The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules (8 page)

Inside the steam room, water was dripping from the ceiling and the noise of the spray was very audible. With the herbs inside the nozzle, a distinct smell started to spread. Martha felt sleepy and found it hard to gather her thoughts. She stole a glance through the door. Then came the first giggle. The man opposite her stretched his feet out towards the stone in front of him, slipped, missed again and started laughing. The others next to him joined in with the laughter and the mood was suddenly all the merrier. There was an oddly sweet smell in the
room now and Martha thought that she probably hadn’t used enough birch twigs. She turned around to pick up some more but the thought slid away from her. There was something she was supposed to do … but what was it? She should have written it down on a piece of paper, but it would have looked dreadfully suspicious if she had started thumbing through a wad of to-do notes in a steam room!

Suddenly she heard Anna-Greta’s neighing laugh, followed by another hysterical laugh. Christina followed suit with an uncontrolled fit of giggling and Martha, too, found herself laughing. Then the lights flickered and went out. After a moment they started flickering again. It wasn’t particularly funny, but the men were grinning in a bemused fashion. Martha could hear her own giggling and she realized that she couldn’t sit in the steam room for very much longer. There was something she was meant to do … what was it? She couldn’t for the life of her remember what it was. It didn’t dawn on her until the man opposite her put his hand over his mouth and started yawning. Anna-Greta and Christina were meant to faint and she was then meant to rush off to fetch the receptionist. She prodded her friends in the ribs and whispered.

‘It’s time now. Lie down on the bench. Hurry!’

‘Not here, surely,’ Anna-Greta squeaked. Then she pulled down one shoulder strap of her bathing costume and winked at the man sitting opposite her before emitting another piercing horse-like neigh.

‘Lie down, faint, be quick!’ Martha demanded as quietly as she could.

‘Not for him there, oh no, he is too old,’ said Anna-Greta, who regretted her boldness and was pulling her shoulder strap
up again. Then she laughed so loudly that nobody could have fainted in the vicinity of her noise.

‘Please lie down so that I can go and fetch help,’ hissed Martha, who was starting to feel a bit dizzy. Christina, who was used to following orders, stretched out on the bench. Anna-Greta, now finally aware of what was happening, lay down next but was unable to stop laughing. Then the lights gave a final flicker and went out. Martha hurried to the reception area, where the lights were still working.

‘Two people have just fainted in the steam room. Come quickly!’ she cried.

The receptionist went pale and hurried after Martha. As soon as the girl opened the door to the steam room, Martha went back into reception. Brains was already standing in front of the metal cupboard. He was wearing his gym clothes and was busy working with a picklock in his hand.

‘Nice to have a large, old-fashioned metal cupboard with a proper lock,’ he whispered and asked Martha to hold his sports bag open. The lock was surprisingly easy to open, but just as they were about to start taking out the valuables, the lights in reception went out.

‘What happened?’ Brains wondered, but then he remembered his slippers and bent down to turn the LED lights on. Then he froze. Rake had told him to put on his gym shoes and now he was standing there in his trainers. In the dark. He was well aware that time was of the essence, so he reached inside the cupboard and simply swept the entire contents into the bag. The lights flickered into action again and Brains closed the cupboard door hastily.

‘See you later,’ he said to Martha, grabbing the gym bag
as he went. Brains took the bag upstairs to the gym, where he put it down and went to one of the exercise bicycles. The next moment, Rake entered the gym. The two friends exchanged knowing glances. Rake then picked up the closest dumb-bells and started exercising.

Meanwhile, Martha returned to the steam room, where she found the receptionist in the process of trying to get Christina and Anna-Greta out into the corridor. They had both come round very quickly and were now giggling wildly. Gales of laughter could be heard in all directions and two elderly gentlemen were snorting and slapping their knees in amusement. The receptionist looked very confused as Martha caught her eye.

‘They seem to have had a little too much champagne at breakfast. I don’t know what the world is coming to,’ the receptionist said. ‘The worst ones are your age.’

‘They are young at heart,’ Martha mumbled as she caught up with Christina and Anna-Greta on their way out into reception.

‘Now, girls, let’s have a shower,’ Martha said, but it took quite a while before she could get her woozy friends into the change room.

