Johann had wanted to believe that Volker was over Ava Bauer, as he had told him that night in the bar after they dined at the Osteria Bavaria. He wondered then whether his friend was only interested in marrying Trudi because he himself was now married. It was a childish thought, but if there was any truth to it then Johann could see that his friend clearly was not over losing Ava Bauer to him at all. He said no more about it as they continued to pace alongside the prisoner barracks, but it concerned him just the same. When they came to the last of the barracks, Volker led them around it.
‘We’re being sent many Russian prisoners by the Wehrmacht,’ Volker said. ‘I hate those Bolshevik bastards all the more for what they did to you, Johann. The SS Inspectorate of Concentration Camps has recently postponed the execution of prisoners of war who are able to work, but a few more won’t be missed. I said I’d arranged something special for you.’
They arrived at the Desinfektionsgeb?ude—the disinfection building at the far corner of the compound where Johann saw a single line of five prisoners, again with guards to either side of them. These men were not standing to attention, but were facing the wall of the building with their shoulders slumped and their heads slightly bowed, as though resigned to their fate.
‘Here are your Bolsheviks, Johann. Here are the butchers who defile our women and mutilate our men.’ They represent those who killed your Kameraden—those who tried to kill you.’ Volker unholstered his Luger and offered it to Johann. ‘Here. They are my gift to you.’
There was no doubt as to what Volker had in mind, but Johann would not do it. ‘Your gift to me?’ he said, incredulous. ‘You want me to shoot these men simply because they’re Russians?’
Volker extended the pistol towards Johann again. ‘These inmates have been identified as troublemakers. So go ahead, have your revenge. It will do you good, believe me. I shot several of them myself when Ava told me what the Russians had done to you, and I slept better for it, I can tell you. They’re usually shot at the SS shooting range at Hebertshausen, but as that’s almost two miles away, I had them brought here, just for you.’
Johann began to shake his head. He stepped back. ‘I will not shoot them, Volker. It’s against the Geneva Convention and you know it. Even if the Russians didn’t sign, Germany did. What you’re proposing here is not only wrong, it’s both immoral and illegal.’ Johann shook his head again in disbelief. ‘And you call it a gift? You cannot summarily execute prisoners of war like this.’
Volker gave Johann a thin smile that was clearly not well meant. He withdrew his pistol and raised it to the head of the prisoner closest to him, and then he pulled the trigger. The gun’s report cracked out and the air around it filled with the familiar reek of cordite. The prisoner Volker had shot had crumpled to the ground before the sound of the shot that killed him had faded.
‘As you can see, Johann, at Dachau I can do whatever I wish. I do not take my orders from Geneva.’
He raised his pistol again and shot the next prisoner in the same manner: a single bullet to the back of his head.
‘Stop this!’ Johann said. It was clear to him now that Volker appeared to take his orders from no one. He had become a law unto himself. ‘I’ve seen enough of your work camp. I’m leaving.’ Johann turned to go, but he had only taken three strides before he felt Volker’s hand on his arm.
‘Wait, Johann! I thought this was what you wanted.’
Johann turned to Volker with an expression of loathing. His eyes narrowed. ‘Well, I don’t. When I kill Russians, it’s because they’re trying to kill me!’ He shook his arm free. ‘I can see myself back to the main gate,’ he added, and then he set off at a march, unable to endure Volker’s company a moment longer.
Chapter Seventeen
Present day.
Following what had proved to be a very informative visit with Rudi Langner, it was just after three thirty in the afternoon when Tayte and Jean climbed back into their hire car. With no other appointments in their schedule, Tayte thought now would be a good time to pay a visit to the building in his mother’s photograph: the former Hitler Youth training academy, which Johann Langner had turned into an education centre. They drove northwest in the ever-present traffic, talking over what Rudi had just told them about Volker Strobel.
‘I sincerely hope Strobel isn’t my grandfather,’ Tayte said, reflecting on how anyone could think that giving their friend a free hand to execute people was a great idea for a wedding present. ‘But I guess you never really know where you come from until you look,’ he continued, thinking that he was always finding surprises in other people’s family trees and now the surprise was potentially on him. ‘I mean, what if the Strobel gene is kicking around inside me? Am I capable of such things?’
‘I think you’d probably know about it by now,’ Jean said. ‘And we can’t choose our ancestors. You of all people know that.’
‘You sound just like Marcus Brown.’
‘Well, I did have the privilege of knowing him for quite a few years, and I’m sure he would have told you the same thing. We’re not accountable for the things our ancestors may or may not have done. It’s what we do during our own lives that counts.’
Tayte laughed to himself. ‘Marcus would definitely have said that.’