Cold Steal

by Quentin Bates

  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 jewel case. He snapped open and was disappointed to find a necklace of pearls that gleamed palely in the light of the torch. Clearly old, and strung on a thread with a heavy silver clasp, he regretfully closed the case and replaced it. Pearls were old-fashioned and difficult to sell, not something that could be melted down into an anonymous lump.

  He reflected that in the old days people kept their bank books in their bedrooms, but these days everything was online and traceable. Large amounts of cash had become an increasingly rare find, even in these difficult times when nobody trusted the banks as they had done only a few years ago.

  Sunna María Voss’s bedside table in the pool of pale light thrown by the torch revealed nothing but a few paperbacks, a jar of lube and a pack of condoms that gave Orri a sudden rush of excitement, a few half-consumed packets of painkillers and fluff in the corners.

  Deciding that he had seen enough, Orri went slowly through the living room and along the hall, where he inspected the pictures on the wall. Paintings could be worth money, although not worth stealing other than to order. There were only large black-and-white portraits of the dentist and his wife, singly and together, the dentist clearly older than his wife by at least a decade, Orri guessed.

  A sound startled him and he recognized the rumble of a garage door, followed by the double thunk of car doors closing somewhere below him and the clang of a footstep on the metal staircase from the basement. He guessed that the house’s occupants were returning, cursing himself for having taken so much longer than he had needed to.

  He cast about quickly, trying to decide where to go, and with the newcomers coming up from the garage in the basement, he made for the lobby and shut the door behind him. He had a moment of panic as he realized that the heavy front door was deadlocked. Although this would not normally be a problem to pick, there was no time to concentrate. He stood instead among coats and scarves hung behind the internal door, breathing long, deep breaths as he stayed calm, his hand on the handle.

  A throaty laugh came from the stairs as the door leading up from the basement burst open and swung back to bang against the wall.

  ‘Be a little bit patient, lover,’ the husky voice said teasingly as heels clattered on the tiles of the hall and he could hear a man’s growl.

  ‘I’ve been patient all day,’ the second voice said and Orri could feel the urgency in the man’s tone. He risked putting his eye to one of the frosted glass panels on either side of the lobby door and could make out an indistinct image of a couple in a writhing embrace, mouths locked together.

  He listened with mounting excitement as there was a rustle of clothing in the hall. There was a slow rip of velcro being pulled apart and he could hear the fumbling and giggling from both of them as they pulled at each others’ clothes.

  ‘You said Jóhann’s away, didn’t you?’ The man’s voice gasped.

  ‘Sweetheart, he’s enjoying himself in Frankfurt with his little Fraülein right now; you don’t need to worry about him,’ the woman’s voice assured her friend. ‘We have all the time in the world.’ She laughed. ‘Well, until tomorrow night, anyway.’

  ‘Come on, I want to see you without that dress hiding everything,’ the man almost panted.

  ‘Then you’d better help a lady with it, hadn’t you,’ she replied in a coquettish voice. ‘If you’re in that much of a hurry.’

  Orri stood guiltily spellbound. He saw through the patterned glass as Sunna María Voss wrapped her arms around her lover’s shoulders and he lifted her off the floor as she twisted her legs around his waist. Orri prayed that the door would withstand the punishment it was getting as the man’s desperate thrusts impaled her against it, transmitting shock after shock to the door that rattled in its frame until he groaned and her moans subsided, then the two of them sank to the floor.

  ‘Well done, big boy. Well done,’ he heard Sunna María Voss say to her hoarsely panting lover. Orri looked around and saw with relief that there was a key hung on a hook inside the coat rack. ‘Now it’s my turn, maybe?’ she suggested in a sardonic voice as Orri clicked the lock, swung open the door, closed it quietly and fled into the twilight.

  Aunt Bertha was in one of the old houses at the older end of the city centre, surrounded by shops selling overpriced sweaters and mass-produced plastic elves and vikings. Eiríkur looked in the window first, and in spite of his height, he had to stretch to see the knick-knacks displayed in the narrow window of the old house that had been built on a concrete basement in the old-fashioned way.

  He wondered how Matthildur Sveinsdóttir had been able to see anything in these same windows as he went up the steps and pushed open a door that chimed a tune as he entered the stuffy, scented room. He peered around him at the racks of second-hand clothing, the shelves of fashionably antique porcelain and the old posters and photographs of forgotten movie actors on the walls.

  ‘Can I help?’ A voice asked. Eiríkur had to look around to see and found that it came from a woman in a black-and-white dress and a hairdo held in place as if by magic. A closer look as he approached the counter told him she was probably closer to his own age than the look she had adopted would have indicated.

  Eiríkur opened his wallet and the woman looked at it with surprise.

  ‘Eiríkur Thór Jónsson. I’m a detective with the city force. There’s a clasp in your display case, a gold clasp and set from a set of national dress. Could I have a look at it?’

