Günther stirred and tried to remove the dagger from his side.
‘You should leave that,’ Volker said. ‘If you take it out, you’ll bleed to death.’ To Johann, he added. ‘It’s true. I’ve seen it happen.’
Johann scrunched his brow. ‘You have?’
Volker nodded. ‘It was a pig, but what’s the difference?’ He turned back to Günther. ‘Lie still, Schweinchen, or you’ll make things worse.’
Volker took Johann’s arm. ‘Come on. We should leave.’
Johann resisted. ‘He could still die.’
‘He’ll be fine.’
‘Why did you stab him?’
‘I had to do something. He was going to kill me, I swear it. Now let’s go. His friends saw what happened. They’ll soon come back with help, and then I’ll be in trouble.’
‘No,’ Johann said. ‘We can’t leave him.’
Volker sighed. He seemed to think about it. ‘All right then, as we’re going to be friends I’ll stay and take my punishment. But only for you. Only because you want me too. How’s that for friendship?’
Johann didn’t know how to respond, so he gave no reply. In truth, he thought Volker Strobel an odd boy, but he didn’t dare tell him so.
‘My family are from Austria, but my parents live in Munich now,’ Volker said. ‘Do your parents live in Munich?’
‘No, Dresden.’ Johann scrunched his brow. ‘Why do you want to be friends?’
‘Perhaps it’s because you remind me of myself.’
‘How?’
Volker smiled. ‘We both have fair hair and blue eyes, don’t we?’
Johann laughed. It made his lip hurt. ‘So does half the academy.’
‘That’s true, but I just took a beating for you, didn’t I? That makes us friends.’
‘Does it?’
Volker nodded with enthusiasm. ‘Of course it does, Bl?dmann. And besides, you owe me now. We’ll have to remain friends at least until you can pay me back.’
The door at the end of the corridor slammed open then and Günther’s friends returned. Pacing ahead of them was Scharführer Henkel, one of the squad leaders.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll tell them you came to my rescue,’ Johann said. ‘I’ll tell them how brave you were.’
‘I’m not worried. If I am in trouble, my father will sort it out.’
‘How will he do that?’
‘He’s an important man in the party. He knows people—important people. He can pull strings.’
‘Let’s hope he doesn’t have to,’ Johann said, and as the Scharführer arrived, he thought again how odd Volker Strobel was, and how interesting he supposed their friendship was going to be.
Chapter Three
Present day.
A knock at the door to Johann Langner’s private room at the German Heart Centre interrupted the nonagenarian’s recollections of Volker Strobel. A moment later the door opened and a woman Tayte put in her mid-fifties entered. She was wearing white trousers and a light-green nurse’s tunic, and Langner’s face lit up at the sight of her.
‘Ingrid! You have returned to me at last. I was about to send Christoph to look for you.’
‘Es ist Zeit für Ihre Pillen,’ she said, her lips barely moving as she spoke.
‘In English, if you please, Ingrid,’ Langner said. ‘We have company. This is Herr Tayte and Professor Summer. They have come to examine the skeletons in my closet.’ He laughed as he turned to Tayte and Jean and winked at them. At least, Tayte thought it was a wink. It was difficult to tell on account of Langner only having one eye. ‘Herr Tayte . . . Professor Summer . . . this is meine Lebensretterin, my life-saver, Ingrid Keller. In case you’re not so familiar with the German language, she’s telling me that it’s time for my pills.’
Keller did not respond to Langner’s witticism. She simply tutted and poured him a glass of water. ‘Here.’ She offered a fistful of tablets to Langner and waited as he put half of them into his mouth at once. She passed him the water. ‘Swallow.’
She was very direct, Tayte thought, and thus far a woman of few words. Her features were decidedly masculine. She was stockily built with thick forearms and a square jawline that framed an unadorned, no nonsense face. Even her black hair was styled like a man’s, so short it was almost a buzz-cut. Tayte figured it was at least a hygienic hairstyle for a nurse to have. He watched Langner swallow the last of his pills, and then he looked on in fascination as Keller began to massage his throat.