The Little Old Lady Who Struck Lucky Again! (25 page)

Blomberg felt a shiver go down his back. This was a different world, one which he didn’t fit into. But having gone this far, he must go on.

‘We take twenty-five per cent as a commission and that includes administration and storage costs,’ Birgerson churned on. ‘On the other hand, you avoid tax and detailed
questions from nosey authorities, and we take care of everything. Like I said, it’s good business for both of us. And anything you store here will be safe. We have security staff and the
whole area is wired up with alarms.’

When Blomberg drove home that afternoon, he had the car radio on full volume. He sang along with Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’ while he drummed his fingers on the
steering wheel in time with the music. His meeting with Birgerson had gone off well despite everything, and after their visit to the harbour they had gone through everything once again in the legal
firm’s office and they had given him some insider tips about suitable cars and boats to buy, and also suggested he should invest in established artists whose paintings were steadily
increasing in value. When he sold his investments, the firm would put the money into various accounts in New Jersey and the West Indies. So this was how the big boys did it. Blomberg’s face
was one big smile. He would never again have to worry about money. Those IT courses he had gone on had finally turned out to be very profitable!

By the time he had stepped into his flat, and was met by a meowing Einstein, other thoughts began to make themselves felt. Seeing as he had so much money now, perhaps he could
share some of it? He could donate to the homeless too. He got out a tin of cat food but stopped when he saw the red label announcing a special price. He always bought food and cat litter when it
was on special offer, but on these tins he saw that the best-before date had passed. He hoped Einstein wouldn’t notice. He put some spoonfuls of Whiskas in a dish and poured some water into
the bowl next to it. The cat trotted expectantly up to the dish with his tail in the air, but once he sniffed at the old food he turned his back on it and demonstrated his dissatisfaction by going
and lying down on Blomberg’s bed. Damned cat! Blomberg thought, how the hell could the creature read the labels?

He returned to his ponderings. Why should he give his money away? After all, he had struggled his whole life. No, no way! Now he was going to have some fun, see his capital grow, and be
successful.

Pleased with his decision, he went into his bedroom and looked forward to a night’s well-earned sleep. Einstein wasn’t on the bed any longer; he had moved into the cat basket.
Blomberg yawned, put on his pyjamas and got ready to slip between the sheets. But just as he was about to do so, he stopped abruptly. Yesterday’s cat food had also been a bargain buy and
Einstein had got his revenge.

It was now high time to do something. The League of Pensioners had no money left and things were looking really bad for many retirement homes. The moment had come when Martha
would have to inform everybody about their precarious situation. To lessen the shock she had chosen one of Stockholm’s best coffee shops, Delselius in Gustavsberg. Failures and
disappointments must be presented when people have their stomachs full. Even Julius Caesar had operated in the same way.

Cheesecake with a base made from dinkel flour, Dutch chocolate layer cake, the Schwarzwald classic, and, to top it all, some large portions of sumptuous strawberry cream cake. Martha looked
longingly at all the tasty offerings, but she had no appetite at all. Her tummy seemed to be tying itself into knots, as if she was getting a bug. She looked on as the others drank their coffee and
enjoyed their cakes; she couldn’t even manage a crumb. In the end, she had to speak out. She put her coffee cup down and, forcing herself to be calm, said:

‘I realize that this is going to come as a shock, but we’ve no money left in the kitty. There’s nothing there, nothing at all,’ she said with an uncharacteristically
shaky voice.

‘What are you saying? Nothing in the kitty? That can’t be true.’ Rake shook his head and demonstratively pushed his plate aside, with half of the strawberry cream cake uneaten.
‘Nobody has stolen so much in such a short time as we have. No, the money can’t be all gone, that’s simply not possible!’

‘Sssh!’ Christina hissed and looked around anxiously.

Martha managed to produce a little smile, and fidgeted with her serviette.

‘I’m terribly sorry, but it doesn’t look good at all. We won’t, of course, give up looking for the golf bag or the money that disappeared on the Internet, no indeed not,
we’ll make sure we get that capital back one way or the other, but what we need now is cash.’