  ‘I . . . er. I suppose so,’ the woman said, clearly in doubt, pausing for a moment for a second look at Eiríkur’s wallet before she took a key from the till and opened a glass-fronted display case. She placed a tray in front of him. The clasp and chain gleamed in the afternoon sunshine streaming through the windows.

  ‘There’s a problem?’

  ‘It seems that this may be stolen goods,’ Eiríkur said, letting the heavy chain run through his fingers. ‘So, unfortunately, I’m going to have to take this away with me.’

  ‘What? But . . .’

  ‘I’m sorry. But until this is sorted out, I have to confiscate it,’ he said, taking a form from his folder and starting to fill it in. ‘Your name?’

  ‘Svandís Búadóttir.’

  ‘And you’re the manager?’

  ‘I’m the proprietor,’ she said, pushing out her chin and stretching herself to a height that almost reached Eiríkur’s shoulder.

  Eiríkur completed the form and turned it round on the counter. ‘Sign here, please.’

  ‘You really are a policeman, aren’t you?’

  ‘The genuine article. Now, I’d like you to tell me how this ca
me to be here.’

  ‘What business is that of yours? I mean, this is intrusion, surely? It’s intolerable.’

  ‘I’m sure the old lady whose bedroom drawer this was taken from thought the same.’

  Her hands went to her mouth. ‘You mean it really is stolen?’

  ‘Very much so. Where did you get it from?’

  ‘Such a pleasant young man,’ she mumbled absently. ‘And such a beautiful set. He said it had been his mother’s.’

  ‘Did this pleasant young man leave his name?’

  Svandís took a receipt book from under the counter, looked over Eiríkur’s shoulder as a couple entered the shop and smiled at them before her sour expression returned. She flipped through the carbon copies of receipts until she found the page.

  ‘There.’

  He read, ‘Jewellery received from Halldór Birgisson,’ followed by an identity number and a price that prompted Eiríkur to do a double-take.

  ‘Is that how much this stuff costs?’ He asked, picking the price tag off the tray the jewellery had been placed in and calculating that Svandís expected to charge roughly double what she had paid for it.

  ‘It’s old. Nineteenth century. This stuff doesn’t grow on trees.’

  ‘I need to take this as well,’ Eiríkur said and watched Svandís open her mouth to protest as he pocketed the receipt book. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll get it back. I don’t suppose that’s his real name, so what did this guy look like?’

  Svandís immediately looked blank. ‘Just average, I suppose.’

  ‘You don’t have CCTV in here, do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then when was he here?’

  ‘Look at the receipt. The date’s on it.’

  ‘Saturday? Two days ago? What time of day was it?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Right. So what did he look like? Tall? Short? Hair colour? Facial hair?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Taller than me but shorter than you.’

  ‘That applies to probably just about everyone in Iceland,’ Eiríkur said, putting a finger to his shoulder. ‘This tall?’ He asked, moving it up. ‘Or up here?’

  ‘That’s closer.’

  ‘Just under two metres, then? Hair?’

  ‘Ordinary. Brownish. Quite short.’

  ‘Beard? Moustache?’

  ‘Stubble.’

  ‘Anything special you noticed about him? Any distinguishing marks?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Scars, tattoos. That sort of thing.’

  No. Nothing. Just a nice, ordinary young man. He said it was his mother’s and that she’d died a few years ago and now he needed to stop his house being repossessed, so he had to sell it.’

  Eiríkur sniffed. ‘I’m sure. What was he wearing?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I always look at the eyes, you know.’

  ‘Well, was he wearing a suit?’

  ‘No. A coat of some kind. I think it was green.’

  ‘Now we’re getting somewhere. Dark green? Light green? A long coat or a short one?’

  ‘Short. It was one of those ones all the young people wear these days. Like the one you’re wearing, only dark green.’

  ‘A fleece?’

  ‘If that’s what they’re called. And it had some yellow letters on it.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you remember what?’

  Svandís put a hand to her forehead. ‘No. It’s gone,’ she said, as if remembering was something painful.

  ‘So we have a brown-haired man with stubble, roughly one metre eighty tall, wearing a dark green fleece with yellow lettering on it. Age?’

  ‘I don’t know. Under forty?’

  ‘All right. How much under forty?’

  ‘Thirty, maybe,’ she decided with an effort.

  ‘Thank you. That all helps,’ Eiríkur said, zipping up his own fleece.

  ‘When will I get that back?’

  Gunna rang the bell, then hammered on the door that swung open in front of her to reveal a dark lobby.

  ‘Who are you?’

  She was confronted by a startled woman in a dressing gown that had clearly been hastily pulled on.

  ‘Gunnhildur Gísladóttir, city CID. I’m looking for Sunna María Voss or Jóhann Hjálmarsson, or preferably both of them,’ she said, flicking open her wallet.

  ‘CID? What’s it about?’

