1503954692

by Steve Robinson

  ‘And you think they’re German?’

  ‘I think my father is. And I think sooner or later I’ll be able to prove it if I just keep digging. That’s why I went to that address tonight. I was hoping for information in connection with a wanted war criminal called Volker Strobel. I’m convinced there’s a connection either to him or to a friend he had during the war called Johann Langner. I just need more time to make sense of it all.’

  ‘Sounds complicated,’ Eckstein said.

  ‘Fortunately, we have plenty of time,’ Brandt added. ‘Why don’t you explain it to us. There’s no rush. Start from the beginning and bring us up to date. I’d like to know everywhere you’ve been and I’d like the names of everyone you’ve spoken to.’

  Tayte drew a deep breath and tried to rub the tiredness from his eyes. Then he told Brandt and Eckstein everything that had happened since he and Jean stepped off the plane the day before. It took close to an hour to go over everything in detail, and to answer the questions the detectives kept firing at him as Brandt wrote everything down. By the time Tayte had finished he felt exhausted.

  ‘The contents of my briefcase will confirm everything I just told you,’ he said. ‘And you can check your own records to confirm that I didn’t just make up everything about this man who threatened Jean yesterday. I believe he’s called Max Fleischer, and I believe he’s working with the FWK—The Friends of the Waffen-SS War Veterans. He threatened us again earlier today. He flashed a handgun at us.’

  ‘Did you report that, too?’ Brandt asked.

  Tayte wished now that he and Jean had gone straight to the police to report it. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want it to spoil our evening any more than it already had. We were going to report it first thing in the morning.’

  ‘I see,’ Brandt said.

  She stood up and Tayte gave a sigh of relief to think that for now at least the interrogation appeared to be over.

  ‘So what happens next?’ Tayte asked as Brandt and Eckstein made for the door.

  Brandt turned back. ‘You’ll be taken to a holding room. Then you’ll be allowed your phone call.’

  Tayte was beginning to think that detective Brandt had been teasing him about getting his phone call. For close to forty minutes he’d been sitting in another sparsely furnished room at Munich’s police headquarters with only a sour faced, uncommunicative uniformed officer standing by the door for company. It felt as though hours had passed by the time the door finally opened again and Detective Eckstein walked in. To Tayte’s almost overwhelming joy after everything he’d been through since he’d last spoken to Jean, he was carrying a telephone.

  ‘Five minutes,’ Eckstein said, handing the phone to Tayte.

  Tayte was smiling as he took it. Not at Eckstein, but at the telephone because he was looking forward to hearing Jean’s voice again. As he entered the direct number for their hotel room, he hoped she was still awake. The clock high up on the wall told him it was now just after one o’clock in the morning. The phone only rang twice before it was answered, and it was Jean who spoke first. She sounded overwrought.

  ‘JT!’

  ‘Jean! It’s okay. I’m all right.’

  ‘Thank goodness. I’ve been worried sick.’

  ‘I’m sure you have, and I’m sorry. That text message. It was a setup. I’ve been arrested.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You do?

  ‘Yes, the police called about twenty minutes ago. They wanted me to confirm what you’d told them. They wouldn’t give me any details. Is this serious?’

  ‘It’s about as serious as it gets,’ Tayte said. ‘A man was killed—probably the man I was supposed to meet tonight. I’ve been arrested for his murder.’

  ‘Christ,’ Jean said. ‘Do you want me to find you a solicitor—a lawyer? Maybe I should go to the American Consulate.’

  ‘I sincerely hope it doesn’t come to that. I’ve not been charged yet, but as I was told earlier, the night is young. I don’t know what the local rule is around how long I can be detained without charges being brought, but they’re keeping me in for now. You should try to get some sleep.’

  ‘Will you be able to call me tomorrow? Can I come and see you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Tayte said. ‘I guess I’ll find out more in the morning.’ He paused, and then in a lower voice he said, ‘I’ve got to go. The detective is tapping his watch at me.’

