The Good Thief's Guide to Paris (9 page)

Stealing the painting was an option. Sure, the gallery was likely to have better locks and a more sophisticated security system than your average home, but that wasn’t something that would necessarily get in my way. Whoever lived above the store might, though. From the looks of the building there were several apartments or offices in the upper floors and it would be logical to assume one of them might belong to the owner of the gallery. If I returned to break in after hours I’d need only to make a little too much noise to draw unwanted attention. And that was true of passers-by too. Rue Quincampoix was hardly the busiest of streets but it was close to the Pompidou Centre and if I was seen flashing my torch around inside the gallery after dark, I could soon find myself in trouble.

And why run the risk? The painting was priced at more than four thousand euros but that didn’t mean I had to pay that much for it. If I could make a deal for a lesser amount, I’d still be clearing a tidy profit and I’d be maintaining Pierre’s faith in me at the same time. After all, there was no reason I could think of to tell Pierre how I’d come by the painting. He’d just be glad to have it in his possession, ready to pass to his client. Yes, I’d be down a certain amount of my fee, and that bothered me to a degree, but it was something I could learn to live with.

A good deal of bartering and three thousand eight hundred euros later, the rather stern owner of the gallery was wrapping the painting for me in strong brown paper and parcel string. I was a little ashamed to be paying for such a poor piece of art in the first place, of course, and I did my best to explain as much to the gallery owner. Ultimately, though, I don’t think she cared and neither did I. She’d probably expected to have the monstrosity stuck on her wall for six months at the very least, never anticipating she might be lucky enough to ensnare a witless Englishman. And I may have reduced my earnings to just over six thousand euros but I did have the satisfaction of a job well done. After a bad start, I’d used my brain to track Bruno down and, with just a little luck, I’d done far better than I had expected. I mean, even if I’d confronted Bruno outside the bank, what would I have achieved? He might have refused to tell me what had happened to the painting and then I’d have been stuck. I suppose I could have threatened to expose him as a thief, but there was no guarantee it would have worked. It’s never bothered me all that much.

So the truth is I was feeling pretty smug as I left the store with the painting tucked under my arm and headed for the nearest métro station. I’d worked some angles and I’d followed my instincts and the only problem I had left to resolve was how to break the news of my real appearance to Victoria without losing her friendship for ever. And really, I thought, a chap with my skills and abilities ought to be able to pull that one off without too much trouble. It would all work out in the end. These things always did.

Or did they? When I got back to my apartment I wasn’t so sure. For starters, the locks on my front door had been tampered with and the door was hanging ajar. Far worse, though, a woman was waiting for me there. And from the look of the clear plastic bag that had been taped over her head and the florid tone of her skin, I hadn’t the slightest doubt she was dead.

ELEVEN

The woman was in the middle of my living room and her hands had been tied behind her back to the frame of the wooden dining chair she was sat upon. Her head drooped forwards, like a wilted tulip, weighing the upper half of her torso down and away from the chair. The bag that had been used to suffocate her was made of a thick, clear plastic, and I could see condensation where it was touching her skin. Her skin had turned a vibrant purple colour, almost as if it had been dyed with berry juice. The discoloration was at its most extreme in a fine band that ran around her neck, just above the lengths of electrical tape that had been used to secure the bag in place.

When I first saw her, I froze at the threshold to my apartment with the front door wide open. And if I’m honest, part of me was tempted to turn and flee. I’m not altogether sure what stopped me. Sadness, I guess. I’ve seen a man beaten close to death before but never anything like this. It wasn’t just her lifeless pose or the brutality of what had been done to her; it was also the stillness in the room, the quiet all around, the funnel of dust motes twirling in the evening sunshine filtering through my window – the utter normality of everything else.

I stepped inside my apartment in a daze and set the wrapped painting down on the floor against the wall. Then I turned from her, dropped to my knees and took a moment to assess the dead-bolts that were flush with the frame of the door and the fascias of the locks themselves. The locks hadn’t been forced or drilled – they’d been picked open. It wasn’t the sort of thing I might have been expected to focus on, but concentrating on the locks felt oddly reassuring. I guess a psychologist might call it displacement activity but so far as I was concerned, looking at the locks was a damn sight better than looking at the body.

Frowning at my findings, I closed the door from the inside, then crossed the room to the kitchen, opened one of the cupboards and removed my box of disposable latex gloves. I slipped a pair of the gloves onto my hands, taking my time over the procedure, indulging in it almost. Finally, I took a deep breath, turned and approached the woman. Let me tell you, there are few things I’ve been as reluctant to do in my life as reaching out to touch her, and fewer still that have dashed my hopes quite so completely.

