Johann frowned, wondering how Volker could be so sure.
‘There was an adjutant here at Dachau before the war called Max Koegel,’ Volker began. ‘He became a good friend of my father’s, and in turn of mine. When the war began, he was commandant of the concentration camp at Lichtenburg, and then at Ravensbrück. Currently, he’s the commandant of Flossenbürg.’ Volker paused and smiled at Johann. ‘Now you begin to see where my story is going, eh?’
Johann felt his muscles tighten again. He already knew what Volker had arranged for the Bauer family, but he sensed he was about to learn something that Ava’s mother had not told him.
‘I’m telling you this,’ Volker continued, ‘because it’s important for you to understand just how easy it was for me to incarcerate the Bauer family at Flossenbürg. And how easy it was for me to arrange special treatment for them if I so chose.’
‘What kind of special treatment?’
Volker looked very pleased with himself now. ‘Well, since you ask, let me tell you. The first time Ava refused me, I had her father shot.’
Johann’s breath began to quicken. His hand tightened around the grip of his pistol, but he kept it at his side.
‘The second time Ava refused me,’ Volker said. ‘The very last time she turned me away …’ He paused, as though teasing Johann. He gave a sigh. ‘I told you there was no good in me, Johann.’
‘What did you do?’ Johann asked through gritted teeth. A part of him did not want to hear the answer, yet he was compelled to know. ‘Tell me!’
Volker sat forward again. ‘The main camp at Flossenbürg is split into male and female sections,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you already knew that. Well, as a special treat for those prisoners who performed certain camp duties, a selection of the prettier looking women were sent into the male camp to satisfy their sexual needs.’
‘Stop!’
‘No, Johann. You have to stop me, remember?’
Johann put his hands to his temples and tried to knock the images Volker had put there from his head.
‘The second time Ava refused me,’ Volker repeated, louder now, ‘I had her placed into this ring of whores, to be abused by so many filthy, sexually deprived men, over and over again until their animal desires were satisfied.’
‘She was pregnant!’ Johann seethed. He had tears in his eyes, and his muscles were bound so tightly now that his whole body began to shake. He aimed his pistol again.
‘Yes, even while she was pregnant with your son,’ Volker said. ‘But then I’m sure that only added to the entertainment. Still, at least I got my ring back. It wasn’t really my grandmother’s, you know. I took it from an old Jewish woman who had no further need of it.’
When Volker punctuated his words with a satisfied grin, Johann could take no more. But instead of pulling the trigger, he hurled the gun at Volker.
‘Shooting you would be too easy!’ he said, and before the gun had clattered to the floor, he hit Volker hard in the face. He heard bone crack and he hit him again. He pulled Volker from the chair and threw him to the floor where he pinned him down with his knees and rained blow after blow down onto him until his face was a blood-red mask. Images flashed through Johann’s mind of the first time he had met Volker. He was back in that corridor at the Hitler Youth training academy. Back then it had been the bully, Günther, who had rained punches down on Volker’s face. Now it was Johann. Volker wanted Johann to kill him, and now Johann would do so gladly.
Volker offered no fight. Just as Günther had beaten him that day in the Hitler Youth, Johann now continued to beat him. He beat him until his arms felt too heavy to continue, and when at last he could not find the strength to throw another punch, he stopped. He looked down at the lifeless body beneath him, to the man he had just killed, and he could now barely recognise him as the friend he used to know. He rolled off Volker’s body, his hands dripping with blood, and he lay silent and still for several minutes, until gradually his rage subsided and his strength returned.
At length Johann got to his feet, weary and exhausted. His only thought was that he had to leave Dachau and return to his son, but as he reached the door he heard a cough behind him and he stopped. He wondered how Volker could still be alive, yet he knew as he turned to face him that he was. In his hand, Volker was holding Johann’s Luger.
‘I lied to you, Johann,’ Volker said, garbling his words as he wiped his own sticky blood from his jaw. ‘I would not have allowed Ava to be violated. I worshipped her, don’t you understand? I wanted you to shoot me for what I did to her, but you let me down, my friend.’
