The Good Thief's Guide to Berlin by Chris Ewan

her, I supposed. That would be the gentlemanly response. But it was fraught with danger.
    “There, there, Vic,” I said, from over by the window. “Try to relax.”
    “Relax? Are you serious?”
    “They got what they came for. They won’t be back.”
    “But why on earth did they come in the first place? Who were they? And how did they find out about you?”
    “Us,” I said, and immediately regretted it. Victoria lowered her hands. She was gaunt and slack-jawed. “Shall I get you some water?” I asked.
    “I don’t want any water. I want to know what’s going on.”
    I shrugged off my mackintosh and lifted up my shirt to inspect my stomach. It was enflamed and tender. A lot of blood vessels had burst beneath my skin. I prodded and poked myself, gauging my pain. I imagined it was possible that I was bleeding internally, and I supposed it was the sort of thing one should see a doctor about. But a doctor would require an explanation.
    Apparently, they weren’t the only one.
    “Charlie,” Victoria said, “what is happening?”
    “We were robbed, Vic. At gunpoint.” I dropped my shirt and pressed my hand to my side. My stomach pulsed angrily. “It’s pretty ironic when you think about it.”
    “Ironic?”
    “Yes. The robbers, getting robbed. We go out and do all the hard work, and they just wait here for us to get back and snatch what we’ve found.”
    Victoria sucked in a deep breath. “I am not a robber.”
    “I hear you.” I raised my free hand. “I hate the term, too. ‘Robbery’ always suggests some level of violence. It’s a grubby form of theft. No art to it. No craft.”
    “Not what I meant,” she said. “As well you know. And can we please dispense with the breezy attitude? Who were those men?”
    I glanced out the window again, as if they might still be there. They weren’t. The street was deserted. Even the table-tennis tables were abandoned.
    “Well, I don’t know for certain, Vic. You have to understand that I’ve never seen them before tonight. But I think they really were Russian. And their car was fitted with diplomatic plates.”
    Victoria gripped tightly to the arms of the chair. “You’re saying those men were working for the Russian state?”
    “It would make sense, I suppose. Freddy has us working for the British embassy, and he wanted that folder recovered very badly. He was afraid of it falling into the wrong hands. I guess those were some of the hands he was concerned by.”
    “And what was in the folder?”
    I turned to face her, resting my legs against the radiator beneath the window. It was warm. It was pleasant. I hoped it might begin to dry my jeans.
    “I don’t know.”
    “But you said you looked,” Victoria protested.
    “And I did. But the information inside the folder was in code.”
    “Code?”
    “Four pages of it. Densely scrawled in cramped handwriting. The paper was yellowed with age and the ink had faded.”
    “You mean like spy code?”
    “I mean like code, code. The type you can’t read without the key.”
    “Are you sure? Perhaps it was in Cyrillic. Maybe that’s why the Russians want it.”
    “No,” I told her. “The letters were from the Roman alphabet. But they were scrambled up. Consonants and vowels all over the place. It was like no kind of language I’ve ever seen.”
    “Was there anything else? Any pictures? Names?”
    “Nope.”
    “Drawings? Diagrams?”
    I sighed. “There was just the code, Vic.”
    “Huh. And do you think the Russians have the key to the code?”
    “I don’t know. And if I’m honest, I really don’t care.”
    My legs were getting toasty. I bent down to gather my raincoat from the floor, then stumbled across the living room with my hand clutching my gut to inspect the open door to my apartment.
    There were three locks on the door. Good ones, too. I’d fitted them myself when I’d first moved in. It’s a habit I’ve fallen into over the years. Being a thief does tend to give you an appreciation of