A Darker State

by David Young

  Once Johannes was calmer, the older woman passed him to Müller. ‘Why don’t you let Mama give you a nice big kiss, you handsome boy?’ Helga, in turn, crouched down to play with Jannika.

  Johannes gave Müller a huge giggly smile as she blew raspberries on his tummy. Perhaps there was a way to make this work. She would just have to try harder, and investigate childcare options, as Helga suggested.

  *

  Schmidt seemed to be back to something like his old self, as much as anyone could be when their only son was missing. Müller didn’t need to imagine what it was like – she had faced the same situation when Johannes was just a few hours old. But other than a slightly manic glint in his eyes, Schmidt seemed refreshed, and filled with new purpose. It must have given him some comfort for Reiniger to appoint a special police squad to look into Markus’s disappearance, even though – in reality – little had changed. And what Metzger had told her about Dominik Nadel’s activities before his murder – and Müller still most definitely regarded it as a murder – filled her with a sense of dread: had Markus Schmidt fallen into a similar lifestyle?

  His father was currently busy scurrying from lab table to lab table.

  ‘Ah, Comrade Major. I’m glad you managed to get here so quickly. I didn’t really want to discuss this over the phone.’

  ‘What have you got, Jonas?’

  ‘The sock. I’ve finally got the tests back on the sock. Very interesting, very interesting.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, the first thing to say is it’s from an Italian manufacturer. And it is a long football or sports stocking.’

  ‘Could you tell which team?’

  ‘Unfortunately not. It’s just a plain red colour. But I did check it against those worn by BSG Stahl Eisenhüttenstadt. The home and away kits. It’s not one of theirs.’

  ‘So we’ve no indication where it’s come from?’

  ‘From the pattern, the fabric used to manufacture it – some sort of polyester – unfortunately not. However, I have found something interesting. Can you come and look at the microscope?’

  It was the way Schmidt usually operated. Something that infuriated Tilsner. Rather than producing a concise report, the forensic scientist showed off all his findings like a schoolboy brimming with pride at his latest science project.

  Müller squinted through the eyepiece. ‘Give me a clue, Jonas. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be looking for.’

  ‘Well, you see the pattern. It’s very distinctive. What you’re looking at is the cross-section of a twig.’

  ‘Hmm. And?’

  ‘The pith is chambered. There are air spaces in it, and it’s a pinkish brown in colour, agreed?’

  ‘Seems about right to me. Why does that get you excited?’

  ‘Well, obviously the sock itself was covered in all sorts of horrible body fluids. You’d expect that. What an awful way to go. But caught up between the fibres was this tiny bit of twig, which I took a section of.’

  ‘And how does that help?’

  ‘Well. I’ve managed to identify the species.’ Schmidt pulled down a reference book from his shelf, and then leafed through it until he got to the relevant page. ‘See here,’ he said, pointing to a photograph. ‘It’s exactly the same as what we’re seeing under the microscope. Well, not exactly, but near enough.’

  ‘And?’ asked Müller. Schmidt was leaning closer to her as she looked into the eyepiece once more. She could smell his usual Wurst-breath – his favourite snack food, probably acquired from a stall on Alexanderplatz at lunchtime. At least he was back to eating.

  ‘And what you’re looking at, Comrade Major, is a slide of Juglans regia Carpathian. More commonly known as the Persian walnut. It only grows outdoors in an area stretching from the Balkans across to the Himalayas and parts of China.’

  ‘That’s a big area, Jonas. A very big area.’

  ‘I’ll give you that, Comrade Major. On the face of it, it doesn’t help us much. But if you combine that area with the area where Italian football stockings are commonly imported or worn, things narrow considerably.’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be any of our friendly socialist nations, unless they had a particularly open trade policy. It’s unlikely anyway. The most likely country outside the communist bloc would be Greece. Northern Greece, to be precise.’

  ‘Greece?’ Müller was confused. Her mind started racing. They already knew what the tattoo on Nadel’s back was; surely Schmidt wasn’t now going back to the Greek pi theory he’d discounted earlier?

