Jan paused at the door and turned back to him. ‘Have you eaten? If not, I can ask someone to bring something back from the deli. Someone’s always popping out at this time of day.’
Tayte smiled. He liked Jan already. He thought back to something Johann Langner had said at the hospital, when describing Ingrid Keller as his lifesaver. ‘Meine Lebensretterin,’ he said with his hand on his stomach and a cheesy smile on his face.
Jan laughed at him. ‘What would you like?’
‘Anything’s fine. You can surprise me.’
When Jan returned with their drinks a few minutes later, Tayte had already opened the file she’d prepared for him. He’d tried to wait, but he had no willpower when it came to seeing records, especially when they were right under his nose, even if he did feel like a child getting caught under the Christmas tree when Jan came back into the room. Not that any of the records meant much to him, other than a few names and places.
‘I couldn’t resist taking a look,’ he said as Jan sat beside him.
‘That’s quite all right. I’ll take you through what I found and we can go from there. Now, you’re interested in two people, the notorious war criminal, Volker Strobel, and someone called Johann Langner, who I’m told was Strobel’s friend during the Second World War.’
Tayte sipped his coffee and nodded. ‘I’d like to identify any other family members from either of these men. In particular, any children they might have had.’ He was still firmly of the opinion that one of them might have fathered Karl and could therefore be his paternal grandfather. ‘Let’s start with Strobel.’
Jan flicked through the copies of the records she’d prepared, and she set a few out. ‘These are all I could find for Volker Strobel,’ she said, sliding one in front of Tayte. It bore the title Geburtsurkunde. ‘I found this in the Geburtsregister—the birth registry. It’s a copy of Volker Strobel’s birth certificate. He was born here in Munich so it was easy enough to locate.’ She pointed at the other names on the certificate. ‘This is his father, Joseph Strobel, and his mother, Mathilde Strobel née Wolf.’
She slid another record under Tayte’s nose as he began writing the names down on one of the larger notepads Jan had provided. ‘This is from the Heiratsregister—the marriage registry,’ she said. ‘It shows Volker’s marriage to Trudi Scheffler. The only thing that’s a little unusual about it is that it’s more common for marriages in Germany to take place in the bride’s home town, but on this occasion the marriage was registered in Munich.’
‘I read about it online,’ Tayte said. ‘They held a formal ceremony at Volker Strobel’s family home. I guess you could say it was somewhat self-centred of him to deny the bride marriage in her own parish, but he appears to have been the type.’
Jan agreed. ‘I don’t know if any of the other names mentioned are of any interest to you. Trudi’s parents are there, and the witnesses of course.’
Tayte was interested. He added Trudi’s parents to his list: Claus and Kamilla Scheffler, glad to see that both names were present, which wasn’t typical for marriage certificates in every country or time period, where often only the father’s name was recorded. He also added the witnesses to the marriage, Friedrich Berger and Konstanze Schmidt.
‘I’d be interested to know about any siblings,’ Tayte said, figuring that if Volker or Trudi had any brothers or sisters, then their birth records should be easy enough to locate via their parents’ details. ‘I’d also like to know whether Volker and Trudi had any children together. There’s plenty of information online about Volker Strobel, but I couldn’t find any mention of a child.’
‘No, I couldn’t either,’ Jan said. ‘I think if there had been a child, it would be public knowledge by now, what with all the attention Volker Strobel has had over the years.’
‘Have you looked for siblings?’
‘No, I didn’t get that far. Let’s have a look now, shall we?’
‘Sure,’ Tayte said, ‘but before we do that, are you able to pull up a birth certificate for Ingrid Strobel? She’s Trudi Strobel’s daughter.’ Tayte didn’t expect Ingrid’s father’s details to be there, but he wanted to be sure. ‘I believe she was born in Munich somewhere between 1955 and 1960.’
‘That shouldn’t be difficult,’ Jan said as she began tapping details into the computer.
The door opened then and lunch arrived.
‘I’ll leave you to eat your sandwich while I go and fetch this birth certificate from the archive,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t be long.’