‘Well, well I never . . .’ he said and when she asked what he meant, she didn’t get an answer. He just shook his head, pushed the books away as if they were carrying the plague, and muttered something about being in a hurry. In two quick strides he was out in the hall and in one swift movement he had slammed the door and was gone.
‘Goodness me, he was suddenly in rather a hurry,’ said Martha.
‘Next time why not suggest that Mad Angels have their annual general meeting here when the house is full of stolen goods?’ snorted Rake.
‘You know what, soon I’ll start thinking it was calmer at the retirement home,’ said Anna-Greta with a quick glance out into the yard. ‘That Tompa is a fishy character and he must have been suspicious when he saw the books. A criminal can smell out another criminal.’
‘We’re not criminals, we are simply generous pensioners,’ Martha protested.
‘Who are going to carry out a bank robbery tomorrow,’ sighed Brains. ‘But seriously, I think we can probably talk with Tompa. It’s one thing reading about crime, but committing a crime is something quite different. I don’t think he could have the slightest suspicion of what we are doing.’
‘Don’t be too sure. You should never say never,’ said Martha and she sank down on the kitchen chair. Her hands shook. During the round trip, Tompa had hinted that Bandangels might soon be admitted as members of the real Mad Angels. And even though they hadn’t got that far yet, she had seen the look in Tompa’s face. She had sensed a bottomless cold in those dark eyes. And from that moment, she knew: this man was dangerous.
When Tompa had taken off his jacket and come into the sitting room, the widescreen TV was blaring at full volume as usual. Jörgen had fallen asleep with the remote in his hand. He snored loudly but gave a start when Tompa came in.
‘Urrgh,’ Jörgen said by way of a greeting.
Tompa nodded, went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. There he put the milk carton next to the two others they already had.
‘There’s some more beer on the bottom shelf,’ mumbled Jörgen in the direction of the kitchen. He sat up and rubbed his eyes and looked sleepy when his mate came back with two cans of beer in his hand. ‘Well, what was it like?’
‘The milk trick worked fine. I got to see the house. Seems OK down there – except for the piles and piles of crime books.’
‘So they like crime, then?’
‘Looks like it. And they had mafia books and a book about Mad Angels.’
Jörgen burst out laughing and Tompa joined in. He opened a can of beer and flopped down on the sofa. While he drank, he glanced absentmindedly at the film on the TV.
‘But it makes you wonder. On the way past the garage I saw that Super-Grandpa had put two new seats in that minibus they have,’ he went on. ‘What if more old people are going to live there? If they like crime, they might start nosing around. They might fancy themselves as detectives.’
‘No, not a chance. They spend all their time indoors, right? I can’t really see why they even need their own minibus. Don’t they usually phone for taxis?’
‘Perhaps they don’t want to travel with others or have to wait for buses that never come on time. They are entrepreneurial types, that lot.’
‘Maybe we ought to keep an eye on them. The calmest of waters can suddenly turn stormy, you know.’
‘Take it easy, man. They are harmless old people.’
Tompa took a few big gulps of the beer, put his feet up on the coffee table again and turned up the volume of the TV. Then he changed his mind and lowered it with the remote. ‘You know what? The club premises – now we’ve put a floor in and painted it, we must fix it up so we can bring the rest of the gang here.’
‘All it needs is a few pictures on the walls and for us to get some nice furniture.’ Jörgen burped and put his feet up on the coffee table too.
‘And then we’ve got to clean out the garage and sheds so there’ll be room for everything.’
‘But what if our over-the-hill neighbours cotton on to what we’re up to?’
‘They won’t have a clue!’
Jörgen turned the volume of the TV up even further just as the baddie and his mates broke into a bank. The machine guns smattered. A bank robbery. It seemed that this kind of crime had become popular again.
17
Brains looked up towards the grey facade with SVENSKA HANDELSBANKEN written on it in large letters. Soon it would be time. He wandered around suspiciously close to the entrance and glanced at the double glass doors. It ought to work. The equipment in the Zimmer frame was ready and he had prepared himself well. But, nevertheless, a bank robbery was still a bank robbery. Martha always managed to make their activities sound so harmless but, they were, in fact, criminal acts. And his Zimmer frame might attract attention. It didn’t look like your run-of-the-mill kind as it had a much stronger construction. If anyone went up to it and lifted up the empty box in the basket, he could be found out. On the other hand, who would do that? No, in a society designed for thirty-five-year-olds, he could safely feel forgotten – and that was something that suited him perfectly just now.
