The Good Thief's Guide to Paris (20 page)

I paused and turned over some of what she’d said. Lowering my left hand beneath the table, I couldn’t resist testing my knuckle. It felt sticky and wet to the touch but the pain was beginning to lessen. That said, my joint felt curiously stiff and immobile, and even with the medication I had back at the hotel, I imagined it would be a while before I’d be flexing my finger with abandon.

“Even supposing I believe all this,” I said, “why did you end up sending Paolo and Mike to break into Catherine’s place?”

Francesca glanced away across the terrace, in the direction of the Île de la Cité. “She’d decided to sell to someone else.”

“Who?”

“She wouldn’t tell me. I couldn’t allow it, of course.”

I screwed up my eyes, fighting to concentrate. “So how many people wanted these plans exactly?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. More than five, I would have said.”

“And these other interested parties might be prone to violence?”

She looked back at me, a keenness about her expression. “You’re suggesting they could be responsible for Catherine’s murder?”

“The idea had occurred to me.”

“Come now Charlie, you can tell me the truth. I have a flexible sense of morality.”

“It really wasn’t me.”

Francesca gave me a tainted smile, then leaned her head back and blew the residue of smoke from her lungs.

“So now,” she went on. “I’ve told you everything I know, we have Gerard’s plans downstairs and you claim you can get me the forgery. It seems to me we have everything we require to press ahead within the next day or so and you certainly deserve to be involved. What say I pay you ten per cent of whatever we sell the Picasso for?”

I glanced skywards, turning it over. “Ten per cent? That strikes me as a little light, considering the switch can’t happen without me.”

Francesca’s eyes narrowed. “Fifteen. My final offer. And please don’t be discourteous”

I looked off to the side, towards the two towers at the front of Notre Dame Cathedral. I could see a gaggle of tourists on the roof of the nearest tower, peering out at the city through telescopes and camcorders.

“Okay,” I heard myself say. “You’d better explain how we’re going to do this.”

TWENTY-FOUR

Going through everything with Francesca delayed me for a further hour. By the end of that time, she’d outlined the approach she was aiming to take to steal The Guitar Player. It was pretty much as I’d expected, though no less audacious for that. And the truth is I didn’t have the slightest appetite for any of it. I was a house burglar, not a gallery thief. Sure, I liked to think I was good at what I did, that I brought a certain talent and professionalism to my work, but I wasn’t in the business of carrying out high-profile heists. There was too much heat and too many things could go wrong. It was the sort of job Faulks might go for, but not me.

Of course, I hadn’t mentioned my doubts to Francesca. So far as she was concerned, I was the latest willing recruit to her madcap scheme. The reality was I’d agreed to take part because I needed the information she’d given me and I also needed as much time as possible to clear my name. Now, I just had to work out how on earth to set about doing that.

First, though, I made my way to a phone booth and dialled Victoria’s mobile. It rang twice before she answered.

“It’s me,” I told her, my throat feeling dry and sore from all the cigarettes I’d smoked. “Don’t be mad. It wasn’t my fault.”

“Oh Charlie, thank God. Are you okay?”

“Sure,” I said, surprised at how forgiving she was being. “Things have become more difficult, but isn’t that always the way?”

“Where did you see it? On your way to the bathroom?”

I felt my brow knot. “See what?”

“The television.”

“Victoria, I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

“Your picture,” she said. “They’re broadcasting the right one now.”

I stopped talking and propped my forehead against the thickened glass of the telephone booth. I gripped the telephone receiver tightly, despite the fireworks that went off in my finger. Well, wasn’t that wonderful? Finally, just as it felt like I’d begun to make some headway, my momentum had been stolen from me. With my real face broadcast in the French media, it was going to be almost impossible to move around unnoticed. Every single person I passed became a potential informant. And then there were the police to think about. Every officer in Paris would have been briefed on my appearance.

“I didn’t know,” I said, quietly.

“But I thought that was why you left the gallery?”

“Nope. That had a lot more to do with the gun that was pointed at my face.”

“What?”

“Never mind. I’ll explain later. Where are you right now?”

“On my way to the hotel,” Victoria replied, her voice pinched.

“I’ll meet you in your room. We might have to think about finding somewhere else to stay.”

