The Little Old Lady Who Struck Lucky Again!

by Ingelman-Sundberg, Catharina

  5

  ‘Do you really want me to collapse in a heap on the conveyer belt? That sounds silly,’ said Anna-Greta, looking grumpy. ‘Every time we do something suspicious, I have to fall down. Is that all I’m good for?’

  It was early in the morning when the League of Pensioners arrived at Stockholm Arlanda airport. It felt strange to be home again, and the long journey had exhausted them. Martha and the others winked at one another but they couldn’t relax yet. The Copenhagen plane had just landed and soon their luggage from America would arrive on the conveyer belt. They knew that the customs officials searched baggage from the US but weren’t so concerned about luggage that came from neighbouring Nordic countries. So the League of Pensioners needed to acquire some luggage tags from the Copenhagen plane that had also just landed.

  ‘Nobody can fall over like you, Anna-Greta, but if you don’t want to then I can fall instead and you can take care of the rest,’ said Martha.

  ‘We’ll manage that fine, my dear,’ Brains voiced his opinion.

  Martha nodded and went and stood right next to the opening of belt three. She peered in between the big rubber strips hanging down over the opening and through the gap she watched the baggage come in on a trolley and observed the airport workers as they started to unload it. The belt was set in motion and the first baggage items came into view. When there was a little space between some of the bags, she saw her chance. Now, she thought, and pretended to stumble, falling right across the belt. Martha landed on her tummy with her hat askew and baggage on both sides of her. No fractured thighs here, she thought proudly, but, mind you, she had done all those gymnastics lessons as a girl. She was swept along the belt between all the bags, flailing her feet and arms as she went. The sight was so remarkable that nobody actually did anything. And while the belt moved along with Martha on it, the attention of the other passengers was transfixed on the strange predicament of the elderly woman. While this was going on, Brains surreptitiously stood in front of the emergency stop button and Rake, Anna-Greta and Christina quickly stole baggage labels off the passing bags – which had arrived from Copenhagen. When the friends had snatched five labels, Brains nodded to Martha who quickly, and with surprisingly good balance, hoisted herself off the conveyer belt all by herself. All around her, horrified spectators breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘One shouldn’t go too close to the belt; it says so on the sign. I ought to have paid attention,’ Martha said sententiously as she tidied up her tangled hair. The holidaymakers around her stared with mouths agape, but Martha didn’t care. Her job was done. She followed her friends to luggage belt number five where the baggage from Chicago was expected. To be on the safe side, the League of Pensioners hadn’t flown directly to Stockholm from Las Vegas. Instead they had changed planes in Chicago – as they were of the opinion that anything that might make them more difficult to trace was a good thing.

  That same moment, the sign announcing the baggage from Chicago lit up and the first bags appeared. Martha and her friends went closer to the conveyer belt and as their baggage came along, various people around them gave them assistance as they were loading the luggage onto two trolleys. Their baggage included their sturdy suitcases on wheels, their Carl Oscar Zimmer frames and, of course, the golf bag containing the walking sticks. Martha and Anna-Greta each took a trolley into the Ladies loos. There they quickly switched their baggage labels with the ones from Copenhagen and flushed the old ones down the toilet. They then went back to the others.

  ‘What about the golf bag? Shouldn’t that have a label?’ Anna-Greta asked.

  ‘Oops. We’re one short. But I’m sure nobody’ll notice there’s a baggage tag missing, with all our suitcases,’ said Martha, trying to sound convincing.

  ‘We could abandon one of the suitcases, couldn’t we?’ said Brains.

  ‘Yes, Anna-Greta’s for example. After all, her clothes aren’t much to—’ Rake started up.

  ‘Over my dead body! There’s my hat and my clothes and what about my orthopaedic shoes?’

  ‘Oh!’ moaned Rake.

  ‘But it’s only one golf bag among other baggage. Nobody is going to care. We’ll just walk past quickly,’ Martha suggested.

  ‘That’s how smugglers usually think,’ said Christina. ‘And you know what happens to them?’

  ‘And just remember what we’ve got in the walking sticks,’ Brains added.

