The Good Thief's Guide to Berlin (19 page)

Freddy seemed to crumple in on himself, bouncing gently on his ball. “Then what is it you want?” he asked, in a voice that was high on whining and low on patience.

“Charming. Is that how you greet all your guests?”

“I don’t have time for manners, Charlie. Or for silly games.”

He could have fooled me. There might not have been a Ping-Pong table in his office, but there were plenty of other toys and distractions. A nearby shelving unit was filled with Airfix models of classic RAF fighter planes. Framed prints of steam locomotives and vintage sports cars lined the walls. A fun-sized basketball hoop was fitted to the back of his office door. He even had a windup tin robot on his desk.

I grabbed the robot and took it for a stroll to the window in the facing wall, winding back the mechanism as I gazed out over the top of the glass atrium. Rainwater had pooled on the glazed roof, forming warped reflections of the bleak gray sky.

“Be careful that you don’t overwind that, will you?” Freddy said. “He’s an original.”

I kept winding. I could feel the tension starting to build. The mechanism creaked and strained.

“Did you manage to search the cleaner’s home, at least?” Freddy asked. “You never replied to my texts.”

“Oh, I searched it.”

I released the dinky metal handle and the robot’s feet flailed helplessly.

“And?” Freddy prompted.

“And nothing,” I said, as the robot’s movements slowed to a few final, fitful kicks. “I didn’t find anything. At least, nothing that looked like something you’d want me to find.”

Freddy groaned, and the rubber posture ball squeaked as he adjusted his weight. “Then you shouldn’t have come here,” he said. “You’re wasting time. And you certainly shouldn’t have threatened me with the disclosure of our arrangement.”

I glanced across at him, weighing the robot in my hand. “I needed to talk to you.”

“Then you should have had Victoria send me a text.”

“Couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

I smiled, showing a lot of teeth. It was better than snarling, I supposed. I paced across and slapped the robot down onto his desk with a clang.

“What’s eating you, Freddy? You don’t look too good.”

“I’m under pressure. You know that.”

“Work stress? Poor guy.”

“We need the package back. We need it today.”

“Yeah? Says who?”

He folded his arms across his chest. Bounced on the ball. “The ambassador. He’s really steamed about the whole thing. He’s even talking about involving the police.”

“The police? Heavens.”

“It would be a disaster. We’d lose all credibility.”

I titled my head to one side and absorbed the image of him sitting there on his daft turquoise ball. “Well, from what I hear, you’re running pretty dry on that account already.”

“Who told you that?”

“Americans. People in your line of business. One lady in particular.”

I removed my wallet from my back pocket and fished out the card Duane had given me with Nancy Symons’s name and telephone number on it. I passed the card to Freddy.

“Oh,” he said, face falling. “Her.”

“Makes quite an impression, doesn’t she?”

Freddy flexed and bent the card between his stubby fingers. “When did she get to you?”

“She picked me up from outside the cleaner’s apartment. She was waiting for me there. She knew all about our arrangement. Same as the Russian crew. Same as the French heartbreaker who confronted me in my hallway. Same, for that matter, as a cryptic German guy who telephoned me in the middle of the night with an idle threat that lately doesn’t seem so idle.” I speared my index finger into his desk. “So it’s not
my
discretion you need to worry about. Everyone I meet seems to know your business. And trust me, I’m not the source. I don’t appreciate having these people harass me.”

My finger was shaking by now. Pain was flaring in my arthritic knuckle.

Freddy paused. He pressed the corner of Nancy’s card into the pad of his thumb. “What did you tell her exactly?”

“The truth. That I didn’t know what I was looking for. That I hadn’t found it yet.”

“And?”

“And she offered me more money to pass the item to her.” I eased off on my bad finger. “Assuming I ever find it, that is.”

Freddy shook his head. “Damn cheek.”

“It was a little crass, I admit.”

“It’s plain rude.”

“Oh, I know. When you hire a burglar to break into a bunch of homes for you, the least you’d expect is a little good grace and decorum.”

Freddy laid Nancy’s card down on his desk. “You’re mocking me.”

“I’m trying hard not to. Believe me. I’m focusing just about everything I have right now on making sure that I have your full cooperation. I need you to explain what it is that I’m looking for, Freddy. I can’t afford any more mistakes.”

