‘This certainly wasn’t what we had in mind when we applied to the Police College!’ Inspector Lönnberg sank his teeth into the hamburger and looked out through the windshield. It was raining; it had been raining every day for the last few weeks. A greasy sliver of tomato had fallen onto his trousers and he knocked it off onto the floor of the car. ‘Now we’ve been sitting outside this damned old folks’ home for several days without anything happening.’
‘But something has happened—they got a cat,’ said Strömbeck. He popped a portion of tobacco under his gum. ‘Unless I’m mistaken, you were the one who suggested we should shadow them. Pensioners in a retirement home …’
‘Not me. It was orders from above. One of Petterson’s brilliant ideas. Incidentally, you smell of tobacco. Couldn’t you try another brand?’ Lönnberg opened his mouth wide and some bits of pickle landed on the seat. He brushed them off too and threw a glance at Strömbeck. The man never seemed to need to eat anything, he lived on nicotine. That tobacco and nicotine chewing gum. On the other hand, it had been even worse before because then he had smoked cigarettes. Then he really did stink. But Inspector Lönnberg liked Inspector Strömbeck—he was reliable. He had a wife and two kids, and when he was at home he seemed to help with everything. He belonged to that new generation of men who changed diapers and did the cooking. Lönnberg himself had been brought up according to the old adage that it was the man who decided. The woman should be at home, have children and keep house. Why had they changed that? As soon as he had told his girlfriends that they would be housewives, his relationships had started to go wrong. A long time ago he had given up the idea of getting married, and he was happy with his life, his garden and his books. Above all, he lived for his work, and at the moment he was frustrated with these old people. He had got nowhere with them, and quite honestly, he didn’t know how he should handle the situation. But since they might lead him to the missing money, he couldn’t give up. He had never believed the story that the banknotes had blown off the Finland ferry. These old people were cunning and he could feel in his bones that they had hidden the ransom money somewhere.
This time had been worse than any of the previous times he had brought Martha in for questioning. Petterson made no progress with her at all. Dressed in a well-fitting two-piece suit with a matching scarf and shoes, Martha had come into the interrogation room. She had smiled encouragingly all the time and assured Petterson that she hadn’t seen the money, but that she would do all she could to help him. If she heard or saw the tiniest thing that was suspicious, she would immediately get in touch. He was certain that she was laughing behind his back. In the end, the boss had decided to put a watch on them all. Petterson assumed that the pensioners were ‘goalkeepers’ for a criminal organization and that sooner or later the police would discover their secret links. Criminals normally used social outcasts or the local drunkards, but using elderly pensioners like this was perhaps a new trend.
Inspector Lönnberg looked at the hamburger in his hand, did a quick calculation and popped the rest of it into his mouth. A shower of lettuce and mayonnaise dropped onto his trousers. He swore, pulled out his handkerchief and wiped the debris onto the floor. Then he turned to Strömbeck.
‘The League of Pensioners, what contacts could they have with the underworld?’
‘I’ve no idea who they cooperate with. But they were proud of the art robbery.’
‘Hell, I’m getting fed up with this. Shadowing somebody with a walker …’ Lönnberg tried to loosen a bit of lettuce that had got stuck between his teeth.
‘That’s why the boss has called this Operation Undercover. He said nobody must find out what we’re doing.’
‘Proper villains are more substantial, so to speak,’ said Lönnberg.
‘Yes, then it’s real police work. But this? The last few days we have followed them to the chiropodist five times.’
‘And the public reading at the library.’
‘Don’t forget the water gymnastics and the religious services.’
‘What if they’ve had secret meetings with somebody? We really do have to shadow them across the board,’ said Lönnberg.
‘But what were you thinking of when you ordered back-up to go to the Eros Rosen Massage Centre? Next time we’ll be accused of procuring!’
‘But—’ He turned silent. Martha Andersson and her two lady friends had come out of the retirement home, closely followed by the two elderly men in their group. They stood there on the pavement as if they were waiting for something. He prodded his colleague.
‘Listen, Strömbeck. Something fishy is going on. I can feel it in my bones.’
A green van approached, slowed down and stopped right outside Diamond House. A light-haired man in his fifties jumped down from the driver’s seat, opened the door and let down the ramp. The three ladies went in with their walkers, followed by the two men.
‘Five elderly people get into a van. Now, Lönnberg, we’ve got them. They’ll certainly be going to rob a bank,’ said Strömbeck.
Lönnberg pretended not to hear the irony but put his hands on the steering wheel. When the driver had put the ramp up again, closed the back doors and got back up into the driving seat, Strömbeck pulled out his binoculars.
‘Now they’re off. We’ll follow them,’ he said.
‘Roger, you’re the boss.’
‘But drive carefully so they don’t see us.’
‘Hell, sure. I won’t use the blue light.’
