Stasi 77

by David Young

  The mention of a Stasi agent had Tilsner glancing into the rear-view mirror. Müller turned her head. ‘Do you think we’re being followed?’

  ‘Hold on!’ bellowed her deputy, yanking the steering wheel. Müller braced herself as she was thrown against the passenger door. Tilsner had made a savage U-turn. Müller swallowed back bile as her stomach lurched.

  They were heading back to Karl-Marx-Stadt.

  Then there was another spin of the steering wheel and they darted across the other carriageway and down a minor road.

  Tilsner reached up to the rear-view mirror and adjusted it. He snorted and then turned and smiled at her. ‘I’m not sure it was someone following us.’ He glanced into the mirror again. ‘But whatever they were doing, they’re not there now.’ Holding the steering wheel with one hand, he used his other to pick up the road atlas and flick through it to the correct page. ‘This road is fine. It’ll take us round the south of Freiberg and then we can pick up the route to this Hermsdorf place.’

  *

  Müller half-expected that the Ronnebachs’ weekend cottage would have been sealed off by the Stasi, with a guard placed outside. But nothing looked out of the ordinary. The neat house sat proudly in the sun, its grey-rendered lower portion looking new, or newly cleaned. On the second floor there was treated brown timber, and even a dash of colour – brilliant red – highlighting the window frames. The Ronnebachs might call it a cottage, but to Müller this was a house. It was not unlike her adopted parents’ guesthouse in Thuringia. This part of Hermsdorf – a hamlet called Seyde – had much in common with Müller’s childhood hometown of Oberhof too. Low, rolling mountains that in the winter would be blanketed with sparkling white snow. Now, in the height of summer, the colours were the verdant greens of the meadows, interspersed with the rich browns of the timbered houses. As she climbed out of the Wartburg, and Tilsner killed the motor, she let the tang of newly mown grass fill her lungs, replacing the petrol fumes of the car.

  An old beer keg stood to the side of the front door like a sentry, its wood stained dark brown to match the timbered upper storey of the house. Müller strained to tip it sideways slightly, surprised by its weight. It must have been filled with earth or sand. As promised by Frau Ronnebach, the key ring was underneath, surrounded by wood lice and beetles. Either the Stasi hadn’t visited themselves yet, which Müller found hard to believe, or they had already been. In which case, they would have removed anything they didn’t want the Kriminalpolizei to find.

  *

  ‘What precisely are we looking for?’ asked Tilsner, his face still sour-looking, as though he’d rather be anywhere else.

  ‘You shouldn’t need to ask that, Werner. You’re a detective. Anything that helps to shed light on the case. Anything at all. Are there any official papers to do with the mill nationalisation? Had he received any threatening letters? Was he really coming here to go hunting, or did he have another woman he was seeing here? Can you start with the downstairs? I’ll do the first floor.’

  The cottage was neat, tidy, clean. But there was something slightly odd that Müller couldn’t quite put her finger on as she climbed the stairs. Then it came to her. Behind the usual aroma of stale cigarette smoke, there was a slight musty smell. Not of damp, but of men – there was a maleness about the place, as though women weren’t welcome. It was reflected in the décor too. There was nothing feminine here. The pictures on the wall were of hunting scenes. Horns of various small mammals lined the stairwell.

  At the top of the stairs, Müller took a quick glance in the rooms. Two were bedrooms, a third appeared to be used as a study. And then there was a private bathroom with a toilet, which wasn’t always a given in the Republic, even now in the mid-to-late 1970s. The bedrooms seemed very much ‘his’ and ‘hers’. In fact, the smaller of the two was the only place in the house so far with any sign of a feminine touch: a flowery bedspread, lighter patterned wallpaper, and perfumes and cosmetics on the dressing table. There were photos on the wall of a younger Frau Ronnebach – at least Müller assumed it was her – singing in some sort of choir.

