Soon after the ship had left Helsinki for the return journey to Stockholm and passed the little island of Sveaborg, Martha felt how the wind caught the hull, but she wasn’t worried. These big modern ferries had stabilizers. None of the others seemed to care, they just carried on helping themselves at the enormous smorgasbord buffet, chatting and laughing.
‘The restaurants here are not bad at all, but the cabins can’t compare with the Princess Lilian suite,’ Martha commented.
‘Soon we will be back at the hotel, thank God,’ said Christina. ‘The standard is much higher there, and there we are on firm ground.’
‘It’s crazy how quickly you get used to things. We booked luxury cabins, after all, but they feel like tiny wardrobes compared to the suite,’ Martha admitted.
‘Well, soon we can put the art coup of the century behind us and plan new deeds,’ said Rake, putting his arm round Christina. ‘Why don’t we stay on at the hotel a little longer? We can pay our way.’
‘But we weren’t going to pay for the hotel,’ Anna-Greta protested. ‘And you haven’t forgotten that we are meant to be going to prison, have you?’
‘No, certainly not, but I don’t think we will determine when that happens; it will be the police,’ Brains pointed out.
‘We’ll see if the museum has involved them, but I don’t think they dare. Remember that P.S. we put at the end of the ransom note? If you contact the police, we shall destroy the paintings,’ said Martha. ‘Granted, we’re not going to do it, but that is what we wrote.’
‘Regardless, we must be careful,’ Anna-Greta reminded them. ‘The money is ours now. But we must think of future plans, Martha. Where are we going to put all this money? It won’t fit in a bank deposit box.’
An embarrassing silence followed because nobody had thought about that. That was one of the drawbacks of planning in several stages. Now they had missed something again.
‘This is not a problem as long as we have mattresses,’ she said to distract them.
‘Mattresses? That won’t work,’ the others protested, and a lively discussion immediately got under way about where the money should be stashed. The five of them couldn’t agree. As time wore on, the waves got higher and became more noticeable, so they withdrew to their respective cabins. The League of Pensioners would have to be in good shape the following morning when they fetched the shopping trolleys. Just before Martha fell asleep, she went through all the details in her head to ensure that they hadn’t forgotten anything. She thought about the second letter they had posted the day after the first one:
The two Urbanista shopping trolleys are to be filled with 10 million kronor and placed on the Silja Serenade car deck in the partition for rain clothes right next to the car ramp. Don’t try any tricks. No police. Just do as we say and nothing will happen to the paintings.
Martha remembered how pleased she had been with the twist at the end, but the others had been uncertain.
‘It sounds threatening,’ Christina had said.
‘Pah, it will do nicely. You mustn’t be too soft,’ Anna-Greta stated.
‘Can’t we just remove the last two sentences and sign it “Bandidos?”’ wondered Brains. ‘That sort of says it all.’
They had discussed the wording for a long time before finally agreeing on a compromise. They took away Bandidos—even though all of them admitted it was an interesting suggestion. But the ominous sentence at the end had been kept. Now that she thought about the wording again, Martha didn’t like it. It sounded so irresponsible. But she had gone to the mailbox and posted the letter, so it was done now.
The ship rolled and a large wave hit the bow. Now it wasn’t just Martha’s thoughts that kept her awake but the rough sea too. She went through the letter in her head again and wondered if the museum had managed to get hold of ten million kronor in such a short time. Perhaps they had simply put make-believe money in the shopping trolleys—museums didn’t usually even manage to get funds for lockable cupboards and decent equipment for the toilets when they asked for it. She pulled the covers up over her chin and decided to stop worrying. Renoir and Monet were priceless. Ten million ought to count as small change.
