1503954692

by Steve Robinson

  ‘I’m sure you’re not the first person to wonder that.’

  ‘No,’ Tayte said, thinking ahead to tomorrow’s meeting with Munich’s foremost specialist on the Demon of Dachau—an eminent Nazi hunter called Tobias Kaufmann.

  The taxi turned off the main road into a narrow street, and out of the window Tayte saw that they had arrived in Maxburgstrasse. He gave the driver the number of the building, thankful that the driver spoke English, as did many of the people he had so far encountered in Munich. As the car crawled along between continuous lines of parked cars, Tayte saw that the area was a hotchpotch of buildings old and new with a few shops here and there, and because the street was narrow, the tall buildings that lined the pavement threw everything into shade. The taxi pulled up in front of a featureless grey wall of offices, whose many dark windows dominated the façade.

  Tayte paid the driver and refused the change. ‘Danke,’ he said as he and Jean got out, determined as he was to try a few of the more common phrases he’d learned from the app Jean had downloaded to her computer for the trip.

  As the taxi pulled away, Tayte wished he’d thought to ask the driver to wait. The dark windows he and Jean were now looking up at made the place look ominously vacant. Jean slung her backpack over her shoulder and Tayte picked up his suit carrier and briefcase. He’d given up offering to carry Jean’s bag for her, however much he wanted to. They went closer, taking the few steps that ran up to the aluminium framed double doors. They were closed, and through the glass there was no light to be seen beyond.

  Tayte sighed. ‘This doesn’t look good.’

  He tried the door, and as expected, it was locked. There was a letterbox and a doorbell to his right. He pressed the button and heard a buzzer sound somewhere inside, thinking that during office hours it would have brought a security guard to the door.

  ‘At least it’s a nice afternoon,’ Jean offered. ‘I’d like to see the city centre as we’re so close. Do you want to get something to eat?’

  Tayte had been trying to ignore the groans his stomach was making for the last couple of hours. A kind of brunch had been served on the plane, but however much he liked his food, he was always so tense during a flight that he could never face the in-flight meals. Something to eat sounded good, but a part of him just wanted to check in at the hotel and get on with his research. Several strands of interest had come out of their conversation with Johann Langner that he wanted to explore, but that part of him was the old part—the loner who rarely had anyone with him that he wanted to sit down and share a meal with.

  He turned away from the building and gave Jean a smile. ‘That sounds great,’ he said, thinking it was what couples did on city breaks, but more importantly because he knew it was what Jean wanted to do. He caught a voice in his head then, telling him that the research could wait a few hours, and he almost laughed to himself. Before he’d met Jean such a thought would never have crossed his mind.

  ‘What is it?’ Jean asked, clearly noticing his smirk.

  ‘It’s nothing.’ Tayte grabbed Jean’s hand and led her back to the pavement, heading the same way the taxi had gone. ‘Let’s get another cab and ask the driver to take us to the finest restaurant in Munich.’

  Jean laughed. ‘Are you paying?’

  ‘Sure, but in that case maybe I’ll ask for the second or third finest.’

  They were laughing as Tayte turned back to see if there was a taxi coming, although he thought they would have to keep walking until they hit a more touristy part of the city. As he looked over his shoulder his smile turned to excitement when he saw two people, a man and a woman, at the glass doors they had just left. He drew Jean’s attention to them.

  ‘Look, someone’s going inside.’

  He let go of Jean’s hand and almost jogged back up the steps to the door. He reached it just as it was closing.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said. He was too excited to recall how to say it in German.

  The door opened again and Tayte saw a tall, slim woman in a navy trouser suit, whom he thought was about Jean’s age, in her late thirties. The man Tayte had seen with her was standing in the shadows further back. The woman smiled expectantly, as though waiting for Tayte to say what he wanted.

  ‘Do you speak English?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course,’ the woman said, a little indignantly, Tayte thought, as if he should have known that every German in a business suit spoke English.

  Tayte paused to give himself time to get the pronunciation right for his next line. ‘Great,’ he said. ‘I’m looking for Die Freunde der Waffen-SS Kriegsveteranen. Is this the right place?’

