by David Young
After a change of clothes, a quick wash and some mascara repair, Müller was eager to interview the grandmother. Her extended soak in the bath would have to wait. She wandered onto her balcony, which overlooked Wilhelm-Pieck-Strasse. Late afternoon, and the sun had already disappeared. Müller returned to the bedroom to put a phone call through to the state campsite reception just to check someone was there. A woman – presumably Frau Baumgartner – answered, but Müller immediately apologised, saying she’d got the wrong number, and hung up. She didn’t want the grandmother to be too prepared for her police visit. Catch her unawares. They might get more information.
She pulled on her coat, scarf and gloves, then collected Tilsner and Schmidt from their room. The three police officers went down the stairs, past the receptionist, and out into the bracing Ostsee air.
They walked along the seafront, above the empty beaches, which in summer Müller knew would be packed with bodies, citizens soaking up the sun’s rays, naked – the East German way. Today, though, the beach was empty, with white patches of ice where the surf had frozen.
After about ten minutes, the houses and rest homes of the resort had disappeared, replaced by row upon row of beech trees, a shroud of darkness enveloping the land right up to the cliff edge. Then the beech forest in turn gave way to a clearing, dominated by a small house, in the traditional Baltic resort architecture style, with its white clapboarding and wooden verandas and balconies. This, Müller guessed, must be where Frau Baumgartner lived, but it looked as though no one was actually camping at this time of year, with just the lights of the reception house illuminating the gloom.
From close up, Müller noticed some of the balcony’s rails were missing, and not all the window shutters were complete. She went on ahead of the other two and rang the doorbell.
After a few seconds, the door was opened by a sixty-something woman in a beige housecoat. Müller couldn’t help staring at her oddly coloured, silver-blue hair. She looked a little like an older Margot Honecker: the Volksbildungsminister – whose ministry of education included the Jugendwerkhöfe – had recently taken to dyeing her prematurely greying hair a similar shade.
‘We’ve no pitches free,’ the woman said, gloomily. ‘I’m not opening this year until after Easter.’
‘We’ve not enquiring about camping,’ said Müller, flashing her Kripo ID. ‘We’re here about your granddaughter, Irma.’
The woman jerked her head back. ‘What about Irma?’
‘We need to come inside and talk to you, Citizen Baumgartner. Is there somewhere we can sit down?’
The woman’s face turned a lighter shade of pale. ‘It’s not bad news, is it?’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Müller. ‘But we should talk inside.’
The woman led the three Kripo officers upstairs from the reception area to her apartment. In the lounge, easy chairs were arranged in a semi-circle around an open fire. Frau Baumgartner took one for herself and gestured for the three police officers to take the others. As she faced the warmth of the fire, Müller felt her throat constrict from the fumes of the burning lignite. She took her gloves and scarf off, but kept the overcoat on. Despite the fire, the room still felt chilly and damp.
‘Now I gather, Citizen Baumgartner, that in June of last year you complained to Sellin police station that you’d been denied a visit to see your granddaughter in the Jugendwerkhof Prora Ost?’
‘That’s correct. Horrible place. Built as a Nazi holiday camp. The Jugendwerkhof is at one end, and the rest is a barracks for army construction soldiers,’ said the woman, rubbing the skin of her right wrist nervously.
‘Has that situation changed? Have they let you see her?’
Baumgartner shook her head sadly. ‘No. The last time I saw or heard from Irma was in May last year, when I visited her after her fall. I asked again, even after I lodged my official complaint, but they told me nothing. And then the Stasi sent someone round and told me to stop asking questions.’ She kept her eyes lowered, trained on a threadbare rug in front of the fire.
Schmidt tried to attract Müller’s attention to something, but she waved him away, and instead continued questioning the woman.
‘And is it your belief that Irma is still at the Jugendwerkhof ?’ asked Müller.
‘I’ve no idea,’ said the woman, wringing her hands now. ‘She is due to stay there until she’s eighteen. Or until “our family situation improves”, as the authorities put it.’
Müller furrowed her brow. ‘What does that mean?’
