The Little Old Lady Who Struck Lucky Again!

by Ingelman-Sundberg, Catharina

  ‘We’re turning the alarm on now,’ said an officious type in his fifties.

  ‘No, Securitas are going to service the alarm system today. That’s why we’re doing the cleaning now,’ Rake replied and waved his mop.

  ‘I haven’t heard anything about that. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.’

  ‘No, we’re here now. Look for yourselves!’ Rake spouted on and fished out a piece of paper from his overalls, a document full of official stamps. Christina had been on top form and there was hardly an empty space on the whole sheet. ‘And anyway,’ Rake added, ‘at Senior Cleaners we always do the cleaning in the evening. You wanted us to be invisible, since you don’t like making a show of using cheap labour.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said the guard. ‘Just a moment, I’ll have a word with my colleague.’ He went off, but when he came back he arrogantly gestured towards the exit.

  ‘Sorry. You’ll have to come another time. I can’t take responsibility for this.’

  ‘You don’t need to,’ Rake replied with a glance at Brains. His friend didn’t look happy. At this point he would have to do something he didn’t like and which they had planned as an emergency measure if something went wrong. But now the time had come. Rake steered his trolley to one side and when the guard turned his back, Brains pushed a wet cleaning rag against his face. Two quick breaths of the ether and the guard sank to the floor. Rake hurried to fetch his colleague.

  ‘Your mate just collapsed.’

  The younger colleague saw his comrade lying lifeless on the floor, paled and rushed up to him. When he bent over, Brains was ready again.

  ‘Welcome to the party,’ he said and pressed the rag in the man’s face.

  ‘Wha . . . wa . . .’ the guard blurted out before he, too, collapsed in a heap on the floor. Then Rake got out his mobile to send a new text, but before he could send it off, Martha, Christina and Anna-Greta turned up. They nodded discreetly to their friends and walked determinedly towards the Gold Room. At the top of the stairs they went up to their pictorial stones, looked around, opened the back doors and stepped inside – all except Anna-Greta, who had left her spectacles at home and walked right into the real pictorial stone from Gotland.

  ‘Oh my goodness!’ she mumbled, somewhat groggy, and quickly switched to the stone next to it, the one in PVC plastic.

  ‘We ought to have put the pictorial stones a bit closer to the disability lift,’ Martha mumbled in a low voice from inside the cramped space. The plastic felt rough against her neck.

  ‘A good job we’ve got some breathing holes,’ Christina answered in a stressed voice from inside her stone, and she inhaled through the opening in an old Viking sail. ‘I hope the carbon dioxide level doesn’t get too high.’

  ‘When the police see the pictorial stones move they’ll think there is something wrong with the CCTV cameras,’ Anna-Greta guffawed and for the first time in the history of the museum a pictorial stone could be heard snorting.

  When they had each closed the door on the back of their pictorial stone and lowered the wheels, the three ladies rolled slowly and carefully towards the lift for the disabled. They tried to do it with jerky movements like in an old silent film to make it look as if the camera was wonky, so they couldn’t move very fast and Brains and Rake, with their Senior Cleaner caps, had soon caught up with them.

  ‘You can imagine how confounded the police are going to be,’ said Rake with a broad grin when he’d managed to squeeze his way into the lift with his cleaning trolley. ‘Ancient runic stones pursued by two cleaning trolleys . . .’

  ‘They’re called pictorial stones, not runic stones,’ Anna-Greta corrected him with her voice echoing inside the stone copy.

  ‘Shush! Keep your wits about you!’ said Christina in a hollow, half-dampened voice. ‘This crime requires concentration!’

  Her voice sounded so funny from inside the stone that they all simply had to laugh and it took a good while before they had pulled themselves together to such a degree that Brains could press the ‘Down’ button in the lift.

  When they reached the basement, Martha’s voice could be heard: ‘Have you got everything with you?’

  ‘Yes, even the smoke-grenades,’ said Rake holding up one of the bottles of cleaning fluid with its new contents.

  ‘Excellent, excellent,’ could be heard from inside the stones, as they navigated on their wooden wheels towards the Wishing Well in the Gold Room.

  ‘Are you ready?’ Rake said, with the bottle of cleaning fluid in his hand.

