The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules

by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg

  She pulled out a cigarette but then remembered that smoking was forbidden inside the hotel. She didn’t want to go to the bar. She could simply do what she used to at school and have a cigarette in the bathroom. So she went into the bathroom and while she was smoking she admired the stucco work on the ceiling and the beautiful washbasins. The fittings here were all blue and silver and the artistically designed taps looked as if they came from a country mansion. It was a pity that the construction workers had left it all so messy. They had left behind tins of paint, brushes, protective paper and lots of other rubbish. Even though the annex wasn’t being used, they could at least have kept the bathroom decent, couldn’t they? She finished her cigarette and flushed the butt down the toilet. Then she gathered several garbage bags and some painting gear that was in the way. She could never leave anything untidy, even when she was not working. Behind some ladders there was a box marked ‘Salvation Army’ with things for the charity shop. She stopped. Right at the bottom she caught a glimpse of two paintings.

  Forty-Nine

  Petra moved the other bits and pieces which were piled on top of the paintings to one side. With trembling hands she lifted out the two paintings. They were indeed the very same ones she had taken down in the Princess Lilian suite. She put the paintings down on the console table and pulled out the colour copies. Yes! The paintings and the photocopies were identical, except for the hat and the rather too bushy moustache on the Renoir and the extra sailing boats on the Monet. She turned the paintings over and looked at the backs of them. There was a registration number and she could see that the paintings were on canvas. They both had gilded frames. When she thought about it, she hadn’t seen any such frames in any of the other suites. However, she didn’t get any further before she heard footsteps and voices next to the entrance to the annex. It sounded like the chief barman and the new girl in reception.

  Petra hunched up in the shadows so as not to be seen. At the far end of the corridor there was a temporary storeroom for the furniture in the rooms that were being redecorated. Perhaps the two of them were on their way there? She waited until the footsteps stopped, and then lifted up the Renoir painting. To her surprise, she saw that she had some paint on her thumb. Somebody must have splashed the paintings by mistake. It must have been the construction workers, or perhaps that rowdy rock star who had stayed in the suite … but no, by then she had already switched the paintings and the group of eccentric elderly friends had been staying there. She pulled out her handkerchief, wet a corner and gently rubbed the surface of the painting. When she got to the man’s hat, the handkerchief turned black and with each rub more of the man’s hair could be seen. She tried the Monet too. A sailing boat disappeared without her having to rub particularly hard. It must have been those sweet old people in the Princess Lilian suite … Petra smiled such a wide smile that you could almost hear it. Police throughout Sweden had been involved in the investigation, but nobody had managed to trace the paintings. The pensioners in the Princess Lilian suite had fooled the lot of them. Her first thought was that she should rush to reception and tell them, but at that very same moment she heard a cry followed by groans and laughter. It was the chief barman and the receptionist. Petra quickly put the paintings back in the box where she had found them. Best to get out of there. She wondered what she should do: since everybody was looking for the paintings, surely sooner or later the police would offer a reward? Her student loan had all been spent and she was tired of the cleaning job. A little reward would solve all her problems. If she took the paintings home and kept them there for a while, she could say that she had acted in good faith. She hadn’t actually stolen them, but had found them amidst the rubbish in the bathroom. She had taken care of them for the time being while she tried to find a better place for them in the hotel—that’s what she could say, that sounded good. Then when she had realized what fine paintings they were, she had immediately phoned the museum—or the police—or whoever it was that had offered a reward. She could tell the press how pleased she was to have saved the priceless works for posterity. The scenario was perfect—nothing could go wrong.

  A door opened and she heard steps further away in the annex. The steps got closer. The chief barman and his girlfriend! The pair of them weren’t even trying to be discreet, but were talking loudly and kissing as they went. Petra went back into the toilet cubicle, put the toilet lid down and then sat and thought about what she should say if they discovered her. She heard them pass and then wait for the elevator, but she didn’t dare move until she heard the elevator doors close. She remained sitting a while longer and was now grateful that the two of them had come along. In the darkness she had had time to think. Now she knew exactly what she should do with the paintings.