Baumgartner glanced up at a picture on the mantelpiece. It showed a woman of about thirty, with a girl aged about ten. ‘That’s my daughter. With Irma. It was taken about six years ago. Before it all started.’
‘Before what all started?’ asked Tilsner.
‘Before my daughter got arrested and jailed for supposed anti-revolutionary activities, and before Irma, my granddaughter, was taken away.’ Baumgartner wiped her eyes with the sleeve of the housecoat.
Müller rose to her feet, and picked up the photograph. It was hard to tell if the young girl in the picture bore any resemblance to the one found in St Elisabeth’s cemetery. ‘Do you have a more recent photo? Or one in colour?’
‘I might have a colour one,’ said the woman, getting slowly to her feet. ‘But what’s all this about?’
Müller sighed. ‘Get me the picture first, please.’ She saw the woman frown, and then open a cupboard at the back of the room. Frau Baumgartner knelt down, and then picked up a cardboard shoebox and placed it on the side table next to her, moving her knitting onto the floor in the process. Müller gave Schmidt a knowing glance – that’s why he’d wanted to attract her attention: the ball of wool.
The woman started flicking through the photos in the box. ‘Most of these are of my husband and me,’ she said. ‘From before the war. He was a Luftwaffe pilot. And before you ask: no, he didn’t survive. I’ve been a widow for more than thirty years. It’s harder and harder to keep this place properly maintained on my own, as you can probably see.’ The woman pulled one of the photos from the box. ‘Here we are. That’s one of Irma, taken with my first colour camera. She was a happy child then, always smiling.’ She handed the photograph to Müller.
The detective’s eyes were immediately drawn to the girl’s unruly shock of red hair. Not even the best hair straighteners and dyes could have transformed it into the straight bob of black hair on the dead girl’s head, and in any case the dead girl’s hair colour was natural – the pathologist’s report had confirmed that. This clearly wasn’t the girl from the cemetery.
‘What is it?’ the woman asked.
‘We’re looking for a missing girl. There is certain evidence that makes us think there is a link to Rügen, but the girl in question has straight, dark hair.’
‘A missing girl? Are you saying you think Irma may be missing?’
‘Not at all, Frau Baumgartner. Just because you haven’t been permitted a visit to the Jugendwerkhof, there’s no reason at all to believe Irma isn’t still there. I’m sure she is. So it doesn’t look like the girl we’re looking for and Irma are connected.’
The woman fingered the buttons of her housecoat. ‘Yes, but I still don’t know how Irma is; I still haven’t been able to see her.’
Müller leant across and laid her palm on Baumgartner’s arm. ‘We will be paying the Jugendwerkhof a visit. I will be able to check how Irma is. I cannot promise anything, but if there is anything amiss I will ask the youth services to contact you. That’s all I can do.’
The woman gave a weak smile. ‘Thank you.’
Tilsner interrupted the exchange. ‘She still had her red hair last time you saw her, Citizen Baumgartner?’
‘Yes. Yes, of course. In the sanatorium.’
‘How old is she? How tall would you say she is? Is there anything else that might be useful for us to know?’
‘She’s sixteen now, but I can’t tell you how tall she is, I’m afraid. She was lying in bed. And the time I last
saw her before that, before she was taken to Prora, well . . . well it was two years ago. In the children’s home in Greifswald. She wasn’t fully grown. She’s a woman now. Well, almost.’
Müller nodded. ‘And why did she end up in a closed Jugendwerkhof ? Surely that’s only for children who’ve done something seriously wrong?’
Frau Baumgartner shrugged. ‘My daughter was jailed – I told you – and poor Irma suffered for it, and was sent to the normal children’s home. But she kept on trying to run away. Eventually they sent her to Prora.’
Tilsner leant forward in his chair. ‘Was she allowed to write letters to you from the Jugendwerkhof ?’
‘Yes, I received the odd one.’
‘Did she mention any friends?’ probed Müller. ‘Anything odd going on?’
