A Darker State

by David Young

  ‘How?’ asked Müller.

  ‘I’ll come to that, Comrade Major. Let me just finish the story. He said it was the Stasi who were insisting he try to find out confidential details about the steel contracts. Unless he did, he said, they were going to make sure he was jailed for the drug dealing. So he was under duress. Basically, your secret service had forced him to become a prostitute. Surely you can’t be proud of that?’

  Müller wasn’t proud of it. She didn’t like the sound of what Metzger was saying at all. But she wasn’t entirely surprised about the Stasi’s methods. ‘It’s not a question of pride, Herr Metzger,’ said Müller. ‘Secret services all over the world operate in a covert way. Sometimes their methods are – shall we say – not as clear-cut as those of my organisation, the police. The BfV – your West German domestic intelligence service – probably operates in similar ways. There’s nothing I can do about it. I’m just trying to do my job.’

  ‘That’s what the Nazis used to say.’

  The comment seemed to send Tilsner into a frenzy. He leapt up and grabbed the man by the lapels of his anorak. ‘Don’t you dare compare us to Nazis, you Arschloch! You’re in no position to hurl insults around, or moralise. You’d just better hope none of these boys you were fucking – oh sorry, that you were in love with – are underage. Because if they are . . .’

  Müller laid a restraining hand on Tilsner’s shoulder.

  ‘S-s-sorry,’ the man stammered. ‘I. . . I don’t know what I was thinking. It was wrong of me to say that. I’m just so desperate, I’m not feeling myself.’

  Tilsner had sat back down on a pile of old wooden pallets. ‘Yes. That’s the problem. Stick to feeling yourself next time. You might not end up in such a God-awful mess.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Metzger, now looking even more downtrodden, ‘we were making plans. We were in love. He said he wasn’t going to help the Stasi any more. They’d insisted, got angry. He’d still refused.’

  ‘How do you know he was telling the truth?’ asked Müller.

  ‘Because he revealed everything – everything that had been going on. He came clean to me. He said it had been a set-up from the start. At first, he was supposed to trap me into compromising positions, so that the Stasi could secretly take photographs.’

  Müller frowned. ‘The room was bugged?’

  ‘That’s what he said. Although if that was the case, why haven’t they used them against me? Why haven’t they released them to the West German press or TV? I was hoping that perhaps they’d messed up. Perhaps the photos didn’t develop properly, or the automatic equipment failed to fire.’

  Tilsner let out a loud guffaw. ‘Ha! Don’t count on that. They’ll just be biding their time, you mark my words.’

  Her deputy’s warning seemed to finally silence the politician. The man just sat there, eyes down again, wringing his hands.

  ‘The trouble is,’ he said, finally, ‘Tobias has disappeared. Since that night, since that night he said he loved me and he’d refuse to do any more work for the Stasi, I’ve not seen him again. First I looked in Leipzig, and then Frankfurt. That’s where he said he was from. I even found this secret club – you know – where our sort go. No one’s ever heard of him. What I wanted was to see if you could find out where he is. He and Dominik Nadel seemed to be doing the same thing, working for the same organisation, targeting me. There must be a link.’ In the gloomy light, he looked at the two detectives hopefully.

  ‘Did Dominik ever ask you about the steel contracts, anything like that at all?’ asked Müller.

  Metzger shook his head. ‘No, nothing like that.’

  Tilsner sighed. ‘Then why do you think there was a link? There may be none.’

  Müller reached into her inside coat pocket and brought out a photo of the unidentified youth found on the riverbank. It was just his face, after Fenstermacher had cleaned it up.

  ‘Can you take a look at this photo, Herr Metzger. Is this the youth you know as Tobias Scherer?’

  The man took the photo and started squinting at it. Müller reached into her pocket again, and this time pulled out her miniature pen torch, and clicked it on. Metzger shone the beam on the picture.

  He shook his head. ‘No, absolutely not. I’ve never seen this person before.’

  Müller was more reluctant to do what she did next. Again, she reached into her inside pocket. Another photo for Metzger to examine.

  Again he shone the torch on the image, then immediately exclaimed.

  ‘Fantastic. This is him. This is Tobias. You know where he is, then?’