  ‘But,’ continued Schmidt, ‘there is one socialist country with a border neighbouring Italy – a land and sea border – which regularly trades with the West, and imports Italian-made football stockings.’

  Geography wasn’t Müller’s strongest suit, although she trumped Tilsner at it by some distance. Nevertheless, she knew what Schmidt was going to say before he delivered what he hoped was his coup de grâce.

  ‘Yugoslavia,’ he announced in triumph. ‘I am almost certain that the sock used to kill Dominik Nadel came from Yugoslavia.’

  24

  Later that evening

  Frankfurt an der Oder

  Müller managed to persuade Schmidt that the search for his son would be best served if he accompanied her that evening back out to Frankfurt where they would stay the night, and meet Tilsner for a debrief and a discussion of the best way forward.

  His initial reinvigoration from finding key information about the sock which had been stuffed down Dominik Nadel’s windpipe soon evaporated when Müller revealed in the car that she believed there was a link between Markus and Nadel – and that Nadel was involved in some sort of homosexual prostitution.

  She turned briefly towards where her forensic scientist was sitting in the passenger seat of the Lada. Schmidt was holding his head in his hands. ‘So you’re now saying my son – as well as being missing – is possibly working as a male prostitute?’ He shook his head slowly. ‘I can’t believe that, Comrade Major. I just can’t believe that. It’s too horrible to contemplate.’

  *

  They chose the same bar that Diederich had observed them in the previous time, but on this occasion he was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps the local Stasi were confident Müller and her team had been warned off. Or the news that they been assigned the missing persons search for Markus Schmidt hadn’t yet reached their ears. Müller was sure it would only be a matter of time.

  She had a few blank sheets of paper and a pen in front of her. Really, it would have been easier to set up a proper incident room. But given their recent brush with Diederich and Baum, staying off the radar was possibly the better option.

  ‘So what are we now saying?’ asked Tilsner. ‘That Nadel was actually killed by one of BSG Stahl’s former Yugoslav players who was bitter that the youth’s whistle-blowing cost him his livelihood? However, our best guess tells us that he wasn’t the actual whistle-blower, just the fall guy. Set up by someone. It’s a bit of a mess, Karin. In fact, it’s a huge, horrible mess. And where does Jonas’s son fit into all this? Or does he?’

  Schmidt had gone into silent, unresponsive mode. Müller laid her hand on his arm. ‘Try not to worry, Jonas. I know that’s easy to say. But the best way to deal with this is to work towards finding Markus with logic.’

  ‘I know, Comrade Major. I will do my best. I’m grateful for the chance to be working with you here.’

  ‘I still say we need to give Jan Winkler a bit of a shake-up,’ said Tilsner. ‘He knows more than he’s letting on. And where was he off to that day those Stasi thugs stopped us following him? He didn’t hang around the club, did he? It must have been somewhere important for the MfS to try to stop us.’

  ‘You’re right,’ nodded Müller. ‘I’ve been treading softly because of what Jonas said about his father. If he does work for the Stasi, I didn’t want to irritate them more than necessary. But we need to up the ante. I’ll check with Oberst Reiniger whether we can brin
g him in. At the same time, I’ll ask the colonel to authorise a twenty-four-hour surveillance team using either Vopo or Kripo officers in Berlin.’

  ‘Might not be a bad idea to do the same for your West German friend. It would be nice to know exactly what he gets up to.’

  ‘Metzger? I’ll have enough trouble getting Reiniger to agree to keeping a tail on Winkler. Metzger would be a step too far, especially with the potential for embarrassment with the Federal Republic.’

  ‘We could still put a bit of pressure on him. Threaten to tell the Bonn papers about his secret life.’

  Müller sighed. ‘Maybe. I said I’d keep it a secret, but maybe. As a last resort. Come on. All of us – you too, Jonas – let’s think up possible scenarios.’

  Tilsner drained his beer. ‘OK. Let’s drill down to the basics and try to ignore the spin. What do we know for certain? We know that Dominik Nadel accepted money for sleeping with other men, at least once, even if he wasn’t part of some sort of ring. If he was part of a ring, then perhaps it’s worth putting a bit more pressure on Metzger. Does he recognise any of the other lads? Has he – and I’m sorry about this, Jonas, but it has to be said – has he seen Markus doing anything like that?’

