by Ewan, Chris
FIVE
Funny, I really didn’t want to. And not just because I can be a stubborn fellow who doesn’t take kindly to being told what to do, but also because I can recognise danger when I see it. Like any self-respecting burglar who’d prefer not to be caught, I have a well-developed instinct for self-preservation. And if ever there was a time to walk away from something, my every faculty told me that this was it.
Two things struck me as highly likely.
One: The phone had been placed in the safe for my attention. After all, the flyer that had been left in my apartment had led me here, and the note on the phone had been written in English and addressed to one of my countrymen.
Two: If I made the call, I almost certainly wouldn’t like what I heard.
Problem was, if I didn’t place the call, I felt sure that I’d never again see my copy of The Maltese Falcon. And while it was hardly comforting to think that whoever had planted the phone had already decided that my need for the book would outweigh any reservations I might have, I couldn’t escape the feeling that if this was a trap, it was one I had to at least dip my toe into.
Pressing the little green button with my gloved thumb, I raised the handset to my ear and listened to the tinny bleat of the Italian ringtone. I heard it only once before my call was answered.
‘You are late.’
The voice was female.
‘Who is this?’ I asked.
Stupid question. In my mind’s eye, I was picturing the shapely blonde who’d broken into my apartment. Even as I spoke, my brain was reassembling her image and trying it alongside the voice I’d heard. The two seemed to fit. Her English was good, if studied, marked with a strong Italian accent and a notable flourish.
‘You know who I am,’ she told me, in a hurried tone. ‘We have met. You have pretty underwear, I think.’
I covered my face with my hand and did my best not to groan. ‘I don’t know your name,’ I told her. ‘And I have no idea what you want from me.’
‘My name is not important.’
Strange, it seemed mighty important to me.
‘You would like your book back, yes?’ she asked.
‘That would be nice,’ I agreed.
‘Perfetto,’ she purred. ‘Then you will do as I say.’
Didn’t I tell you it was a bad idea to make the phone call? I already didn’t like the way the conversation was going, and I was pretty sure it had the potential to get an awful lot worse.
‘How about I don’t?’ I said. ‘How about I hang up and walk away right now?’
‘Then, I am sorry, but you will never see your book again.’
‘And?’
She paused for a moment, and I could sense doubt building on the other end of the line. ‘And I think that is enough.’ Her tone suggested she wasn’t as confident as she’d like to be. ‘I know this book. I know its value. To you, especially, yes?’
I didn’t respond. It would have been nice to think that I could have stayed in the darkened shop in silence and never said anything more. It would have been even nicer to think that I could have gone home, climbed into bed and forgotten that any of this had ever happened. In fact, it wouldn’t have been at all hard for me to invent a whole other life for myself – one where I didn’t have to listen to my short-tempered new friend on the other end of the line.
‘You will follow my instructions?’ she asked.
‘That really depends on what your instructions are.’
She tutted, and made a huffing noise, then proceeded to outline what she expected from me. ‘Allora . . . You will go to Calle Cavalli. It is in San Polo, near Campo di San Polo. There is a building there – number 1952. Let yourself in. The locks are not so hard – even for someone slow, like you.’
‘Hey!’
‘There is an apartment on the first floor. The door, it will be open. You will meet me there. Capito?’
‘Then what?’
She hesitated. ‘Then we will talk about what I need you to do.’
Boy, didn’t this sound like a golden opportunity? If I did as she said, I had absolutely no control over what might happen to me, and no idea of what I might find inside the apartment she wanted me to access. There could be a group of thugs awaiting my arrival, with detailed plans about the specific pain and discomfort they wished to cause me. Or the place could have been ransacked, and my tormentor might have designs on setting me up for the crime. Or . . . Hell, what was the point in torturing myself with worse-case scenarios?
‘This is crazy,’ I told her. ‘I’d have to be an idiot to do what you’re asking. I can’t think of one good reason why I should.’
‘There is your book . . .’
‘That’s a half-reason, at best.’
‘I do not believe it.’
‘Believe what you like. I’m beginning to think we’ve chatted enough for one night.’ I stood from my hiding place and moved to the door. Craning my neck, I peered up at the decrepit buildings, trying to identify where she was watching me from. I supposed it was possible that she had some kind of camera equipment rigged up inside the shop, but I thought it unlikely. ‘Tell you what,’ I said, surveying the unlit windows of the property across the way, most of them obscured behind wonky shutters, ‘I’ll keep this phone. You have my number. Call me if you want to talk about returning my book in some other way.’
‘No,’ she blurted. ‘You must wait.’ And for some murky reason best known to the most witless part of my psyche, I did just that. ‘I will tell you something now. Something important. Please. You will trust me because of this.’
‘Well, make it quick. I have a pressing appointment with my duvet.’
‘There is a door at the back of the shop. Do you see it? It is not locked. You must leave that way.’
I turned and gazed over my shoulder towards a plain internal door that was positioned close to the stationery supplies. It gave no indication of what lay behind it.
‘Thanks all the same, but I think I’ll go out the front.’
‘But this is what I must tell you. The polizia are coming. I cannot stop it. They will be at the shop in less than a minute.’
