The Little Old Lady Who Struck Lucky Again!

by Ingelman-Sundberg, Catharina

  Indeed, a great deal had happened since those dramatic last days out on Värmdö almost six months ago. In her repentant moments Martha might feel a bit sorry for the Bandangels who had been framed with the Handelsbanken robbery, but people who made threats and engaged in extortion really deserved all they got. It would be decidedly good for them to spend a few years in prison, and to get some nourishing food and be able to get fit. For beefy types like Tompa and Jörgen, a bit of exercise would do them the world of good. She had even heard that a stint in prison only served to improve the status of bikers in such gangs, so perhaps the boys weren’t so angry after all.

  However, Anders and Emma were not exactly in the best of moods after having been tasked with selling the big old house and storing the household effects that had been left behind in the rush. And they were worried about Christina and her friends, who were now stuck deep in the forests of Småland, so that they had to visit them now and then to keep an eye on things. Martha had reassured them that this was just a temporary solution and had given them a few hundred thousand kronor each. Then she had added that as soon as everything had quietened down, they would buy a new house and engage in some more projects to improve society. But exactly what they would be, and how they would go about it, she kept secret. One thing at a time, that was her rule of thumb.

  Then there was the engagement. In some way that had come to fill a larger and larger portion of her thoughts and one day, after she and Brains had had a really good time, she had even forgotten the obligatory daily gym session! It was surely high time to tell the others, she thought, but then she remembered that Brains didn’t think they should do that until they were back living in normal circumstances, and not obliged to be hiding out in the forest. Yes, there were a lot of consequences that followed a crime – life became much more complicated than she had expected. If truth be told, there were lots of things to keep track of.

  Martha sighed and went to make some coffee. For a change, she was going to serve coffee with egg liqueur. So much of the cloudberry liqueur had ended up in the ditch on Myrstigen that day they left Värmdö, and she hadn’t been able to find anything similar in the nearest alcohol shop down here. They had even discussed starting to distil their own, but Anna-Greta had said that home distilleries smelt awful and that it would be better to buy liqueur on the Internet since the alcohol monopoly would actually deliver to your door. But, as it was probably wise to lie low a bit longer, they voted against that and instead made do with Bols Advocaat Original and egg-liqueur ice cream. And that wasn’t bad at all. A bit of a change was always stimulating.

  Martha yawned and happened to catch sight of the local newspaper, Vetlanda-Posten, which lay on the table. It had been there since yesterday, but nobody had got round to reading it yet. She started to look through the pages and was just about to put it aside when she noticed a little item. It was about the Historical Museum.

  The museum staff had made a strange discovery inside the Gold Room. Shortly after the happy day when a guard found all the missing gold treasure in the Wishing Well, ants had started crawling around inside the room and the maintenance man had to call in Anticimex. And down in the Wishing Well itself, the water had turned murky. An unusual variety of the Rose of Jeriko had grown up amongst the coins and there were even rumours that a museum visitor had seen water lilies and a cannabis plant down in the well – although this was said to be a tall tale. Nobody could explain how those plants came to be there, although the police had vague suspicions that it was in some way connected with the return of the gold by the robbers. Martha read this little news item quickly, but gasped when she came to the final lines:

  With the help of samples of soil taken from the well, the police hope to be able to trace the robbers and link them to the crime.

  ‘Oops,’ said Martha, and she dropped the newspaper on the floor. Had they succeeded with everything else only to be caught by such a tiny detail? But then she decided not to worry. Nobody would find them here deep in the forest. They could certainly lie low a bit longer. Emma and Anders could drive the minibus and the Volvo to Denmark and put new registration plates on them there. Anyway, the police would certainly think that the gold robbers had fled the country long ago. Martha picked up the newspaper and put it back on the table. Then she went up to the new espresso machine and put in a coffee capsule with chocolate flavour. After that she fetched the egg liqueur and put out cups and plates. New habits and new tastes. It was a matter of not stagnating, but keeping moving on, she thought. They had a new way of making coffee, and they had given up cloudberry liqueur – now it was espresso, egg liqueur and new crimes that were the order of the day.