There was still a trace of warmth in her wrist when I placed my fingers against her skin but there was no sign whatsoever of a pulse. I released her hand and moved to the front of the chair. Crouching down and swallowing hard, I reached for her chin and tilted her face upwards. The bag rustled and the plastic became taut against the electrical tape around her neck. The face I found myself looking into was the most ghastly thing I’ve ever seen.

It was the eyes that did it – the desperation and panic in them. People talk about the sightless gaze of the dead. Well, not here. These eyes were full of knowing; a terrible understanding of what was about to occur. I looked down and saw that her mouth was formed into an infinite, aimless ‘O’, the plastic material sucked into a concave shape between her lips. Her lips were tinged blue and her cheeks and the skin around her eyes and nostrils had swollen dramatically, distorting her face in a sickening way. Blood vessels had burst all across the surface of her skin, as though her capillaries had detonated simultaneously. Threads of blond hair were congealed against her brow; the rest an unruly tangle on top of her head.

I lowered her chin back to its resting point and stepped away from her, crossing my arms in front of my chest. I felt my rib cage rise and fall, suddenly conscious of my own breathing. Closing my eyes, I tried my best to control the thumping of my heart and the curious whistling noise that had begun to form in my ears. My head swirled. I felt my legs buckle and I grabbed for my desk to steady myself before I lost my balance.

I recognised her. She was the woman from the photograph in the Marais apartment – Catherine Ames, the owner of the painting.

Quickly now, I moved into my bedroom and threw open the doors to the wardrobe. My holdall was stashed in the base, and some of my less incriminating burglar tools were packed inside, together with my real passport and driver’s licence. I snatched up the holdall and added some clean clothes from my bedside drawers, then moved into the bathroom and scooped my arthritis medicines out of the mirror-fronted cabinet into the bag. I stood on the toilet seat and grasped for the top of the cabinet. My gloved fingers came away in a cloud of dust, gripping the remains of the cash Pierre had given me as well as a plastic pouch containing my spare set of picks and probes. I rushed back to the living room and stuffed my writing notes, my laptop and my framed Hammett novel into the holdall too. I checked the desk drawers for other essentials, then closed them and turned right around, scanning the room and trying to decide if there was anything else I needed. I didn’t think so, at least nothing pressing. The room was beginning to spin and I raised my palms to my ears and bowed my head, drawing more air into my system. I squeezed my skull between my hands and growled deep in my throat. This wasn’t the time to lose it, I reminded myself. This was the time to save my own skin.

Squaring my shoulders, I fixed my eyes on a random point on the wall across the room and strode past the body of the dead woman one last time, afraid to risk even the merest glance in her direction. Then I snatched the painting from the floor, hastily locked the front door to my apartment behind me and headed downstairs.

The concierge emerged from below the reception desk just as I reached the foyer. His sudden appearance made me jump clear out of my skin. I clutched at my chest and struggled to compose myself, my mouth opening and reopening and my eyes blinking furiously. The concierge offered me a hesitant smile. I swallowed my heart back down, cleared my throat and heard myself asking him in broken French if I’d had any visitors during the day.

The concierge shook his head no, brow furrowed, as if he’d picked up on my anxiety. I glanced towards the cluttered office area behind his desk, wishing that it contained a bank of CCTV monitors that could help clear my name. There was just one monitor, though, and it was screening a zany French game show. I looked back at the concierge and watched him eye my holdall and the painting while I tried to think if there was anything else I could ask. Nothing occurred to me, other than how suspicious I must have looked, so I did my best to smile casually, then thanked him and hurried out of the building and away along the street.

It was frustrating as hell that there was no CCTV footage and more than a little worrying that the concierge hadn’t noticed anyone visiting my apartment, but I hoped there was still a chance he might be able to provide me with some form of alibi. I couldn’t remember seeing him at his desk when I’d returned home no more than ten minutes before, but it was possible he’d seen me. And assuming Catherine had been dead for more than an hour, say, the timing of my arrival could put me in the clear. For just a moment, I thought about going back and checking with the concierge but then I realised it was a dumb idea. If I did that, it might make it seem as though I was trying to prime him for when the police investigation gathered pace.

And I had no doubt there would be a police investigation. Actually, I was surprised they hadn’t arrived before I’d had a chance to leave. Because the whole thing reeked of a set-up – Catherine Ames had been killed in my apartment and I happened to have her painting in my possession at the time; my fingerprints could be found in her home if the police went looking for them; I’d even drunk her coffee, for goodness sake. It was all very neat, I had to admit. So it was odd there were no police sirens wailing or patrol cars screeching to a halt all around me, no officers demanding that I drop my holdall and lay spread-eagled on the pavement while they cuffed me. The only explanation I could think of was perhaps Bruno hadn’t watched me go in.