With that, Volker aimed the pistol at Johann’s head, pulled the trigger twice, and watched him slump to the floor.
Chapter Forty-Three
Present day.
At hearing what the old man in the wheelchair opposite him had just said, Jefferson Tayte felt the colour drain from his cheeks. He felt suddenly light-headed and nauseous, not least because he knew his life was in danger. He wanted to run for the door, but confusion and a degree of curiosity rooted him to the spot.
He swallowed hard and said, ‘You’re Volker Strobel?’
The old man nodded gravely. ‘Yes, I’m Strobel. I’m Der Dämon von Dachau. And so you see, the second terrible thing I had to do, as a result of being responsible for the death of Ava Bauer and her family, was to kill my best friend. Now, as I warned you, I’m afraid it’s too late for you to reject who you are.’
‘I’m Johann’s grandson,’ Tayte said, almost to himself, still shell-shocked by the revelation that this man sitting before him had killed the real Johann Langner and hidden behind his name all these years. It pained Tayte to think that his grandfather had as good as survived the war, only to be killed by his best friend.
‘So it would appear,’ Strobel said. ‘I know Johann’s son, Karl, also had a child. From what you’ve told me I imagine that was you. But now we come to the consequences of who you are.’
With that, Ingrid Keller, who had been standing behind Strobel’s wheelchair as he finished telling Tayte his story, produced a handgun and pointed it at Tayte. A moment later the door to the drawing room opened again and Max Fleischer entered, grinning from ear to ear. His gun was already drawn and now it too was trained on Tayte.
At seeing Fleischer, Tayte said to Strobel, ‘So The Friends of the Waffen-SS War Veterans have been protecting you?’
Strobel laughed. ‘The FWK don’t know who I am. Max here has dealings with them, but he works for me. I knew his grandfather during the war.’
‘Then the FWK had nothing to do with this?’
Strobel shook his head. ‘I sent Max after you and your friend as soon as you left the hospital when you first came to see me. I arranged your friend’s car accident, and prior to that I set you up for murder. We knew who the Kaufmann’s insider was. By having Max kill him we were doing the FWK a favour, not that we could ever tell anyone. But you just wouldn’t give up.’
‘I see,’ Tayte said.
‘Do you? Do you really see?’
Volker Strobel removed his barber’s gown in a flourish. Beneath it was not a smart business suit as Tayte had expected the old man would be wearing for his anniversary, but the uniform of a Nazi officer of the SS-Totenkopfverbände, replete with its Death’s Head Unit skull insignia on the right collar tab.
It was suddenly clear to Tayte what kind of anniversary Strobel was being prepared for. An overwhelming flood of questions raced through his mind as he wondered how Strobel had managed to pull this change of identity off. Right now, though, he had other things to worry about. He had unwittingly walked straight into the lion’s den with little to no hope it seemed of getting out alive. He thought about Jean, and he realised she would have no idea where he was. He hadn’t even told Jan Statham at the record office where he was going. He’d been so caught up in the chase that he hadn’t given it a thought, or felt the need to. As far as he knew he was visiting with Johann Langner, whom he had rightly believed was his grandfather.
Keller put her gun away and wheeled Strobel closer. She left the two of them facing one another and was replaced by Christoph, whom Tayte had not seen enter. He was still aware of Fleischer to the side of him though—still aware that the man had his gun pointed at him. For now at least Tayte understood that he was at Strobel’s whim.
Strobel sighed so heavily that Tayte could smell his decaying breath. ‘I had long since thought this business was over,’ Strobel said. ‘But here you are. When you came to my gates and said you knew about Karl Schröder, I had to find out what you knew, and I quickly realised you knew very little. You should have taken the opportunity to walk away when it was offered to you, but you’re so persistent, aren’t you, Mr Tayte? Now I expect you’d like some answers for all the trouble you’ve gone to?’