Baumgartner raised her eyebrows. ‘Friends? Yes, yes. I think she did mention one, actually. The letter should be in this same box.’ She shuffled through the contents again, and then drew out a cream envelope. ‘I was surprised it hadn’t been censored, actually. Sometimes some of what she writes gets struck out.’ Müller could see her scanning the page quickly, then turning over. ‘Here it is,’ Baumgartner said. ‘She says she’s worried about her best friend Beate – how she seems upset all the time, and Irma doesn’t know why.’ She passed the letter to Müller, who read it through for confirmation.
‘But she doesn’t mention a surname?’ asked Müller. ‘In any of her letters?’
‘No, I’m afraid not,’ said the woman.
Müller nodded, deep in thought. Then she gathered herself, and rose from the chair. She extended her hand to Baumgartner. ‘Thank you very much, Citizen Baumgartner. You’ve been a great help.’
She felt a tap on her shoulder. Schmidt whispered: ‘Comrade Müller. What about the wool?’
‘Ah. Yes.’ She turned back to the woman, and pointed to the wool and needles, which now lay at her feet. ‘Would it be alright to have a small sample of your wool, Citizen Baumgartner?’
The woman’s brow creased in confusion. ‘Why ever would you want that?’
‘Don’t be alarmed,’ said Müller. ‘It’s nothing to worry about. It would just help us compare against some fibres linked to our inquiries. Have you knitted anything for Irma from it?’
Baumgartner nodded. ‘Yes. A jumper. She wrote and told me how thrilled she was to have it. She keeps it in her bed at night to remind her of her family and Sellin. It must be a comfort. I noticed it there in the sanatorium, on her pillow, poor girl.’
‘Well, a sample may help our inquiry.’
The woman smiled, and lifted the ball of wool. ‘In that case, of course. Our handmade Rügen jumpers are very popular. you know. The wool is very warm, although some people find it a bit rough. The wool is from a sheep we only get round here.’
Müller nodded. ‘The Pommersches Rauhwollschaf – the rough wool Pomeranian sheep.’
The woman laughed. ‘Absolutely right. I didn’t expect you Berlin types to know that. By all means . . . Here, take as much as you want.’
Schmidt took the proffered ball of wool, cut off a small section and put it in a plastic evidence bag. ‘That will be sufficient for my needs, Frau Baumgartner. Thank you so much for your cooperation.’
32
Day Twelve.
Sellin, Rügen.
For Müller it had been another night of tossing and turning, constantly going over the case in her head, and then switching her attention to Gottfried, and wondering what sort of night he’d be facing. Was he in jail somewhere? Being questioned in Normannenstrasse? She resolved that as soon as she was back in Berlin, she would give his welfare the fullest attention, even if she had no idea where to begin. She owed it to him, whether or not their marriage was over, as Jäger had insinuated.
She felt stabbing pains from her throat as she awoke, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth. The heating had been on too high, but she couldn’t see any way of controlling it, and she didn’t want to sleep with the balcony doors open.
She went to the bathroom, turned on the light and examined her face in the mirror. In two weeks, she seemed to have aged five years. Maybe the days of minimal make-up were behind her. She brushed her teeth, and then washed away the taste of the toothpaste with a glass of water. Her body was urging her to go back to bed, but she knew that at this time of the day her thought processes were likely to be at their most incisive. Back in the bedroom, she put on her dressing gown and slippers, opened the curtains and then wandered onto the balcony.
An overnight hoar frost had left countless tiny crystals of ice glistening on the balcony railing. She brushed the frozen glitter off the veranda chair, and sat on the cold wood. Her teeth began to chatter, but the freezing conditions helped clear her brain. She looked down towards the end of Wilhelm-Pieck-Strasse, and the Ostsee beyond, shimmering in the morning light. The beauty of the surroundings contrasted sharply with the vicious death the girl had suffered.
The dead girl almost certainly wasn’t Irma. She was sure of that now, but she was still determined to check out the Jugendwerkhof. If nothing else, she was curious to see where Gottfried had taught during his enforced exile from Berlin. Schmidt had examined the wool from Frau Baumgartner when they’d got back to the hotel with the microscope he’d brought with him; the fibres were an exact match. Even the dye was the same. There had to be a link. Why wouldn’t they let Baumgartner see her granddaughter again? Why had Irma ended up in the sanatorium after a ‘fall’? That in itself sounded suspicious. And why was this Beate crying all the time? Her tears must have been out of the ordinary, or Irma Behrendt would never have mentioned them in a letter to her Oma.
