The Little Old Lady Who Struck Lucky Again! by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg

can’t just alter something like this by simply pressing a button. Besides, the Police Pension Fund is protected with passwords. We can’t go in there and mess
around without leaving tracks behind us.’
    ‘Numbers on a screen, no, what I like best is solid gold,’ said Martha and without thinking poured some cloudberry liqueur into the whisky.
    ‘The boys who live up the road might be able to hack their way into something like this. I can go and ask them?’ Brains offered his services, being keen to have an excuse to visit
the neighbours and have a closer look at their motorbikes.
    ‘No way! We are not going to mix with them!’ Christina exclaimed. ‘You must have seen the tattoos!’
    ‘Gracious me, we have made a mess of things.’ Anna-Greta sighed, stretched for her whisky glass and knocked back almost all of the contents in one gulp. The others gave a start.
Their friend was usually very restrained when it came to liquor.
    ‘But listen now, look at this: a transfer of thirteen million,’ Gunnar suddenly said and pointed at the screen.
    ‘That’s the same amount we donated to the National Museum!’ exclaimed Anna-Greta. ‘How could that be?’
    ‘I don’t know, but when I trace the course of the money I get to Beylings Legal Firm. Perhaps the rest of the money has gone there too?’
    ‘Beylings Legal Firm,’ they all repeated in unison, and felt decidedly uncomfortable. Lawyers always made them feel like criminals.
    ‘But then all we have to do is go and fetch the money, right?’ Martha maintained, even though deep inside she realized it would be difficult.
    ‘No, I can’t get in any further,’ Gunnar mumbled. ‘At this point the money disappears into a myriad of accounts. And there are firewalls left, right and centre! Like a
Berlin Wall.’
    ‘Firewalls or Berlin walls,’ Anna-Greta slurred her words and her breath smelt of Glenfield’s, ‘what difference does it make? We still can’t prove the money is
ours. And if we start digging around, they’ll be able to trace us and then we’ll end up in prison. Remember that we’re still on the Wanted list.’
    The truth sank in and they became silent. All the work they had done to gather in money for the Robbery Fund, and then somebody had pinched it and redirected the whole lot to a legal firm. It
was just too much! And nobody could make the effort to comment upon it. Silence, save for the clinking whisky glasses, descended on the room.
    ‘We rob and we rob, and want to do a good job . . .’ Christina started to compose a poem but became silent when she couldn’t find any more words rhyming with rob. After such
enormous losses, she was quite simply in poor shape. As were the others. Feelings of anger and despair were mumbled, along with various suggestions as to how they should move on. In the end,
Anna-Greta spoke up:
    ‘There is no way we can just drop this. Whatever we do, we must get that money back!’
    ‘Absolutely! I’m certainly not going to give up,’ said Gunnar.
    ‘And nor are we,’ agreed the others and felt a little bolder for having Gunnar’s support.
    ‘Yes, my dears. We shall get those millions back, but for now . . .’ Martha shut her eyes. ‘Whisky and cloudberry liqueur in the same glass isn’t to be recommended.
I’m going to retire to my room.’
    And without waiting for an answer, she put her cardigan over her shoulders and said goodnight. But when she reached the top of the stairs the others could hear her humming a tune. A song that
just happened to be about a bank robbery.

11
    Martha sat on the edge of her bed, looked at the floral wallpaper and pulled her nightdress over her head. Exhausted, she slipped in between the sheets. All the money that the
League of Pensioners had worked so hard to rob was now gone! How in heaven’s name would they be able to get the missing millions that had travelled all the way from Las Vegas? Bandits who
stole several hundred millions by computer hacking were