Barbara’s days became all the more stressful. What she really needed was more staff at Diamond House, but every time she broached the subject Ingmar said he was sorry but they couldn’t spend so much money.
‘You see, my darling,’ he explained, ‘if Diamond House becomes even more profitable, then we can open more retirement homes. Then, sweetie, I will be rich.’
We will be rich, she thought, but didn’t say it out loud. Instead, she proposed several ways to cut costs to make him happy. She was even a bit ashamed of one of her suggestions.
‘If we make the present staff redundant and then employ immigrants instead, we can give them lower wages. They won’t dare grumble but will be glad to have a job,’ she had ventured, uncertain as to how he would react.
‘My darling, you are wonderful,’ he had answered, and from that day on he had regarded her with new eyes. She could sense his respect, and now she felt not only like his woman, but also like his business partner.
She smiled to herself. She was getting close to her goal, and much faster than she had expected.
Fifty-Four
‘We must be granted temporary release soon, don’t you think?’ Martha said one day when she was washing up after lunch. The rain had stopped, and she and her friends intended to take a walk. It had been the rainiest summer for decades, and now and then Martha found herself worrying about the banknotes in the drainpipe. She prayed that Rake had sealed the garbage bags as well as he had claimed, and that the tarred ropes would bear the weight. Nobody had been able to check them, since they hadn’t yet been granted any temporary release, and now more than six months had passed.
‘No release this week either, but don’t you worry, Martha. The money will be waiting for us when we get out,’ said Anna-Greta, and she put a dirty serving dish in the sink. Martha squeezed some more dishwashing liquid into the sink, and while she scraped the dish clean she thought about how calm and harmonious Anna-Greta had become. While she herself worried about the future, Anna-Greta played the gramophone or sewed prison clothes together with the others in the sewing workshop.
In no time, Anna-Greta had become popular among the inmates. Particularly when she described the various types of bank accounts and money transfers available.
‘I like being here because the girls have respect for my knowledge,’ said Anna-Greta. ‘They listen to me in a totally different way than at the bank.’
That I can believe, Martha thought, but didn’t say it out loud.
Christina, too, was satisfied. She was often in the workshop, where they made screen prints on T-shirts. Every day, she talked about some new slogan that a trendy advertising agency had thought up. Sometimes the rhymed slogans sounded just too silly, and Martha wondered if they really had been printed on the T-shirts. Then Christina admitted that the slogans could have been used, but that she had actually made them up herself. Her silly rhyming slogans became quite tiresome, and she didn’t stop until the workshop got a large order from a Russian company. She couldn’t rhyme those words at all.
Martha felt quite comfortable in the prison too, although sometimes it was odd to have so many criminals around you. None of the inmates actually admitted that they had committed crimes, but they had obviously done something to end up in jail. The worst part was that the most heinous criminals lorded it over the others. Like Liza, for example. Martha gave a start when the serving dish slipped into the water.
‘I won’t be calm until we have given the paintings back and recovered the money,’ she sighed, scrubbing the dish with a brush.
‘But Martha, the money in the drainpipe won’t run away,’ Christina consoled her. ‘It might drip away.’
‘There is no hurry, surely. We’re doing nicely here, I think,’ Christina went on. ‘It’s such fun doing screen printing, and we don’t have to visit the gym in secret.’
‘Exactly,’ Anna-Greta chirped in. ‘I can play my Swedish gospel music as much as I like. Have you thought about that, girls? That if prisoners have it as good as this, then old people in retirement homes ought to have the same?’
‘Of course,’ said Christina.
‘Abroad they have more respect for the elderly. In some places you can be president after you’re seventy,’ said Martha.
‘Here in Sweden you get put aside when you are fifty,’ said Anna-Greta. ‘We aren’t worth anything. On the news yesterday, some pensioners complained about how they couldn’t cross at traffic lights in time before the lights switched back to red. Then the civil servant responsible said that they certainly could cross in time, because the office had estimated the time needed.’
‘Bring the guy here, and I’ll push my walker right into his crotch,’ said Martha. ‘No, when I come to think of it, that isn’t enough. For that, we need a proper wheelchair.’
‘I know what,’ said Anna-Greta suddenly. ‘We can turn the whole thing upside down. We can turn all the retirement homes into prisons, and all the prisons into retirement homes.’
‘That would be a pity for the prisoners,’ said Christina.
Silence reigned in the room for a long time while they all reflected upon this. Martha put her brush aside and looked at the others.
‘Now listen! We managed to change our own situation, didn’t we? It’s high time we started helping others.’
‘But the millions in the drainpipe won’t go very far,’ said Anna-Greta.
‘You know what? Yesterday the clergyman was here with a new poem from Brains. It was some sort of utopian poem about a robbery. The idea was that you didn’t commit the crime yourself, but just got hold of the money afterwards.’
‘Ready money, I like that.’ Anna-Greta smiled.
‘No, no more crimes,’ Christina protested. ‘I’m longing to see Rake.’
‘But it’s not us who are going to commit the crime, Christina. We shall only take care of the money afterwards,’ said Martha.