  ‘Wait,’ Jean said. ‘I found something after you left—something about Trudi Scheffler. I think it’s important.’

  ‘I’d love to hear it,’ Tayte said, but he knew he didn’t have time. Eckstein was now holding his hand out for Tayte to pass him the phone. ‘Hopefully you’ll be able to tell me all about it tomorrow,’ he added. ‘I’ve really gotta go.’

  ‘Okay. So, I’ll wait to hear from you?’

  At that moment, Eckstein reached out and grabbed the phone. ‘Time’s up.’

  Tayte didn’t want the time to be up. He held on to the phone between his cuffed hands just long enough to say, ‘Goodbye, Jean. I miss you.’

  Then the call was over.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Disturbed by unfamiliar sounds and a deep concern for his future, Jefferson Tayte was woken from a troubled night’s sleep in his holding cell at Munich’s police headquarters by a key rattling in the lock to his cell door. Having eventually fallen into a deep slumber through sheer exhaustion, he had trouble peeling his eyes open again. When he did he watched the door to his cell open and a uniformed officer he hadn’t seen before called in, ‘Get dressed. Ten minutes.’ As Tayte stirred further from sleep and the reality of his situation caught up with him, he had the feeling that today was going to be a bad day.

  Exactly ten minutes later, Tayte was escorted from the holding cell to a room that had an altogether more pleasant feel to it than any he had so far been in since he’d been arrested the night before. He thought it must be a witness statement room. It was bright from the light at the window, the furnishings were soft not hard, and he saw posters and pamphlets here and there, none of which he could read, but it was clear from the images on them that they were about crime prevention. Detective Eckstein was already in the room as Tayte was brought in. On the table Eckstein was standing beside, Tayte saw his personal effects: his briefcase, wallet, phone, and watch. The sight of these items confused him for a minute.

  ‘You’re being released,’ Eckstein said, clarifying the situation.

  And just like that, Tayte felt the weight of his predicament lift from his shoulders. He drew a deep breath as he took in what Eckstein had just said. Then he smiled at the man, and he almost laughed to himself as he tried to contain his delight. He collected his things from the desk.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, feeling a strong urge to get as far away from the police station as he could before someone changed their mind, although he was curious to know why he was being released. ‘Did you find out who killed that man? Do you know who he was?’

  ‘We’re hoping that Tobias Kaufmann—the man you told us about last night—will soon be able to help us identify the body. We’re no closer to finding out who killed him, but we’ve learned enough to know it wasn’t you. Everything you told us checked out. The taxi driver confirmed what time he dropped you off, and we’ve confirmed that someone called the telephone you were found holding when our officers turned up and arrested you. More importantly, the telephone handset wasn’t the murder weapon.’

  ‘It wasn’t?’

  ‘No, the wounds on the victim were caused by something with a sharper edge—a brick or a rock perhaps. And the telephone handset was too light and flimsy to have caused such damage. It would have broken long before the man’s skull. Then there’s the time of death. Rigor mortis had already begun, which tells us straight away that the victim had been dead for at least two hours. Your friend, Ms Summer, was able to verify that you were with her earlier in the evening. Whoever set you up, Mr Tayte, either knew very little about the changes the huma
n body goes through after death, or they were just sending you a message—another threat perhaps. Maybe you should take this one more seriously. I don’t want to have to investigate your murder, too.’

  It was a sobering thought, and one Tayte planned to give some very serious consideration. ‘The name I gave you last night,’ he said. ‘Max Fleischer.’

  ‘Yes, we know who Max Fleischer is,’ Eckstein said. ‘He’ll be brought in for questioning as soon as we can locate him. Do you plan on staying in Munich long? We may have further questions for you.’

  Tayte had no idea how long he was going to stay in Munich in light of what had happened. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Do I have to stay?’

  ‘No, and in all honesty I’d advise you to go home on the next available flight. Your investigation is obviously upsetting the kind of people you don’t want to upset. You should leave that to us. Whatever you decide to do, I have your contact details.’

