A dark shadow appeared as a taxi stopped a few meters in front of her car. Simultaneously, the door opened up on the walkway and three women appeared.
As they got into the taxi, Anneli was certain. Even though two of them were almost unrecognizable with all the makeup and their hair dyed black, there could be no doubt. It was Denise, Jazmine, and Michelle dolled up for a night on the town.
When the taxi drove off, Anneli put the Honda in gear and followed.
25
Wednesday, May 25th, 2016
“Stop calling me when you’re drunk, Mother. How often do I have to tell you? I can smell your breath through the receiver.”
“Why do you say things like that, Denise? You know I’m just feeling sad.” She sniffled once to emphasize her point.
“You’re disgusting, Mother. What do you want?”
“But where are you? I haven’t heard from you for days, and the police have been here. They wanted to talk to you, and I didn’t know where you were.”
“The police? What about?” Denise held her breath and sat back in her chair.
“They just wanted to talk to you about your grandmother.”
“I don’t want to talk to anyone about my grandmother, got it? I’ve got nothing to do with that, and you’d better not make them think otherwise. What have you told them?”
“Nothing about you. Where are you, Denise? I can come and meet you wherever you are.”
“No, you can’t. I’ve moved in with a guy in . . . Slagelse. And it’s none of your business.”
“But—”
Denise hung up and looked at Michelle, who was sneaking out of her room. Her eyes looked small, and the contours of her face were undefined. She was destined to look like a shadow of her younger self when she got old. She would become flabby from eating all the wrong things and would look like a cow in clothes that she was far too old to wear. It was a real shame.
“Hi, Denise.” It looked like Michelle was trying to smile, but after their discussion the previous night it would take more than that to establish genuine intimacy between them. She felt much more on the same wavelength as Jazmine. Jazmine understood the situation and how screwed they were if they didn’t create a new life for themselves. That the ship had sailed for these little girls; that reality, their bad choices, lack of education, and untapped talents had caught up with them. That was something a pathetic creature like Michelle could never understand.
“Cool that you chose Coldplay, Denise,” said Michelle as the phone rang again with the ringtone for her mother.
Denise shook her head and immediately rejected the call, went to her settings, and blocked the number once and for all.
That was that sorted. Case closed.
“Shut up, Michelle. I know full well what the difference is between theft, a simple robbery, and armed robbery. But nothing is going to go wrong if you just do what we say. So shut up with all your crap.”
Michelle’s eyes looked like a mess of ash-grey, the color smeared on her eyelids, lashes, and even under her eyes. If anything, she resembled a silent film star suffering from TB. If she planned to go out like this tonight, she would definitely get attention.
“You’ve told us everything you know about the place. What the manager’s office looks like, where they keep the money for admission and drinks throughout the night, and how to get to the office. We’ll be careful, Michelle, don’t worry. We’ll wait until the coast is clear and be quick. Yes, it’s theft, but no more than that.”
“But what if someone comes? What’ll you do then?”
“We’ll threaten them, of course.”
“But then it’s a robbery.” She pointed at the iPad. “Look! It says on Wikipedia that you can get up to six years for robbery. Six years! Then we’ll suddenly be in our midthirties and our lives will be as good as over.”
“You shouldn’t believe everything you read on Wikipedia, Michelle!” Jazmine took the iPad from her and looked at the page. “We’ve got no priors, so it won’t be that bad.”
“Yes, but look further down.” Michelle was almost shaking. This didn’t bode well for tonight. Jazmine looked at Denise. “I saw the way you pummeled that brickie to the ground, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you did something like that again. That changes everything, Denise. Then we can get up to ten years.”
Denise grabbed Michelle’s arm. “Relax, Michelle. Nothing has happened. What’s any of that got to do with you? Nothing! You just have to chat with Patrick while we do the dirty work, okay?”
Michelle looked away. “Are you telling me that if anything goes wrong, you’ll take all the blame?”
“Of course. What else?” Denise looked at Jazmine. She just had to nod.
And she did.
“Good, then we’re agreed. And now we need to find some treasure in the apartment.”
“Treasure?” Michelle didn’t follow.
“My grandfather had a pistol, and I am sure my grandmother has kept it. I just don’t know where. I think it must be somewhere in the apartment.”
—
When it came to it, Denise didn’t know her grandmother’s apartment very well. The few times she and her mother had been invited there, the sitting rooms had always been full of her grandmother’s friends chattering away, but always with their eyes peeled, making it impossible to snoop around. But now that the wardrobes were unattended, Denise took the opportunity to rummage through piles of frumpy skirt suits and cardigans from a bygone age.
“Throw all that junk on the floor and we can bag it up later,” she said. “We can sell it to secondhand shops in ?sterbro if they’ll take it.” She sounded doubtful.
“I think it’s disgusting rummaging through people’s old clothes. They smell of moth balls, and I’ve heard they’re unhealthy for the skin,” said Michelle.
Unlike her, Jazmine seemed to relish the job at hand. Shoe boxes, hats, underwear, boxes of tissue paper, torn nylon stockings, and garters of all sizes flew out of the wardrobes. Jazmine was hunting for treasure, and everything else was junk.
They looked under the beds, checked in sewing boxes, pulled out drawers, moved furniture, and when they had been through all the rooms, they sat down and looked around. What had before resembled the home of an elderly woman was now revealed as the site of shameless hoarding by a woman who had long lost any sense of reality. “Why do old people have so much worthless crap?” said Jazmine dryly.