A Darker State

by David Young

  *

  Müller knew the only solution – for the time being – was to take refuge in her work. To increase her efforts to try to find Markus Schmidt and solve the murder cases. She still felt they were inextricably linked. But the priority was to get Markus home, safe and well, as soon as possible.

  Helga tried to persuade her to watch television with her. She even offered another bottle of her dwindling supply of sparkling wine. Instead, Müller explained to her grandmother she had to go out. There was something she had to do.

  *

  ‘Good grief,’ whispered Tilsner, as Müller crept into his hideout overlooking the Frankfurt club. ‘I wondered who that was for a moment; thought I’d been discovered. What are you doing here? Mind you, I’m beginning to wonder what I’m doing here. I’m getting sick of just watching Winkler and his cronies, rather than arresting them. But I thought you wanted me to do this on my own?’

  ‘Nothing better to do,’ she said quietly. ‘I thought I might as well get some fresh air. Although it isn’t very fresh in here.’

  ‘It’s these sacks,’ said Tilsner. ‘They don’t smell any better than when we first came here – worse, if anything. They’re the only things keeping me warm though. Well, not exactly warm, but they stop me freezing to death.’ He lifted the side of his makeshift blankets and motioned for Müller to join him. She could feel her teeth beginning to chatter as the cold started to get into her bones. She squeezed up against him, feeling his warmth.

  ‘Just like old times, eh?’ he said, in a lecherous voice.

  ‘Don’t get any ideas—’

  Müller’s low tones were cut off mid-sentence as Tilsner clasped his hand over her mouth. The headlight beam of another car swung into the car park.

  Müller cupped her hands over Tilsner’s left ear to whisper to him. ‘I’ve only come here because you insisted there was something I had to see in person,’ she giggled. ‘Although it is quite nice being squashed up here.’

  Tilsner sighed. ‘It won’t be anything to laugh about, Karin,’ he said in a stern whisper. ‘As I said, you have to see for yourself, but you won’t like it. Though I can’t guarantee it will happen just like last week.

  ‘Can’t you tell me what it is?’

  She felt him shake his head as the car doors of the latest visitors slammed shut. A man aged about thirty, thought Müller, from what she could see in the light, and a youth. Aged twenty at the most. They waited at the door of the club, then it opened and they were let inside. In the illuminated doorway, Müller clearly saw the face of Jan Winkler.

  ‘Is that what you wanted me to see?’ asked Müller, sotto voce.

  Tilsner shook his head again. ‘No, Karin,’ he whispered back. ‘I wish it were, but it isn’t.’

  ‘What, then?’ she asked.

  Before Tilsner could answer, another vehicle pulled into the car park.

  Müller was surprised when Diederich got out of the driver’s side, and then opened the rear door for another young man to emerge. When the youth was upright, her surprise turned to shock. Diederich was pushing him against the side of the car, and they appeared to be embracing.

  ‘Good God!’ cried Müller under her breath.

  ‘That’s not what I wanted you to see either, Karin, I’m afraid,’ hissed Tilsner.

  She saw another man get out of the car’s passenger side. For a moment, he looked like a doppelganger of Diederich. The blond hair, the square jaw, the classic—

  ‘No! N—’

  Tilsner clasped his hand across her mouth again, held her down as she fought against him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Karin. I’m sorry. This is why you had to see it for yourself.’

  Because there, facing them now, apparently hugging a younger man who’d also emerged from the back seat of the car, was someone who looked remarkably like Diederich. Müller had remarked on it before in the bar in Frankfurt at the start of this godforsaken case.

  Müller tried to blink away her tears. The yard’s lighting was weak. But there was no mistake. It was her partner, Emil Wollenburg. The father of her children. And Müller knew – as Tilsner continued to hold her back, and she continued to struggle – that her world had just fallen apart.

  45

  She was disgusted with him, disgusted with herself for not realising, livid with Tilsner for not telling her as soon as he’d found out. As soon as the four men were in the club, she wrenched herself free of her deputy’s grasp.

