Would he blame me? Possibly. Would he suspect me of touting the information around and drawing attention to myself? No, I didn’t believe so. I wouldn’t have known who to approach in the first place, and I’d had very little time since he’d hired me to think about arranging an auction.
Victoria, then? Maybe someone who didn’t know her could suspect her of something along those lines. But Freddy’s own brother had worked with us in Paris. He’d vouched for her. And it was quite clear that Freddy had been susceptible to Victoria’s charms, so I couldn’t imagine him pointing the finger her way.
Was the loss of the file a really severe problem? I didn’t see it. An embarrassment, maybe. A concern, for sure. But if this was a matter of genuine national security, then nothing could convince me that Freddy would have come to me for help. He’d have appealed to the British secret service. He’d have held all four people suspected of the theft in detention until Jane Parker admitted her crime and returned the pages of code. So I did feel bad. I was concerned for Freddy and the implications that losing the file might hold for him and the embassy. But I didn’t believe I could be involved in a true emergency.
That’s not to say I wasn’t pretty steamed up about the whole thing. Finding the secret object was never going to be easy, but I’d surprised myself by managing to complete my assignment, and it bugged me that my triumph had been snatched away so cruelly. Hell, if you want the truth, the part that
really
rankled was that there was no elegance about the way I’d been ripped off. If it had been me, I’d have been embarrassed about scampering up a ladder and clambering in through a window. It was so …
degrading
. And it was irritating to think that someone who was prepared to stoop so low could have got the drop on me.
But it wasn’t just me I was thinking about. I was also thinking about poor Jane Parker. I was asking myself how she’d react when she returned to her hotel room and discovered that the file had been snatched. Because she’d check. I felt sure of it. If it was me, it’d be the first thing I’d do. And she was going to feel awfully sick when she flipped back that leather folder and found that the file was missing.
Would she telephone reception and report a theft? No, I didn’t think so. First, she’d check her room thoroughly, trying to convince herself that perhaps the file had been moved elsewhere by a hotel maid. Then she’d probably drop onto her bed and clutch her head in her hands and wonder what on earth she should do. Call the embassy? Confess to what she’d done? Or carry on as normal, hoping the theft of the file would never come to light and her involvement would never be discovered?
Yes, she’d been in the wrong. Betrayed her country, even. But who knew what her personal circumstances were or what had driven her to do it? She might be under all kinds of pressures. She could be in some sort of personal danger. And besides all that, I could empathize with how galling it felt to have the file taken away from you after going to all the trouble of stealing it in the first place.
So I felt pretty guilty about the turmoil she might be experiencing right now. But in truth, that was nothing compared to my fears for the girl I’d seen throttled.
I couldn’t get her out of my mind. Oh, I’d tried. I’d done my best to banish her from my thoughts altogether. But the image of her gasping for air, pleading with her eyes, while the faceless brute in the dark jacket squeezed the life from her was something I couldn’t escape. I was pretty sure it would be stuck in my mind for a long time to come. I’ve seen people who’ve been killed before. Far too many of them for my liking. But never had I been forced to watch, completely helpless, as someone was murdered in a terrible, relentless way in front of my eyes.
Helpless.
That was a big part of what was bothering me. Was it really true? Was there something more I could have done? Maybe I should have opened the window and shouted, after all. Or perhaps I could have approached the police and prevented them from leaving the building until they found the girl. And what had stopped me? Self-preservation. Selfishness. I hadn’t wanted to draw attention to myself. I hadn’t wanted to scupper the mission I was on. But, as it turned out, the mission had been scuppered anyway. I no longer had Freddy’s precious file. And the girl was still dead.
At least, I
thought
she was dead. I was practically certain she had to be. But somehow the police hadn’t believed it. And Victoria had her doubts, too. Now, true, she hadn’t seen what I’d seen. She hadn’t watched it play out before her eyes. But I did value her opinion. I did trust her judgment. And hey, I confess, I have been known to make mistakes in the past. Was it really possible that I’d got it wrong? Why hadn’t the police found anything suspicious inside the apartment? Where was the girl now?
