Quentin Bates - Cold Steal

On a day like today, with a hint of spring in the air and the days finally getting longer he reflected that it was between two seasons. Maybe it would be better to cash in a few of his investments or raid his own bank account and spend a week or two in the sun, even though he had been determined not to take a holiday quite yet, telling himself that a few more jobs were needed to lift his finances first. He worried about the amount of gear he had managed to collect recently, all of which needed to be turned into cash. That was where he felt his business plan had failed him.

Looking quickly along the street behind him, and with nothing to be seen either way, Orri ducked along a footpath at the side of a square house and kept close to the wall as he went rapidly around the back. Like the rest of this brandnew street, it was a big house, built with its big corner window overlooking the sound separating the old end of Kópavogur from the newer suburb in Gardabær, where smart blocks of flats had replaced the shipyard and slipway where he remembered his father working a long time ago, coming home with his face blackened from welding and the persistent cough that had finally finished him. He peered in through the basement windows and wondered whether or not he should call the house’s landline number. He had found out who roughly half the inhabitants of the street were and had their phone numbers stored away. He knew where some of them worked, what cars they drove and in some cases how many children they had. This house he knew belonged to a couple with a dental practice in the Kringlan shopping centre. There were no children as far as he had been able to work out, and although he knew the couple’s names, he wasn’t sure of their age group. There could be children who had left home, or there could be house guests, or even elderly parents visiting from some godforsaken dump in the country. That was information that couldn’t be gleaned from phone books and the internet.

As he scanned the doors and windows, his mind drifted back to business and the gap in his way of working. Finding cash in any serious amount was almost unheard of these days now that everyone used plastic, and credit cards were of limited value, even though they could be picked up anywhere. A good, modern phone, a camera or an iPad would be worth grabbing. Sometimes there were old books or ornaments in glass cases that a dealer might take. While jewellery was always worth having, it was getting harder to fence and Orri didn’t like dealing too often with the Polish and Lithuanian boys who melted down gold. It was only a matter of time before one of them was collared and spilled his guts to the police, and Orri regretted there was no honour among honest thieves. The hard boys from the Baltic had their ways of spiriting merchandise away to Europe, but if it came to the crunch, any one of them would drop him in the shit before one of their own. Not that he blamed them, he thought, hand on the handle of the back door as he eased it open. If one of the Baltic boys were to be shipped home after squealing to the law, his kneecaps wouldn’t last more than a week at the outside.

Orri stiffened as he listened at the door. The sound of a radio could be heard faintly and the house had a warm feeling to it, telling him there was someone inside. He made his way through the dim basement and up a spiral staircase, taking care to place his feet gently on the metal steps. At the top he listened at the door but could hear no sound of movement. Orri eased open the door and cursed as it squeaked, hearing at the same moment the rush of water from a running shower and seeing steam billowing from the open door of the bathroom opposite him.

‘Hi, sweetheart, you’re early,’ a woman’s voice sang out playfully. ‘Shut the door, will you? There’s a draught. Come and join me, if you want.’

Orri stood transfixed. Through the open bathroom door he could see that the entire wall opposite him was a mirror. It was half misted over, but at the centre of it he could see the reflection of a tall woman with a wet helmet of hair swept back over her head, eyes closed and energetically soaping breasts and a taut belly beneath pounding jets of hot water. He wondered for a second what to do, unable to tear his eyes from the steam-shrouded vision in the mirror.

‘Hello?’ The woman called out. ‘Is that you?’

There was a note of uncertainty in her voice that decided him. Dealing with people was not his style. He gently shut the door and made his way back the way he had come, taking advantage of the house’s windowless end wall to hop unnoticed over the low fence into the unkempt garden next door.

He pulled some sheets of glossy paper from his pocket and held them ready in one hand. It wasn’t a great cover, but delivering flyers for a pizza delivery place was at least a reason to be standing next to someone’s front door if he were challenged.

Orri walked round to the front of the house, stuffed a flyer through the door, listened to the clack of the letterbox echo in the hallway behind it and scratched his head as he tried to remember who lived in this house. He went with confidence down the path and back to the dentist’s house, taking his time stuffing a flyer through the letterbox as he listened for signs of life inside.

It wasn’t fair, he decided on the way back to the street. People used to leave their cars outside as a decent indication of whether or not they were home. Putting the car in a garage that any normal person would use to store junk was downright unnatural and could confuse an honest housebreaker.

He continued along the street, posted a few flyers into more letterboxes and made his way back to where he had left his car, disturbed by the sight of the blonde woman in the shower and his mind unable to settle on anything else. He made himself walk at an unhurried pace. He had left the house fifty metres behind him, walking stiffly with his hands deep in his pockets, when a slate grey car swished through the puddles past him, drew up and parked opposite the house. A tall man with a look of furtive excitement jumped out, hurried across the road and looked both ways along the street before disappearing behind the building, along the same path Orri had taken.

Gunna never felt entirely comfortable during her infrequent visits to the financial crimes division. Her own confusion when faced with figures longer than a telephone number and a vague guilt at never having mastered long division left her in awe of people who could look at a company’s annual report and pick holes in it.

Björgvin looked older than when she had spoken to him last, which was more than year ago. There were hints of grey at his temples and a now permanent furrow in his high forehead, but he still had the same engaging smile.

‘Hæ Gunna. Good to see you,’ he greeted her, mug in hand as he made for his desk. ‘You want one?’

Gunna shook her head. ‘No, thanks, First smoking, then caffeine. I tell you, it’s no fun being middle aged.’

‘Get away with you. Middle aged? I can look up your date of birth easily enough.’

‘I’ll save you the trouble. Forty-one and a grandmother. Twice.’

‘In that case, congratulations. So what can we do for you? Or is there anything you can do for us, maybe?’

Gunna sat down, pulled a single sheet of paper from her pocket and unfolded it on Björgvin’s desk.

‘I’m hoping we might be able to help each other out here,’ she said, running a finger down the names. ‘Vilhelm Thorleifsson, dead. His business partner is a character called Elvar Pálsson, who’s sometimes in Iceland and sometimes not.’

One of Björgvin’s eyebrows lifted and he cradled his chin in one hand as she spoke.

‘Then we have the dentist and his wife, Jóhann Hjálmarsson and Sunna María Voss.’