‘Your mother has been remanded in custody and is at the Kronoborg police station. That’s how it is. I have spoken to the police.’
Nurse Barbara had received a visit from Christina’s two children at the retirement home, and judging by their expressions, they had been deeply shocked.
‘Mother must have become senile,’ said Emma, forty-two, with a sigh. Like her mother, she was blonde and dainty, but instead of round, clear blue eyes, hers were light green and as oval as mussels.
‘Pah, nonsense, she must have tagged along with the others as usual,’ said Anders, who was seven years older. He had curly hair which was far too long and shrugged his shoulders as if to say that his old mum could do as she liked.
‘Or she must have had a blackout,’ said Emma.
‘Your mother was in excellent shape when last I saw her. Otherwise I know no more than what we can read here.’ Nurse Barbara pushed across the two evening papers. The theft at the National Museum filled the front page of Aftonbladet.
‘“Big art theft—paintings disappeared”,’ Anders read, shaking his head. ‘I can’t believe Mum is involved in this.’
‘Oh yes, look, there are photos of them too,’ said Emma, holding up Expressen.
Nurse Barbara studied the old black-and-white passport photographs in which Martha, Christina, Anna-Greta, Rake and Brains were smiling. In some weird way, Barbara felt they were sneering at her. She had read the headline over and over again.
Accused of the great art theft, the newsprint shouted out. But worst of all was that their names were under the photos, along with the fact that they lived in a retirement home. Thank God they hadn’t named Diamond House, but if that became known, Nurse Barbara understood the consequences. Ingmar would think she was completely incompetent and would never, ever marry her, let alone transfer part of the business to her name. He might even fire her. She went into the office to fetch a packet of cigarettes.
‘And I thought mother was a wimp,’ Emma said when she had read the article. ‘She evidently has more guts than I thought.’
‘Women are capable,’ said her brother, echoing the old rallying call of the women’s libbers and turning the pages of the paper. ‘And listen to this, they haven’t found the paintings or the money.’ He immediately perked up and looked happier.
‘Mother seems to be something of a firebrand. Just imagine, they got a ransom too. What a robbery!’ Emma’s voice now sounded really cheery.
‘The League of Pensioners.’ Anders smiled. ‘Mum claims that the ransom was lost on one of the Finland ferries. That the money was washed overboard. I don’t believe that for a moment.’
‘No, they must have hidden the dough somewhere. Mum will have her share of the loot somewhere, believe me.’
‘You haven’t started thinking about our future inheritance, have you?’
‘Yes, actually. She ought to share this. Several million is missing—if you believe the newspapers.’
‘Mum is likely to get at least a two-year prison sentence,’ Anders went on, and he pointed to an analysis in Aftonbladet. ‘You know what, Emma, we’ll visit her in jail and ask where the money is. Try to get an advance on our inheritance.’
‘But Anders, there is something fishy about all this. Why did they give themselves up? Nobody suspected them. First they carry out the perfect crime, and then they go to the police station and confess. It’s as if they wanted to end up behind bars.’
‘Don’t you treat your pensioners well here at Diamond House?’ Anders asked when Barbara returned. ‘Nobody goes to prison voluntarily, do they?’
‘Old people can be a little special,’ she said deviously. ‘You never know with them. Would you like some coffee? We have a coffee machine here.’
‘Yes, please,’ Emma answered.
‘Do you have a five-kronor coin?’ Nurse Barbara held out her hand.
Emma and Anders each gave her one. While Barbara fetched the coffee, they continued to read the morning papers. They, too, said a lot about the theft.
‘I’ve got an uneasy conscience; we ought to have visited Mother more often,’ said Emma after a while, putting down Dagens Nyheter.
‘Yes, then all this wouldn’t have happened,’ Anders admitted, but he stopped what he was saying when Barbara came back with the coffee. ‘Do you have any buns? We haven’t had time to eat lunch.’
‘I’m sorry—’
‘Cakes or biscuits perhaps?’
‘Unfortunately—’
Emma looked at the pile of newspapers on the sofa. Next to them lay two copies of yesterday’s Expressen. She put down her cup and held up one of the newspapers.
‘We didn’t have the opportunity to buy this yesterday. Can we take it?’
‘No, I’m afraid it belongs to the retirement home,’ Nurse Barbara answered.
Then Anders let out a laugh.
‘Come along, Emma, let’s be off.’ He got up and went towards the door.
‘And the room, we should decide about that,’ said Nurse Barbara.
