Shit, shit, shit.
He knew he wasn’t supposed to curse, his mother had always told him that, but she also didn’t listen to him and still kept secretly drinking her milk, that deadly juice. So he too could secretly use the S-word, and for good reason.
Where had they come from all of a sudden?
He’d been worried the security guard would show up before him. That he’d wasted far too much time at the hardware store because he hadn’t wanted to ask anyone working there and tried finding what he needed instead. But what in the hell was this scruffy, dark-haired pretty boy doing here?
And where was he driving to now?
He’d had a rare piece of good luck by choosing to park his taxi a little further off in an empty auction hall this time. He’d walked the last few metres over and was now soaked from the rain, but the caution he’d taken to check the situation out first had paid off.
In doing so he hadn’t passed the Renault driving off but instead had been able to observe the intruder from the cover of a burned-out construction trailer some distance away.
Well, the black-haired guy was gone, but the way it looked, damn it, was that he hadn’t come alone and had left someone here.
A woman.
To get a look at her, Franz had left the cover of the trailer and crept over to the open entrance door. He first only spotted her movements, a shadow at the other end of the hall. Yet the shadow was speaking, apparently with someone on the phone, and that made him move in closer.
‘Hello, Mats? I’m going outside, might get better reception out there,’ he heard. The woman sounded distressed, as if she’d discovered something.
Franz looked around, considering whether to go back to his car and take off.
But then all would be over, all lost. Everything he’d planned for so long.
‘No, this is about a higher goal,’ he whispered to himself.
And bent down.
Picked up one of the many rusty iron rods lying all over here.
And was glad to see that the very rod he’d use to lie in wait for the woman even had a hook on the end.