The Good Thief's Guide to Paris (26 page)

Catherine turned when she heard the door smack open and I glimpsed a cussed determination in her eyes. I called out her name but she didn’t respond – she just wiped a thread of saliva from her lips and stumbled into a run once again. I thought she was going to fall but she regained her balance and kept on. Her progress was laboured and she was clutching her side, as if she had a stitch. I bowed my head and pursued her through the abandoned corridor, passing forlorn work cubicles and photocopy rooms, slumbering printers and water fountains. I caught my toe on a metal filing cabinet and veered wildly to the right, striking the partition wall with my shoulder. I yelled out in frustration and the noise was enough to make Catherine glance back at me in a panicked way.

“Stop,” I yelled. “Arrête! Catherine.”

Maybe the din I was making was enough to spook her; maybe she thought I was quick enough to catch up. Whatever she was thinking, she kept checking over her shoulder and it was slowing her down. I shouted some more, conscious that I was gaining on her and starting to believe I’d be able to dive for her ankles on the other side of the internal door she was heading towards. She lunged for the handle and whipped the door back. I reached out and hollered, aiming to startle her. It worked. Catherine shrieked and hurled the wrapped painting towards me, the sturdy door swinging closed behind her. The painting twirled towards my head, spinning over and over. I was moving too quickly to avoid the collision. A corner of the dense frame connected with my temple and knocked me clean off my feet.

The last thing I can remember is the back of my skull striking the floor.

THIRTY-SIX

From what I could gather when I put things together later on, it was around twenty minutes before the first police officer found me. I was sat with my back against the wall by then, gingerly prodding the swollen gash around my temple. I didn’t try to stand by myself because I was feeling too giddy but I was obliged to find my feet when the officer hauled me up by the armpit and roughly cuffed my wrists behind my back. He marched me to one of the elevators, my feet occasionally giving way beneath me, and then he transported me outside to where Farmer was waiting.

“Did you catch her?” I asked, squinting out through the shards of pain piercing my head.

“Just,” he replied, gesturing some distance away towards a marked police van with its emergency light flashing. “Looks as if she’d done all her running by the time she got down here.”

“That’s wonderful. Do you think you could let me go now?”

I turned and showed Farmer my cuffed hands. He motioned to the officer to release me and once I was free I stood leaning against an outside panel of the glass vestibule, rubbing first at the chaffed skin on my wrists and then at the swollen area above my eye. I gulped air, trying to steady myself.

“Charlie,” Victoria said, stepping close to me. “Are you okay?”

“Will be,” I managed.

“Are you concussed?”

“Oh, I think so.”

“What did she hit you with?”

I pointed to the wrapped painting the officer was clutching in his hand.

“Ouch.”

“Tell me about it. Better than getting stabbed, though. How’s Pierre doing?”

“On his way to the hospital,” Farmer said.

“And then back home, I hope.”

“We’ll see.”

I held his eye but I didn’t learn a great deal. I decided to ask the question I really wanted answered. “Where does this leave me? Am I in the clear?”

Farmer gestured for the officer who’d arrested me to leave us alone. Once he was halfway down the stone steps and out of earshot, Farmer leaned towards me and spoke to me in a confidential tone.

“I’ve talked to my clients. They’re amenable to keeping you out of this.”

“That’s the very least they should do,” Victoria said, one hand on her hip.

Farmer gave her a cool stare, then focused on me once again. “You’ll have to leave France, naturally. You may be watched in the meantime.”

“How long do I have?”

“A day. They expect you to be gone by then.”

“And just where is he supposed to go?” Victoria demanded.

“It’s alright,” I told her, squeezing her hand. “You can help me decide.”

THIRTY-SEVEN

It wasn’t until the following afternoon at Charles de Gaulle airport that I had an opportunity to talk with Victoria. In the meantime, I’d slept for ten hours straight and had largely recovered from my man-versus-picture frame incident, and I’d also squared things with Farmer so that I was able to return to my apartment and collect the last of my things, albeit under police supervision. At the airport, I paid for takeaway coffees for myself and Victoria and then we sat down beside one another in a pair of leather-backed seats, our luggage by our feet.