All these thoughts ran through Müller’s mind like errant trains as she gazed out to sea. She could feel the material of the dressing gown under her buttocks starting to stick to the frozen wood of the chair. Suddenly a rustling sound from the neighbouring balcony made her turn. Quickly, she drew the gown together.
Tilsner was standing there, a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in his hand. He took one out, lit it and took a long drag. Then he reached across the balcony railing to offer her one. Müller was tempted, stood and stretched her arm, then thought better of it and thrust her hands in her pockets.
Tilsner shrugged. Then she noticed his eyeline, which was directed at her breasts.
Looking down, she saw that the gown had flared open. She pulled it together angrily, stomped back inside the room and slammed the balcony doors.
After what was grandly termed an Ostsee coast special breakfast – hard-boiled eggs, stale bread and some unidentified grey smoked fish – the three Berlin officers retraced their route in the Trabi back towards Bergen auf Rügen. Müller’s embarrassment over the incident with Tilsner on the hotel balcony hadn’t dissipated. She pointedly sat in the back and gave directions using the map from there, leaving Schmidt to accompany her deputy in the front of the car.
They soon reached Binz, the next resort along the coast, northwest of Sellin. It seemed larger to Müller, but otherwise quite similar – the same Bäderarchitektur as in its more southerly neighbour. Several roads veered towards the seafront, but Müller directed them straight on – through the back of the small town.
In just a couple of minutes, the Nazi monolith of Prora rose into view. Müller wasn’t quite sure what she’d been expecting. Gottfried’s description had been of a hellhole, but then he was gloomy at the best of times. To Müller, it didn’t look wildly different from a very long series of Berlin apartment blocks – just greyer, and without any gaps in between. It was the location that was strange – in the middle of nowhere, obscuring what she imagined would otherwise have been a magnificent view of the wild Ostsee coast. But the fact it had been built on the orders of Hitler, to reward his Nazi subjects, sent a renewed chill through her.
‘Hmm,’ said Tilsner. ‘I wouldn’t fancy taking a holiday there. No wonder it was never used.’
‘But this is the back of it, Comrade Tilsner,’ s
aid Schmidt, speaking through a mouthful of food. He seemed to have squirrelled away some extra breakfast to keep up his calorie intake. ‘I’ve seen a book showing the artist’s impression of the front; how it would have looked if it had been completed. There would have been a theatre, auditoriums and a harbour. The plans were impressive.’
Tilsner snorted. ‘Don’t sound too enthusiastic, Jonas. Oberleutnant Müller will be reporting you for your pro-fascist attitude.’
‘I . . . I . . . didn’t mean –’
‘Ignore him, Jonas,’ said Müller. ‘He’s just teasing you.’
After finding the section of the almost never-ending building which contained the Jugendwerkhof, Müller and Tilsner buzzed the intercom and were shown inside. Müller had told Schmidt to see if he could find a way round to the beach, to check if the sand here matched the sample found in the Volvo limousine.
The two detectives were led by a young female member of staff down several corridors, and shown to a room with a grey metal door bearing the sign: Direktor F. Neumann. Müller was aware of his reputation from Gottfried’s tales of woe about the place from the previous year, so she was surprised when – as she knocked on the door – a female voice asked them to enter.
A stern-faced woman who Müller estimated to be in her early or mid-fifties greeted them with firm handshakes, and examined the Kripo detective’s ID and the authorisation letter signed by Colonel General Mielke – the one Jäger had given Müller in the Kulturpark. The woman paid particular attention to this, as she introduced herself as deputy director Monika Richter and ushered them to sit down.
‘I’m standing in for Director Neumann. He’s away for a few days on another Ministry of Education project. What can we do for you?’ she asked. ‘We’re used to having dealings with the police, but not usually detectives from the Hauptstadt.’