  With her hands covered in protective gloves, Müller quickly rifled through the drawers and cupboards in this room, finding little, and still wondering if the Stasi had already been here. Then she moved to what she assumed was the dead man’s bedroom. Again she worked quickly, finding little at first. Then, in the drawer of the bedside table, she made a discovery. She recoiled slightly from the smell as she opened it. There was the aroma of rubber, and behind that something else, something unpleasant. It was fishy, like a mussel or oyster that had been left to rot.

  Although she was wearing gloves, she still picked it up gingerly – as though it could suddenly burst and shower her with its foul contents. It was a used condom, tied and sealed, yet still out of keeping with the rest of the neatness in the house. She pulled an evidence bag from her pocket and put the condom in it. Then she noticed some black material stuffed at the back of the drawer. Again, she removed it carefully, almost reverentially. Women’s knickers. A small size, lace-trimmed. She looked at the marque and didn’t recognise it. But the New York-Paris-London city geography under the manufacturer’s name told her what she needed to know. Western underwear. Expensive capitalist underwear. She tried to picture Frau Ronnebach wearing them – without success. Was this their evidence of an illicit affair? If so, was Comrade Ronnebach’s widow aware of his infidelity after all? Was it a motive for murder – with the widow as a suspect?

  Müller again bagged the article, then moved to the room used as a study.

  Here there was more – almost too much. Reams of official papers sat on top of the desk and in the drawers. It was untidy too, and almost as though someone might have done this before her, given the neatness of the rest of the house – save for what she’d found in the bedside cabinet.

  She riffled through the pages; minutes of no doubt irrelevant, boring committee meetings. Was there anything about the mill here? Possibly – but they would just have to bag it all up, and then get one of Drescher’s team to read through it all, looking for any evidence. Müller began to collect the sheafs together, banging each end on the desk in turn to align them. It was when she did this to a collection of papers at the back of the desk that she saw it. A blue envelope. Not an official-looking envelope – it was more like something from a special writing set. Something a lover might use. She felt a lightness in her chest as she picked the envelope up in her gloved hands, but that feeling immediately evaporated. The envelope was empty.

  It was luxurious, though. And she was sure it wasn’t from any modern writing set in the Republic. She flipped it over. There was no writing on it. She held it up to the fading light to see if there had been an imprint of anything written on top of it. Nothing.

  Then her heart start pounding again.

  A very faint watermark.

  This could indeed be something. The name of a company. G Lalo.

  More importantly, there was a place name, just as there had been on the lingerie label.

  But this narrowed things down to just one city.

  The French capital, Paris.

  8

  Unterleutnant Elke Drescher managed to arrange a room at the People’s Police headquarters for Müller to lead a summit on the case so far. Jonas Schmidt joined them, polishing his thick spectacles on his white lab coat. Each officer took one side of a square table in the centre of the room. Drescher had moved some of the photos of the crime scene and pinned them to a notice board on one of the walls.

  Müller held the gaze of each officer in turn before she began to speak – or at least she tried to. Tilsner was staring down at his shoes – his mind probably on his new girlfriend back in Berlin and whatever grief she was giving him. She cleared her throat to try to attract his attention.

  ‘We need to discuss a few of the possible theories, so that we can channel our resources in the right direction,’ she said. ‘I think the nature of the killing is the key here. It’s annoyi
ng that we can’t get more information from the Party. I wonder if Herr Ronnebach has approved some measure in the past which influenced fire safety in a negative way. Maybe someone holds him responsible for the death of a loved one as a result?’

  ‘That’s not a bad theory,’ said Drescher. ‘We can check that in the newspapers.’

  Müller nodded. But she knew that everyone in the room was aware that if something had gone wrong with a Party decision, nothing critical would ever have been published in any newspaper anywhere in the Republic. Müller was treading on thin ice even by raising the possibility.

  ‘What about motives?’ she asked, looking round the room again. ‘Werner, any theories?’

  Tilsner shrugged then started rubbing his chin. ‘Potentially, the usual ones. Money – if it was the former mill owner or an employee who felt they’d lost out when the state took it over. Love or lust – if Herr Ronnebach was seeing someone on the side, and his bit’s husband or boyfriend killed him in a jealous fit. Or if he was having an affair and his wife found out.’