“So this stinks,” Victoria said, to no-one in particular.

“You think?” I asked, bringing my Styrofoam coffee cup to my lips.

“Well, duh. First, you recover a priceless Picasso that could easily have been lost for ever. Then you solve a murder mystery. And how does the French state repay you?”

I swallowed my coffee. “I confessed to burglary, Vic. I couldn’t very well expect them to ignore that and let me carry on.”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Sure you don’t.”

“Well,” she said, tapping her finger on the lid of her coffee cup. “I still think it’s shoddy.”

“What were you hoping for? The Legion of Honour?”

She pursed her lips. “A thank-you might have been nice.”

“Overrated. Not going to prison is good enough for me.”

“And being chased out of their country?”

“Not chased,” I said, pointing my two bandaged fingers at her. “Just invited to leave. And anyway, maybe it was time to move on.”

“But you’re not even close to finishing your book.”

“I can take it with me, you know.”

“Well, you’re more forgiving than me, that’s for sure.”

I shrugged and imbibed through the plastic lid of my coffee cup again. Victoria did the same and when she looked up she had a milk-froth moustache. I reached out to clear the smear with my thumb. Victoria flinched, then relented. I ran my thumb over her lips, wiping the foam onto my trousers.

“Thank you,” she said.

“No. Thank you. For everything.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I mean it. You did a hell of a lot for me. And I’m really not sure I deserved it. After what I did . . .”

“Oh, stop it. You’re forgiven already. I thought we were moving on.”

I smiled and glanced up at our surroundings. The airport was an oddly futuristic space, filled with muted greys and blacks, steel and glass. I knew from previous visits that some of the different areas were linked by tubular escalators that reminded me of the Pompidou Centre. It was more
Jetsons
-style architecture; like a seventies vision of a space station.

Above us, a bank of four monitors displayed a list of departure destinations. I still hadn’t figured out quite where I was going to go. Hopefully, inspiration would hit soon because I really didn’t want to dwell any longer than necessary. I’d enjoyed almost all of my time in Paris and part of me was a little sore to leave. The other part knew just how fortunate I’d been.

“Charlie,” Victoria said. “I know you don’t have much time but can we talk some more about what happened?”

“What’s eating you?”

“A few things.”

“Uh oh.”

I drank some more of my coffee, then set it down on the floor and reached for a cigarette. Victoria seized my wrist and shook her head, pointing to a no-smoking sign.

“We could go outside,” she suggested.

“Nah. It’s okay. We’re fine here.”

“Sure?”

“Absolutely. I’ve been thinking about giving up. So I’ll just sit here and drink my coffee and you can ask me whatever you need to.”

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

“Okay.” She took a breath. “Did you sleep with Paige?”

I stared at her, mouth open, and she blushed.

“Forget it,” Victoria said, raising her hand and turning her head away. “I don’t know why I asked that. It wasn’t what I meant to say.”

I placed my hand on her knee. “She’s not my type.”

“She’s exactly your type.”

I smiled, shook my head. “Never happened.”

“Right.”

“It’s the truth. Believe me?”

“If you say so. Like I said, I really don’t know why I asked in the first place.”

“Well, you did, and I told you. So what else?”

Victoria lifted her shoulders and sighed. She cleared some hair from her eyes and tucked it behind her ears.

“Well,” she went on, “with everything that happened, there’s one thing we never really dealt with. Pierre said his client was a man. But if the call came from Catherine’s apartment, that man couldn’t have been Gerard.”

I sucked on my lips. “It wasn’t.”

“So who?”

“Could have been anyone, I guess. But if you want my best bet, I’d say Bruno.”

“Really?”

“Uh huh. We know he’d been in Catherine’s apartment before and it could be he was sleeping with her, like he claimed. But even if that’s the case, I think it might have been because she wanted a man to make that telephone call.”

“Just to confuse Pierre?”

