1503954692

by Steve Robinson

  ‘Sorry, it just makes me so mad. These people are clearly prepared to do whatever it takes to stop us looking into Strobel.’

  ‘They must think we’re a very real threat then,’ Jean said. ‘Strobel has successfully managed to evade the authorities for decades, so why does he think we have any chance of finding him?’

  ‘It must have something to do with our research—the connection to my parents perhaps. Supposing for now that Karl is my father—’

  ‘Which he probably is,’ Jean cut in.

  ‘Yes, which he probably is. Well, I’ve been thinking that my parents might also have become a threat to Strobel, maybe as a result of looking for Karl’s father, my grandfather, who we’re now looking for. If that does turn out to be Volker Strobel, then I can see why they’re prepared to go to any length to stop us.’ Tayte paused, thinking about the decision he’d made to give it all up and go home. He looked into Jean’s eyes, which were bloodshot from the head injury she’d received and the concussion he’d been told had followed as a result. ‘I shouldn’t have let you get involved in this, Jean. I knew it could be dangerous.’

  Jean smiled at him, although Tayte could see that it hurt her to do so. ‘What, and miss the opportunity of spending a romantic week in Munich with you?’

  Tayte laughed. ‘Did they say how long you have to stay in here? I’ve decided we should quit this, while we still can. I was going to suggest we catch the next available flight back to London, but I guess that can’t happen just yet.’

  Jean frowned. ‘You mean we’re running off home with our tails between our legs?’

  ‘Yeah, something like that.’

  ‘Do I get a say in the matter?’

  Tayte ran his eyes over the hospital bed and back to the bandaging wrapped around Jean’s head, considering that her ‘accident’ could have been a whole lot worse. He shook his head. ‘No, I think this has to be my call, and I’ve already made it.’

  ‘Well, we can’t go today,’ Jean said. ‘The doctor told me he wanted to keep me in overnight because of the concussion. I’m a little bruised, but nothing’s broken.’ She flicked at her neck brace. ‘This thing’s just a whiplash precaution. I’m sure it can come off soon. The car’s airbags really saved me from anything worse.’

  ‘So we’ll leave as soon as you’re able to travel.’

  ‘What will you do in the meantime? You can’t sit here and hold my hand all day.’

  ‘Are you sure? Is there a rule against it? Because right now I don’t want to leave your side.’

  ‘That’s very touching, JT, but I’m sure I’ll be fine in here. It’s you I’m worried about. Knowing I’m safely tucked up in bed, I know you’re going to keep digging all the while you’re in Munich. Where are you going next?’

  Tayte thought Jean clearly knew that part of him all too well. ‘That depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On what you found out about Trudi Strobel née Scheffler last night.’

  ‘You see, you really can’t help yourself. Now I’m not sure I should tell you.’

  ‘I’ll be super careful,’ Tayte said. ‘And it’s not like we can send a message to whoever’s out to get us that we give up. All the while we’re in Munich they’re going to assume we’re still digging—or at least that I am. And you’re right, what else am I going to do?’

  ‘I expect they’ll know you’re still digging for sure if you follow up on what I found last night.’

  Tayte grinned. ‘Stop teasing. Now I really want to know.’

  ‘Okay then,’ Jean said. ‘After you left last night, I kept looking for information on Strobel and Scheffler. I knew I had a few hours to kill and I’d already planned on staying up until you returned. Well, we’d pretty much exhausted everything we could hope to find online about Volker Strobel, so I focused on Trudi. I found a reference to another marriage, but this time Trudi Strobel was only a guest. It was a high-society affair in 1993, well documented online, having made several newspaper social columns and medical journals.’

  ‘Medical journals?’ Tayte said, furrowing his brow.

  ‘Yes, the groom was a prominent cardiologist.’

  Tayte looked even more confused. ‘I can’t imagine where this is going.’

  ‘Well, be quiet and I’ll tell you. It was the bride I was interested in, and my jaw literally dropped when I saw who it was.’ She paused. ‘Could you pass me that glass of water,’ she added, pointing to a tray that was just out of reach beside her bed.

