The outside of Wolf’s apartment building was surveilled by a CCTV system, but Ben soon found the conveniently disabled camera around the back. Whoever had neatly snipped its feed wire had very likely been the same person who’d picked the lock on a nearby rear entrance to the building. Ben shone his mini-torch on the fresh scratches around the keyhole and thought, Hmm. He wouldn’t have made those scratches himself, because he was a pretty adept lock-picker. Less than a minute later, he was inside the building and making his way up a dark backstair to the top floor.

The same tell-tale scratches were on the lock of Wolf’s apartment door. Ben thought, Hmm again. Not too surprisingly, it looked as though his real-life assessment of the situation had been right. Someone else had been here before him, and done a reasonable, if not perfect, job of covering their tracks. Would Wolf have picked his own lock? Ben didn’t think so.

Another minute later, he was inside the apartment. Gun in hand he stalked from room to room until he’d cleared the whole place and found it empty. Only then did he turn on the lights and survey the extent of the damage. Whoever had surreptitiously entered the apartment had done a thorough job of tearing the place apart. It was either the work of one very busy ransacker, or more likely two or three working in a team. Whatever the case, one thing was for sure: the burglary hadn’t been reported to the police or the apartment would have been sealed with crime scene tape.

Wolf’s home was quite sparsely furnished, but the things he did own were upmarket. He’d clearly been making good money working for Saunders’ people. Ben wondered whether it was money that the ransackers had been looking for. The way they’d torn the place up suggested they’d been interested in more than just finding the man himself. If not money, then perhaps documents? Photographs? Computer drives? In the living room a large modern bookcase had been dragged away from the wall, as though someone wanted to check for a hidey-hole or concealed safe behind it. Pictures had been torn down from the walls or knocked askew on their hooks, presumably for the same reason. An expensive white leather sofa had been slashed to ribbons and half its stuffing ripped out. They’d even been prising up floorboards.