  ‘We’d better get moving, otherwise we’ll look suspicious.’ Martha hurried them along and took the lead towards the customs checkout desk, closely followed by the others. One after the other they passed the customs officers without any problem and Martha was just on her way out through the doors when she heard a voice behind her.

  ‘Excuse me, madam. Could you please come in here? That golf bag.’

  A light-haired, middle-aged customs officer indicated to her to come across to the counter and at first she pretended she hadn’t seen or heard him, but when he came up to her and put his hand on her shoulder, she didn’t have much choice. The man lifted the golf bag up onto a marble-like counter and started to look at the contents.

  ‘Hardly what I’d call golf clubs, these,’ he said and held up their walking sticks. Brains’s stick with its reflectors stuck out a mile.

  ‘Well, I’m afraid we aren’t quite the golf-playing kind.’ Martha blushed.

  ‘Why have you got walking sticks in a golf bag?’

  Martha swallowed and thought about the diamonds.

  ‘Where else can you store your walking sticks?’

  The customs officer scratched his neck and looked confused. He weighed at least ten, perhaps fifteen kilos too much, but had a very trendy haircut and was wearing a fashionable leather bracelet on his wrist.

  ‘We’re going to have to scan it.’

  Now Christina and Anna-Greta noticed that something was amiss; they turned round and joined Martha. She saw their worried faces and took a deep breath.

  ‘Scan? You mean one of those apparatuses that look inside you when you go to the doctor’s? Oh how exciting!’ she started off. ‘You see, I’ve had a bad tummy and the doctor has X-rayed it several times. And my ankles, dear me! You should see those X-ray images. The bones inside my foot look like spindles. No, it isn’t easy being old. You can X-ray my diamonds so I can see what they look like. I know what gold looks like because I used to smuggle that.’

  ‘Yes, um, yes, I see.’ The customs officer continued to look deeper into the golf bag, clearly not wanting to engage in conversation with the senile old woman.

  ‘But with gold in, the walking sticks became far too heavy,’ Martha rambled on. ‘That was why we switched to diamonds. Or are they called emeralds when the gems are green? Unless they are glass, of course, because they were translucent when I put them in there. Unless they are blue, that is. Oh dearie me, now I can’t really remember. Do you remember everything, young man? The X-ray doctors are so clever. I’ve got pictures of my gallstones too. And they were big ones. Do you want to see? But of course that was before I started smuggling plutonium in my navel. I think I’ve got some photos of that too.’

  Martha gabbled on and on, the words just pouring out; Christina found it hard to stay serious and Anna-Greta burst out with such a loud, dry laugh that she almost blew the customs officer over.

  ‘Yes, you scan our walking sticks. That’ll be something to tell your colleagues in your coffee break,’ Martha went on. ‘But to go back to my visit to the doctor’s – when he found the plutonium in my tummy he said—’

  Anna-Greta’s cackling got all the louder and the customs officer looked helplessly around for his colleagues. But they were busy with other travellers so there was no help available from them. The customs officer stood still for a few moments, pondering what to do and then put the sticks back in the golf bag.

  ‘Thank you, that’s all for now.’

  ‘But what about the diamonds in my navel?’

  The customs officer bowed and Martha couldn’t get away quick eno
ugh, again closely followed by the others. Once outside the arrivals hall, Martha immediately hailed a taxi and when she turned to her friends in the back seat her face was full of lines of laughter.

  ‘People are so uncomfortable when they talk to the elderly nowadays, so you can lay it on as thick as you want! You should have seen his expression; I almost felt like consoling him. But now it’s probably best we leave quickly. Next stop Stockholm! Let us disappear in the big city.’

  ‘Disappear? How can we disappear?’ mumbled Rake in the back of the taxi.

  ‘Clarion Hotel, that will do nicely, don’t you think?’ she went on, without waiting for an answer. ‘They are international there, that’s for sure, and they will know all about coordination numbers. They will know that they are temporary personal identity numbers for people like us, who are coming as immigrants to Sweden.’

