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Johann felt his whole body tighten. Then he saw him and his heart began to pound in his chest as the rage he had felt earlier that day, at hearing what this man had done, burned once more inside him. There at last was Volker Strobel. Johann watched him stride up to the house in his immaculate uniform. He reached to unlock the door and by then Johann was already on his feet. As the door opened, he drew his Luger from its holster, and as Volker entered the house and switched on the hall light, Johann burst in after him, knocking him to the floor at the foot of the staircase. He kicked the door shut behind him.

‘What did you do?’ he seethed.

His head was shaking with rage and disbelief, even now, at the idea that anyone could imprison someone in a concentration camp simply because they had chosen to love someone else. He aimed his pistol at Volker’s head and stepped closer. He had always had a steady aim, but now his whole arm seemed to shake as he extended it.

‘Johann,’ Volker began, but Johann silenced him.

‘Get up!’

Volker got to his feet.

‘In there,’ Johann ordered, flicking his pistol towards the door on his left.

‘You know if you shoot me the guards will come?’ Volker said.

‘Do you think I care? My parents are dead, and now, because of you, I have no one to live for.’

‘What about your son?’

Johann didn’t answer. He grabbed Volker by the collar and spun him around. He took Volker’s pistol and slipped it into his pocket. Then he shoved him towards the door.

‘Get in there!’ he said again.

Chapter Forty-One

Present day.

Another interruption at the drawing room door caused Johann Langner to pause his wartime account of how he had dealt with Volker Strobel for the terrible things he had done to Ava Bauer and her parents. Tayte followed Langner’s gaze as the old man was snatched back from his memories, to see Christoph enter the room.

‘Excuse me, Herr Langner, but your car is almost ready. We should leave soon.’

The announcement, although it had not fazed the seemingly imperturbable Ingrid Keller, who had now moved on to shining Langner’s shoes, seemed to surprise Johann Langner.

‘Thank you, Christoph,’ he said. To Tayte he added, ‘The time goes by so quickly, don’t you think? Even at my age, the long life I’ve led now seems little more than a blur to me. I’m afraid we don’t have very long to finish my story.’

‘Is there long enough?’ Tayte asked, hope evident in his tone. He really did not want Langner to leave his account there. It wasn’t a story Tayte felt could keep for another day, especially as he and Jean were booked on a flight back to London that evening.

‘Oh, I think we might have just enough time,’ Langner said. ‘Now where were we?’

Tayte sat forward. ‘You’d gone into the concentration camp at Dachau, looking for Strobel,’ he said. ‘You found him and forced him into his own accommodation at gunpoint. I’m keen to know what happened next.’

‘Ah, yes,’ Langner said. He nodded to himself, as though recalling the details that followed.

Tayte thought he was about to continue, but instead, he paused and fixed his eye on him.

‘Are you absolutely sure you want to know what happened next?’

Tayte scrunched his brow. ‘Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘Perhaps because this is a past you might not wish to be connected with. Wouldn’t you rather walk out of here now, go on with your life and forget about it?’

Tayte had come too far to throw in the towel now. He was in all the way.

‘There’s still time,’ Langner continued. ‘But if I go on, I’m afraid it will be too late for you to reject who you are.’

‘I want to know who I am,’ Tayte said, determined. ‘It’s all I’ve ever wanted to know. Please, go on.’

‘Very well, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

Chapter Forty-Two

Dachau. 26 April 1945.

The light from the street lamp across the road outside Volker Strobel’s accommodation at Dachau concentration camp shone a pale glow into the room, casting long shadows over the few items of furniture that occupied it.

‘Draw the curtains,’ Johann ordered.

By his estimation the guards would be passing the house again soon and he couldn’t risk being seen, especially now that he’d made it this far. As Volker went to the window, Johann went to the table lamp he’d seen on entering the room. When Volker drew the curtains, Johann switched the lamp on.

‘Now sit down.’

Johann flicked his Luger at one of the armchairs by the fireplace. It had been lit, in all likelihood by the woman he had seen leaving the house earlier, but at this late hour it was now reduced to glowing embers.

‘Are we alone?’ Johann asked. ‘Where’s Trudi?’