‘This is the most fun I’ve ever had,’ Christina wheezed merrily when they were back in the ladies’ change room again.

‘Can’t we do this at the retirement home too?’ Anna-Greta wondered.

‘Shush!’ Martha urged, but this only triggered a new attack of laughter from her friends. It required quite an effort
to get them both up to the relaxation room. They were going to pretend to be taking it easy by enjoying fresh juice and leafing through the day’s newspapers—so as to appear innocent. Martha thought it was risky to remain at the scene of the crime, but Brains had reassured her that they wouldn’t attract the slightest attention. However, they hadn’t been relaxing for very long in the loungers before they heard loud voices coming from downstairs. They couldn’t resist going down to have a look. The closer they got, the louder the noise became and they were met with a great commotion. The door to the metal cupboard was wide open and a group of unsteady guests stood next to it, pointing.

‘The cupboard is empty. Everything’s gone—necklaces, jewels and passports,’ one middle-aged lady chuckled, almost incapacitated by laughter. ‘Disappeared into thin air!’

The receptionist looked extremely unhappy.

‘And my gold bracelet has vanished too. Without a trace!’ her grey-haired friend chirped.

‘And that ghastly watch I got from my mother-in-law, that’s gone too,’ one of the old guys guffawed. ‘Got rid of it at last! Hahaha!’

‘But what about our money? I told you that we shouldn’t bring any valuables down with us,’ his wife grumbled.

‘Don’t be upset, darling, you were right. But things like this don’t happen every day. Just enjoy the drama!’ And with that he dissolved into fits of laughter.

Amidst the chaos, Martha took her friends by the hand and herded them towards the elevator.

‘We’d better go,’ she said. And their silly giggles lasted all the way up to their luxury suite. Martha even sang a traditional
Swedish drinking song in her old childhood dialect.

Martha thought it was probably for the best that Rake had not been in charge of the herbs, because she knew that he would not have been so generous with the amount used. She, however, had poured out every last grain of powder. She had had to think on her feet and had succeeded in doing so!

The League of Pensioners had drained the last drops of champagne from their glasses and calmed themselves as much as possible. Now the moment to open up the sports bag and reveal the loot had arrived. Brains lifted up the bag with a solemn gesture, tipped it upside down and let the contents pour out onto the table. The other four newly fledged villains sat like expectant children, watching as the pile of goodies grew. With a gleam in their eyes they started to sort through the items. Then a silence descended over them.

‘What’s all this?’ said Martha while she rummaged in the pile. ‘Make-up and hairbrushes?’

‘No lipstick for me, thank you,’ Rake muttered. ‘Who’s idea was it to raid the safes at the swimming pool? You’ve only got yourselves to blame. What did you expect—the crown jewels?’

‘The men at least seem to have deposited their mobile phones. Perhaps we can cash these in?’ Anna-Greta suggested and poked around in the heap of stolen property. ‘And look here; there are some bracelets and watches.’

‘But we won’t end up in prison for stealing this,’ Martha sighed.

‘And it isn’t much to share either,’ Christina added.

‘This thick bracelet must be eighteen carat and the watch should fetch a hundred thousand,’ Anna-Greta pointed out.

‘And here is a gold compact,’ said Martha as she picked out an engraved, showy case. It opened with a clasp, but it was so small that Martha couldn’t release it.

‘I’d like that compact, unless somebody else …?’ said Anna-Greta and quickly snatched it away before anyone had time to react. Christina gave her a withering look.

They became silent again and each of them tried to find something to be pleased about, but however thoroughly they rummaged in the pile they found little of value. The robbery had been successful, but the loot was just knick-knacks.

‘This is our first attempt. I don’t suppose Robin Hood was successful the first time either,’ Christina mumbled and looked dismally at the nail she had broken while rummaging in the pile.

‘I hardly think he stole hairbrushes, though,’ Rake answered.

‘Here we are risking our freedom for a load of junk. We must raise our game next time. A kidnapping or something,’ said Anna-Greta, waving her walking stick around—which, as she had predicted, had become totally warped in the steam room.

‘A kidnapping?!’ A gasp of group horror could be heard.

‘Yes, you take a hostage and demand ransom money!’

