The Little Old Lady Who Struck Lucky Again! (37 page)

‘It’s going to be a long day,’ said Martha, and she put out four thermos flasks with newly brewed coffee in the lilac arbour. They had eaten a fortifying breakfast, and they
would need the coffee and snacks to keep up their strength during the day. The cake tin was full of wafers and on a bread board next to it there was some newly baked bread. Besides that, they had
stocked up with several kilos of apples, oranges and bananas, and for Rake – who preferred sweets – there were several packets of his favourites. For Brains, she had put out some
Fazer’s lemon liquorice and a cheesecake with strawberries that she had made in the morning. Love evidently gave you oceans of energy. She had never before even dreamed of putting on an apron
and baking. But since she had been engaged, she just loved it when Brains was happy.

It was lovely weather and there was no wind at all; the water was like a mirror and out beyond the bay you could see birds high in the sky. The first of the huge ferries from Finland was on its
way into Stockholm and beside their own jetty there were three large luxury boats: the Pettersson boat, a yacht and a motor cruiser. Two luxury yachts that there hadn’t been room for were
moored out in the bay. Thankfully, Anders and Emma had promised to help with the selling and that was a good thing, too, as it would make everything more credible when so many objects were to be
sold. It was only Rake who thought their presence was unnecessary – as far as the boats were concerned, at any rate, because that was something he could best take care of himself. Being a
former seaman was one thing, selling boats discreetly was quite another. Christina took a wafer and looked as if she was pondering something, then she said:

‘You know what, I’ve been thinking about this. How can we explain that we own all of this?’ She looked out across the garden and the field behind where the boats and cars had
been parked so close to each other that you could hardly walk between them.

‘Somebody has left it all to us in their will,’ said Anna-Greta. ‘After all, we wrote in the adverts that they came from an estate. We could have inherited all this from a
close relative who owned boats, car factories and the like,’ Anna-Greta went on.

‘That’s smart,’ Martha agreed.

‘What about the art?’ Christina wondered. ‘One of the paintings is a Zorn.’

‘We could have bought that when we were young. It’s gone up in value over the years, you know,’ said Anna-Greta.

‘But then surely we should have sold it via an auction chamber?’ Brains suggested.

The discussion went back and forth while the sun rose all the higher and the League of Pensioners waited for the first customers. They discussed the different lies they could trot out –
but they didn’t sound especially credible, so they decided to simply say as little as possible. Most of all, they were worried that one of the Bandangels might come home earlier than expected
or that one of the customers would see through them and discover that it was all stolen property.

‘In the criminal world things are always a bit uncertain.’ Martha tried to smooth things over.

‘It’s best to just pile on the lies,’ Rake added. ‘If you tell enough lies, people will believe you.’

‘I suppose we could pretend that we are politicians who’ve been to nightclubs and been caught?’ Christina interjected.

‘Yes, exactly, and we must improvise,’ said Martha. She had hardly got the words out of her mouth before they heard sounds from down the hill. It was now eight o’clock in the
morning and the first buyer of the day was on the way. Gunnar got up ready with his computer printouts and Anna-Greta had a firm grip on her notebook where she was going to tick off all the items.
Like Martha, she had a belt-bag around her waist where she could put the money when people paid in cash, as well as a shoulder bag with an iPad that she and Gunnar could use to provide the bank
details for larger transactions.

The first customer was a man who wanted to buy a Bentley. Brains started up and talked so much about acceleration and horsepower that he completely forgot to sell the car, and if Martha
hadn’t come and helped at the last minute, they would have missed their first sell straight away. Two motorbikes, a Jaguar and one of the boats were, however, quite easy to flog, and Martha
and Anna-Greta praised the Internet.

‘It’s really fantastic how easy it is to sell stuff!’ Anna-Greta exclaimed, and she had to go inside and empty the overflowing belt-bag. Then she put the banknotes in envelopes
marked ‘Bentley’, ‘Jaguar’, and so on, and hid the envelopes in an old trunk with linen. If there were any crooks among the customers, then they wouldn’t find the
money amongst all the towels and sheets. The boats and the Bentley were, unfortunately, worth so much that they could only get a deposit and Anna-Greta had to use the iPad or give them a bank
account number to pay into.

