Right now though they had another appointment to get to, and while the car’s navigation system told Tayte that they were close to their destination in the city’s northern borough of Schwabing, Munich’s former Bohemian quarter, he was cursing himself for not anticipating just how congested Munich’s streets were likely to be. They were already running ten minutes late for their meeting with Tobias Kaufmann, a man who had dedicated his life to bringing the Demon of Dachau to justice.
The address Tayte had been given when he’d made the appointment to see Kaufmann was on a tree-lined avenue just wide enough for two cars to pass one another, with parallel parking along both sides of the road for the people working in the various offices located there. When the voice on the sat-nav told Tayte he had reached his destination, he saw the words Kaufmann und Kaufmann on the building beside him, and as he pulled into a vacant parking space he realised that the Nazi hunter’s day job was as a lawyer, presumably having gone into business with his son or his father.
Briefcase in hand, Tayte pressed the buzzer on the intercom at the entrance. He announced himself, adding, ‘I’m sorry we’re a little late.’
A moment later the door buzzed. Tayte pushed it open and followed Jean into a stairwell where he read a sign that told him Kaufmann und Kaufmann were on the first floor. They went up, and at another door they were greeted by a short, bearded man who looked to be in his mid-fifties. He wore a charcoal-coloured suit and a black skullcap—a kippah or yarmulke depending on whether the wearer spoke Hebrew or Yiddish. Tayte shot a hand out and gave the man a wide smile.
‘I’m Jefferson Tayte,’ he said. ‘This is my friend, Jean Summer.’
‘Tobias Kaufmann,’ the man replied in accented English. ‘Please, come in.’
They followed Kaufmann along a tight walkway between a few desks that were loaded with paperwork and the usual office electronica. At the end of the walkway they entered into a smaller office that was no less drowning beneath stacks of loose paper and lever-arch files. There was another man in dark apparel sitting in a corner of the room. He was a much older man with a long beard that was almost white. He, too, wore a skullcap and he had a walking cane between his legs, upon which his hands were resting.
‘This is Herr Kaufmann senior,’ Tobias said. ‘My father. He still insists on attending meetings whenever the topic is about Volker Strobel. My father was ten years old when he and the rest of my family were arrested by the Gestapo. As far as my bloodline is concerned, he is the sole survivor of the holocaust. My family were murdered at Auschwitz and Treblinka, but Elijah, perhaps because he was young and strong, was sent to the work camp at Dachau. That’s how he came to live in Munich after the war.’
‘I’m pleased to meet you, Herr Kaufmann,’ Tayte said to the older man, and Jean smiled at him and nodded.
Elijah Kaufmann just nodded back, saying nothing.
‘Don’t mind him,’ Tobias said. ‘He’s a quiet man. Did you know that before the Nazis came to power in Germany there were around ten thousand Jews living in Munich? By the end of the war there were fewer than ten. Even now, with the general population of the city having roughly doubled since then, the number has only recently reached pre-war levels.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ Tayte said. ‘But given the circumstances, I’m not surprised.’
‘No, it’s not surprising at all,’ Tobias said. ‘Please take a seat.’
Tayte had to move some papers off the chair closest to him before he could sit down. He put them on the floor beside his briefcase and they sat around a small pedestal desk as their host began to clear some space for them.
‘We call this the Strobel room,’ he said. ‘It isn’t usually in such a mess, but I’ve been going through some old files and haven’t got around to putting them all away again.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Tayte said. ‘It’s knowing where everything is that’s important.’
‘Very true, Mr Tayte. Very true. Now, you’re both interested in Volker Strobel, and that makes me very interested in you. What specifically has brought you here?’
Tayte showed Tobias the photograph of his mother standing outside Johann Langner’s building and proceeded to tell him what he’d told Langner the previous day, bringing him up to date with the reason he and Jean were in Munich.
‘If my mother was interested in Volker Strobel,’ he added, ‘it stands to reason that she would know about your efforts to bring him to justice. I believe she must have come to see you about him at some point. Perhaps while she was in Munich in 1963, when she had her picture taken.’
‘If your mother did come to see us,’ Tobias said, ‘her visit will be on file. Where Volker Strobel is concerned, we’ve always been meticulous about recording the particulars of everyone who visits us, although looking around you, that might seem unlikely.’
The idea of there being a file on his mother right there in that room excited Tayte. He glanced around again and thought that if there was such a file it could take a while to find it. He brought Kaufmann’s attention back to the photograph of his mother and asked the question he aimed to ask everyone he showed it to.