The Good Thief's Guide to Berlin (29 page)

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As it happened, we didn’t have to wait as long as I might have feared. Some ten minutes later, just as the cold had really started to penetrate through my jeans, a figure emerged from a metal door at the base of the building and stumbled outside. He crooked an arm and pulled back his sleeve and pointed his torch beam at his watch.

The ambient glow bathed Vladislav’s ugly face. I could see his scar quite clearly. It twisted his features in a ghoulish way.

Victoria tensed by my side. “The Russians are still here,” she whispered.

“I see him.”

“Should we approach him?”

“Are you mad?”

“Sneak up on him, then? We could surprise him.”

“Vic,” I said, trying to retain some degree of patience, “I could come up behind that guy on tiptoes, with a mallet in my hand, and he’d still knock me on my arse and stomp on my head before I could begin my downswing.”

I didn’t tell her about the old pistol I’d transferred to my coat or the grenade that was nestled in my pocket. If she knew I had a small arsenal at my disposal, I was pretty sure she’d expect me to do something with it.

“Doesn’t matter,” Vic said, jabbing her finger toward where Vladislav was positioned. “He’s going back in.”

She was right. Vladislav had turned and hauled back the heavy metal door and disappeared inside the building.

“Satisfied?” she asked.

“Let’s stay for a few more minutes.”

“Five, maximum. Then I’m leaving. With or without you.”

But it only took three. I was gazing up toward the tower at the time, when a sudden movement caught my eye off to the right. Two figures were standing on a flat roof, close to one of the lower spheres. I couldn’t see them as clearly as I would have liked, but the white tarpaulin was reflecting the light from their torches, and it was enough to be sure. The guy was very tall and very wide, with dark skin and a confident stance. The woman was smaller and slighter, but she was unquestionably in charge. She was issuing instructions, and the guy was nodding his big head along to them. She had on a black dress coat.

I rested a hand on Victoria’s shoulder and directed her attention toward them. She released a low growl, fog escaping from her nostrils.

“I really hate that bitch.”

It wasn’t often I heard Victoria speak that way. It took me a moment to recover.

“Relax,” I said. “At least they haven’t found whatever it is they’re looking for.”

“We don’t know that for certain.”

“Yeah, we do. They must have been here close to an hour. If they don’t have it by now, then they don’t know where it is.”

“Doesn’t mean they won’t find it eventually.”

“Not tonight, they won’t. That code was written on old paper. The ink was faded. If the treasure is still here, it’s been hidden well enough to survive without being discovered for decades. Maybe since this place was first built. Nobody is going to just stumble across it.”

“I don’t know, Charlie.”

“Well, I do. Come on, it’s time we got out of here.”

“And go where? Your apartment is hardly a safe option.”

I pushed myself up from the ground and brushed the mud and leaves from my trousers and hands. Then I hauled Victoria to her feet and led her back down the hill through the trees.

“Charlie, you still haven’t answered me,” she hissed, from behind. “Where are we going to go?”

I hadn’t answered her because I was still thinking. I was running through the options in my head. First, I thought of hotels, but hotels could be risky. Turning up without luggage might make us memorable, and there was always the chance that the Americans and the Russians and the French might circulate our descriptions. They had the resources and the manpower to do it.

So I turned my mind to some alternatives. There were the apartments of the three German editors I’d broken into recently, one of whom lived close by in Schöneberg, but I couldn’t be sure if any of them would be home. Then there were the venues Freddy had hired me to break into. But they weren’t any good, either. The only place that might definitely be unoccupied was Jane Parker’s hotel room, but there could be other guests in it by now. I considered calling Gert and asking if he knew of a likely squat where we could crash for a time, but I didn’t like the idea that somebody plugged into his radio network might live there, too, and give us away, and I didn’t rate the notion of returning to the unused amusement park.

Then I thought of somewhere else. Somewhere not altogether perfect but not altogether terrible, either. And I realized it was exactly where we needed to go.

