The Little Old Lady Behaving Badly

by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg

  “Somebody must have moved the transponder because just now I got in contact with it,” he said. “Everything is working. Now let’s go!”

  “Did you get it started? Goodness, you’re a genius,” mumbled Nils, looking frightened. So the transponder had not fallen into the sea but had landed somewhere on the deck where he hadn’t seen it.

  “Ah, engines and other technical things, they’re easy, but don’t try me on computers,” answered Brains.

  “Right then, next stop the airport,” Martha ordered—but not until she had given Brains a big hug and praised him for the most valuable contribution in the history of the League of Pensioners. And while the Panama boat with Bielke’s transponder was en route to its fate at the bottom of the sea, a shocked Nils arranged two taxis. Then they all went off to Nice airport.

  58

  THE ENTIRE GROUP BOARDED THE AIRCRAFT, MADE THEMSELVES comfortable in their seats and slept all the way to Stockholm. And then they had some luck, because there is no other way to describe their progress through customs at Stockholm Arlanda Airport. To be on the safe side, Christina had bought a little children’s roulette game with lots of pretend banknotes. She had also gone to a souvenir shop and bought some bags of coral, pretty little stones and shells which she mixed with the real diamonds—just in case—but everything went well without any troubling questions. Christina explained this by telling her friends that she had swayed her hips a bit more, and that had evidently been a good thing.

  “Hmm,” said Rake and Brains in unison, and then they mumbled something about that not making much difference nowadays, because the customs officials were used to it. They added the final bit of the explanation at the very last moment because what they really thought (and neither of them dared say it out loud) was that hip-swaying ladies in their late seventies didn’t have the same effect as younger talent.

  And then there was the briefcase with the dollar banknotes. For some reason, a customs official became interested in it.

  “Can I have a look?” he asked, stopping Martha.

  “Monopoly!” Martha cried out shrilly, and she pulled out some dollars. “I know, I shouldn’t gamble but what does it matter as long as it’s pretend money. Do you want some?” And she smiled so suavely that the official simply couldn’t help but smile too.

  “What? Er no, no,” he said and waved her on.

  When the gang of pensioners had finally staggered out from the airport terminal, they were relieved and shaken, but also confused and in their rush they happened to get into an illegal taxi. So when they reached Djursholm the driver charged them an obscenely high price; it was actually about ten times as much as what it ought to have cost.

  “Yes, right,” said Martha, and she started to look for her purse in her handbag. “I’ll pay, I’ll deal with this,” she told her friends in a tired voice and asked them to get out and take their luggage. When that was done, she arduously maneuvered herself out of the front seat and closed the door. Then she rolled up a bundle of banknotes and gave them to the driver through the side window.

  “Here you are, and that includes a tip. I might have paid a bit too much, but you are really one of the best taxi drivers I have ever traveled with!” she said in a friendly tone. She raised her hand as a farewell and pulled out her cell. The driver smiled, lit a cigarette and looked contentedly at the bundle of banknotes. He inhaled a few times, then unraveled the bundle. And stared. There was only just about enough to cover the cost of gas, lots of small denominations. He angrily opened his door to chase the old lady, but stopped almost right away. She was standing a few meters away with her cell by her ear and one hand on her hip.

  “Now you listen to me, you taxi fraudster! You shouldn’t con old ladies. I have phoned the police,” she said briefly, putting the cell back in her handbag. She looked so threatening and determined that the driver backed off, swore at her, made a rude sign with his finger and then drove off.

  “Oh my God, you haven’t just phoned the police, have you?” Christina wondered, horrified.

  “Are you crazy? I was just frightening him. I am allergic to that sort of bad behavior.”

  “But why did you ask the driver to take us to Bielke’s address, then?” Brains wondered and he looked around at the garage entrance. When he had got out of the taxi and taken out his suitcase, he had discovered, to his surprise, that they were outside the neighbor’s house, not their own.

  “It is best that nobody knows where we live.”

  “Poor Bielke, he does seem to inherit all kinds of problems!” mumbled Brains. “By the way, why has he got a motorboat outside his garage?”

  “Yes, it wasn’t there before. And the hedges have been trimmed and the lawn cut. What if he is on his way home?” said Anna-Greta.

  “I couldn’t care less, because now I just want to go to sleep,” roared Rake, who had had enough of all the chattering, and nobody objected because they too were completely exhausted. They walked slowly across to their own house and when they went in through the front door they were so tired that they all went up to their rooms and went to bed with their clothes on. And they didn’t hide the briefcases in the sauna, but slipped them under a bed. They didn’t want these banknotes—and perhaps even the diamonds—to smell of vinegar.

  59

  FINANCIER CARL BIELKE SAT ON THE PLANE FROM LONDON EN route for Nice. He had spent a good weekend in the British capital and his business deals had been wonderfully successful. He had managed to acquire two properties in the city center from a bankruptcy and had already signed the contracts and transferred the 380 million that the deal cost. He would have the sewer pipes replaced and do some renovation on the facade in one property, and a luxury makeover of the vista apartments in the other, and then he could soon increase the rent considerably. That would bring in many millions over the years. Now he could really indulge in a few days’ vacation!