  Knowing full well that she was teasing him again, Tayte handed her the glass of water with a sigh. He took it back from her once she’d finished with it and impatiently asked, ‘Who? Who was the bride?’

  ‘The bride’s name was Ingrid. In the absence of her father, her mother, Trudi Strobel, gave her away. The groom’s name was Dr Keller.’

  ‘Ingrid Keller?’ Tayte said.

  Jean nodded, smiling.

  ‘Johann Langner’s nurse, Ingrid Keller?’

  ‘The very same.’

  ‘Wow,’ Tayte said, already considering the implications. ‘So, Johann Langner’s personal nurse is his former best friend’s wife’s daughter.’

  ‘It can’t be by chance, can it?’

  No, it can’t,’ Tayte agreed. ‘So there was no father-of-the-bride present at the wedding?’

  ‘No. And I thought at first that made sense. If her father was Volker Strobel, he’d obviously want to keep his name off Ingrid’s birth certificate. Then again, if Strobel was her father, given that Langner’s and Strobel’s friendship ended badly during the war, why would Langner want to have anything to do with Ingrid, let alone employ her as his personal nurse? On top of that, Langner did seem very fond of her when we went to see him, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he did,’ Tayte said. ‘So you think the old man could be Ingrid’s father? That Langner had an affair with Trudi?’

  ‘It’s a possibility. It would explain this otherwise highly unlikely arrangement between nurse and patient.’

  ‘And having a leading cardiologist in the family could certainly have its benefits for someone in Johann Langner’s condition, too.’

  They fell quiet for a while as Tayte thought it through. It was a great find, but what to make of it? By itself he couldn’t see how it brought him any closer to finding the answers he was ultimately looking for, but it occurred to him that it might open a door that had previously been closed to him.

  ‘I’m going to try to see Trudi Strobel again,’ he said. ‘I think when she hears this, she’ll agree to talk. She clearly doesn’t want this connection to be made public knowledge. I’ll tell her I know that Johann Langner is Ingrid Keller’s father.’

  ‘But we don’t know that for sure.’

  ‘I know, but Trudi Strobel doesn’t know that. I’ll tell her I’ll keep a lid on it if she’ll agree to an interview. If there’s any truth to it, I can’t see how she can refuse. If she does refuse, then at least we’ll know we’re probably barking up the wrong tree.’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Tayte stayed with Jean at the hospital for as long as he was able to. When she was taken to radiology for a CAT scan he kissed her goodbye, called the car hire company to explain everything, and then took a taxi to the city centre. Along the way he called Tobias Kaufmann.

  ‘Mr Kaufmann, it’s Jefferson Tayte,’ he said as soon as Kaufmann answered. ‘I’m coming to see you. I have a few things to do first, but I shouldn’t be long.’

  ‘Have you found something?’ Kaufmann asked, a note of excitement in his voice.

  ‘Possibly. I have some information about Trudi Strobel I’m sure you’ll be interested in.’

  ‘Trudi Strobel? I can’t wait to hear it. And I have some news for you, too. I’ll tell you when you get here.’

  ‘Great. I’ll see you soon.’

  When Tayte ended the call, he sat forward in his seat, and to the taxi driver he said, ‘Can you take me to a florist?’

  To anyone following him, T
ayte figured it would appear as though he were simply buying flowers for Jean. He was, but he had another motive. The taxi dropped him close to Marienplatz and once inside the florist he purposefully took his time over the bouquet selection, watching the street through the window for signs of anyone lingering outside, waiting for him to leave again. He wasn’t taking any chances now. He had little doubt that someone had to be following him. He thought the FWK would want to make sure he’d got the message at last and was going home, and he wanted to give them every indication that he had. Once he felt he’d done enough to convince them, he needed to disappear before going to see Tobias Kaufmann, which he didn’t think would be a problem amidst Munich’s busy city streets.

  It was late morning by the time Tayte left the florists, his flowers in one hand and his briefcase in the other. He headed across Marienplatz towards the highly ornate Old Town Hall—a fourteenth-century neo-Gothic hall and clock tower, where on 9 November 1938 Joseph Goebbels had delivered his speech as a prelude to Kristallnacht. Tayte paused in the middle of the plaza, in plain view of anyone following him, and took out his phone. Now that he had his flowers for Jean, he was calling the airport to see if he could get a flight home. At least, that’s how he hoped it would appear to anyone nearby.