THIRTY-SIX

The apartment was exactly the same as I remembered. It was just as empty and just as silent as the last time I’d been inside. Once I’d checked all the rooms and made sure there were no surprises lurking anywhere, I headed down to the street entrance and let Victoria into the foyer. She was carrying Buster’s cage in one hand and a plastic grocery bag in the other.

She lifted the bag for me to see. “Thought you might be hungry.”

“Good idea.”

“And I picked up some things for Buster, too.”

“Really?” I only asked because I’d dropped her off outside a corner store and I didn’t imagine it had been well stocked with pet supplies. “What did you get him? A magazine? A lotto scratch card?”

“Just some water and some sunflower seeds. I noticed he didn’t have any food in his cage.”

“You think he’ll eat sunflower seeds?”

Victoria gazed down at him, balanced on the lowest perch in his cage, bobbing his head to a soundless beat. “I’m pretty sure he will. He started whistling and hopping around when I showed him the packet.”

“Huh. Not such a dumb bird, after all.”

I turned from Victoria and faced the mailboxes fitted into the foyer wall. I located the box for the apartment I’d just broken in to and studied it carefully. Then I ran my eyes over all the other mailboxes.

“What are you doing?” Victoria asked.

“Working on a theory.”

“Shouldn’t we be going upstairs?” She hefted Buster’s cage. “This is getting heavy. And what if someone comes along and sees us down here?”

“Patience.”

I continued my fast scan. It wasn’t long before I spotted a couple of possibilities. I stepped up close and considered them in detail. Then I fished my picking tools out of my spectacles case and approached the first mailbox.

“Charlie, now really isn’t the time for some petty theft.”

“Oh, this isn’t petty.”

I opened mailbox one, then did the same with box two. Both were empty.

“Huh,” I said, stepping back.

“What?”

“Just an idea.” I removed a pen from my spectacles case, rolled back the plastic glove I was wearing on my left hand and scrawled a note on my skin. “Come on. Follow me.”

“You’re not going to explain?”

“Oh, I’ll explain,” I said. “But upstairs in the apartment, over whatever delicacies you’re treating me to.”

The delicacies turned out to be a packet of cheese-flavored snacks, a chocolate bar, and a can of energy drink. The energy drink tasted of sugar and chemicals. I pulled a face as I swallowed.

“Yuck,” I said. “That’s disgusting.”

“Well, I’m sorry. I thought it might keep us alert.”

“Can I have some water?”

“No.” She shook her head. “It’s for Buster.”

Victoria had filled the shallow dish clipped to the side of Buster’s cage from a bottle of spring water. And yes, Buster had hopped down and imbibed greedily to begin with, but right now he seemed to be spending most of his time bathing in the stuff.

“He’s not even drinking it,” I complained. “He’s just throwing it around with his beak.”

“He’s enjoying it. That’s the main thing.”

I could have told her it wasn’t the main thing. Not by a very long way. But it wasn’t likely to change her attitude.

I sighed and chugged some more of the gloopy energy syrup.

“Doesn’t get any better,” I gasped.

“Then have some tap water.”

“There isn’t any. The supply must have been cut off when the last tenant moved out.”

“But the electricity still works. You put the lights on in here.”

“Oh, I know,” I said. “It’s just one more thing in this city that doesn’t make much sense.”

We were sitting on the living room floor of the unoccupied and unheated apartment in the Tiergarten where I’d had the misfortune to see the blond woman being strangled. I had my back to the wall beneath the window I’d witnessed the crime through. The slatted blinds above my head were still closed, affording us some privacy. Victoria was over on the other side of the room in her tracksuit, her legs crossed, with Buster’s cage alongside her.

I didn’t think we’d be disturbed. The chances of the tall strangler returning to the scene of his crime seemed beyond remote. And if anyone
did
happen to hear us talking and decide to report it, the janitor or the police might well be inclined to suspect another hoax.

“What else doesn’t make sense?” Victoria asked.

“This stupid code, for one,” I told her.

Victoria had finished topping up Buster’s water dish and now she was fighting to tear open the packet of sunflower seeds. Buster was dancing around and puffing his chest, chirruping in anticipation. “What the hell do they seal these packets with? Super Glue?”

“There’s probably a tear strip.”