My thighs were really stinging. My fingernails were in danger of drawing blood. I tore my hands away and laced them together behind my head, adjusting my spine against the floorboards. Then I winced and moaned. I’d forgotten about my tender stomach. I lay very still and waited for the ache to fade. I couldn’t help thinking I’d have been a lot more comfortable lying in my own bed. On a soft mattress. Or even better, lying in Victoria’s.
It hadn’t escaped my notice that there was a convenient space right next to her. A neat little hollow beneath the duvet. If I lifted the covers ever so gently and sneaked my way underneath, I could probably fall asleep much easier.
Yeah, right.
Lying next to Victoria. In the same bed.
Who was I kidding?
I couldn’t stop thinking about her, either. And not just because of her snoring. Because of plenty of other things, besides. Her wonky smile. The scent of her hair. The way she’d felt when I was holding her in my arms.
She really had seemed to fit perfectly.
We
seemed to fit. And I was starting to wonder if I’d been fooling myself for all these years. I wasn’t getting any younger. I led a life that was governed by chance and by risk. I was only ever one bad job or one dumb move away from a spell behind bars, or perhaps a fate even worse. And meanwhile, my writing was finally taking off. Quite out of the blue, I had the opportunity that I’d been working toward for all these years. And instead of concentrating on the sequel I needed to finish, I’d done just about everything I could think of to blow my big break.
There’d been far too many random thefts just recently. Far too little writing. And I had to wonder if I was trying to sabotage myself. If I was trying to push Victoria to a point where she’d walk away from me so that I didn’t have to take that terrifying step toward her. And I wasn’t sleeping because of it. Least of all tonight.
I growled and threw back my covers. What to do? Turn on the light and wake her? Talk about what was on my mind?
Or should I get up and go sit in my writing chair? Hammer out a few pages and get my sequel moving again?
Or, and hear me out here, would it be altogether better for me to leave the apartment entirely and set out on some foolhardy errand, one that had the potential to place me in far more jeopardy than I was possibly equipped to handle, but that might just distract me for a few more precious hours?
Hell, put it like that, and what possible choice did I have?
THIRTEEN
It was raining again by the time my taxi dropped me back in the Tiergarten. It felt like it had never stopped. Water was battering the windscreens and the hoods of the cars parked along Kirchstrasse. It was pooling and babbling in the leaf-choked gutters. I bid my driver farewell and sheltered beneath a drooping lime tree. The tree didn’t offer a lot of protection. Its half-stripped limbs were weighed down by the falling water, and the rain was blasting sideways, soaking me fast.
I hunched my shoulders and pressed my back against the slickened trunk. My hands were deep inside the pockets of my raincoat and I was clutching my torch and my spectacles case, but neither of them was going to do me much good. The police were long gone. There was no sign of them at all. But the front door to the apartment building was secured by a modern electronic lock that could only be released by waving a signal card in front of a sensor plate. There was nothing mechanical for me to pick and no easy way of tackling the electronic equipment from outside the door.
It was half past two in the morning. The street was wet and deserted. My odds of following a resident inside, or of waiting for someone to emerge from the underground car park, were slimmer than my chances of zigzagging through the slanted rain without being hit by a single drop.
I raised my head and water sluiced down my forehead into my eyes. The second-floor window was still unlit. The blind was still closed. I had no way of knowing what I might find up there and no safe way to satisfy my curiosity. The sensible thing would have been to go home. To put it all down as a bad experience and try to move on. But I wasn’t good at sensible. Never have been. And I was determined to get inside.
There were a couple of options available to me. There always are. The simplest thing would be to smash one of the glass panels in the door. A couple of swift blows with the heel of my shoe would do the job. But it would be noisy. It could draw unwanted attention. And it was undeniably crass.
My other option was crass, too. It was hardly the most covert of approaches. But it had worked for me in the past, and I was confident it would work again tonight.
I pushed away from the tree and approached the entrance. It was set back in a well-lit alcove, and I was pleased to step in out of the rain. I was less pleased when I saw the security camera that was pointing at me from behind the glass doors. I turned sideways and raised my arm to cover my face. Too late to do much good, but better than holding up my ID and shouting my address.
