The Little Old Lady Who Struck Lucky Again! (12 page)

The sinking moon cast a blue-white light over the snow when she walked across to the woodwork shed. A bit further away she could see the lights from some of the huge ferries that went to
Finland, and from up the slope she could hear the bellowing sound of the bikers’ music, of a type she thought was called heavy metal. Brains and Rake had been busy in the carpentry shed all
day, secretly preparing the equipment that was needed for the bank coup. Now Martha couldn’t restrain her curiosity any longer, she simply had to see what they were doing. In the evenings,
she and Brains had gone through the robbery plans before presenting them to the others. Martha and Brains were very close and shared most of their thoughts. But for once, Brains had been secretive
and had insisted that he wanted to surprise her.

‘You shouldn’t always have to be thinking of everything, my friend. Now it’s high time that you let the rest of us give you a hand,’ Brains had said and he’d
stroked Martha on the cheek.

‘Bank robberies, Martha dear, are not always so easy. The banks have so many alarms installed all over the place, and the police react immediately to them. So we must be smarter than them,
do you see?’ Brains had said that morning and given her a wink. That was spot on. Martha had a weakness for uncomplicated solutions, they fooled lots of people. If something was sufficiently
simple, nobody fathomed anything. Not least engineers and policemen. With something really ingenious you could win time and avoid getting caught. Martha stamped the snow off her boots and pushed
the shed door open. It smelt of sawdust and glue and the machines all seemed to be running at maximum capacity. There were planks on the floor, metal sheeting and tarred roofing felt, and on a
shelf she could see a pointed, tube-formed thingimajig she didn’t recognize. It reminded her of an old-fashioned artificial leg made of metal. There was so much noise in the carpentry shed
that she got right up to the milling machine before Brains noticed her. He turned the machine off, smiled proudly and nodded towards the adjacent room.

‘We will be finished soon. We’re just going to make one more as a reserve, and polish the others.’

Martha stared and, without thinking, took a step back. On the work bench lay several fake pistols and over by the wall Rake was pretending to shoot with them.

‘Bang, bang,’ Rake shouted as he cocked the trigger.

‘But what in heaven’s name are you cooking up?’ Martha gasped.

‘We’re preparing the robbery, of course,’ said Brains. ‘Don’t they look good? Absolutely convincing.’

‘Bang, bang, bang,’ Rake continued.

Martha picked up one of the black-painted fake guns as if it was a poisonous snake.

‘But, Brains, dear, what on earth are you thinking of? We don’t want to get ourselves killed, do we?’

‘They’re only made of wood.’

‘
Hands up!
’ the classic English words came from Rake as he approached them with a smile and a black gun in his hand. ‘That frightened you, right? They look really good,
don’t they? I painted them with metallic black paint so they look just like the real thing.’

‘Why do men always want to shoot? Dear me, no!’ sighed Martha, taking the guns and dropping them into her big flowery bag. ‘Besides, the police can start shooting at
you.’

‘But what are you doing? We haven’t finished them yet,’ Rake protested.

‘No fake guns! There won’t be any shooting here, no way! Now it’s high time that you stopped playing those computer games. After just a few weeks, they’ve influenced you.
What about reading a book instead?’

Martha did a quick about-turn and left the carpentry shed. And completely forgot what she had put in her bag.

The taxi turned off at Stureplan, went up Sturegatan and passed the corner of Handelsbanken before turning into Karlavägen. Martha was now right in the city centre.

‘I wonder, perhaps . . .’ she muttered to herself.

‘Are you sure you can’t see the entrance you’re looking for? Now we’ve driven round the same block several times.’

The taxi driver glanced impatiently in the rear-view mirror and sighed while crawling along so slowly that the cars behind started to toot. Martha had asked him to drive slowly enough for her to
scrutinize the surroundings. How else would they know which escape routes they should choose? They had taken a taxi instead of their minibus because Christina had told them about all the
surveillance cameras in the city centre. They were everywhere and after a robbery the police went through all the recordings from the cameras close to the scene of the crime. It would definitely
look suspicious if a minibus with a wheelchair ramp on the back was seen slowly driving past the bank again and again.

