A Darker State

by David Young

  I don’t take his advice, and instead put the pills in my pocket. When he’s not looking, I’ll throw them away.

  I look furtively up at the apartment windows. I wonder if my father’s watching again. We’ve made our peace – but the atmosphere between us is still awkward. I think my running away from home before made him think. Perhaps he won’t be so hard on me in future.

  *

  The music booms out as usual, but nothing seems as much fun. I sit in the corner, leaning back, just smoking dope. Far too much, probably. It’s a fine line between feeling nicely happy, then too happy, and finally, starting to worry. I’m worrying now. I’m not sure what about. But one thing that worries me is seeing Jan dancing with another guy. I’m sure he’s just trying to make me jealous. But then, if he does go off with him, how will I get back to the Hauptstadt, to Pankow? The world starts to spin. I think I’m going to throw up.

  I run outside and lean over, my eyes closed as the pressure bursts in my head and I empty my guts. I feel so awful. I don’t think I can face going back to Berlin sitting on the back of a motorbike. I don’t think I’ll be able to cling on. As it is, I can hardly even stand.

  I crouch down on my haunches. Holding my head as though it’s going to explode into tiny pieces. My eyes closed. Trying to breathe slowly, deeply.

  Eyes closed.

  So I don’t see them coming.

  The first I realise is when my breath is being knocked out of me, wanting to be sick again as one of them hits me hard in my stomach. They’re pinning me back against the wall. Leather jackets. Sunglasses. But they’re not bikers.

  I feel my arms being yanked up behind my back, wrists shackled, metal cutting into my skin as I try to wriggle free.

  ‘Markus Schmidt.’ How do they know my name? How do they know my name?!

  ‘You’re under arrest.’ Arrest! Scheisse! What will happen to my father now? My mother? He’ll lose his job. We’ll be thrown out of our apartment. He’ll hate me even more.

  One of them is waving something in front of my face. I try to focus. My eyes won’t let me. But I see an emblem. A shield. A muscular arm. Holding up an automatic rifle – I’ve seen it before somewhere. But I can’t place it.

  Then I read the words. The Ministry for State Security. The Stasi.

  Now there are camera flashes going off.

  I finally find my voice.

  ‘Arrest?’ I slur. ‘But I haven’t done anything.’ Even as I speak the words, I know my breath – and the sickly-sweet smell wafting on it – will give me away. I’ve been smoking dope all afternoon. That’s enough for them.

  But it’s not the dope they’re interested in.

  The cameras are still flashing as one of them reaches into my pocket. I suddenly remember. The pills. And it’s not every pocket they’re searching – just that one. The one where I put the pills. The pills I meant to throw away. The pills given to me by . . .

  And then all of a sudden, my mind clears.

  I know who’s done this. I know why they aren’t searching every one of my pockets. Only one person knew what I’d put into that pocket.

  The person who gave me the pills.

  The boy I thought was my only friend. Perhaps more than that.

  The boy who protected me from the bullies.

  Jan Winkler.

  17

  Five months later (September 1976)

  The banks of the Oder–Spree canal

  Within an hour they were back at the club. Loud rock music was still pounding away inside.

  ‘Shall we keep watch again?’ asked Müller.

  Tilsner shook his head. ‘We need to go somewhere and talk everything through. We need a better plan, Karin. I don’t want to go haring off on daft motorcycle chases again. Can we do some real detective work, please?’

  Before they left – while making sure no one was watching them – Müller checked behind the loose brick that Winkler had moved. There was nothing there. Whatever it had been, the youth had taken it with him.

  *

  In the event, Tilsner’s plea for a meeting to thrash out where they went next went unheeded. Not because Müller disagreed with him. What he said made sense. The news of Markus Schmidt’s disappearance had distracted Müller. At first she’d been sure it was just another teenage row – and that Markus would be home before they’d managed to get any search into gear. The news about the links to the Frankfurt club – the possible connection to Dominik Nadel, the fact that Jan Winkler had been behaving so suspiciously – it all left her with a deep sense of unease about the fate of her forensic officer’s son.