“Christ, Charlie.”

I looked up to see a woman approaching the telephone booth, fumbling in her purse for a phone card. I turned my back on her and shielded my face with my hand.

“Stay calm,” I said. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”

“How can you possibly promise me that?”

“What would you rather I said? I’m screwed?”

I laughed faintly but Victoria didn’t join me. She was muttering something under her breath.

“Hey, stay with me,” I told her. “I’m going to give you something to do. It’s important. I need you to visit a pharmacy and see what you can find to help me change my appearance. Hair dye, hair clippers. Anything like that.”

“A wig?”

“No. I need to draw as little attention to myself as possible.”

“What colour dye?”

“I don’t care. Just so long as it’s not peroxide blonde. I figure that would be a bit obvious.”

“Alright,” she said, as though resolving herself to it. “Anything else?”

“Laxatives,” I told her.

“What?”

“I need some.”

“Oh, come on Charlie. You won’t lose enough weight to change your appearance that quickly.”

I smiled, despite it all. “I’m trying to buy myself some time. My next twenty-four hours just got one hell of a lot shorter.”

I was some way along the street before I was stopped. A hand reached out from behind me and gripped me by the arm. My body tensed and I cursed under my breath. I turned round slowly, my mind already rehearsing how I might break free and make a run for it. But it wasn’t a police officer. It was Paige.

“Jeez,” I said, bringing my palm to my chest. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

Paige didn’t respond. She just raised her swollen eyes and chewed her lip. She looked washed-out; bloodless. Her hair was lank and her pupils dark and unfocused. If she’d been at all wet it would have made a whole lot more sense – she had the appearance of someone who’d just been rescued from drowning.

“Are you okay?”

Paige inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring. My words had stirred something in her. She stared hard at me, tight-lipped, as though she was struggling to concentrate. I was just about to add something more when I saw Bruno hovering behind her shoulder. He seemed unsure of himself too, though an awful lot more composed than Paige.

“You two want to talk?” I asked, and gestured towards Square Viviani behind me.

Neither of them responded so I took it upon myself to lead them towards the rear of the square. I found a secluded spot beneath a canopy of trees, in the shelter of the northernmost wall of the church and close to where I’d given my reading. There were a handful of stone benches and all of them were unoccupied. I sat down in the middle of one of them and Paige and Bruno sat either side of me. The air smelled of early lavender and cut grass. Bruno cleared a circle in the pea gravel in front of him with the toe of his shoe.

I could feel the tension in Paige. Her body was stiff and her movements awkward. I figured she could do with a reassuring arm being placed around her shoulders but I was sure she wouldn’t welcome it from me. I guessed that was fair enough considering how I’d behaved the last time she’d seen me. Mind you, she couldn’t exactly have the cleanest of consciences.

“I heard you got sacked,” I said. “You tricked me into getting you into Francesca’s study.”

Paige nodded glumly, the first sign she’d heard anything I’d said.

“You make anything from the books you stole?”

She shook her head.

“I guess I made us quits by walking in on you two. I had to find out what was going on, though. You must understand that.”

“What is going on?” Paige asked, in a faraway voice.

“It’s complicated.”

She nodded and looked down at her clenched hands. Her fingers were interlocked, twisting around one another. “Did you kill Catherine?” she asked.

I looked first at Paige, then at Bruno. I shook my head resolutely. “No,” I said. “I’m trying to find out who’s responsible. I didn’t realise you knew Catherine too.”

“She came to the bookstore,” Paige said, as if that explained everything.

“She was a friend?”

“Just a nice lady.”

I exhaled and dropped my hands to my thighs. “So why are you both here? Do you have something to tell me?”

I looked between them again, trying to decide whom I should focus on. It was hard to tell. Neither of them was entirely together and that made me nervous. I really didn’t know what to expect. They seemed lost more than anything, though I already knew to my cost it could be a mistake to underestimate them.

“We want to know what this means for us,” Bruno said, finally.

“I don’t understand.”

“Will you mention us if you get caught?”

I blinked and shook my head. “Is that really it? Because I have to say, you’re not even close to being my main concern right now. However you two got involved in this thing, that’s down to you.”

“And the painting?” Paige asked.

I arched my eyebrow, waiting for her to continue.