  ‘Don’t do anything stupid, Karin,’ hissed Tilsner.

  She ignored him, ignored the club, banished all thoughts of confronting Emil for now. That could wait. She didn’t care what Tilsner discovered now in his cold, lonely vigil. She wanted to get home.

  *

  Müller knew she was in no real state to drive. Too many thoughts, dark thoughts, racing round her brain. Thoughts as dark as killing Emil, making him pay the ultimate price for his betrayal.

  She could feel the tendons bulging in her neck as she gripped the steering wheel of the Lada. She wasn’t going to do anything stupid. She was going to get back to Strausberger Platz and then assess her options.

  *

  Once she got back to the flat it was quiet, save for the sound of the occasional car or motorbike on Karl-Marx-Allee or on Lichtenberger Strasse – the street they directly overlooked. Helga and the twins had long gone to sleep. Müller briefly toyed with the idea of waking her grandmother, but decided she was just being selfish. It was a problem – and what an understatement that was – that she would have to deal with alone. And at the end of the day, Emil Wollenburg would still be the father of her twins. She would still be linked to him in some way, whatever action she decided to take. And she was determined that, in whatever she decided, Jannika and Johannes’s needs had to come first.

  She suddenly felt a huge wave of tiredness wash over her. Her legs felt like lead and she struggled to even put one in front of the other as she made her way to the bedroom – the bedroom she shared with a man she now knew was a liar. A pervert even. Although as soon as she had this thought, she banished it. Markus Schmidt wasn’t a pervert, so why was Emil?

  Taking off her boots, Müller slumped down onto the bed. She didn’t have the energy to take off her clothes. Instead, she pulled the duvet over herself and curled into a foetal ball. She didn’t know what she could do; didn’t know who she could trust, or who she could confide in. Perhaps only Helga, but it was unfair to lay all her troubles at her grandmother’s door.

  *

  She didn’t know how much later it was that she felt Emil’s weight on the other side of the bed. He tried to reach across to her, but she pushed him away. He would think it was just a continuation of their earlier argument, that she still hadn’t forgiven him. But it was something much, much worse. A betrayal of the absolute worst kind. As he lapsed into contented snoring, she remained wide awake, the images of him outside the club flashing in front of her eyes.

  He’d arrived with Diederich. Had he been betraying her to him all along, discussing her secrets, the aspects of the case she’d let slip at home? Worse than that, was he one of them? A member of the Stasi. Were her original suspicions about his job in Halle-Neustadt conveniently coinciding with hers well founded after all?

  If so, it meant everything was a lie.

  Their whole life was a lie.

  And the twins? What of them? They must – to Emil – have been a huge mistake. Perhaps he’d been relying on what the gynaecologists had told her repeatedly: that it was impossible for her to get pregnant. Yet she had. That was the irony of the situation. If Emil was a Stasi agent, if he was a homosexual, then he had still given her the most precious gift of her life: Jannika and Johannes. And he was still – for all his sins – their natural father. She would have to think very carefully about what she did next, and bide her time.

  *

  The next day, she made sure she was up before he was, leaving a note for Helga explaining she had an early meeting at Keibelstrasse. She hadn’t,
of course. Her first appointment was at 10 a.m. with Fenstermacher and her endocrinology contact at Charité. She just couldn’t face Emil. She wasn’t even sure she could face Helga or the twins – little though they knew about what was going on.

  She just needed to get out of the apartment.

  Her hopes and dreams for a happy future had been shattered.

  46

  Müller scanned the Charité hospital car park, looking for Fenstermacher’s peppermint-green Wartburg, with its elegant, curved bodywork. Finally she spotted it, made her way over and opened the door.

  ‘Citizen Fenstermacher, so good of you to come all this way. I’m very grateful. Do you think it’s best if I’m in the front or the back?’

  Fenstermacher tapped the passenger seat. ‘Sit in the front with me. Poldi can go in the back. And then if he’s brought any documents, he can spread them out next to himself.’

  When Müller climbed in and settled herself, the older woman looked at her. ‘You look tired, if you don’t mind me saying so, Major Müller.’