  Fifty

  Hinseberg turned out not to be the best place to spend your summer! There was no Cadier bar or Veranda restaurant here, oh no. No goose or pyramid cake either, for that matter. Martha tossed and turned in her bed and found it hard to get to sleep. It was hot, and unfortunately she couldn’t go to the window and open it wide. She was in prison, after all. She pulled the covers off, puffed up her pillow and lay down again. But sleep eluded her, and Liza was at the back of her mind all the time. Perhaps it had been foolhardy to challenge her. Anyway, it had happened now and tomorrow she would lay the table for all of them.

  When Liza came into the kitchen the next day she pretended not to notice that the coffee cup and plates were set out for her, but just sat down and helped herself to breakfast. As usual she looked as though she was in a mood, and she didn’t even acknowledge Martha’s presence. She held her hands around the coffee cup and now and then threw a glance out the window. Martha wondered what was wrong with the girl, because you could see that she was extremely unhappy. Her facial features were taut, her skin was grey and she had a vacant look in her eyes. If anyone spoke to her, she just muttered or simply didn’t bother to answer. A little later, in the gym, Martha decided to try to talk to her.

  ‘Hello,’ said Martha.

  ‘What are you doing in here?’

  ‘Even a dinosaur has to keep in shape.’

  Some other girls came in and went directly to the exercise machines. Liza ignored them, put a mat on the floor and started with sit-ups.

  ‘I hear you’re going to get a temporary release,’ said Martha after a while when Liza took a break.

  She got a grunt in reply.

  ‘Aren’t you pleased?’

  Liza stretched out full length on the floor and began to do press-ups. Martha shrugged her shoulders and lifted some dumb-bells.

  ‘You know what, when I get my first temporary release I won’t have anywhere to go,’ Martha said after a while in a new attempt to start up a conversation. ‘I left the retirement home, now God knows …’

  Liza, who was now on her way to the exercise cycle, stopped.

  ‘Welcome to reality. Those of us who end up in prison always lose our apartments. In the workshop we earn enough to buy candy and ciggies, but no more. If we haven’t got parents or a guy on the outside who’ll pay the rent, then we get kicked out. Then the authorities wonder why we relapse into crime.’

  Martha had never thought of that. Then how could you make your way back to a normal life when you were finally released?

  ‘You must have been through quite a lot, I suppose?’ Martha went on.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it!’

  ‘But—’

  Liza got up and left the gym.

  During the next few days, Liza governed her domain as before, and she pretended not to even see Martha. A few days before Liza was due to go, Martha was in the laundry room alone when Liza came in. Martha gave a start.

  ‘Did I give you a fright?’ said Liza when she caught sight of Martha. She nipped past her and stood so that she blocked the door. ‘Well, look what we have here! So you dare to go around alone?’

  The ceiling light was rather weak and there was a smell of wet wool and laundry soap. The floor wa
s wet, and a laundry basket had been tipped over in the corner. Martha pretended to be indifferent, but her heart was beating faster than usual. She had gone to the laundry room to see if she could handle the machines without any help. She hadn’t counted on bumping into Liza.

  ‘Is this washing machine okay?’ Martha asked, nodding at the one closest to her. She hoped that her voice sounded natural.

  ‘See for yourself. Stick your head in the drum and I’ll turn it on,’ Liza answered and lit a cigarette.

  Martha pretended she hadn’t heard the malicious remark, cleared her throat and coughed because of the smoke.

  ‘Is this your laundry?’ she asked, pointing at one of the machines that was in the middle of a drying cycle.

  ‘Yes, but I’ll come back when it’s finished.’

  Martha headed towards the door, but Liza wouldn’t let her get past.

  ‘Hinseberg is an aquarium, have you thought about that? The screws can see you everywhere. But not here. Not here and not in the showers. Sit down.’ She pointed at the bench beside the washing machines.

  ‘I thought I’d go out and wait till you’ve finished.’

  ‘No, sit down.’

  Martha hesitated at first, but then went and sat down.