‘What does it matter if you’re going to kill me?’
Strobel raised his eyebrows, as if shocked by the idea. ‘Who said I was going to kill you, Mr Tayte? On the contrary, I’d like you to do something for me, in return for which I’ll give you all the answers you could wish for, and your freedom.’
‘And what if I won’t do what you ask?’
That seemed to amuse Langner. ‘Oh, I’m sure you will, but if you truly can’t then of course I’ll have to kill you. The choice will be yours to make.’
Tayte was understandably sceptical. ‘My choice? Really? So what is it you want me to do?’
‘That’s the spirit,’ Strobel said. ‘But first I’m going to finish my story. Don’t you want to know what happened after I killed your grandfather?’
Tayte just gritted his teeth, supposing it didn’t matter whether he wanted to know or not. He was going to hear the rest of the story anyway.’
‘Afterwards,’ Strobel continued, ‘I’m going to tell you about the time a young couple came to see me, much as you and your lady friend came to see me a few days ago. Their names were Karl and …’ He trailed off. ‘Now what was his wife called?’
Tayte wasn’t about to remind Strobel of his mother’s name, but it didn’t take long for the old man to recall it.
‘Sarah!’ he said as the name came to him. ‘That was it—Karl and Sarah. It was in 1963, when I opened my education centre. You remember, don’t you? I’m sure you want to hear more about that.’
Tayte felt suddenly claustrophobic, as if the walls and ceiling were closing in around him. Knowing that his parents had unwittingly had anything to do with Volker Strobel made him fear what the old man was going to tell him.
‘But, all in good time,’ Strobel said. ‘I’m running late.’
Tayte’s stare was fixed on Strobel. Right there and then he wanted to reach out and wring the rest of the story from his scrawny old neck, but even if he could have been so brave, or foolish under the circumstances, the opportunity was quickly denied him. He saw Strobel nod his head briefly, not at Tayte, but past him. Then Tayte felt Ingrid Keller’s cool hand press down on one side of his neck as a needle was thrust deep into his skin on the other. He winced, then his head rolled back and he saw Keller grinning down at him, right before he blacked out.
Chapter Forty-Four
Tayte had no idea how long he’d been unconscious. When he awoke he initially thought he was going to be sick, which he put down to whatever drug had been pumped into him. As the feeling passed and he opened his eyes, he found he still couldn’t see anything. Wherever he was, he was in total darkness, although he quickly realised he was no longer in Volker Strobel’s drawing room. The air was much cooler here and there was a dampness to it he could smell, as though he were in a basement somewhere. He was still seated, but when he tried to stand up he found himself unable to. He had been bound to something that rattled when he rocked back and forth in an attempt to free himself, although he was surprised to find that there was no gag at his mouth. He was about to shout for help when he heard a familiar tune. It was the show tune he’d set up as a ringtone on his phone. He snapped his head towards the sound and saw his phone glowing in the darkness as the call came in.
Jean …
Tayte struggled with his bonds again, but it served no purpose. He couldn’t break free. A moment later he heard another sound and he froze. There were footsteps in the distance, growing louder. A few seconds later the room was flooded with light to such an extent that Tayte had to shut his eyes again and turn away from the door that had just opened in front of him.
‘So, you’re awake. It’s about time, sleepyhead.’
It was Max Fleischer. Tayte was getting tired of hearing his accented English tones. Fleischer was also now dressed as a member of the SS-Totenkopfverbände, and Tayte supposed he must have walked in on Strobel’s preparations for a neo-Nazi gathering of some kind.
Fleischer strode over to Tayte’s phone and picked it up. He looked to see who was calling. ‘It’s your lady friend,’ he said. He laughed. ‘Don’t worry. If you don’t make it through this, I promise I’ll take care of her for you.’ With that, Fleischer opened the back of the phone and popped the battery out. ‘We can’t be too careful, can we?’
Make it through this? Tayte thought. Through what?
