The Good Thief's Guide to Berlin by Chris Ewan Page A

your own potential vulnerability.
    The locks had been engaged when we’d got home—I’d had to use my keys on all three of them. And they showed no obvious signs of tampering.
    I hung my coat on a hook fixed to the wall, then removed my penlight and crouched down to study the locks more closely. I started with the unit at the top and worked my way to the bottom. I looked very carefully. Very thoroughly. But I couldn’t see any nicks or scratches.
    I found that interesting. I knew for a fact that picking the locks would require a high degree of skill. I’d find them challenging myself, and I’m a pro with just the right tools and exactly the right knowledge. Now, it was possible that one of my visitors had a similar skill base, but setting all modesty aside for a moment, I thought it was highly unlikely they’d be as good as me, let alone better. Sure, the stocky guy with the scar was capable of getting through my door, though he’d most likely have used his head for a key. And his boss, Pavel, didn’t seem the type to spend time teasing away at pins and tumblers when one of my neighbors might have spotted him.
    I closed my door and turned the locks from the inside, and the clunk—thunk—clunk was like a set of ideas falling into place in my mind. I headed along the corridor and poked my head inside Victoria’s room, flicking on the light, and when I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, I checked my own bedroom at the rear of the apartment.
    The temperature inside my room was several degrees colder than out in the corridor. The window was a sash and one of the panes had been broken. A chill, damp breeze was funneling inside. Fragments of broken glass were spread across the carpet next to my bed, and they crunched under my feet as I approached the window.
    The metal catch between the two sashes was undone. It wasn’t the most sophisticated of security devices to begin with, I grant you, but there was no way I would have left it like that. I heaved up the bottom sash and stuck my head outside, shining my torch into the black. An aluminum ladder was propped against the wall, its rubberized feet resting in the narrow, unlit alley running behind my building.
    So that was how they’d got inside. Not the most dignified of approaches, but undeniably effective.
    “You should really close that window,” Victoria said from behind me. “It’s freezing in here.”
    She was leaning against my doorway, hugging her arms about herself. She’d shed her padded jacket and was wearing a long green cardigan over damp blue jeans. Her mobile was in her hand.
    I pointed to the broken windowpane.
    “Oh,” she said. Then she shivered. Partly the cold, I guessed. Partly the shock of coming home to find two strange men lying in wait for us, with threats and guns and violence.
    Ducking my head, I got a firm grip on the ladder and pushed it sideways, so that it fell away from my window and crashed against the ground. Not a complete solution, by any means, but the alleyway was dark and the likelihood of an opportunistic thief spotting the ladder and my broken window didn’t seem very high. I yanked down the sash. Engaged the catch. Short of taping a piece of cardboard over the broken pane, it was the best I could do for now.
    “Freddy just sent me a text,” Victoria said, and showed me the lit screen of her phone from across the room. “He wants to meet tomorrow morning at ten o’clock. Should I tell him what’s happened?”
    “No, not yet. Just say that we’ll be there.”
    “But we don’t have the file anymore.”
    “You can leave me to worry about that.”
    Victoria didn’t look convinced. She chewed on her lip and considered Freddy’s message. How many x s this time? I wondered.
    “Don’t you think we should let him know that the Russians have the secret file?” she asked.
    “We will, Vic. Tomorrow.”
    “It might be too late by then.”
    “Not our problem.”
    She twisted her lips in thought. “You do