  Müller, of course, didn’t share the West German’s enthusiasm. In fact, his reaction filled her with dread, even though she’d long had her suspicions.

  ‘No, Herr Metzger, I’m afraid we don’t know where he is. We’re worried about him. Very worried indeed. And – I’m afraid – his name’s not Tobias Scherer. That was a lie. And he’s not from Frankfurt either. He’s from Pankow in Berlin. And his father is a dear friend of mine.’

  31

  Later that day

  Stahlbar Fussball, Eisenhüttenstadt

  The way events had accelerated had meant some aspects of the inquiry had been ignored, Müller was aware of that. They now had solid information about Markus, but all roads there led to the Stasi. She couldn’t imagine Diederich and Baum being cooperative, given what had gone on. And they may well be mixed up in all of it. If what Metzger had said was true, and the Stasi had followed through on their threats, it looked like Markus Schmidt might well not be missing at all – but languishing in some Stasi jail, having gone back on his deal of cooperating with them. There was only one Stasi officer she trusted enough to find out the information she needed.

  Oberst Klaus Jäger.

  The man who’d been central to the case of the Jugendwerkhöfe teens. The man who’d given her the information that had led to her discovering who her natural birth mother was – even if it was years too late for a reunion – and who had enabled her to be reunited with her natural grandmother, Helga. But her trust in Jäger only went so far. If she went to him for help, he would want the favour returned – with interest. Of that she could be certain.

  One aspect of the inquiry that had been put on the back burner was the sock used to kill Dominik Nadel by stuffing it down his windpipe. So far, the house-to-house searches in Guben, the hunt for potential medical research establishments, none of it had borne fruit. Now they were about to enter the bar of one of the former Yugoslav players for BSG Stahl. Even though Müller had her doubts, the youth team coach had insisted they might hold the key to Dominik Nadel’s murder, and Schmidt’s sock research had pointed in the same direction.

  *

  Slobodan Stefanović stood guard behind his bar, much in the way he used to protect his goalkeeper as one of Stahl’s key centre backs in their Oberliga stint. A giant of a man, who looked more like a nightclub bouncer. A misshapen nose was testament to the number of times he must have put his head in the firing line to save his team. His reward? Cut loose. No pay, no prestige, no prospects. Could a man like that be driven to kill? Müller wondered. The trouble was, while the Stahl defence would have been kept perpetually busy, now that he was a barman, Stefanović had little to do. The bar was empty and looked like it had seen better times: dated wallpaper, dirty tables, and an array of trophies on virtually every shelf, all covered in a fine layer of dust.

  He didn’t appear particularly welcoming either, which might explain his lack of customers. Müller and Tilsner stood at the bar for a few seconds before he deigned to look up from his Serbo-Croat sports paper, even though he must have heard them approaching. And even when he did look up, he didn’t say anything, just raised his eyebrows and flicked his head.

  Müller and Tilsner showed their IDs. ‘I’m Major Müller, this is Hauptmann Tilsner. We’re from the serious crimes department in Berlin.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Stefanović, sounding bored, his German tinged with a strong Slavic accent. ‘What s
erious crimes have been going on in Hütte? Nothing ever happens here. Wish it did. It might give the locals something to talk about. They might then want to come to a bar to discuss it, rather than sitting in their flats behind net curtains drinking cheap Kaufhalle beer.’

  ‘We want to talk to you about your time with BSG Stahl,’ said Tilsner.

  ‘Ha ha. I don’t suppose you want my autograph.’

  ‘Not until we need you to sign your statement,’ said Müller.

  ‘Very funny. I haven’t done anything wrong, so I won’t be needing to sign any statements, thank you. Although if business continues like this – or rather doesn’t continue, like this – I might have to rob a bank soon. But even then, I’d just end up with more of your shitty East German marks, so on second thoughts, I won’t bother. I don’t suppose you two are buying a drink either, are you?’

  ‘I’ll have a beer, if you’re offering,’ said Tilsner. ‘On the house, of course.’

  The man sighed, but despite his affected surliness, pulled out one of his largest beer glasses and started to fill it with draught Pilsner. He nodded at Müller. It was about as near as he was going to get to asking her if she wanted anything.