  ‘I am. Bad night’s sleep, I’m afraid.’ There was a grain of truth in that, but it was so far from what was really the truth it was almost an outright lie. ‘But if Herr Althaus has anything useful to say, anything that helps us to crack this case, that might perk me up.’

  ‘I’m sure he will,’ said Fenstermacher. ‘But he’s a bit nervous, perhaps understandably. That’s why he wanted to meet in my car rather than the hospital itself.’

  *

  Althaus, when he arrived, looked to Müller much as she’d imagined. A slight man, with wire-rimmed glasses, a bit like an emaciated Trotsky – a man out of his time, with unfashionable clothes that appeared to be from the fifties, never mind the sixties.

  After the brief introductions, Fenstermacher asked Althaus if he was happy to talk here in the hospital car park, or if it might be better to go for a drive. When he indicated the latter, the pathologist asked him if he had any preferences.

  ‘Well, if it’s not too far out of your way, perhaps the Müggelsee? I’m rather fond of it, and you can park right by the lake.’

  The pathologist’s face fell. It was a good three-quarters of an hour’s drive at least.

  Müller smiled. There was a way to make the endocrinologist’s suggestion work. ‘If you drop Dr Althaus and myself at Köpenick S-bahn afterwards, we’ll be able to make our way back from there, and you can pick up the motorway system at Bohnsdorf.’

  *

  The Müggelsee – what they could see of it through the mist, at least – was completely frozen over following day after day of plunging temperatures, with only a few hardy souls dressed in their warmest winter coats and boots actually walking on the ice. Müller didn’t fancy that, and it seemed Althaus and Fenstermacher were content to stay in the car too. Fenstermacher kept the engine ticking over to ensure they were warm enough.

  ‘So, Poldi, tell Major Müller here what you can about Dr Uwe Gaissler,’ she said. She smiled conspiratorially at Müller. ‘There’s no love lost between them – but I have it on good authority from others that Poldi’s account is correct.’

  Althaus pushed his spectacles back up his nose, and then started talking as Müller and Fenstermacher turned in their seats to listen.

  ‘Well, I don’t like to speak badly of colleagues, but with Dr Gaissler I make an exception. He worked in the endocrinology department, and some of their work is controversial, but the basic thesis isn’t bad: it argues that homosexuality in males is a result of androgen deprivation during a particular phase of foetal hypothalamic development. They had some success with rats in reversing this. The department’s argument is that, although homosexuality isn’t illegal in the Republic, many homosexuals are suicide risks, therefore anything that can be done to prevent this must be a good thing.

  ‘So the initial idea was one of prevention, rather than a cure – if indeed we should talk of such things when discussing sexual orientation.’

  ‘Pah,’ snorted Fenstermacher. ‘Of course we shouldn’t. It’s a fundamental human choice. If you start to talk about, or look for, these so-called “cures”, you’re little better than the Nazis with their so-called “experiments”.’

  Müller was inclined to agree, but she wanted to hear what the doctor had to say about the facts and about Gaissler, rather than listen to Fenstermacher’s own views.

  ‘Go on, Dr Althaus,’ she said.

  ‘The theory was that those foetuses at risk could be administered androgen therapy, thus preventing a homosexual adult developing. The foetuses unsuitable for treatment should be aborted.’

  Fenstermacher gasped, although Müller was sure the woman must have heard this before, given she was the one who’d arranged this meeting. For Müller, the man’s words were an uncomfortable and unwanted reminder of her own past – the abortion she’d had at the start of her career.

  ‘But what about Gaissler? It’s him we’re concerned with isn’t it?’ prompted Müller.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Althaus. ‘There was a proposal to go as far as potential brain surgery as one part of a so-called “cure”. As far as I know, it initially didn’t go any further. But Gaissler decided he wanted to try to – with a lot of backers in high places.’

  ‘Including the American pharmaceutical company?’ asked Müller.

