1503954692 (2 page)

They slid like this for several fast seconds, rolling in a chaotic tangle of limbs and gnashing teeth, until ahead of him he glimpsed an edge where the scree slope seemed to end abruptly, either to a further slope or perhaps a precipice. Fearing the latter, he began to grapple for purchase, trying to slow himself down. He rolled again and tried to dig the toes of his boots into the stones. He pushed himself up to further arrest his slide. It was working. One of the dogs passed him as he slowed, but he did not appear to be slowing fast enough. The edge was close, and now he could hear the scree cascading like a waterfall, crashing onto the rocks below.

He looked around, certain that he would not be able to stop himself in time. A large rock sat close to the edge, and knowing it was his only hope, he began to roll towards it, sliding fast again as he picked up speed. As he crashed into it, the pain in his chest was intense. He thought he must have broken several ribs. He cried out as he clung to the rock, watching as the dogs continued to slide towards the precipice, howling and gnashing. They whimpered as first one, and then the other slid over the edge, and moments later the dull thuds of their bodies signalled their end.

He could hardly breathe. He supposed one of his broken ribs must have punctured a lung. Slowly, he stood up, clutching his chest. The pain made him dizzy, but he knew he had to keep going. The dogs’ handlers would not be far behind. The hut was close now, the way down to it, easier—perhaps no more than a steep walk if he traversed it in stages. It would take a little longer, but with his injuries he felt it was all he could manage. If his pursuers caught up with him he knew he could no longer outrun or outclimb them.

He chose his path carefully and was soon there. Beside the hut was a narrow, rocky track where he saw an all-terrain vehicle, and with it his salvation. He practically collapsed at the hut’s door. It opened freely. On his hands and knees he looked up to see a man adding another log to the fire.

‘
Bitte helfen Sie mir
!’ he called, pleading for the man’s help.

As the man turned around to face him, a wry smile creasing his lips, he saw that it was the very man he had been running from. Despair sapped the last of his strength and he crashed to the floor, knowing all was lost.

Chapter One

Present day.

Pacing along a highly polished corridor at the German Heart Centre in Munich, his tan suit still creased from the flight, Jefferson Tayte glanced apprehensively at Jean, and for the umpteenth time he hoped they weren’t too late.

They had flown in from Heathrow Airport that afternoon for an appointment with a ninety-seven-year-old man called Johann Langner, and it had come as a shock to hear that he had suffered a heart attack the day before, not least because Tayte was pinning so much hope on what he believed Langner might be able to tell him.

His excitement over the meeting, and Jean Summer’s hand as she sat beside him in the window seat, had pulled Tayte through the relatively short flight, helping to overcome his fear of flying. Now his stomach was in knots for entirely different reasons.

‘And you’re sure Mr Langner still wants to see us?’ Tayte said to the grey-suited man they were following.

Tayte didn’t know his name, only that he appeared to be a chauffeur of sorts. He was tall like Tayte, but slim like Jean. He’d met them off the plane and taken their bags to the Mercedes that had been waiting for them outside the arrivals terminal, but instead of conveying them to their hotel as Tayte had expected, he’d brought them straight to the hospital. He had Tayte’s suit carrier over one arm and Jean’s backpack was slung across his shoulder.

‘Herr Langner’s instructions were quite explicit,’ the man said, with only the slightest trace of a German accent. ‘He’s sufficiently recovered and wants to see you as soon as possible.’ He slowed down as he turned to face Tayte and added, ‘While he still can.’

Tayte nodded back. He understood that at Johann Langner’s age, and in his present state of ill health, tomorrow might not be an option.

Jean almost had to jog to keep up with Tayte’s long strides. So much so that the tablet PC she’d recently bought nearly fell out of the denim jacket she was wearing over her yellow summer dress. Being a professor of history, she was no stranger to research, and since meeting up with Tayte again in London after his previous assignment, she’d spent the two weeks that followed surfing the Internet at every opportunity, having taken it upon herself to learn all she could about the man Tayte was pinning so much hope on.

‘I read in
Der Spiegel
,’ she said to the man they were following, ‘that a painting by Matisse has just been sold through Mr Langner’s gallery for a record sum.’

