of the apartment windows. He had been sitting there since not long after the silver Kia had parked at the opposite kerb outside the apartment building and its two occupants had disappeared inside. The van’s smoked glass hid him from passersby and allowed him to use the compact but powerful Canon 8x25 image-stabilising mini-binocs that were part of his kit. Another part was the Walther PPX nine-millimetre handgun nestling in its Kydex concealment holster on his belt. Those weren’t all that he had brought with him.
Seeing a figure appear at one of the apartment’s windows that overlooked the street, he picked up the binocs. The man at the window was the blond one who’d hooked up with Raul Fuentes over the last couple of days. They knew all about him, his name, his former occupation, his level of expertise. Hence the Walther PPX. What they didn’t yet know, and were keen to discover, was how and why he’d suddenly appeared in the picture.
The watcher went on watching. Ben Hope was half-silhouetted in the light from the apartment, but enough showed of his face to make out his grim expression through the image-stabilised field of view. His hair was a little longer than in the photograph in the file the watcher had been shown. After a few moments, Ben Hope turned away from the window and his lips moved as though he were speaking, then he disappeared from sight. He could only have been talking to Fuentes. That would be confirmed by the watcher’s teammates who were monitoring the bugged conversation back at base.
The watcher lowered his binoculars, satisfied that neither of the men inside the apartment was about to emerge to disturb the next phase of the operation.
He zippered up his black nylon jacket and pulled the woollen beanie hat tight down over his ears, partly to keep the rain off, partly to hide his features. Picking up a small black backpack from the passenger seat, he opened the van door and stepped quietly out. A quick upwards glance at the apartment windows to ensure nobody was watching him; then he moved quickly and silently across the street and slipped between the silver Kia and the Audi parked behind it. He took the small unit from the backpack and knelt beside the Kia as if he needed to tie a loose shoelace.
The unit clamped without a sound to the inside of the car’s rear wheel arch. The watcher checked that it was secure, then continued walking down the street until he was out of sight of the building. He crossed the road and doubled back on himself, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched, like an ordinary pedestrian walking fast to get out of the rain.
When he returned to the van, he made his call. Soon afterwards, he started up the van and drove away into the night.
The private investigations offices of Leonhard Klein were situated to the north of the Glockenbach district, in an area called Maxverstadt close to the heart of Munich. After hustling through early morning traffic under a blanket of drifting rain, Ben and Raul arrived there shortly before nine. The nondescript cream-coloured modern building off Schellingstrasse stood back from the road, with a small cordoned parking area in front and a polished steel sign above the door that said L. KLEIN, DETEKTEI – NACHRICHTEN as on his official letterhead. Two cars were parked outside, a bright green VW Polo and a big black S-Class Mercedes. It wasn’t hard to tell which belonged to the man himself, Klein.
The building was warm inside and smelled of flowers and fresh paint. A short hallway led to a tastefully appointed reception area, where a middle-aged woman with bobbed platinum hair was fiddling around behind the desk. Her handbag and a set of car keys with a Volkswagen fob were lying on the desktop next to her, as if she’d only just arrived for work. She peered over her spectacles as Ben and Raul approached, arched her eyebrows and glanced at the clock.
‘You have an appointment?’ she asked in German, in a tone that made it clear she knew perfectly well they didn’t.
‘He’s a client,’ Ben replied in German, jerking a thumb at Raul. Switching back to English he said to Raul, ‘That’s his office. Follow me,’ and pointed at a door to the right. Raul nodded.
The receptionist scurried out from behind the desk as Ben moved towards the door. ‘You can’t go in there. Herr Klein is in a meeting.’
Ben ignored her, opened the door and stepped inside. It was a large, comfortable office, thickly carpeted, nicely furnished. Leonhard Klein was alone behind a broad desk that was empty apart from a cordless phone and the newspaper he was reading. He looked quickly up as Ben entered the office, then his expression of surprise turned to one of wary recognition as Raul stepped into the room at Ben’s shoulder.
The detective closed the newspaper and stood up behind his desk. He was a tall, thin man with grey hair carefully combed over a freckled scalp and close-set eyes the same washed-out, warmthless colour of the ocean off Rügen Island. His nose and cheeks were florid with broken veins. Behind him on the wall hung a framed photo of a much younger version of himself, mean and moody in the uniform of the old West German Bundespolizei, peaked cap pulled low, a pistol riding on his hip and sergeant’s stripes on his sleeve.
Klein smiled, but it was a thin smile and his eyes were narrowed with suspicion. Ben could have spotted the ex-cop in the man even without being told. Klein didn’t look like someone you could slip too much past.
‘Herr Fuentes. To what do I owe this unexpected visit?’
‘I got your letter,’ Raul said. ‘I have a few questions.’
‘I see.’ The pale eyes turned towards Ben, shrewdly looking him up and down and obviously wondering who he was and what he was doing there.
Raul said, ‘This is my associate, Mr Hope. He’s aware of all the details of my sister’s case.’
‘I’m sure that it was unnecessary for you and your, ah, associate to travel all this way to discuss your questions in person,’ Klein said. ‘I only have a very few minutes before I’m due to see a client.’
A client. Not another client, Ben noticed. As if to say, your case is yesterday’s news. ‘This won’t take long, Herr Klein,’ Ben said, reverting back to German. The detective’s eyes grew smaller and one eyebrow twitched in surprise.
‘Very well. Please, take a seat.’ He guided them to a pair of handsomely upholstered chairs facing the desk, waited until they were seated and then sat in his own plush leather swivel. He slid open a drawer of his desk and took out a notepad and a pen. ‘Is there anything in my letter that was unclear to you?’
Ben leaned back and let Raul do the talking.
‘Mr Klein, I still believe that my sister is alive,’ Raul said, cutting straight to the chase.
A small ripple passed over Klein’s face and his lips tightened. He seemed about to protest, then just spread his hands and said, ‘Go on.’
‘I’m here to ask you whether it’s possible, with all respect to your professionalism, that you might have missed something.’
Klein began tapping the pen on the desk. ‘I’ve been in this business a long time, Herr Fuentes.’
‘I appreciate that. But please listen to me. I now believe she might have been abducted.’
Klein looked at him unwaveringly. ‘Have you heard from the kidnapper?’
‘No. No contact, no ransom demand, nothing like that.’
‘Then may I ask what makes you think this is the case?’
Ben
