Free Shake Off by Mischa Hiller Page B

gently on her hip with hers on my arm. I hoped that she wouldn’t ask me into her room; I certainly wouldn’t ask her into mine. Maybe because I could still see her naked tutor on her bed, or maybe I didn’t want yet another brief encounter. I was certainly still wary of her. Besides, we hadn’t had the usual pre–one-night-stand dance of easy compliments and accelerated physical contact.
    “Shall we do that again?” she asked. I thought she meant the kiss, but when she turned to her door I understood she meant dinner.
    “I would like that,” I said.
    I lay on my bed in the dark and listened to her running a bath. I wondered if she was using her herbal bath oil. Later, I had to make myself get out of bed to take some codeine because I’d forgotten to take any and had nearly fallen asleep.

Fifteen
    T eaching me the art of picking locks was the responsibility of a short, bald Russian whose face had the vodka- ​induced ruddiness of many Muscovites I had come across. He arrived with Vasily one morning, carrying a bag that clattered when he put it on the floor. Like my surveillance trainer, he only spoke Russian, so Vasily was on hand, although by then I was practicing my own attempts at Russian on anyone I came in contact with. He had a basic lock which he had dismantled, and he showed me the brass bits laid on the table like a dismembered clock. He matched the pieces to a cross-sectional drawing of a lock with Russian labels. He explained that picking was an art—because you cannot see what you are doing—and the resistance in your fingers becomes your guide. It is such a tactile thing, yet at the same time abstract—in that you have to mentally visualize what you cannot see—that it becomes addictive.
    Later, when I arrived in London, I bought myself a picking set from a company that supplied locksmiths and hid it in the unused garden at Tufnell Park. I hadn’t used it on Helen’s lock because possession of it would need even more explaining than the skill itself. The only time I’d used it was when the man I usually bought codeine from disappeared for three weeks. I had allowed myself to run out completely. I thought I could cope without it for a few days but I was wrong. I picked my way into a nursing home (where the English keep their old people) two streets from my bedsit. I got through a back door, an office door and a drugs cabinet all in a matter of minutes.
    The day after dinner with Helen I was standing in a phone box near SOAS calling Ramzi. He was due back two days ago and should have sent a postcard to let me know he was in London and wanted to meet. I needed to get the case from him; it would have papers in it for Abu Leila from the Territories. I watched students walking past as I dialed, talking about their plans for the coming summer. I was filled with vague despondency. The receiver felt heavy as I took it from the hook. It rang for a while and a part of me was relieved that I’d have to hang up, but then a woman’s greeting replaced the ringing. I was taken aback; it was usually Ramzi at the other end. I took her to be Ramzi’s wife. She didn’t sound happy.
    “It’s Muneer, is Ramzi there?” I asked in Arabic.
    “Muneer?” she asked, as if I had insulted her.
    “His cousin from Qatar,” I said, sticking to the cover Ramzi and I used.
    “He has no cousin from Qatar,” she said.
    This didn’t sound good.
    “Is Ramzi there?”
    “You’re the guy who gave Ramzi the case, aren’t you?”
    I should have put the phone down at that point but I needed to know what was going on. I wondered how much Ramzi had told her.
    “Is he there?”
    “No, he isn’t here, you shit, I’ve had to leave him in an Israeli prison!” She was shouting and I pulled the receiver from my ear, glad I was in an enclosed phone box. “He took your fucking case in for you but they stopped him on the bridge when we were coming out.” The earpiece buzzed with the force of her voice.
    “What about the