  The woman’s formerly pleasant expression changed to a frown. ‘We don’t have visitors.’

  ‘Well, can I make an appointment?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry. No visitors.’

  She began to close the door, but Tayte quickly pulled out the photograph he had of his mother and thrust it across the threshold. He didn’t expect anything to come of it, but he didn’t think it was a good idea to be so direct as to ask if they were helping Volker Strobel evade the authorities.

  ‘I’m looking for this woman, or trying to find someone who can tell me her name. Can you at least tell me if you recognise her?’

  The woman glanced at the photograph. ‘No, I’m sorry,’ she repeated. She began to close the door again. ‘Now if you’ll—’

  Jean stepped beside Tayte then and cut in. ‘Can we talk to you about Volker Strobel?’

  The direct approach it is, then, Tayte thought. ‘Look, we’re not out to expose Strobel,’ he said. ‘We just want to talk to anyone who knows anything about him in the hope that it might help identify the woman we’re trying to find.’

  The man came out from the shadows then. He appeared on the other side of the glass briefly before he slammed the door in Tayte’s face, rattling the frame. Tayte watched both figures silently recede into the darkness.

  ‘Well, that was a lot of good,’ Tayte said as he shoved one of his business cards through the letterbox, more out of habit than the belief that these people might change their minds about talking to him.

  ‘Don’t be too disappointed, JT. It went exactly as we expected it would.’

  ‘It did?’

  Jean nodded. ‘Although, I’d say from the reaction we just got that it’s pretty clear the FWK know more than a thing or two about Volker Strobel.’

  The taxi Tayte hailed soon after leaving Maxburgstrasse took them further into the centre of Munich, but instead of going straight to a restaurant as Tayte had hoped they would, the driver took them to the edge of the old town because Jean wanted to see the Munich Residence—a former royal palace of the monarchs of Bavaria. Jean had previously described the palace to Tayte, and he couldn’t imagine any royal historian wanting to miss the opportunity to see it, but he hadn’t let the taxi driver go without first getting a recommendation for a nearby restaurant that served traditional Bavarian cuisine. They spent an hour at the palace, which both Tayte and Jean agreed wasn’t nearly long enough to take everything in: the museums, the treasury and the historical gardens, not to mention all the artwork and the tapestries that were spread throughout numerous courts.

  It was just after five o’clock when they left, and by now both Tayte and Jean were famished, so they set off south through the bustling streets of the old town, towards the heart of the city, in search of the restaurant the taxi driver had recommended—the Spatenhaus an der Oper, which he’d said was on Residenzstrasse opposite Max-Joseph-Platz.

  ‘We’ll have to come back before we return to London,’ Jean said as they strolled hand in hand across Odeonsplatz in the warm late-afternoon sunshine.

  ‘That’s a promise,’ Tayte said, looking around for street signs. ‘I hope we’re heading the right way.’

  They kept walking, leaving the plaza and entering into shade along a narrow street that was lined with Baroque architecture. A moment later Jean pointed across the street to a side junction. ‘Look. There’s a s
treet sign—Viscardigasse. Gasse means alley if I’m not mistaken. Residenzstrasse is straight ahead. I think we must be on it now.’

  ‘Great,’ Tayte said. ‘The restaurant shouldn’t be far.’

  There were shops to their right, set back beneath the buildings, creating a covered walkway off the street. They crossed and strolled beside them, Jean window browsing while Tayte kept looking for the plaza the taxi driver had said the restaurant was opposite. He noticed the sunlight was splashing onto the front of the buildings a hundred metres or so ahead of them, and he thought that must be where Max-Joseph-Platz was. His stomach groaned when they passed a café and a wonderful scent of coffee and pastries hit him. He was about to increase the pace when Jean suddenly stopped. When he turned around to see why, she wouldn’t let him.

  ‘Don’t look,’ she said, reaching up and covering his eyes. ‘I’ve seen something I want to get for you.’

  She pushed Tayte’s head away and he thought he heard her giggle. He wondered what she could possibly have seen.