He shook his head, jiggling on his ball. “We’ve been through this. I told you, it’s sensitive.”

“But you said yourself that the ambassador is talking about contacting the police. You’ll have to tell
them
what was stolen.”

Freddy glanced over his shoulder, toward an innocuous-looking door set into the wall behind his desk. “That’s not going to happen.”

“So you say.”

“He’s just blowing off steam. He’s frustrated.”

“We’re all frustrated.” I cast my hand to one side, toppling the metal robot over onto its back. “Me, most of all.”

“I’ve told you, you’ll recognize what you’re looking for if and when you see it.”

“That’s not good enough anymore.”

“I fail to see why.”

“Then allow me to enlighten you.” I leaned right across his desk, knuckles clenched, the head of the tin robot poking into my gut. “They have Victoria.”

Freddy reared back so far that he had to flail his arms to prevent himself tumbling off the ball. “Come again?”

It was all I could do not to come
at
him.

“That’s why you didn’t receive a reply to your texts last night. She was abducted. Snatched from my apartment while I was out on the fool’s errand you’d sent me on.”

“Snatched? Are you quite sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. I received a telephone call. A threat, from my coy German friend. He told me Victoria was in danger unless I found and exchanged the package.”

“But that’s awful. It’s preposterous. It’s—”

“Real,” I said. “It’s happening. So enough fooling around. I need you to tell me what I’m looking for. I need to make sure that I find it.”

Freddy blinked and ran his fingers through his tangled hair. Then he squeezed his head between his hands, as if he was struggling to contain everything that was going on inside his brain. I took the opportunity to palm Nancy’s business card while he was distracted.

“Tell me what was stolen. Help me to resolve this thing.”

“I
can’t
.”

I jabbed my finger at him. “You want to be the one to tell that to Victoria? I imagine she’d be really keen to hear it right now. Think about it. She’s alone. She’s scared. I daresay the location where they’re keeping her is isolated. It gives them a whole lot of scope to hurt her, doesn’t it?”

“You think I like this?” he spluttered. “If anything happened to that delightful girl…” He left the sentence unfinished and glanced over his shoulder again.

“Why do you keep looking at that door, Freddy? Who’s through there?”

“The ambassador,” he said, then covered his mouth with his hand, as if he’d let slip a terrible secret.

“I see.” I moved around his desk. “Then I think I’ll go and talk to the organ-grinder.”

“No.”
He scrambled to his feet, almost tripping over the ball, and moved in front of me. He was surprisingly fast for a big guy. “You mustn’t.”

“Oh, come now. I’m sure he’ll want to resolve this situation.”

“But he’s the ambassador.”

“Blimey. When your argument’s as complex as that, how can I possibly disagree?”

I advanced toward the door, but Freddy spread his arms and legs as wide as they would go, barring my access.

“Don’t be daft, Freddy. He hired me. He’s bound to want to meet me, at least.”

“I can’t allow it.”

“You don’t have a lot of choice.”

I took another step forward. Freddy tensed and flattened himself against the door. He took a lot of flattening.

“Look,” he said, “he doesn’t know who you are.”

“Then I’ll introduce myself.”

“No.” Beads of sweat had popped out all over his brow and nose. “You don’t understand. He doesn’t know you exist. He doesn’t know anything about our arrangement. I handled it all myself.”

“Excuse me?”

“He mustn’t know. In case it goes wrong. He needs plausible deniability.”

I hesitated and took a step backward. “But you said—”

“I know what I said. But the truth is, this was all my stupid scheme. The ambassador doesn’t know the first thing about you.”

I can’t pretend Freddy’s little revelation didn’t sting just a touch. Nobody likes to be the forgotten man in a clandestine situation. Let alone yours truly.

“But hang on,” I said. “If he doesn’t know about me, then how does he think he’s going to get his precious package back?”

“I told him I’d take care of it. That’s my job. That’s what I’m supposed to do around here. He knows enough to realize it’s not in his interest to ask awkward questions. But he’s getting impatient all the same.”

“He
is
covering my fee, I assume.”