  ‘Well, just let me know if there’s anything you need from me.’

  ‘Thank you. I will.’

  ‘So that’s it?’ Tayte said. ‘I can go now?’

  ‘More or less. I just need you to sign some release papers and you can be on your way.’

  That sounded good to Tayte. He couldn’t wait to see Jean again, to tell her he was a free man, and to learn what she’d discovered about Trudi Scheffler that she thought was important. As Tayte picked up his briefcase and followed Eckstein out of the room, he began to wonder what that something was, and how it might influence the decision he had to make about whether or not to remain in Munich.

  Outside Munich’s police headquarters, Tayte ended his call to Jean with a wide smile on his face. He’d said he was going to get a taxi back to the hotel, but Jean had insisted on picking him up, so he didn’t argue. He checked his watch. It was just after nine in the morning, and although the hotel they were staying at wasn’t far away, he figured it would take her at least twenty minutes to reach him, probably longer if the traffic was bad. He sucked in the cool morning air and gazed up into another clear blue sky, thinking he would call the Kaufmanns as soon as he’d seen Jean. He wanted to confirm whether the man who had been murdered the night before was their insider at the FWK as he’d supposed, and he wanted to know whether they had managed to get him access to the records he wanted to see.

  He took a stroll along the pavement outside the building he’d just been released from on Ettstrasse, and he began to wonder again what Jean had discovered about Trudi Strobel née Scheffler, and how it might help to find the answers they were looking for. That’s if they were going to carry on at all. He’d never been one to walk away before, but then he’d never felt he had anything much to lose before. Now he did, and the only way he could see Jean backing down was if he backed down first.

  He reached the end of the street and began to amble back again, not wanting to wander too far from where Jean was going to pick him up. Ten minutes passed slowly by, and then another ten. He cursed the traffic for keeping Jean from him and decided he’d better stay put now in case he missed her. He leaned back against the wall in the shade of the building and considered whether he really could just pack his bags and go home. He felt closer now to the answers he was looking for than he’d ever felt before, and if Volker Strobel and Johann Langner held those answers somewhere between them, then given their ages he knew he might never have a chance like this again. He drew a deep, contemplative breath, and by the time he let it go again he had the answer. He would do it for Jean, without question. He was going to take Detective Eckstein’s advice and book the next available flight back to London.

  Tayte closed his eyes and began to drift with his thoughts, still feeling tired after what had amounted to little more than a few hours of quality sleep. When he opened his eyes again, he checked his watch and saw that forty-five minutes had passed since he’d spoken to Jean. She’d said she was ready to come and get him, and that she was leaving straight away, so he thought there had to be a problem with the traffic. But after another fifteen minutes passed, he began to worry. He called her number again. After ringing several times the call went to voice mail. He tried the hotel room, just in case there had been a hold-up, although he thought she would have called him by now if there was. There was no reply.

  She must be stuck in traffic, he told himself. That’s gotta be it.

  He figured that was why she hadn’t picked up his call—she was driving and needed to concentrate, especially as she was driving on the opposite side of the road to the side she was used to. But as the time continued to tick slowly by with no sign of her and no phone call, he instinctively knew something was wrong. He called her again and this time he left a message.

  ‘Hi, Jean. It’s JT. I was getting worried about you, so I’m taking a cab back to the hotel. I’m sorry if you’re just stuck in traffic somewhere, but I didn’t know what else to do.’

  He ended the message and immediately went looking for a taxi, which he found just around the corner on Maxburgstrasse.

  ‘Hilton Munich City hotel,’ he said to the driver, and on the way there, knowing the route was likely to be similar to the one Jean had taken, he kept looking out for their hire car and signs of heavier than usual traffic. He saw neither, and he began to feel very concerned as the taxi pulled up outside the hotel, little more than fifteen minutes after it had set out.