“It was an extra layer of protection, I suppose. And it would explain why Bruno wanted to steal the painting of Montmartre. I mean, for one thing he would have known it was valuable, but even more than that, he would have known that Catherine wouldn’t be all that bothered if the thing was taken.”

“I guess that adds up.”

“I think so,” I said, taking another mouthful of coffee.

“And was it Bruno who told Catherine where you lived? Or was that Pierre? Someone must have told her or she wouldn’t have known where to kill poor Sophia.”

I glanced up at the ceiling, considering the point. “I don’t think it was either of them.”

“Why not?”

“Look, this part confuses me, okay? And I’m not sure I’ve cracked it just yet. I figure it can’t have been Bruno because he wouldn’t have wanted to admit that he knew me, and he had no idea I was also the thief Catherine happened to have hired. And it wasn’t Pierre. I really should have trusted him more. Plus, he doesn’t know where I live.”

“So?”

“So I think there are two possibilities. One is that after contacting Pierre, Catherine kept an eye out for someone breaking into her place. If she saw me go in, she could have followed me until I went home.”

“But you didn’t go home. You went to the bookshop and then you went searching for Bruno. The first time you got home, the body was there.”

I frowned. “Oh. Right.”

“So who else did you figure it could be?”

“Paige,” I said, wincing.

“Thank goodness.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well,” Victoria said, “I really didn’t like her attitude back at that café. I kind of wanted her to be involved somehow.”

“The truth is she’s the only person I can remember giving my address to. When she asked to organise my reading, I wrote it down for her in case she needed to get in touch.”

“That’s it?”

“That, plus the way she and Bruno have been behaving. They both seem to have something playing on their conscience.”

“So it’s a hunch.”

I pointed my finger at her and cocked my thumb, as though I was aiming a pistol. “You got me.”

“Not that I suppose it matters a great deal.”

“Doesn’t change a thing,” I said, pulling my imaginary trigger. “The authorities will focus on building a case against Catherine and Gerard.”

“You think they’ll succeed?”

“With Farmer working for them, I’d say the chances are pretty high. He might even get a confession.”

Victoria nodded and glanced down at her coffee. “I hope someone has contacted that poor Sophia woman’s family.”

“It’s not something they’re likely to overlook.”

“Actually,” she said, eyebrows forked, “now I think about it, what happens to Francesca and the crowd from the bookshop? Presumably they’re going to be arrested?”

“Not the impression I got.”

“Oh?”

“I guess they could be spoken to, cautioned if you like. Farmer could handle that. But maybe the Pompidou won’t be too bothered if they let things run their course.”

“How come?”

“Art theft is huge, Vic. Internationally, I mean. People think it’s just movie stuff but it’s really not. After all, it’s low-risk compared to drug trafficking or arms trading, and if you steal the right painting you can make a lot of money.”

“So?”

“So Francesca is going to try and sell the painting she stole to somebody. Maybe she already had a buyer lined up and maybe the Pompidou don’t care very much if that person spends a fortune on a fake. Let’s say they wait six months and release some kind of story about how they’ve had the Picasso room valued and authenticated as a routine insurance procedure. Whoever bought the fake is going to have to look into it and when they find out they’ve paid a lot of money for a forgery, they won’t be happy. They might even get out of the game for good.”

Victoria adopted a pained expression. “But if that happens, they might come after Francesca. That doesn’t sound very fair.”

“True, but she’s hardly your average pensioner. Besides, she told me she was going to Cuba if the heist came off.”

“Just like Faulks. You’re joking, right?”

“Cross my heart.”

Victoria reached for my forearm. “Hey. You put that tracking device on the painting, didn’t you? Maybe the authorities will be able to find whoever buys it.”

“Nah,” I said, shaking my head. “I think the range would have been pretty limited. And Francesca would have been smart enough to check for things like that when she had enough time. It wasn’t hard to spot and she must have been suspicious when I didn’t make it back to the camper van.”

“Hmm. You really have an answer for everything.”

“Except for where I’m going to head next. You have any ideas?”

