‘I won’t ask how you made your discovery about Johann Langner,’ Trudi said. ‘It doesn’t matter. Only the consequences are important. You said you knew that Johann was Ingrid’s father. Yes, he is. Now if I have to talk to you about other matters to ensure your discretion, I will. No one wants to be associated with the Strobel name, least of all a highly successful businessman such as Johann Langner.’
‘Look,’ Tayte said, offering Trudi a smile. ‘I’m sensing we’ve got off to a bad start here, and—’
‘A bad start?’ Trudi cut in. ‘Believe me, Mr Tayte, it won’t get any better until you leave. Now what is it you want to talk to me about?’
Tayte drew a deep breath, wondering how anyone could be so rude, yet at the same time he thought he deserved it for the way he’d forced Trudi’s hand. He thought about showing her the photograph he had of his mother, but he didn’t suppose he’d gain anything from it, and he didn’t feel that Trudi Strobel was someone he wanted to share such a personal image with.
‘I’m just trying to find my family,’ Tayte said. ‘That’s all. I believe Volker Strobel could be my grandfather.’
That seemed to amuse Trudi. She gave a small chirp of a laugh, but there was no warmth to it. ‘Poor you,’ she said. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me, although I’m certainly not your grandmother, if that’s what you think. Ingrid is my only child.’
‘Why wouldn’t it surprise you?’ Jean asked.
Trudi turned sharply to Jean, as though she’d forgotten Jean was there. She sighed. ‘I suppose we have to talk about this, don’t we? Volker wasn’t exactly what you would call a faithful husband. He had a penchant for a particular kind of intercourse. His love-making, if you could call it that, was often violent, and I endured it, both before and after we were married. I suppose the novelty with me wore off, thank goodness, because after a while Volker took to seeing prostitutes—women he could pay to smile through their sufferings as if they were enjoying it.’
Trudi paused, closing her eyes for a few seconds. When she opened them again, she said, ‘I remember the first time. We had been to a restaurant here in Munich called the Osteria Bavaria—Volker and I, Johann and an older girl called Ava Bauer, whom I quickly came to despise, though more out of my own jealousy than any fault of hers. You see Volker was besotted with Ava. I think he’d hoped to win her hand that night, but when it became clear that it was Johann she wanted, Volker became very moody. Late that night, he came to me at the apartment my aunt had rented for us while we were staying in Munich. I couldn’t really say he raped me because I wanted him, but I’ll never forget how violent he was, and how uncaring he seemed towards me afterwards. I’ve realised since then that it was because he couldn’t have Ava, so he took it out on me—and all those prostitutes, perhaps trying to find someone who was more like her, but of course he never could.’
‘Why did you marry him?’ Tayte asked.
‘My family had always wanted the marriage, and I suppose at the time I was as besotted with Volker, for all his faults, as he was with Ava. There were always three people in our relationship, and I knew I was the consolation prize he didn’t really want. Whenever Volker was with me, I knew he was thinking about her.’
‘But you kept his name after the war,’ Jean said, shaking her head, clearly at a loss to understand why.
‘I kept the name I had taken when I married Volker Strobel because I believe in the sanctity of marriage. I had taken my marriage vows unto death. Is that so hard to accept?’
‘No, I suppose not,’ Tayte said, thinking that her decision to do so, however righteous, had cost her a great deal: her family and her fortune, not that she hadn’t turned that around remarkably well. He began to feel a little sorry for Trudi as he considered that the family who had pushed her into her marriage with Volker Strobel had then turned their backs on her when the man they had wanted her to marry became anathema to them.
‘Johann Langner was very different,’ Trudi said. ‘Quite the antithesis of the man I married. He came to me when he was released from prison, and at first, although it sounds peculiar to say it now, I saw it as a way to strike back at Volker. That was in 1955. Johann’s family had been killed during the Dresden bombings, so I suppose at the time he had nowhere else to go.’
‘What about his wife?’ Tayte asked, still wondering why Johann hadn’t gone to Ava when he was released from prison. ‘Do you know what became of Ava Bauer?’
‘No,’ Trudi said. ‘We lost touch somewhere amidst the chaos of war. I never saw Ava again after she and Johann were married. When Johann came to me he never spoke of her, for which I was glad. I had already shared one relationship with Ava Bauer and I did not wish to do so again. My affair with Johann lasted a few years, but as Johann found his feet and started to become successful, he wanted less and less to do with me. He left me for the last time just after Ingrid was born. He paid for this house and gave me a handsome sum of money in advance for our daughter’s upkeep, and my discretion.’