by David Young
Instead, she moved the diary aside, and took out one of the envelopes underneath – a letter she’d received from some boyfriend or other, probably met at a summer holiday camp, or when she’d been a promising schoolgirl ski jumper, even though women’s ski jumping had never been allowed in the Olympics. It still wasn’t.
She turned the envelope over and over in her hands. It was white turned browny yellow with age, not the blue of the French envelope in Martin Ronnebach’s weekend cottage. She was convinced that was a red herring, that Ronnebach’s affairs were red herrings. She was looking through a window into the past now – in this room. That’s what she needed for the deaths of Ronnebach, Höfler and Schneider. Three murdered men – two of them killed with exactly the same method. All three of them with links to the past, in the small town of Gardelegen. That was what she needed to crack in this case – a window to look into their pasts. Because she was sure that was where the answer lay.
*
Helga seemed to have genuinely struck a bond with Rosamund. The meeting of the two had been something Müller was apprehensive about, but her natural grandmother and adoptive mother had been a good fit. They were a similar age, Helga having been a teenage mother herself when giving birth to Müller’s natural mother, while Rosamund and Müller’s adoptive father had at first thought they couldn’t have children – and Rosamund only conceived with first Roland, then Sara, later in life.
‘Thank you for taking us to meet them, Karin,’ said Helga, as they drove out of Oberhof towards Gotha, through the forested low mountains of Thuringia. ‘It can’t have been easy for you, but I’m sure now we’ve met we’ll stay in touch. I’d like to, anyway.’ Müller was of the same opinion. She’d enjoyed the reunion, brief though it was. She knew that from now on, she would keep in touch more regularly and make her adoptive family a larger part of her life.
*
The fact that Helga was enjoying their touring holiday made it easier for Müller to persuade her grandmother to allow her another couple of hours off when they arrived at their next stop near Nordhausen. Müller had chosen it for an overnight stay ostensibly because it was a good base to tour the Harz mountains – or at least the part of the Harz which lay in the Republic. Her real reason was that it was less than an hour’s drive to Leinefelde.
*
Frau Höfler was more suspicious about Müller’s motives than her fellow widow in Karl-Marx-Stadt. At first she stood on her kitchen doorstep, unwilling to invite Müller inside. It was only when Müller mentioned the possibility of her being arrested for obstructing a police inquiry that she relented.
‘I thought it wasn’t a police inquiry any more. Hasn’t the Ministry for State Security taken over from you?’
‘In some respects, Frau Höfler, yes. But there are still a few matters I need to clear up from my end for my report, when I hand the file to the Stasi. So it’s in your interests to cooperate. Otherwise . . .’
The woman shrugged, opened the door, and gestured to the kitchen table. Müller pulled out a chair and sat down.
‘By the way, I have something for you.’ She reached into her briefcase, and pulled out the 1930s photograph of the Höflers as a young couple outside Gardelegen town hall.
‘I assumed the Stasi had taken it. I only noticed it had gone the other day. I didn’t really like to ring them and ask them what had happened to it.’
‘I’m sorry, Frau Höfler. I needed to check where the photograph was taken.’
‘Gardelegen, of course. It’s where we met and grew up.’
‘That’s what I’m interested in,’ said Müller. ‘Your time in Gardelegen. Particularly any connections that you or your husband may have had with a Martin Ronnebach and a Lothar Schneider.’
‘That’s past history,’ said the woman. ‘Best left well alone. Do you think all the great and good of the Republic were all in jail for opposing the Nazis during the war? I can tell you, they weren’t. So you can use your own imagination to work out what they were doing.’
Müller sighed and leant her arms on the table, fingers steepled together and thumbs under her chin. She held the woman’s gaze. ‘I can get a warrant to search your house if you’d prefer, Frau Höfler. But it would be easier for you to tell me everything I want to know. Less mess to clear up afterwards, too.’
The woman looked away from the detective, and rubbed the palm of her hand across her brow. Then she seemed to come to a decision.