‘We are perfectly alone, Johann,’ Volker said, lowering himself into the armchair. ‘Such beauty as Trudi possesses cannot exist in a place like this. Besides, Trudi would not live here any more than I would allow her to, but she visits often enough.’

Johann remained standing. ‘You don’t deserve her, or any woman for that matter.’

‘Ah, so we come down to it. I cannot say I haven’t been expecting you. I knew you must have discovered what had happened with the Bauer family when you called the camp this morning. You’ve done well to get this far.’

‘It was easy,’ Johann said. ‘Although I had expected you here sooner. I’ve been waiting a long time for you to return.’

Volker scoffed. ‘Haven’t you heard? The enemy is at our door. There is much work to be done at Dachau.’

‘Yes, the Devil’s work,’ Johann said, imagining the kind of work Volker was referring to. Ava’s mother had told him that the camp at Flossenbürg was to be evacuated the day after her release. The
SS-Totenkopfverbände
—the Death’s Head Units—were trying to cover up the atrocious things they had done in their concentration camps—things that people such as Volker Strobel would surely be made accountable for. ‘You must be more than a little concerned about what will happen to you when the enemy arrives,’ Johann added.

Volker laughed to himself, and although it was with a degree of sardonicism, it sickened Johann to think that the man before him could draw even the slightest amusement from any of this.

‘Look at us, Johann,’ Volker said. ‘What happened to you and me, eh?’

‘Do not compare us, Volker. I still know myself, but you! You’ve become a monster. A demon!’

‘Then shoot me,’ Volker said, his fingers digging into the arms of his chair. ‘Shoot me and send me back to hell, where I belong.’

Johann raised his pistol. All he had to do was pull the trigger. It was that simple. He would pull the trigger and take another man’s life, as he had done many times on the battlefield—only this man sitting before him was far more deserving of death than any of those soldiers who were only doing their duty, as he had been doing his. So why wasn’t it that simple?

Friendship. Johann knew it came down to that. And for all the terrible things Volker had done, even now he wished his childhood friend, with whom he had spent so many happy years before the war, would say something to redeem himself. He had been the brother Johann had never known—the brother he had yearned for since learning that his flesh-and-blood brother had died as an infant. Johann stared into Volker’s eyes, but he saw no trace of remorse. Even if there had been, even if Volker were kneeling on the floor in penitence, begging for forgiveness, Johann knew there could be no stay of execution for this man who was ultimately responsible for the death of his wife.

‘Well,
Blödmann
!’ Strobel said. ‘What are you waiting for?’

Johann’s arm began to shake again. He willed himself to pull the trigger and be done with it, but something, or someone, now prevented him. It was his son. Volker was right. If Johann fired a single shot, the guards patrolling the street outside would be at the door in seconds. It had been easy enough to get into Dachau, but he imagined it would be much harder to escape, especially with the camp on full alert after discovering the body of their
Lagerführer
.

‘You can’t do it, can you soldier boy?’ Volker continued, as if he were deliberately taunting Johann in an attempt to make him pull the trigger.

But Johann did not fire. As much as he wanted Volker to pay for all he had done, he could not deliberately leave his child fatherless as well as motherless. He was suddenly resolved to do all he could to return to Gilching. He had not yet held his son as a father should—as he doubted his own father ever had. Johann lowered his pistol and Volker sat up with a look of bewilderment on his face.

‘You really can’t do it, can you?’ Volker said, his shoulders slumping as he spoke.

‘You sound disappointed.’

Volker drew a long and thoughtful breath. ‘Yes, perhaps I am. Perhaps in moments of weakness I’m shocked myself at the things I’ve done. And if you can’t stop me then who will?’

‘You can stop yourself.’

Volker laughed. ‘You don’t really know me at all, do you Johann? You always look for the good in people, and I’ve always loved you for that, but there is no goodness in my heart. I used to look for it, questioning why I do the things I do, when I know I’ve caused pain and suffering. I’ve long since stopped looking. There is nothing there to find.’ He relaxed back into his chair and pressed his fingers together in front of him, as if in contemplation. ‘Let me make this easier for you, Johann. I’m going to tell you a story, and then you’re going to shoot me. I promise you will.’

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.