‘Is this my father?’
Just because Karl was married to his mother, Tayte understood that it didn’t necessarily follow that Karl was his father, although there was a strong possibility that he was. He checked the date at the top of the file. It was dated September 1973, which was ten years after the date on the newspaper cutting Marcus Brown had left him, suggesting to Tayte that the trail had gone cold for his mother and Karl after their visit to the former Hitler Youth building. He thought then that it most likely was Karl who had taken the photograph his mother had left for him when she abandoned him. They must have picked up the trail again at some point and it had brought them here. Something else that stood out about the date on the file was that 1973 was close to the year Tayte was born.
Tayte’s mind began to wander as he tried to imagine what was going on with his mother and Karl back then, but he was distracted by the facts in front of him. The file stated that Sarah and Karl were trying to identify Karl’s father, and they had visited Elijah Kaufmann because they were interested in Volker Strobel. Tayte didn’t want to say what he was thinking, but he couldn’t deny the possibility.
The file was shaking in his hands as he said, ‘Is the Demon of Dachau my paternal grandfather?’
He hoped it wasn’t true, yet at the same time he’d never felt closer to the answers he’d been searching for since he’d found out he’d been adopted.
Tobias Kaufmann leaned in across the desk and interrupted Tayte’s thoughts. ‘It’s a curious situation, don’t you think?’
‘What’s that?’
‘Well, that if Karl here is your father, then, like yourself, he didn’t know who his father was either.’
Tayte nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose it is.’
‘I expect the circumstances are different, though,’ Jean offered.
‘Different,’ Tayte said, ‘but perhaps connected. If Strobel is Karl’s father, and my grandfather, maybe my parents came close to proving it. Maybe they found something out about Strobel that he didn’t want anyone to know about—Strobel being a man who, for obvious reasons, doesn’t want to be found. Maybe they got too close for comfort and that’s why I was abandoned—for my own protection.’ Tayte turned to Kaufmann and explained. ‘I later found out that’s what my mother told the sister at the Catholic mission in San Rafael, Mexico, when she handed me over.’
‘I think there are a lot of possibilities here, JT,’ Jean said. ‘You know you’re only speculating. It doesn’t mean anything without proof to back it up. Aren’t you always saying that? All we know for sure is that your mother came here in 1973 with a husband called Karl, looking for a connection to his father. Everything else is guesswork for now.’
‘You’re right,’ Tayte said, thinking that maybe he was allowing his emotions to guide him a little too easily towards what only appeared to be the obvious answers. He didn’t even know for sure whether Karl was his father yet, let alone that Volker Strobel was his grandfather. ‘So we need to keep digging,’ he added. ‘I see there’s an address in the file here. It’s in Munich.’
At that point, Elijah Kaufmann, who so far had been sitting so still and quiet in the corner of the room that Tayte had all but forgotten he was there, said with a heavy Jewish-German accent, ‘That was only a temporary address.’
All eyes turned to Elijah. Tayte supposed something about the conversation must have jogged his memory, which meant he had all Tayte’s attention.
‘Your mother is English,’ Elijah said. ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’
‘She had an English accent,’ Tayte said. ‘That’s all I know.’
The old man nodded. ‘She was an Englishwoman,’ he stated. ‘I may not recall her face, but I remember her and her husband quite well. It’s not every day we get visitors looking for family connections to the Demon of Dachau.’ He almost laughed at the idea. ‘And you were right.’
‘I was? What about?’
‘About Sarah and Karl being close to something. When they left here I remember feeling that some vital piece of information had just slipped through my fingers. They were nervous about something. They didn’t want to give me their names at first, or have their picture taken. They left a contact address here in Munich in case I had any information for them on Strobel’s whereabouts, which of course I didn’t, although that might soon be about to change.’
‘Papa!’ Tobias Kaufmann said, as if his father had said something he shouldn’t have.
‘It’s all right, Tobias. These good people are not our enemy, and the time to catch the Demon of Dachau is running out. Perhaps they were sent to us for a reason. Maybe they can help.’ To Tayte and Jean Elijah added, ‘I’m sorry, but we have to be careful. You understand?’