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‘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.

‘I’m Detective Brandt. This is Detective Eckstein.’

Thankfully both detectives spoke excellent English. After Tayte’s arrest, he’d imagined the difficulty he was going to have trying to explain himself to someone who didn’t understand him.

‘Who was the man lying on the floor in that office?’ Tayte asked. ‘Is he dead?’

‘Yes,’ Eckstein said, still standing. ‘He’s very dead, and you’ve been arrested on suspicion of his murder. As for who he was, perhaps you can tell us. We found no ID on him.’

Tayte shook his head. ‘I have no idea who he was. As I’ve already said, I just went to the address to meet someone. I don’t know who, and I didn’t get a chance to look at him before your officers wrestled me out of there.’

Brandt slid a photograph across the table. ‘You can look at him now.’

Tayte studied the image. It had clearly been taken at the scene of the crime after his arrest. It showed the man he’d briefly seen lying on the floor. The back of his head appeared to have been struck with something, Tayte thought, because that’s where the blood on the floor was most concentrated. He realised then that the fatal wound had most likely been inflicted by the telephone handset he’d still been holding when the police came in and handcuffed him—the handset that no doubt had the victim’s blood all over it.

‘I’ve never seen this man before,’ Tayte said, supposing he might well have been the Kaufmanns’ insider. He wondered whether the FWK had found out who he was, or perhaps they had known for some time and had now used this opportunity to get rid of him, and at the same time frame Tayte for his murder. He thought that perhaps this man had been lured there, too, but to his death. ‘Look, I already told you,’ Tayte added. ‘I’ve been set up for this.’ He heaved a frustrated sigh. ‘Check my cell phone. You can see the text message that was sent to me. It proves I’m not making this up.’

Brandt leaned closer. ‘We have checked, Mr Tayte. I’m afraid all it proves is that someone gave you an address to go to. Perhaps they sent you there to get these answers the text promised you, and maybe you didn’t care too much about the methods you used to get them.’

‘That’s crazy,’ Tayte said. He sat back, shaking his head. Then something occurred to him. ‘How did you know to turn up at that address? And right at that moment?’

The two detectives exchanged glances.

‘We received a telephone call,’ Brandt said. ‘The caller told us he thought he saw someone breaking into the property.’

‘I’ll bet that call was anonymous, wasn’t it?’

‘People don’t always want to get involved,’ Eckstein said.

‘And was the door broken in?’

‘No.’

‘No, of course it wasn’t. Because there was no break-in.’

Brandt slapped her hand down onto the table, regaining command of the conversation. The sound jarred Tayte’s already fragile nerves. ‘So the victim opened the door for you. Whoever made the call was wrong about the door being forced. It’s academic.’

Tayte didn’t like where this conversation was going. ‘I took a taxi there, for Christ’s sake! You can verify that with the Hilton Munich City hotel. I mean, who does that if they’re heading out to murder someone?’

‘Perhaps you didn’t know you were going to murder the man you were going to meet,’ Eckstein said. ‘Not all murders are premeditated.’

‘Is that what happened?’ Brandt said. ‘You went there to meet this man and things got out of hand? You grabbed the nearest thing you could lay your hands on and beat him to death with it?’

‘No!’ Tayte said. He was so frustrated now that he was almost shouting. ‘I didn’t kill him!’ he reiterated. ‘Look, are you going to charge me? If you’re not, can I go?’

‘You’re not being charged at this time,’ Brandt said.

‘But the night is young,’ Eckstein said with a thin smile.

‘You’re keeping me in overnight?’

Brandt drew a deep breath and sat back. ‘Mr Tayte. A man was murdered tonight and you were found standing over his body with what appears to have been the murder weapon in your hands. Of course we’re keeping you in.’

Tayte had to admit that despite everything he’d told them, he appeared to have been caught literally red-handed. ‘Well, can I make a phone call? I’m entitled to do that, right?’

‘In good time, Mr Tayte,’ Brandt said. ‘Can you tell us exactly why you’re in Munich? You’re a long way from home.’

‘I’m here looking for answers,’ Tayte said. ‘I’m trying to find out who my biological parents are.’

‘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.’