Because that was who the murderer had to be. I mean, Bruno was the only person besides Pierre who was aware that I’d been inside the dead woman’s apartment. He was the one who’d had me touch her things without my gloves on. I could remember telling him the area I lived in and he knew my name so it wouldn’t have been all that hard for him to track me down. Christ, I’d even provided him with the skills he needed to break into my apartment.

How long ago had he killed her, I wondered? I racked my brain and remembered I’d left at around ten in the morning. It was close to half past six by now. Was she murdered while I was in her home? Judging by the warmth of her body, I guessed the answer was no. She couldn’t have been dead for more than a few hours at the most, I didn’t think, but then again, I was hardly a pathologist. But assuming I was right, that meant she could have been killed while I was at the bank or buying the painting. And that would make sense, because it would explain why I hadn’t seen Bruno at work.

For a moment, I thought about calling the police myself. It occurred to me that I could place an anonymous call from a pay-phone and give them the name of the real culprit. That would save them time chasing after me and getting off on the wrong foot, but then again, might it seem as though I’d tried to frame Bruno? I had no idea. My brain felt overrun and my thinking confused.

I broke away from my thoughts to find I was at the end of Avenue de Breteuil, approaching the overland métro station on Boulevard Garibaldi. I hurried up the perforated metal steps, beyond the magazine stall where I normally bought my English newspapers, then fumbled a carnet of lilac tickets from my wallet and waited impatiently for the first train to come along, not caring where it was headed. A minute later, I was sat on a fold-down seat at the far end of a busy carriage, the holdall and the painting stowed between my quick-tapping feet.

I lowered my head between my knees and focused on my breathing once more. I could feel sweat on my back, sticking to my shirt, and the skin on my palms and face was clammy. My scalp prickled and I was conscious that I was trembling all over. In an effort to get my shakes under control, I clenched and unclenched my fists, meanwhile imagining that I was blowing into and out of a brown paper bag. I curled my toes up inside my shoes and tensed my entire body, willing myself to focus. Just then, I got the impression I was being watched and I glanced up from the dimpled plastic floor to see a teenage Goth studying me in a detached way, as though she was curious to see if I was about to have some kind of a fit. I offered her a weak smile and then, nonplussed by her blank reaction, I returned my attention to the floor and focused once again on my imaginary brown paper bag.

TWELVE

I rode the métro network for close to an hour before resolving myself to a new course of action. By then, rush hour had passed and the trains were less congested. When I stepped out at Pigalle, the flagstone pavements were almost deserted and I guessed most of the locals were at home preparing meals or enjoying a glass of wine in one of the neighbourhood brasseries. The tawdry signs outside the burlesque theatres and peep-show dens appeared faded in the weak evening sunshine, as though the colour contrast of the streets I was walking through had been minimised with the use of some giant remote control.

I climbed the steep, winding alleys and cigarette-strewn steps towards Montmartre with my holdall over my shoulder and the brown-packaged painting beneath my arm, aware only of the noiselessness surrounding me and the sweaty fug that seemed to be clinging to my skin like a tight film. Blood throbbed at my temples and I began to feel faint. At that moment, I could have quite willingly tretched out on the grubby pavement, pressed my face against the cobblestones and closed my eyes for a time. I didn’t, though. I kept on, throwing one foot in front of the next, working the muscles in my thighs and my calves, occasionally adjusting the way I was holding the painting or easing the strap of the holdall away from my shoulders.

The ascent was relentless and as I neared to the Sacré-Coeur, I found myself out of breath and tangled up in a morass of tourists, all of them moving too slowly and too aimlessly through the constricted streets in their bright T-shirts and baggy shorts and sunglasses, pointing their damn cameras and camcorders in my direction. Things reached a pitch at the Place du Tertre, a tacky square with all the authenticity of a movie set. Seedy waiters dressed in gaudy waistcoats did their best to entice passers-by to eat in their restaurants; caricaturists approached me with clipboards and speedy banter, while other “artists” offered to cut my silhouette from black sugar paper with a pair of nail scissors or encouraged me to watch them paint shoddy water-colours of city landmarks from memory. Side-stalls encroached onto the street, their display stands drenched in T-shirts, rucksacks and baseball caps with the word “Paris” printed over and over again in endless, varied scripts. I tripped on a blackboard sign for a café and almost stumbled into a busker playing a violin.