‘My cousin lives somewhere round here. The address was Karlavägen something and as soon as I see the front door then I’ll know where I am. So silly of me not to bring his
telephone number along. He’s invited us to a party, you see.’

‘Just one more time round the block, but then I’ve got to finish my work day. The wife’s waiting at home.’

‘Well, then,’ said Martha, ‘I think the big door over there looks familiar. Just drop us off a bit further down the street, and we’ll find our way.’

‘Good luck!’ mumbled the taxi driver, and he drove to the pavement and stopped. The meter stood at 888 kronor.

Martha picked up her handbag, opened it and screamed.

In her bag were the fake guns! She had intended burning them, but they had got completely mixed up among the powder and make-up that filled her bag. For a fraction of a second she had thought
they were real and had reacted. The taxi driver jumped out and pulled open the door to the back seat.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘My heart is a bit wonky sometimes,’ Martha complained, and put her left hand over her chest. She could hardly tell him about the guns. But it seemed as though she didn’t have
to, as, the very next second, Martha felt two moist lips pressed against her mouth, accompanied by an overpowering smell of garlic.

‘Bbb . . . whaa . . . whaa!’ could be heard from Martha before Brains decisively pushed the kiss-of-life taxi driver away, and held Martha in his arms.

‘It’s all right. She does scream like that sometimes, but it isn’t as bad as it sounds,’ Brains reassured the driver while at the same time managing to get Martha out of
the vehicle.

‘But shouldn’t we take her to hospital?’ the concerned driver asked.

‘No, no. You know women, they always exaggerate things.’ Brains smiled as he paid for the journey. The others climbed out, rather confused, and when the taxi driver drove off they
asked what had really happened.

‘This is what!’ said Martha, and she opened her bag so that the guns were visible again. Then Christina crumpled up in a faint.

It took a while to revive her, but after two sugary sweets she was back on her feet. Martha regretted that they were making such a display of themselves. They had dressed in dark-grey coats
they’d bought from a charity shop and left their Zimmer frames at home specifically so that they would melt into the crowd – and cause as
little
attention as possible.

‘How are you feeling, Martha?’ Brains asked. ‘You really frightened me. And then that taxi driver too—’ He abruptly stopped at that point because he realized that,
for a brief moment, he felt something that resembled jealousy. The taxi driver had almost kissed his . . .
his
woman!

‘Everything’s OK with me,’ said Martha. ‘Just as long as he doesn’t remember us,’ she added, but she realized at the same time that the chances of that were
poor.

‘Was it really such a good idea, this taxi journey? How many times have we slowed down right outside Handelsbanken? What if they suspected something?’ sighed Rake.

‘Before a bank robbery, you must always check the escape routes and iron out all the details,’ said Christina, who had now livened up. ‘This was absolutely necessary. That
fortune-teller can spout on all she wants about ominous events in the future, but it doesn’t mean she is right.’

Rake opened his mouth to protest, but managed to restrain himself. Lillemor had become a sensitive topic of conversation. Over the last week she had knocked on the door almost every day with new
predictions about Rake’s future. Of course he wanted to hear what she had to say. But now Christina had become grumpy and thought that enough was enough. He had maintained that he wanted to
sort out certain things in his life. And also excused his interest by saying that it was best to know what might happen to you if you really were going to rob a bank. But since he couldn’t
breathe a word about the actual robbery, none of the others thought this was an acceptable explanation. The fact that he blushed in a suspicious manner every time anyone mentioned Lillemor was much
more telling.

When the taxi had disappeared round the corner, the five friends walked up Flora’s Rise in the Humlegården Park, where they had a good view of the bank and its immediate vicinity.
They had the park behind them, with the national library, the tree-lined paths, the lawns, and, on the other side of Sturegatan, you could see the entrance to Handelsbanken. They had a good look
around, crossed the street to the other side and went past the bank door one last time before Martha thought it was time to head for home. For their return journey they first took the underground
to Slussen, and then a taxi out to Värmdö. It had been a trying day and they needed some rest.

However, the minute they opened the front door, Martha said: ‘It will soon be time to do this for real!’