‘Oh, please.’
‘It is the truth. I give you this, and you trust me, yes? Please, I think so.’
‘Well, I don’t.’ I frowned. ‘And besides, how could you possibly know the police are on their way?’
She drew a breath, and when she spoke again, I could detect a note of desperation in her voice. ‘Because I called them. Yes, I see them now. They will be with you very soon.’
I gripped the phone tight to my ear. ‘Are you serious?’
Oh, she was serious all right. Quite suddenly, the sound of footsteps reached me from further along the calle. Pressing my cheek against the door, I strained my eyes in the direction of the noise until I caught the blurred reflection of two figures in a slither of window glass. Then the figures themselves came hurtling into view – two men in blue police uniforms skidding to a halt outside. They were young. White-faced. Tense.
They flinched when they saw me, and I did much the same thing. Fortunately, I also had the presence of mind to hook my toe around the door bolt and slide it home before either of them could think to lift the metal shutter. They thought of it soon enough, but by then all I heard was the clank and shuffle of the grille from behind me as I darted for the rear of the shop.
The space behind the internal door was pitch-black and damp-smelling. I stretched my hand out in front of my face and the wall I found was wet and cold to the touch, even through the plastic of my gloves. Fumbling for my torch, I pointed the thin beam at my surroundings, but it barely tickled the darkness.
‘Which way?’ I yelled into the phone.
‘To your right. You should not waste time. They are close.’
No kidding. A thumping sound came from the shop – the noise of the policemen using their shoulders for a key. They shouted in frenzied Italian.
I aimed the torch beam down at the ground. Th
e floor seemed to have been carpeted with drenched sponge – water was seeping through and bubbling up around my shoes. To my right, sodden cardboard boxes were stacked one on top of another, covered over with plastic sheeting. Drips splattered the plastic from above.
A loud bang from behind me was followed by the crack and splinter of wood, the yammer of voices. The dark, slippery corridor beckoned, and I set off along it with my feet slapping through the wetness and my torch arcing dizzyingly from side to side.
I found myself at another wall. The corridor swung left and I swung after it, stomping along the sodden carpet with the mysterious black liquid seeping through my canvas baseball shoes to my socks. It was as if the building was suffering from some kind of localised exposure to the acqua alta – the high waters that periodically flood the city.
‘Where are you?’ panted the voice on the phone. Touching. She almost sounded concerned for my welfare.
‘I can see another door,’ I hissed. ‘Is it safe?’
‘Si. I have told you this.’
‘Excuse me if I take a little convincing.’
‘But you have no choice, Charlie. The polizia, they are inside now.’
I thought it best to ignore the way she’d just used my name. ‘If you’re lying,’ I whispered, ‘I’ll find you. You won’t get away with this.’
‘Do as I say and you will find me for sure. Take the door. Hurry to San Polo. Be there before two o’clock or I will destroy your book. I will do it. Understand?’
I didn’t understand, not even close, but the phone line went dead before I had a chance to tell her so. I cursed under my breath, then reached out tentatively and prodded the door. It wouldn’t budge. I put my shoulder to it. It snagged on the frame, then began to give way. I barged it once more and it banged open against the external wall. I was afraid another police officer might be waiting for me there, but I found nobody at all – the dingy, cheerless alley was deserted – and so I kicked the water from my shoes and lurched into a squelching run.
SIX
By the time I reached the address I’d been given, my feet were itching from the cold and the damp, and I badly wished that I could whip off my shoes and socks to scratch my toes for a couple of days. I would have settled for a change of footwear. Unfortunately, I couldn’t indulge either fancy, and my feet were destined to remain as miserable as my mood.
Stuffing my map into the pocket of my overcoat, I tucked my gloved hands under my armpits and rocked from side to side, shivering. I was lurking beyond a squat fire hydrant in a dog-legged alley blighted by graffiti. The neighbourhood was dark and deathly quiet. Every window that surrounded me was shuttered and unlit. The silence was so complete that it felt like a form of deafness, and if someone had told me that the entire city had been evacuated, I could have quite readily believed it.
The ramshackle building I was concerned with should have looked no more suspicious than any of the others, but it seemed to tower above me and vibrate with menace. The front wall bulged in the middle, where a rusted metal brace had been used to stitch it together, and ornate metal fretwork filled the arched space above the door, like a prison with ideas above its station. The door itself had been sanded back for a fresh coat of paint that had yet to be applied. The exposed wood was scarred and gnarled, and a corroded lion’s head knocker sneered out at anyone fool enough to approach.
There was no sign of a tangible threat, but I felt uneasy all the same. Digging my hand into my coat, I felt around for the mobile and redialled the number of my new Italian gal pal, hoping that I’d be able to hear the ringing of her phone from inside the property. I couldn’t. I supposed it was possible that her handset was set to silent, or that I’d made it across the city before her, but the fear that I was being set-up was hard to ignore. I would have loved for her to ease my concerns, but since my call went unanswered, so did my doubts.
