The Good Thief's Guide to Venice by Chris Ewan Read Free Book Online Page A

burglary skills against my better judgement seemed like the easier decision to live with. True, I was being manipulated, but at least I’d have some control (however small) over what happened next. If I turned my back on the scary building and walked clean away, I’d never know if I might have saved my book.
    I suppose if I’m honest, it did occur to me that my decision might have been somewhat different if the person doing the manipulating hadn’t been a quite mesmerising blonde. I’d never met a female burglar before, let alone one with the credentials to model lingerie, and I confess that I was more than a little intrigued. Whether my curiosity would bring me anything other than trouble I wasn’t yet able to say, but one thing I couldn’t ignore was the hum of excitement in my veins. If my past attempts to quit smoking had taught me anything, it was that abstinence can be hellish, and the truth was that I’d badly missed my life of crime. There had been times during the last few months when I’d found myself gazing blindly at the wall above my writing desk, pining for the danger of the unknown, the flutter in my heart that came from creeping through a stranger’s home. Sure, writing had its appeal, but I was a completely different person when I was planning a burglary. A rule breaker. An outsider. Someone who made things happen.
    Talking of making things happen, my drenched feet seemed to be clomping towards the unpainted door ahead of me, and my stiffened fingers appeared to be reaching for my spectacles case. Training my eye on the lock, I selected a medium rake and a standard torsion wrench from my collection.
    I slipped the raking tool inside the keyhole, used the wrench to apply sideways tension to the locking cylinder, leaned my shoulder on the door and agitated the pins inside the lock. The pins skittered into position, the lock turned, the bolt withdrew and the door opened all in one fluid movement. Why, it was almost as if I knew what I was doing.
    I closed the door behind me, then traded my spectacles case for my torch. I was standing in a communal hallway, with a flight of stone steps to my right and a collection of mail boxes fixed to the wall on my left. Ahead of me was a blank door with a coconut mat on the floor outside. Next to the door was a push-button light switch.
    Somehow, I didn’t think I’d be using it. Halfway up the first flight of stairs, I craned my neck out over the banister to shine my torch upwards. Nobody was looking down at me, which was something of a relief. In fact, I might go so far as to say that I’d started to relax when I swung the torch beam back around and a dark fuzziness sprang out of the black towards my throat. It scratched my chin and clawed at my chest and then dropped in a twirling mass before haring off down the stairs.
    I followed it with my penlight. Two yellow eyes glinted back from a distant corner. Bloody cat . It must have been sleeping on the window ledge above me. I dislike cats at the best of times – not least because I’m allergic to them – but when my nerves are on edge, having one jump out at me doesn’t rate very high on my list of favourite things.
    This particular feline arched its back and hissed, and I decided that aiming my torch into its face wasn’t perhaps the best way to make friends. Instead, I wiped my coat sleeve across my nostrils to ward off any sniffling and sneezing, then turned my torch back to the stairs and climbed on, hoping that before long my heart rate might drop out of the zone where a cardiac arrest seemed imminent.
    As soon as I reached the first floor, I could see that the door to apartment 2 was slightly ajar. Switching the torch to my left hand, I felt inside my coat and armed myself with one of my screwdrivers, holding it up by my shoulder.
    The door appeared innocuous enough, and when I put my face as close to it as I dared, I couldn’t hear a sound from the other side. I checked my grip on the screwdriver,