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‘Yes. He brings Mama food every now and then, and Papa says he gave him a very fair price for his motorcar. I think they’ve both grown rather fond of him.’

‘He can be very charming.’

‘Yes, he can.’

‘Is that so,’ Johann said, fancying that he saw a glint in Ava’s eye as she spoke. He smiled playfully and reached an arm around her. ‘I hope he hasn’t been too charming with you,’ he added as he pulled her to the ground and began to tickle her.

‘Stop it!’ Ava started screaming with laughter. ‘Of course he’s not been charming with me.’ She screamed again. ‘Stop! You know I can’t take it!’

Johann let her go. He rolled back onto the grass and Ava lay beside him with her head on his shoulder, each gazing up at the drifting clouds, which Johann thought were one of the few constants that remained unchanged by and oblivious to the war raging beneath them.

‘I don’t suppose you’ve given much thought to where you’d like to live when the war is over,’ Ava said. ‘I’m sure my parents wouldn’t mind, but we can’t live with them forever.’

Johann didn’t care to think that far ahead. ‘With you,’ he said. ‘That’s about as far as I got. As long as it’s with you, I really don’t mind.’

‘I’ve often thought how nice it would be to live in the mountains. I know the winters would be cold but we’d keep each other warm.’

‘How would I make a living?’

Ava shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I hadn’t thought very far ahead, either. How do you want to make a living?’

The question stumped Johann. In many ways he felt as if he’d been a soldier since the day he could walk. His father and the Hitler Youth had seen to that. Soldiering was all he knew.

When he didn’t answer, Ava rolled on top of him and said, ‘Would you like children?’ With Johann having been away so much since their wedding the year before, she hadn’t raised the question before. ‘Please say you would.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Johann said, smiling. ‘And you can teach them all to play the piano.’

‘And a dog?’

‘I doubt you could teach a dog to play the piano, but you can try.’

Ava slapped him and he laughed. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and a dog if you like.’

Lowering her head onto Johann’s chest, Ava asked, ‘Do you ever think that if you imagine yourself in the future then that future will come true?’

‘What an odd question. How do you mean?’

‘Well, I’ve been picturing us living in the mountains after the war, with three children and a dog. I think if I keep imagining you there then you’ll come home to me when all this is over and we’ll be happy.’

‘I thought we were happy.’

‘How can I be truly happy when I worry about you so much? After our wedding, when you went back to your soldiering, I cried myself to sleep for weeks. I still do.’

‘I’m sorry, Ava,’ Johann said. ‘I wish it could be different. I wish this war had never begun, but then of course, we might never have met.’ He wrapped his arms around her and held her close as his lips found hers. And in that moment the war became so distant to him that he lost all concept of the fact that he had to return to his unit in just two days. When at last their kiss ended and reality caught up with him again, he added, ‘I’m going to survive this, Ava. I’ll survive it for you, you’ll see.’

‘I believe you will, Johann.’

He felt Ava’s warm breath on his neck as she spoke, and he just held her in his arms. She seemed so fragile to him—so vulnerable. His gaze returned to the clouds, and he wished with all his heart that he could be with her always, to love and protect her, and while he didn’t think it would do much good to imagine any kind of future against such cruel uncertainty, as he closed his eyes he pictured that house in the mountains Ava had spoken of, and the many children he hoped they would have once the war was over.

Chapter Twenty-One

Present day.

Sitting up on the bed in his hotel room next to Jean, having exhausted the limited research he felt they were able to conduct into Ava Bauer, Tayte put his thoughts about her aside for now, in favour of more certain odds of finding some new information useful to his search.

‘Let’s move on to Volker Strobel’s marriage to Trudi Scheffler,’ he said. ‘Without access to Ava Bauer’s vital records, we could be chasing our tails all night looking for the right person. At least Strobel’s and Scheffler’s marriage was notable enough to get a mention online. Supposing for now that Karl had come to believe Strobel was his father, for that to be true Strobel had to have fathered a child. Given that he’d married Scheffler during the war, there’s a good chance she’d be the child’s mother.’