  Schmidt closed his eyes behind his thick-lensed spectacles, as though he was trying hard not to imagine those sorts of things.

  ‘We also know,’ said Müller, ‘that Dominik Nadel was injected with something that changed the level of his sex hormones. Why? And who would do that? As it was clearly a forced thing, because of the marks from the wrist restraints.’

  ‘Unless they were consensual wrist restraints,’ ventured Schmidt, wearily.

  ‘Good point, Jonas,’ said Tilsner. ‘What if it was some sort of weird homo S & M practice? I can believe it of that sort. Maybe he got a kick out of it. Or maybe our swinging-both-ways politician did. Another good reason to give him a bit of a shake-up.’

  Müller sighed. ‘But then how do you explain the testosterone levels?’

  ‘Maybe that’s one of their funny games too. I don’t know. Maybe you get an extra shot of that stuff, more than the male body usually produces, and it makes you harder.’

  Müller shook her head. ‘That’s just guesswork. We need the science. Jonas, that’s a job for you. Find out all the science behind it using your Berlin contacts. Talk to the universities, the relevant departments. Do we know of anyone conducting any similar research? Officially or unofficially. We should have done this already, really. It’s been staring us in the face ever since Fenstermacher mentioned it. And I suppose, if you must, see if injections of testosterone are ever used on the fringes of the homosexual world.’

  ‘Of course, Comrade Major. I’ll get onto it first thing in the morning.’

  ‘I’ll set about arranging the tail on Winkler, and at least raise the possibility of bringing him in for questioning – I can make some calls tonight. Werner, you get on to the youth team coach again. It was his theory about a possible Yugoslav revenge attack. Didn’t he mention one of them ran a bar in Hütte? That might be a good place to start. And – whatever the Stasi say about their “honey trap” – we need to go down to that club again. Question everyone. Has anyone gone off the radar recently, like Nadel did?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Schmidt, sadly. ‘My son has.’

  ‘I know, Jonas,’ said Müller. ‘But we’re going to find him safe and well, and you’re going to welcome him back into the family, whatever has happened.’

  25

  One month earlier (September 1976)

  Interhotel Stadt Leipzig

  I feel nervous. I don’t want to mess up. This is my chance to escape the nightmare, get my life back. I just have to do what they want, however distasteful. It will only be the once, they said. I have no other choice anyway – if it goes to trial, that’s me finished. My father already hates me for what I am.

  The bar here is busy. So many deals going on around the trade fair. Such a buzz of excitement. If I do finally sort all this out, this is the kind of thing I’d like to do. Work somewhere exciting like this.

  They’ve made me study photos of him from several angles, with different hairstyles. Different designs of spectacles. I wouldn’t say he’s particularly handsome, but he’s not bad. I just have to remember my lines, play my part. And then – like any actor – I’ll get my payment. Only in my case, payment will be freedom. Freedom from all this hell hanging over me.

  And I feel confident. I’m not wearing my thick spectacles. Instead, the agents have provided me with the very latest soft contact lenses from Japan. It’s like a new world for me. I keep on trying to push my glasses back up my nose, like before, forgetting they’re not there. It gives me a new confidence, despite what I’ve been through.

  There’s some of the latest western pop music playing. I choose a stool at the bar. I’ve been told that’s what he favours. As I shake my head in time to the music, trying to look cool, edgy, I subtly scout the bar with each head shake trying to find him.

  At first, I think my luck’s out. I can’t see him. Then I see a nervous, bespectacled man, thin and tall. I prefer thin and tall. I don’t know what I’d have done if they’d asked me to do it with a Wurst-scoffing lard-ball.

  I don’t try to make eye contact initially. That’s what they said my strategy should be. Don’t be too obvious. Don’t be too easy.

