though it wasn’t as if I’d asked her to come on the job with me. All I’d wanted was her take on the situation and she was usually more forthcoming with that.
Off in the distance, somewhere near Boulevard Garibaldi, I could hear the screech and drone of an ambulance siren. You hear sirens all the time in Paris – as if they form some kind of plaintive, background muzak for the city. They’re so common that I often don’t notice them, but when I really pay attention, I’m able to distinguish between the police klaxons and the sirens of the other emergency services. That might not sound like something worth bragging about, but believe me, it’s easy to take pride in certain skills when your liberty might depend on it.
“Something wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“You’re sure? Because I have to say it seems as though something’s bugging you.”
“Nothing’s ‘bugging’ me Charlie. I just have work to do. I’m kind of busy today. And on that note, I’m going to go now, okay?”
“Okay.”
I set the telephone receiver down and looked sightlessly at the two-pin plug socket on the wall near my feet. What on earth had just happened? No matter what Victoria said, there was definitely something going on and I ran my mind back through our conversation to see if I could work out what it was. I replayed every word I could remember, every nuance, even going over certain passages again and again. And still I had no idea what exactly had set her off.
No, that’s not true, I did have an inkling; I just wasn’t all that keen to explore it. Because the impression I was getting was that maybe after all the years of absorbing the details of my scams, Victoria had grown tired of my behaviour. Perhaps she’d been waiting for me to reform and was only just beginning to realise that wasn’t going to happen. Stealing was in my DNA. It might not be anything to be proud of, at least not on any rational scale, but that didn’t mean I wanted to quit.
I glanced down at my laptop, fingers poised to tap a key and remove the screen-saver that had appeared. But my fingers didn’t move. I growled and slammed the lid closed, pushed myself away from my desk and swore colourfully. I couldn’t very well write now, could I?
SEVEN
The day concierge was a woman. She was hard-faced, with sallow cheeks and a hairdo that looked artificial – all blonde highlights and fixing spray. She was also attentive. So far I’d watched three people enter the apartment building and she’d made each of them sign the guest register. That wasn’t necessarily a problem; I could always jot down a false name. But suppose it wasn’t Bruno’s apartment? If she asked me to write the name of the person I was visiting and I happened to provide one she didn’t recognise, I’d be in trouble.
Some might say I already was. A half-hour earlier, I’d ducked along the service alley to the side of the apartment building and made my way to the rear. There was a fire exit there, just as I’d hoped, but it was wired into a localised alarm system and a closed-circuit camera was fixed above the double doors. The handles of the doors had been secured to one another with a metal chain and a combination padlock, something I guessed any fire inspector wouldn’t be too thrilled about. From the security measures that had been put in place, it wasn’t hard to deduce that other people had broken in through the fire exit in the past and, although I could pick the padlock open without too much trouble and there were ways to dupe the camera and silence the alarm, I couldn’t pretend it was tempting. Even supposing I got in without a hitch, I had no idea what lay behind the doors. Sure, it was likely to be a flight of stairs, but there could just as easily be a store room with a caretaker inside or a laundry facility being used by any number of residents. There could even be a second security camera, pointed straight at me.
A ground-floor window was positioned
Off in the distance, somewhere near Boulevard Garibaldi, I could hear the screech and drone of an ambulance siren. You hear sirens all the time in Paris – as if they form some kind of plaintive, background muzak for the city. They’re so common that I often don’t notice them, but when I really pay attention, I’m able to distinguish between the police klaxons and the sirens of the other emergency services. That might not sound like something worth bragging about, but believe me, it’s easy to take pride in certain skills when your liberty might depend on it.
“Something wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“You’re sure? Because I have to say it seems as though something’s bugging you.”
“Nothing’s ‘bugging’ me Charlie. I just have work to do. I’m kind of busy today. And on that note, I’m going to go now, okay?”
“Okay.”
I set the telephone receiver down and looked sightlessly at the two-pin plug socket on the wall near my feet. What on earth had just happened? No matter what Victoria said, there was definitely something going on and I ran my mind back through our conversation to see if I could work out what it was. I replayed every word I could remember, every nuance, even going over certain passages again and again. And still I had no idea what exactly had set her off.
No, that’s not true, I did have an inkling; I just wasn’t all that keen to explore it. Because the impression I was getting was that maybe after all the years of absorbing the details of my scams, Victoria had grown tired of my behaviour. Perhaps she’d been waiting for me to reform and was only just beginning to realise that wasn’t going to happen. Stealing was in my DNA. It might not be anything to be proud of, at least not on any rational scale, but that didn’t mean I wanted to quit.
I glanced down at my laptop, fingers poised to tap a key and remove the screen-saver that had appeared. But my fingers didn’t move. I growled and slammed the lid closed, pushed myself away from my desk and swore colourfully. I couldn’t very well write now, could I?
SEVEN
The day concierge was a woman. She was hard-faced, with sallow cheeks and a hairdo that looked artificial – all blonde highlights and fixing spray. She was also attentive. So far I’d watched three people enter the apartment building and she’d made each of them sign the guest register. That wasn’t necessarily a problem; I could always jot down a false name. But suppose it wasn’t Bruno’s apartment? If she asked me to write the name of the person I was visiting and I happened to provide one she didn’t recognise, I’d be in trouble.
Some might say I already was. A half-hour earlier, I’d ducked along the service alley to the side of the apartment building and made my way to the rear. There was a fire exit there, just as I’d hoped, but it was wired into a localised alarm system and a closed-circuit camera was fixed above the double doors. The handles of the doors had been secured to one another with a metal chain and a combination padlock, something I guessed any fire inspector wouldn’t be too thrilled about. From the security measures that had been put in place, it wasn’t hard to deduce that other people had broken in through the fire exit in the past and, although I could pick the padlock open without too much trouble and there were ways to dupe the camera and silence the alarm, I couldn’t pretend it was tempting. Even supposing I got in without a hitch, I had no idea what lay behind the doors. Sure, it was likely to be a flight of stairs, but there could just as easily be a store room with a caretaker inside or a laundry facility being used by any number of residents. There could even be a second security camera, pointed straight at me.
A ground-floor window was positioned
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