  No, the reason Tilsner’s idea didn’t get off the ground was that, as soon as they reached the Frankfurt People’s Police offices where they’d planned to find a room for their meeting, Müller was handed a note by the receptionist. She tore open the envelope and began to read.

  ‘Who’s it from?’ asked Tilsner.

  ‘Your opposite number in Senftenberg. Helmut Schwarz. That pathologist has some new information, he says.’

  ‘What information?’

  ‘She’s not prepared to discuss it over the phone or in writing.’

  ‘Well, that’s not very helpful. What then?’

  ‘She wants to meet us in Hoyerswerda.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘As soon as possible. And there’s no time like the present.’

  ‘Oh God. Not another drive. Can’t we have the evening off? Go to a bar? Discuss the case?’

  Müller shook her head. ‘If I’m going to be away from the twins another night, I don’t want to waste it. We might as well go now. It’s only a couple of hours’ drive.’

  *

  In fact, the journey was slightly shorter. When she rang Schwarz, he suggested meeting in the bar of the same Interhotel at Senftenberger See lakeside that the two Berlin detectives had stayed in before.

  It didn’t seem as though Dr Gudrun Fenstermacher approved.

  ‘Not my idea, this,’ she said. ‘I’d have been happy with a café. But you police officers obviously have healthy expense accounts.’

  ‘Still, it’s very good of you to make yourself available on a Sunday, Comrade Fenstermacher,’ said Müller.

  The older woman glowered. ‘She prefers Citizen,’ interjected Tilsner. This brought a nod and a smile from the pathologist.

  ‘So, Citizen Fenstermacher,’ continued Müller. ‘What is it you’ve found?’

  Fenstermacher lowered her voice conspiratorially. ‘It’s a bit strange. I’ve not seen anything like it before.’

  Müller wondered why – if the woman thought it necessary to lower her voice in order not to be heard – they were meeting in an Interhotel bar. With the number of western businessmen visiting Interhotels, they were likely to be the most spied-upon places in the Republic. But that decision must have been Schwarz’s. And perhaps Hauptmann Schwarz – like his fellow police captain, Werner Tilsner – wasn’t averse to serving two masters at the same time.

  ‘Strange in what way?’ asked Tilsner.

  ‘Unusual chemical compounds in the body. I’ve only just got the test results through. Well, they came on Friday, but initially I wanted to check on them and work out what they meant. ’

  ‘And what exactly were these chemicals?’

  ‘A surfeit of testosterone and metabolites from the breakdown of testosterone – testosterone glucuronide, testosterone sulphate. That sort of thing. So, odd hormone levels. I can give you a full list if that’s helpful, but all you need to know, really, is that they’re all linked to testosterone. Too much of it.’

  ‘Couldn’t that happen naturally?’ asked Müller

  ‘Not at these sorts of levels it couldn’t. And there was something else that made me suspicious.’

  ‘What?’ asked Tilsner.

  ‘Well, perhaps it’s my own fault. It was something I noticed at the autopsy but dismissed. I put it down to pitting of the skin due to extended contact with water. But there were injection marks, all in
a similar place. At first I thought perhaps it was simply a vaccination scar.’

  ‘Where?’ asked Müller.

  ‘On the victim’s upper left arm just below the shoulder.’

  ‘Which is the usual place for a vaccination scar, isn’t it?’ asked Tilsner. ‘So why do you now think it wasn’t one?’

  ‘It’s not quite the right pattern. The test results prompted me to have another look at the photos I took of the body.’

  ‘And your conclusion?’ asked Müller.

  ‘My conclusion is that the victim was repeatedly injected into the upper arm.’

  Müller frowned. ‘With testosterone? Why would anyone do that?’

  ‘Possibly with testosterone. Or possibly with some other drug that’s already washed out of his system that would have prompted an overproduction of testosterone. As to why, well, then we’d be entering the realms of speculation and, as I’ve already told you, I don’t like to speculate if I can help it.’

  ‘But if I were to twist your arm?’ smiled Tilsner with his most winning smile.