  ‘I’d love a coffee, if that’s OK?’

  ‘Oh God! There’s always one, isn’t there?’ he complained, half to himself, half to Tilsner. ‘How about a juice instead?’ He looked round at an almost empty shelf. ‘I can offer you apple juice or . . . apple juice?’

  ‘Apple juice would be lovely.’

  Stefanović opened two juice bottles, added them and some ice to a glass, and plonked it down in front of Müller.

  He sighed. ‘So. BSG Stahl. A sad story. A sad, sad story.’

  ‘Do people still feel cut up about it?’ asked Tilsner.

  ‘I guess so. The supporters especially. Some of the players. Particularly those directly affected.’

  Müller gave him a quizzical look. ‘So, the foreign players? The Yugoslavs?’

  ‘I think that’s a fair comment. I’ve no particular axe to grind, mind. I was at the end of my contract anyway, my knees were shot, I was already heading towards my mid-thirties. Your legs start to go then.’ He gave a throaty laugh. ‘The writing was certainly on the wall for me. Ah, look. I enjoyed it. I’ve got a fair few trophies, as you can see. I just wish my last contract hadn’t been in a dump like Hütte.’

  ‘So why didn’t you go back to your homeland?’ asked Tilsner.

  ‘Now that, young sir, is a very good question. I can see why you’ve risen through the ranks as a detective. The answer, as is often the case, is I got a local girl pregnant. She’s now my wife, she’s in the kitchen, and no doubt if you hang around you’ll be trying to cadge a free meal from her soon just like you’ve blagged a free drink from me.’

  Tilsner smiled. ‘Maybe. You never know your luck. Anyway, getting back to the illegal payments scandal. Who was blamed for it?’

  Stefanović frowned. ‘I’m not that well up on it. As I say, I’d have been leaving at the end of the season anyway. I think it was some youth team player, but that always sounded like a lot of nonsense to me. And it was never really a scandal. The only scandal was that BSG Stahl was the only team punished. Every team in the league was paying their foreign stars when they shouldn’t. Why would they come all that way otherwise? To be honest, there was no scandal. It was just that we were a little team who happened to have been promoted to the big league. That didn’t sit too well with some of the others, including the Wine Reds.’

  ‘The Wine Reds?’ queried Müller.

  ‘Dynamo Berlin,’ explained Tilsner. ‘My team – it’s their nickname.’

  ‘Your team,’ said the barman. ‘And of course Mielke’s team. The Stasi team. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was the one behind getting Stahl ejected. So you support them, do you? You’re not one of them are you?’

  Müller laughed. Tilsner glowered and fell silent.

  ‘Whoops,’ said Stefanović.

  Müller’s face grew serious. ‘Would it surprise you to know that that same youth team player, Dominik Nadel—’

  ‘Ah, that’s the one. Correct. Sorry, it had slipped my mind.’

  ‘Would it surprise you to know he’d been found murdered?’

  Stefanović’s jokey manner changed abruptly. ‘Jesus! It certainly would surprise me. Poor boy. What’s all that about, then?’

  Tilsner shrugged. ‘That’s what we’d like to find out. That’s why we’re talking to people . . . like you.’

  ‘This isn’t common knowledge,’ continued Müller, ‘but a sock, we believe from Yugoslavia, was instrumental in the murder.’

  ‘Instrumental in what way?’ asked Stefanović.

  ‘In the way of being stuffed down his windpipe so he couldn’t breathe,’ said Tilsner, taking a long drink of his beer.

  ‘Ouch,’ said the flat-nosed former defender. ‘Not nice. So how do you know this sock was made in Yugoslavia?’

  Müller knew they’d already said too much to the bar owner, but he seemed to have a knack of finding out information, without it seeming obvious that was what he was doing. He’d make a good detective if his bar venture does fail.

  ‘It wasn’t made in Yugoslavia. It was Italian. But it had some vegetable matter trapped in it which we believe came from Yugoslavia.’