“Nope.” She bared her teeth and bit down on the packet, tugging it with her hands.

“Well, be careful, you don’t want the seeds to go—”

Too late. The packet split and seeds burst into the air, raining down over Victoria, showering Buster’s cage, and dancing on the wooden floor. Buster was quick to tuck in.

“Rats,” Victoria said. She began collecting together the seeds that had scattered across the floor.

“As I was saying,” I told her, “this code thing doesn’t make sense to me. Think about it. At some point, all five pages of code were originally contained in the top secret file.”

“We don’t know that,” Victoria said, scooping the seeds into a pile with her hands. “The first four pages might have only found their way into that file recently.”

“Whatever. It doesn’t really matter. The point is, sometime, somewhere, those pages were all together. Logic suggests they were being held in the British embassy. Jane Parker had access to them, because she had the file. And the ambassador had access to them, because he hid the final page in Buster’s cage.”

She shook her head, meanwhile plucking stray seeds from the floor and adding them to her pile. “We don’t know that for sure, either. You told me you found Buster and his cage inside Andrew Stirling’s apartment. So Stirling could be the one who hid the final page.”

“Hmm. I suppose that’s true, although it strikes me as unlikely.”

“Does it change things?”

“Not really. All the pages had to have been together at some point in the past. And if we assume that whoever had them was able to crack the cipher, then they’ve had the information contained in the code for a fair while already. Possibly even a long time.”

“Okay.”

“But if we also assume that Freddy didn’t just hire me because the ambassador wanted Buster back, but because he also wanted the final page returned, then I don’t understand why.”

A series of crinkles appeared on Victoria’s forehead. “You’ve lost me again.”

I sighed. My patience was close to threadbare by now. “That’s because you’re not concentrating, Vic. Enough with the seeds and the bird. Will you look at me a moment?”

“Fine.” She leaned backward and rolled onto her side, propping her elbow on the floor and her head on her closed fist. “I’m all ears.”

“Then look,” I said, “we saw with our own eyes that the Americans and the Russians were still hunting up at the listening post. We know that the code didn’t lead them to an exact spot.”

“Go on.”

“Well, that being the case, why was I hired? If the final page of code is enough to give people a rough idea of where something is hidden but not enough information for them to actually find it, what’s the big deal?”

“Oh.” Victoria frowned. “That is strange. Unless the code really was irrelevant. Perhaps the ambassador genuinely did want you to find Buster for him.”

“I don’t buy that. The fee Freddy agreed with us was too high. And remember, he wanted everything to be discreet. He refused to tell me what I was looking for because he said it was sensitive. But I’m not convinced that having Buster stolen would be embarrassing for the ambassador. If the news became public, he’d probably receive a lot of sympathy.”

Victoria groaned and stretched out on her back, clutching her hands to her face. “We should probably just call Freddy. Ask him to explain.”

“No way,” I said. “Chances are he’ll act clueless, even supposing he’s not just acting. And I want to get a better feel for what we’re caught up in here. I want to know what the stakes really are.”

“You may not have that luxury.”

“Maybe not. But I’m going to give it my best shot.”

I drained the last of the energy drink, crushed the can in my hand, and pushed myself up from the floor. Sitting beneath the window was making me more than a tad uneasy. I was all but certain that a woman had been throttled to death nearby. I’d found the clutch of blond hairs only meters away. And I was yet to do anything about it.

“Remember the mailboxes down in the foyer?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. What was that all about?”

I turned my hand over and examined the two numbers I’d scrawled on my skin.

“Follow me,” I said. “You’re about to find out.”

THIRTY-SEVEN

I opened the front door of the apartment, checked the corridor was clear, and beckoned for Victoria to join me. Once she was pressed up against my back, I pointed toward a door that was set into the facing wall, perhaps ten meters farther along the corridor. The number 213 was attached to it.

I showed Victoria the back of my hand. I’d scrawled down the numbers 213 and 310.

“So?” she asked, in one of her less than eloquent moments.

“I told you I saw a woman strangled in this apartment.”

“I remember.” She shivered. “It’s not something I’d be likely to forget.”