The Little Old Lady Who Struck Lucky Again! Read online

  ‘But how can you say that? When I worked in the bank we saved kronor in coins. Two hundred thousand in cash is not just a bit of pocket money.’

  ‘Of course, but if we spend these banknotes it’ll be nothing compared to what we lost on the Internet.’

  Anna-Greta realized that Gunnar only wanted to calm her. Having company when you are out on an adventure wasn’t such a bad idea after all, she thought. Besides, Gunnar’s father had been a big-time gambler and taught him quite a lot about racehorses. That felt reassuring.

  Quickly, they walked on and after they had got their tickets they deliberately took a wrong turn and went into the Stallbacken – the stable area. This area was restricted to trainers, jockeys and other people directly connected to the horses, but Anna-Greta and Gunnar had decided that they wanted to check on the condition of the horses themselves. Above all, they were hoping to find somebody who was doing shady business because today they were going to be buying betting slips. Anna-Greta liked the sound of the words ‘betting slips’, it made her feel adventurous. The plan was that if somebody won one hundred thousand on one of the horses, she would offer to buy the winning betting slip for one hundred and twenty-five thousand kronor in cash. Then, when she went to the betting counter with the slip, she would get one hundred thousand that nobody could trace. Not bad. But decidedly shady . . .

  The horses were warming up in the Stallbacken. Anna-Greta and Gunnar took a good look at them all. Anna-Greta was now feeling confidently eager. They were going to launder money and lots of it!

  ‘Fighter Gull is going to win,’ an elderly man confided in her beside the entrance to one of the stable buildings.

  ‘But what about that one there?’ Anna-Greta wondered and pointed at a black horse with small ears without horse shoes.

  ‘Joker Ride? That one’s going to break into a gallop and will come in last.’

  Anna-Greta and Gunnar walked on and went into the main building. They took the lift up to the restaurant from where they had a magnificent view of the racecourse. They sat down at one of the tables and ordered beer and some prawn sandwiches. Anna-Greta looked around her and tried to find someone who might want to sell a winning slip. She looked around for someone who looked a bit suspicious. Here, at any rate, was where the big-time gamblers congregated. If, for example, a gang of middle-aged women had backed a winner then they would celebrate with lots of noise, but the professionals kept a straight face. So they had to be very attentive.

  Leaning back, she listened to the talk all around her and watched as the horses gathered, ready for the start of the next race. Three minutes to go. Gunnar got up.

  ‘I’m betting five hundred. It would be fun to gamble a bit too.’

  ‘Yes, we all need a bit of pocket money,’ agreed Anna-Greta.

  When Gunnar came back, the start car had already pulled away at high speed, and the race was under way. Goodness how fast those horses run, Anna-Greta thought, as they whooshed past. ‘How clever they are, our bow-legged friends!’ she exclaimed in a loud voice.

  ‘Four-legged friends,’ an elegant man in a brown suit on a neighbouring table corrected her.

  ‘Magical Star has a jockey with a firm hand,’ Anna-Greta went on, to compensate for her faux pas. She was sure the jockey’s skill was a decisive factor.

  ‘The driver, you mean?’ the brown suit said. ‘Yes, Magical Star has a good driver.’

  Driver? Were the jockeys called drivers? Anna-Greta mumbled to herself.

  The speaker voice got louder and more rattled the closer the horses got to the finish, and then she heard a gang cheer just a few tables away. It was a little group of middle-aged ladies; they certainly weren’t shady big-time gamblers. A man got up and walked towards the lift. Nothing in his face expressed joy. Now was the time.

  Anna-Greta got up so quickly that her beer glass started to wobble. She wobbled too and realized that the beer she had been drinking was much stronger than she’d thought, but she was in a hurry so, with the aid of her Zimmer frame, she sped along as fast as she could towards the lift. Once she was down on the ground floor she caught sight of the man who was walking straight towards the gents. Typical, she thought, what would she do if he carried out his business transactions in there? She waited for what felt like the longest time ever and then spotted him exiting the loos, still holding the winning betting slip in his hand. She approached him cautiously.