During the night the wind blew even stronger and by the early hours there was a moderate gale. When they could sail near the islands they were comparatively sheltered from the weather and the wind, but between Åland and Stockholm the ship rolled alarmingly. Soon they were in a full storm. The five of them lay in their cabins and held on tight, and twice during the night Martha came close to vomiting. She sincerely hoped that the others weren’t feeling quite as miserable. Luckily, when the ship reached the shelter of the outer islands of the Stockholm archipelago, the sea was much calmer, and when the wake-up call came on the loudspeaker Martha had, against all odds, managed to get dressed and make her way up to the cafeteria. The others, too, looked somewhat worse for wear and none of them had more than a cup of tea and some toast for breakfast. An hour later, the five of them were already standing by the elevator when the captain came on the loudspeaker again and asked all drivers to go down to their cars. They quickly pushed the button to go down to the car deck.
At first, none of them really noticed anything different; everything just seemed a bit messier than usual. However, when they came close to the ramp, Martha saw that things were not as they should be. Instead of four shopping trolleys, there was now only one! She looked around but couldn’t see any of the others. She felt a knot in her chest and was finding it hard to breathe.
‘Brains, have you seen this?’ she whispered, so upset that she forgot to put up her umbrella. Brains still retained his cool; he opened his umbrella and Martha’s too, and moved forward with caution. He stopped and had a good look all around.
‘If we start searching for the other shopping trolleys it will look suspicious. One filled shopping trolley will give us about five million. I think we should be satisfied with that.’
‘You’re right. In crime novels, the thieves always get caught when they try to get that last bit of loot. If we just take the trolley and leave the ship as if nothing has happened, the guards will think we are the innocent pensioners that we are pretending to be.’
‘The only thing is that they might claim the missing millions back the day we get caught,’ said Brains.
‘Pah, we shall simply let Anna-Greta sort that out later.’
They smiled at each other, and when they reached the shopping trolley Brains quickly looked for the tiny hole he had drilled for the reflector arm to stick out. He couldn’t see one. Therefore this must be the museum’s shopping trolley. They took it without looking around, raised and lowered their umbrellas twice as a signal to the others, and then slowly walked down the car ramp. Despite what had happened, Martha was not worried about going through customs. The customs officials checked anybody from a neighbouring country and they certainly wouldn’t care about five poor pensioners. But when the five of them got close to the control point, two customs officials suddenly stepped forward and stopped them.
‘We haven’t got any spirits,’ Rake quickly informed them.
‘No drugs either,’ said Christina and sneezed. She had caught a cold again.
‘So what have you got in your shopping trolley, then?’ one of the customs officials asked, giving Brains a sign that he should open it.
‘It is full of banknotes. It’s the ransom money we got for the painting robbery at the National Museum,’ said Martha, smiling courteously. She was certain that if she told the truth, not a soul would believe her.
‘No, it’s the money I won at roulette,’ Anna-Greta interjected. ‘Now I’m going to put it in the bank.’
Martha shot an irritated glance at her. You should never say too much; that would only make the customs men interested. And so it did.
‘Gambling? Oh, right. Can you please be so kind as to open it?’ said the customs man as he started to pull at the zipper.
Then Christina fainted. This wasn’t anything they had planned, but when Christina had been seasick she had thrown up all the pills that raised her blood pressure, and now she was felled by the fact that her blood pressure was so low. Martha rushed forward and lifted up her legs as she usually did while the others tried to shake her back to consciousness.
‘Please, can you give me a candy?’ Martha asked the customs official, and when he wasn’t quick enough Anna-Greta poked him in the tummy with her stick.
‘You will help the poor woman right now! Otherwise she could die!’ she roared with her razor-sharp voice, and the customs officials obeyed her immediately. While the men were trying to revive Christina, a long queue of passengers formed behind them—and it just grew and grew. Finally, when Christina—pale and confused—managed to get back onto her feet, the customs officials’ patience was exhausted.
‘Be on your way!’ they ordered her, and the League of Pensioners moved along as quickly as they could. After this, the officials didn’t wave any more passengers in for control. They returned to their office for a cup of coffee to get their strength back. So it came about that on this particular day more goods were smuggled into Stockholm than during the rest of the week.