The Double Silence (Andas Knutas 7)

echoed in his ears.

EARLY MORNING. HE parked over by the gardener’s shed and set off on foot. The asphalt under the soles of his shoes was level and dry. His footsteps made no sound and left no prints. He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, exactly like 90 per cent of the men who lived in the area. In a few hours they would wake in their comfortable beds and get up to have coffee. Then they would sit under the apple trees in the well-kept gardens or on the verandas that they’d built themselves. Everyone had seen enough of Martin Timell or Ernst Kirchsteiger promoting home carpentry projects on TV. They’re the manly role models who reign in a place like this, he thought with a snort. The people were entrenched in their lives here. The cars were parked in the drives with the morning sun reflecting off the windscreens. He passed house after house, noting that the people who lived there were either asleep or away. It was the summer holidays, after all. But for him no such concept existed. For him, the time of year didn’t matter; he lived outside the normal world. He’d left it behind long ago, although no one could tell just by looking at him.
    The house was at the very end of the street, near the little turning circle. A double garage, a gravel path that led to the somewhat ostentatious entrance with the pillars on either side and curving steps. Blue-painted clay pots planted with flowers that draped perfectly over the sides. A neatly mown lawn. First he merely walked past the house, pretending not to show any interest. A car was parked in the drive. A newspaper was sticking out of the letterbox. So the newspaper boy had already been there. Good. Nice and quiet. He glanced at his watch. Six fifteen. He took a quick lookaround before he slipped unnoticed on to the well-maintained property and crept around the corner of the house to the back, which faced the woods. Swiftly he surveyed the garden. A greenhouse that occupied the middle of the lawn revealed that football was not a priority here, but a trampoline stood in the far corner. A shed for gardening equipment, a covered bicycle rack, a group of patio furniture on the lawn, with more chairs up on the deck.
    A low wooden fence surrounded the property, easy to climb over. He cautiously stepped on to the deck. It creaked loudly under his feet. At one end of the house a trellis had been put up to keep anyone from looking in. No neighbours from that direction would be able to see him. And, fortunately, the family that lived on the other side seemed to be away. There hadn’t been a car in the drive for several days. He would not be disturbed.
    He moved forward and grasped the handle of the deck door. Locked, of course. He hadn’t expected anything different. He peered inside. The kitchen was modern and typically designed with an open floor plan facing the living room. The refrigerator and freezer and cooker hood were all made of stainless steel. Tiles on the floor. Shiny white kitchen cupboards. Hardly anything on the counters except for a gleaming coffee maker, kettle and mixer. No curtains or rugs; everything bright and shiny. Attractive but impersonal. Almost like in a furniture shop. Did these people spend as much time cleaning up after themselves as they did living? He discovered that he was breathing so hard on the windowpane that it had clouded up. He knew exactly what he had to do. He took off his backpack and got out his gloves and picklocks.
    Then he set to work.

Ventspils, Latvia
    THE DARKNESS OF night had faded, giving way to a hesitant morning light. A haze covered the sun. Janis Ullmanis was cycling as fast as he could over the bumpy cobblestone street lined with low, dilapidated brick houses on either side. The cramped inner courtyards were hidden behind tall wooden fences. The boy stopped so abruptly at the last house that his tyres shrieked. Then he knocked on the double window on the corner. The secret signal. Three quick raps, two slow, again three quick ones. He waited for thirty seconds as he caught his breath, then he repeated the same sequence. He’d barely finished the final rap before the door in the fence opened with a loud squeak. A pale boy’s face appeared. Two dark eyes under close-cropped hair. Bruno Lesinski was Janis’s best friend, and they were in the same class at school. But right now it was the summer holidays, with all that entailed, and school seemed far away.
    ‘Are you ready?’ asked Janis.
    Bruno held his index