‘Yes, that’s correct,’ the man said. ‘And it was no small achievement on Herr Langner’s part. He started out with next to nothing, and it took several years to make what you would consider to be a proper living, but then both his business and his reputation began to grow. He even managed to reunite a few of the paintings that passed through his hands with their rightful owners after they had been stolen during the war.’

‘What keeps him going?’ Tayte asked. ‘And can I get some?’

The man gave a small laugh. ‘His son, Rudolf, has managed the business for some years now, but on this occasion Herr Langner handled the sale personally.’

‘Maybe the excitement proved too much for him.’

‘That’s quite possible. It was a lot of money.’

They stopped walking beside a door to their right. The man knocked once, opened it, and set their bags down. Inside, the room was bright, predominantly white, with splashes of pale blue on the few items of furniture and on the blinds at the window, which looked out over a communal recreational garden in full summer bloom.

The bespectacled Johann Langner was sitting up in bed, wired to the electrocardiograph machine beside him, staring at his guests through the right-hand side of his glasses; the left lens was blacked out. He raised a wavering hand, crooked with arthritis, and brushed his wispy white hair back off his brow as Tayte and Jean approached. The man they had been following made the introductions.

‘Herr Langner, this is Mr Tayte, the American genealogist, and his associate, Professor Summer.’

Langner smiled, exaggerating the facial disfigurement around his cheekbones and jawline, revealing crooked teeth that were stained brown from old age and tobacco. ‘I lost it during the war,’ Langner said, clearly noticing that Tayte was staring at the blacked-out lens. In contrast to the man who had just shown them in, his German accent was decidedly pronounced.

Tayte returned Langner’s smile. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to stare.’

‘That’s quite all right,’ Langner said. ‘Most people do the first time, and believe me, you’d stare harder if I took my glasses off.’

The notion seemed to amuse Langner. He chuckled quietly to himself, then turned to the man by the door and said, ‘You can leave us now, Christoph.’

Christoph frowned. ‘Where’s Ingrid? Perhaps I should wait with you until she returns.’

‘Ingrid is my personal nurse,’ Langner said to Tayte and Jean. ‘This is my third heart attack and Ingrid has literally saved my life every time. She should return shortly.’ Langner reached for something beside the bed. He fumbled for a moment, and then he brought a cabled switch into view. ‘I’m not so old and weak that I’m incapable of pressing this button if I need help,’ he said to Christoph. ‘Besides, I’m sure I’m in good hands.’ He smiled at his guests again.

‘Very well,’ Christoph said, ‘but I must insist on waiting outside.’

‘Yes, yes. If you must,’ Langner said. Once Christoph was out of earshot, he added, ‘He means well, but he treats me like a child.’

Tayte just smiled, and realising that he was still holding his briefcase, he put it down by the side of the bed and pulled two chairs closer so that he and Jean could sit down. As he did so, he wondered why such chair manufacturers didn’t make them wider. Maybe then he wouldn’t have to push the arms down so hard just to get up again.

‘Now, Mr Tayte,’ Langner said once they had settled. ‘I feel I must apologise to you for not being able to see you sooner.’

‘That’s perfectly understandable,’ Tayte said. ‘I’m just glad to have the opportunity now.’

Tayte had first tried to meet with Johann Langner the year before, soon after he returned home to Washington, DC from a visit to London, but every time he’d tried to contact Langner he’d been informed that his health was in too poor a state for him to see anyone. That is, until recently.

‘Very well,’ Langner said. ‘Now you mentioned in your letter that you believe I can help you to find your birth parents.’

Tayte drew a deep breath and held on to it as he thought through the implications of that simple statement. For now at least, he felt that all the failed research he had conducted into his own family history over the years really came down to this man and what he may or may not be able to tell him. When the call he’d been waiting on throughout his previous assignment had at last come in, confirming that Langner was able to see him, he’d been all the more anxious to meet the man. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out the photograph his mother had left for him when she’d abandoned him in Mexico forty years ago, when he was just a few months old.

‘As I’m sure you know,’ Tayte said. ‘I trace people’s family history for a living. I’ve been trying to trace my own, so far without success, ever since I found out I was adopted.’

‘Really?’ Langner said. ‘A genealogist who knows nothing of his own family history. How painfully ironic that must be for you.’