  Instead, he pulled up the number for the German Heart Centre. He wanted to see how Johann Langner was, and to ask if he could see him again to continue his wartime story. Before he pressed the call button, he put on a loud, touristy voice, and said, ‘Yes, hello. Munich Airport reservations?’ A moment later he pretended the connection was bad, facilitating the need for him to shout his next line. ‘Could you please check availability on flights to London, England.’

  Tayte pressed the call button then and continued walking again. When his call was answered he lowered his voice and said, ‘Hi, I’d like to enquire about a patient called Johann Langner. I wonder if you can tell me how he is. Or better still, is it possible to speak to him?’

  ‘Your name, please.’

  ‘Jefferson Tayte.’

  ‘One moment, please.’

  Tayte waited, walking slowly, his eyes scanning the plaza to see if anyone was looking at him. He saw that several people were, which he supposed was because of the shouting. They probably thought he was a madman.

  The receptionist came back on the line. ‘I can put you through to Herr Langner’s personal nurse,’ she said. ‘Please hold.’

  The call only took a few seconds to transfer. When it did, Tayte heard the almost offensively direct and harsh tones of Ingrid Keller, whom he now saw in a somewhat different light following Jean’s discovery. There was no introduction.

  ‘Herr Langner is very ill, Mr Tayte. You must leave him to rest.’

  ‘I just wanted to ask whether he was feeling any better.’

  ‘So you can come back and make him worse again?’

  Tayte didn’t quite know what to say to that. Keller made him feel instantly uncomfortable. ‘I just wanted to …’

  Tayte trailed off, aware that the volume of his voice had risen again, and that he wasn’t going to get anywhere talking to Ingrid Keller. He could see why Langner’s son, Rudi, let her get on with things, and why they communicated with one another about the state of his father’s health via text messages.

  ‘I’m sorry to have troubled you,’ he added, and then he ended the call thinking that if Johann Langner was Keller’s father, then her protectiveness, not only as his nurse, but also as his daughter, was perhaps understandable. Although he didn’t see why she had to be so rude about it.

  He put his phone away and picked up his step as he went back to his subterfuge. Now he was looking for a gift shop or a travel accessory shop, further adding to the idea that he would soon be leaving Munich and perhaps wanted to buy a few souvenirs to take home, or maybe an inflatable neck cushion for the flight. He found a gift shop partway towards the Old Town Hall and he paused outside to peruse the postcards before going in, making sure that whoever was following him saw that he was simply killing time while he waited for Jean to get the all clear from the hospital. It was a small shop, like a pop-up shop that had been filled with low-quality touristy items. Once inside, he continued to browse the bags and T-shirts, the pens, key-rings, and confectionary, much of which bore the words ‘I love München.’

  As before, Tayte kept an eye on the door and the street outside, looking for anyone who seemed familiar to him, or who appeared to be paying him too much attention. He recognised no one and no one seemed to be watching him. These people are good, though, he reminded himself, knowing that he and Jean had been followed since leaving the offices of the FWK earlier that week. Tayte supposed he wouldn’t know that these people were there unless they wanted him to, so after a few minutes he left the gift shop, heading back across the plaza for what appeared to be a market of some kind. It was busier there, which suited his purpose. When he reached the first stall he saw that it was a daily food market called the Viktualienmarkt, which occupied a large square in the centre of the city.

  Tayte quickened his pace as he ventured further between the stalls, often having to slow down again as the shoppers and browsers thickened around him. He took his jacket off to change his appearance, in case his followers had become accustomed to looking out for his bright tan suit jacket. A white shirt was no less conspicuous perhaps, but it was a different look and he thought it might help. He turned around one stall and another, not stopping until he felt lost himself. Then he walked out of the market with his knees bent and his shoulders stooped to keep his head down, taking the nearest side-street he came to. When he felt sure he was in the clear, he began to run, fuelled by a sudden rush of adrenaline as a cat-and-mouse sense of danger kicked in.