‘Come into the living room. I want to show you something.’
Müller followed her. Unlike the bird-like Frau Ronnebach, Ingo Höfler’s widow gave off an air of strength and resilience. For her age, she still had a good figure, with curves in the right places – as though she’d made a point of trying to keep herself fit, rather than succumbing to middle-age spread.
She went over to the side table, and picked up a photograph which Müller hadn’t spotted before and handed it to the detective. It was a black and white photograph of a dancing girl, one leg kicked high, showing off stockings and suspenders. The rest of the outfit was almost as risqué: a bustier-style top showed off much of the girl’s ample breasts, and between that and the stockings, what looked like ruffled knickers. Müller eyed the girl’s face, then compared it to Frau Höfler’s. Pear-shaped, jolly, yet sensual. Yes, the features had sagged a little, were more lined, but it was the same person.
‘I was in demand, you can imagine. That’s how Ingo and I met – he was in the audience one night. But most of the time, in those days, as you can imagine, we were dancing for Nazis.’
Müller tried to hand the photograph back, as if it were tainted.
Frau Höfler snorted. ‘What do you think happened in this part of Germany after 1945? Where did all the Communists suddenly come from? The trouble with you youngsters is you don’t question things enough. Everyone from that era has skeletons in the cupboard. It was unavoidable.’
Things were starting to come together in Müller’s mind. ‘What were you and your husband’s skeletons, Frau Höfler? What did he do in the war? Surely he was of fighting age. Yet he survived. Why?’
‘He was of fighting age, that’s true. But Ingo was never sent to the front. He’d had a terrible motorcycle accident as a teenager. He always walked with a limp, and in those days the pain was even worse. So no, he didn’t fight. But he played his part in the last few months of the war. In the Volkssturm – the home guard. As for skeletons, well, they’re the same as everyone’s in Gard . . .’ The woman paused. ‘What’s that noise outside? Do you hear it?’
Müller listened. She couldn’t hear anything.
‘There it is again,’ said the woman. This time Müller heard it. It sounded like a radio conversation. The woman opened the kitchen door, and Müller realised the noise was coming from the Lada. She’d left her police radio on in case of emergencies, and someone was trying to get in touch.
‘I’d better respond to that, Frau Höfler. I’ll be back in a moment.’
She climbed into the car, picked up the receiver, and pressed the button to speak.
‘Major Karin Müller, Kriminalpolizei Serious Crimes Department.’
‘Ah, Karin, at last.’ It was Reiniger. ‘We couldn’t get a signal for a couple of hours. I’m terribly sorry; I said I wouldn’t interrupt your holiday. But I’m afraid there’s something that needs your attention. Whereabouts are you? You said you might be going to Oberhof.’
‘We’ve left Oberhof now. We’re in the Harz area.’ It was a small lie. Reiniger could no doubt check her location if he wanted to by tracing which police station had patched through the call. She was hoping he wouldn’t bother.
‘Well, that’s not too far away, either. A pathologist has got in touch from Eisenach – you know, where the castle is, and where they make the cars. Wartburgs. Anyway, there was a death in the factory. Something that wasn’t widely advertised, obviously. This pathologist reckons he’s found something strange about this death that seems to undermine the official account
of an accident. As you can imagine that’s a little sensitive, and he wouldn’t go into details. He said he knew you and wanted to talk to you directly. Although don’t rock any boats. We don’t want to disrupt production or endanger targets at the factory.’
‘Of course, Comrade Oberst. I’ll treat it sensitively, and get on to it right away.’
Reiniger gave her the pathologist’s phone number and she noted it down.
‘Did he leave his name, Comrade Oberst?’
‘Ah! No, sorry. It was Truda that took the message. If you do decide it’s worth you going to see him, and if you need any help getting your family back to the Hauptstadt, be sure to let me know. I feel very bad about doing this twice to you in such a short space of time.’
*
Müller noted down the details, ended the conversation, and then returned to Frau Höfler’s kitchen door and knocked on it again.
