Cold Steal by Quentin Bates Read Free Book Online

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,