She shrugged. “Bruno told me what you said to him. There was something about it, wasn’t there?”

I shook my head, as though I was powerless to help. I held up my hand and saw Paige’s eyes flicker when she registered my bloodied finger. “I’m not getting into this now,” I said.

“The bank vault then. Tell us about it.”

“Not happening.”

Her face took on a hard cast. “Maybe we’ll go to the police.”

“Be my guest. I’m sure Bruno would be just thrilled about that.”

I found my feet and crossed my arms in front of my chest, looking down over them both. They appeared dazed. I don’t know; maybe they were.

“Listen,” I said, “the best thing either of you can do right now is to help me find out what’s going on here. Forget the police. If there’s anything you know, anything at all you haven’t told me, now is the time.”

I looked between them, waiting for a response. They contemplated the floor, acting sheepish. I had the feeling there was more they could tell me but they weren’t prepared to take that risk. I had no idea how to convince them otherwise, short of banging their heads together, and I somehow doubted that would work.

“Last chance,” I said, and when they still didn’t speak, I hitched my shoulders, then turned and went in search of the nearest métro station.

TWENTY-FIVE

I watched my cut hair collect around the edge of the plughole and then swirl counter-clockwise into oblivion. I’d started by trying to clip my hair myself but I’d given up once the clipping machine had slipped through the inert fingers on my right hand for the third time. Victoria, of course, had revelled in the task, and she’d been equally happy to don a pair of my plastic disposable gloves and apply the jet-black hair dye to my new grade-two follicles.

She stood over me with the shower attachment, rinsing my hair into the bath. I’d been sleepy before but already my fatigue felt much worse. The water was warm, Victoria’s fingers were kneading away at my scalp in a pleasing way, and I found myself wishing the process would take a good deal longer.

Soon, though, Victoria stepped away from my bare back and turned off the taps. She passed me a fresh towel and I used it to dry my hair, my face and my chest. Drying my hair was much quicker than normal and when I removed the towel it was smeared an inky black. I threw the towel into the bath and ran my hand over my prickly scalp. I wiped a circle of fog clear from the bathroom mirror and contemplated the results of my makeover.

“A new you,” Victoria said, from behind me.

I peered into the mirror, as though not entirely trusting my reflection. I looked leaner and perhaps meaner too. I’d refused to let Victoria dye my eyebrows and now I saw that it gave me a quirky, off-kilter appearance. It was something that most men wouldn’t be able to put their finger on and that most women would spot immediately. Even so, I was drawing the line at my eyebrows.

One thing I was pleased about was that I hadn’t had the opportunity to shave for more than a day. I raised my fingers to the stubble on my chin and upper lip and willed it to grow unnaturally fast.

“Oh, get over yourself,” Victoria said.

I smiled back at her in the mirror, then looked down at the shelf behind the sink to where Victoria had placed the packet of laxatives she’d bought. I tipped four powder sachets out and handed the box to Victoria.

“You mind reading me the dosage?”

Victoria turned the box in her hand and meanwhile I filled a plastic tumbler with tap water and tore open the first sachet, adding the pinkish powder to the water.

“One sachet, every four hours,” Victoria said. “I think.”

“Right. I figure I might reverse it.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Afraid so,” I said, ripping open the second packet and tipping the powder into the mix.

I swirled the contents with my finger, the water and powder effervescing in a lurid pink haze.

“Bottoms up,” I said, and necked it. “God,” I went on, shaking my head. “This stuff is rank.”

“What did you expect?”

“I don’t know,” I said, flushing the last residues of powder from my tongue with a fresh slug of water. “But I suspect it’s going to be worse the second time round.”

I wasn’t wrong. The granular consistency and the saccharine aftertaste of the follow-up dose almost made me gag. I wiped my lips with the back of my hand, grimacing into the mirror.

“Eugh,” Victoria said, with a note of fascination. “Please don’t tell me how this turns out.”

“So long as I get that pendant back, I really don’t care.”

“You might not. But I imagine the poor woman who cleans my room might take a different view.”

I turned round and held Victoria’s eye for a few moments before she looked up at the ceiling and shaped to walk out of the bathroom. She pressed my T-shirt into my chest as she passed.

“Get dressed,” she said. “Then you can tell me the rest.”