An intercom panel was set flush into the wall. There was a camera there, too, fitted behind a small square of thickened glass. I placed my hand over the lens and buzzed a random apartment.
The buzz was loud out on the street. I guessed it would be a good deal louder inside a silent apartment in the middle of the night. Loud enough to disrupt somebody’s sleep. And irritating enough to draw them out of bed if I kept buzzing. Which I did. Insistently. Relentlessly. For more than a minute.
I took a break. The break lasted a couple of seconds. Then I pressed the buzzer again.
I held it for a long time. Long enough for my finger to begin to quiver. Maybe the apartment was empty. Or maybe I’d picked a really heavy sleeper.
I decided to play a tune, just to be sure. A tune could be truly annoying. If I did it right, even the most stubborn person would be bound to come and investigate. The tune itself didn’t really matter. I could have gone with anything, I suppose. But I chose the British national anthem. “God Save the Queen.” I’d been working on Her Majesty’s behalf earlier in the evening, so I guessed it was only appropriate.
I was just finishing “Happy and glorious” and was about to embark upon “Long to reign over us” when I finally got a response. It sounded more like a bark.
“Wer ist da?”
asked a short-tempered male voice.
“Martin, it’s Johnny,” I slurred. “Lost my key card. Very drunk.”
There was a pause. A strained wait.
“Martin, it’s Johnny,” I mumbled again. “Lemme in.
Drunk.
”
A sharp exhalation crackled through the speaker. “You have the wrong apartment.”
And with that, the speaker fell silent.
But I didn’t.
I pressed the buzzer again. No need for a tune this time. Just a series of short, intermittent bursts would do the trick.
The response came in less than five seconds. There was no speaking. No communication. Just another kind of buzz. A long, flat droning. And a sudden clunk. It was the very noise I’d been waiting for. The sound of the lock disengaging.
“Thanks, Marty,” I drawled. “You’re a legend.”
I snatched at the door, swaying for the sake of appearances, and staggered toward the elevator. Once I was sure I was beyond the scope of any camera lenses, I veered toward the stairs, wiping the rain from my face with my coat sleeve and reaching inside my pocket for my customized plastic gloves.
The plastic clung to my damp skin, which made slipping the gloves on harder than it had any right to be as I climbed the stairs to the second floor of the building. The stairs were clean and functional and very brightly lit. I could hear the hum of electricity coming from the lights above my head and the echo of my soggy footsteps in the cavernous stairwell. But I couldn’t hear anything else. There was nobody close. No other sounds whatsoever.
The corridor I entered was long and silent. The walls were painted a stark white, and the flooring was some kind of hard-wearing carpet, dark blue in color. There were a lot of doors at evenly spaced intervals. They all looked identical, manufactured from some kind of sleek laminate. There were spy holes and snap locks and dead bolt locks of an unremarkable design. There were sequential numbers screwed to the wall beside each door.
The noise of my breathing seemed loud and obtrusive inside the corridor. So did my footsteps as I squelched along the carpet. I’ve trained myself over the years to tread as lightly as possible, but in the small hours of the morning, you can tiptoe in thick woolen socks and still convince yourself you’re making a racket.
I was concentrating hard on working out which door I needed. This would be a very bad time to make a mistake. The window where I’d seen the woman being strangled had been two along from the front entrance. Judging by the distance between the doors and the quality feel of the building, I got the impression the apartments would be spacious. So I didn’t have far to walk. No more than twenty paces. But I took my time. I was about to do something that was really quite stupid. And I wanted to give myself a chance to come to my senses and back away.
Nope. I didn’t seem to be quitting. I was still moving. Slowly but resolutely. The door I’d set my eyes on was drawing closer. It was becoming ever more sinister. And sure, partly that was because I was about to break in, and no matter how experienced I’ve become, I don’t think I’ll ever shake the heady swirl of fear and excitement that takes hold of me whenever I face up to cracking a lock and sneaking inside a stranger’s home. But it was also because I was about to break something else. Two of my golden rules, in fact.