‘I have read about kidnapping in lots of novels,’ said Martha, ‘but the victims are usually overpowered and I’m not sure we’d manage that. What if we got beaten up in the process?’

‘But can’t we knock somebody over just
a little
?’ questioned Christina.

‘You mean, just trip them up?’ Rake said with a grin.

Nobody managed to laugh and, despite the champagne, the spirits of the group were low.

‘We can ask down in reception whether any famous guests are arriving soon,’ Brains suggested after a moment.

‘And then we kidnap them? People like Clinton or Putin, for example? I’d like to see that!’ Rake shook his head in disbelief.

‘I know what we can do. We’ll arrange a poker night up in one of our rooms. The suite is so fancy that nobody would suspect anything. Robbery and card-sharping ought to render a prison sentence,’ Martha suggested.

‘Good God, soon you’ll be opening a brothel too. We must be more realistic,’ chided Anna-Greta.

‘Card-sharping could be interesting,’ Brains mused, ‘but it wouldn’t lead to more than a conditional sentence.’

‘Quite right. We must fit the robbery to the amount of time we want to spend behind bars—and don’t forget that we want to get to the best prison too,’ said Martha, who had developed a taste for high standards.

‘So much to think about, as if it wasn’t hard enough to commit a crime.’ Christina exclaimed, pulling out her nail file. She was clearly agitated.

‘Time is not on our side, though. And we must decide our next move before somebody nails us for the robbery down in the spa,’ said Martha.

‘Or Nurse Barbara reports us as missing persons.’

The long discussion had tired them all out, and it was a gloomy gang of pensioners that went off to bed a little later.

‘Don’t give up. By tomorrow morning we’ll certainly have thought something up,’ Martha encouraged them.

In the middle of the night Martha woke with a start. Her heart was thumping and she had to wait quite a while before the palpitations stopped. With some effort, she sat up in bed and reached out for her glass of water. Then she remembered, and a broad smile spread across her wrinkled face. No wonder her heart had been thumping so hard. As usual, her old brain had been busy while she was asleep and had calmly and quietly found a solution to their delicate problem. Now she knew. They would indeed carry out a kidnapping—but in a very modern way. Martha could hardly restrain her enthusiasm and couldn’t sleep a wink for the rest of the night.

When the five old friends went down for a morning swim, they discovered that the entire area had been cordoned off. Police officers were examining the area and talking quietly to each other.

‘I think we should use the bathtub in the suite instead,’ said Christina, doing an about-turn.

‘Hmm, I believe I left my flip-flops up in the room,’ Anna-Greta added and followed her. The two women and Rake retreated to the elevator, while Martha and Brains hung about for a bit and watched the proceedings. Martha studied how
the police officers worked and she noticed that they all had gloves on. She had read about DNA and fingerprints. That was very important, and even a little thumbprint could give away major villains. She must bear that in mind in future.

After yet another continental breakfast up in the Princess Lilian suite, the League of Pensioners gathered for the day’s meeting. As they all settled themselves onto the sofas, Martha took the last bite of the fourth chocolate wafer she had eaten that day. She considered taking yet another, but she didn’t want to be a bad example for the others and restrained herself. To her horror, in just a couple of days she had become used to the high standards at the hotel—not to mention the Danish pastries on the breakfast table—and worried about how she and her friends would acclimatize to life in prison. But she didn’t utter a word about this to the others. It could destroy their criminal careers before they had even begun.

Brains was the first to speak.

‘Did anybody listen to the radio this morning?’ he asked. ‘Did they mention missing old people or anything like that?’

‘Nobody misses old people! Just think of those descriptions in the old Icelandic sagas where people over a certain age were simply pushed over cliffs!’ said Christina, who was rather gloomy the day after their first robbery.

‘Now we mustn’t get all depressed about the meagre loot yesterday. Instead we should be pleased that we were successful. We got away! See it as a trial run,’ said Martha.

‘Perhaps they aren’t even on to us yet, and—who knows—maybe the hotel will want to pretend that there hasn’t been a robbery here at all. They’ll want to protect their image—isn’t that what they call it?’ said Brains.

