The Good Thief's Guide to Venice (3 page)

Speaking of Victoria, she was pacing across the wooden bridge struts beside me in suede boots, dark jeans and a red padded jacket, the lower half of her face hidden behind the zipped collar of her coat.

‘Do you know where we’re going?’ she asked me.

‘Of course. I know Venice pretty well by now.’

‘You don’t want to borrow my map then?’

‘Please, Vic. I’m hardly a tourist.’

Below us a water bus, loaded down with an army of passengers, churned the grey-green waters into froth at the Accademia
vaporetto
station, while a pristine water taxi cruised by a grocery barge carrying boxed vegetables to market. Further along the canal, beyond a scattering of timber mooring posts, a string of gondolas had been roped together and covered in blue tarpaulin, their curved black bows nodding ponderously in the tides like a line of oil derricks.

‘I need coffee,’ I told Victoria, fighting to stifle a yawn.

‘Good idea. Where’s your nearest Starbucks?’

‘Philistine. Don’t let the locals hear you say that.’

The locals, every last one of them, were crammed inside a warm and steamy bar just beyond Campo San Maurizio. Leaving Victoria by the door, I pushed my way to the counter and ordered two espressos, then slipped my map out of my pocket and snuck a look at it under cover of the people around me.

My map had all but disintegrated from heavy use. The wax paper was torn and gaping where once it had been neatly folded, the corners were curled and badly frayed, and I was missing an entire quadrant of the Giudecca. Even so, I had a curious affection for the thing and I was reluctant to replace it. I’d learned to my cost during my first weeks in Venice how easy it was to become hopelessly lost among the mazelike alleys and waterways of the city, and it had come to my rescue more times than I could count.

Happily enough, it worked the same trick again, and I plotted a route through a series of backstreets that I felt confident I could remember. Then I necked my coffee and delivered Victoria’s. Once she’d sipped it down, and wafted her hand in front of her mouth as if she’d just swallowed a shot of firewater, I led her on as far as the gloomy fissure of Calle Fiubera without a single wrong turn.

The bookbinding business was double-fronted, with two large windows on either side of a recessed glass door. The left-hand window featured a display of leather-bound volumes embellished with contrasting leather patches in the shape of stars, moons, cats and witches’ hats. A small cardboard sign beside each book, in English only, noted which volume in the Harry Potter series was for sale as a bound and signed edition, along with a price in euros that was frankly insane. The right-hand window was devoted to quality pens, paper supplies and stationery. We entered the shop and discovered that the interior was laid out in the same fashion.

The place smelled strongly of tobacco smoke. A ragged-looking chap with unruly grey hair and wire-rim glasses was sitting behind a leather-inlaid desk among the book shelves, a scratched and dented pipe resting in the corner of his mouth. He was peering through an illuminated, table-fixed magnifying glass at a supple piece of tan leather. On the corner of his desk was a stack of red flyers just like the one that had been left in my apartment.

He glanced up when we entered, eyes rheumy and networked with fine red lines, then returned his attention to his stitching and smoking.

I approached the shelved books and scanned the titles that had been hand-embroidered on their spines. They were arranged in alphabetical order and I crouched down until I was facing the shelf given over to authors with a surname beginning with the letter
H
. I read from left to right, then raised a mitten in the air and repeated myself to be sure I hadn’t missed anything. I hadn’t. There were no books by Dashiell Hammett.

I straightened, knees cracking, and led Victoria towards the stationery supplies on the opposite side of the shop. I pretended to give some consideration to a notebook with a black leather cover that was affordable enough to have been manufactured in the Far East. Victoria smoothed her fingers over a sheet of wrapping paper with a marbled effect that had probably originated from the same factory.

‘Well?’ she whispered.

‘Nothing,’ I told her.

She inclined her head towards the owner of the shop. ‘Are you going to say something?’

I set the notebook down and reached for a gift set containing a strip of red wax and a letter seal. ‘I’m not sure it’s going to get us very far.’

‘Even so.’

‘Even so?’

She nodded and freed the gift box from my grip. ‘No time like the present.’