  When they had all eaten breakfast and were in a good mood, she would summon them to a meeting. She had a plan. The League of Pensioners would renew itself and in the future be able to donate more money than ever. And then, perhaps, she and Brains could tell the others about their engagement . . .

  It was late in the autumn, but customs officer Carlsson had never given up the hunt for the robbers. In the garishly designed room in the police headquarters at Kronoberg, the steel-grey spotlights constantly shone over his busy head. The dove-grey tone went nicely with the new red curtains and the colour of the walls. This time he had asked the caretaker to paint everything bright red because that was such a good contrast to black. The chairs were black, as were the desks, while the cushions were in different shades of grey, blue and purple, so the room looked really chic.

  Besides, he had brought in two new fish tanks – although neither of them was as fancy as the old one. For some strange reason they lacked the same glittering lustre. Perhaps it was to do with the gravel? He must be sure to get hold of some more of those nice shiny small stones again.

  He thumbed absentmindedly through the printouts of the results from the lab. He was forever trying to get the lab people to hurry along with their analyses of the samples from the scene of the crime, but they were always so slow. But perhaps there was something in this batch of reports? He browsed through all the reports and suddenly gave a whoop.

  ‘Yippee, now we’ve nailed them! Caught them at last!’ Carlsson shouted in a falsetto tone when he saw the report on the soil sample. ‘Blomberg, here’s the proof!’

  ‘What? What did you say?’ Blomberg said in a tired voice, looking up from his computer.

  ‘I said that we’ve caught them at last, we can arrest those oldies. I think the crime has been solved.’

  ‘Has it?’

  ‘Yes, aren’t you pleased? You don’t seem to be really with us, Blomberg. What’s the matter? Can I do anything for you? You’ve been looking decidedly down in the mouth the last few months.’

  ‘Have I? I don’t know about that,’ said Blomberg and he blushed. ‘Well, some business deals, that’s all. I lost a bit of money, you know how it is. That can always make you a bit depressed.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Carlsson. ‘In fact, I asked them to repaint the room in brighter colours to cheer you up. We must have pleasant surroundings where we feel cosy. You only live once.’

  Blomberg looked utterly miserable.

  ‘But at least, Blomberg, you can stop worrying about money. When they raised my salary, I asked them to raise yours too.’

  Blomberg gave a start, swallowed several times but managed to restrain himself.

  ‘That was most kind of you,’ he said, and he felt as if he might explode at any moment. The irritation was building up inside him to danger level. But at the same time, really, he ought to be grateful. Beylings had not had time to insure all the goods in the dock warehouse and he had thus lost everything. At least that’s what Birgerson had told him, but that bastard of a lawyer had just bought himself a new car. A Bentley, no less. Carlsson saw Blomberg’s grim expression.

  ‘But you know what? I’ve got something else that might cheer you up.’ The former customs officer got up, went into the corridor and returned with his face all lit up.

  ‘Nice, isn’t it?’ He
patted the black leather clothes. ‘It was down in the cellar and nobody knew what to do with it, so I thought I could try to do something.’ He held the burnt shop dummy which had been stuck on to a Christmas-tree foot. ‘Whatever the room you are designing, it can be simply super to have a special feature; it gives that final touch.’

  ‘Oh heavens above, not that mannequin too!’ Blomberg sighed.

  ‘What? Don’t you like it? But, Blomberg, life is about giving and taking. I have had to put up with your pussy cat.’

  ‘Oh, yes, Einstein.’ Blomberg became quiet and immediately felt guilty. Since that day when Carlsson had installed two fish tanks in their office, he had got his own back by starting to take Einstein with him to the police headquarters. But Carlsson hadn’t got the message; he had simply continued with his fish and just made sure that he kept a cat-proof lid on the fish tanks.

  ‘What about if we started doing a little work, instead of talking nonsense. What did you just say, something about us finally being able to nail them? Something about the pensioners?’