  Various sounds emanated from inside the stones and Rake interpreted them as a yes. The next moment, a smoke grenade was on its way down into the Wishing Well.

  39

  As soon as the smoke started to smart in their eyes, Brains regretted having taken along the smoke grenades. It would probably have been better with carbon dioxide snow, or why hadn’t they just drilled a few holes in one of the fire extinguishers? Now it was hard to see and it would be tricky to work fast. But of course it was too late to have second thoughts now. They only had a few minutes.

  Rake and Brains went off behind the display cases. Once there, Brains pulled out his new invention. Christina had pointed out that villains often gave themselves away by using the same modus operandi for every crime. So it was a question of doing something new and Brains had done his best in that respect. In the increasingly dense smog, the two men steered their cleaning trolleys in behind the display cases and set to work. Rake pulled out his battery-powered drill from the shaft of his sweeping brush, and started to systematically drill holes in the edge of the cases. Then Brains took over with his specially prepared mop. With a slight squeeze of his hand, the compass saw with its laser blade shot out and, to the accompaniment of a squeaking racket, he sawed up a large opening on the back of the cases. Then along came Martha, Anna-Greta and Christina, inside their pictorial stones. The magnificent ancient monuments slowly rolled along, turned their backs to the display case, and then doors were opened and arms with flabby flesh were exposed. There was very little time, and Martha and her friends didn’t waste it. With gloved hands they grabbed the gold and put it inside the black rubbish bags with the same number as the various display cases. Then they hung up the bags on the numbered hooks inside the stones. Thanks to the fact that the ladies had practised this manoeuvre several times in the workshop at home, it all went very smoothly, but perhaps that also made them a little blase. They were by no means as attentive as they ought to have been, and they didn’t notice the cracks in the PVC plastic. With each bag of gold the strain on the plastic became all the greater, and it started making cracking sounds. However, because the laser saw made such a dreadful racket, none of them heard the mysterious cracking in the plastic. They could hardly hear what they were singing.

  ‘Tiddelipom, tiddelipom,’ Martha hummed.

  Anna-Greta was singing to herself, a song about gold, and Christina something by Ernst Rolf. Indeed, the mood was good inside the pictorial stones and, thanks to the lowered wheels, the three inside could move very quickly. They emptied the display cases in the Gold Room in seven minutes exactly.

  ‘To the lift!’ Martha directed them in a panting voice from inside her stone, upon which the ladies rolled their stones back, closely followed by Brains and Rake. This time the ladies carelessly took a short cut across a slight threshold which resulted in the bags of gold shaking. This was too much for the PVC construction which cracked all over with a crash so that the stones collapsed.

  ‘Oops, they don’t seem to have hardened properly,’ said Brains, surrounded by a heap of plastic.

  ‘And I had such faith in you,’ Rake grumbled.

  ‘Oh my goodness, this really isn’t going according to plan!’ Anna-Greta complained in horror and she picked some bits of plastic out of her hair.

  ‘Now listen to me, hurry up! We must pick up the bits. It’s a good job we’ve got the cleaning trolleys,’ said Martha, spurring them on. ‘Don’t forget the gold!’

  Rake
and Brains joined in immediately and with amazing agility managed to fill the cleaning trolleys with the remains of the pictorial stones. Finally, Christina rushed up to the nearest fire extinguisher, loosened the catch and started to spray everything around her.

  ‘Christina, dear, we don’t need to hide fingerprints. We’re taking all the bits with us,’ Anna-Greta coughed. But Christina didn’t have time to answer, because just as they were putting the last of the bits of plastic in the cleaning trolleys they heard the police sirens.

  ‘The alarm was turned off!’ Brains shouted aghast.

  ‘Pah, there must have been a special alarm on the display cases that was connected directly to the police. Run!’ Martha spurred them on and with the cleaning trolleys full of gold and plastic they hastened towards the lift. But just as they had managed to squeeze in with the loot, Martha caught sight of something that Rake was holding under his arm.

  ‘Oh my God! The magnificent helmet from Vendel, you can’t take that. That is priceless and more than fourteen hundred years old!’

  ‘But it’s so incredibly stylish!’ Rake protested.