  ‘If you were to twist my arm, dear Hauptmann, I would probably use the other one to punch you in the face. Or use my leg to knee you in the groin.’ Tilsner laughed. Müller just wished the woman would get on with it. ‘However, as it’s you, and as the People’s Police – as usual – seem to have sent so many officers to talk to me about this particularly nasty killing, I will indulge you for once. My best guess is that this young man was restrained in some way, and forcibly injected. Several times. That’s why there are also marks on his wrists.’

  ‘Who would do something like that, though?’ asked Müller.

  ‘Ah. Well that, you see, Major, isn’t my problem. And I have to say I’m rather glad it isn’t. Germany has a bit of a history of this sort of thing, much as I love my homeland. There was a lot of it before the war, and during it.’

  ‘But that was the Nazis,’ said Müller.

  ‘They were still Germans, dear. But perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps my conclusions are incorrect. If I am correct, however, you might find this is a can of worms you’ll come to wish you’d never opened.’

  18

  Five months earlier (April 1976)

  Frankfurt an der Oder Stasi office

  The light is blinding and my head is pounding. I want to be sick again, but I know there is nothing left in my body except bile. And the ever-repeating thought in my head is, I wish I’d listened to my father. I wish I’d listened to my father.

  ‘So, Markus,’ said the officer sitting behind the desk. ‘You still deny knowing anything about these pills. Your story – and I have to be honest, I think it’s exactly that, a story – is that the drugs must have been planted. Is that correct?’

  I know he doesn’t believe me, but equally I know I cannot implicate Jan. In any case, now I’ve planted the lie, I have to see it through.

  ‘OK. Let’s assume you’re telling the truth.’ He reaches into a folder on the desk, which otherwise simply has a single typewriter, a single light, and a telephone. ‘How, then, do you account for this?’

  It’s a black-and-white photo of me outside the club. Clearly being handed something by another youth of about my age. I can’t remember his name. Oh yes, Florian. That was it. On what was it, my second visit there? Jan had told me Florian could give me a packet of mints. They’d been brought over from Poland, just across the bridge from Frankfurt. I’d handed him a five-mark note and he’d given me change and the unbranded mints.

  ‘I was buying some sweets.’

  The Stasi officer rocked back on his chair, laughing from deep within his stomach. ‘Of course, sweets. Not drugs, sweets.’

  ‘They were mints.’

  ‘Unusual sweets to be buying outside an illegal club, don’t you think?’

  I shrug.

  The office raises his eyebrows. ‘Of course, you don’t have to answer my questions. Could you also take a look at this photograph?’

  It’s the same scene. Only this time, the unbranded packet of mints in my hand has been enlarged.

  ‘What brand of mints are they?’

  ‘They don’t have a brand marked.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They were imported from Poland.’

  ‘Polish mints. Aha. Why, then, don’t they have Polish writing on? Why don’t they have a Polish brand name? There’s nothing wrong with buying sweets in Poland and selling them in the Republic. It’s not a crime.’

  ‘I thought—’

  ‘Hmm, no, I think that’s where you’re wrong. You didn’t think. You didn’t think ahead. To the consequences of your actions. Your actions in buying a quantity of amphetamines – an illegal drug – and then using them, and having them in your possession. Of course, this photograph isn’t necessarily of you buying them. Here, have a look.’

  He shows me similar photographs, obviously taken a few seconds apart, when I bought the mints. He places them on the table facing me. One – on the left – shows the note, or notes, in my hand. The second – on the right – shows the unbranded packet of mints in my hand.

  ‘So you’re saying the left comes before the right? That this transaction shows you buying a packet of –’ he pauses, and coughs sarcastically – ‘a packet of unbranded mints, not that I’ve seen a packet of unbranded mints before.’

  He pauses again, and switches the photos. So that the one with me holding the mints is on the left, the one with the money on the right.

  ‘What if the story is this way round? What if there’s a time stamp that proves that?’ I feel a mounting sense of dread. There are date and time stamps. I look at them. Even I can see that the photo now on the left is – allegedly – from five seconds before the one on the right.