Just a few more steps. He looked around him. No rain, no snow. You could see the stars and the moon on the wane over Humlegården Park. For a moment he worried about Rake and sincerely hoped that the fortune-teller’s nonsense hadn’t got a permanent hold of his friend, but then he consoled himself with the thought that they had, after all, managed to persuade Rake to join them. Rake had apologized and said that of course he would do his bit for the gang, and after a glass of cloudberry liqueur he was back to his old self again.
A Porsche swooshed past with the radio on at full volume and an old lady walked slowly and laboriously round the corner into Karlavägen. Brains waited until the coast was clear. He most certainly didn’t want any unnecessary witnesses. The street was empty again. Right, then, now it was time at last! There was a mat on the floor in the entrance lobby of Handelsbanken announcing that you were welcome inside. And he was going to go inside, but absolutely not in the way that the bank management had intended. His wrinkled hand inside his mitten felt for the button on the Zimmer frame handle and then pressed it. With a thud, a home-made battering ram shot out from underneath the Zimmer frame and went straight into the door of the bank.
The prosthesis, reinforced with steel, met its target and made a hole in the door. Brains took a few unsteady steps forward to catch the hard-to-steer walking aid. But the engine didn’t turn off like it should have; instead it was so strong that the Zimmer frame spun round a few times before the alarm in the bank went off. The racket gave Brains a jolt. And that’s supposed to be bullet-proof glass, he mused when he saw the size of the hole in the glass door and the bits of broken glass below it. He hastily pressed the handle of the Zimmer Frame again and the prosthesis quickly retracted back under the basket of the Zimmer Frame, parking itself with a click. Brains was really proud of his new invention, which had been inspired by a computer game about sea battles during antiquity. In those days, the ships had a pointed battering ram right at the front and then they rowed at full speed into the enemy boats and tried to sink them. Of course his invention wasn’t quite in that class, but he was pretty sure it would confound the police. No unnecessary fingerprints here, no way. Or as Martha had put it, an artificial leg is a lot more effective than fake guns.
Brains raised his hat and set off down the street in the direction of Stureplan, before turning towards Humlegården Park again. The alarm made such a shockingly loud noise that just then he was happy he wasn’t a professional criminal – you could get tinnitus for less!
Some distance away, Martha had noted when Brains raised his hat and she pulled out her mobile phone. She quickly punched in 112. When they answered, she shouted into the phone as loud as she could.
‘The alarm has gone off at Handelsbanken on the corner of Sturegatan and Karlavägen. It’s a bank robbery, Constable. Come at once!’
She put the phone back in her
bag and followed Brains into the park. At the other end of the park, outside the National Library, stood a regular ambulance along with a military vehicle with a large red cross on it – an ambulance bus. Anders was waiting for them there.
‘Nobody saw me borrow this,’ he said with a wide grin as he patted the military vehicle on the bonnet. ‘The security at Karlberg Castle isn’t very efficient. The army is not as attentive as it ought to be,’ Anders added, as he opened the back doors.
‘Suits us fine,’ said Brains and he rolled in his Zimmer frame. When he had done that, Anders handed over a small Christmas tree. The needles had all dropped off but somehow it still had its decorations. With the tree in one hand and Martha in the other, Brains set off back through the park towards the bank. He stood up on Flora’s Rise with Martha by his side so they would have a good view of what was happening. Not far away, Rake, Christina and Anna-Greta had already taken up positions, pretending to be scared observers. Now and then they looked at each other while they waited, but they were careful not to stand too near to one another. The League of Pensioners had consisted of five members, and even though they now jokingly called themselves Outlaw Oldies to try and disguise their identities, they hadn’t forgotten that they were still on the Wanted list.
Meanwhile, Anders locked the military ambulance bus and went into the smaller ambulance where Emma was already sitting behind the wheel.