  Tayte handed the driver a large currency note, and didn’t wait for the change. He sprinted into the hotel lobby where he took the stairs and ran up to the first-floor room he and Jean were sharing. ‘Jean!’ he called as he opened the door.

  She wasn’t there. He hadn’t really expected her to be, but he had to be sure. He saw that her jacket was gone, the car keys, too, so he left his briefcase by the bed and ran down to the lobby again. He was panting as he asked the concierge whether there were any messages for him, but there were none.

  Where is she?

  He could feel the anxiety of not knowing—of believing without a doubt that something must have happened to her—begin to knot in his stomach. He ran out into the car park and looked for their hire car. The space where he’d parked it the day before was tellingly empty, which told him that Jean had left to pick him up as planned. But then what? Tayte sank his head into his hands, wishing now that he’d made the decision to fly home after Max Fleischer had flashed his gun at them outside the coffee shop. The familiar ringtone of his phone startled him then, and he almost dropped it in his haste to answer the call.

  ‘Jean!’

  ‘Is that JT?’

  It wasn’t Jean. Tayte didn’t recognise the caller’s voice, but it belonged to a man with a German accent, and it immediately put his hackles up.

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘I’m calling from the general hospital in Schwabing,’ the man said. ‘I saw that you’d left a message for Jean Summer earlier this morning and I didn’t know who else to call. Are you a family member, or a friend perhaps? Are you in Munich?’

  Tayte felt the blood drain from his cheeks. ‘I’m her partner,’ he said. ‘We’re staying in Munich together. What’s happened? Is she okay?’

  ‘Jean Summer has been involved in a car accident. She was admitted to the hospital a short while ago.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Tayte wasted no time getting a taxi to the accident and emergency unit at Munich’s general hospital in Schwabing, which was a short drive north of the city centre via one of the city’s major multi-lane parkways. The hospital staff member who had called Tayte from Jean’s phone hadn’t been able to give him any information about Jean’s condition, which made him all the more anxious as he sat in the back of the taxi, imagining the worse. He cursed himself several times over for not making his own way back to the hotel after he’d been released from police custody, telling himself that if he had then none of this would have happened and Jean would be okay. If only she hadn’t been so insistent. If only he hadn’t got himself arrested in the first place. If only this and if
only that, but how could he have known? If Jean had been there, he knew she would have been the first to tell him it wasn’t his fault, but that gave him little consolation.

  He was running again as soon as he got out of the taxi, only slowing to a fast walk as he entered the hospital and approached the information desk.

  ‘My friend, Jean Summer, was in a car accident earlier this morning,’ he said to the young woman behind the desk. ‘I just received a call to say she’d been admitted here. Can you please tell me how she is? Can I see her?’

  A few minutes later, Tayte was led into a ward on the accident and emergency wing. Maybe it was the shock of seeing Jean lying in a hospital bed with a bandaged head and a brace around her neck, or perhaps it was just the relief of knowing she wasn’t dead or in intensive care, but when he saw her he wanted to cry.

  ‘Jean, I’m so sorry.’ He held her hand and squeezed it.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘I knew you’d say that.’

  Jean tried to shake her head, but her neck brace restricted her. ‘No, it really wasn’t. I was turning off the main road towards the city centre. At the last minute another car cut inside me and I had nowhere to go. What’s going to happen with the hire company? The car must be a write-off.’

  ‘Don’t worry about any of that. I’ll deal with it. Just tell me what happened.’

  ‘Well, this other car forced me into the barrier and before I knew what was happening I’d hit it and the car flipped over. I was so scared. Thank God no one else was hurt.’

  ‘So someone did this to you on purpose? Did you get a look at the driver?’

  ‘No, it all happened so fast. I’ve already told the police what I could, which wasn’t much. I didn’t even see what type of car it was, let alone get the registration.’

  Tayte’s blood was boiling. Within a period of twelve hours he’d been set up for murder and someone had potentially tried to kill Jean.

  ‘You’re hurting my hand,’ Jean said, and Tayte let go.