Freddy squirmed. He lowered his voice. “The fee will come from the embassy’s budget. You’ll be hidden as an expense. Office equipment. Stationery. Something like that.”

Boy, I thought. And wouldn’t the British taxpayer be thrilled to hear it.

“So is this why you’re so stressed?” I asked. “Your little experiment with me, your off-the-books solution to the ambassador’s predicament, you’re scared of being found out?”

He looked down at the floor. I’d like to say he was staring at his toes, but I had a feeling it was a long time since he’d been able to see them. “That’s part of it, I suppose.”

“And the rest?”

He glanced up. “Oh, do take a seat,” he said. “I fear you’ll need to.”

TWENTY-FIVE

I didn’t sit down. I was too wired. But I did step away from the door and cross back to the window. The wind and the drizzle hadn’t let up at all. It didn’t look as if they were going to anytime soon.

Freddy lowered his arms and fussed with his shirtsleeves. He wiped his forehead with the palm of his hand. I’ve seen people with severe allergic reactions look more relaxed.

“There’s something else,” he said. “Something I haven’t told you just yet.”

Oh, joy. Words I really didn’t need to hear.

“It’s about Jane Parker. You remember her?”

“I tend to recall most people whose underwear I’ve riffled through.”

“Well,” he said, “she’s disappeared.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Completely vanished, I mean. She never turned up at the embassy function on the night you broke into her hotel room. The ambassador received the mayor of Berlin at nine o’clock, but there was no sign of Jane. She hasn’t shown up for work. She’s not answering her phone.”

I frowned. It wasn’t something I’d expected to hear. But it wasn’t altogether surprising, either.

“It’s no big deal,” I said. “She had a top secret file stolen from her. She probably thinks she’s in trouble.”

“But she doesn’t
know
it was stolen.”

“Of course she does. As soon as she got back to her hotel room she’d have discovered that the file had been swiped. She probably panicked and went on the run.”

“You’re not listening to me. She never returned to the hotel. We checked. I had men positioned there as soon as I received the text Victoria sent me. Their job was to detain her. They didn’t know why. They were working for me on a strict need-to-know basis. But she never showed. And we interviewed the hotel staff. Nobody saw her anywhere close. Not in the lobby, or the bar, or the restaurant.”

Freddy rested his hands on the edge of his desk, elbows locked, as if he was bracing for an impact.

“Listen,” he said, “when you first got in touch to say you’d found the stolen item among her things, it seemed to fit with her no-show at the function. But now we know you hadn’t really found what we were looking for, her disappearance makes no sense at all.”

I hummed. I hawed. I even plucked at my lower lip.

“Sounds fishy,” I said.

Freddy threw up his hands.

“But I wouldn’t put too much faith in what the hotel staff tell you. They’re not the most observant group of people. Have you asked to review the footage from their security cameras?”

“We can’t.”

“Why ever not?”

“Because the CCTV might show
you
breaking into her room. And that’s the last thing I need.”

“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Well, I have. I’ve barely stopped thinking about it. It’s not going to look very good if the police become involved.”

More words I didn’t like the sound of. Freddy was becoming a regular scaremonger. “The police? Why would they care?”

“Because the hotel management are aware that she’s missing now. I gave our men permission to speak to them and request access to her room. I told them to search for anything that might tell us where she is. If she doesn’t turn up soon, the hotel will have to empty her things so her room can be made available to other guests. And all her belongings are still there. Her passport, even.”

I recoiled a little. “I didn’t come across her passport.”

“It was taped to the underside of one of the bedside drawers.”

The significance of our exchange didn’t escape me. I’m pretty sure it didn’t escape Freddy, either. I hadn’t checked the underside of the drawers, and I really should have. Truth be told, I daresay I could have taken my search more seriously. The problem had been my incentive. It hadn’t been big enough. Yes, I always take a certain pride in my work, but on this occasion I’d known I was being paid regardless of whether I found the secret item or not. And I’d been frustrated that Freddy hadn’t told me what I was looking for. My only consolation was that I couldn’t have missed the mystery object, too. Freddy had told me it would stand out. By the sounds of it, Freddy’s men had searched her room thoroughly enough to have spotted it, even if their primary mission had been to find clues to Jane’s whereabouts.