‘Well, it seems we have a new business idea,’ Anna-Greta commented. ‘Stealing stolen money …’
‘Commit a crime, and you’ll feel in your prime,’ Christina tittered.
‘Precisely, we must think big, otherwise the money won’t be enough for investments in our country’s accommodation for the elderly,’ said Martha. ‘Brains mentions it in his poems. He’s got something in the pipeline.’
‘But what do the guards have to say about that?’ wondered Anna-Greta.
‘Pah, everything he writes is between the lines. It’s about a bank robbery, girls. Not the perfect crime, but the ultimate crime.
‘As long as we don’t lose the old guys on the way,’ said Christina.
‘Or the money,’ Anna-Greta added.
Martha pulled the plug out of the sink and hung up the brush.
‘But we have at least learned a little since last time, haven’t we?’
The others agreed about that, and when Martha had wiped the kitchen sink they fetched their coats and went out to the grounds. While they walked along the path they had a lively discussion about the future. One of the secrets of a happy life, they concluded, was to have something to look forward to. And the ultimate crime, what could be better than that?’
At breakfast the next day, they discovered that Liza’s place was empty.
‘Isn’t Liza coming?’ Martha wondered.
‘Haven’t you heard the latest?’ one of the girls answered. ‘She got a temporary release yesterday and hasn’t come back. She’s at large.’
Martha stopped in her tracks. Her hand shook, and without noticing it she spilt hot porridge on the table.
Fifty-Five
‘Have you seen a curly haired girl who chews gum?’
The chief barman at the Grand Hotel stopped Petra on her way into the elevator with her cleaning trolley. She was busy with the last of the Flag suite and only had the floor to do. She halted. A curly haired girl?
‘No.’
‘The woman was in her mid-thirties, I should think. She talked about cleaning and wondered if she could
get some work experience here. I told her to see the housekeeper.’
‘Why didn’t she go directly to her?’
‘A lot of people ask at the bar first. She wondered what it was like working at the hotel and if I knew who cleaned here.’
‘Inquisitive type.’
‘She wanted to get in touch with one of the cleaning staff, so I thought that if you—’
‘Forget it, I’ve got another exam coming up soon. She can talk to somebody else.’
‘It was perhaps stupid, but I gave her your name. You are always so good with people.’
‘Well, tell her to contact somebody else, anyway. Sorry.’
Petra went into the elevator and on her way up to the Flag suite wondered who the curly haired girl could be. Then she shrugged her shoulders, wheeled the trolley into the suite and got out the vacuum cleaner. After a while she forgot the whole thing.
Liza hurried out from the underground and looked around her. She turned her back on the light blue university buildings and started to walk towards the student residences. During the last few days she had sneaked in and out of the Grand Hotel and mingled with the cleaning staff but had still not found any paintings. She had been about to give up when the chief barman had mentioned a temporary cleaner who studied art history. Then she had asked, ‘How can I get in touch with her? Perhaps we can share a full-time job.’
The chief barman had said that he couldn’t provide any personal details, but she had already felt his gaze. It was the usual. He looked more at her low-cut top than at her face. Without hesitating, she asked him for a cigarette, took an alluring step forwards and put her hand on her hip.
‘Is there a decent hotel somewhere nearby which isn’t too expensive?’ she asked.
The chief barman polished the same wine glass for the second time.
‘You’ve got af Chapman, the youth hostel on the ship, and there are some cheap places in the suburbs.’
‘But the youth hostel is full, and hotels in the suburbs … do you really think so?’ she said, sitting on one of the bar stools. She elaborately crossed one leg over the other and pulled her skirt up so that it got caught on the edge of the seat of the stool.
‘Hang on, I’ll give you a hand,’ said the chief barman. He fiddled a long time with the cloth of her skirt before managing to free it. ‘Incidentally, perhaps I can arrange something cheap for you in the annex. If I do, you must be out of there before the construction workers start at seven in the morning.’
‘As long as it isn’t too expensive.’
‘Nothing is free,’ he said and winked.
After he finished work in the evening, he went to see Liza in the annex, and the next morning she knew the names of all the cleaners at the hotel. A few days later she even got hold of the name of the temporary cleaner who lived in the Frescati student residences and studied at the National Library. Liza had a hunch about this girl, so she tried to find out as much information about her as she could. Petra Strand was in the habit of sitting in the library until it closed, and she didn’t come home until about six. Liza looked at her watch: it was half past four so she had plenty of time. After a while she reached the address and found the girl’s name on a door down a corridor on the second floor. Liza checked that she was alone in the corridor, then pushed her steel comb into the slit above the lock and twisted it. There was a click and the door opened.