  ‘It makes no difference. Give me that. It’s part of our cultural heritage and is absolutely irreplaceable!’ Martha insisted, taking the helmet from him. ‘Run to the bus, you lot. I’ll soon join you,’ she went on breathlessly and turned back.

  ‘Just leave it outside the lift,’ said Brains, but Martha had already hurried away. He hesitated and was just about to press the button for the ground floor, when he realized they were already there. They must quickly get the cleaning trolleys out, and move towards the door instead. He trusted that Martha would come after them. They rushed towards the door but just as they were about to open it, they heard the sirens which were now very close. Outside, two cars screeched to a halt. Brains peeped out carefully and saw that the police and the men from the Securitas van were already on their way up the steps. When they had disappeared, he nodded to the others and silently and discreetly the four went out with the cleaning trolleys along to their bus which was parked further down the street.

  ‘Uff, that was a close one,’ said Rake when they loaded in the cleaning trolleys and closed the back doors. ‘But where on earth is Martha?’

  With the invaluable helmet under her arm, Martha ran into the Gold Room again in a boiling rage. Rake’s folly was endangering the entire robbery. They had agreed about the gold, but this was a helmet made of iron and bronze and, besides, it was unique – there was nothing like it anywhere else in the world. She must put it back in the display case again so that it didn’t get damaged. The first case on the left, there it was; she went in from the rear and put the helmet back. Weird, she thought, why were men always so fascinated by guns, swords and helmets? Was it because of having done military service, or was it in their genes and in the way they were brought up? Men must have a warrior gene, she concluded, and she rushed back to the lift where she had her big bag with the floral pattern. Then she realized that she was already on the ground floor and rushed towards the main door. She wrenched it open, hurried out and ran straight into the arms of two policemen.

  40

  Oh, this is nice! Martha looked around her in the beautifully furnished room at the police station where the fittings and colours were well thought out down to the tiniest detail. This sort of nicely designed interior was something you usually only saw on the morning TV programmes; indeed, all that was lacking was a few candles. A pity that she had been taken here on account of decidedly compromising circumstances – it would have been more pleasant to sit here and enjoy it all in peace and quiet. She fluffed up her hair and pulled her floral cloth bag closer. It made her feel safer. The police hadn’t wanted to give it to her, but then she had said that she must have it with her or else she might die from a sudden heart attack. You shouldn’t upset an old lady, she explained, and waved her finger at them. Nobody dared say she was wrong.

  The constable had interrogated her for a whole hour but she hadn’t revealed anything. She had just talked about the weather and the lovely furnishings in the room and praised Blomberg for his excellent taste. She had commented upon the nice colours in the room and, time after time, pointed to the cosy footstool beside the armchair. Most beautiful of all was the aquarium; she exclaimed now and then with increasingly eager gestures – such nice little stones and plants and what lovely goldfish! In between she pretended to be confused and she had done this for such a long time that she was absolutely exhausted. Blomberg thumbed through his papers.

  ‘What a lovely aquarium, Constable!’ Martha repeated yet again and smiled. She noticed how the gravel in the bottom of the tank glimmered quite incredibly. Just like diamonds.

  ‘Now, listen to me. The aquarium is not mine, it belongs to Carlsson, my colleague. We are talking about gold, not goldfish. Somebody has stolen gold from the Historical Museum.’

  ‘Oh, that’s naughty!’

  ‘What were you doing at the Historical Museum in the middle of the night?’ Blomberg looked rather grim.

  ‘I was looking for my husband. The alarm went off so I rushed inside to see if he was there.’

  ‘In the middle of the night?’

  ‘That’s when women look for their husbands.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Escort girls! That’s all I’m saying. You do know about that, constable?’

  Blomberg found himself blushing but he couldn’t prevent it.

  ‘Somebody has broken into the display cases in the Gold Room. How do you explain that?’

  ‘Oh good, did you find my husband there?’

  ‘We’re dealing with a crime investigation. This is serious.’

  ‘Love is serious. Always. You have such beautiful eyes, Constable.’

  To his great annoyance, Blomberg blushed again.

  ‘That isn’t what we were talking about.’

  ‘Don’t try to worm your way out. Are you married?’

  ‘You are under suspicion of stealing gold from the display cases in the Gold Room.’

