1503954692

by Steve Robinson

  Tayte couldn’t have felt any more uncomfortable than he did right then. He could see that Trudi’s eyes had glazed over and he knew it was time to go. If Trudi did know anything about Volker Strobel that might prove useful in locating him then it was clear she wasn’t going to tell him and Jean about it.

  ‘I’m really sorry to have upset you, Mrs Strobel,’ he said. He got up to leave and Jean stood with him. ‘We’ll leave you in peace.’

  ‘And you’ll keep what you know to yourselves?’

  ‘A deal’s a deal,’ Tayte said. ‘You have our word that we won’t tell another soul.’

  ‘Another soul?’

  ‘We mentioned it to someone when we found out, but I’ll make sure he keeps it to himself.’

  ‘And how will you do that?’

  Beyond asking Tobias Kaufmann not to tell anyone, Tayte didn’t know. He supposed Tobias had already shared the information with his father.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Tayte said again, making for the door.

  As Tayte and Jean walked back along the drive towards the main gate, Tayte checked his watch and noted that it was almost six o’clock, their visit with Trudi Strobel having lasted less than an hour. He took out his phone and called the taxi firm he’d been using, thinking that he’d take Jean into the city centre to find somewhere nice for their last evening meal in Munich.

  ‘That was awkward,’ Tayte said to Jean once he’d booked the taxi.

  ‘I don’t think she liked me at all,’ Jean said.

  ‘Maybe she’s got a problem with other women in general.’

  ‘You mean she’s psychologically scarred after having shared her husband with Ava Bauer, whom she could never live up to, and a host of prostitutes?’

  Tayte snorted a laugh. ‘Yeah, something like that.’

  They reached the gates and Tayte watched them close slowly behind them. ‘She really opened up to us back there, didn’t she? About her personal life, I mean.’

  ‘Yes, I didn’t expect that,’ Jean said.

  ‘Me neither. It makes me think that if she did have anything to say about Volker Strobel, she probably would have said it. She can’t have much affection left for the man.’

  ‘I’m surprised she had any at all after the way he treated her. If she knew where he was, I’m sure she’d have given him up long ago.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Tayte said, but with a degree of doubt.

  ‘You don’t think so?’

  ‘I don’t know. Something just doesn’t seem quite right to me. I mean why tell us all that intimate stuff about her husband at all? It’s like she wanted us to think she hated him. She practically spelled out the reasons. I could be entirely wrong here, but it strikes me as a good way to put us off the idea that she might still care for Volker. Then there’s the maintenance money. It all seems to wrap up very nicely. She had a child with Langner, as we suspected, and he paid her off for the child and for her discretion, which explains her wealth.’

  ‘Put like that, it does seem as if she’s left us with nowhere to go—no story to pursue.’

  ‘Precisely,’ Tayte said. ‘But does it explain her wealth?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, we know that Ingrid was born a few years after Langner left prison. And Trudi told us that Langner left her for the last time just after Ingrid was born. It didn’t click at the time, but do you recall the conversation at the hospital where the chauffeur, Christoph, told us Langner started out with nothing, and that it took several years for him to even make a proper living from his business?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Jean said. ‘So Langner wasn’t a wealthy man when Ingrid was born.’

  ‘Far from it,’ Tayte said. ‘Seems he wasn’t anywhere near wealthy enough to have bought her that house, even back then.’

  ‘She also said that Langner had paid her a tidy sum of money as well.’

  Tayte nodded. ‘She was clearly lying. And even if Langner had somehow paid Trudi off, barring her having made some very lucky investments over the years, it was a long time ago. Where’s she getting the money to maintain all this from?’

  ‘Where else could the money have come from?’ Jean asked, and they both stared at one another, clearly thinking the same thing.

  ‘Volker Strobel,’ they said together, although Tayte had to remind himself that Tobias Kaufmann already suspected as much and had been unable to prove it.

  The taxi arrived and Tayte gave the driver the name of the restaurant Trudi had mentioned, thinking it would be good to go somewhere that the subjects of his self-assignment had once been.

