Free Peccadillo - A Katla Novel (Amsterdam Assassin Series Book 2) by Martyn V. Halm Page B

water until the glue softened and the stick could be removed from the bird’s feet. She put the sparrow in a lunch box and closed the lid. Small holes in the lid would allow the bird to breathe.
    Kourou flapped his wings and landed on the kitchen counter, eyeing the lunch box with avid curiosity, but Katla took the boxed-up sparrow away from the macaw.  
    She held the lunch box up to her eyes and looked at the hunkered down sparrow, smiling softly. “You’re going to be a burglar this evening, little fellow.”

OFFICE

    The dented Vespa swerved onto the tram rails just in front of a tram, rode past the line of cars waiting for the light to change and passed in front, hooking a right onto the Prinsengracht. With the rails now occupied by the tram, all Zeph could do was to try to pass the queue in front of the traffic lights at the other side with the borrowed Puch Maxi moped. The space between the waiting cars and the parked cars was filled with bicycles, so he had to wait at the rear of the queue. Either Katla had caught on to him or she didn’t like traffic lights, but he knew he had lost her. The idea had been foolhardy anyway, to follow a motor scooter with a moped. The tram pulled away and he glanced over his shoulder, wary for other trams, and swerved onto the tram rails to follow Katla, but just as he intended to cross in front of the queue the light turned green and the cars pulled up. He remained half on the tram rails, fervently hoping no tram would come before the light turned red again.
    It seemed to take an eternity.  
    Zeph turned the corner onto the Prinsengracht, but the Vespa was nowhere to be seen. A gaggle of tourists aimlessly wandered in front of the Anne Frank Huis, strolling onto the road without looking.  
    Zeph halted to let them pass, his gaze drifting to the other side of the canal where he noticed Katla parking her scooter at the quayside. Behind him someone honked. The tourists had cleared the road and he turned the Puch’s throttle, pulling up again. A hysterical shriek sounded behind him and a moped courier passed on his right side at breakneck speed, his flapping jacket slapping Zeph’s elbow.
    Zeph hunched his shoulders, his heart racing in his throat as the courier turned at full speed to flip him his middle finger, zoomed up the bridge and rode down the other side of the canal, against the traffic.
    Behind him the car honked again. Zeph swallowed the bile in his mouth, shivering with the overwhelming urge to urinate, the rapid beating of his heart filling his ears. Hands clamped on the handlebars he rode on, the sweat turning cold on his back. As he turned left onto the bridge, Zeph wondered if cowardice was physiological. At the merest indication of danger his body went into full ‘fight or flight’ mode, except the ‘flight’ mode seemed predominant. Despite Bram’s insistence that ‘flight’ was a better survival instinct than ‘fight’, he would gladly trade his cowardice for Katla’s courage. A smidgen would do, just enough he wouldn’t be shaken so easily.
    Zeph rode along the canal and gazed at the beautifully embossed brass or stone plaques by the doors, wondering which house Katla had entered. Most of the meticulously renovated houses along the elegant Prinsengracht were no longer privately owned. Like the other grand canals—Keizersgracht, Singel and Herengracht—the exorbitant rents drove the original inhabitants out and attracted small prosperous businesses. Accounting and tax services, real estate agents, foreign banks, doctors, lawyers. And like most businesses, they were closed on weekends.
    Slowing down the Puch in front of the house opposite Katla’s scooter, Zeph scanned the names listed on a brass plaque rendered almost illegible by the winter sun reflecting from its glossy surface.  
    Dove Inc. Zenith Publishing Ltd. Vermeer Financial Services. Phaedra Media Services.
    Katla would probably resent him for following her, so he rode back to the bridge,