Thank God it wasn’t raining, and there was no snow either. It was perfect weather for shady deals.
‘Now, we must conduct ourselves calmly and sensibly,’ said Martha, keeping a lookout down the street. Her voice was tense and she noticed that herself. No delivery van yet. Why was it taking so long?
‘Don’t worry. We’ll manage this,’ said Brains.
‘But what if somebody discovers us?’ asked Martha.
‘You ought to have thought of that before you ordered four cartons of disposable diapers and a stroller,’ muttered Christina. She was still grumpy because she hadn’t been allowed to arrange it all with her children. Anders and Emma had, of course, strollers and blankets aplenty, and she hadn’t understood why Martha would rather squander money on unnecessary purchases.
‘Motherly love can dazzle strategic thinking,’ Martha had answered, and Christina had been in a bad mood since then. Martha must try to appease her friend, but she would have to wait for the right opportunity. Now it was time for the Big Delivery.
They had held a big purchase meeting two days earlier. The first item on the agenda was ‘Suitable diapers’. They had all patiently listened to Christina’s talk about little Malin and her nocturnal habits. Christina babbled on about her grandchild and how much pee a certain brand of diapers absorbed—while really all they were concerned about was which diapers would hide the most banknotes. Brains and Rake yawned, Anna-Greta drummed her fingers on her computer and Martha tried to bring everyone to order.
‘The diapers should be able to hide five-hundred-kronor notes, darling,’ said Martha. ‘They must be big enough to cover the notes completely, and they should have a good leakage barrier so that no banknotes will fall out. I vote for Bambo.’
Brains, Rake and Anna-Greta immediately put up their hands to agree and therefore decided the vote.
‘Typical that you all decide, you who haven’t a clue as to what you are talking about,’ Christina muttered. ‘What do you know about diapers?’
‘Nothing, but that’s how things work in real life, sweetie,’ Rake consoled her. ‘Those who don’t know decide for those who do.’
When they came to the next item, ‘Purchase of stroller’, the discussion heated up considerably.
‘It would have been lovely to cooperate with your children, Christina,’ said Martha, ‘but unfortunately Emma’s stroller could be traced right back to us. We must have a stroller that can’t be traced and if we get a double stroller, we will also have room for both paintings.’
‘Quite right,’ Anna-Greta chipped in. She sat at her computer busily googling different strollers on the Internet. ‘This one—Akta Gracilia—an umbrella stroller, is cheaper than the others. We’ll take this.’
‘But it has had bad reviews,’ Christina objected. ‘I’ve heard that the handles and bolts can loosen and, in the worst case scenario, the entire stroller can fold up like a fox trap.
‘Not this model. It’s “Best in Test”,’ Anna-Greta went on. ‘And it has a rain cover with a zipper and a stroller lock.’
‘But if it is a double stroller, isn’t it going to look strange if we only have one baby?’ Brains asked.
‘We’ll have to buy an authentic-looking baby doll, then,’ Martha suggested. ‘I, at any rate, can’t manage to squeeze out a baby at my age, that’s for sure.’
‘Is that meant to be funny? You are crazy,’ Christina muttered. ‘You’ve got me and my children to help with this, and then you go and propose that we buy a plastic doll. No, now I’ve had enough!’ She rushed out of the room in tears.
They all looked at each other in horror and realized that sooner or later they would have to involve Anders and Emma, otherwise Christina would tire of it all and perhaps drop out. Martha fetched a box of Belgian chocolates and passed it to Rake, who quickly hurried after Christina to console her. It took quite some time and nobody really felt like saying anything because all you could hear was Christina’s sobbing. Finally, they heard footsteps approaching and the relief was great when Rake came in with Christina again. She had chocolate round her mouth but hadn’t forgotten the doll.
‘For God’s sake, how do you think the villains will react when they find a stroller with a plastic baby doll in it?’ she exclaimed and threw out her arms.
‘They’ll realize we care about details and wanted to make everything as realistic as possible,’ Brains responded.
‘Your grandchild can have the doll to play with,’ Martha suggested, and with those words Christina calmed down. To further appease her, they let her choose freely among the cushions and baby blankets and in the end everybody was satisfied. They had agreed on a good double stroller with a rain cover and plenty of room for paintings, diapers, cushions and blankets. Then they toasted each other before going to bed.
Martha was interrupted in her musings by a van driving up the hill. The white delivery van slowed down on the crown of the hill, not far from Diamond House.
‘There it is!’ said Martha, looking pleased. The vehicle approached and stopped next to them on the pavement. The driver wound down the side window.
‘Is this Diamond House?’
‘That’s right,’ Martha answered.
‘Right, then.’ The youth opened the door, jumped down and asked for a Maya Strand. Martha nodded and signed the digital apparatus he had with him. Her handwriting was not as neat as it used to be, and she wasn’t used to signing her alias, Maya Strand. In the end she managed to produce one of those illegible signatures that important men and doctors tend to use.
Anna-Greta counted the cartons and checked the delivery note. Then the driver generously carried it all to the elevator, which required a few trips with his trolley, and finally they managed to smuggle the cartons into their rooms unseen. They had only just finished when Martha caught sight of yet another delivery van outside the window, so she hurried down again. The driver looked surprised when she claimed that the stroller was for her children, and it took a while before she realized that at her age she should have said grandchildren. But it all worked out well, and when she got back to her room again she put out glasses and fetched a bottle of champagne.
‘Well, then, dear friends. A toast! To the paintings and to art!’ she said.
‘To the Impressionists!’ Anna-Greta added.
Then, amidst triumphant cries, Anna-Greta produced some long open-faced sandwiches that she had ordered via the Internet. Martha locked the door, and after they had eaten the sandwiches and drunk the champagne, they filled several diapers with five-hundred-kronor banknotes. Anna-Greta was in a brilliant mood since the orders via the Internet had worked without any problem. In high spirits, she declared that the next day she would phone her bank to explain the computer complications earlier. But the others advised her not to, being of the opinion that it was best not to give anything away. It would be best if she simply told the bank to restore her accounts to how they were before the transfers—when she, or a virus, had deleted everything.
‘What if they ask about the big withdrawals I wanted to make?’ Anna-Greta asked.
‘Just say that the interest rates have gone up and you have changed your mind.’
All in all it was a lovely day, and when Gunnar turned up after dinner, Anna-Greta’s delight knew no bounds. She disappeared with him into her room and, despite it being so late in the evening, the notes of ‘Childhood Faith’ were soon heard. When Lapp-Lisa sang ‘Childhood faith, you are a golden bridge to Heaven’, the two of them sang along as usual, but then the needle got stuck at ‘golden bridge, golden bridge’. This repeated itself for quite a long time until finally a scratching sound could be heard when the needle moved across the record. Then there was complete silence and the others looked hopefully at each other. Perhaps Gunnar had quite simply deliberately prodded the gramophone with his foot? But then the record was put on once more, and ‘Childhood Faith’ was heard again but now with two places at the end where the needle stuck. At this point they all said goodnight, thanked each other for a nice day and went to their rooms.
It wasn’t long, however, before two doors opened again and Brains and Rake bumped into each other in the lounge.
‘Finding it hard to sleep,’ they both said and returned to their rooms. Shortly afterwards they each opened up their doors again, but at different times, and each of them sneaked out to see the woman that they had been missing for so long. Neither of them had crime planning on their minds, but when they considered how things turned out, they realized perhaps they ought to have made better use of their time.