  The driver, an older man in his sixties with grey stubble on his face and a leather flat-cap on his head, turned back with a blank expression.

  ‘It’s a restaurant in the city,’ Tayte added, speaking slowly in case the driver was having trouble understanding him, but it seemed he understood well enough.

  ‘You mean the Osteria Italiana on Schellingstrasse. It hasn’t been called the Osteria Bavaria since the war ended. They say it’s the oldest restaurant in Munich.’

  ‘I guess that’s the place then,’ Tayte said. He turned to Jean. ‘You like Italian, don’t you?’

  Jean smiled and nodded and the taxi took off, heading for the city centre. Settling back for the ride, Tayte put his hand on the back of Jean’s and said, ‘I’m glad you’re okay. You had me so worried this morning.’

  Jean leaned in and kissed him. ‘And I’m glad you’re not going to jail,’ she said with a smirk.

  ‘Yeah, me too. Let’s try to stay out of trouble for the next twenty-four hours, shall we? Nice meal … Early night …’

  Jean laughed at him. ‘Did you just wink at me?’

  ‘I think I had something in my eye,’ Tayte said, and Jean slapped his arm.

  At that moment, their frivolity was interrupted by Tayte’s phone buzzing in his pocket. He took it out and checked the display. There was a number, but he didn’t recognise it.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Jefferson Tayte.’

  ‘Mr Tayte, it’s Tobias Kaufmann. Is it all right to talk?’

  ‘Sure,’ Tayte said. ‘It’s good timing, actually. We’ve just left Trudi Strobel. I was going to call you later to let you know how it went, although we didn’t really learn anything new that’s likely to help with your hunt for Volker Strobel.’

  ‘That’s a pity.’

  ‘Yes, it is. Look, I told her we wouldn’t say anything about Langner being Ingrid Keller’s father. I know I’ve already told you, but I don’t see how we have anything to gain from telling anyone else.’

  ‘You might not feel the same way once you’ve heard what I have to tell you.’ Kaufmann said. ‘Since our last conversation about Trudi’s wealth, I’ve been following the money, so to speak. At least, some associates of mine have. We’ll talk more when I see you. Is now a good time?’

  ‘What, right now?’ Tayte said, thinking about a bowl of pasta or a pizza, or maybe both.

  Jean had been listening in. She gave Tayte a nod, and Tayte couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed with the timing.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘We’ll be right over.’

  ‘I’m not at the office at the moment. One of the staff, Amir, is working late. He’ll let you in if you arrive before me. I shouldn’t be long.’

  ‘Great,’ Tayte said. ‘We’ll see you soon.’

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Because of the hour, the tree-lined avenue that was home to the offices of Kaufmann und Kaufmann was markedly changed from Tayte’s previous visits. The various offices were mostly now closed, the people who staffed them having gone home for the day, and the car-parking spaces that had made the road appear all the more narrow during office hours, were now largely vacant. The taxi pulled up in front of a line of motorcycles and Tayte paid the driver as he and Jean got out.

  ‘I can’t wait to hear what Tobias has found,’ Tayte said as they approached the entrance, but in his next breath he realised he might have to. A familiar feeling
of unease churned through him as he looked at the door. It was ajar, just like the door to the premises he’d visited the night he was framed for murder, only this time the doorframe was splintered. It looked as if it had been kicked in. He put his arm out to hold Jean back. ‘I think our “friends” have been here.’

  ‘Maybe they’re still here,’ Jean said, drawing Tayte’s attention to the motorcycles. She was holding out her phone.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m taking a photo of the number plates.’ She took the photograph and put her phone away again. ‘We should go.’

  ‘What about Tobias? He’s on his way here. We can’t just let him walk in on whatever this is. He also said someone called Amir might be working late. What if Amir’s in trouble?’

  ‘So let’s call the police and go and wait further down the street. We can warn Tobias when he gets here.’

  ‘What if Tobias is already here?’

  It troubled Tayte to think that Kaufmann or his employee, Amir, might already be in trouble. What if one or both of them was in mortal danger? By the time the police arrived, he thought it could be too late. He pushed the door open and peered inside.