  ‘Our new identity, yes,’ Anna-Greta boasted with satisfaction. ‘I thought we’d need new ones to be on the safe side. Our old crimes are still unsolved and I bet the police are still looking for us. It took me a few months to arrange it all, but now we’ll have these new co-ordination numbers. But we can keep our old first names all the same, they’re so common anyway.’

  After almost an hour in the heavy traffic they reached the hotel and checked in. The porter helped them into the lift with their baggage but it wasn’t until they had got up to their rooms that Martha noticed that something felt wrong – very wrong. They hadn’t got the golf bag with them. Martha had forgotten it. It must still be at the customs checkpoint.

  The large dining room was virtually deserted, with only very few guests. A waiter was stacking cups and saucers beside the coffee machine and an elderly couple were sitting at a table by the window reading the newspapers. Some businessmen had just finished breakfast. They pushed their plates away, wiped their mouths and got up to hurry on their way. Martha and her friends were late, and they only wanted something light to eat before they could go and take a nap. Martha calmed down with a cup of coffee and some sandwiches and made sure all the others had something to eat before she dared tell them the bad news.

  ‘In the customs hall? It can’t be true, oh nooo, the golf bag with all our private capital?’ whined Anna-Greta.

  ‘You don’t mean . . .’ mumbled Christina, opening her handbag and searching for her blood-pressure pills.

  ‘It can’t be bloody true!’ Rake hissed. ‘Are the diamonds gone?’

  Martha put her hands over her face and started to sniffle. Brains moved in a little closer.

  ‘Now, now, Martha dear, it isn’t all your fault. We weren’t thinking either,’ he said, and put his arm round her. ‘We were so tired, all of us. Things like that can happen so easily. And after such a long journey. You wait and see, it’ll sort itself out, my dear!’

  ‘But the diamonds are worth at least . . .’ groaned Anna-Greta and started to count in her head. She had grown up in the posh and very affluent Djursholm and was used to a certain standard of living, but now things were looking bad.

  ‘We seem to succeed with the crime, but then lose the booty. Perhaps we should cooperate with the Mafia so there is a bit of order!’ Brains joked.

  ‘Goodness me, no, certainly not!’ Anna-Greta exclaimed and dropped her teabag into Martha’s coffee cup.

  ‘In detective stories they never go about losing all their money,’ said Christina, who sounded a bit bolder now that she had taken her blood-pressure medicine.

  ‘I’m sure we’ll manage to get hold of the golf bag again and if we have a little rest it’ll probably all seem much better,’ Martha tried to smooth things over.

  ‘You go and have a rest and dream about Lost Property,’ Rake muttered.

  Martha gave him an angry look and tried to hold back her tears. Then Brains suddenly got up, causing the porcelain on the table to rattle.

  ‘Some people put all their eggs in one basket. I don’t. We’re going to manage nicely for quite a while longer, at any rate.’ He pulled up his wrinkled shirt – 1950s vintage – and exposed his round belly. Among the greyish-white hairs around his navel you could see a strip of surgical tape right over the hole. He looked a little mischievous.

  ‘The good thing about diamonds is that they aren’t so big. There was room for three in my navel.’

  6

  Customs officer Carlsson yawned widely and let a colleague take over at the end of his shift. It had been an arduous night and of the two hundred and sixty passengers on the last plane, several had tried to smuggle in cannabis and happy pills. Although the most troublesome traveller by far was that old lady with the golf bag. She had gabbled on like an earthquake. And that talk of having plutonium in her navel. There were some really crazy people around. Now he could at last go home and sleep.

  He put his pen away, nodded to his colleagues and was on his way out when he caught sight of the golf bag. Oh yes, of course, he had completely forgotten that. Best to hand it in.

  ‘I’ll take this to the destruction container,’ he said and lifted it up so that the sticks rattled.

  ‘But that old lady didn’t have anything to declare,’ his colleague protested. ‘So it can’t be sent for destruction, surely? She just forgot her golf bag. Take it to the storeroom instead.’

  ‘Oh yeah, damn it!’ muttered Carlsson. ‘OK, I’ll dump it there.’

  He yawned yet again. It was no joke working the night shift. Sleepily he walked off with the golf bag under his arm and stopped outside the storeroom.

  ‘Oh hell!’