Fifty-Six
Liza crept into a little room not much bigger than a cell at Hinseberg. There was a chair and an unmade bed, and a table with a pile of books. In front of the sofa on one side of the room was a little tea table and two armchairs. Above the armchairs hung two pictures of the king and the royal couple, and two smaller reproductions of old nymphs and angels. There was a noticeboard on the wall to the right with lots of Post-it stickers and a poster for this year’s student carnival. She picked up one of the books and started to browse. The History of Art. Just like the chief barman had said, the girl evidently studied art history. Liza opened the wardrobe door. There hung some trousers, blouses and skirts, and on the floor below them was a heap of shoes and boots. At the back of the wardrobe she caught a glimpse of some paintings. This got her excited and she pulled them out. They were reproductions, but so modern that she couldn’t tell what they represented. She shook her head and put them back in again. No Claude Monet or Auguste Renoir there, that was certain. She closed the wardrobe and started to look through the desk. The top drawer contained letters, pens, erasers, paper clips and a pair of scissors. In the next drawer were photographs and a packet of postcards. She quickly looked through them. Some views of Stockholm, the Vasa ship, the palace, the Grand Hotel and a bundle with art motifs. She went through them slowly. The last two cards showed the missing paintings. Why had the girl saved those? Liza looked up at the wall again and decided to turn the paintings over to see if there was anything on the back. She went up to the picture with the royal couple and carefully started to turn it round. Then she heard steps out in the corridor. The door to the bathroom was open and she just had time to nip in there and close it after her before a gang of rowdy young people stormed into the room. For a moment there was silence, and then somebody tried the door handle. ‘Petra, we know you are in there!’
Liza heard laughter and cries and then they all started singing: ‘Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday …’
Liza stood still in front of the mirror.
‘… Happy Birthday to you. Three cheers for Petra!’ There was another cry and whispering, and then somebody yanked the door open. Liza cowered.
‘What? Who the hell are you?’ The girl with the birthday cake leading the group took a step back and the others did too.
‘I was going to surprise her on her birthday,’ said Liza, putting her lipstick back in her handbag. ‘I’m her cousin.’
‘Are you? That’s cool!’
‘I’ve got an idea. Wait here in the room for Petra and I’ll go and meet her in the lobby,’ she went on and quickly walked past them before anybody could say a word. On her way down the stairs she saw a young girl with red hair and a rucksack over her shoulder. Perhaps this was her, but Liza didn’t dare hang around to find out. It was bad enough that she had been seen.
When she had got her breath back and was on her way into the city on the underground, Liza started thinking about the pictures. Perhaps she had been too optimistic expecting that she could find them. If they weren’t at the hotel, and none of the staff had them, then they were probably already out of the country. They might possibly have been hidden away in a cellar, or some attic or other, but she didn’t really think so. Surely it would be too risky to hide them there? Pity about that Petra girl. Liza had hoped that she would have understood the value of the paintings and taken care of them but she clearly didn’t have any taste. To have such fancy gilded frames around an ordinary portrait of the king and the royal couple seemed ridiculous. The frames were far too large too. No, she was certainly no art connoisseur. Liza huddled up on the seat. As she sat there she started thinking about the picture that she had started turning round. It had been surprisingly heavy and had a remarkably large frame. Perhaps there was something fishy about all of it.
Fifty-Seven
Cheated. There was no other word for it. For weeks, Brains had been trying to figure out how he could remove a tag from his ankle and put it back again without being found out. But just as he had solved the problem, he discovered that he wasn’t going to have a tag. Early one autumn morning, the door of his cell at the Täby prison was opened.
‘It’s time now. You’re going to be moved on,’ said the warder.
Brains, who had been lying down reading, struggled to a sitting position.
‘What? Moved on? How?’
‘You are done here, and you’ll be going to an open prison. After that it’ll be home to the wife.’
Thoughts crashed into each other inside his head. Home? He saw Martha and Nurse Barbara in his mind’s eye because he didn’t have a real ho
me any longer. His wife had remarried and lived in Gothenburg, while his son had moved abroad after a failed marriage. He worked for the Red Cross in Tanzania, and Brains hadn’t seen him for nearly three years. Brains had retained his workshop in Sundbyberg, since he hoped that his son, one happy day, would take it over. But of course he couldn’t live there. Brains rubbed a finger under his nose and thought it over. If he couldn’t go back to Diamond House, then what would happen?
‘Rake, is he going to be let out too?’ Brains asked.
‘As soon as they have finished reviewing his case,’ the warder said.
Brains rubbed his nose again and tried to imagine his new life. But the only thing he saw before him was Martha and the money in the drainpipe.
‘At Asptuna open prison you’ll be able to acclimatize to your new freedom so that it will be easier to adjust to society,’ the guard went on.
‘I’ll be eighty. Better late than never,’ said Brains.
‘We’ve informed the transport section. You’ll be fetched in a few days.’
Yet again, he felt dizzy. Brains had felt pretty comfortable in prison, and if it hadn’t been for Martha and the others he would have had nothing against staying on there. Admittedly, the sound insulation had been rotten, and it had been damp at Täby, but here at least he got to help make the food, and it had been a delight to be able to work in a proper workshop. Above all, it had been edifying to meet people of all ages. He didn’t have to listen to all that talk about aches and pains and times gone by; here people talked about what was happening right now. The inmates had such exciting plans for the future. He often listened to them during breaks. Primarily he tried to analyze how they had gone about things when they had succeeded with their crimes, and what had gone wrong when they had failed. The thought of the ultimate crime had not left him. And that, of course, included not getting caught.
The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules Page 23