  ‘Are you Sunna María?’

  ‘I am.’ She crossed her arms and cocked her head on one side. ‘Look, this really isn’t convenient.’

  ‘Maybe not, but it is urgent.’

  ‘So urgent it can’t wait until the morning? It’s half-past seven and I’m about to go out.’

  ‘If it wasn’t urgent, I’d be at home myself by now. Can I come in? This really is important.’

  ‘Tomorrow, please.’

  ‘You know Vilhelm Thorleifsson?’ Gunna asked.

  ‘Villi? Of course. Why?’

  ‘He’s been murdered.’

  ‘Murdered?’ Sunna María asked. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘I’m absolutely sure, which is why I’m here on your doorstep at seven thirty in the evening and not at home with my feet up. So are you going to let me in?’

  ‘Æi, it’s not exactly convenient . . .’ She looked quickly over one shoulder and then back at Gunna.

  ‘And it’s not exactly convenient to be stood here in the dark,’ Gunna said with determination and took a step inside as Sunna María backed away.

  ‘Wait here.’

  Sunna María disappeared into the darkened house, leaving the door open while Gunna pulled the outside door shut behind her. She could hear whispers and a chuckle from inside the house.

  ‘This way, please. We’ll go into the kitchen.’

  Gunna saw as she followed her along the corridor that Sunna María had brushed her hair and the dressing gown had been swapped for a silk kimono. Every door along the corridor had been shut and a slash of light from the kitchen at the end cut through the darkness.

  ‘I don’t even have coffee in the house,’ Sunna María apologized. ‘Jóhann drinks coffee in the mornings but I don’t.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ Gunna said, placing her folder on the table and opening it. ‘You knew Vilhelm Thorleifsson?’

  ‘Of course. We’ve known him for years.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘My husband and I.’

  ‘I take it that’s not him in the other room? So can I ask where your husband is?’

  ‘Germany, as far as I know. But he might have gone somewhere sunnier for a while. We lead pretty independent lives these days.’

  ‘It hasn’t been released to the press yet. Vilhelm Thorleifsson was murdered three nights ago.’

  ‘That was Villi they were talking about on the news? Shit. I had no idea he was even in Iceland.’

  Gunna studied Sunna María’s face as she chewed her lip and fidgeted with her hands. She stood up and walked around the room nervously and sat down again. ‘What happened? Can you tell me?’

  ‘All I can say right now it that there was nothing accidental about it. You knew him well? I’m looking for anyone who might have held a grudge against him, anyone he may have pissed off enough to want to kill him.’

  Sunna María cupped her chin in her hand. ‘There’s no shortage of people he owes money to. I mean,’ she said in a sudden show of confusion. ‘How? Who did this?’

  ‘We don’t know. It’s under investigation and we don’t have many details yet. You knew him socially or through work?’ Gunna asked, although she already knew the answer.

  ‘I was at college with him. Villi, me and my husband, we used to own a company together. Several companies, in fact.’

  Sunna María’s lips puckered in a worried line.

  ‘Including Sólfell Investment?’ Gunna asked.

  ‘That’s one of them. It was wound up a few years ago.’

  ‘I understand it was bankrupt, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Well, yes.’ Sunna María
shrugged and her mouth curled downwards as she shook her head dismissively.

  ‘It’s beside the point, anyway. We are looking at the very real possibility that there’s a connection with you and your husband, and you might be in danger.’

  ‘You think so?’ She said with a theatrical gasp. ‘Here in Iceland? Come on.’

  ‘I’m completely serious. It’s not something we can rule out. I’d advise you not to stay here alone, and I’d go so far as to advise you not to stay here at all.’

  ‘Can’t I get police protection if you think I’m in danger?’

  Gunna wanted to smile at the suggestion. ‘Right now, no. We simply don’t have the manpower available. It’s something we’ll be discussing tomorrow when we have more details.’

  ‘Was Villi murdered at that chalet he keeps in the country?’

  ‘So I understand. You don’t seem surprised?’

  ‘The dirty devil. He used it as a hideaway so he could entertain his girlfriends. His wife was furious when she found out about it.’

  ‘I’m not exactly surprised. Had he owned the place for long?’

  ‘Five or six years. Something like that. He had a share in a web design company. The company bought the chalet for team-building weekends, things like that. When it went out of business, I suppose he must have been able to hang on to it.’

  Gunna nodded and shuffled the papers in her folder. ‘Where can I find your husband?’

  ‘Like I said, Germany. He was at a conference and then he was going somewhere else after that. I’m not sure where. I don’t try and keep track of his travels these days.’

  ‘You have a phone number?’

  Sunna María stood up and opened a drawer. ‘Plenty of them,’ she said, handing Gunna a card and pulling an iPhone from the pocket of her kimono.

  Gunna looked at the card and saw Icelandic, Danish and German contact numbers. ‘Can I have that?’