‘Well, then, now we only have to wait,’ said Emma and she felt in her pocket for her packet of cigarettes. Luckily, she had managed to get a babysitter and didn’t have to worry about little Malin. Emma couldn’t reach her cigarettes. Then she remembered that she shouldn’t have any cigarettes and nor should she smoke now. Why hadn’t she thought of bringing along nicotine chewing gum? The activities of her mother and her friends did make her rather nervous.
Up on Flora’s Rise the atmosphere was charged too.
‘So far, not a sign of Securitas or the police. It’s like we thought. Five minutes ought to be enough for the robbery,’ Martha noted. Six minutes after the alarm had sounded, a police car arrived on the scene. It came up Sturegatan, turned right into Karlavägen and stopped outside Handelsbanken. Martha put her hand on Brains’s arm.
‘Oh, isn’t it exciting! Just like in a film,’ she said. ‘But, of course, this is for real.’
Equally enthusiastic, Brains took her hand. It felt so nice and cosy here in the cold. Yes, with Martha by his side he always felt so much stronger.
A police constable got out of the car and went up to the broken door. The uniformed officer leaned down and examined the hole in the double glass. Then he spoke into his mobile phone.
‘He’ll be telling them that somebody has kicked a hole in the door,’ said Brains with a low, cackling laugh. ‘If only he knew that it was an artificial leg!’
‘Made of steel!’ Martha added.
The next moment, a Securitas van drove up and two guards got out, unlocked the door and entered the bank. They turned off the alarm and the two men and the policeman talked for a while. They were shaking their heads as if to indicate that there was nothing to be concerned about, before returning to their vehicles and driving away.
‘Perfect,’ Martha muttered and she raised her hat twice, before putting it back on her head again. Anna-Greta noticed the signal and waited another six minutes before she came out from among the trees. Calm and composed, she crossed over Sturegatan to the pavement on the other side. Christina quickly looked all around her, and just as she passed the bank she pretended to slip on a patch of ice and fell helplessly backwards against the door. Christina had, of course, protested at having to fall down again, but they had all insisted that nobody could fall down better than her, and in the end she had given in. She landed elegantly on her back and was propped up by one arm. Martha had coached both her and the others in several different balancing exercises, so Christina was able to get back onto her feet quickly. When Anna-Greta got hold of the door, the alarm went off again and with her hands on the bottom of her spine she shuffled round the corner and disappeared down the street. Martha fished out her mobile phone and punched in 112 again.
‘Is this the police? You must come at once! The alarm is going at full blast here at Handelsbanken on Karlavägen. I think they are robbing the bank,’ she shouted into the phone. Then she put it back in her pocket and with a smile looked at Brains.
‘Now we’ll see how long it takes them this time.’
The League of Pensioners waited a while before they caught sight of a Securitas van heading at high speed towards the bank. Martha looked at her watch. Five minutes and thirty seconds. Then a police car slowed down outside the bank shortly afterwards. A constable lowered a side window and stuck his head out. The policeman briefly spoke to the Securitas man, not even bothering to get out, before he drove off again. Shortly afterwards, the alarm stopped and the Securitas van disappeared again too. Everything was as before, and the few curious people who had come to look at what was happening just shrugged their shoulders and hurried on. Martha glanced at her watch.
‘So far, so good,’ she said, but even she could hear that her voice sounded more tense than usual. ‘Now we only have to wait another fifteen minutes. Then bingo!’
It was beginning to feel really cold and the following minutes were the longest Martha had ever experienced. Time after time, she looked at her watch and found herself thinking too much about all the trouble she had caused. And now she had got her friends involved in something fishy once more. What if they ended up in prison again and couldn’t see each other for several years? And even if prison was a great deal better than a retirement home, they really were very comfortable in their big old house. Besides, Martha had heard that prisons were lowering their standards now too. She looked at her watch again. Sixty seconds to go. She took a firm grip of her wide-brimmed hat and started counting to herself. Then she nodded at Brains. He moved his head slightly in answer and took a firm grip of the little Christmas tree with its decorations and crackers still hanging on.