As Tayte’s eyes adjusted to the light, he saw that he was strapped to an old wheelchair. He was in a small stone room that had been stripped of everything it had once contained, apart from the bright strip light above him and a crate of some kind, upon which his few personal effects had been set out. He heard more footsteps then and his attention was drawn back to the door as another wheelchair was pushed into the room. It was being guided by the taciturn Ingrid Keller, who Tayte now knew was not Johann Langner’s daughter, but Volker Strobel’s. Trudi Strobel’s story about Johann coming to her after he was released from prison was a blatant lie. It had been Volker Strobel, returning to his wife, whom Tayte now imagined he had been seeing in secret all these years.
‘Ah, Mr Tayte,’ Strobel said. ‘I’m afraid you missed my ceremony. I was being honoured for my former services to the Führer and the Fatherland, and for the past fifty years to the Fourth Reich.’
‘What time is it?’ Tayte asked, sounding a little groggy from the drugs. He was no longer wearing his watch, which he supposed was on the crate with the rest of his things.
‘It doesn’t matter what time it is,’ Strobel said. ‘The only thing that matters now is whether or not you want to get out of here. Do you want to get out of here, Mr Tayte? Go back to your sweetheart and fly home, eh?’
That sounded good to Tayte, but after all he’d seen and heard, whatever Strobel promised him, he knew it wasn’t going to happen. Even so, he had little choice but to play along for now. ‘Yes, I’d like that very much.’
‘Good! That’s a very good start indeed. Now, you remember I said I wanted you to help me?’
Tayte nodded.
‘Well, as I said, do this one thing for me and then you can go. But I don’t want to do it in here.’
Strobel nodded to Fleischer. ‘Bring him, Max.’
With that, Fleischer took hold of the wheelchair Tayte was strapped to and they followed Strobel and Keller out of the room. They were soon in a corridor that led along a stone-walled passage where Tayte saw exposed pipework, confirming his belief that he was in a basement somewhere. At the end of the corridor a procession of Nazi flags adorned the walls, lit by more of that overly bright and harsh strip lighting. They came to a door on which was hung a framed photograph of Volker Strobel as a young SS officer, shaking hands with a man Tayte recognised as Heinrich Himmler. Strobel must have noticed Tayte staring at the photograph as they waited for Keller to unlock the door.
‘It was taken on one of Himmler’s visits to the camp at Dachau,’ Strobel said. ‘I remember that his daughter, Gudrun, was with him.’
‘Really?’ Tayte said, sounding uninterested.
‘Oh, come now, Mr Tayte. Your grandfather was a Nazi. It’s in your blood, too.’
Tayte had feared as much since he’d first heard that his parents had gone to see the Kaufmanns in connection w
ith Volker Strobel, looking for connections to Karl’s father.
You can’t choose your ancestors, JT, he reminded himself, although he imagined there had been all kinds of Nazis and he was sure they were not all like Volker Strobel. From what he’d heard about Johann Langner, Tayte liked to think he was perhaps a good man at heart, and under different circumstances who knows how his life would have turned out. But these were feelings Tayte would come to terms with in his own time, if he had any time left.
The door was wedged open and one after the other, Strobel and then Tayte were wheeled through into another room. Tayte was no longer surprised by what he saw. He was in a shrine of sorts, that much was apparent as soon as his eyes fell on the larger than life portrait of Adolf Hitler, which was lit up on the far wall. A single candle glowed before it as a remembrance offering. Tayte noticed then that there were portraits of other key Nazi Party officials lit up all around the room, which were interspersed with fine art paintings and golden symbols of the Third Reich. The ceiling was adorned with a large Nazi banner, the central swastika hanging directly over a polished brass swastika set into the stone floor beneath it.
‘These are the paintings I’m forced to keep in my private collection,’ Strobel said, waving a hand around the room. ‘Of course, I used some of them to help get my business started, and as an act of goodwill I repatriated a few with the families of their former owners. It put me in good stead with the community as my business grew.’
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