working dungarees. After that they got out the compass saw and sawed out a template in
full scale of one of the pictorial stones. It was very hard work and they had to take several breaks for a beer and to get their breath back. Every stage of the job gave them cause to have another
drink, so, in the end, the pictorial stone in wood was not as precise as it could have been. ‘We’re not quite as strong as we used to be,’ protested Brains.

‘Mind you, we do have experience, and that makes up for a lot,’ said Rake. After a bit of discussion they realized that some stages of the work would need young strong muscles. They
returned to the house and, after they had explained, Christina nodded and went to phone for Anders and Emma.

The next day, the workshop was a hive of activity and Anders, who was a bit of a handyman himself, took charge. Admittedly, he was middle-aged and not quite as strong and
supple as once he had been, but he had held a hammer and saw enough times to think he knew it all. With the help of a bit of hardboard and chipboard he managed to put together a pictorial stone
with the same measurements as the museum’s large stone from Gotland. Then the girls took over and used a file and sandpaper until they got something reminiscent of rough stone.

It was like a really weather-beaten pictorial stone, Rake thought after Christina had worked on it a while. ‘You’re really rather clever, you know!’ he told her.

‘Thank you, Rake. Well, as you’ll realize, this is not something a fortune-teller could do. And I can paint it, too,’ said Christina proudly with glowing cheeks.

It wasn’t until the following day that the League of Pensioners had the energy to continue with their home-made pictorial-stone model. Brains mumbled something about casting in plastic not
being one of his strong points, but he had at least learned enough for their little home project, so he greased the model and, together with Rake and Anders, put it into an enormous open tank in
the workshop. Then he and Rake mixed together some hardener and the PVC plastic in a large bucket and got ready to pour.

‘Stand by! Now you’ll have to give us a hand, girls,’ he called out while the sweat dripped over his face and nose. ‘Right, tip the bucket now!’

They all helped to pour the dough-like mixture into the tank while Brains and Rake mixed some more new dough until finally the whole pictorial stone was covered. Satisfied with their work, they
stood there and looked down at the enormous stone buried in the plastic.

Suddenly Christina cried out. ‘You know what? I think we’ve forgotten something.’

‘Oh no, I don’t think we have,’ said Brains confidently with his hands on his hips, but, nevertheless, he looked at his friend with some consternation.

‘When you cast something, you use a clay form and then smash the clay so that you can get at the cast object afterwards. But what do we do here?’

They all stared at the pictorial stone which was completely buried and was in the process of being stuck forever to the PVC plastic.

‘Perhaps we’ve made a blunder here,’ said Brains.

‘We? You mean you?’ Rake sneered.

And so it came about that the Great Gold Robbery at the Historical Museum had to be delayed for a couple of weeks.

Customs officer Carlsson hummed to himself while he checked the CCTV images from outside Handelsbanken. Mozart’s ‘
Eine kleine Nachtmusik
’ was playing
in the background and he was in the best of moods. This was quite different from the extremely boring CCTV images at the airport. Here people were going back and forth on the pavement, sometimes a
cyclist passed, sometimes a dog, or people hurried past with their briefcases, caffè lattes or Smartphones. Now and then someone tripped on a paving stone or stood there arguing, which
looked absolutely hilarious. He zoomed in on the passers-by and, to be on the safe side, he had even got hold of the images from the week before the robbery. Suddenly, he thought he saw someone he
recognized. Carlsson backed up the tape and looked at the scene again. On the pavement next to Handelsbanken stood an elderly lady with a hat and overcoat, talking on her mobile. Her appearance
seemed familiar but he simply couldn’t recall where he had seen her before. He made a note and then continued to look through the footage. There she was again, talking on her mobile. He
leaned forward and zoomed in on her. Indeed, the face was certainly familiar, but however hard he tried, he couldn’t remember who she was. One thing was certain, she was of interest for the
investigation. She had been in the same place the week before. That could hardly just be a coincidence.

Spring was in the air and all the members of the League of Pensioners had sauntered down to the bay with the intention of having a swim. If the wind hadn’t just started
to blow, Rake probably would have dived in head first, but instead he did an elegant about-turn when he reached the edge of the water and mumbled some complicated explanation for why he
wasn’t having a dip just this particular day. Instead, he went back to his sun chair on the veranda. The others followed his lead and they all sat in their white bathrobes and lapped up the
sun. From a bowl of ice, Martha fished up some juice, beer and cider which she shared out. She looked out across the water and felt that familiar tingle in her tummy that always cropped up when she
was slightly nervous. It often happened the day before something big was going to happen. Something criminal. The pictorial stones were ready, the plans had all been finalized and they only had to
go through a final briefing.

‘My dear friends, tomorrow is the big day,’ Martha announced. ‘Just remember to handle the stolen articles carefully. We’re talking about Sweden’s national heritage
here.’