‘Well, then, Happy Christmas!’ Brains said cheerily and, dragging the Christmas tree behind him, he walked towards the entrance to Handelsbanken. Martha, Rake and Christina followed him but kept their distance. Just as he reached the entrance, he pretended to get his breath back while he leaned the decorated tree closely against the hole that the artificial leg had made. He discreetly loosened the specially prepared Christmas crackers and dropped them one after the other into the hole in the broken glass door. The Christmas decorations with their pictures of lit candles and smiling Santa Claus figures rolled around for a moment and then detonated in muffled explosions, followed by the sound of broken glass. Yet again, the alarm started up and even Anna-Greta, who was somewhat hard-of-hearing, could clearly hear it.
Upon hearing the shrieking alarm, Anna-Greta immediately pressed the quick-dial button to Anders and Emma after which she took a few steps towards the door, fell again, then put her hand to her chest, screaming. When she saw the first onlooker approaching, Anna-Greta squeezed a prepared bag of blood under her jumper and let the blood slowly seep out between her fingers. Then Martha phoned the police. She used the same pay-as-you-go SIM-card again, to make sure the police would disregard the call. She knew only too well that after the third phone call of the day, they would not be interested in what she had to say.
‘I bet one thousand kronor that the police won’t come this time,’ she mumbled to herself, but became silent when the police switchboard answered the call.
‘The alarm has gone off at Handelsbanken on the corner of Karlavägen and Sturegatan. You must come immediately,’ said Martha. ‘It’s a real bank robbery, the sort you see on the TV you see, Constable.’
She elaborated about all the villains who must have forced their way into the bank and how much money they could get their hands on with such a crime, and then she ended the call and fast-dialled Securitas.
‘This is Clara Johansson from the Internal Accounting department
at Handelsbanken on the corner of Karlavägen and Sturegatan,’ said Martha with a superior voice. ‘My code is 543JKL14 – yes, you’ve got that among your papers. Now the alarm has gone off again, the third time in a short period. This is a false alarm, I must inform you. You’ve already been here several times. Securitas is really ripping us off. Just because somebody has damaged the door, it shouldn’t mean that we have to pay thousands of kronor for you to come and switch the alarm off every time it goes off. We’re not going to pay for yet another visit. I’m going to personally turn the alarm off!’
Martha didn’t know if it would work; it was simply an extra security measure. Regardless, they would have at least five minutes and that should suffice.
‘Right, let’s go,’ said Martha. She took Brains’s hand in hers and squeezed it hard. ‘Now don’t get nervous, we’re going to manage this. Nobody in the history of the world has committed a crime like this. The police won’t have a clue as to what’s happened!’
‘Well, my dear, let’s hope so,’ said Brains and he tried to sound bold but his voice was shaky.
He had hardly said the words before they heard an ambulance approaching with its sirens wailing. Anders and Emma were on their way. The sound came closer and soon the ambulance screeched to a halt just outside the bank entrance. Martha and Brains went to meet it, and a few steps behind them came Rake and the others. Anders and Emma, disguised as ambulance paramedics, hurried out with stretchers and blankets, and with Brains’s help they discreetly picked the lock of the entrance door.
The stretchers looked just like any old ambulance stretcher, but if anyone had decided to take a closer look, they would have discovered the slight mounds in the middle. Under the carefully folded blankets lay two fully dressed shop-window mannequins, with overcoats, boots and all. Anders and Emma hurried inside the bank, and Martha just had time to notice the door mat with its message WELCOME TO HANDELSBANKEN. She smiled, muttered a ‘So nice of them indeed!’ and hurried in the direction of the bank vault. The alarm was still deafeningly loud, but not loud enough to block out the sound of detonations from the train-tunnel builders somewhere underneath them. At that very same moment, there was also a series of powerful explosions down in the vault where Brains had lit a smoke bomb and some very large Christmas crackers. Grinning red Santa Claus figures, blackened candles and bits of paper flew in every direction while the smoke slowly spread out. Brains wasn’t as good at pyrotechnics as he was at mechanics, but he could read technical drawings and the charges inside the Christmas crackers did the trick. The iron bars and the door with its steel hinges fell to the ground with a crash. Martha, Rake and Christina – coughing somewhat – made their way down the stairs and into the vault. Without wasting any time, they quickly collected the money from the security boxes which lay broken on the floor.
The Little Old Lady Who Struck Lucky Again! Page 11