  The door was locked. He put down the bag, fumbled with his keys and tried some of them. None fitted. He looked around, didn’t feel like going back again. But he couldn’t leave the bag here, could he? Perhaps he could just take it home with him, even though it was against the rules. He could put it in the hall for the time being and then take it back to work the next day. Or if the bag was good for keeping walking sticks, then it would do just as well as an umbrella stand. Pleased with his brilliant idea, he whistled to himself all the way to the garage. Now he would drive home to Sollentuna and get some sleep. And why not report in sick tomorrow? He was, in fact, really tired, indeed completely worn out. Best to have a large whisky, some sandwiches and take it easy.

  The next morning customs officer Carlsson woke with a heavy hangover and stumbled out into the hall. Hardly looking what he was doing, he fumbled for the morning paper in the letter box until he realized that his wife had taken it hours ago. He yawned and tried to swerve round a pair of children’s wellington boots on the floor; instead he tripped and fell right onto the golf bag. A crunching sound from inside the bag indicated that something had broken, and he got up somewhat shaken. A golf bag? But he didn’t play golf. Then he remembered that silly old lady and he stood the bag up. The chrome handle on one of the walking sticks had broken off. He looked inside and discovered something shiny. Curious as to what it was, he shook the handle and a whole lot of tiny stones fell onto the floor. Granite, bits of gravel, quartz crystal and some bits of polished glass. The old lady had talked about diamonds, could she have been telling the truth? He shook the other walking sticks. There was nothing special about them other than the fact that all the handles could be unscrewed. Inside them, too, were stones of various sizes and colours. Ah, now he understood; it was a way of giving the handle a bit of weight so that the walking sticks acquired the right stability and balance. Cheap and practical. And that old age monster had teased him and said it was diamonds! Hadn’t she said something about having gemstones in her navel too? He looked at the broken handle and realized it would be hard to repair. How could he explain that he’d taken home something from the customs hall – which was strictly forbidden – and then, to cap it all, had happened to break it? Perhaps it would be for the best to forget all about it and keep his mouth shut.

  Still sleepy, he went to fetch the brush and pan but then he changed his mind. No, breakfast first. He slouched into the kitchen, turned the espresso machine on, made some cheese sandwich
es and sat down with the morning paper. He read a while and ate his breakfast and was just going to get another sandwich when his eye fell on the dog’s empty food bowl. Oh yes, of course, he must give the dog something to eat and he ought to feed the fish too. Yesterday he had bought a tin of powdered fish food and some dog food too. Carlsson got up, went past the aquarium and out into the hall where he’d left his briefcase. When he saw the gravel and tiny stones on the floor he had an idea. Hadn’t his son said something about wanting some fancier stones in his aquarium? Carlsson whistled, fetched the brush and pan and carefully swept up all the small stones. Then he tipped them into the water and carefully smoothed the stones out on the bottom of the tank. Having done that, he took the packet of fish food and sprinkled some into the water. Satisfied, he took a step back. Pretty little stones they were. The aquarium really glimmered.

  7

  The large old country house out in the Stockholm archipelago was situated on a slope with a view across the sea and, even on a grey, windy day, the place was indescribably beautiful. In the summer the jetty would bask in the evening sun and just above the shoreline was a well-tended garden with a terrace to sit on, a large storage shed, a cellar and a greenhouse.

  ‘Just the thing!’ Martha exclaimed, looking happily at the others. She and the League of Pensioners were walking around the garden, delighting in its features. Rake pictured what he could grow in the greenhouse while Christina inhaled the cold smell of the cellar and thought about all the good food she could store here. In the two large sections in the cellar there was plenty of room for potatoes, plums, apples and other fruit and the previous owner had set up wide shelves along the walls where you could keep everything from milk and mead to wines. A brown-stained door led from the earth cellar to the storage shed where you could keep all the tools and other things necessary to look after the garden. Next to that lay a large old-fashioned woodwork shed with a carpenter’s bench and a lathe. Brains noted with delight that the previous owner had left a set of tools and he enthusiastically stroked the bench, dreaming of everything he could make there. He smiled happily and took Martha by the hand.