The shopkeeper appeared to disagree. I shuffled across and hovered before his desk, but it wasn’t until I’d removed my mittens, clapped my hands, cleared my throat and conjured up a hesitant,
‘Scusi?’
that he finally muttered a dubious,
‘Si.’

‘I’m looking for a book.’

‘
Si
.’ His beaten-down eyes didn’t seem the least bit interested in anything I might have to say. A sprig of silvery hair was growing out of a mole on his right cheek, and the collarless brown shirt and green cardigan he had on looked sorely in need of a wash.

‘A particular book,’ I went on. ‘
The Maltese Falcon
. I was led to believe you might have a first edition. Signed.’

The shopkeeper looked me up and down very carefully, without the least embarrassment, and then he set aside the piece of leather he’d been stitching and cupped the bowl of his pipe. He wore a pitted rubber thimble on his thumb, and he knocked it against the pipe as he watched me some more.

‘I’ve already checked your shelf,’ I told him. ‘I couldn’t find a copy.’

He grunted, as if that much was obvious, then leaned backwards in his chair and tugged at a drawer in the middle of his desk, showering tobacco from his pipe along the sleeve of his cardigan. He removed a green ledger that he parted before him. The handwritten entries were slanted and compressed – and impossible for me to read upside down.

‘No,’ he said, and shut the ledger with a definitive, and quite dusty, thud.

‘No?’

He shook his head and cupped the pipe.

‘You’re quite sure?’ I pressed.

This time, he remained silent. If I hadn’t heard myself speak with my own ears, I could have believed that I hadn’t actually said anything.

‘Okay then,’ I said.
‘Grazie mille.’

‘Prego.’

I turned to Victoria. ‘Let’s go.’

‘That’s it?’

‘He doesn’t have a copy.’ I shrugged. ‘I don’t know what more we can do.’

I followed Victoria out of the shop, determined not to look back as we walked away, even though I had the distinct feeling that we were being watched. Victoria waited until we were crossing a humped bridge over a brackish canal before delivering her verdict.

‘Well, he was grumpy. And not exactly helpful.’

‘Welcome to Venice.’

She glanced up at me, a pensiveness in her eyes. ‘Do you think he was hiding something?’

I gave the matter some thought. ‘No,’ I said, eventually.

‘Really?’

I wrapped my arm around her and gave her a friendly squeeze. ‘I know we weren’t in there very long, but I didn’t spot any really unique editions. It’s just not that kind of place.’

‘I don’t know, Charlie.’

‘Always so suspicious.’ I bumped her with my hip. ‘You ever wonder if perhaps it’s time you stopped searching for the plot twist behind everyone you meet?’

Victoria made a noise that suggested she wasn’t entirely amused by my observation, and meanwhile I raised my head to discover that we were entering Piazza San Marco, through the archway that ran beneath the ornate clock tower. The brick Campanile loomed ahead of us, and to our left a group of children clambered over a pair of lion statues that appeared resigned to their fate. The greasy flagstones were clotted with pigeons and tourists. I craned my neck up towards the mosaics on the front of the domed Basilica. The golds and yellows seemed to lack something in the dreary grey light. I knew just how they felt.

‘So what’s next?’ Victoria asked. ‘Should we go to the police?’

I frowned. ‘What would be the point of that?’

‘Well, I know you’re not exactly a fan …’

‘Because they’re usually trying to arrest me, Vic. And more often than not, for the wrong crime.’

‘But think about it, Charlie. A female burglar. There can’t be too many of those around. Perhaps they’ll know who she is.’

‘I wouldn’t bet on it. And I dread to think how long we’d have to wait to speak to someone. All day, probably.’

She prodded me in the chest. ‘That book was worth a bloody fortune.’

‘Still is,’ I told her. ‘Just not my fortune, regrettably.’

Victoria squealed in frustration and stamped her heel into the ground. It wasn’t her smartest move ever. A cluster of pigeons scattered in a burst of wings, charting a course for her hair. She yelped, flailing her arms like she’d stumbled into a bat cave.

Once the last of the winged rodents had cleared the air space in the vicinity of her head, she cursed me under her breath and bit down on her lip. ‘You don’t fool me, Charlie. You’ve told me before what that book means to you. What it means for your writing.’