  He and his two secretaries got off the plane in Nice and when they had gone through customs he went straight across to the counter for the helicopter service and slammed his briefcase down.

  “The same as usual. Full speed to Saint-Tropez, please!”

  Very pleased with himself and in an excellent mood, he sat down with the two young ladies and waited for the helicopter to be ready. Meanwhile, he phoned his standby crew in Saint-Tropez and asked them to prepare for a little outing.

  “What about a week touring the coast, with some visits ashore here and there?”

  “Sorry, we can’t do it,” said the captain, his voice sounding unusually pitiful. And, yes, then with a broken voice he had said that Bielke’s new motor yacht had sunk. His Aurora 4 must have gone to the bottom and, according to the preliminary reports from the harbor authorities, the vessel had vanished from the screens at lunchtime that same day. The weather had been good and no collision had been registered. But the boat had disappeared and was presumed sunk.

  “What the hell!” shouted Bielke.

  The captain tried to explain and didn’t manage very well. He mumbled something about a new crew having borrowed the boat to train how to handle it, and when the yacht disappeared from the screens he himself had thought that they had turned off the transponder on purpose and anchored at some secret place for some nefarious reason. Yes, the ladies from the Saint-Tropez fashion week were still in town . . .

  “Yes, you understand,” said the captain. He said that several hours later, when there were still no signals from the vessel’s AIS, he had got suspicious. “We were conned,” he sighed. “Those people disappeared with the boat out to sea.”

  Carl Bielke was so angry he could hardly breathe. Earlier, the captain had told him of a gang of pensioners who were going to charter the boat. Had they had with them a crew of their own, an incompetent pack who had let the boat founder? But then surely the rescue services would have been involved, an SOS sent out, and the seniors would have been reported missing. But just think—God forbid—what if somebody had hijacked the boat? The captain, whose voice now
sounded even more pathetic, did indeed claim—after being pressured by Bielke—that it was the seniors who had stolen the yacht after he himself and the others had ended up in the water. They had later found the little motorboat abandoned in a bay. But Bielke did not believe that, of course. Pensioners with walkers can’t steal a big motor yacht, that much was obvious, so naturally it was the captain and the others who had drunk too much, enjoyed themselves with the young models from Saint-Tropez and then tried to explain away what had happened. Presumably, one of the girls had cooperated with the mafia—probably a boyfriend who had asked his girlfriend to put a sedative in the crew’s drinks. Then when the captain and the others snoozed away, they had been dumped somewhere—after which the gangsters had returned to the yacht and steered it out to sea. And then, of course, they had turned off the transponder. Now all they needed to do was rename his newly acquired boat, repaint it and perhaps make a few changes to the furnishings, and they would have carried off a fantastic coup. Yes, that’s what must have taken place. And the fact that Aurora’s motorboat had been found was a clear indication that something had happened. What a farce! How could the crew fall for such a simple con? And by now the cunning scoundrels would be on their way to Naples or some other mafia port.

  While the helicopter approached Saint-Tropez, he looked out over the glittering sea and thought about what he should do. Already, a year before, he had come to the conclusion that it was hard work having three large motor yachts in different ports. So for quite a long time he had been contemplating selling one of them and concentrating on two really large yachts instead. He would have one for himself and the other for chartering. So from that angle, what had happened perhaps wasn’t such a bad thing after all, but a turn of fate that had made the decision for him. Yes, good God, it wasn’t such a total disaster after all. Now all he had to do was rake in the insurance money and move on with life—even though he would miss that Chagall painting, of course. With these thoughts, he calmed down, put his arm around the ladies and kissed first one and then the other.

  “You know what? Let’s spend tonight at a hotel and then we’ll decide what to do tomorrow. There’s a market, if you want to buy something. And we can go to Club 55 and swim. If we get tired of that, we can wander around the town. I need a watch and Van Cleef’s jewelry store has lots of beautiful jewels that would suit you. What do you say?”

  The young ladies looked admiringly at him, so delighted that he hugged them both. Then he went to a luxury hotel with the two beauties and enjoyed himself royally all night. It wasn’t until the next morning that he remembered that the insurance papers were in the map room on board the motor yacht. In his yacht that had sunk! Or been hijacked . . .

  60

  OLEG WAS ABSOLUTELY DELIGHTED WITH HIS NEW MOTOR yacht Aurora 5 and very pleased finally to be on the way to Cyprus. There had been problems with the crew which never showed up, but then he had hired his own. He didn’t have time to wait. The conference was over and Martha and her old fogey friends were history. Now he and Boris would have a vacation, pick up some girls on the beach and take things easy before they started working again. He took a drink with ice and went out on the bridge. They were approaching Famagusta. Lovely. Soon they could be seated at a restaurant and eat something tasty. Perhaps a Mediterranean platter with shrimp, mussels and lobster; that would be nice. He stood for a long time up on the bridge and looked over the bow until the boat slowed down and moored at the quay. When they had secured the mooring lines and he was about to go ashore, he saw a group of seniors waiting on the quayside. Thirty or so seniors with wheelchairs and walkers stood down there waving. Oleg leaned over the railing, confounded.