The rest was not a quick tale. I’d already told her about how I’d been abducted from the Pompidou and what had happened following my arrival at the bookshop, including Francesca’s assault on my finger. Then I’d interrupted things by asking for her help with my hair and, since she couldn’t very well hear what I was saying with my head pointed down into the bathtub, we’d paused for a time. Now I had to remember where I’d got to.

I emerged from the bathroom pulling my T-shirt over my head, then raised my hand to my hair again and found myself toying with the fuzz at the back of my skull. It was an odd sensation, being able to feel the bumps and knots of my scalp so close. I wasn’t sure it was something I’d be able to get used to.

“Quit fidgeting and tell me,” Victoria said, passing me an antiseptic dressing and a bandage that she’d acquired from reception.

I sat down on the desk in the corner of the room, applied the dressing to my gummy finger and began to bind my two arthritic digits together with the cotton bandage. Down beside my feet and resting against one leg of the desk I could just glimpse the painting of Montmartre, the root cause of all my problems. I glowered at the thing and fought the urge to stamp down on it with my foot. Knowing my luck, I’d only break a toe.

Victoria made an impatient clucking noise with her tongue. She was sat on her bed with her arms folded in front of her chest, waiting for me to speak.

“Alright,” I said, winding the bandage around and around. “Where had I got to?”

“Francesca had just asked you to join in with their crazy heist and, being a complete idiot, you’d agreed.”

I shrugged. “Idiot or not, I had to say something. And this way she explained a lot more about what has been going on. You want the highlights?”

“Of course.”

“Okay,” I went on, nudging the painting of Montmartre with my foot. “So the papers and the documents we found in the picture relate to a plan to steal The Guitar Player.”

“Which we already knew.”

I finished applying the bandage and offered my hand to Victoria. She reached for a roll of surgical tape on the bedspread alongside her and tore off a strip to secure the bandage in place.

“Correction,” I said, flinching as she applied some pressure. “We thought we knew. Now we know for sure.”

“Okay.” Victoria smoothed the tape down at the edges. “And where does that get us?”

“It gets us ahead of the curve for once. Or at least I thought it did,” I said, admiring our first-aid skills. “Here’s the set-up: the blueprints relate to the floorplans of the gallery – they’re not a huge advantage, I suppose, though it’s better to have them than not. The circuit diagrams are more important. They show the isolation switch system for the security cameras in the vicinity of The Guitar Player.”

“Right. And one of Francesca’s bookhounds is a master electrician, I suppose.”

“So she claims.”

Victoria raised an eyebrow.

“Then there’s the codes,” I went on, ignoring the look in her eye. “Apparently they relate to the pressure sensors that are wired up to most of the paintings in the Picasso room.”

“What, and the codes are never changed?”

“Listen, I didn’t say it was flawless. I’m pretty sure Francesca is a good few hardbacks short of a full library, if you know what I mean.”

“Miraculously, I think I do.”

I held up my bandaged fingers.

“There is one thing I’m impressed with.”

“The forgery?”

“That too,” I said. “But what I was really talking about was the photograph of the man with the side parting. The one holding hands with the young girl?”

“Oh yes. Which part of the master plan does that relate to?”

“Well, the girl isn’t his daughter. And she isn’t his wife.”

“So?”

“So that isn’t something he wants his wife to know. Oh, and he just happens to be one of the gallery attendants.”

Victoria peered at me uncertainly. “So what, they threaten to tell his wife about the girl and he turns a blind eye while they steal a painting worth millions? Come on, that’s crazy. And besides, there’s nothing to say he’ll be on duty at the time.”

I threw up my hands, as if conceding the point. “He’s already in the bag, apparently. That was something Catherine had arranged.”

“Weird. So this plan was down to her?”

“No, as it happens. It was down to her husband. And believe me, you’re going to love this part.”

And at that point I went on to tell Victoria the background to the entire scheme. Her eyes went very wide at certain points in the tale, and that didn’t altogether surprise me, since I’d had much the same reaction myself. It was a colourful story, to say the least, but that didn’t mean I was prepared to discount it. Sure, some of the facts could have become embellished along the way and the aim of the plan was certainly ambitious, but it still struck me as plausible. I’d seen the forgery with my own eyes, after all, and it was without question a good likeness. If Catherine had been capable of that kind of work, who was to say the plan her husband had come up with wasn’t every bit as impressive?