  ‘Err, got summat to sell?’ Anna-Greta slurred. The beer really had been very strong.

  The man looked up in surprise.

  ‘You’ve won ninety thousand, haven’t you? I saw the odds,’ Anna-Greta went on, and then gave him a knowing wink, just like she’d seen in the cinema.

  The man stared at her.

  ‘OK, I’ll give you one hundred and ten thousand for the betting slip. Cash,’ said Anna-Greta and reached down for the bag.

  ‘But this isn’t a betting slip. This is a prescription for horse medicine.’

  ‘I was just joking,’ Anna-Greta stuttered and she fled back to Gunnar. Thankfully, as the evening wore on, their ‘deals’ started to go better. After the evening’s most important race, Anna-Greta and Gunnar managed to buy two winning betting slips. They had been able to go about their business undisturbed. Neither of the big-time gamblers had the slightest inkling that the two charming pensioners that evening had laundered banknotes from the Handelsbanken robbery. Then they took a taxi home. They didn’t dare walk through the park again with real, untraceable money.

  22

  It felt safer now that all of the five million in ‘Hugin’, the larger of the two mannequins, had been changed into notes that couldn’t be traced back to the robbery. The remaining five million, in ‘Munin’, would have to be changed at another time. The League of Pensioners didn’t want to shuttle back and forth to Solvalla racecourse or the Forex exchange offices any more. So, after Anna-Greta had deposited their arduously ‘laundered’ money in the league’s newly opened accounts, they all gathered together on the veranda to discuss further plans. Instead of coffee, they had switched to tea and instead of wafers they had scones. Martha thought they needed a bit of variety and, besides, it was wise to show that nothing was set in stone and that even their most routine arrangements could be changed. They must not stagnate, they must always be on top form.

  The meeting started and, refreshed by the tea, they were indeed all on very good form. The day had come when at last they could start their Gift Drop Project. The friends had already drawn up a list of retirement homes that would be targeted; now they only had to decide what they would gift to them.

  ‘First, we’ll do the retirement homes, then the City Mission Charity and then the museums that have had to cut back the most,’ Martha started off. ‘What do you think we should give them?’

  ‘We must find out what people really need so that we don’t spend money unnecessarily,’ Anna-Greta stated, keen to make her opinion known.

  ‘Easy as pie,’ said Rake. ‘Beautiful young women, a glass of the hard stuff and some good food . . . and perhaps a visit to—’

  ‘Dirty old man!’ Christina hissed, and she threw out her hand so that her cup fell to the ground.

  ‘I was only joking,’ Rake attempted, but he didn’t look especially credible.

  ‘What about a car or another kind of vehicle?’ Brains wondered out loud. ‘Or a motorbike with a side-car?’

  ‘I think we should give away “surf tablets” instead,’ Gunnar put in. ‘Then you can read books and newspapers or play computer games and do all sorts of interesting things.’

  ‘Good idea! And what about a subscription for regular deliveries of nourishing food? Various shops and companies offer that service nowadays, Lina’s Shopping Basket or whatever they call themselves,’ Martha went on.

  ‘Good food needs to be accompanied by good drinks too,’ Brains stated authoritatively. ‘At the state alcohol shop we can buy bottles of wine by the carton, champagne and whisky too, for every retirement home in
the country.’

  ‘But the alcohol shops can’t deliver to other addresses, it would all have to go via us,’ Anna-Greta pointed out.

  ‘I don’t see that being much of a problem,’ Rake said – and he didn’t expect anyone would notice if he took a few bottles for himself at the same time. They might well come into use if he went across to visit Lillemor and wanted to treat her to a drink or two.

  The discussion went back and forth and after a little break the meeting got going again. The mood was quite joyful – to put it mildly. Now Brains wanted to give away sports cars and Harley-Davidsons to all the retirement homes in the country; Rake was keen on yachts and cruise tickets, while Martha and the other ladies were dreaming of providing gyms and health centres, before they finally returned to earth and settled for season tickets for gyms and spas.