Yes, it really was as bad as that. Not only was the mannequin missing, but the Las Vegas money was also lost. And during her outings as an inspector from the Ministry of Health’s control
unit for standards in retirement homes, Martha had seen even more cutbacks in spending in the places she had visited. To save electricity, the managers had turned off every other light in the
corridors and now the old people could hardly see where they were going. That had made Martha so furious that she had immediately asked Anna-Greta to put in an order for ten boxes of one
hundred-watt light bulbs that Emma then delivered to the various homes. But, of course, just ordering new light bulbs wasn’t enough. There was so much else to be done. Martha plucked up
courage to have her say:

‘It’s high time we struck again! The money that we put so much hard work into collecting, that is all gone and we can’t wait until we have traced it. We must fill the kitty
now!’

So far everyone except Martha had been eating their fill, but suddenly the others, too, seemed to lose all their enthusiasm for the pastries and cakes.

‘We do actually have some other problems too,’ said Brains, who thought that he should use this opportunity. He told them about the powder that had been hidden behind the
photographs.

‘White powder?’ Martha almost choked. ‘So Mad Angels haven’t just gone off with our five million. You’ve been stealing drugs from them by mistake too.’

‘Yes, I suppose you could put it like that,’ said Brains and he became bright red in the face. ‘Mind you, I didn’t steal it; I just couldn’t resist that fantastic
picture of my old motorbike.’

‘You must give it back to them immediately. Thou shall not steal!’ said Martha as though she really meant it.

‘I’m not sure we ought to have an opinion on that,’ Rake muttered.

‘Pah, we only steal from the rich to give to the poor,’ said Martha. ‘And we don’t charge anything for it, unlike the banks.’

‘And we don’t lend money either.’ Brains followed in the same vein, but stopped himself abruptly when he remembered the money in the mannequin.

‘Besides, we only occupy ourselves with
real
money and not those immaterial loans. If only we could learn how to keep it as well, though,’ said Anna-Greta with a deep
sigh.

Martha nodded, reached for the coffee pot, and filled their cups. Even though there were certain risks in them being seen out together so soon after the bank robbery, they must enjoy themselves
too. Martha had also come to realize that she did rather push the others, so the least one could expect was that she would arrange some nice get-togethers. It was just a pity that she had such bad
news. However, she tried never to serve bad news without adding something hopeful at the end. Something which pointed towards a solution. She and Brains had actually discussed this. They had sat up
until late the previous evening and sketched various ideas that might provide a way out from this precarious situation. They had put together a plan. Although, as for that powder that Brains had
acquired by mistake, well she couldn’t face thinking about that at all. Perhaps she ought to be sensitive and diplomatic and say something like, ‘Dear friends, you’ve worked hard
but unfortunately we must carry out another robbery. The biggest we’ve ever done.’ But she didn’t dare say that. Not yet. She put her serviette to one side and cleared her
throat.

‘Now the thing is, as I said earlier, we don’t have much cash left and that rather restricts us.’

‘No wonder, the way we splash out! We either lose it or it gets stolen,’ Christina stated. ‘Our local fortune-teller, Lillemor, could perhaps find out where it’s all
gone?’

Rake pretended not to hear.

‘And, in fact, we’ve lost more than you think. That stuff that the Bandangels had in their raffle was from our latest order,’ said Anna-Greta. But instead of being angry, they
all smiled. Rake and Brains had told them about the prizes and all that had happened with the bikers.

‘It’s strange that the driver muddled up our delivery with the one that should have gone to Diamond House. You should have seen when one of their leaders held up his Lady Wings and
thought they were motor-cycle gloves!’

A certain merriment spread round the table.

‘Considering how many of our millions have disappeared, then a few boxes are neither here nor there,’ Martha said. ‘But the mannequin is quite another matter.’

‘Quite unbelievable! We were just on our way out when a guy grabbed it off us. I’ve no idea how we can get it back now,’ Brains bemoaned the situation.

Anna-Greta had been silent for a while, but couldn’t restrain herself any longer. She put her cup of hot chocolate down.

‘Never, in all my days at the bank, did I experience losses like this.’

‘But listen, during economic crises ten million times as much vanishes. What we’ve lost is nothing in comparison,’ Gunnar chipped in.