‘We’ll keep it for the time being. Mum hasn’t been convicted yet, and as long as they aren’t here, you won’t have to fork out for coffee.’
Nurse Barbara gave a start. She had gone to the trouble of contacting Christina’s children only to be treated like this. Perhaps she should have given them coffee on the house after all.
‘Right, we’ll leave it for now, but there was something else …’ Barbara wrung her hands and didn’t know how she should formulate this. ‘Yes, well, about our conversation here. I would appreciate it if you could keep it to yourselves. I would rather not have the name of Diamond House associated with crime.’
‘You don’t want it to come out that our mother has lived here?’
Nurse Barbara nodded and got up.
‘You know what I think?’ said Anders. ‘If she and the others had liked it here, then this wouldn’t have happened. You should take a look at how you run this place.’
They went towards the door and on the threshold Emma stopped.
‘Incidentally, if I were you, I would look after the guests who are still here so that they don’t run away too,’ she said. Then the brother and sister trooped out.
They stood for a while down in the lobby. Anders had to go to his job at the Employment Centre; Emma was going to do some shopping before going home. Now that she was pregnant, she only worked part-time.
‘Mother can’t have had it easy here; she lived in a large flat in Östermalm almost all her life. It was plucky of her to make a break for it,’ said Emma.
‘Yeah, it’s quite something. When she lived with Dad, she never dared say what she felt. He was so dominant. Her role was simply to arrange fancy dinners and to be a good hostess. She can’t have had much fun. It was good that they divorced, and now—now she’s on the run!’
‘At last she has dared do something. In the past she always wanted to please everybody. She is of the generation of women who were taught to believe in God, trained in domestic science and expected to take care of a husband and children. Why didn’t Dad see that she was miserable?’
‘He only thought of himself. But now she is making up for all that. You know what? I’m beginning to like this.’ Anders shoved his hands into his trouser pockets.
‘Mother reminds me of a metal spring in an old mattress. One that has been pushed down for a long time but which suddenly pops up and is then impossible to push back again.’ Emma gave a giggle.
‘But criminal—I would never, ever have dreamed of that. On the other hand, did you see what it said in the paper? “One of the biggest art thefts in Sweden!” Hell, I’m beginning to admire Mum. She has done something to change her life, while I’ve just been rolling along on the same old tracks. However much I work, it only gets worse.’
‘That’s the same for all of us,’ Emma chipped in.
‘Yes, but my salary isn’t enough any longer. Since they renovated the plumbing and drains in our block of flats, the rent has tripled and now the wife and I will have to move. I don’t bloody well want to live in a suburb.’
‘Well, then, you’ll have to become a criminal too, or ask Mum for an advance on the inheritance,’ said Emma.
‘There might not be any inheritance, Mum might live another twenty years.’
‘You’re right. Besides, we must do something so that we deserve an inheritance.’ Emma looked at the grey building with asbestos fibre cladding where her mother had lived for the past few years. She inhaled deeply. ‘If she ends up in prison, we’ll have to make sure we visit her a bit more often. Take care of her. Or else we’ll have to fix the dough some other way.’
‘You bloody well sound like a criminal yourself.’
‘Now, now, I’ve not gone that far,’ said Emma, ‘but it is rather inspiring …’
When the temporary cleaner, Petra, went to fetch the cleaning trolley in the annex, she got a surprise. Her rubber gloves were gone and the paintings that she had taken down from the Princess Lilian suite were no longer on the trolley. Her Ajax window cleaner had disappeared, and the cleaning fluid for the floors was almost empty. She was angry with herself. She had intended to put the cleaning trolley back in the storeroom and had only stopped in the annex to put the paintings from the Lilian suite there. But at that moment her boyfriend had phoned. He had seen her with a stranger in the bar and demanded an explanation. It had taken a long time to convince him that the guy was one of her workmates. The conversation had irritated her to such a degree that she had completely forgotten the cleaning trolley, and it wasn’t until she was in the underground on her way home that she remembered that it was still in the annex. Now it was too late. Somebody had used the trolley and the paintings had disappeared into thin air. She looked for them among the other paintings, but couldn’t find them. For a while she wondered whether she should tell the management, but she was afraid that she might have done something she shouldn’t have. After all, she didn’t want to risk losing her job. If nobody else noticed, she didn’t need to say anything. The paintings would turn up eventually.
She put a new bottle of window cleaner and an unopened container of cleaning fluid on the trolley, fetched a pair of plastic gloves and went up in the elevator. As usual, she had lots to do.