  ‘You call the police,’ he whispered, stepping over the threshold. ‘I’m just going to take a look.’

  Tayte set his briefcase down inside the door and watched Jean take her phone out again. He made for the stairs, but as he started to ascend them he heard a clatter from the offices above and he froze. Fear and self-preservation rooted him to the spot for a few seconds, but he found the courage to continue. He took two more steps and then he heard voices, agitated voices speaking in German. There was another clatter and this time the din continued, as if the people he’d heard were destroying the place.

  He turned back to Jean and instantly caught his breath. She was staring right back at him, a knife pressed to her throat. Behind her with his arm around her chest was a taller man in blue jeans and a white T-shirt. He wore a black full-face crash helmet. The visor was up but all Tayte could see of his face was his eyes, which looked determined.

  ‘Move!’ the man demanded, shuffling Jean towards the stairs. ‘Go up!’

  Tayte’s heart began to pound. What to do? He realised this man must have been posted on the street, out of sight, to watch for trouble after the rest of the gang broke into the building. Tayte’s hesitation caused the man to reaffirm the pressure on the knife at Jean’s throat, and Tayte knew he had little choice but to do as he was told. He continued up the stairs, taking his time. He reached the small landing area that led to the offices of Kaufmann und Kaufmann, and there he stopped. A few seconds later the knifeman arrived with Jean. Tayte thought she looked surprisingly calm given their predicament—at least, she appeared considerably calmer than he felt.

  ‘Inside!’ the man ordered, his tone full of aggression.

  The sounds of breaking office equipment and splintering desks gave Tayte little desire to obey, but he could think of no alternative that wouldn’t endanger Jean’s life. He wanted to charge the man down, but that knife was already pressing into Jean’s skin. He couldn’t risk it.

  ‘Go!’ the man insisted again, and this time Tayte pushed the door open.

  The room was a mess. Most of the desks had been tipped over and papers had been ripped and scattered. There was an assortment of office hardware from plastic paper trays to big old-fashioned computer screens, most of which had been thrown across the room and smashed. On the walls someone had spray-painted black Nazi swastikas. The clatter stopped as soon as Tayte entered. A gun was drawn and the muzzle was suddenly aiming directly at Tayte’s face. Instinctively, he thrust his hands high into the air as the knifeman followed into the room after him with Jean. He kicked the door shut behind him.

  Now that there was a handgun trained on Tayte, the knifeman shoved Jean away and Tayte caught her as she stumbled into him. Tayte counted three men in crash helmets: the knifeman, the gunman and a heavily muscled man further into the room. All wore jeans and white T-shirts, although the man with the gun was the only one wearing black jeans, just as Max Fleischer had been when he’d appeared outside that coffee shop window.

  ‘Well, well,’ the gunman said. ‘Look who it is.’

  The chin guard of his helmet rocked back as he spoke, and Tayte glimpsed the skull tattoo of the Nazi Death’s Head Unit insignia on his neck, confirming his suspicions that the gunman was Max Fleischer. Fleischer came closer. He went up to Jean, grabbed her arm and pulled her away from Tayte. Then his helmet began to roll from side to side as if he were studying her.

  ‘I told you what would happen to you if you didn’t go home,’ Fleischer said, and Tayte could imagine the sickly grin on his face.

  ‘Wir haben keine Zeit,’ the muscular man towards the back of the room said.

  Tayte turned towards him as he spoke, and then he saw another man, bound and gagged and lying on the floor at the back of the office towards the Strobel room. He figured it had to be Amir. At least he was still alive.

  Fleischer leaned closer to Jean, ‘Oh, we’ll make time,’ he said in reply to the other’s words. Suddenly he turned on Tayte and levelled the gun at his head again. ‘But first I’m going to take care of you.’

  Tayte had been shot at and threatened at gunpoint before, although it wasn’t an experience he felt he’d learned anything from; he was just as scared now as he had been then. His senses were particularly heightened. He could feel the adrenaline begin to boil in his veins, preparing him for fight or flight. He knew if he didn’t do something, he and Jean were likely going to die, and the thought of what Fleischer and his gang might do to Jean before they killed her only served to fuel his determination to fight. He was thinking fast, looking for a way out. His eyes flitted around the room and settled on the muscular man again, and while Tayte had plenty of natural strength on account of his size, this man looked unstoppable. He knew he needed the gun—the gun Fleischer was pointing at him. He thought that if any of the other men had guns they would have drawn them by now. Whoever had the gun had control of the room.