  ‘Yes. That’s what I’m coming to. Gaissler started talking at lectures about the possibility of extending it further, to try to find an actual “cure” for adults via surgery. And it was this that interested the Americans. I think it was a company with very traditional, religious backers, who believed homosexuals should burn in hell, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ spat Fenstermacher.

  ‘And of course the Republic’s government was very interested in this pharmaceutical company’s attention—’

  ‘Because it brought in American dollars,’ said Müller.

  ‘Exactly, Major, exactly. Gaissler started these experiments in the cure phase a couple of years ago, using student volunteers. They were paid well. I’m not sure, though, that they really knew what they were letting themselves in for. There were some complaints at Charité. Some of his colleagues started questioning his methods, and conclusions. The end result – even though he had government and US financial backing – was that the hospital kicked him out. Although some of his colleagues have since allegedly suffered at the hands of the Stasi for that.’

  ‘Were you one of those, Dr Althaus?’

  ‘I’d rather not say. I’m here. I still have a job. Let’s leave it at that.’

  ‘But your suspicion,’ continued Müller, ‘is that Gaissler is still doing his experiments, somewhere?’

  ‘It’s more than a suspicion, Major. One of his assistants went with him. They were both given Stasi protection. But he and this assistant had some sort of falling out. This assistant came to me and urged me to try to stop Gaissler. He claimed the experiments were getting out of control. He said there had been an incident.’

  ‘When was this?’ asked Müller.

  ‘About three or four months ago.’

  About the same time Nadel’s body was found in Senftenberger See. Was that the so-called ‘incident’?

  ‘I’ll need the name of this assistant,’ said Müller.

  ‘I can’t give you that, Major, I’m afraid. It wouldn’t be too difficult for you to find out. But it can’t come from me.’

  Müller sighed. ‘So what more can you tell me that Dr Fenstermacher has not already said?’ asked Müller.

  Althaus handed her an envelope. ‘I can give you this – it contains the most recent photograph I could find of Gaissler. That might be useful. And I’ve done a bit more digging since I last talked to Gudrun. I’ve uncovered something very interesting. Does the town of Wilhelm-Pieck-Stadt Guben – or indeed its Polish mirror image of Gubin – mean anything to you, Major?’

  Müller felt her mouth suddenly going dry. Guben? Our searches there found nothing. How can we have been so close
all along? When she started to speak, her tongue seemed stuck.

  ‘Yes,’ she said after a moment, try to calm her mounting anticipation. What was the man about to say? ‘What about it?’

  ‘What I found out was that Gaissler’s family used to have a medical supplies factory there, before the war. It was badly damaged in the fighting. Not much use, I was told. So when other similar factories were taken over by the Soviet administration, and then by the Republic, theirs wasn’t.’

  ‘And it’s actually in Guben itself?’

  ‘That I don’t know, I’m afraid, Major. But if Gaissler was to go anywhere to set up his new laboratory, my guess is it would be there.’

  47

  Müller put all thoughts of Emil out of her mind as far as she could. She would have to deal with it later. For now the priority was finding Gaissler before he could do more damage.

  Rather than take the S-bahn from Köpenick, she flagged down a passing Vopo patrol, showed them her ID and then borrowed their radio to dial up Keibelstrasse. When she got through, she told Tilsner to bring the Lada and pick her up immediately. Then she tried to get through to Schmidt at Guben. He’d said he had important new information. What was it? She needed to know. But the police at Guben said they didn’t know where he was.

  *

  Tilsner put his foot flat down on the accelerator as they hit the motorway. With the blue light flashing, they blared the horn at anyone who got in their way.

  As Tilsner concentrated on driving, Müller desperately tried to get Schmidt on the radio again.

  This time she had more luck.

  ‘We’re on our way, Jonas. But I need to know what you wanted to tell me.’

  ‘I didn’t really want to say over an open telephone line or radio link, Comrade Major. I still don’t.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that, Jonas. Just tell me. Now.’

  ‘Well, I was talking to our Polish coll—’

  ‘Not the whole story, Jonas. A one-sentence summary. Quickly.’