  Müller nodded slowly. ‘Werner and I spent the afternoon and early evening at his weekend cottage. There are perhaps some indications that his wife didn’t know everything that was going on there.’

  ‘So you’re saying Frau Ronnebach could be our murderer?’ asked Drescher.

  ‘She’s got to be considered a suspect,’ replied Tilsner.

  Müller sighed. ‘Frau Ronnebach does seem remarkably untouched by grief. But in my interview with her it also became clear that the Stasi don’t want us to dig into their past. Why is that? And how are we going to circumvent it?’

  ‘I can get any spare members of my team to look into anything about them both that is public knowledge,’ offered Drescher. ‘They don’t have children – so there won’t be birth records for kids. But there might be for the Ronnebachs themselves, and there could be details of their marriage. We can also take a look through newspaper records for mentions of Herr Ronnebach. As a high-up Party official he’ll probably be seen glad-handing in a few photos.’

  ‘Good,’ said Müller. ‘Werner and I didn’t have a chance to actually visit the hunting club, or indeed knock on doors in the village where the cottage is. That’s also something I’d like your team to look after, please, Elke.’

  Müller moved over and studied the photos of Ronnebach’s body, and the chalk outline showing how he’d desperately tried to escape before finally being overcome by the smoke. She tried to imagine the terror in his head, knowing his life was about to end. ‘We also need to get to the bottom of the potential motive – the potential grudge – to do with the nationalisation of the mill. It’s going to need some foot soldiering. Does anyone have a particular grudge to bear? Was anyone thrown on hard times as a result? Had the victim been seen in the area of the mill in recent weeks? That sort of thing.’

  She tapped her pen on the table, then looked up at Schmidt. ‘What about you, Jonas? Anything more you can tell us from the forensic side?’

  ‘Well, I was a bit naughty. We – that is myself and Unterleutnant Drescher’s forensic scientist – were waiting outside the flat when you were interviewing Frau Ronnebach, in a car on the other side of the road. When you left, we explained to her that there were a few forensic tests the officers wanted us to perform.’

  ‘The officers?’

  ‘Well, I meant you and Unterleutnant Drescher. But I was hoping Frau Ronnebach might assume I meant the Stasi officer who was shadowing you. And I think she did because she let us in without question. So we’ve been able to fingerprint the entire flat without any suspicions, and without the widow contacting the Stasi.’

  ‘Good work,’ said Müller. ‘Let me know as soon as you have any results from that. Maybe we need to pull a similar sort of trick to get in Herr Ronnebach’s Party office.’ She steepled her fingers together on the table. ‘We need to try to piece together the Ronnebachs’ past history too. That’s something I’m going to look at. Each time I tried to ask something – even innocent-sounding questions about whether they’d always lived in Karl-Marx-Stadt – the Stasi officer stepped in and prevented Frau Ronnebach from answering.’

  ‘Couldn’t we try to get her on her own?’ said Drescher.

  ‘Perhaps,’ agreed Müller, ‘one of us could bump into her – maybe even literally – in the Kaufhalle, for example. Get her talking that way. I got the impression she was prepared to say more.’

  Drescher and Schmidt nodded. Tilsner sat in silence.

  Then Schmidt’s face lit up. ‘I just had an idea about their history and background, Comrade Major.’ Müller raised her brow, inviting him to continue. ‘Did you notice anything regional in Frau Ronnebach’s accent?’

  Müller shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not, Jonas. I should have had Werner with me – he’s good at putting on accents, so presumably he’s good at recognising them.’

  Tilsner gave a sarcastic grin.

  ‘Well, what I could do,’ continued Schmidt, ‘together with Unterleutnant Drescher’s forensic team – if she’s happy with that idea – is analyse voice recordings of Herr and Frau Ronnebach. It may tell us whether they’re from this area, or whether they’re originally from elsewhere, and therefore whether it’s worth making inquiries elsewhere.’

  ‘Where would we get those voice recordings?’ asked Müller.