  ‘Go and wait in the sun,’ she said, giving Tayte a gentle shove. ‘And no peeking.’

  Tayte rather liked the cool shade, but he did as he was told and within a minute he was standing at the corner of Max-Joseph-Platz, looking across the sunlit plaza towards an impressive neo-classical portico that led into a building whose purpose he was unable to determine from so far back. He strolled towards it, pausing partway, where he leaned against a circular railing that had numerous bicycles chained to it. He put his bags down, and as he looked back he spotted the restaurant they were heading for and hoped Jean wouldn’t be too long. He checked his watch—the same old-fashioned digital throwback from the 1980s with the red LED digits that had served him so faithfully all these years. It told him it was 17.14.

  Tayte waited a few minutes, and then he ambled closer to the Corinthian-columned portico that dominated the square, curious to see what the building was used for. As he drew closer to the steps that ran up to the main entrance, he saw that it was the Max-Joseph-Platz National Theatre, and having satisfied his curiosity, he turned away again and slowly headed back, thinking that Jean should be entering the plaza at any minute. He arrived back at the railings and checked his watch again. It was 17.22 and there was still no sign of her.

  Maybe there was a line at the checkout, he thought. He closed his eyes and began to think about the research he wanted to do after they checked in at the hotel. Two friends, whose friendship was torn apart by a girl—Ava Bauer … That was the story Johann Langner was telling them about. Was it significant? Tayte didn’t know at this point. All he did know was that his mother had seemingly been interested in Volker Strobel or perhaps Johann Langner, or maybe even the building she’d been photographed outside. He made a mental note to visit Langner’s former Hitler Youth building, now a museum and education centre, while they were in Munich. Perhaps it held some further clue as to what had drawn his mother there.

  Tayte opened his eyes and scanned for Jean again. Nothing. He checked his watch and realised he’d been daydreaming for several minutes because it was now 17.30, which he thought was too long. He strode back to the edge of the plaza onto Residenzstrasse and looked back along the shady street. There were plenty of people about, but he couldn’t see Jean among them. He walked over to the shops and began to stroll beside them, conscious of upsetting Jean’s surprise, but twenty minutes had passed since he’d left her and he was beginning to worry.

  He drew closer to the shops he’d been outside when they stopped. He recognised the jeweller’s he’d passed as he set off for the plaza. Ahead was the café, and he thought he had to be close to the shop Jean had been interested in. He kept going and came to a women’s fashion boutique, and then a shoe shop. Was that it? Did Jean want to buy him a new pair of shoes? He hoped she wasn’t about to start changing his wardrobe for him, because he didn’t think he could handle too many changes at once. He liked his wardrobe just the way it was: tan suit, white shirt and loafers. There was no need to complicate his life with anything else. He peered in through the shop window. There was a man and a woman browsing together, and there was someone else paying for something. It wasn’t Jean.

  Tayte turned away again, but before he could take another step, he saw her. She was further back along the street by the junction they had passed. He began to smile, wondering why she had gone back that way, and what had kept her so long, but when she started to run towards him, his smile changed to a concerned frown. Her hair looked wild and her eyes were glistening with tears.

  ‘Jean!’ Tayte ran to meet her. ‘What’s happened? Are you okay?’ Tayte held her shoulders and began to rub them. ‘You’re shaking.’

  She put her arms around him and began to sob into his chest. ‘I’ve been threatened.’

  ‘What? Who by?’

  Jean choked back her tears and wiped her cheeks. ‘As I left the shop I’d gone into, three men grabbed me. One of them held his hand over my mouth so I couldn’t call out. Before I knew it they’d dragged me into a passageway. They pinned me against the wall and one of them pressed a knife against my cheek. He said he’d cut me if I screamed.’

  Tayte’s blood was already boiling. He could see the impression the knife had left, still fresh on Jean’s cheek. He looked around, as though he might still be able to see who had done this, but all he saw were the curious faces of passers-by, looking back at him as if wondering what the upset was about.