The woman opened it, but blocked the doorway with her body and looked at Müller stern-faced.
‘While you were out there I thought I’d better put in a call to the local Ministry for State Security,’ she said. Müller rolled her eyes. ‘You can imagine what they said about you asking me questions. You’re not supposed to be still on this case. They’ll be over here in a few minutes to talk to you.’
Müller turned on her heels without saying goodbye to the woman. The Stasi might be travelling out to the farmhouse to talk to her, but she wasn’t going to stay around to talk to them.
29
Müller found a public call box sufficiently far away from Frau Höfler’s house that if Stasi agents came to visit, as Frau Höfler intimated, they would hopefully not see her. She dialled the number Reiniger had given her. The voice on the end of the line sounded familiar.
‘You may not remember me, Comrade Müller, but I was involved in a case with you a couple of years ago, in the Harz area. I’m Dr Rudolf Eckstein. I’m now semi-retired, and have moved to be nearer my daughter here in Eisenach.’
‘I remember you, Dr Eckstein, yes.’ He’d been the pathologist who’d examined the body of Matthias Schmidt – one of the reform school teenagers. The murdered boy had been the boyfriend of the teenage girl found mutilated at the foot of the Anti-Fascist Protection Barrier. At the time, Müller had thought Eckstein had already been wheeled out of retirement, given the white hairs sprouting from his ears and nostrils.
‘Well, I saw a small piece in the newspaper about you investigating a death in Karl-Marx-Stadt at an industrial plant, and I saw you were in charge of a new Serious Crimes Department. I didn’t really know who to talk to, but I thought you might be able to help.’
‘Help with what?’
‘It’s a little sensitive. I told your police officer in the Hauptstadt that I’d rather not discuss it on the phone. Could we meet? Here in Eisenach?’
‘When?’
‘Well, it’s a little late today if you’re coming from the Hauptstadt.’
‘I’m not, Dr Eckstein. I’m currently near Leinefelde looking into another matter. So you’re only just over an hour’s drive away from me.’
‘Ah, good. Well, in that case, shall we say in two hours’ time?’
Müller made a mental calculation. She would have to ring Helga and persuade her to take the twins back to the Hauptstadt on the train. It wasn’t the easiest of journeys, via Leipzig – but perhaps Helga could break the journey there and stay with her friends who they’d met earlier in the trip and who’d been so taken with the twins.
‘I just have to make one other phone call to sort something out. But that should be all right. In the hospital mortuary?’
‘No. As I say, this is rather sensitive. There’s a parking space halfway up the road from Eisenach to Wartburg Castle. That would be a good place.’
‘All right. Let’s assume I’ll be there in two hours’ time. If it looks as though I may be late, I will ring you.’
Müller knew this had to be followed up immediately. The information that the bird-like Frau Ronnebach and one-time dancing girl Frau Höfler had given her were more pieces of the puzzle. First, that Martin Ronnebach had been a paratrooper – and very possibly an active Nazi. Secondly, that Ingo Höfler had a disability so couldn’t fight yet had joined – or been conscripted into – the home guard when the Nazis faced imminent defeat. But how did it all fit together?
*
Müller was fortunate to catch Helga having lunch in the hotel when she rang. Her grandmother was clearly disappointed their little break now looked to be at an end, but the Harz area had been their last stop anyway.
‘We’ve had a nice little tour,’ said Helga. ‘And I knew you would have to go back to work sooner or later. If you had a normal job, you wouldn’t need me living with you in any case. We’ll be fine on the train. And as you say, if I wanted I could always break the journey in Leipzig.’
*
The white hairs in Dr Eisenach’s nostrils and ears looked even wilder than they had before. He hadn’t said if he was still married, but if he had been then Müller imagined his wife would have nagged him to pay more attention to his personal appearance.