  ‘About the paintings. I’ve been thinking about them,’ said Liza as she took a bit of tobacco off her tongue. ‘A Renoir and a Monet; a lot of money, that is.’

  ‘For the person who finds them, yes.’

  ‘Come off it. Where are they?’

  ‘Don’t know. We managed to steal some of the most valuable paintings in Sweden, and then they disappeared after we received the ransom money. I wonder if there is a link there, if somebody traced us and got into the suite when we were gone.’

  Liza took a step forward so that she stood right in front of her. Far too close, thought Martha.

  ‘OK, you’re a first-timer, but you don’t seem to have understood. We stick together in here. Out with it. Where are the paintings?’

  ‘They were in the suite when we left the Grand Hotel and they were gone when we got back. I don’t know any more than that.’

  ‘Which suite?’

  ‘As if I’d tell you that,’ said Martha. ‘Anyway, the paintings aren’t there any longer.’

  ‘Oh yeah, then it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘That’s right, of course.’ Martha stopped. ‘Yes, I wonder myself what happened. Who got into the suite to steal the paintings? It must have been somebody who knew that we had disguised them.’

  ‘Disguised them?’

  ‘Yes, you should have seen what the paintings looked like,’ said Martha, and now she had to smile. ‘We painted in a hat and sailing boats and a bit more besides so that they wouldn’t be recognizable. But nevertheless they disappeared.’

  Liza knocked the ash off her cigarette and took a deep drag.

  ‘Somebody could have recognized the paintings and then sold them.’

  ‘But who? We were only gone two nights.’

  ‘The hotel staff or the other guests, of course. If somebody hasn’t simply switched the paintings.’

  ‘Actually, there were two others hanging there when we came back,’ Martha remembered.

  ‘There, you see, aren’t I right?’

  ‘But the police have been round the entire hotel and searched. They didn’t find anything. And we were going to give the paintings back when we got the ransom money.’

  ‘And you got it?’

  ‘The money disappeared.’ Here Martha did actually stretch the truth a little, since she didn’t want to say that some of the ransom money had been saved and was waiting for them in the drainpipe.

  ‘Hang on, this is getting confusing. You carry out a record-breaking coup but you lose the loot and the ransom money?’

  ‘Yes, it was our first crime, you see. It’s a pity about the pictures.’

  Liza took a step closer and leaned over Martha. For a moment she wondered if Liza was going to stub out the cigarette in her face.

  ‘Have the police questioned the cleaning staff?’

  ‘Don’t know. The police must have interrogated everybody.’

  ‘Somebody, one of the staff, could have taken the paintings. A bit of money might get them to talk.’

  ‘But I’m locked up for a year.’

  ‘I get my temporary release in a few days. I can help you, but I want ten per cent of the ransom.’

  ‘The money has disappeared, I said.’

  ‘Listen, sweetie. It can’t all have disappeared. I’ll go along with perhaps some of the money disappearing, but not all of it. And the paintings are out there somewhere. They have either been sold down the line, in which case it’s too late, or somebody has them and is lying low. Anybody at the hotel could have recognized them and now they are simply waiting for the police to offer a reward.’

  ‘You’re right. Why didn’t I think of that?’

  ‘Being a criminal is a profession. You need assistance. Admittedly, you are as old as the hills, but that doesn’t make you any wiser.’ Liza gave Martha a measured look. ‘I can do the rounds and ask my contacts. When I’ve found the paintings, I’ll get my ten per cent. We will both be winners then.’

  ‘I don’t know, there are several of us involved. I can’t decide this on my own,’ Martha answered.

  ‘Listen. It doesn’t actually make any difference. You’ve already revealed enough for me to fix this myself.’ Martha saw a dark expression pass over Liza’s face before she continued. ‘Did you really think I would share with you? Lesson one here at Hinseberg is that you shouldn’t say too much. Lesson two is that you shouldn’t trust anybody.’

  ‘But—’

  Liza took her clothes out of the dryer and walked off without another word.

