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

would give me when I’d produced something dazzling with a set of poster paints and a potato stamp.
    ‘Oh? Which one?’
    She angled the manuscript towards me. The passage she was referring to happened to describe Faulks’ third break-in – the one that went horribly wrong and turned everything on its head. Lucky I don’t believe in bad omens, I guess.
    ‘Listen, I’m sorry about tonight, my mood and everything,’ I told her.
    ‘It’s okay, Charlie. I know what you writer types are like. I should have been more sensitive.’
    ‘Are you planning to read for long?’
    ‘A few hours, probably.’ A series of frown lines appeared between her eyes. ‘Should I wake you when I stop? Give you some feedback?’
    I shook my head and waved my hands. ‘Not what I had in mind. Look, I realise this may sound crazy, but I’m going to head out for a while.’
    ‘Out?’ She pushed herself up in bed. ‘But it’s started to rain. And it’s late.’
    ‘It’ll help me to relax,’ I said. ‘Take my mind off things.’
    Victoria flattened her hands on the manuscript and scrutinised me. ‘Is this going to be a law-abiding walk?’
    Christ, she really did know me a little too well.
    ‘Absolutely.’
    She studied me for a long moment, as if she expected me to slip up and confess what I was really planning. ‘All right then,’ she said, at last. ‘Knock on my door when you get back. Lightly . If I’m still up, I’ll tell you how I’ve got on.’
    ‘Perfect.’
    ‘Yes, I am rather. Now, skedaddle.’
    And so skedaddle I did. And while I was at it, I gathered together my spectacles case, my plastic gloves and the rest of my burglary equipment, and then I stuffed the envelope of information about Palazzo Borelli into my overcoat pocket, eased the attaché case out from beneath my bed and sneaked past Victoria’s room to embark upon my foolhardy assignment.
    The palazzo was a statement in crumbling Veneto-Byzantine splendour, overlooking a sweeping curve in the Grand Canal to the front, and sandwiched between the Palazzo Mangilli-Valmerama on one side and a constricted passageway known as Ramo Dragan on the other. Four storeys in height, the buff-coloured façade was adorned with marble lion statues and several imprints of the Borelli family’s coat of arms, and it was dominated by a prominent stone balcony that stretched for the entire width of the building, interrupted only by a series of sculpted columns and stilted arches.
    The balcony could be reached through the glass French doors of the piano nobile , and it extended outwards above three metal watergates that formed the canal-side entrance to the palazzo. The water entrance didn’t appear to be used very often. There was no floating wooden jetty, ringed by candy-striped mooring posts, although a nearby pontoon did stretch out into the rain-pocked canal from the shadowed alley running alongside the building. Since the front was far too visible, not to mention too wet, I was planning to gain access from the pedestrian entrance around the back.
    The rear of the palazzo featured a high-walled garden, fringed with sodden, overhanging shrubs. Even supposing I had a rope with me – which I didn’t – there was no way I could scale the damp brickwork with the heavy briefcase for company. It was fortunate, then, that a tall iron gate had been fitted at the rear of the garden, where only a sizeable cylinder lock, an alarm sensor, a security light and a closed-circuit camera stood in my way.
    Before getting too close, I rested the briefcase on the slick ground at my feet, flexed my good fingers and turned to scan the murky pathway behind me. There was nobody nearby, which came as little surprise. The confined passage ended abruptly at the timber pontoon and the icy waters beyond, and the only property it offered access to was the very one I was interested in.
    It felt strange standing in the blackened alley on my own, with the misty rain beading in my hair, only a short