‘I can see from your eyes that you are honest,’ she concluded the deals, and then hoped that the buyers really would put the rest of the money into the account. When Rake was going
to sell the Pettersson boat, there was some confusion, as nobody could find it. It wasn’t there any longer.

‘Perhaps it’s already been sold?’ Rake muttered. He hadn’t made any notes as he thought he could remember everything anyway. They had to go down to the jetty while the
prospective buyer paced impatiently.

‘Well, you see, Pettersson boats are very much sought-after. Real veterans,’ said Rake with the look of an expert. ‘I think we had a customer here who wanted to take it for a
test run.’

‘So when will he be coming back?’

‘Err, any minute now, I should think. It’s a really beautiful boat, I can tell you that. Newly varnished, the mahogany interior has been completely renovated, the brass is polished
bright. In fact, I’d really like to keep it myself.’

‘A swindler must have gone off with it,’ said Anna-Greta fifteen minutes later when no boat had returned to the jetty. Then Martha remembered the discussion they had had about old
decrepit wooden boats and she went right to the end of the jetty, put on her Polaroid glasses, and leaned over the edge. Yes, that was the explanation.

‘We can give you a discount,’ said Martha, pointing at the water where the Pettersson boat could be seen on the sea bed.

‘I’m not here to buy a bloody submarine!’ the customer hissed.

‘But, my good man, it hasn’t been there very long,’ Anna-Greta attempted. ‘It’s just a little wet.’

It was not until they had radically lowered the price that a happy collector of veteran boats bought it anyway.

The telephones rang and one car after the other was sold from the hill. Business was brisk. Veteran cars, motorbikes and Jaguars sold just as well as the paintings that Martha had found in the
cabin of one of the yachts. Besides the Zorn, there had been a Matisse there, but that wasn’t quite as easy to sell. However much Christina swore that it was genuine, people didn’t
believe her.

‘Pull the other one; you’ve painted that yourself,’ they said and shrugged their shoulders, and Christina did actually feel rather flattered. Later, a man who had been sacked
from his job as a curator at Moderna Museet came by, and he bought the painting at such a high price that Anna-Greta laughed and laughed. New customers were arriving all the time, and by the
afternoon, Martha and her friends were completely exhausted. Now they started muddling up the adverts and soon they had lost track of what they had sold, and what was still for sale.

‘What does it matter?’ said Christina, exhilarated. ‘This is really fun and the main thing is that we get some money in.’

‘But selling a motorbike from the thirties as a moped isn’t very smart at all,’ said Brains, angrily.

‘You have the nerve to say that after calling a genuine Zorn a watercolour by an unknown artist,’ Christina was quick to counter. ‘If I hadn’t seen that, we’d have
lost several million.’

‘No bickering, we’re doing our best. Soon we’ll have some coffee and sandwiches, with cheesecake to follow,’ Martha cut in, as she wanted to ensure that they all stayed
on good terms and kept their spirits up. She tempted them with lemon wafers, too. Just that very moment, more people drove up to Myrstigen and the League of Pensioners had to take care of them.
Since they’d had no time to have that fortifying afternoon coffee break, their continued sales got really confused. Anna-Greta didn’t always have time to tick off the items on her list,
and sometimes Brains sold the same item twice. In a moment of weakness he was about to sell Lillemor’s car because he thought it was so ugly, but he restrained himself at the last minute when
he realized it wasn’t his. But it was Rake who made the worst blunder when he nearly sold the neighbour’s horse by mistake. It was grazing in the ditch nice and peacefully and in the
general rush he thought the horse was for sale too. Thankfully, Christina, who, after all, was the youngest and thus not quite so tired as the others, succeeded in preventing that sale at the last
moment.

One way or another, one expensive car and boat after the other disappeared and, by the late afternoon, the land outside the yellow house, as well as their own land, had been emptied. They were
all totally exhausted and Anna-Greta’s horsey neighing laugh sounded much weaker than usual. But she was on top form, because she hadn’t handled so much money in one day for years. With
a smile she put yet another envelope with banknotes into the trunk, which was an antique wooden chest from the eighteenth century, patted the lid which said ‘HOME SWEET HOME’, and
exclaimed: ‘Now my trunk is full to the brim, and the money smells of lavender!’