‘You can say that again,’ Tayte said. ‘But it keeps me going. In a way I feel it drives me to be better at what I do, in the hope that I’ll someday be good enough to find the answers I’m looking for. I was told I’d been adopted soon after my adoptive parents died in a plane crash, when I was in my teens. They left me this.’ Tayte handed the photograph to Langner. ‘I believe the woman in the picture is my birth mother. I’m trying to find her, or at least find out who she is. The photo was taken in 1963.’

Langner studied the image. ‘You seem very sure of the year. How can you be so certain?’

‘I’ll come to that in a minute, if you don’t mind,’ Tayte said. ‘Do you recognise her?’

Langner seemed to give it some thought. He took his time before answering. Then he began to shake his head. ‘No, I’m sorry.’

Tayte had been prepared for that. He didn’t expect it to be so simple. ‘But you do recognise the building she’s standing in front of.’ It wasn’t a question.

Langner brought the photograph closer to his good eye and scrutinised it.

Jean joined the conversation. ‘You bought the building from the government in 1958 after it was earmarked for demolition as part of an area regeneration project.’

Langner began to nod his head as he set the photograph down onto the bed. ‘Yes, this is one of my buildings. It’s on the outskirts of the city, not far from here. The stone lions were originally placed there as representations of strength and courage. They’re quite unmistakable.’ He smiled at Jean. ‘You’ve certainly done your research. I can see that you already know a good deal more about me than I know about you.’

The remark caused Jean to fidget in her seat. She pushed her shoulder-length brown hair back over one ear and returned an awkward smile. ‘It’s made a welcome change to the historical figures I usually find myself researching.’

Langner laughed. ‘The living over the dead, eh? It will not be long now before I am one of your historical figures myself.’ He turned to Tayte. ‘So your mother was outside one of my buildings when this picture was taken, and you’ve come all this way in the hope that I can help you to identify her?’

‘Perhaps not directly,’ Tayte said.

The months of research that had begun when he’d opened the safety deposit box his late friend and mentor, Marcus Brown, had bequeathed to him had led him here, and now he only hoped his hunch was right—he was desperate for it to be right. He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a folder, which he placed on his knees. Opening it, he withdrew a photocopy of a newspaper cutting Marcus had left for him, along with a brief letter explaining that he hadn’t told him about it before because he didn’t want Tayte to get his hopes up until he had more to go on. That’s all there was, and Tayte supposed Marcus must have made the discovery close to his death or there would have been more. However little, Tayte believed it was enough.

‘I’m sure you remember the day this picture was taken for the local newspaper, the
Abendzeitung
,’ he said, handing it to Langner.

Langner took the photocopy. It showed two images of the same neo-classical building. One was clearly more recent than the other and had been taken when the newspaper article was printed in 1963. The other was from an unforgettable time in world history. Both images showed a wide three-storey building, with what Tayte considered to be an oppressive central portico, whose towering concrete pillars reached almost to the full height of the structure. In the centre were the two stone lions, exactly as they appeared in the photograph Tayte had of his mother.

The letters above the main doorway were obscured in the photograph, showing only part of the words spelled out above it: ‘nd E’. With only the limited elements of the photograph to go on, Tayte had come to think of the building as a hotel somewhere, and he’d spent many hours trying to work out possible names for it—the Grand Excelsior perhaps. He’d spent a great many more hours researching those hotels whose names fitted, but he’d found nothing that matched. And it was no wonder, because he now knew he’d been looking in the wrong places. The words above the main entrance weren’t even English, they were German: ‘
Blut und Ehre
’—‘Blood and Honour’.

Tayte heard Langner say something then, but it was spoken too softly to make out. ‘I’m sorry, what was that?’

‘
Hitlerjugend
,’ Langner repeated, gazing now at the newspaper copy as though the older image, with its tall Nazi Party flags adorning the pillars, had stirred old memories within him. ‘
Blut und Ehre
was the motto of the Hitler Youth. The building was established for promising young boys from all over Germany.’ He shook his head. ‘I wanted to do something good with that place, although many of Munich’s people at the time would sooner have seen it destroyed. I believed it was important to preserve it.’ He paused. ‘What’s that British phrase I’m looking for? Ah, yes . . . Lest we forget.’