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

back towards the door furniture and the lock I’d picked open. Then she moved towards me, coming real close. She lifted her face. I checked her eyes – she had them shut.
    I kissed her, aware of the muted silence and the ghostly stillness all about. I put my hand to the back of her neck, felt the heat beneath her hairline and the softness of her skin. I reached my hand down towards her bottom but she backed away, shaking her head and placing a finger against my lips.
    “Didn’t you want to make a call?”
    “A call?”
    “That’s why I brought you the telephone book, right?” She lifted the directory into my line of vision and stepped away from me some more. “Cos, I kinda have to go back downstairs, and all.”
    “Right now?”
    She giggled. “Right now,” she said, handing me the directory and running her fingers over my hand.
    I tried not to flinch as she hit my busted knuckles.
    “Does this phone even work?” I asked, hoarsely.
    “Guess so,” she said. “And hey, when you’re done, you can figure out where to take me for dinner.”

NINE
    Once I’d closed the door behind Paige, I took a moment to familiarise myself with the study. It was cold, despite the spring sunshine outside on the street, and it was almost too silent – like some forgotten inner sanctum where a luckless person could get stuck and might not be found for months on end. I had no idea how many more floors the bookshop went on for but I was confident I wouldn’t be disturbed. After freeing the telephone wire from behind the desk, I carried the telephone over to the sagging reading chair, gathered up the directory and sat myself down.
    I opened the directory on my knees and meanwhile I dialled Victoria’s office number. I heard a series of clicks, then a pause, and finally the prolonged international ringing tone. I wet my finger and turned the delicate pages of the directory.
    “Victoria speaking,” she said, after perhaps the fourth ring.
    “It’s your favourite client,” I told her.
    “Ah. Well, they all say that.”
    “This one means it. How’ve you been?”
    “Fine. You?”
    “Preoccupied,” I replied, flicking further through the directory.
    “With Faulks? Hasn’t he knocked off that bank yet? I would have thought he’d be tackling the Pentagon by now.”
    I shook my head, as though weighed down by regret. “He’s still at the planning stage.”
    “You mean you are.”
    “I suppose I do,” I said, and sighed. “Thing is, it can sometimes be hard for me to tell us apart. It’s almost as if I’ve become such a skilled practitioner of my art that I’m no longer able to separate myself from my characters.”
    “Sheesh.”
    “Sheesh? Really?”
    Victoria exhaled into the telephone but she didn’t say anything further. I didn’t mind. I’d just found the page in the telephone directory I’d been hunting for and, after running my finger downwards, I was able to confirm there wasn’t a single listing for a B. Dunstan in the whole of Paris. Of course, that didn’t necessarily mean he’d made his name up, but it did mean I couldn’t find his address all that easily.
    I flipped a chunk of pages and began scanning the ‘A’s.
    “Aren’t you supposed to be saying something here Charlie?” Victoria asked. “After all, you called me, so unless my mobile just cut out, this is in danger of becoming an uncomfortable silence.”
    “Oh, sorry,” I told her, pausing for just a moment in my search. “I was checking something. How come you’re on your mobile – I thought I dialled your office line?”
    “My phone’s on divert. I’m on a train.”
    “Ah, that’ll explain the background noise. You have a good seat?”
    “I’ve just moved between carriages. People were staring at me.”
    “Bastards. You can’t help the way you look.”
    Victoria groaned. “I’m struggling to believe I left my seat for this. But since I already made that mistake, tell me, are you calling because you ignored my advice