to go through the house, put together a list of what you think is missing – as detailed as you can make it – and to think hard about when you last saw these items so we can have an idea of how long they have been missing.’
‘Why do you need to know that?’
‘Because that will give us an idea of when the break-in might have taken place,’ Eiríkur said, calling on reserves of patience. ‘And that means I can try and tie it in with other similar incidents, and hopefully get an idea of who might have been responsible.’
‘All right,’ Ævar growled. ‘You do that, young man, and when you find out who it is, I want to break his fingers one by one.’
He drove past a couple of times and was pleased there wasn’t a soul to be seen; not that the streets being deserted said all that much. In this kind of neighbourhood people walked from the door to the car and no further. The exclusive cul-de-sac where he could see the dentist’s house at the end was quiet. There was no car to be seen and no lights on inside. It was the same further along the street at most of the houses on the seaward side, the ones he was most interested in, and at this time of the afternoon, experience told him that people could be unpredictable in their movements, though middle-aged people generally kept office hours.
He pulled on his gloves before leaving the car. Normally he preferred to simply walk in while the owners were at work or preferably on holiday somewhere far away, giving him time to concentrate without interruption. This time of day was dangerous and Orri knew he was taking a risk, reproaching himself again for breaking his own rules. People could appear unexpectedly, but he admitted to himself that it gave him a buzz of excitement.
He patted his pockets, made sure his torch was in his pocket and switched on the phone jammer, a little device that would interrupt any mobile phone traffic within 15 metres once it was switched on, not that he had needed it so far.
Orri padded silently though the still house, the back door lock opened easily with a strip of plastic, the torch between his teeth and a pool of light sweeping the floor ahead of him. The living room was a vast open space of hardwood floor with a nest of deep sofas in the centre, and just a few ornaments scattered here and there, mostly modernist artworks that his professional eye dismissed as being too heavy to carry as well as too easy to identify and trace.
A narrow room parallel to the living room was a more fruitful hunting ground. He wondered about the slim laptop on the desk, along with the battery charger the owner had thoughtfully left with it, but decided against it, reasoning that first he would look for the smaller, more easily portable stuff. A drawer yielded an iPhone, not the latest, but presumably the one the owner had upgraded from and still worth having. A digital camera from another drawer found its way into his backpack, along with the handful of foreign currency that every house seemed to have somewhere. This time it was a bundle of dollars and an envelope stuffed with assorted euros and some Swedish and Norwegian notes.
The bedroom was where he caught his breath and Orri could not stop his rising excitement. He started with the old-fashioned dresser. Sunna María Voss clearly had expensive taste in jewellery, and the necklaces, pendants and a couple of heavy silver bangles were an interesting haul, but he felt there had to be more if he searched for it.
The top drawers in a chest glided open and he slid a practised hand under and behind the contents of each one in turn, feeling for packets of boxes without disturbing anything. The dentist had nothing hidden among his socks and underwear, but he felt his heart beat faster as he went to Sunna María Voss’s side of the wide bed and opened the first drawer. He leaned forward and bent his head close to inhale the lavender scent before he felt under and behind the frills inside to pull out a
‘Why do you need to know that?’
‘Because that will give us an idea of when the break-in might have taken place,’ Eiríkur said, calling on reserves of patience. ‘And that means I can try and tie it in with other similar incidents, and hopefully get an idea of who might have been responsible.’
‘All right,’ Ævar growled. ‘You do that, young man, and when you find out who it is, I want to break his fingers one by one.’
He drove past a couple of times and was pleased there wasn’t a soul to be seen; not that the streets being deserted said all that much. In this kind of neighbourhood people walked from the door to the car and no further. The exclusive cul-de-sac where he could see the dentist’s house at the end was quiet. There was no car to be seen and no lights on inside. It was the same further along the street at most of the houses on the seaward side, the ones he was most interested in, and at this time of the afternoon, experience told him that people could be unpredictable in their movements, though middle-aged people generally kept office hours.
He pulled on his gloves before leaving the car. Normally he preferred to simply walk in while the owners were at work or preferably on holiday somewhere far away, giving him time to concentrate without interruption. This time of day was dangerous and Orri knew he was taking a risk, reproaching himself again for breaking his own rules. People could appear unexpectedly, but he admitted to himself that it gave him a buzz of excitement.
He patted his pockets, made sure his torch was in his pocket and switched on the phone jammer, a little device that would interrupt any mobile phone traffic within 15 metres once it was switched on, not that he had needed it so far.
Orri padded silently though the still house, the back door lock opened easily with a strip of plastic, the torch between his teeth and a pool of light sweeping the floor ahead of him. The living room was a vast open space of hardwood floor with a nest of deep sofas in the centre, and just a few ornaments scattered here and there, mostly modernist artworks that his professional eye dismissed as being too heavy to carry as well as too easy to identify and trace.
A narrow room parallel to the living room was a more fruitful hunting ground. He wondered about the slim laptop on the desk, along with the battery charger the owner had thoughtfully left with it, but decided against it, reasoning that first he would look for the smaller, more easily portable stuff. A drawer yielded an iPhone, not the latest, but presumably the one the owner had upgraded from and still worth having. A digital camera from another drawer found its way into his backpack, along with the handful of foreign currency that every house seemed to have somewhere. This time it was a bundle of dollars and an envelope stuffed with assorted euros and some Swedish and Norwegian notes.
The bedroom was where he caught his breath and Orri could not stop his rising excitement. He started with the old-fashioned dresser. Sunna María Voss clearly had expensive taste in jewellery, and the necklaces, pendants and a couple of heavy silver bangles were an interesting haul, but he felt there had to be more if he searched for it.
The top drawers in a chest glided open and he slid a practised hand under and behind the contents of each one in turn, feeling for packets of boxes without disturbing anything. The dentist had nothing hidden among his socks and underwear, but he felt his heart beat faster as he went to Sunna María Voss’s side of the wide bed and opened the first drawer. He leaned forward and bent his head close to inhale the lavender scent before he felt under and behind the frills inside to pull out a
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