‘Why here?’ he said under his breath, supposing that the place might hold no significance beyond the fact that it was in a quiet location, where conversations wouldn’t be overheard.
He imagined that if he had been called there by Kaufmann’s undercover insider at the FWK, then this was just the type of place he’d pick to meet someone he didn’t know. What did this man have to tell him? Something about Strobel coming to Munich? Tayte didn’t know, but he figured he was about to find out. The office was in darkness, which did nothing to settle his nerves. He tried to peer in through the windows, but he couldn’t see anything through the shutters, which were only half open. He stepped up to the door, thinking that the sender of his text message couldn’t have arrived yet—and there he was, just a few minutes after the allotted time and nothing bad had happened. It made him feel easier again, but then he saw something that changed all that in a heartbeat. The door to the building was ajar.
Tayte’s heart rate instantly picked up a few beats. He took a deep breath and looked back along the street and out across the road to the other buildings. Apart from the security lighting here and there, they were also in darkness. He stepped closer to the door and gave it a gentle poke with the tip of his finger. It opened further and he stepped back.
Why is the damn door open?
Given that the place was so dark and that there didn’t appear to be anyone else around, Tayte could think of no good reason. He could feel his heart kicking in his chest now and all his instincts told him to get out of there—to run back across that bridge and call another taxi once he felt safe again. He turned to go, but as he did so a telephone began to ring inside the office and every nerve in his body seemed to ring with it. He turned back to the sound, which seemed so loud in the otherwise still night. His first thought was that the caller could be the same person who had sent him the text message, perhaps to let him know why he was late, or maybe they had further instructions for him.
So why not call my cell phone or send me another text message?
Tayte quickly checked. There were no calls and no messages.
And who in their right mind would leave the door open just so I can go in and answer the phone?
Inside the office, the phone kept ringing and Tayte gravitated towards it.
What am I doing?
He stepped up to the door. Having come this far, he had to find out what was going on.
‘Hello?’ he called through the gap.
He nudged the door further open and peered in, but with just the moonlight and the light from the yard coming in through the shutters at the windows he could see very little.
‘Is anybody there?’ Tayte said as he stepped inside.
He couldn’t see how anyone could be or they would have answered that phone by now. He supposed it was loud like that so it could be heard from across the yard when the office was empty. Whatever the reason, Tayte had had enough of the sound. He just wanted to make it stop. He turned to the desk beside him, and he could just make out the shape of the phone on the desk. He stepped closer, leaving the door wide open behind him for comfort. Tentatively, he picked up the handset and put it to his ear, saying nothing at first, waiting for the caller to speak. No one did. He began to say hello, but as he did so he heard a click and knew the caller had hung up.
Tayte realised something was wrong as soon as he went to put the handset down again. It felt slippery in his hand. Then he was distracted by headlights at the window, which lit up the room, and in that moment he saw blood on the handset and a body lying on the floor at the end of the desk.
There was a screeching of tyres outside and car doors slammed. Tayte was frozen to the spot in disbelief, looking down at the dark silhouette of a man on the floor as someone burst into the room, pointing a handgun at him. The man was shouting in German and Tayte didn’t understand most of it, but he did know what ‘Polizei!’ meant, and he recognised the police uniforms on the officers who rushed in after the first man and forced him over the desk before they cuffed his hands behind his back.
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘I was set up,’ Tayte said.
Two plain-clothes detectives were standing on the other side of the table he was handcuffed to. One of them was a tall, lean man in white shirtsleeves, rolled up to his elbows. The other was an equally tall, slim woman with what appeared to be a fresh cut across her forehead that had been patched up with butterfly stitches. She kept her suit jacket on.
The room Tayte had been brought to was all but empty—just the table with a few chairs around it and a water cooler by the door. Three of the walls were painted white. On the wall with the door, Tayte could see a reflection of the room in what was obviously a two-way mirror, from where his interrogation was being monitored. The woman sat down opposite Tayte and stared at him for a few uncomfortable seconds. Then she made the introductions.