‘But it’s weird that Nurse Barbara hasn’t sounded the alarm,’ said Christina, almost a bit offended by the fact that nobody had missed them.

‘I bet she’s gone off with Director Mattson. They’ll be cavorting in bed and won’t have noticed that we’ve gone,’ said Rake.

‘Now, now, must you always—’ Anna-Greta started, frowning at him.

‘Stop it,’ Martha interrupted them. ‘We are here to discuss our next move—which won’t hurt anybody but will give us a lot of money for the Robbery Fund. I have a suggestion. A kidnapping somewhere close to here.’

They all gasped, and Rake looked really aghast. He had been staring out the window and immediately said, ‘The palace? Have you gone completely bonkers?’

‘No, no, don’t be silly! That would get us into far too much trouble. No, just an innocent little kidnapping which would give us one or two years in one of the plushest prisons. That will give us the chance to see what it is really like in the prisons. Perhaps they aren’t quite what they are made out to be, like our retirement home was. If it isn’t as nice as we expect, then we can always return to Diamond House.’

‘Never!’ they exclaimed with one voice.

‘We’d choose a better retirement home, of course. We’d be able to afford it.’

‘That would have to be a major robbery,’ said Anna-Greta, who suddenly remembered the bill she used to pay every month for Diamond House. ‘If we are going to get something really good for our money, that is.’

This resulted in a discussion about various types of retirement
accommodation and what you actually got for your pension. Some of them suggested politicians should be forced to experience living in the retirement homes which were run on a budget, but that was seen as too severe a punishment. Besides, said Brains, the elected representatives would then have to be locked in their rooms after eight in the evening and then they wouldn’t be able to take part in the discussion programs on TV.

‘We must concentrate!’ Martha declared in an attempt to bring them to order. ‘I believe I have come up with the perfect crime.’

An expectant silence ensued and even Rake paid attention.

‘Only about fifty metres from here is the National Museum. They’ve got more than ten thousand paintings there, including many old masterpieces, and you know what I think?’ She looked around triumphantly. ‘It stands to reason that they can’t all be wired up with alarms. If we steal a painting to the value of three or four million, that ought to earn us two or three years in prison.’

Nobody applauded, but Martha could see the interest in their eyes.

‘And how do you intend for us to go about doing this?’ Brains wondered.

‘Nothing complicated. We just have to create a distraction, then one of us takes down a painting or two and we hurry out. Much the same as what we practised at the spa reception,’ explained Martha.

‘We can’t exactly run,’ Anna-Greta reminded them.

‘That’s precisely why we must distract the guards.’

‘We can streak and run naked through the exhibit halls,’ Rake suggested.

‘You need to be younger for that, you dirty old man,’ Anna-Greta snorted.

‘Don’t say that. At our age, we would arouse even more attention,’ Christina remarked. ‘But I certainly have no intention whatsoever of running naked through the museum.’

Martha was getting annoyed with such ridiculous suggestions and tried to move the conversation along. ‘I was thinking of a different sort of distraction …’

‘Now hold on. This isn’t as simple as you think. What do we do about the surveillance cameras, for example?’ Brains queried.

‘We cover them up. Then we take the paintings down and walk out, calm and cool. We just pretend that we are not the thieves,’ said Martha.

‘Pretend that we are not the thieves? Now you must explain what you mean,’ said Rake, who was beginning to get impatient.

‘We put the paintings in the basket of my walker and then I simply put my coat over them.’

‘Your coat over a huge old masterpiece while the alarm is ringing?’ Rake said, rolling his eyes.

‘Don’t be so negative,’ Martha hissed.

‘But if somebody asks what we are doing, what do we say?’ Christina asked.

‘You don’t have to answer everything,’ was Martha’s retort.

‘How do we know which paintings are connected to an alarm?’ Brains asked, and immediately started to think about various possibilities to short-circuit the alarm system.

‘I should think Rembrandt and Van Gogh are,’ Martha explained, ‘and probably Paul Gauguin. But perhaps Carl Larsson won’t be and he sells for high prices at Bukowskis.’

‘Ahah, the auctioneers,’ said Anna-Greta knowingly. ‘So first we are going to steal expensive paintings and then try to sell them at Bukowskis? I don’t think that will work. People will recognize them as stolen artwork.’

