The Cassandra Sanction: The most controversial action adventure thriller you’ll read this year!

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 was inwardly cringing, knowing what Raul was going to say next. He badly wanted to be somewhere else.

‘I have no evidence,’ Raul said. ‘Not yet. That’s why I’m here.’

Klein went on tapping the pen on the desk, the way a cat switches its tail back and forth when irritated. ‘To find evidence?’

‘To find Catalina,’ Raul replied firmly. ‘And to ask you to think very hard about what could have been overlooked. There’s something we’ve missed. I know there is.’

‘We?’

‘You. And me. Both of us.’

Klein’s face was hardening. Something flickered in those cold eyes. Tap. Tap. Tap. He glanced again at Ben. ‘And does your associate share your belief that Fräulein Fuentes is the victim of an elaborate and cleverly disguised kidnap plot?’

‘Mr Hope has extensive experience in the field,’ Raul said.

Ben cringed even more. Great, Raul. Thanks.

Klein gave Ben a long, searching look. Then he dropped the pen and reclined in his chair. ‘I find it somewhat insulting, Herr Fuentes, to have my professional capabilities brought into question in this way, especially in front of a third party. I have done everything that is possible with your sister’s case, both here in Munich and at the scene of the incident, where I spent two entire days scouting the location and speaking with local residents as well as the police. I have spent a great many hours investigating the matter, and my conclusions are definitive. I’m afraid there is simply no doubt, in my mind or in fact, that Fräulein Fuentes was a deeply unhappy young woman who tragically took her own life. Her history of mental instability and her ongoing treatment for severe depression are compelling evidence in themselves. The lack of a body was the only reason I agreed to take your case on in the first place, which I now must say I regret. If you and your associate can do a better job, then I wish you the very best of luck, gentlemen.’

Klein stood up, leaning his knuckles on the desktop. ‘Now, Herr Fuentes, I have much better things to occupy my time. At this point our business is terminated, and I must ask you to leave my office.’

‘You didn’t say a word,’ Raul muttered as he and Ben stepped out of the building and walked back towards the Kia. The rain was falling harder. ‘Not a single damn word to back me up in there.’

Ben remained silent as they got into the car. He was still smarting from embarrassment, angry with Raul for dragging him into this and even angrier with himself to have allowed it to come this far.

So wrapped up in his own dark thoughts that he failed to sense the eyes watching his back and the metallic grey BMW that followed at a distance as he pulled the Kia out into the traffic.

Chapter Eleven (#ulink_9c6a4d32-bc05-51e5-8410-3304ef4c52af)

By the time they were nearing Glockenbach district, the rain had worsened into a deluge and Ben had made the decision to walk away from the whole situation. He could have been sitting on a beautiful lonely hilltop in southern Spain at this moment. Climbing in the Sierra Nevada or trekking along the Costa de Almeria in search of a deserted white-sand beach or cove where he could maybe rent a little place next to the sea and spend a while figuring out where his life was going. Not hacking through dirty traffic on a cold wet day in a city he had little love for and no longer any reason for remaining in.

‘Klein’s right,’ Ben said at last.

‘I knew you were going to say that,’ Raul muttered.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘What are you going to do?’

Ben shrugged. ‘What can I do?’

‘I need a drink,’ Raul said.

‘Yeah, why not,’ Ben agreed. One for the road. Then he was out of here. Maybe by train or bus, back down south to where it was warmer. Maybe to Italy. He had friends there. He could drop in and see his old army comrade Boonzie McCulloch, the most ferocious grizzled wardog of a sergeant the SAS had ever unleashed upon the world, now retired to a cosy life growing tomatoes and basil with his Neapolitan wife Mirella in their tranquil smallholding up in the hills near Campo Basso.

‘There’s a place up ahead,’ Raul said sullenly, pointing through the rain-spattered windscreen. ‘Pull up here. I can’t face going back to the apartment yet.’

They hurried from the car and went inside. It was one of those kinds of upmarket café-wine-bars that Ben found a little too precious for his tastes, the sort of place they charged three times the going rate for a measure of ordinary scotch, just for the privilege of planting your arse on one of their dainty chairs and being served by some disdainful prick with an attitude problem. They took a table at the back and Raul ordered a stein of beer that came in a litre tankard shaped like a jackboot. Hello, Bavaria. Ben bypassed the local traditions and asked for a double whisky, straight, no ice. The waiter was a malnourished-looking guy in his twenties, stooped and bald-headed and brusque in his ways, at least with Ben and Raul. Maybe he disapproved of whisky drinkers at ten in the morning.

Neither of them had much to say. Ben was okay with that. Enough had been said already, and now they were at the end of the road, there seemed little point in prolonging the pain. They sat and worked quietly on their drinks, drawing one or two looks from people at other tables. They obviously disapproved, too. Ben was toying with lighting up a cigarette, just to scandalise the clientele even more. Then again, in Germany you could probably be clapped in irons or flogged in the town square for public smoking offences, so he decided to leave it.

Raul had the same look on his face that he’d had in Frigiliana when Ben had first seen him. He clutched the ridiculous boot with both hands and had already worked his way down to near the ankle when the woman walked in.

Ben had no reason to take much notice of her. Like most of the bar’s customers she was well dressed, middle class, affluent looking. If he’d given her a second glance he would have put her age around fifty-eight. She had a mouth like a razor slash. Blond hair turning to iron, scraped severely back and heaped and pinned up on her head like a Pickelhaube helmet. She draped her rain-spotted Burberry coat over the back of her chair, settled her ample frame down, and when the bald-headed waiter scurried over to take her order, all smiles and fawning, she asked for some kind of wild berry tea that arrived a few moments later in a tall chintzy pot with a matching cup and saucer.

Ben quickly forgot she existed. He cradled his drink and was back to thinking about how soon he could be out of Munich when he noticed that Raul was staring at the woman as if she’d sprouted horns.

Ben glanced over. She hadn’t sprouted horns. She was sitting demurely sipping her tea and studying what looked like an art exhibition brochure.

‘What?’ Ben said, but Raul made no reply and went on staring fixedly for twenty more seconds before he slid his jackboot stein away from him and stood up.

‘Raul,’ Ben said, warning him with his eyes. ‘What are you doing?’

But for reasons best known to himself, Raul was on a mission and didn’t seem to hear. He skirted their table and stalked intently across the room to where the woman was sitting. It was like watching a replay of the fight in the bar in Frigiliana, except this time Raul didn’t set fire to anybody. Not yet.

Raul stopped at the woman’s table and stood over her with his fists balled at his sides. ‘¿Dónde encontraste eso?’ he demanded loudly, then remembered where he was and repeated it in English, the only language he knew that she might understand. ‘Where did you get that? Tell me!’

Ben had sprung up from his chair and was immediately right behind him with his hand on the Spaniard’s shoulder. ‘What the hell are you at?’

The woman was gaping up at him. Her gash of a mouth opened an inch and quavered in bewilderment.

Raul turned to Ben. ‘Ask her in German. Go on, ask. I want to know where she got that.’