  ‘You can’t shoot me,’ Tayte said. ‘I’m Volker Strobel’s grandson.’

  He didn’t yet know if that was true, or whether Strobel would care, come to that. But right now he was happy to say anything he thought might buy him some time.

  Fleischer laughed at him. ‘Is that so?’

  ‘You know otherwise?’

  Fleischer shook his head, and Tayte thought he must have planted an element of doubt in the man’s mind. He could see it in Fleischer’s eyes—a questioning look that asked ‘What if it were true?’ Tayte helped Fleischer’s thoughts along in that direction.

  ‘What if I’m right?’ he said. ‘What if I’m right and you shoot me? How’s that going to reflect on you when Strobel finds out?’

  ‘Wir sollten sie mitnehmen.’ the knifeman said.

  ‘What was that?’ Tayte asked. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He says we should take you to see him.’

  ‘Well, maybe you should. Maybe this isn’t your call to make.’

  Tayte thought that if he and Jean were taken to see Strobel, it would at least postpone the sentences hanging over them. But while he had plenty of questions he wanted to ask Strobel, he preferred to do so on his own terms. These thugs had already said too much. They had admitted to knowing Strobel, and more importantly they had made it clear that they knew where he was. Tayte knew there would be no way back once they had seen him, if indeed there was any way back now. Getting that gun still seemed to offer the best chance of getting out of there. But how?

  ‘Bring them,’ Fleischer said, and the knifeman grabbed Jean as the muscleman came for Tayte.

  Fleischer relaxed the gun a little then, and Tayte’s eyes fixed on the broken display monitor on the desk beside him. He didn’t think he’d be able to turn and pick it up in time to hurl it at Fleischer before he managed to squeeze a shot off, but he was all set to give it a go when an alarm bell started ringing, a
nd suddenly the room was being showered with water from the sprinkler system. The building’s fire alarm had been triggered and Tayte could only think that Tobias Kaufmann had arrived and realised that Tayte and Jean, and his member of staff, were in trouble.

  Tayte didn’t waste a second. As the alarm bells began to ring and the water came down, Fleischer momentarily turned away. At that moment, still high on adrenaline, Tayte grabbed the monitor and launched it at Fleischer, sending him crashing into one of the upturned desks. The gun went off, sending a bullet into the ceiling and Tayte leapt on top of Fleischer as he tried to get up again. He could see the muscle man still coming for him, but faster now. He had to get the gun, but where was it? Fleischer had dropped it in the fall.

  A split second later, Tayte saw it resting among the strewn papers to his left. He leapt at it, aware that Fleischer had grabbed his legs in an attempt to stop him. But Tayte was tall and he had a long reach. He managed to curl a finger around the trigger-guard just before the muscleman arrived beside him. Then as Fleischer climbed on top of Tayte, he twisted around, and with both hands gripping the gun he shoved the muzzle into Fleischer’s chest.

  ‘Stop!’ he yelled, his eyes wide with fear, his heart now thumping at an alarmingly fast rate. He could see his hands shaking as he clenched them tighter around the gun.

  The muscleman stopped in his tracks as Fleischer’s hands went up. There was no move either man dared make to disarm Tayte. With the gun pressing into Fleischer’s T-shirt, he would have known Tayte could pull that trigger and put a bullet in him as soon as he so much as twitched. Tayte didn’t know whether he could actually pull the trigger, but Fleischer seemed in no hurry to find out.

  ‘I didn’t have you down as the hero type,’ Fleischer said.

  ‘It’s called self-preservation. Now don’t try anything or I will shoot you.’

  ‘Calm down, cowboy,’ Fleischer said. ‘It doesn’t have to end this way.’

  Someone else spoke then. ‘Drop the gun,’ the knifeman said.