The joke was Victoria didn’t know the half of it. Stealing the
Falcon
had involved one of the biggest gambles I’d ever taken. As a professional thief-for-hire, ripping off one’s employer is a dumb move. The chances of being caught are high, because you’re an obvious suspect, and even if nothing can be proven against you, you still risk causing irreparable damage to your reputation. So rule one of the burglary game is never to bite the hand that feeds you. It’s a good rule. A fine one, even. And that’s why I’ve seldom broken it.

But I broke it for Hammett.

At the time in question, my client was a bloated old Etonian – a boastful lush who’d inherited a vast and sprawling family estate that happened to include a renowned library of rare volumes. The library was of scant interest to him – in fact, I was reliably informed that the only thing he read for pleasure was the
Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack
. His passion, you see, was cricket, and I’d been hired by a go-between to acquire a piece of memorabilia for his private collection – a bat that had been used by a particular player in a particular Test that I’m not at liberty to mention just now. Needless to say, I stole the bat and I was paid handsomely for my toils, but from the moment I’d heard talk of my client’s library of books, I’d had a hankering to break in and peruse it.

Several weeks later, when I happened to know that he was in Yorkshire for a County Championship match, I did precisely that, and it’s fair to say the quality of the collection was far beyond anything I could have anticipated. But the greatest surprise was on a shelf high up to my right, where I happened to notice a familiar yellow dust jacket winking out at me. Somewhat breathlessly, I wheeled across a stepladder and took the book down, turning it in my hands and gently opening it to the first printed page where, to my life-long surprise, I found that my hero had signed his name, in his very own hand.

I wanted to take the book, right there and then, but I reminded myself what a hazardous thing it would be to do, and I reluctantly slipped it back in its place. But from that night on, through the days and weeks that followed, I could think of little else. Ideas of snatching the book plagued me during the day and haunted me in my dreams. I’d swiped plenty of things by then – some for myself, others for clients – and nearly everything had been worth an awful lot of money. But with
The Maltese Falcon
, it was the first and only time I’d truly known what it meant to covet something. I was obsessed by the book, I couldn’t rest without taking it, and gradually I convinced myself that there was a good chance its theft wouldn’t be noticed by the library’s cricket-obsessed owner. So I broke in, and I nabbed the
Falcon
, but I also left England for the Continent the very next day, at the start of what was destined to become my roving lifestyle throughout Europe and beyond.

‘Oh, I’ll get by,’ I told Victoria, doing my best to rid my mind of the memories I’d just conjured.

‘Will you, though?’

I reached for her chin, lifting it with my thumb. ‘Well, you tell me,’ I said, in what I hoped passed for a carefree tone. ‘How about we head home and you can start reading my new manuscript?’

A sad smile flirted with her lips. ‘Oh, terrific. No pressure there, then.’

Reaching for her hand, I swung her arm and led her on through the square towards the steely waters of the lagoon. The main expanse of the piazza was away to our right and the pink-on-white fancy of the Doge’s Palace was off to our left. But I wasn’t interested in either of them. My attention was focussed on the two granite columns ahead of us, at the entrance to the Piazetta. The columns framed a view across the lagoon to the cathedral of San Giorgio Maggiore, and in times gone by, thieves and criminals had been strung up from them, as a warning to others not to follow their example. And there I was, ignoring the lesson, already planning in my own mind how I might set about breaking into the bookshop after dark and, more to the point, asking myself how best to access the antique floor-safe I’d spotted behind the shopkeeper’s desk.

If there’s one thing I try to focus on when I’m writing my Michael Faulks burglar novels, it’s
barriers
. By tossing as many obstacles as possible into the path of my hero, and making life fiendishly challenging for him, I hope my readers will feel compelled to read on to find out what happens next. It’s a handy technique, and it’s served me pretty well over the years. The part that troubled me, however, was that someone seemed to be pulling the exact same trick with yours truly.

Take, for example, my decision to break into the bookshop. It was by no means easy. I’d made a promise to myself to focus on my writing while I was in Venice – to see what kind of crime novel I could produce when I really committed to the
novel
rather than the
crime
side of the equation – and I felt guilty turning away from that pact.