  ‘Yes, the gold robbers, of course. You know what, the soil samples from the Wishing Well in the Gold Room have the same components as the soil from the garden of that big old house out on Värmdö. The Bandangels said they had taken the shop dummy from the oldies’ earth cellar, so we had to investigate that. We couldn’t find any traces of it in the earth cellar itself, but the sample of soil from the garden was interesting. The level of phosphate in the garden soil and in the soil found in the Wishing Well was exactly the same. What makes this especially interesting is that one of the oldies who lived there is that old lady whom we saw on the CCTV images.’

  ‘Oh no, not her again!’

  ‘Oh yes, Blomberg, now it’s serious. I’ve looked through all the CCTV images in great detail. She was there at the Handelsbanken robbery, when the gold was stolen from the museum, and even when the gold was taken back again. And that shop dummy has been in the earth cellar next to the house where she lived.’

  ‘But we’ve already solved the Handelsbanken robbery.’

  ‘Err, I’m not so sure about that. The Bandangels categorically deny all involvement, even though they were convicted for that crime. And there is a problem. Half of the ten million that were stolen is still missing.’

  ‘Yes, of course, you do have a point there,’ said Blomberg, and he picked up Einstein. Having the cat on his lap helped to keep him calm and prevented him from having a nervous breakdown.

  ‘Just come and have a look at this. I’ve got all the CCTV images here. That old lady turns up everywhere. It’s not been possible so far to prove that she was involved in the crimes, but now with the soil samples we’ve finally got the evidence we need.’

  Carlsson put the soil sample on the table and leaned closer to the computer. Reluctantly, Blomberg put Einstein down in the cat basket and went across to his colleague. The customs officer had taken over the work on the big robberies, while Blomberg himself had been asked to deal with some small break-ins and bag-snatchers. Their boss, Strömqvist, had namely been of the opinion that Blomberg was no longer the most suitable detective for the task, and had quite simply handed the investigation over to Carlsson. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Blomberg only had two months before retiring, he would have blown his top – but now, more or less, he managed to behave stoically. He would soon be out of this wretched police station for good, and he was more or less fully occupied transferring valuable information to his USB drives. He was collecting material for lots of future crime thrillers. He must earn money from something now that he had lost everything in the docks.

  ‘All right, then, what have you got to show me?’ he said, and he scratched the back of his neck.

  ‘Just look at this!’ Carlsson clicked on a folder icon with ‘The Gold Room’ next to it.

  The pictures that came up showed the old lady called Martha walking round and round the Wishing Well.

  ‘And what is so remarkable about that, pray tell?’ Blomberg yawned.

  ‘Can’t you see that she’s looking suspiciously often at the display cases? As if she was examining them.’

  ‘No, she’s looking for her husband,’ Blomberg muttered.

  ‘Well, what about this, then?’ said Carlsson eagerly and he clicked on another icon labelled ‘Handelsbanken’. ‘And isn’t it rather weird, too, that some of my folders about Handelsbanken have acquired new icons that I don’t recognize?’

  ‘That happens. The benefactors must have something to occupy themselves with after three in the afternoon,’ said Blomberg.

  ‘But look at these icons here, for example,’ said Carlsson, and he moved his pointer to ‘Handelsbanken AB Gibralter’ and ‘Handelsbanken AB Småland’.

  ‘Careful, don’t click those,’ Blomberg was quick to react. ‘You never can tell.’

  ‘OK, I’ll delete those, but look at this. The old lady . . .’

  ‘She’s called Andersson,’ Blomberg pointed out.

  ‘Yes, look how she’s standing outside the Handelsbanken branch on Karlavägen the very same day the robbery took place, and she’s talking on her mobile, several times. I’ve checked those calls and they were made to the police. And look at this, here it looks as if she is going into the bank herself.’

  ‘What? She’s actually going in herself ?’ said Blomberg, now suddenly interested, leaning forward. ‘Yes, well, well, that’s one for the books! You might have found something there. You know what, I want us to go through all those CCTV images together.’