He’d joined her in the Lada, and sat in the passenger seat, with a sheaf of papers in his lap. He seemed to have trouble bending his limbs to sit down. ‘You can see I’m getting on a bit, Comrade Müller. But every time I try to retire, there’s a shortage somewhere or other and they drag me back in. I could say no, of course, but then what else would I do with my time? It’s very hard letting go when you enjoy your work.’
Müller hadn’t given the first thought to her own retirement. But the way things were going, she doubted very much that she’d ever get that far. There had been so much interference from the Ministry for State Security recently that a much more likely outcome would be her handing in her Kripo ID card voluntarily – perhaps in the not-too-distant future.
‘Anyway, here are some things to look at.’ He pulled a couple of black and white photographs from the pile of papers. He handed one to her. It was a naked body of a male – but it didn’t look much like a body any more. The face had been mangled or crushed beyond all recognition. The upper body, too, appeared to have suffered severe crush injuries.
Eckstein handed Müller a second photo. In this the body had been photographed in situ at the scene, crushed under the half-built shell of a Wartburg 353 – the current model favoured so much by the People’s Police. The car, somehow, seemed to have fallen off an inspection pit ramp.
‘On the face of it, this seems to have all the hallmarks of an accident,’ said Müller. ‘Who is he, or rather who was he?’
‘His name was Heinz Unterbrink and he was the quality control manager of VEB Automobilwerk Eisenach. It’s perfectly feasible that he might have been checking under the cars, although normally one might expect someone in a managerial position to delegate that work.’
‘And why are you of the opinion that this wasn’t an accident?’ asked Müller.
‘It’s not an opinion, Comrade Müller. Dead bodies are a little like printed books. You can’t easily undo what has already been printed in black and white. And they can be read like books. Yes, the body has been crushed under the car. Yes, clearly such trauma would be sufficient to cause death, and of course – unless you could prove that the inspection ramp or the car itself had been tampered with, or that Herr Unterbrink had somehow been forced under the car before it fell – then you would conclude that he died in an unfortunate accident. And that is indeed what the factory and the People’s Police here in Eisenach have concluded, and they don’t seem to be interested in anything which disagrees with that conclusion.’
‘But nevertheless you do disagree?’
‘Far be it for me to question our esteemed People’s Police or indeed the management of the Wartburg factory itself. However, the facts disagree, Comrade Müller. Herr Unterbrink couldn’t have been crushed to death.’
‘Why?’ asked Müller. She wasn’t sure why she asked the question, as she already knew the a
nswer. It simply seemed the way Eckstein preferred to explain things.
‘Because he was already dead.’
*
Eckstein wanted to show her the scene of the accident before he would say any more. Müller wasn’t clear why, and had some reservations. Although the car factory was unlikely to deny her access in the way the power station in Gardelegen had, it would still alert the local police – and almost certainly the local Stasi – that someone had rumbled that the so-called ‘accident’ was, in all probability, anything but accidental.
*
Müller chose not to mention the Serious Crimes Department, and decided to show her Volkspolizei ID to the factory officials, rather than her specific one relating to the criminal division. That way, she hoped, they would assume she was from the local People’s Police office.
‘I’m new in Eisenach,’ she half-lied, ‘and Dr Eckstein here simply wants to show me how the accident happened.’
The junior manager who met them didn’t even refer the matter upwards, taking what she said at face value.
The row of inspection bays were to one side of the main factory buildings, where car production had got back into full swing, judging from the crashing of metal and general hubbub of mechanical noises.
‘I’ll leave you to it, Comrade Major, if you’re happy with that,’ said the manager, sweeping back his greasy black hair from his forehead. ‘We’re not using this bay until it’s been established exactly what went wrong, and we’ve got a deadline to meet on a new order from Hungary. Our cars are very popular with our socialist neighbours.’
When the manager had departed, Dr Eckstein started to examine the car and the bay. ‘This is the first time I’ve had the chance to be here since the initial examination of the body when it did indeed look like a straightforward accident.’
Müller saw that the car had dropped several metres from the platform to ground level. The failed platform was still in place.
‘What do you think happened?’ she asked.