‘Yes, and it’s such a delight to get back our Las Vegas money, albeit by a very roundabout route!’ said Martha. ‘Beylings only have themselves to blame for helping
villains.’

‘Not to mention Chief Inspector Blomberg,’ Brains added.

‘Yes, it’s his own fault. Stealing our money like that!’ said Christina.

‘Can you imagine his face when he sees the empty warehouse?’ Rake smiled.

‘Let’s drink to that,’ Martha proposed, and the champagne came out. ‘I’d like to see the faces of the Bandangels when they come home. They can kick up as much fuss
as they want, but they can’t do anything about it. Everything has gone.’

Brains gave a slight shudder and Christina scratched with her index finger on the table top.

‘I am a little scared, nevertheless,’ she said in a feeble voice. ‘They give me such a strict look sometimes. What if they think all that stuff is theirs?’

Then Rake suddenly stood up and looked quite horrified. ‘Theirs! Yes, of course. Oh heavens above! We’ve made a terrible mistake!’ he stuttered. ‘They don’t know
that the goods in Beylings’ warehouse were bought with our Las Vegas money. They’re going to think we stolen it all from them.’

‘Oh, dear me, what a mess!’ Anna-Greta exclaimed.

‘Stolen from them? The thought never occurred to me. There is so much one needs to remember nowadays,’ Christina moaned.

‘Yes, I’m afraid that this must count as yet another of our crimes,’ Brains said, with surprising calm.

‘Now we’re really in deep trouble,’ Rake contributed.

‘Perhaps it would be best if we give it all back?’ said Christina, and she looked extremely worried. ‘Or else we must think of something, and quickly too.’

‘Think of something? Lord, have mercy! This isn’t going to be easy.’ Anna-Greta sighed.

‘It’ll work out, don’t worry. I’ve got everything under control,’ said Martha, ‘Or, at any rate, I ought to have,’ she added in such a weak voice that
nobody heard. ‘We’ll leave Värmdö for a while until things have calmed down.’

‘Are we going to leave our house?’ they cried out in unison. ‘No, we’ve got everything so nice and cosy here.’

‘Perhaps I ought to have said something earlier, but neither I nor Brains wanted to frighten you. We actually do have a plan.’ Martha glanced at Brains and he gave her an encouraging
nod. Martha took a deep breath, put the champagne glass aside and clasped her hands in front of her. ‘Now listen to this. It doesn’t sound good, but everything is perhaps not quite as
dark as it looks.’

The five of them and Gunnar were so preoccupied that they didn’t notice Lillemor. She had come home from her Tarot séance at a friend’s and was walking up the hill looking
really rather content. She was a bit unsteady on her feet and, if truth be told, she had enjoyed many glasses of wine, but it didn’t look at all the same here as it did yesterday. The car
that had been parked next to her fence had gone, as had Tompa’s pride and joy, a Cruiser 16. It took a while before she realized what had changed. At first she stared once, then several more
times, and she still couldn’t believe her eyes. To make sure, she walked up to the Bandangels’ yard to see if the goods were up there. But they weren’t. With shaking hands she
opened her handbag and pulled out her mobile phone. It was hard to press the right buttons and her voice sounded decidedly slurred, but she did manage to say:

‘Tompa, you know what? You’re not going to believe this, but the yard and garden are empty. All your stuff has gone!’

Then she fell into bed, dizzy and drunk and quite lost to the world.

It is decidedly unwise to steal from a notorious motorbike gang. Anna-Greta, Gunnar, Christina and Rake had gathered around the kitchen table, horrified at the realization of
what they had just done. They tried to calm themselves with a cup of hot chocolate, and Martha and Brains tried to console and encourage them as best they could, but they, too, understood that the
situation was serious. The most likely outcome was that the Bandangels would think that their nearest neighbours had stolen the bikers’ property. So now all the members of the League of
Pensioners must be prepared to flee, perhaps even to pack all their stuff and leave the old house for good.

‘I’m sorry, but it looks as if we must get out of here, whether we want to or not,’ Martha summarized the situation, and she gave the others a serious look. ‘And
what’s more, I don’t think we’ve got much time to do it in. But you don’t have to worry. Brains and I have arranged a place where we can hide for the time being, and Anders
and Emma will certainly give us some help.’