  Stefanović leant back, laughing his head off. ‘Well, that’s it, then. Proof positive. Either me or one of my fellow Yugoslav ex-Stahl players obviously murdered this whistle-blower. It’s as plain as day follows night.’ Then he frowned. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t laugh. What’s happened to the kid is terrible. But come on, even if one of us had brought one of our football socks from Yugoslavia, why would there still be Balkan vegetable matter in it after so long? It’s either a fairy story, or someone has obviously – and quite deliberately – planted some evidence. Now who would do that, do you think?’

  Müller maintained a stony face. But she knew what was coming next. Judging by his sour look, Tilsner did too.

  ‘Mr Wine Red supporter, I think you might have a very good idea, don’t you think? The same outfit that protects your team, and makes sure it only gets the finest players.’

  Stefanović didn’t have to spell it out. Müller – her face burning – knew very well what he meant. She finished her juice, and tapped Tilsner on the shoulder. It was time to go. Stefanović might be mocking them – but she knew he was right.

  32

  Two months later (early December)

  Strausberger Platz, East Berlin

  The direction of the inquiry – which had seemed so clear when the second body was found, and when Metzger had confirmed the second youth he was involved with was Markus – now seemed to be meandering again, and the successful conclusion Müller had been hoping for just a few weeks earlier looked further away than ever.

  The first flurries of wet snow had begun to fall on Berlin, and Müller knew Christmas wasn’t far away. For her, Emil and Helga it would be the first Christmas with the twins, both of whom were now in a crèche, and at nine months old were crawling and causing mayhem when not in childcare. She knew, though, that Jonas Schmidt and his wife faced a much bleaker, more desperate Christmas – the first without their only son. Still missing, and despite Reiniger and Keibelstrasse assigning Müller’s supposed Serious Crimes Squad to the case, still no nearer to being found. It was a horrific situation for Schmidt – and an embarrassing one for Müller.

  Tilsner was even grumbling about having to spend so much time away from home. Things with his wife, Koletta, and his two teenage children hadn’t been great since – with some justification – Koletta had accused him of having an affair with Müller some eighteen months earlier. Müller felt guilty she was putting too much of the drudgery of the investigation on his shoulders, while she used her new promotion as an excuse to spend more time at the People’s Police headquarters at Keibelstrasse – which also meant more time with Emil and the twins.

  They’d still failed to locat
e any possible medical research centre. Schmidt’s body-floating experiments had produced a flow rate for the river, but without a more precise time of death, virtually any stretch of the Neisse that bordered the Republic upstream of Guben could have been an entry point. They hadn’t even been able to identify the second body – and had no matching report of a missing person. That didn’t seem to make sense, unless the victim wasn’t even from the Republic. But then they’d checked with their Polish colleagues too, without success.

  Her one hope of getting some information from the Stasi had yielded little so far either. She’d tried to contact Oberst Klaus Jäger several times at Normannenstrasse, but had drawn a blank every time.

  *

  When Jäger did finally respond to her request for a meeting, Müller was perhaps filled with more gratitude than it merited. But she’d felt powerless in her attempts to help her friend and colleague, Jonas Schmidt. At least now there was an opportunity to possibly get some information about Markus’s welfare and whereabouts.

  Just as Müller had chosen one of Jäger’s favourite haunts for her meeting with Metzger, Jäger selected one of Müller’s favoured meeting places: the fairytale fountains. The Märchenbrunnen in Volkspark Friedrichshain.

  She took the tram, as she had before, and saw he was already waiting for her, sitting on the low wall in front of the fountains. Sleet was forecast, so Müller wore her red waterproof coat, but made sure she put on two layers of tights under her woollen skirt, and several layers under the coat. Even so, by the time Müller sat down next to him, she was already shivering.

  ‘I see you’ve got yourself a new coat since the last time we were here, Karin. It’s still not really the thing for this sort of weather though, is it?’

  Müller looked into his face and smiled. He was still tanned, still had the sideburns, the shoulder-length sandy hair. In short, he was still the spitting image of one of the smooth TV presenters on the West German news.

  ‘I know,’ she answered after a moment. ‘I put on extra layers too. And I can’t moan. This time I have been promoted, so I could afford a new coat.’ She looked at the sheepskin lapel of his. ‘Maybe one like yours. It’s the real thing, isn’t it?’