Jean brought up one of the web pages she’d saved from previous searches. ‘There’s a bit about Strobel’s marriage to Scheffler on this website about the world’s most-wanted war criminals,’ she said as she scrolled down to the pertinent information.

Tayte edged closer to get a better look. He scoffed as he began to read. ‘That’s quite an infamous guest list,’ he said, noting the names of some of the more prominent Nazi Party members to have been invited to the Strobel family
Schloss
for the wedding.

‘I read somewhere that Heinrich Himmler was a friend of Volker Strobel’s father,’ Jean said. ‘There can’t have been many German families as well-connected as the Strobels during the war.’

‘What’s that further down?’ Tayte said, pointing to a section about Volker Strobel’s parents. ‘Suicide,’ he added.

Jean scrolled down so they could better see the details.

‘Suicide pills taken as Berlin falls,’ Tayte read aloud. ‘So, given that Volker Strobel vanished after the war, did Trudi Scheffler inherit the Strobel fortunes?’

A moment later, Jean said, ‘No. It says here that the entire estate was seized by the authorities. Trudi Scheffler was left with next to nothing.’

‘Wasn’t Scheffler’s family also well-connected? Surely the marriage of the only Strobel son and heir would have been matched in terms of status and wealth.’

‘Look here,’ Jean said, pointing to a section that wrapped up the information about Volker’s Strobel’s marriage.

‘Her family cut her off,’ Tayte said.

‘She became an embarrassment to them,’ Jean read. ‘She refused to denounce her love for Volker Strobel, and because she kept his name after the war her family wanted nothing more to do with her.’

Tayte and Jean slowly turned to face each other, and Tayte knew they were both thinking the same thing: that a love so obviously blind back then could be just as strong today. It made Tayte think that there was every chance Trudi Strobel née Scheffler knew where her husband was, and that she had perhaps been instrumental in keeping him hidden all these years. Trudi was high on Tayte’s list of people to see, but he and Jean had already tried several times to get an interview before coming to Munich, and every time she had refused to talk to them. He began to think about how they might be able to change her mind when his phone beeped and vibrated in his trouser pocket. He took it out and checked the display.

‘What is it?’ Jean asked.

Tayte read the message. It was short, but it set his pulse racing. ‘There’s an address in an area of Munich called Laim. The message says to be there at nine thirty tonight if I want answers.’

‘It’s late for a meeting. Who’s it from? The Kaufmanns?’

‘I guess so. Or maybe it’s from the insider they told us about at
The Friends of the Waffen-SS War Veterans
. Maybe he’s got some information for us.’

‘Is there a caller ID?’

‘No, but perhaps that’s understandable if it’s from Kaufmann’s insider.’

‘I saw Laim on the map,’ Jean said. ‘It’s on the other side of Munich. I can’t say I like it, but we’d better hurry if we’re going. We don’t have long to get there.’

Tayte checked his watch. ‘Not long at all,’ he said. ‘And there you are all ready for bed. If Laim’s on the other side of Munich, maybe I should go by myself while you keep digging into Scheffler. We can share information when I get back—if you’re still up.’

‘Oh, I’ll be up,’ Jean said. ‘I’ll be too worried about you to sleep. You will be careful, won’t you?’

‘Of course,’ Tayte said. He scribbled the address he’d been sent onto the hotel-room notepad and tore off the sheet. ‘Here’s where I’m going,’ he added, handing it to her.

Just in case I don’t make it back
.

He knew Jean was right to be wary. He was putting a brave face on things so as not to add to her concerns, but the real reason he wanted to go alone was that he didn’t know what he was heading into and he didn’t want to put Jean at risk, too. A big part of him wanted to stay right there with her and continue the research, but he’d be the first to admit that he was too inquisitive for his own good at times. He knew he had to go along with this, if only to find out who had sent him the message and why.

‘You’ll have to get a taxi,’ Jean said as Tayte swung his legs off the bed. ‘That nightcap in the bar will have put you over the driving limit.’

‘I feel fine,’ Tayte said, ‘but sure, I’ll phone down to reception and have them call one for me while I get my things together.’

