The Little Old Lady Behaving Badly

by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg

  The smell of newly baked cakes mixed with the aroma from the coffee. The cakes were baked with lots of butter and eggs, and looked deliciously sweet. Blomberg saw Jöback’s expression.

  “Go on, just a taste! You can’t just eat health foods all the time.”

  The smell of the cakes pushed past the hairs in his nostrils, and Jöback had been up late last night. Besides, he had to write a lot of important emails. He needed a cup of coffee now and then, and, really, what was wrong with a few bites of cake? Then he could say that he was going away for a month, or tell them in reception never to let Blomberg in again. The retired chief inspector ought to stay at home and not visit his former work place several times a month! Jöback reached out for a cake.

  “Difficult cases. So easy to get stuck in a rut,” said Blomberg while he sipped the hot coffee. “When I worked with—”

  “No, we haven’t got stuck. We’ve got lots of ideas. Goodness, that was very tasty!” Jöback took a second cake.

  “But that talk of an international gang. Are you sure about that? What if they are Swedish?”

  “Oh no, not a chance.” Jöback finished the second cake, spilling some crumbs on the table.

  “Even though you think you’ve got lots of ideas, you can still get stuck in a rut. I remember a case when everybody was convinced—”

  “You don’t need to worry. Like I said, we haven’t committed ourselves to just one line of inquiry, but are going ahead on a broad front.”

  “What about the League of Pensioners? Have you looked at them?”

  “Those seventy-year-old guys who robbed a bank down in the south? That gang of old fellows? No, we’re thinking of something more international.”

  “No, not those old guys, I’m thinking of the oldies who spirited away the paintings from the National Museum last year.”

  “Blomberg, that’s history. The paintings came back, too. But these cakes were really tasty.” Jöback took a last mouthful and put his hands on the arms of his chair, ready to stand up.

  “They were crafty, those retirees, especially that woman called Martha. You can’t exclude her and her friends. They might—”

  “Seniors like that couldn’t carry off a bank robbery. It’s not on the map. No, we know what we’re doing, you can rest assured. Now take the rest of the cakes and treat the girls in reception. They will certainly be pleased. I’ve got my hands full and regrettably we’ll have to chat another time.” Jöback drank the rest of his coffee and turned on the computer.

  “Nice bit of hardware you’ve got there. In my day the computers were much bigger and slower.”

  “Yes, indeed, that’s very likely, but—”

  “If you run into problems accessing your computer or some awkward sites, I’ll be happy to help out. Just let me know!” Blomberg leaned back in his armchair and showed no sign of moving. He slowly chewed his cake. “And how are the indoor bandy games going on? Any goals?”

  “As I say, work calls!” Jöback got up and held out his hand.

  “Jöback, there’s some coffee left. Won’t you have some more?” Blomberg held up the Thermos. “That League of Pensioners who kidnapped the paintings, you know. I can tell you about when—”

  Chief Inspector Jöback showed Blomberg to the door and sighed with relief when his old colleague had finally left the room. There ought to be a law against retirees visiting their former place of work, so that they couldn’t come in three or four times a month. He went back to his desk and settled in front of the computer. He was going to show that Blomberg how a pro worked. Soon he would catch the robbers who had raided the Nordea bank. It would be a lesson for that smartass. The perpetrators of the Pavarotti robbery would soon be behind bars!

  10

  RIDDARFJÄRDEN, THE BAY OF LAKE MÄLAREN ON THE NORTH side of the Old Town, lay black and shiny and you could hear the sound of the city not so very far away. The silhouette of City Hall rose up dark and majestic on one side, and boats rocked in their moorings along the Norr Mälarstrand quay. In the background the traffic from the Slussen roundabout could be heard. Two darkly dressed men turned off from the street and into Rålambshov Park. Weasel stopped and waited for Kenta.

  “We’ll cut across the park and then take Smedsuddsvägen toward Marieberg,” he said, nodding toward the footpath. It was cold and damp, an August night without a full moon.