‘That’s why I have thought of something else,’ said Martha. ‘We are not going to just steal paintings like your average simple thief.
We are going to kidnap them
. Nothing will be destroyed, nobody is going to be robbed in person, and nobody will be sorry. The owner—in this case the museum—only needs to pay a few million to us and then they’ll get the paintings back.’

A little ‘Ooooh’ went round the table and even Rake had to admit that Martha had thought this through properly.

‘A few million—but Martha, dear, you make it all sound so simple,’ said Anna-Greta. ‘The National Museum does not have much money.’

‘Of course it does! There are the donations, for a start. They can take the money from the Friends of the National Museum. They will cough up. These paintings at the museum are national treasures.’

‘Well, I like the idea,’ Christina piped up, ‘but how would we actually go about the kidnapping?’ She looked expectantly at the others. She had started to acquire a taste for adventure, and she had had so much fun robbing the spa that she was keen to commit new crimes.

‘I propose that we draw a diagram of where the best paintings are, where the alarms and the security cameras are, and then we decide how to arrange the robbery,’ Martha explained. ‘We really should check out the getaway routes too. Brains, have you got a notepad?’

Rake swallowed a few times as if to protest but couldn’t think of anything to say. He realized that they couldn’t stay at the hotel indefinitely, and he, too, wanted to swap the retirement home for a good prison.

‘You lot, I think we should watch a film this evening and have a nice time. Then we will be in good shape tomorrow.’

At first Martha intended to protest, but she realized that it was important that everybody be in a good mood. A bit of relaxation wouldn’t do any harm. So she fetched some nuts and dark chocolate and ordered two films:
Murder on the Orient Express
and
The Ladykillers
.

‘We need some inspiration,’ she said, but Christina looked so terrified that Martha felt obliged to explain.

‘Christina, dear,’ she consoled her, ‘it isn’t the murders but the planning which is going to inspire us.’

The next day, Martha and Brains strolled around amongst the public in the exhibit halls at the National Museum. The building was almost next door to the hotel. They tried to give the impression of being very interested in art, but while they examined the paintings Brains was diligently writing away in his notepad.

‘I’ve got a feeling that the guards are watching us,’ Martha said after a while, glancing over her shoulder.

‘Do you think so? If they ask anything, just say we are artists.’

‘As if that would explain everything.’

‘It explains a lot.’ Brains smiled.

Martha was concerned. This looked as if it was going to
be more difficult than she had expected. They had discovered cameras and alarms everywhere and in every room there was a flashing red lamp. Not only that, but security guards seemed to materialize when you least expected it. The new crime would demand meticulous planning.

While she wandered around the exhibit halls, she found herself trying to plan the ‘perfect coup’—but at the same time making sure they were caught. How else would they end up in prison? It was, however, so pleasant at the Grand Hotel that none of them had any desire to leave. At any rate, not
just yet
. She recalled the old proverbial phrases about wealth making you blind, and how the more you had the more you wanted. Had their transformation come about so quickly?

Brains wrote down his observations in his notepad and they moved on to the next exhibit hall. The ceilings were very high and Martha wondered why, since you could hardly hang paintings up there. Indeed, she had pondered so many things and walked around so much that in the end she needed to sit down on a bench and rest. She hadn’t just studied the paintings from the front, but had also checked the alarm connections at the sides. As she sat there, she became more and more dejected. There were alarms everywhere, and then there were all those guards with their mobile phones and walkie-talkies. If they saw anything suspicious they would call the police immediately. But there was what they called the ‘human factor’, of course. The security guards patrolled here day after day. Sooner or later they must surely lose concentration. And they must have coffee breaks just like everybody else.

‘I think we can pull this off,’ Brains said quietly. ‘We can deal with the guards too.’

‘You think so?’ Martha said hopefully. ‘That’s what’s so wonderful about you, you are always so positive.’

Brains squeezed her hand gently and her heart fluttered.

‘But you are the one who inspires me, Martha dear, I promise you. We’ll fix this together. I’ve got an idea. Come and have a look.’

He stood up and helped Martha to her feet, and together they steered towards the hall with the temporary exhibits. Perhaps the security wasn’t as good in there.