  Carlsson beamed with joy. ‘Lovely, that’ll be great. But there are quite a lot. What about a cup of coffee first?’

  ‘Yes, that’s a hell of a good idea, in November one needs plenty of coffee to be on form.’ Blomberg went off in the direction of the kitchen, now feeling rather pleased with himself. Perhaps he would retire with quite a good reputation after all, because it looked as if they had now finally nailed those villains. He smiled to himself, fetched a filter for the coffee, put some ground coffee in, and then turned the coffee machine on. Carlsson did his bit by fishing out some pastries from his briefcase, and hurrying after Blomberg, but in his haste he bumped into the cat basket, rudely waking Einstein. The horrid cat hissed at him and he looked daggers back at it. Oh how he hated that cat! It really was time he had a serious talk with Blomberg. That overfed monster had sharpened its claws on the fancy designer sofa and had moulted all over his purple armchair and that was not at all nice. Muttering to himself, he went off to the kitchen and got the cups out.

  Back in their room, Einstein climbed out of his cat basket and started to slowly and methodically lick his paws. Then he stretched himself out at full length and looked expectantly at the delightfully warm keyboard that had just become available. With an elegant leap he was up on the desk; the sample of soil fell to the floor, and the cat was now next to the computer. Then he lay down over the keys, his tail hovered over Enter, and his right paw above some function keys. Purring loudly, Einstein now started to stretch his paws and extend his claws, as cats tend to do. The Handelsbanken AB Småland icon was firmly clicked and this was followed by a paw on another key so that the Handelsbanken AB Gibralter icon also opened a folder.

  Shortly afterwards, the computer started to work away all on its own and this destruction of the arduously gathered information would go down in police history. One after the other the files disappeared from the screen, the CCTV images and all, and the virus that was later traced to deepest Småland was totally unknown to the IT experts. Which meant that they couldn’t block it either. And the strange thing was that it didn’t wipe out everything, only the folders and files about robberies and coups that had taken place over the last two years. But, weirdest of all, and what really confounded the police IT department, was that even their recipe for tasty coffee wafers disappeared too.

  Acknowledgements

  I have been writing The Little Old Lady Who Struck Lucky Again! for more than a year – a task that was endlessly m
ore fun with the help of all those who have supported me en route. First and foremost I am really grateful for all the valuable help I have received from my Swedish publishers, Bokförlaget Forum. Thank you Teresa Knochenhauer, my publisher, who has gone through my manuscript with a fine toothcomb. Thank you Adam Dahlin, head of the fiction department, for your encouraging words. Thank you, too, Liselott Wennborg

  Ramberg, Åsa Ernflo and Anna Cerps for all the time you have spent working on my text and the improvements you have suggested. And thanks, too, to Anna Käll and Nils Olsson for yet another great cover to the Swedish edition.

  I would also like to thank Göran Wiberg, Bernt Meissner and Bo Bergman of Bonnier’s sales department for all the work you did with this and my earlier books, and I would similarly like to extend my warm thanks to Sara Lindegren, Annelie Eldh, Barbro Almgren and Karin Eklund from the marketing department for help over many years with my books. Apart from the publishing house, I have had my own private test panel of readers who have given their views while I was working on the book. They include Inger Sjöholm-Larsson, whose encouragement and joyful laughter have been a delightful source of inspiration, and Lena Sanfridsson, who quite simply has been wonderful to try out ideas on AND A GREAT SUPPORT. My warm thanks, too, to Barbro von Schönberg, whose support and encouragement have contributed to the joy of writing this book, and to Ingrid Lindgren, who was always just as quick and ready in every situation to share her opinion on what I had written.

  My thanks go also to Mika Larsson for all your wise, professional views and when you have openly criticized and praised with the same joyful verve; Isabella Ingelman-Sundberg for your NICE AND FRIENDLY support and all the times you have read the manuscript and given me your quick and insightful comments; Gunnar Ingelman who has been there and supported me while I’ve been writing this book; and Henrik Ingelman-Sundberg for your always unsentimental, critical and direct comments which have been worth their weight in gold.