Eventually, by some quirk of good fortune, I forced my way through the crowds and shambled down a severe incline until I stumbled across the hotel I was looking for without having to ask for directions. Once there, I checked in to a room courtesy of David Birk once again, then I locked the door behind me, stepped out of my damp clothes and subjected myself to an ice-cold shower for as long as I could bear. When I emerged from the shower cubicle, the tiled floor lurched towards me and I had to grab for the toilet seat and sit myself down. Perched on the toilet, my face pressed into a white cotton towel, I tensed my jaw and told myself to focus. It was easier said than done. An hour passed and still I found myself in the same position, my body covered in goose pimples and my reflection in the bathroom mirror looking pale and disorientated.

Really now, I asked myself, where was this getting me? The answer was nowhere. The way I was going I was doomed to remain on the toilet seat until one of the cleaners happened to disturb me the following morning. And wouldn’t that look like a fine tableau of guilt? I was being foolish. Running through the image of the dead woman in my apartment for the hundredth time wouldn’t change a thing, other than drive me nuts. I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t alter the way things had turned out. All I could do was face up to the situation I’d found myself in and manage it as best I could.

And drink. A lot.

I eased up from the toilet seat, the muscles in my legs feeling tight as guitar strings, and wrapped the towel about my waist. The mini-bar was located inside a polished wooden cabinet and, given the circumstances I’d found myself in, I was cavalier enough to uncap a miniature of whisky without consulting the price list. I took a mouthful, then another. I swallowed and felt the warming burn deep in my throat. The buzz radiated out from my chest, like one of those TV ads for a flu remedy. I dropped the whisky miniature into the waste bin and selected a bottle of vodka to replace it. I took a slug from the vodka bottle, recoiled from the taste, then set the bottle to one side and removed some clean clothes from my holdall so that I could dress. By the time I’d laced my shoes and combed my hair and finished the last of the vodka, I felt just about ready to head downstairs.

The hotel bar was strikingly hip – if anything, it looked more Italian than French. The bar itself was an oblong cube of some kind of white Perspex and the spirits and wines were displayed on glass shelves that were back-lit with blue fluorescent lamps. There were a series of high circular tables and raised leather chairs around the edge of the room and perhaps six metallic stools in front of the bar. Only one of the stools was occupied. The brunette who was sat in it was twisting a mojito between her hands, avoiding the gaze of a handsome young barman who was drying glasses nearby. She was dressed as if for a night out: a summer dress with a floral print and dark costume jewellery. Her legs were bare and she wore strappy sandals.

I took the stool one away from the brunette and signalled the barman, ordering a bottle of lager. I didn’t speak in my normal voice – for the sake of camouflage, I chose to adopt a Scottish accent instead. At least, I think it was Scottish. That was certainly my intention, but I was already half-cut, and who knew if it was anything like as convincing as I imagined? In my mind, I’d mastered a deep, Highlands brogue, my vowel sounds were perfectly clipped, my “r”s fully rounded, and there was an authentic cadence to my speech. Hell, so far as I was concerned, I might as well have been sat alongside my brother Hamish back in Inverness, wearing a kilt made from the family tartan and humming “Flower of Scotland”.

While I admired my linguistic dexterity, the barman fetched me a lager from a see-through cooler and set it down in front of me on a jet-black napkin. I took a healthy swig. My head was swimming more than a little from the spirits I’d drunk back in my room but the lager felt good. I half-smiled to myself. It was booze that had got me into this mess and now I was hoping booze could get me back out.

“Looks like you needed that,” the brunette said. She was English, kind of posh-sounding.

I lowered the bottle from my mouth and wiped my lips with the back of my hand.

“Aye, you could say,” I told her, nodding sagely.

“Hard day at the office?”

“Och, just some wee things playing on mae mind.”

“Oh?”

I smiled and pointed my finger at her drink. “How about yoo?” I asked, flattening my “o” sounds as best I could.

“Ah,” she said, stirring the cocktail with a straw and arching an eyebrow. “I appear to have been stood up.”

“I cannae believe that.”

She snorted and gave me a sly grin. “Well, it’s true. Although, if I’m honest, I’m not sure I really expected him to show.”

“Aye? So are you looking for solace in your wee drink?”

“Nope,” she said, shaking her head and taking a sip. “The mojitos are just really good here.”

“Is that a fact?”

She waited a beat, then slid her glass towards me across the gloss surface of the bar. I reached for the glass, meanwhile shifting onto the stool alongside her. I sipped from the rim, ice crystals filling my mouth. The mint struck me first, then the rum. I set the glass down and nodded.

“Want one?”

“Aye, why not?”

The brunette ordered in confident French from the barman and he began filling a glass tumbler with ice. He was crushing the mint leaves with a pestle before she spoke again.