  By the time they got to the end of their list, Anna-Greta’s notebook was full. Then Martha opened her mouth to add floral walking sticks to the list, but she suddenly remembered the sticks with the missing diamonds and kept quiet. Instead, she was relieved to hear Anna-Greta proposing folding walking sticks and everyone was happy. After that, they helped to put together an address list.

  ‘Right, let’s order these items!’ cried Martha.

  ‘But, Martha, dear, shouldn’t we get some sleep first?’ said Brains.

  ‘Nonsense, this won’t take long!’ she answered and then they gathered together in front of the computer, cheering and commenting loudly at every purchase made. When nobody was looking, Rake took the chance to add their own address to the impressive delivery list, because he thought they didn’t have to give everything away. They could have a bit of fun themselves, surely?

  When Anders and Emma came to visit that evening, they found the whole gang snoring on their beds. In the library there was an open bottle of vodka as well as a bottle of cloudberry liqueur that was almost empty. They looked at each other in horror.

  ‘This criminal life doesn’t exactly seem to be very healthy,’ Emma sighed. ‘Every day they seem to have to celebrate something.’ She gathered together the glasses and put them in the sink, where she gave the unwashed cups a disapproving look. ‘Has it occurred to you that we have turned into a home-help service?’

  ‘That’s true. We clean, take clothes to the dry cleaners, do the weekly shopping and fill the fridge and freezer. Today I’d thought of going to a football match, but instead . . .’ Anders made a face.

  ‘But they do pay well, and we don’t need to have any other job.’

  ‘I’ll grant you that,’ Anders mumbled and thought about his financial circumstances. He didn’t get much in the way of unemployment benefits, but managed OK now, thanks to the thousand-kronor banknotes that Christina gave him now and then.

  ‘But just look at what a mess they’ve made here,’ Emma groaned and she pointed at the half-full glasses and the unwashed cups. She picked up one of the cups and sniffed at it suspiciously.

  ‘Oh my God, even the cups smell of vodka!’

  ‘What of it? That’s not our business. Mother has her life, and we have ours, don’t we?’

  ‘Yes, but the idea of having a boozing criminal as a parent!’

  ‘Let her do what she wants. The most important thing is that she is happy and comfortable,’ said Anders as he started filling the dishwasher. ‘And don’t forget that we, too, are criminals now. We have assisted in crimes. . .’

  Hearing those words, Emma raised her eyebrows and dug a packet of cigarettes out of her bag. She lit a cigarette. Inhaled deeply twice, but stopped when she heard footsteps on the stairs. Martha!

  ‘Well, well, how nice to see you! What about a little champagne? We have a lot to celebrate, you can be sure of that!’ Martha beamed.

  Rake, too, was on his way down. He was looking a bit the worse for wear and he wrinkled his eyebrows when he caught sight of them. Emma could guess what he was thinking. Christina was always getting visitors, but Rake hadn’t heard from his son in the last few months. He pretended not to care, but Emma knew otherwise. She liked Rake, and thought that his absent son could at least phone now and then.

  The stairs creaked again, and Christina came into the kitchen. She brightened up when she saw them. Their mother was neither red-eyed nor angry, as she had been recently. Now she looked very much in control of things. Her two children looked at each other, relieved, because they had noticed that things weren’t as they should be, but they had not really understood what had been wrong. But anyway, when their mother hugged them, everything seemed to be all right again.

  ‘Well, well, this is nice. I hoped it would be you. And Anders, dear, I need a bit of help with something.’

  Oh no, not again, he thought but had no time to protest before Christina resolutely took him by the arm and went off with him to the veranda. The two of them talked a long while out there, and when they came back in, Christina was giggling while Anders just shook his head.

  ‘What is it?’ Emma whispered to him when she saw her brother’s shocked look.

  ‘Mother has lost her marbles, it’s all beyond my comprehension,’ he sighed. ‘But I’ve promised not to say a word.’

  23

  The days passed, and Rake couldn’t forget Lillemor. He had seen how Tompa went into her house sometimes and he wondered what those two were up to together. The lad was admittedly younger, but neither as intelligent nor as well-groomed as he himself was. Nor had he travelled as much. No, Tompa was nothing to worry about. Rake straightened his back. Bandangels or not, he didn’t care. That biker was no match for Rake!

