‘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.