‘Yes, and banknotes have a tendency to fly off, while gold . . .’ began Martha, who was discreetly preparing them mentally for the next robbery.

‘Unless the money goes off on a motorbike, of course,’ Brains added.

‘Perhaps we should borrow some money?’ Anna-Greta suggested, her many years of service in the bank having left their mark. ‘With a low interest rate . . .’

‘
Borrow!
Are you out of your mind?’ Rake exclaimed. ‘That is pure ROBBERY! We could do with our own gold reserve!’

‘Exactly! And gold doesn’t so easily go astray like diamonds or money,’ said Martha and she glanced at the others to see their reaction. ‘I thought that—’

‘You’ve never thought of trading with oil, have you?’ Rake cut her off. ‘Then at least there’s time to relax between deliveries.’

‘Gold or oil. Same difference. Before we can retire properly, we must have five hundred million for the Robbery Fund. We all agreed on that. We’ll simply have to exert ourselves
again. Ever since the bank robbery, I’ve actually been thinking about a new coup. And one that would outshine all others.’

‘Weren’t we going to sit here and relax?’ Christina interrupted her, licking a bit of whipped cream off the corners of her mouth.

‘Exactly! We can’t bloody well carry out a robbery every week!’ Rake added to the criticism.

‘Shush!’ Christina hissed anxiously, looking around, but luckily nobody had heard.

‘We still have money stuffed down the drainpipe at Grand Hotel? Can’t we try to get at that?’ Anna-Greta queried, being of the opinion that it was unforgivable to lose things
through carelessness.

‘We’ll rescue that money when the time is right, but now we need much more than that. Several hundred million – and I have a brilliant idea.’

‘Oh no, not again!’ moaned Rake. Martha lowered her voice.

‘If we can pull this off, then we can relax permanently afterwards, and we will have helped society too.’

‘Don’t you think you take too much upon yourself, Martha dear?’ said Brains, patting her tenderly on the back of her hand. ‘I mean with all this social welfare . .
.’

‘When the state forgets about people, then we must do our bit and intercede,’ Martha answered in a decisive tone. ‘We can actually help people in need, if only we put a bit of
effort into it. And you know what? This new coup is going to be great fun to carry out too!’

‘I can only echo the words of Margaret Thatcher,’ said Christina. ‘Money doesn’t fall down from heaven, you have to earn it here on earth. You’re quite right,
Martha, we must keep on working.’

‘Absolutely. Nobody feels good if they have too little to do, and since we will have to carry something heavy, we must increase our training sessions in the gym,’ Martha went on.
‘Besides, a bit of gymnastics will perk us up.’

‘A bit of whisky would, too,’ muttered Rake.

‘Oh goodness, you are a bit of a slave-driver, my dear,’ said Brains and he demonstratively put his hands on his tummy. ‘Gymnastics again. We’re all a bit tired you
know.’

‘But, Brains, we talked about this only yesterday,’ Martha argued. She looked from one to the other. They were observing her closely and she noticed a dangerous feeling of rebellion
in the air. She must not let it go any further.

‘We don’t have to do gymnastics and eat salad every day; we can come here and enjoy pastries a bit more often.’

‘Yes!’ they responded in unison and they each took yet another cake. Calm returned to the League of Pensioners. Martha looked thoughtfully down into her coffee cup and realized that
from now on she must proceed very, very carefully if she was going to get them to go along with her. Because she was never going to give up. She must do her bit. Just when Martha had relaxed and
was thinking of the journey home, and a relaxing evening which included a hot bath followed by a little rest on the sofa with a good book, Rake cleared his throat.

‘I’m going on robbery strike! Before I do anything else at all robbery related, I want to check that drainpipe,’ he said.

The following day, it was windy and it rained hard too, but, even so, the whole gang travelled to the Grand Hotel in Stockholm. Rake was really keen on following up the
drainpipe money, so they all went along with it as, when he was in a bad mood, everybody was affected. Christina phoned for a taxi and asked to be taken straight to the Grand Hotel. However, when
they reached the Old Town, they encountered problems straight away. The driver slowed down.

‘Sorry, we can’t go any further,’ he told them.