With that, Tayte made the call, hoping that his text message really was from the Kaufmanns or their insider at the FWK. He recalled pushing his business card through the letterbox when he and Jean had visited the FWK the day before, so they also had his number. The last person he wanted to see when he arrived in Laim was Max Fleischer.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The taxi that had picked Tayte up from the Hilton Munich City hotel twenty-five minutes earlier came to a sudden halt. Looking out of his window Tayte couldn’t see how the driver had brought him to the address he’d given him. There were no buildings to be seen. Just trees and bushes, and a few street lamps lighting a railed walkway that disappeared into the distance over the bridge they had stopped before. Ten feet or so below the road ahead, he could see railway tracks, shining icy blue in the moonlight.

‘Why have we stopped?’ Tayte asked.

The driver, Tayte had quickly learned, didn’t speak much English. Although Tayte had to concede that it was far better than his German.

‘
Die Strasse ist gesperrt
,’ the driver said.

Tayte didn’t know what that meant. He thought it was something about the road. A second later the driver confirmed it.

‘Road closed,’ the driver said, slowly, as he pointed ahead through the windscreen.

In the low light Tayte couldn’t fully make out what the driver wanted him to see. He opened his door, leaned out and saw the bridge that arched over the railway tracks more fully. There was a barrier with a temporary road sign in front of it. It appeared that the bridge had been closed for repairs. Tayte checked his watch. He had less than ten minutes to reach the address he’d been given and he hoped whoever had sent him the text message asking to meet him was prepared to wait. He took out his phone and brought up the ‘maps’ app. He punched in the address and the GPS soon found him. It showed that he wasn’t far away. He saw the bridge and the road layout, which turned to the left after the bridge, running alongside the railway tracks for a short distance. The address he’d been sent was no more than a few hundred metres away.

Tayte got back into the taxi. ‘Can you wait here for me?’ he said, pointing his finger at the ground.

The confused look on the taxi driver’s face was far from promising.

‘You,’ Tayte said, now pointing at the driver as he tried to think how to say ‘wait’ in German. ‘Stay,’ he added when nothing came to him.

All he got back from the driver were several German words that this time he did recognise. The driver wanted his fare. Tayte sighed and shook his head as he handed the money over, thinking that he could call another cab to come and get him when the time came to go back. He grabbed his briefcase and got out of the car. Then he made for the walkway that led over the bridge, which was thankfully still open to pedestrians.

For a moment he thought the driver must have understood him after all because the taxi was still there as Tayte began to cross the bridge. But then he heard the car’s engine rev up and he turned back to see the taxi speed away to collect his next fare, leaving Tayte alone on the bridge, wondering what the hell he was doing there.

‘Why couldn’t they have picked a busier place, or waited until morning?’ he said to himself, knowing that if he wasn’t so desperate for answers he wouldn’t have come out at such a late hour, especially if he’d known how isolated the area was.

He took a deep breath and continued over the bridge until he reached the last of the street lamps. There were no other lights in the area as far as he could see. As he followed the road around to his left—as the map on his phone dictated—it became so dark that he had to use his phone as a torch to light his way between the trees, which now seemed to have thickened around him. He kept going and it grew so quiet that, being the great lover of Broadway shows that he was, he felt the urge to whistle a show tune to keep himself company. But he thought better of it. If he had been lured there for some nefarious reason, he didn’t want to draw attention to himself until he had to.

When at last the trees cleared, Tayte walked beside the rail tracks for a short while, and he enjoyed the openness, thinking that he’d at least be able to see anyone or anything that came at him out of the darkness. Nothing did, and after a while he began to relax. There were buildings ahead. A few had lights at their windows and that calmed him further. He checked the map again and turned to his right at a small junction in the road he’d been following. The area appeared to be some kind of industrial estate, which accounted for how quiet it was, given the hour. He saw a number on one of the buildings, which was essentially a long brick wall with an aluminium door and a few small windows higher up. At the end of the brick wall he came to a wire fence with a few spotlights at intervals along it, shining into a yard where large wooden cable drums sat here and there like rolls of hay in a farmer’s field. There was an office-like building partway along the fence and when Tayte reached it, he saw that it was the address he was looking for.