  “OK,” said Kenta Udd, keeping his eye on Weasel’s back and following close after him. Weasel had done what he had said, absconded on his first day leave and come to see Kenta in his studio in Fredhäll. His friend needed a place to crash and, in exchange for help with his new pizzeria, Kenta had gone along with helping him. After that, as a former prisoner and now new owner of a pizzeria, he would be able to sleep soundly at night. Weasel was fair. He had kept his promise and prevented several extortion attempts against the pizzeria. But of course Kenta had also kept him hidden and provided food and a place to stay. Harboring a prisoner on the run was tricky, and he could get into trouble himself. But that was life; you had to give and take all the time. He looked up. They had almost reached the abutment of the bridge.

  “There! Can you see it?”

  The shadow of a vessel could be made out under Västerbron Bridge. It was an old steamboat which had had an extra deck added on top with large windows. The Galaxy restaurant. Kenta inhaled the damp air through his nose and shivered. This restaurant had been given four stars in the local paper, but the owner hadn’t had the sense to pay. The bastard had refused to fork out protection money and had employed people he chose himself, despite the fact that Weasel and his pals had put the pressure on. So he only had himself to blame. A guy like that spoiled things for others in the business. He was a pariah, a fucking weed in the flower bed, and the restaurant must be gotten rid of.

  Kenta and Weasel exchanged glances and approached cautiously. They each had a backpack and Kenta’s was cutting into his shoulder, but Weasel walked so fast that Kenta didn’t dare stop to adjust it. He was panting. Fuck, those extra kilos he had put on in prison, they could be felt now. He sped up, looked around uneasily but couldn’t see anything suspicious. It was 4:15 a.m. and most people were asleep. They had come across one or two people having a late night and those who were going to or from their night work. But here on Smedsuddsvägen it was silent and deserted. Not many people dared go out alone in the dark at this time of the day.

  “Shush!” Weasel made a sign, adjusted his backpack and went on. They continued in silence and when they went under the bridge they got a good view of the steamship. It lay there in the half-dark, the deck was empty and curtains were visible in the large windows. Inside you could see the outline of tables and chairs. Nobody seemed to be on board, but to be on the safe side Kenta and Weasel waited a while under the bridge arches and kept watch. It was dark and the boat rocked slightly in its moorings. There were no lights and no red flashing light from any burglar alarm. The owner must be a dimwit, Kenta thought as his gaze swept over the deck and up toward the funnel where “GALAXY” was written in large letters. Or perhaps he had a hidden alarm somewhere. It was a weird name for a restaurant anyway, but it was easy to remember. And a lot of people came to eat here. The place was well known for its cozy atmosphere and the excellent Dover sole and salmon with their homemade sauces. Over the last two years the place had always been full and had taken customers from other restaurants in the area. That was punishable. Weasel took off his backpack and pulled out the fenders, which he had slit up the sides.

  “Jerrican!”

  Kenta opened his backpack and Weasel pulled out the jerrican. He quickly looked in every direction, filled the fenders with rags soaked in gas and made sure he had a long wick at the top. Once again he looked all around before giving the jerrican back to Kenta, who quickly put it back in his backpack again. There was an awful smell of gas; he’d have to make sure he got rid of it as quickly as possible. Weasel put the fenders in a plastic bag and climbed on board. Once he was up on the deck he hung up the
fenders and tied a tarred string between the wicks. Then he pulled out his cigarette lighter, pressed it and held the flame against the string. When it started burning, he jumped back to the stern and then back onto the quay. He waved to Kenta and together they ran from the place, crouching as low as possible. They were well into the trees before the flames shot up. The owner of the Galaxy hadn’t wanted to employ the restaurant mafia’s cleaners and had refused to buy meat and alcohol from the correct suppliers. He only had himself to blame.

  11

  THE MEMBERS OF THE LEAGUE OF PENSIONERS WERE SITTING up in the tower relaxing when they heard the truck. They got up unusually fast and went across to the window. The sound of the engine grew all the louder, the vehicle slowed down and after a while you could see the big concrete mixer truck by the gate. The driver stopped and then started to back the truck in through the gateposts.

