He drew closer to the shops he’d been outside when they stopped. He recognised the jeweller’s he’d passed as he set off for the plaza. Ahead was the café, and he thought he had to be close to the shop Jean had been interested in. He kept going and came to a women’s fashion boutique, and then a shoe shop. Was that it? Did Jean want to buy him a new pair of shoes? He hoped she wasn’t about to start changing his wardrobe for him, because he didn’t think he could handle too many changes at once. He liked his wardrobe just the way it was: tan suit, white shirt and loafers. There was no need to complicate his life with anything else. He peered in through the shop window. There was a man and a woman browsing together, and there was someone else paying for something. It wasn’t Jean.
Tayte turned away again, but before he could take another step, he saw her. She was further back along the street by the junction they had passed. He began to smile, wondering why she had gone back that way, and what had kept her so long, but when she started to run towards him, his smile changed to a concerned frown. Her hair looked wild and her eyes were glistening with tears.
‘Jean!’ Tayte ran to meet her. ‘What’s happened? Are you okay?’ Tayte held her shoulders and began to rub them. ‘You’re shaking.’
She put her arms around him and began to sob into his chest. ‘I’ve been threatened.’
‘What? Who by?’
Jean choked back her tears and wiped her cheeks. ‘As I left the shop I’d gone into, three men grabbed me. One of them held his hand over my mouth so I couldn’t call out. Before I knew it they’d dragged me into a passageway. They pinned me against the wall and one of them pressed a knife against my cheek. He said he’d cut me if I screamed.’
Tayte’s blood was already boiling. He could see the impression the knife had left, still fresh on Jean’s cheek. He looked around, as though he might still be able to see who had done this, but all he saw were the curious faces of passers-by, looking back at him as if wondering what the upset was about.
‘They told me to go home, and to take you with me. They said if we didn’t they’d find me again.’ Jean paused, still shaking from the shock. ‘They said if we didn’t they were going to rape me. One of them started to pull my dress up, and then he laughed and they went.’
Tayte shook his head. ‘Someone must have followed us after we left those offices earlier,’ he said, thinking that whoever it was, they hadn’t wasted any time in trying to warn him and Jean off asking questions about Volker Strobel. So much for leaving my business card, he thought.
‘Two of them had shaved heads,’ Jean said. ‘I saw a few tattoos. The one with the knife who did all the talking had dark hair, and he had a black skull tattooed on one side of his neck with Nazi SS Sieg runes tattooed low on the other.’
‘He clearly wasn’t worried about you being able to identify him.’
‘No, and that’s what’s so frightening about it. They didn’t seem to give a damn.’
‘Neo-Nazis?’
‘I would imagine so.’
‘They’re cowards, whoever they were. Singling you out like that.’
Jean reached into her jacket and pulled out a red-and-white-striped paper bag. ‘I bought you this,’ she said, handing it to him.
Tayte removed the contents and it practically fell apart in his hands. It was a giant Hershey’s Mr Goodbar.
Jean tried to laugh at it. ‘I know it’s your favourite,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t believe it when we passed the shop and you hadn’t noticed.’ Jean pointed to a small shop front behind them with the words Welt der Schokolade—world of chocolate—above the window. ‘They sell chocolate from all over the world. I’m sorry it’s broken. It must have happened when they shoved me against the wall.’
A part of Tayte wished the people who had done this to Jean were there now, but the sensible part of him hoped they never came within a hundred feet of Jean again.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We passed a taxi rank soon after we left the palace. We’ll go to the police and report what’s happened, and then we’ll go and check in at the hotel. We’ve got some serious decisions to make.’
Chapter Eight
Tayte and Jean were staying at the Hilton Munich City hotel, which was located close to the city centre to the southeast. Tayte preferred the anonymity of larger establishments, where you didn’t have to share a table at breakfast with anyone, or get into small talk over dinner with the other guests. It was a failing of his, he knew that, but it was how he liked it and Jean didn’t seem to mind.
Their visit to the local police station had been perfunctory at best, but they had reported the incident and Jean had described her attackers to them. There was little the police said they could do, and they seemed to take a less serious view of the incident when they knew Jean had not been physically harmed in any way. They ate as soon as they had checked into the hotel and had dropped their bags off in their room, although Jean had had little appetite. She’d given most of her meal to Tayte, and she’d spent the remainder of their short time in the hotel restaurant pushing the rest of her food around her plate, clearly deep in thought. Tayte had supposed she was going over what had happened, trying to decide whether she wanted to go on or go home.
They found a table in the hotel’s Metropolis cocktail bar and lounge and sat down with two large glasses of Jack Daniel’s on ice.
‘Cheers,’ Tayte said, and they both took a big sip. ‘Welcome to Munich,’ he added with more than a hint of sarcasm.
Jean settled back in her seat. ‘At least we learned something after we left Johann Langner at the hospital.’