  ‘They told me to go home, and to take you with me. They said if we didn’t they’d find me again.’ Jean paused, still shaking from the shock. ‘They said if we didn’t they were going to rape me. One of them started to pull my dress up, and then he laughed and they went.’

  Tayte shook his head. ‘Someone must have followed us after we left those offices earlier,’ he said, thinking that whoever it was, they hadn’t wasted any time in trying to warn him and Jean off asking questions about Volker Strobel. So much for leaving my business card, he thought.

  ‘Two of them had shaved heads,’ Jean said. ‘I saw a few tattoos. The one with the knife who did all the talking had dark hair, and he had a black skull tattooed on one side of his neck with Nazi SS Sieg runes tattooed low on the other.’

  ‘He clearly wasn’t worried about you being able to identify him.’

  ‘No, and that’s what’s so frightening about it. They didn’t seem to give a damn.’

  ‘Neo-Nazis?’

  ‘I would imagine so.’

  ‘They’re cowards, whoever they were. Singling you out like that.’

  Jean reached into her jacket and pulled out a red-and-white-striped paper bag. ‘I bought you this,’ she said, handing it to him.

  Tayte removed the contents and it practically fell apart in his hands. It was a giant Hershey’s Mr Goodbar.

  Jean tried to laugh at it. ‘I know it’s your favourite,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t believe it when we passed the shop and you hadn’t noticed.’ Jean pointed to a small shop front behind them with the words Welt der Schokolade—world of chocolate—above the window. ‘They sell chocolate from all over the world. I’m sorry it’s broken. It must have happened when they shoved me against the wall.’

  A part of Tayte wished the people who had done this to Jean were there now, but the sensible part of him hoped they never came within a hundred feet of Jean again.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We passed a taxi rank soon after we left the palace. We’ll go to the police and report what’s happened, and then we’ll go and check in at the hotel. We’ve got some serious decisions to make.’

  Chapter Eight

  Tayte and Jean were staying at the Hilton Munich City hotel, which was located close to the city centre to the southeast. Tayte preferred the anonymity of larger establishments, where you didn’t have to share a table at breakfast with anyone, or get into small talk over dinner with the other guests. It was a failing of his, he knew that, but it was how he liked it and Jean didn’t seem to mind.

  Their visit
to the local police station had been perfunctory at best, but they had reported the incident and Jean had described her attackers to them. There was little the police said they could do, and they seemed to take a less serious view of the incident when they knew Jean had not been physically harmed in any way. They ate as soon as they had checked into the hotel and had dropped their bags off in their room, although Jean had had little appetite. She’d given most of her meal to Tayte, and she’d spent the remainder of their short time in the hotel restaurant pushing the rest of her food around her plate, clearly deep in thought. Tayte had supposed she was going over what had happened, trying to decide whether she wanted to go on or go home.

  They found a table in the hotel’s Metropolis cocktail bar and lounge and sat down with two large glasses of Jack Daniel’s on ice.

  ‘Cheers,’ Tayte said, and they both took a big sip. ‘Welcome to Munich,’ he added with more than a hint of sarcasm.

  Jean settled back in her seat. ‘At least we learned something after we left Johann Langner at the hospital.’

  ‘We did?’

  Jean nodded. ‘His old wartime friend, Volker Strobel, must still be alive. Why else would Die Freunde der Waffen-SS Kriegsveteranen send a gang of neo-Nazi thugs to warn us off?’

  ‘Hey, that’s not a bad accent you’ve picked up there. Spoken like a true local.’

  Jean laughed into her drink. ‘How would you know? You’ve hardly looked at my “Teach Yourself German” app.’

  ‘Ja, das ist true,’ Tayte said with a grin. He heaved a sigh. ‘So what are we going to do?’

  ‘What do you usually do? This isn’t the first time someone’s tried to warn you off an assignment.’

  ‘That’s also true, but I’m a stubborn fool and things are a little different now.’

  Jean sat up. ‘I knew you’d say that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That because I’m here, working on your assignment with you, things are different—that you have me to look out for now, as well as yourself and you’re not comfortable with that.’