The green van rocked its way forward while the windshield wipers worked at full speed. The five had affectionately named the van the Green Menace and were all very pleased with it. Martha was the only one who wasn’t in the best of moods. She had backed the van into a parked handicap vehicle outside Diamond House, which had led to something of a tumult. After various diplomatic euphemisms, Christina had suggested that they should ask Anders to drive instead, and the others had mumbled and muttered so much that finally Martha had let him take the wheel. Martha knew that this was probably for the best. Rake and Brains had—in a physical sense—long since passed their best-before date, and when it came to heavy lifting it would be good to have Anders along with them. But even though he was Christina’s son, Martha was not sure they could rely on the boy. He seemed so young—forty-nine. Could he deal with this? Or what if they got hold of the twenty million and then he drove off with it all? Then they wouldn’t have lost just half the loot, but all of the loot. Martha had tried to console herself with the thought that a trusted civil servant like Anders would not steal. Then she thought about their own backgrounds and became worried again. Regardless, now it was too late to change anything because Christina had let the cat out of the bag and Anders had understood that the five of them were planning new crimes.
‘Don’t you have any conscience at all?’ he had asked.
‘That is just what we do have,’ Christina explained, and then she told him about the ultimate crime and the Robbery Fund.
‘The Robbery Fund, Anders, my dear, is important,’ she had said. ‘We who have built up this country want to be comfortable in our old age. We are not real villains, you see. We are helping out where the state has failed to do what it should. We are only borrowing a bit from the rich and giving it to the needy. Yes, you know, people that the state is saving money on—widows, the old and those who are sick longer than the politicians have decided is reasonable.’
Then Anders had hugged Christina and said that he was proud of her, after which he had pointed out how boring and meaningless his civil service job was. By helping the elderly he felt he could do some good. Indeed, that is how Anders happened to become a handyman for the League of Pensioners. Martha accepted this and thought it was wise to maintain contact with the younger generation so as not to let the group stagnate. However, he could never become a proper member; he was going to be paid for his work. They had also decided that they would administer the Robbery Fund themselves.
‘I’ll be in charge of that bank account,’ said Anna-Greta with her glass-breaking voice, and then there wasn’t so much to add.
Anders hadn’t been able to refrain from spilling the beans to his sister. Emma, in turn, had rolled her eyes and said that their mother seemed to be getting younger and more daring every day. Martha had heard every word when the brother and sister stood smoking on the street outside Diamond House.
‘From now on, I will take better care of Mother,’ said Anders.
‘Me too,’ Emma agreed.
When Martha heard this, she agreed to let Anders join in. And then, at the evening meeting that same day, they realized he was needed.
‘Large detached houses in Djursholm are awkward. The wine cellar is nearly always in the basement down some steps. So it would be great if we could get some help,’ said Brains.
‘And it’ll be good to have a contact in Sweden who can look after our things while we live abroad,’ Christina said. ‘I’m sure there will be lots that must be arranged here.’
Martha agreed with that, because as soon as the five had got their money they were going to fly to the West Indies. They had made that decision a few days earlier. Anna-Greta had already booked the flights and a hotel on the Internet, as well as arranging all the necessary papers. How she had managed that was more than Martha could fathom, because they ought to be in the criminal register. Then she realized that the system would certainly have weeded them out because of their age. So there were some benefits to being old.
A car in front sounded its horn and Martha wanted to do the same, but then she remembered she was in the passenger seat and wasn’t driving. It was Anders who was steering the rocking van towards the centre of Djursholm and not her. After he had changed to a lower gear and driven past the library, he continued straight ahead and then turned to the left beside the lake path. Martha looked out. They drove past several large, luxury detached houses, each one seemingly larger and more magnificent than the one before. Then they drove past a bay and up a slope.
‘Here it is,’ said Anders. He turned right and parked the van at the side of the road. It had become silent in the van, and they were all filled with the solemnity of the moment. Rather cautiously, they studied the house.
‘Skandiavägen, that’s the right address. I can’t see any lights in the window,’ said Brains. ‘The mother-in-law must have gone away, like Juro said.’
‘It looks completely empty,’ Christina whispered with a shaky voice. ‘But do you really think they have hidden the mailbags here?’
‘We’ll observe first before we strike,’ Martha said.
‘If anybody questions us, we’ll simply say that we thought this was the Crown Retirement Home. Isn’t that what you said, Martha?’ Rake asked.
‘Yes, right. The house is as big as an institution. The Crown sounds perfect. Did you bring your picklock with you, Brains?’
‘Yes, and some extra cellar keys. People often have the fanciest locks you can imagine but forget the cellar.’
‘And the alarm?’ Christina wondered.
‘You know that. It’s my speciality,’ Brains answered.
‘Right then, let’s go in,’ said Christina, putting on a black scarf. If you wore black you couldn’t be seen so easily—that was the first thing she had learned at Hinseberg. Now she looked as if she was going to a royal funeral. The only thing missing was the mourning crêpe.
‘OK, then?’ said Brains, who thought it was unnecessary to remain sitting in the van too long. ‘Everyone ready?’
The very same moment that Martha opened the door, a car drove up the slope. The dark blue Volvo seemed to glide forward and slow down just after it had passed the van.
‘That’s done it,’ Martha said.