‘I have a twin?’ Tayte said. It was a possibility he’d never considered before.
‘Yes, and your mother was right to fear for your lives as well as her own. I’d learned my lesson with your father, you see. I let Johann’s child live and that mistake came back to haunt me. I wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice.’
The gun began to shake in Tayte’s hand.
‘It took several months to find your mother again,’ Strobel said. ‘She was first traced to England, and then to Atlanta, Georgia. She was doing so well, but how could I let her go? What if she did know something? What if she returned to Germany someday, drawn by vengeance and the need to understand what had happened to her husband? No, I had to eliminate all threats. So when your mother was found again I took care of the matter personally, and let me tell you, it gave me great pleasure.’
Tayte’s grip on the gun tightened. Then as if he had no control over his forefinger, it slowly found the trigger.
‘She was no longer pregnant when I finally caught up with her,’ Strobel continued. ‘You and your sibling had emerged into the world, and it was my aim to kill all three of you—to remove the threat once and for all—but your mother had sense enough to separate you.’ Strobel paused then and smiled at Tayte before adding, ‘You were already out of my reach, but your brother, as I discovered, was still with her.’
My brother, Tayte thought as he subconsciously reasserted his grip on the gun. But as much as he wanted to end this story, he was compelled to know what happened, or spend the rest of his life wondering, not that he felt he had a very long life ahead of him at this juncture.
‘What did you do?’ he said through his teeth.
‘I found your brother in an open basket in the passenger foot-well of the jeep your mother was driving. He was wrapped so snugly in so many blankets, I almost missed him. But then he began to cry. If my curiosity to look at Johann’s grandson hadn’t got the better of me, I’m sure I could have driven my knife into that bundle without giving it a second thought, but look I did, and then I knew I couldn’t kill him. Unlike you, he had Johann’s blue eyes, you see. He was a beautiful Aryan boy—my beautiful Aryan boy.’
A sudden onset of dizziness almost overcame Tayte as he realised who Strobel was referring to. The gun suddenly felt so heavy, but he held it up. ‘Rudi?’ he said, his brow set in a deep furrow. He could scarcely believe it, yet if it were true it meant that his brother was still alive, and living right there in Munich. His fraternal twin.
Strobel nodded. ‘I saw that baby boy as my opportunity to repent for what I had done to Johann. I would raise his flesh and blood as though it were my own. I would give his child everything, and in so doing I would sleep all the better for having made amends. And for a time, I did, but it didn’t last.’
‘That’s the most twisted thing I’ve ever heard,’ Tayte said.
‘Would you rather I’d killed him? Believe me, Mr Tayte, if it had been you wrapped in that bundle—if your mother had hidden your brother away first instead of you—I would not have hesitated.’
Tayte fell silent, considering how his life had hung in the balance according to which of her children his mother chose to protect first. He thought back to his visit to the Catholic mission in San Rafael, Sinaloa where she had left him, and he heard Sister Manriquez’s words again as she told him what his mother had said as she handed him over. For the child’s own protection . . . Tayte knew now how true those words had been.
‘How can I believe you’ll let me go, when you know I’ll tell Rudi everything?’ Tayte said. ‘He’ll know who you really are, and what you did. He’ll hate you for it.’
‘But don’t you see? I want Rudi to know.’
‘Why, so you can mess with his head, too? You want that to be your parting gift to him after you’re dead?’
‘After I’m dead, he’s going to find out sooner or later. I’ve provided well for those who know who I really am, but after I’m gone they will have no one to fear. Eventually someone will talk. I don’t want Rudi to read about it in the newspapers, and who better to tell him than his own brother? It’s because of my love for Rudi that I want you to live, Mr Tayte, so you can be there for him when the time comes. But you must pull that trigger.’
‘So you won’t be around to face the music? You’re a coward!’
‘Yes, perhaps,’ Strobel said. ‘It doesn’t change anything.’ With that, he lifted his hands to the gun and held the muzzle between his open palms, steadying Tayte’s aim.
‘I can’t do it,’ Tayte said.
‘Yes you can. You just need a little more encouragement. I’m going to finish telling you about your mother, and then you’re going to pull the trigger and this will all be over.’