I pocketed the phone and gave myself a quick pep talk. It didn’t help a great deal. Until tonight, it had been a long time since I’d performed my burglar routine, and I was being forced into a rushed encore. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been so bad if the first show had been a resounding success, but my undignified escape from the police had hardly merited a bow, and I really would have preferred some kind of rehearsal before tackling a strange building I hadn’t had an opportunity to case.
Looking at my watch, I saw that 2 o’clock was fast approaching. Part of me was tempted to stay where I was and see if she called. But I was worried about what the consequences might be – most especially, if she was serious about destroying my copy of Hammett’s novel. Life is all about risks, I suppose. Some I’m prepared to take, and others I simply can’t contemplate. And this time around, flexing my burglary skills against my better judgement seemed like the easier decision to live with. True, I was being manipulated, but at least I’d have some control (however small) over what happened next. If I turned my back on the scary building and walked clean away, I’d never know if I might have saved my book.
I suppose if I’m honest, it did occur to me that my decision might have been somewhat different if the person doing the manipulating hadn’t been a quite mesmerising blonde. I’d never met a female burglar before, let alone one with the credentials to model lingerie, and I confess that I was more than a little intrigued. Whether my curiosity would bring me anything other than trouble I wasn’t yet able to say, but one thing I couldn’t ignore was the hum of excitement in my veins. If my past attempts to quit smoking had taught me anything, it was that abstinence can be hellish, and the truth was that I’d badly missed my life of crime. There had been times during the last few months when I’d found myself gazing blindly at the wall above my writing desk, pining for the danger of the unknown, the flutter in my heart that came from creeping through a stranger’s home. Sure, writing had its appeal, but I was a completely different person when I was planning a burglary. A rule breaker. An outsider. Someone who made things happen.
Talking of making things happen, my drenched feet seemed to be clomping towards the unpainted door ahead of me, and my stiffened fingers appeared to be reaching for my spectacles case. Training my eye on the lock, I selected a medium rake and a standard torsion wrench from my collection.
I slipped the raking tool inside the keyhole, used the wrench to apply sideways tension to the locking cylinder, leaned my shoulder on the door and agitated the pins inside the lock. The pins skittered into position, the lock turned, the bolt withdrew and the door opened all in one fluid movement. Why, it was almost as if I knew what I was doing.
I closed the door behind me, then traded my spectacles case for my torch. I was standing in a communal hallway, with a flight of stone steps to my right and a collection of mail boxes fixed to the wall on my left. Ahead of me was a blank door with a coconut mat on the floor outside. Next to the door was a push-button light switch.
Somehow, I didn’t think I’d be using it. Halfway up the first flight of stairs, I craned my neck out over the banister to shine my torch upwards. Nobody was looking down at me, which was something of a relief. In fact, I might go so far as to say that I’d started to relax when I swung the torch beam back around and a dark fuzziness sprang out of the black towards my throat. It scratched my chin and clawed at my chest and then dropped in a twirling mass before haring off down the stairs.
I followed it with my penlight. Two yellow eyes glinted back from a distant corner. Bloody cat. It must have been sleeping on the window ledge above me. I dislike cats at the best of times – not least because I’m allergic to them – but when my nerves are on edge, having one jump out at me doesn’t rate very high on my list of favourite things.
This particular feline arched its back and hissed, and I decided that aiming my torch into its face wasn’t perhaps the best way to make friends. Instead, I wiped my coat sleeve across my nostrils to ward off any sniffling and sneezing, then turned my torch back to the stairs and climbed on, hoping that before long my heart rate might drop out of the zone where a cardiac
arrest seemed imminent.
As soon as I reached the first floor, I could see that the door to apartment 2 was slightly ajar. Switching the torch to my left hand, I felt inside my coat and armed myself with one of my screwdrivers, holding it up by my shoulder.
The door appeared innocuous enough, and when I put my face as close to it as I dared, I couldn’t hear a sound from the other side. I checked my grip on the screwdriver, gritted my teeth, and eased the door open with my toe.
No resistance. No noise.
Now for the tricky part. Did I lead with my hand, my foot, or my face? Difficult to tell. I switched the torch for the screwdriver, then switched them back again. Flattening myself against the wall, I drew a breath and starting counting to ten. I quit at seven and gave the door a solid shove. Before the handle had struck the wall, I moved round and paced swiftly into the apartment.
The place was unlit and very cold, with a strong smell of mould and decay. Instinct took me to my right, where the cone of light from my torch revealed two modest rooms, both empty. I turned and retraced my steps as far as a bathroom with a white porcelain sink, squat toilet and grimy cubicle shower. Next to the bathroom was a cramped kitchen with a stand-alone cooker, an unplugged fridge and bare cupboards. No signs of habitation whatsoever. I tried the light switch – nothing.
That left one room at the front of the apartment, which was almost as big as the rest of the place put together. The floor was linoleum, laid in a geometric pattern and covered in a fine layer of dirt and grit. A low, empty bookcase had been fitted along one wall and a time-worn sofa abutted it. There was nobody on the sofa or anywhere else for that matter. Across from me, a pair of full-length doors had been flung wide open. Discoloured net curtains billowed inwards in the faint night breeze.