“My name’s Victoria,” she said, offering me a well-manicured hand. There was something very deliberate about the way she was looking at me.

“Michael,” I told her, holding her gaze.

“Michael,” she repeated, saying it slowly, as though she was just getting used to the sound of the name for the first time. “Really?”

“You dinnae like it?”

“No, it’s not that,” she said, frowning. “Would you mind if I ask what your surname is?”

“Birk.”

She laughed.

“I dinnae think it’s that funny.”

“No,” she told me, waving her hand. “It’s just, for a second there, I thought this could have been a real karmic moment.”

“Aye?”

She paused, as if debating whether to tell me anything further. Then her shoulders dropped, signalling that she’d decided to run with it. “Have you heard the name Michael Faulks before?”

I raised my hand to my chin, as though giving it some thought. “I dinnae think so,” I said, at length. “Should I?”

“It would have been unlikely, I suppose. He’s a character in a series of mystery novels. A burglar. I represent the author, you see.”

“Is that a fact now?”

She nodded, contemplating me through half-lidded eyes.

“And are these wee books any good?”

She screwed her face up. “They’re okay. In the past, they haven’t sold all that well if you want the honest truth. But the guy who writes them, I don’t know – I like to think one day he might write something pretty extraordinary.”

“One day, you say.”

“Perhaps.”

I pouted, scratched at the stubble on my chin. I took another mouthful of my lager. I was just deciding whether to pursue the conversation when she went ahead and asked me something else.

“What happened to your fingers?”

I lowered the lager bottle and gazed at my inflamed knuckles. “Shut them in a wee door.”

“Ouch.”

“Aye. Lucky I dinnae break them.”

“And what is it you do, Michael?”

“I’m a lawyer,” I told her, once I’d swallowed some more lager.

“That’s . . . interesting. What kind of work do you specialise in?”

“Och, all kinds.”

“All kinds? Like mergers and acquisitions, or bank finance, or tax law or what?”

I looked at her sideways. “You ken about the law?”

“My father was a judge.”

“Aye? Well, I’m in anti-fraud.”

“Anti-fraud,” she said, somehow drawing the words out.

“That’s right.”

“You know, I wouldn’t have guessed it.”

“Oh?”

“If I had to guess,” she said, dipping her finger into her drink and bobbing the ice up and down, “I’d have said criminal.”

“Excuse me?” I squeaked, forgetting my accent for just a moment.

She raised her glass towards her lips. “Criminal law Michael. Defending the guilty, that kind of thing.”

“Och,” I said, breathing again. “No. I was never one for all that courtroom stuff.”

I broke eye contact and glanced up to find that the barman had finished my mojito. He set it down in front of me on top of another black napkin. I lowered my mouth to the straw and took a sip. The drink was cold and fresh-tasting, drilling straight into my brain. My very dumb, pea-sized brain. Why had I lied? Why had I put on such a crazy accent in the first place? I could have stayed in my room and avoided all this; could have checked into another hotel altogether for that matter. But there was no going back now. I’d just have to drink the mojito as quickly as possible and make my excuses.

“So,” Victoria said, with a heavy sigh, “your name is Michael Birk and you’re a Scottish anti-fraud lawyer who just happens to be having a welcome drink after a long day at work.”

“Aye, that’s right.”

She stared at me hard. “You really are pathetic.”

I felt my jaw tighten. I wanted to look anywhere but at her. She leaned towards me, so close that I could smell the mint on her breath.

“I came to your damn reading, Charlie,” she told me, through clenched teeth. “I was in Paris days ago and I watched you in that park and to begin with I really thought it might have been some kind of a mistake. Then I heard you read and I knew. You lied to me. You’ve been lying to me for years.”

I gawped at her, completely at a loss. My mind grasped for something to say, a word to repair the damage I’d caused. “I dinnae know wha –”.

“Don’t,” she said, a hard cast to her expression. She jabbed her finger into my bicep. “Just tell me, is there any reason you can think of why I should still talk to you after tonight?”

My mouth opened and closed, but I was unable to offer her a response. I leaned away from my drink, crumpled on my stool.

“I’m really sorry,” I began, my voice sounding terribly proper all of a sudden. “I’ve had an awful day, Vic. I’m kind of messed up right now and . . .”

“I didn’t think so,” she said, interrupting me.

She reached for her purse and stood up from the bar.

“Vic,” I tried again. “Let me explain. I’m an idiot. You know that. Please.”

She shook her head, her neck muscles taught. Then she glared at me, lips colourless and pressed into a thin line. Finally, she turned and left me alone at the bar.