  ‘That’s not right!’ I shout. ‘I was buying them, not selling them.’

  ‘Calm down, Markus. Calm down. I’ve already said that it’s not a crime to sell Polish mints in the Republic.’ I see him frown. It’s a false frown. A play-acting frown. ‘Aha,’ he says, this time with false surprise. ‘I see the problem now. You’re worried that they’re not mints, and that we’re right, and they’re amphetamines. It wouldn’t really matter, then, if they’re Polish or not, would it?’

  I know I look defeated. I know they’ve defeated me. I know I’ve let my father down. I let him down with my school results, and now this. And this is far, far worse.

  ‘It wouldn’t matter, because we have evidence of you possessing amphetamines. You were caught red-handed by our agents outside the club. But we also,’ he pointed to the doctored photos, each in turn, ‘have evidence of you selling amphetamines. Dealing in drugs. And that, Markus, is a very different ball game.’

  19

  Five months later (September 1976)

  Neuzelle, Bezirk Frankfurt

  The choice of bar of Günther Klug, the youth team coach from BSG Stahl Eisenhüttenstadt, evidently met with Tilsner’s approval.

  ‘This is more like it,’ he said.

  For Müller, Neuzelle itself – a historic Prussian village full of lovely old buildings – was totally different to Hütte, a few kilometres north. But both were dominated by an institution – a building or series of buildings – that had come to define the locality. In the latter’s case it was the steel complex of Eisenhüttenkombinat Ost, and its iconic address of Number 1, Work Street. For the former, it was the beautiful abbey that rose on a slight hill above the Oder valley. Each making sure the citizens worshipped their particular gods – the god of work and communism in Hütte, and the god of religion in Neuzelle.

  They spotted Klug in the far corner of the bar, already nursing a small beer.

  ‘Thanks for agreeing to this meeting, Günther.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ replied the football coach, in little more than a whisper. ‘But I’d appreciate it if we could keep our voices as low as possible. You never know who’s listening, and what I have to say is . . . well, a little controversial. It might be seen as disloyal to the club.’

>   ‘And how did the club get on?’ asked Tilsner.

  Klug frowned. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘In the game at the weekend. I thought you had a big match against Guben?’

  ‘Ah yes. We won 3–0. But as you know, we shouldn’t really be in this league.’

  ‘Does that have something to do with what you want to tell us, Günther?’ asked Müller. ‘Was Dominik Nadel somehow involved in all that?’

  ‘Involved? I don’t know if he was directly involved. You mean in the whistle-blowing? The uncovering of the scandal?’

  Müller and Tilsner both nodded.

  ‘That I can’t say. Sorry to disappoint you. What I can tell you is that Dominik was the one blamed for it.’

  ‘So why don’t you think he did it?’ asked Tilsner.

  ‘How would he know the details? He played for the youth team, remember? Not the first team. The scandal was in the first team – if, indeed, it was a scandal. The club was paying some of its players illegally. It was found guilty of damaging the principles of a socialist society. Why would one of the youth team know the ins and outs of secret payments to members of the first team squad? He wouldn’t. I always felt he was innocent. He was a scapegoat. But – having been made the scapegoat – he would have had enemies. Plenty of enemies.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ asked Müller.

  ‘People lost their jobs, their livelihoods. At least initially. Most of the foreign players involved – the ones receiving the alleged illegal payments – were Yugoslavs. They’d brought their entire families here, to Eisenhüttenstadt. Some would have found new clubs here in the Republic. But even that would have meant uprooting families again. We were the only Oberliga club around here. Although Frankfurt played in the top league a couple of years ago. But consider those who’d come to Eisenhüttenstadt towards the end of their careers, thinking it was their last decent payday. And then suddenly – uh-oh! – in effect there’s no club any more. You’d be pretty cut up about it, wouldn’t you? And if someone was named as responsible, even if they didn’t actually blow the whistle, well . . .’ The man leant back in his chair and opened his arms wide.