  As soon as the League of Pensioners had laundered the money, and got some safe cash to spend, Rake saw his chance. He must do something to impress Lillemor. He pondered over this for several days and then came up with an idea.

  ‘The garden path needs fixing,’ Rake declared jollily, and with a bit of help from Gunnar ordered a lorry-load of gravel and stone slabs from the Internet. At first everyone was surprised, but then they agreed that it was probably best to let him do his own thing. If Rake could be in charge of his own little project, then it might put him in a better mood – there had been problems on that front lately. Above all, there was still tension between him and Christina, and that affected all of them.

  ‘There are enough slabs there to build a cathedral. Rake always has to go over the top,’ sighed Martha two days later when she saw the heaps of slabs and gravel beside the gate. This wasn’t going to be an ordinary garden gravel path; no, Rake had decided to lay stone slabs using various sorts of granite. He had had a summer job laying slabs when he was a teenager, but that hardly qualified him, and to take on a designed garden path when he was over the age of eighty was perhaps a bit too bold.

  ‘Now I’ll show them, those so-called experts on TV!’ Rake said when he pulled on his dungarees. ‘They wouldn’t even have dreamed of a garden path like this. You can forget those fancy landscape-gardeners – here comes Rake!’

  So out into the garden he went. He measured and planned, his enthusiasm clear for all to see. They all understood how serious he was the following morning when they woke to the sound of a roaring digger which seemed to have gone berserk in the garden. Between the gate and the lilac arbour, Kalle’s Mini Excavator AB was busy digging up a strip with Rake standing close by, gesticulating frantically. When he came into the house half an hour later, he had a satisfied smile all over his face, and didn’t seem to be tired in the slightest.

  ‘What are you up to, Rake? Do you want to make an impression on her over the road?’ Christina asked, and she pouted.

  Rake’s face changed colour. ‘No, no. This is something called garden design,’ he announced solemnly and pointed at a sketch with stone slabs laid in various patterns. ‘You can see it here, a path which talks with nature.’ Rake had heard that phrase on TV and thought it sounded impressive. He held up the sketch. ‘The path will go from the gate to the garden and every five metres there will be a design feature.’

  ‘And what do you
have in mind for those?’ Christina asked. ‘Stone slabs laid out like Tarot cards, perhaps?’

  ‘Now, now, Christina,’ Martha mumbled.

  ‘Just you wait! I’ll lay rectangular patterns like the sails of a full-rigged ship. This will really be something, mark my words!’ Rake shouted and hurried outside again.

  From up on the veranda they could see Rake go up to the man driving the digger, show him the sketch and then point at the heap of stone slabs. The man manoeuvred his excavator, lowered the bucket and lifted up a few slabs at a time which he then placed next to the path.

  ‘Rake thinks he can manage the rest by himself,’ Christina sighed.

  ‘Let him be. He’ll discover soon enough that he won’t be able to do it,’ Brains reassured her.

  ‘But he is so obsessed by all those do-it-yourself programmes on TV Yesterday there was a smiling man who built, painted, furnished and then cooked all in the very same programme. Rake muttered that the idiot gave all of Sweden’s male population a complex, and then he went out, put a half-hitch on one of the stone slabs and dragged it off towards the garden. I thought he would have a heart attack!’

  ‘Best we go out and help him, then,’ Anna-Greta said, and Gunnar nodded in agreement. But Christina shook her head.

  ‘I don’t think he wants any help. Since Rake started hobnobbing with Lillemor, you can’t talk to him. I bet you he’s doing this to impress her,’ she sighed.

  ‘It’ll blow over,’ Brains consoled her, and he put his hand under her arm. ‘Guys can be like that sometimes. Now let’s go outside. Be careful on the steps.’

  When they got out into the yard they saw that Kalle’s Mini Excavator AB had left and Rake now stood there on his own. He looked at the heaps of slabs, bent down and tried to move one of them. He couldn’t. Christina rushed forward.

  ‘No, Rake, please, take it easy. You can hurt your back, fracture your thigh and—’