  Tayte found a taxi soon after leaving the pedestrianised Marienplatz area. He checked the street map on his phone and asked the taxi driver to drop him off a few blocks from his intended destination, just in case he’d underestimated his opponents’ resourcefulness. If the address of Kaufmann und Kaufmann was known to the FWK, which Tayte fully imagined it was, then Tobias Kaufmann’s door was the last door he wanted them to see him knocking on.

  He thought Tobias looked tired and more than a little distressed as he greeted him. His eyes were red and his beard was knotted, as though he’d been pulling at it all night and half the morning. If Tayte was right about who the man that had just been murdered was, Tobias Kaufmann had every reason to be distressed.

  ‘Come in, quickly!’ Kaufmann said. He was looking past Tayte and his bunch of flowers as he spoke, looking out into the street, which had been quiet when Tayte arrived. ‘I hope you weren’t followed.’

  ‘I don’t believe so,’ Tayte said.

  ‘Good, good. Well come on up.’

  Tayte followed Kaufmann up to his offices and through to the same back-office area he and Jean had visited before—to the Strobel room, as Kaufmann had called it. There was no sign of Herr Kaufmann senior on this occasion.

  ‘The police contacted me this morning,’ Kaufmann said as they sat down.

  ‘I know,’ Tayte said. Then he told him about the text message he’d received the night before and how it had been the catalyst to a series of events that saw him being arrested for murder. ‘It was a set up, of course,’ he added. ‘I believed the message I received must have been either from you or your insider at the FWK, which was clearly what I was supposed to believe. When I saw the dead body lying at my feet, I realised what was going on. I told the police I thought you might know something about who their murder victim was.’

  Kaufmann drew a sharp breath. ‘He was our insider, yes. He was also the son of a good friend of mine.’

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear that. I had no idea.’

  ‘No, of course you didn’t. I suspect now that this whole story about Strobel coming to Munich was just a ruse to draw him out. I fear that his is yet another life to chalk up to the Strobel death toll. I sincerely hope it will be the last, but of course we’re no closer to finding h
im.’

  ‘My partner, Jean Summer, found an interesting piece of information last night,’ Tayte said. ‘Right now I don’t know if it means anything, but—’

  ‘I’d be glad to hear it,’ Kaufmann cut in, clearly eager to listen to any new leads.

  ‘Well, I can’t prove anything just yet,’ Tayte said, ‘but I believe that Trudi Strobel’s daughter is Johann Langner’s personal nurse, Ingrid Keller.’

  ‘I see,’ Kaufmann said, raising his eyebrows. ‘We know a little about Trudi Strobel, of course. Although she’s never given any statements about her husband. She consistently refuses to talk to anyone about him. One thing that’s always struck me as odd is where her apparent wealth comes from. She’s set up very nicely, and yet she was left close to penniless after the war.’

  ‘Yes, I read about that,’ Tayte said. ‘The Strobel fortunes were seized and her family disowned her, cutting her off from any inheritance. Although there’s been plenty of time to make a little money between then and now.’

  ‘Well, that’s just the thing. Trudi never remarried, and we know from various records that she’s neither worked nor owned a business. There’s a lot of speculation suggesting she gets her money from Volker Strobel, for her silence perhaps, but nothing has ever been proven.’

  Another possibility occurred to Tayte. ‘Or the money could be coming from Johann Langner,’ he said. ‘We know Langner is a very wealthy man, and I believe there’s a strong possibility that Langner is Ingrid Keller’s father. What if he’s been paying her child maintenance, off the record?’

  ‘Hmm …’ Kaufmann mused. ‘An affair between Trudi Strobel and her husband’s former best friend?’

  ‘It fits well enough,’ Tayte said, ‘and I can’t see how else Keller came to be Langner’s personal nurse. I’d put Ingrid Keller in her mid-fifties, so she was born around 1960. Langner served ten years in prison for war crimes from 1945 to 1955, so maybe he went to see Trudi soon after he was released. Whether it’s true or not, I aim to bluff it and tell Trudi Strobel I know Langner’s the father. I’m hoping neither she nor Langner will want that made public, at least enough for Trudi to agree to see me.’