  But then, on one head shake, he catches my eye. I don’t smile the first time. Instead, I turn away. Teasing slightly. That’s what they like in the West, they told me. Then I turn back. He’s still staring. But he looks sad. I smile. My best, friendliest smile. Still moving to the music. I turn away again, flick my fringe back, the fringe that used to sit on the thick spectacles, but now just hangs free – sexily, I know, because I practised in the mirror – across my eyebrows. On the third glance, when I’m sure he’s interested, I pick up my drink, down it, and go to sit next to him.

  *

  When we get to his room things don’t go as well as I’d expected. Sitting on the stools, I’d dropped my hand to his left thigh, edged it up slowly. I could feel him hardening under the lightness of my fingers – unseen, I was certain, by anyone else at the bar. It seemed promising.

  But when we get into the room, and he locks the door, things seem to have changed.

  ‘I just want to talk,’ he says. ‘Just talk for a while.’

  He sees my disappointment, sees the tears welling in my eyes.

  ‘Don’t cry. Please don’t cry,’ he says, hugging me to him. Perhaps I can turn this round. Even this might be good enough for them. A West German politician in a clinch with a boy who could be a teenager. I know their surveillance cameras will be catching this. I drop my hand to his groin again, but he brushes it away.

  ‘I meant what I said. I just want to talk. Really. But I’ll still pay you. Whatever your normal rate is.’

  ‘If you’re sure,’ I say. ‘That’s kind of you.’

  I let him count out the notes, then take them from him quickly before he changes his mind. Half of me thinks, What a sucker. But the other half feels sorry for him.

  Maybe he’s in a desperate situation too, like me.

  ‘So what do you want to talk about? Sexy talk?’ I ask hopefully.

  He shakes his head. ‘I’m not really one for that. I’m just getting over someone else.’

  ‘A boy?’

  He nods, looking slightly shamefaced. I glance down, see his wedding ring. He hides it self-consciously with his other hand.

  ‘Married?’

  He nods and sighs. I try to move close to him on the bed, so that our thighs are touching. He doesn’t try to move away. There’s still a possibility.

  Although he says he wants to talk, he doesn’t seem to be starting a conversation. It’s strange, as he must know payment is by the hour, not that I’m going to be counting. My job is just to get him in a compromising position in front of the cameras. But maybe it’s a case of playing the slow game still.

  ‘So come on
. We can’t just sit here. If you don’t want to do anything with me, we need to start talking. What do you want to talk about? You haven’t even asked me my name yet. What’s yours?’

  ‘Georg.’ I already know that, of course. At least he’s not giving a fake one like I will when he asks me. ‘You?’ he asks.

  ‘Tobias. Tobias Scherer.’

  ‘And how did you get into this game, Tobias? Isn’t it dangerous here in the East?’

  ‘Why does anyone do it?’ I reply, my confidence growing. ‘Money. To get out of trouble. And no, it’s not so hard in the East. As long as you don’t do it in the full view of the authorities.’

  ‘And tell me, do you know any of the others?’

  ‘The others?’

  ‘The other boys who do business here.’

  This is starting to turn a bit strange. I hope he’s not one of those weirdos you hear about on the western news. I shake my head. ‘I’m not part of a group. I just work on my own.’

  ‘And where are you from?’

  For some reason this question throws me. I don’t want to tell the truth. ‘Frankfurt,’ I lie, thinking of where I was arrested, the first town that comes into my head. ‘Frankfurt an der Oder, of course, not the other one.’

  ‘Of course.’ He manages to raise a weak smile.

  ‘Do you know Eisenhüttenstadt?’ he asks. Scheisse. I start to panic. I can’t remember where that is. But I seem to remember it’s somewhere in the east. The east of the east. The eastern edge of the Republic. ‘Of course,’ I lie. It’s easy, this lying game. Another world. Another world you can build and live in. It must be so tempting. ‘It’s right near us. I’ve plenty of friends there.’ That’s a lie, of course. I don’t have any friends, actually, I want to say. And the only friend I had turned into my betrayer. But I know if I say that, the game will be up. The Stasi will make good on their promise. Bautzen or Hohenschönhausen. I don’t want to try either of them, thank you.