They all looked at each other and immediately became serious. Talking about and playing at bank robberies was one thing, but doing it for real was another matter entirely.

Martha saw the nervous faces of her friends and so launched into a pep talk: ‘And don’t forget that this is all for a good cause. Since the state doesn’t do things properly, we
must do our bit. So we’re doing this as a friend and protector of the poor – we are the twenty-first century’s version of Robin Hood.’

Robin Hood, Rake reflected, would no doubt have been very angry if he’d known that an old lady some hundreds of years later compared herself to him.

Christina had fallen asleep on the veranda with a camel-hair rug over her legs and warm socks on her feet. She snored loudly, because in the afternoons she never used her false
teeth and, besides, she had a cold. Rake glanced quickly at the sleeping figure. Admittedly, he did have a bit of a bad conscience as he crept up beside Christina to check that she really was fast
asleep. He also felt a bit guilty because of the relief he felt when he discovered that indeed she was. But he simply had to go and visit Lillemor. He couldn’t help it. That charming woman
was so beautiful, so unpredictable and exciting; she was like a stormy voyage in uncharted waters. Curiosity drove him towards her as if he’d been aquaplaning. A man like him, who had sailed
the seven seas and seen so many countries, couldn’t just sit still in an old wooden house and do nothing. No, he must get out and about. He must see this fascinating woman again.

Lillemor had such interesting eyes, Rake thought as he put his overcoat on. She looked at him in that special way that some woman had, and despite being about sixty years old she was still
extremely sexy. He combed his hair, made sure his coat was buttoned up and walked off towards the brick house where she lived. It was one of those modernist-style buildings and it didn’t fit
in with the surroundings at all, but in some way it was right for her. Lillemor was not like other people. He rang the doorbell.

‘Well, now, is it you, Rake? What a nice surprise. In the name of Light and Love, welcome!’

Rake rather lost his composure as a result of this unusual greeting, and he felt his entire body warming up. What a fantastic welcome. He immediately felt very, very wanted. She held out a
clothes hanger and he fumbled quite a long time before finally he managed to get his overcoat on it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that she was wearing a bright-red silk blouse, a short black
skirt, red leg-warmers and high-heeled shoes.

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

‘Err, yes please,’ Rake answered and breathed in the sweet smell of incense in the room. He smiled like an idiot and felt as though he was at a school dance and was just about to ask
the prettiest girl in class to dance. They went into the living room, and when Lillemor asked him to sit down at the dining table, his clumsiness abated. He straightened his cravat, ran his fingers
through his hair and said:

‘What a nice blouse you’re wearing.’

‘Oh goodness, this? I always wear it when I tell fortunes.’

He could see that she was blushing. ‘It’s nice having you as a neighbour,’ Rake went on. ‘I’ve thought a great deal about what you said. About my future, that
is.’

‘Ah yes, your future,’ Lillemor said, and fetched the teapot. She put two teacups on the table and brushed against his hand as she did so. It seemed to Rake that she had done it on
purpose, but he wasn’t really certain. Somewhat absentmindedly, he sipped his tea, wondering why it tasted a bit funny. She must have noticed.

‘Ginger. It does you the world of good,’ Lillemore explained. ‘Ginger, a bit of milk and cinnamon. I always have that in the tea when I want to cosy up.’

‘Cosy up?’ Rake repeated, with a hopeful note in his voice.

‘Yes, when you huddle up on the sofa, read a book and feel really good.’

‘A book, yes, right, of course. I play computer games . . .’ Rake started saying, but stopped himself at the last moment. Instead he tried to recall the title of the last book he had
read, but couldn’t think of it. It was sort of such a long time ago.

‘Now, Rake, do you want me to tell your fortune again?’ Lillemor asked and put her hand over his. Rake shuffled his feet and hardly dared look at her. He had thought for a long while
about what excuse he could have to be able to visit her – not just this once, but often – and in the end settled on the idea that he was seeking guidance in the world of the Tarot
cards.

‘I know that it’s mainly women who read Tarot cards, but I’m so curious. Can you teach me to tell fortunes?’