A path ran alongside the house. It was poorly lit by a pale and distant street lamp on the other side of Strasse der SS. Keeping low, Johann went around to the front of the house, his eyes peeled for the slightest sign of activity. There were lawns at the front of the houses and a few more shrubs here and there, which Johann used for cover as he left the pathway. From there he had a good view of the street. He peered along it and quickly ducked back again as he saw the flare of a cigarette lighter not thirty yards away. It illuminated the faces of two guards as they leaned in and lit their cigarettes. They were on the same side of the street as Johann, heading towards him, and at seeing them Johann was glad he hadn’t tried to break into Volker’s accommodation by smashing a window. If he had then the guards would have been on him in an instant.
He sank into the shrubbery as low as he could, and he kept still as they approached. Out of the corner of his eye he watched them amble past, and his eyes continued to follow them until they were lost to distance and darkness. They would return again, that much was certain, and Johann had no idea how long he had before they did. Wasting no time, he crawled out from his cover just enough to see the house more fully, hoping to find an open window, but there were none. The house appeared to be locked up tight. The light inside the house drew his attention and he crept up to the illuminated window, thinking to peer inside, but as he did so, the light went out.
Johann hurried back to the side of the house, and a moment later he heard the front door open and close again. Someone was leaving. He wondered whether it was Volker, but he soon saw that it was not. It was a woman, and at first Johann thought it must be Trudi Scheffler, to whom Volker had been married now for the past three years. But unless Trudi had put on considerable weight in that time, it was not her. He watched the woman button her coat as she set off at a stomping march down the street, and he supposed she must be a housekeeper or a cook. Perhaps she had prepared Volker’s evening meal for when he returned. Johann couldn’t know and it didn’t matter. What did matter was that the house now appeared to be empty.
Voices from the direction the two guards had set off in suddenly drew Johann’s attention. The guards were already returning on their patrol. Johann moved further back into the deeper shadows along the pathway at the side of the house until they passed, wondering again how he was going to get inside. He could see no quiet way to do it. Then it occurred to him that he would have to wait in the shrubbery for Volker to return.
Johann watched the guards come and go so many times that he soon learned their timing: three minutes beyond the house and back, twelve minutes in the direction the woman had gone. He had soon lost count of how many times they passed him and it was now quite late. He checked his watch. It was almost midnight. Then a short while later he heard a sound that was different from those he had grown accustomed to as he lay in wait for Volker to show. Someone else was approaching. His or her footsteps sounded markedly different from the guards’ plodding footfalls. These steps had urgency—authority.
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.