  The night before her temporary release, Liza suddenly succumbed to a severe stomach bug. She lay in bed all the next day and the day after, and she and her probation officer never actually left. Nobody except Martha knew what had caused it. She still had some of Rake’s herbs. Nobody had searched the reflector arm of her walker.

  Fifty-One

  As Petra heard the elevator descend and she was alone again in the annex, she set to work. The construction workers had left some things lying around: insulation material, a roll of protective paper, garbage bags and other bits and pieces. She quickly wrapped the two paintings in the protective paper and put them inside a brown garbage bag together with some insulation, old newspapers and other junk. Then she put the filled bag in the bathroom. The garbage wouldn’t be collected until Friday, and until then she needn’t worry. She had twenty-four hours to smuggle the paintings out of the Grand Hotel.

  As she left the hotel, she said hello to the two receptionists and exchanged a few jocular words with the doormen. Then she went home on the underground. She was on tenterhooks all the way to the university campus and couldn’t help thinking about everything that could fail, but she managed to persuade herself that it would all work out. She thought about her parents, who had such great hopes for her. ‘My conscientious little girl,’ her mother used to say. And her father, who always boasted about her. If they found out! If things went wrong, she would be on her own. Her parents had never gone out of their way for her before and certainly wouldn’t do so now. Her mother meant well, but had poor health, and her father seemed to have had children mainly so that he could boast about something. He had worked in a radio shop, and if he hadn’t inherited quite a lot of money, they would never have been able to afford to move to Stockholm. She was the first in the family to go to university. If he found out that she had hidden paintings worth thirty million, he would simply faint. No, he would have a heart attack.

  On her lunch break the next day, she hurried to the Royal Palace and paid to go into the Royal Armoury Museum but didn’t bother about any of the exhibits. Instead, she went straight into the museum shop and went through all the pictures and posters depicting the King and Queen. After browsing a while, she settled on a colour print of the
King in uniform and one of the royal couple. She bought them and put them in a protective cardboard tube before returning to the hotel.

  During the afternoon Petra made lots of trips to the annex to check that everything was still there. When she had finished cleaning, she waited half an hour more until the construction workers had gone home and then took the elevator to the annex. She carefully opened the door to the bathroom and stood there quietly a few minutes until she was absolutely certain she was alone. The chief barman wasn’t due at work until two hours later, so she had plenty of time. When she knew that she was alone, she unwrapped the paintings and put the Monet on the carpenter’s bench. It was quite a lot of work to get the painting out of the frame, and she had to use some pliers that were in the room before she managed it. Then she put the colour print of the King in uniform on top of the Scheide painting and stapled the print to the edge of the canvas. Having done that, she put it back in the frame, leaned the picture against the wall and took a few steps back. He looked really handsome, the King, standing there in his grey uniform with lots of medals on his chest. His uniform cap fitted nicely and hid the fact that his hair was thinning. He looked much more stylish than those fat politicians you see on TV nowadays, she thought. Perhaps she ought to stop voting for the Social Democrats, because she was a royalist. How could you be against a royal family? If you got rid of a king, you would have to replace him with another head of state—and that wouldn’t be any better, would it?

  She then moved on to the Renoir painting. The large gilded frame was perfect for a picture of the King and Queen together. She removed the heavy frame, put the colour print on top of the canvas and stapled it in place. Then she put the wretched frame back around the canvas again—which took some effort. She flicked her hair away from her face and looked at her handiwork. Now the picture really looked rather fancy, but it did, after all, show the Swedish royal couple. The two of them were what represented the country abroad, and the Social Democrats could say what they wanted! It was just a pity that Queen Silvia had had a face lift. One of the most beautiful women in the world had not thought herself beautiful enough. That was a catastrophe for the women’s movement, and a great disappointment for women in general, Petra thought. She examined the two pictures again. The colours were just right, and the frames were pretty good too. Perhaps the gilded frame around the royal couple was a bit too fancy. Petra took some dirt from the floor and rubbed it on the frame until it all looked a bit kitsch. Only if you actually lifted the pictures would you realize how heavy they were—otherwise you might well think they were plastic frames!