  “Is this really a good idea, Martha dear? You don’t think we decided this too fast?” Brains gave his fiancée a worried look. He leaned forward to get an even better view. The big, heavy vehicle by the gate was on its way into the neighbor’s garden. Charley Concrete had come an hour late and they had been waiting nervously. But now he was there with his concrete and there was no going back. Rake stood in the neighbor’s garden in his overalls next to the swimming pool and guided the reversing concrete mixer truck so that it could park by the side of the pool. Christina, who was acting as his wife, waved a little too, and now and then looked anxiously around her as if their neighbor might suddenly decide to come home just today from his round-the-world sailing trip.

  “That pool cover would have fallen apart sooner or later, and then we would have been exposed. We had no choice,” said Martha. “We were forced to do something.”

  “But Charley Concrete of all firms! Can we really trust him?” Anna-Greta couldn’t keep her hands still.

  “Oh yes, he’s good, he only has foreign workers. His Polish drivers go home again after a month or so and they won’t tell tales. Then he’ll bring in a new gang,” Martha consoled them.

  “But what if our neighbor suddenly returns,” Brains sighed. “It’s turned into such a nervous business, being a crook. So many things happen that we haven’t counted on.”

  “Yes, all right, but we have to take some risks and the garbage truck can’t just stay there and rust away. Besides, there must have been some rubbish left inside. I mean, that stench . . .

  “It was perhaps a little too ambitious with that fermented herring, but now things are as they are.” Martha folded her hands over her stomach and looked out through the window. “The stupid thing about crimes is that the police always come after you and you have to cover all your tracks.”

  “With concrete?”

  “Yes, now that they have intensified their investigation.”

  And that is what they had done. Martha was worried. The League of Pensioners had observed police cars in the area and every time a Volvo with “POLIS” written on its side drove past, they had become all the more nervous. They drank herbal tea by the bucketful to calm their nerves, but instead were forever getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. In the end, Martha had concluded that they had had enough of all the worry, and that it was better that they did something radical about it. But what? Then Rake had given her an idea.

  “I remember when we transported cement from Portland when I was young,” he had told them one evening out on the veranda. “I had signed on as a deckhand on a ship, one of those cement freighters that went between Portland and New York. You can’t imagine how scary it was. We were always afraid of colliding with other ships. Then we would have sunk straight away. Just like all the other ships that disappear in the Bermuda Triangle.”

  “Ugh, how horrible,” said Christina. “To think that you’ve been involved in such dangerous things.”

  “Yes, I have actually thought about writing my memoirs,” Rake went on and looked important. “At my age it’s a matter of urgency that you tell what you’ve been through before you forget it all. And like I said, I have been through quite a lot.”

  “Did you say cement?” Martha suddenly asked. “How many tons can a freighter hold?”

  “Let me think, we had loads of a hundred tons and more . . .”

  “Well, we would only need a few tons to fill the swimming pool. Do you get it? We can cover the truck with cement!”

  “Everything turns up sooner or later. But if it is buried in concrete it will never turn up!” Christina chortled.

  “Exactly. We just fill the whole pool and will never need to worry again!” Martha went on.

  And then she had got up and put lots of goodies on the dining cart. Besides the cups of steaming hot tea, there was cloudberry liqueur and wafers, and the League of Pensioners sat out on the veranda until midnight. Martha’s notepad filled with jottings and Brains busied himself with his pocket calculator to work out some figures. To be on the safe side, the whole gang had then gone out and measured the swimming pool to make sure they had it right. And when they lifted part of the covering they saw how the water had become colored with rubbish, mold and rust.

  “Yes, just look at this. It really is about time we did something,” said Martha.

  But even so, a whole week passed before they gathered the courage to go into action. The project was risky, to put it mildly. But only fifty meters away from their house there was a huge piece of evidence—several tons of garbage truck. That was evidence that must be eliminated.