  ‘It’s easy with the widow,’ replied Schmidt. ‘We secretly make sure we record our next interview with her. The victim was number two in the Party here. He’ll have made speeches – recordings will exist. He’s probably even appeared on television or the radio talking about such and such. I can’t imagine it will be a problem.’

  ‘That seems worth a try, Jonas. Good. You and Elke have important things you can be getting on with. I think Werner and I need to go through the records and see if there have been any reports of similar murders. It’s an odd one. Almost ritualistic. That’s why I think it holds the key to cracking this case.’

  *

  The others left the room to get on with the various tasks Müller had delegated to them. Tilsner, too, asked for a few moments to try to address his domestic issues back in Berlin. Müller took advantage of their absence by putting a call through to Bulgaria. She was aware she’d left Helga in the lurch, as a woman well into her sixties having to look after two lively toddlers on her own. It wasn’t the deal her grandmother had signed up for. She checked her watch, 7 p.m. With a bit of luck, Helga would at this very moment be starting to put the twins down to sleep, before going to dinner herself. A babysitting service would visit the hotel room in her grandmother’s absence. Müller just hoped she could catch her before she went down to the restaurant.

  The operator put her through to Helga’s room, and the phone rang. Müller was on the point of replacing the handset, worrying that she might be waking Jannika and Johannes, when Helga answered sleepily.

  ‘Are you OK?’ asked Müller.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine, darling. I’ve got the twins down, and I’m just having a little rest myself before dinner.’

  ‘I hope they haven’t been causing too much trouble.’ Müller found herself half-shouting, the line was so bad.

  ‘Well . . .’ Müller’s heart sank at the pause. She knew it was selfish, but she was hoping, somehow, Helga could cope. ‘I won’t lie: it has been difficult on my own. I went to the station to ask about the possibility of coming back a few days early. They didn’t seem very willing to change my ticket. It’s fine in the mornings, when they’re at the club, and it’s fine now when they’ve tired themselves out. But I tried taking them to the beach and that was a disaster.’

  Müller wracked her brain, wondering what she could do to help. ‘Do you really want to come back by train? Two days on a train even without young children is a nightmare. Two days with children for a couple would be a nightmare too. But on your own . . .’

  ‘I know. I’m not looking forward to it, but we’ll manage. We’ll have to.’

  ‘If I could sort o
ut plane tickets, would you prefer that?’

  ‘That would be a godsend. At least then the air hostesses could help with the little ones. And it’s so much quicker. But can you afford it? It will be so much more expensive.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. I’ll make some calls and try to arrange it. It was the People’s Police who called me back and want me here – it’s up to them to sort it out.’

  9

  December 1943

  Kohnstein mountain, near Nordhausen

  Grégoire has gone.

  I should be grieving. I should be fighting on his behalf, to have his body repatriated, to ensure a proper burial.

  But I’m not. And Marcellin isn’t either. We feel numbed by death. And sickness. It is everywhere around us. Sickness and death.

  It wasn’t a surprise. He had been fading day by day. Worked to death by twelve-hour shift followed by twelve-hour shift on the mining Kommando. And then trying to sleep in the underground halls, amid the damp, the cold, the stink of shit.

  He was always a sickly child. A mummy’s boy. And perhaps without a mother to protect him then we, his older brothers, should have done more. But really, we were as powerless as he was.

  I learnt about it in the most awful way possible.

  He’d been taken to the sanatorium. Marcellin and I knew then that he was unlikely to come back.

  ‘He is too weak, Philippe,’ my brother whispered, the first night without him. ‘Prepare yourself for the worst.’

  They never gave us the news. We discovered it ourselves.

  During the roll call, we saw piles of what we thought were sacks outside the sanatorium, or Revier as it was called by the Nazis and Kapos. From a distance, they looked like what could be medical supplies. Somehow Marcellin and I managed to get nearer by shuffling back through the lines of prisoners. Our aim was unspoken. I think we wanted to somehow enter the Revier to see if we could find Grégoire. To see how he was.

  We saw the sacks.