Victoria contemplated my luggage. “Well, how about –”

She was interrupted by her telephone chirping inside her handbag. She reached for her bag and gathered the phone, then scrunched up her face when an unfamiliar number appeared. I watched her answer the call, then sigh and hand the phone to me.

“Charlie,” Pierre began, in a hoarse voice. “You were going to leave without saying goodbye?”

I checked over my shoulder to be sure I wasn’t being monitored. “I didn’t have a great deal of choice, Pierre. How are you feeling?”

“They tell me I will live.”

“Well, that’s something.”

Pierre offered me a faint, wheezing laugh. “I wanted to thank you,” he said. “You were right – we should not have done this one, oui?”

“I went into it with my eyes open,” I told him, standing up and scanning the area. I didn’t see anyone suspicious, not even the two police officers who had followed us to the airport in a marked squad car. “Did you get the package I sent to the hospital?”

“It is why I called. There was no need.”

“I would have felt bad about keeping it. It wouldn’t have been right.”

“Well, maybe I will buy an airplane ticket, yes? Come and find you.”

“They’ve told you to get out too?” I asked, resuming my seat.

“No. I can be useful to them, yes? To Mr Farmer, I think so.”

“He’ll have you running errands for him as soon as you’re discharged.”

“He already does, my friend.” Pierre cleared his throat. “This Guitar Painting, it was not the only thing Gerard and Catherine stole.”

“Really?”

“They told you she worked near Orléans?”

“I heard she was an archivist.”

“They have checked the papers she worked on only yesterday. There are three sketches by Picasso. All gone.”

“Gone?”

“Replaced with fakes. You did not see these?”

“No,” I said, and whistled. “I wish I had. But listen, I’d better go, Pierre. I’m worried my friend might send me her phone bill.”

“Ha. So long, Charlie.”

“Take care.”

I ended the call, pressing the telephone against my closed lips for a moment while I thought around the implications of what Pierre had said. Victoria opened her palm to my side and I dropped her telephone back into it.

“What package?” she asked.

“Excuse me?”

“You asked Pierre if he’d got the package you sent him.”

“Oh,” I said, avoiding her eyes. “I couriered over his share of the ten thousand euros Catherine paid us.”

“You’re joking.”

“Nope. I figured she wasn’t likely to pay the second instalment.”

“But Charlie, that’s crazy.”

“Actually, me asking for the whole ten thousand up front was the crazy part. I’ve felt bad about it ever since.”

“But hang on,” Victoria said, raising her palm, “if you sent Pierre half, doesn’t that mean you still paid for the painting of Montmartre out of your own share?”

I nodded, somewhat glumly. “That’s true.”

“So you’re left with what, a thousand euros? For all this trouble?”

“Give or take a bit. Plus the five hundred Bruno paid me right at the beginning.”

“But that’s terrible. It might not even be enough to cover the cost of your flights out of here.”

“At one stage, I thought it was barely going to cover the cost of our airport taxi.”

I smiled, but Victoria didn’t reciprocate. She shook her head and gave me a stern look.

“I don’t think you should take this so lightly. You got a really raw deal, Charlie.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.”

“You think fifteen hundred euros is good? You’re cheaper than I thought.”

I stared meaningfully at her, dropped my head on an angle. I couldn’t help but grin.

“Something to show you,” I said, and with that I fished around in the smaller of my two holdalls until I found my box of disposable gloves. I slipped one of the gloves onto my left hand and then I rooted around some more before coming up with a scroll of yellowed paper. I checked behind and in front of us again for any prying eyes and then I unrolled the paper with my bandaged fingers for Victoria to see. The sheet was a little bigger in size than a hardback novel.

“What’s this?” Victoria asked, reaching for the edge.

I snatched the paper away. “Sorry. Don’t touch. At least, not without gloves on.”

“Why? What is it?”

“A Picasso.”

Victoria’s face became a tangle. “I don’t get it.”

“There are two more in my bag. They’re original sketch works, preparatory drawings for The Guitar Player. Here – look at the lines.”