  12

  CHARLEY CONCRETE BACKED THE CONCRETE MIXER TRUCK THE last bit up to the edge of the pool, stopped and pulled up the handbrake. He turned off the engine, climbed out of the driver’s cabin and stood there with his arms folded and stared. At the edge of the black pool cover you could see several black pipes sticking up.

  “What the hell is this?” He pointed at the protruding pipes.

  “The concrete is going down there.”

  “But what the fuck do you need the concrete for?!”

  “That’s secret, a high-security shelter, you know,” said Rake. “National security and all that.”

  “So you want me to pump the concrete down into the pipes you mean?”

  “Exactly, you see the joints there? Just connect your pipe and start pumping. My men will do the rest,” said Rake pointing at the connecting pipes that Brains had laid next to the edge of the pool. Under the pool cover several manifolds then distributed the concrete so that it would flow evenly into all parts of the pool. “The shelter will accommodate at least ten people, so my men will have lots of work.”

  “Yeah, yeah, typical fancy Djursholm ideas! You can’t be satisfied with what’s good enough for everybody else, you have to have your own fucking shelter too,” mumbled Charley Concrete shaking his head. Muttering to himself, he climbed up into the cab again, started the engine, got the pipe into position and tried to connect it to the others by the pool. But the joints didn’t fit. He tried two others and then a smaller pipe, and finally that worked. Thank God for that, because now the concrete mixer was in full operation.

  “You’re not going to change your mind? So you want me to pump the concrete down your pipes?” Charley Concrete asked again and looked at Rake with some scepticism.

  “Yep, sure as hell. And the quicker the better. I’ve got men waiting to start after we’ve got the concrete in.”

  “All right, then,” said Charley Concrete. He called to his workers, checked the pipe connection one last time, got hold of the joystick on the control panel and started the pump. Soon after that, concrete started to move through the truck’s pipe, and you could hear a slurping and sloshing sound as it ran into the pipes protruding from the pool cover. After half an hour, Charley and his men had emptied the mixer truck.

  “Great, then just two loads to go,” said Rake, offering him a portion of Scandinavian snuff. “We’ve got two mixers going at maximum in the cellar now, and we need the rest of the concrete as quickly as possible. The men who are goin
g to do the bricklaying will arrive soon.”

  Charley Concrete nodded. This was about delivering concrete and not about asking questions. Just as long as he got paid in cash. His Polish workers did a good job. They worked hard and didn’t ask about holiday pay or employer contributions or tax and other such nonsense. As long as they got their money, that was all that mattered. However, a few who had now settled in Sweden were more difficult. They had long lunch breaks and coffee breaks, and stopped working at five o’clock. But his men kept working until the job was finished. No messing. He got out his cell phone, made a quick call and turned to Rake.

  “The rest of the concrete will be here soon.”

  BRAINS, MARTHA AND ANNA-GRETA, WHO HAD STOOD AT THE window upstairs and watched, had become so absorbed that they had completely forgotten lunch. That’s how nervous they were. Watching and knowing what was under the cover was pure torture. Several times, Martha had wanted to go down and give orders, but Brains had stopped her.

  “CC is Rake’s thing,” he had said.

  “CC? But we haven’t got TV cameras down there, have we?”

  “CC—Charley Concrete—is Rake’s project and you ought to stay in the background.”

  When another two trucks had emptied their loads, the concrete in the pool started to rise.

  “Oh goodness me!” said Anna-Greta.

  “OK, it’s all there. Now we have to wait for it to harden,” said Brains.

  “Right, so in the meantime we can go across to Rake and help him get everything in order,” said Martha.

  With quick steps they went over to their neighbor’s garden. When they reached the swimming pool, Rake and Christina stood there staring down into the former pool.

  “Good thing you’ve come,” said Rake with some snuff under his upper lip. “As soon as Charley and his gang have left, we can remove the pool cover.”

  “No, no, for fuck’s sake don’t do that. The concrete is wet. Are you planning a mafia graveyard?” Brains joked.