a partner and the two of them could get into the house, one of them could distract the occupant while the other could move through the house looking for cash and valuables.
He’d teamed up with an old school friend, Gordo, and together they’d honed the technique that had netted them thousands of pounds in just a few months. Dobbsy would do the talking, and give them the spiel about the council giving them free peepholes and security chains, then Gordo would take the owner of the house into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Dobbsy would then check the bedrooms and the sitting room, stealing whatever he could, then when he was done he would make some excuse about not having the right tools and they would leave. It was clean and no one got hurt and it was practically risk free. Most of the old folk they dealt with were so forgetful he figured that most of them would never know that they had been ripped off.
Cash was the best thing to find, obviously, and old people always seemed to have cash in their homes. Dobbsy didn’t know whether it was because they didn’t trust banks or because they didn’t know how to use credit cards, but either way they always had something tucked away, more often than not in their bedrooms. There was usually jewellery, too. The women often had necklaces and rings hidden away, but so too did the men, probably left over from the days when they had wives. Dobbsy had also started taking an interest in antiques. Old people generally had old things in their homes, and while a lot of it was crap he did sometimes come across a Royal Doulton figurine or a Wedgwood pot that he could sell down the Portobello Road. He’d started reading up on antiques on the internet and always made a point of taking a closer look at what was on the mantelpiece and sideboard.
All had gone swimmingly until Gordo had got into an argument with a drunken Polish builder in a pub and received a pint glass in his face for his trouble. He wasn’t able to leave his house and if he did Dobbsy reckoned he’d scare the pants off anyone who opened their door, so he needed a replacement.
The best he could find was Jacko, Gordo’s cousin, who like Dobbsy had been a prolific burglar. Unlike Dobbsy, Jacko tended to forget things like gloves and escape routes and had been caught red-handed more than a dozen times. He’d been lucky enough to come up before a succession of well-meaning magistrates who had listened to his story of a broken home and an absent father and dyslexia and God knows what else and decided that prison was absolutely the wrong place for him and that he’d be much better off sent on his way with a pat on the head and a plea for him to behave himself in future.
‘I know this is your first time, Jacko, but there’s no need to be nervous,’ said Dobbsy. ‘Just take it nice and slow.’
‘Piece of cake,’ said Jacko, rubbing his hands together.
‘Let’s do it,’ said Dobbsy. They climbed out of the GTI. The car was Dobbsy’s pride and joy. The only reason he could afford it was because he lived with his mother and so didn’t have to pay rent. He’d put on alloy wheels and souped up the engine and had fitted a stereo that was so powerful that it vibrated the fillings in his teeth at full volume.
Dobbsy opened up the back of the car and took out a blue metal toolkit. Then a door security chain in a plastic bag which he gave to Jacko.
They walked over to the house and Dobbsy pressed the doorbell.
‘You sure he’s in?’ asked Jacko.
‘They’re always in,’ said Dobbsy. ‘They’ve got nowhere else to go.’ He pressed the doorbell again, longer this time. Dobbsy leaned forward and put his ear against the door. He heard a cough from inside. ‘He’s coming,’ he said. ‘He walks with a stick. Takes him ages to get anywhere.’
The door creaked open and a pair of watery eyes blinked at them. ‘Who is it?’
‘Mr Duns?’ asked Dobbsy.
The old man nodded.
Dobbsy smiled brightly. ‘We’re