  At the front of the group stood an energetic elderly gentleman in shorts, a white blazer and Bermuda shorts waving a little flag on which it said Aurora 5. He called up to the deck and asked to speak to the captain. When Oleg, rather surprised, climbed down the ladder and shook hands with the gentleman, he heard that his Aurora 5 had been chartered for a cruise in the Mediterranean starting next week. The travel group comprised a gang of pensioners in their seventies and now the seniors wanted to go on board and have a look around.

  “You have made a mistake,” Oleg laughed.

  “Oh no!” said the man, and he showed Oleg a certificate written in beautiful italics that he had received via email from the Senior Peace Pensioners’ Organization. It was a diploma (which in appearance was similar to some of Christina’s very best works) with a border of flowers in watercolors, a long ornamental text and two illegible signatures. At the bottom of the page was a logo with five gray panthers. Oleg shook his head and tried to wave the man away. But he wasn’t going to accept that.

  “Here is the certificate, and besides, I have a piece of paper that shows that it has all been paid for,” said the man, pulling out yet another document. “You are the owner of Aurora Five, aren’t you? This vessel is part of a senior fleet of three modern yachts which have been chartered for cruising in the Mediterranean. We shall depart tomorrow for a fourteen-day cruise.”

  “No, completely wrong,” Oleg maintained, but his laugh was a bit more nervous this time. “That agreement might perhaps have concerned the former owner, but not me. I have just bought the boat. Let me fetch the contract, and I will show you.”

  Irritated, Oleg hurried up to the bridge where the safe was, and took out the papers that he and Martha had signed. Not particularly worried, he quickly thumbed through the documents. But when he looked more closely at them he discovered an extra sheet which he hadn’t noticed earlier—with his own signature down in the right-hand corner. Surprised, he picked it up and started to read:

  In connection with the purchase of Aurora 5, I, the undersigned, Oleg Pankin, the new owner of this motor yacht, hereby commit myself to hosting two free Mediterranean cruises each year for elderly retirees. The cruises are reserved for those of limited means who otherwise would not be able to afford such luxury. The cruise guests shall be entitled to free food and drink on board and outings arranged in connection with visits to ports. The costs involved are to be paid for by the owner of the cruise vessel.

  “What the hell is this!” he yelled out and now he began to be seriously worried. “Have I signed this?!” He swallowed many times, walked to the edge of the deck and took a firm hold of the railing with both hands. Then, leaning the upper part of his body out, he shouted in Russian something that could roughly be translated as: “This is no goddamned old folk’s home. This is my motor yacht. Get out of here!”

  Upon which he gave the captain the order to cast off. A stressed Oleg steered westwards to Capri where, he had heard, the mafia tended to spend their summers. It was said to be calm and quiet for those who occupied themselves with obscure business deals. Perhaps he could acquire a peaceful abode there?

  AND CAPRI WAS WHERE ANNA-GRETA MANAGED TO TRACE THE yacht. Via a blog written by a former resident of Djursholm, who was also a Facebook friend and ran the San Michele Foundation—Axel Munthe’s house in Capri—she found out that Aurora 5 had docked at Capri. At the Foundation they knew everything that happened on the island, and now her friend told her that a mean and angry captain had refused to allow elderly retirees on board, even though they had booked a cruise. Anna-Greta marched in to Martha, furious.

  “Our efforts with Senior Peace have come to nothing. Oleg is not cooperating at all on that charitable activity.”

  “What a scoundrel, a real big-time scoundrel!” Martha swore. “Admittedly, I did play a little trick on him, but now I’ll show him! He had a chance to think about other people—and not only himself—but he didn’t take it. So now he only has himself to blame!”

  “So we are going to activate Plan B?”

  “Naturally! Do it, my dear!”

  And so it came about that the two elderly women sat in front of the computer to try to carry out their wily and well-thought-out plan. Martha pulled out Oleg’s business card.

  “Here is the name of the bank and the account
number. To think that he actually gave me this information.”

  “No crooked businessman can imagine that he might be conned by an old lady.”

  “No, and especially not by a senile old lady with a double chin and dachshund ears,” Martha said, and she smiled.

  TOGETHER THEY TRIED TO GAIN ACCESS TO THE BANK AND THE account but when that didn’t work, Martha went to fetch some coffee, cakes and a bowl of fruit. That usually helped. But not this time. All day long, Anna-Greta sat there trying to hack her way into the account, without success. And for every hour that passed, she got all the more glassy-eyed.

  “Perhaps we’ve got the wrong account number, or could it be extra difficult in Russia?” she said every time Martha looked in and wondered how she was doing.

  “Take your time, my dear. I know it is difficult. Even the police can’t manage that sort of task.”

  The police! Anna-Greta thought about Blomberg and realized that she could ask him for help. She had missed him, but to meet a real policeman was to tempt fate. And it wasn’t just about her, but the entire League of Pensioners. But, a few days later, she was still struggling with her attempts to hack the Russian account, and Irish coffee, cloudberry liqueur and cognac—not to mention organic fruits and Christina’s vegetable drinks—hadn’t helped. Anna-Greta was getting nowhere.