  ‘You don’t say, Constable. I’m so pleased, are we going to live there together?’

  Chief Inspector Blomberg groaned, wiped the perspiration off his brow and didn’t know what he should do. Then Martha got up without warning and went across to the aquarium.

  ‘Well I never, this is really nice. Can I take some fish with me?’

  ‘What are you talking about, woman!’

  ‘But just look – goldfish! Are these the ones that were stolen?’

  Martha’s ensuing laugh was so shrill that Blomberg simply couldn’t take any more. Not another second with this confused old lady. He put his file to one side.

  ‘I think we shall have to do this interview another day.’

  ‘Well, that would be nice indeed. Are we going to meet again? Then I can bring some food for the fish.’

  Blomberg smothered a sigh, and went across to Martha to help her up. Then she bounced up like a spring and hugged him so suddenly that he fell backwards.

  ‘What a lovely time we’ve had together.’

  ‘I think it would be best if I phoned for a taxi,’ said Blomberg.

  ‘Yes, do that, Constable, but I want to be driven in a racing car,’ Martha teased him. Blomberg pretended not to hear, and called a colleague who guided Martha out of the room. Next to the lift she bumped into a plump, middle-aged policeman with a modern haircut.

  ‘Now who was that?’ Martha asked, because she thought she had seen him before somewhere.

  ‘It’s that Carlsson,’ said the young police officer who now escorted Martha into the lift. They went down to the ground floor, and then the officer helped her to go out to the taxi that had already been booked by the police.

  ‘Sture Spa in the city centre,’ Martha said to the driver. She wasn’t going to let a taxi arranged by the police take her home. No, most certainly not. Christina had taught her a lesson or two about leaving a false trail.

  Up in his room, Blomberg sighed as he sank down in
his chair again. He looked out of the window and wondered what he should do now. He hadn’t managed to get a single sensible word out of the old girl. But she was a kind old dear and he couldn’t find it in himself to get really angry with her. It couldn’t be easy growing old, and she hadn’t grumbled and complained. No, she was just happy and confused.

  Some rapid steps could be heard from the corridor, and customs officer Carlsson entered the room. He looked excited.

  ‘Blomberg, you know what? That elderly lady – I’ve seen her before!’

  41

  The boss of Mad Angels, Olle Marling, went into the clubhouse for a beer. He took a can of Carlsberg from the bar counter, took a few gulps, then put it down on the nearest table. Then he caught sight of the shop dummy. A nice trophy that, he thought, and took a closer look. Life-sized and with fancy leather gear. But, on closer inspection, he noticed the Bandangels logo. He tried to rip it off, but it was very firmly sewn on. Then he tried to take the dummy’s clothes off, but he couldn’t manage that either – everything seemed to be glued on. All the more irritated, he looked for something he could use to remove the logo and first he tried a knife, then a fork. It didn’t work, and he soon realized that if he kept on in that way he would rip to shreds all of the dummy’s clothes. He went into the kitchen and saw that the cupboard under the sink was open. Perhaps he could find something there? His eye caught some rags, cleaning liquid, a dustpan and an iron. The iron, of course, that would solve the problem. He went back to the bar, found the nearest socket, plugged in the iron and was soon ironing on top of the logo with a little pressure, back and forth. The glue started to loosen its grip, and, rather pleased with himself, he put the dummy down on the floor so that he could finish the job. He could pull the logo a little, but it wouldn’t come completely loose. He turned the iron on again, and lit a cigarette. Just as he was about to take his first puff, the dummy suddenly started to burn. He looked around for a fire extiguisher, couldn’t find one, so instead he grabbed some bottles from the counter. Quickly he unscrewed the tops and poured Schweppes and some lemonade over the fire. As a finishing touch he lifted the floor mat in front of the bar and put it on top of the dummy. When the fire was extinguished he picked up the dummy again. The leather jacket was half-burnt, the trousers were damaged by smoke and the whole thing smelt of burnt cabbage. Accompanied by a cascade of expletives, he kicked the dummy and then threw it into a corner. The head was knocked out of position and had ended up all crooked, but he couldn’t be bothered to straighten it. Instead he wiped up the mess on the floor, put the mat back in place and left the room. You should never have a hangover, he thought; it gives you a headache and then you make a mess of things.