Well, Victoria apparently.

“I’m not sure I buy any of this,” she said, in an offhand way.

“Why not?”

“We’re talking about the Pompidou here, Charlie – a national institution. I just find it hard to believe that a bunch of crackpots from a bookshop could waltz in during the middle of the day and steal a Picasso.”

“Put it like that and I admit it sounds crazy. But maybe it’s not as extreme as you think.”

“Oh?”

I toyed with my shaved head once again. “Galleries and museums – they don’t have the kind of security most people would expect. Funding is tight and most of their cash goes on acquiring art. By the sound of it, the Pompidou is way ahead of most other places. Take the theft of The Scream from the National Gallery in Oslo a few years back – the gang who took it braced a ladder against a second-floor window, smashed the window glass and reached in and snatched Munch’s masterpiece in under a minute. The museum authorities had been dumb enough to hang the painting right next to an unprotected window in a room without a single security camera. So admittedly, the Pompidou is a tougher prospect, but compared to a bank, say, it’s still a soft target.”

“You really think so?”

“Sure. Think about it: I got right up close to The Guitar Player the other day and nobody challenged me. If I’d had the inclination, I could probably have grabbed it and got out through the emergency exit before the museum attendant had even left her seat. That’s the problem galleries face. They want visitors to have easy access to the works on display and their only viable protection is a bunch of attendants who barely make minimum wage.”

“So you really think Francesca’s plan is credible?”

“No, it’s
in
credible. But if you’re asking me if it can be done, the answer’s yes, I think so.”

Victoria paused and made a humming noise, then tapped out a quick ditty on her teeth with her fingernails.

“I’m assuming Francesca hasn’t seen your mugshot on the television news yet. If she had, there’s no way she’d let you take part.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the last time Francesca watched television, they were talking about a young man called Neil Armstrong enjoying a quick stroll on the moon.”

Victoria shut one eye, then inhaled deeply through her nose.

“Tell you what – even though I think it sounds utterly absurd, I’ll give the plan the benefit of the doubt. In which case, my question to you is this: Do you think Gerard could have had something to do with Catherine’s murder?”

“It was the first thing that occurred to me.”

“What, she double-crossed him and he took revenge?”

I lowered my head and lightly squeezed my bandaged fingers, testing the padding. It was surprisingly effective. Sure, I wasn’t likely to take piano lessons in the near future, but at least I wouldn’t be snagging my knuckles on anything either.

“It’s possible. From what Francesca said, Gerard had a lot of connections, so he could have hired somebody to kill Catherine, even from behind bars.”

“Why not just hire someone to steal the painting?”

“Maybe he did,” I said, and wiggled my eyebrows.

“What? You think Gerard might have been your client?”

“Maybe.”

“But if that’s the case, why would he hire someone to kill Catherine too?”

“I don’t know. But it’s something to ponder.”

“Hmm.”

“You’re not convinced.”

“It’s not that so much. I guess I’m frustrated more than anything.”

“Frustrated?”

“Yes,” she said, dropping her hands to her thighs. “The rules say the killer should be introduced early on.”

“Rules?”

“In a mystery novel,” Victoria replied, rolling her eyes as though I was a complete dunce. “That way, we have a fair chance to work out who the killer is.”

I felt my jaw drop and shook my head. I held up my hands like a pair of weighing scales. “Real life,” I said, lowering my bandaged right hand, “versus mystery fiction,” I went on, raising my left.

“Oh I know. But I still feel kind of cheated, Charlie. We’ve been trying to figure out what happened and all the time we didn’t have enough information.”

“We have that information now, though.”

“But it’s still not the solution to your problems.”

I laughed. “Not even close. First, I might need to prove that a guy who happens to be locked up in a French prison arranged for Catherine to be killed. And if I can’t do that soon, then I might have to participate in Francesca’s attempt to steal the Picasso without getting caught. Plus I have Nathan Farmer to satisfy.”

“And his clients. Whoever they might be.”

“More mystery.”

“So what’s next? Because I’m ready for some answers, Charlie.”

“Me too,” I said. “How about you pass me your phone?”