by David Young
I enter the hold, see Mathias and Beate sleeping in each other’s arms, and I shake Beate awake.
‘We’re here. We’re here,’ I shout. ‘It’s Hamburg. Quick. Let’s get ready.’
The two lovebirds stand up, and rub their eyes simultaneously. Then they embrace, but this time I try to fight the jealousy back, and Beate pulls me in for a group hug. She whispers in my ear: ‘I’m so proud of you, Irma, this is all thanks to you.’ She squeezes me tight, and we are best friends again.
Mathias looks slightly awestruck, and I realise my hope that he might take control is misplaced. It will be down to me again.
‘I think we need to find our way up on deck,’ I tell them. ‘We need to find food, drink. Somewhere to stay. I have an aunt near Nuremburg. In Fürth. Maybe we could make our way there?’
Mathias shrugs, looks glum. ‘We don’t have any money, clothes or anything. How would we get there?’ But I’m not going to let his pessimism deter me. Even Beate tells him to stop being such a misery.
‘The authorities will help us. They are used to receiving Republikflüchtlinge. They must be.’
I urge them to follow me up the stairwell. We have no plan of the boat, no idea which door leads where. I just know that somehow we have to find out where the crew disembark; we must hide near there till the gangplank connects the ship to shore, and then fade into the night.
Up another flight of stairs, and we hear noises. Shouting. Hatches opening. I try to pull down the handle on the door, but I’m not strong enough. Mathias adds his hand, and together we manage to open it. I urge him back, behind me, and open the door just a crack. I’m not sure if this is a German ship, and, if so, whether it’s from the East or the West. If it’s from the East, the risk is that there will be guards on board, but all I can see is seamen unwinding giant ropes to tether us to the quayside.
Their shouting dies down. The ropes look taut. The engine noise has been cut, and there is no motion to the boat. We must have safely docked. I give a tiny wave of my hand to the other two, beckoning them as I start to move out of the doorway and along the deck. We maintain our crouching position as we run, heading towards the lights of the bridge. Then I see it. The gangplank. Men in green uniforms coming aboard. Darker green than in the Republic.
We’ve been spotted. I urge Beate and Mathias back towards the stairwell to the hold to try to hide. But Mathias just stands his ground and grabs Beate as she tries to follow me. I see her pleading to me with her eyes. Then I turn and run. Out of the corner of my eye I see the West German uniforms follow as Mathias points me out. Panting, I swing back round the corner of the opened door to the stairwell. I clatter down as fast as I can, jumping steps, colliding with the metal walls. I hear dogs snarling behind me, their barks echoing through the bowels of the ship.
In the hold, I find my opened bed box; I squeeze inside backwards, holding my breath to try to avoid the stench of sick and sweat, and then try to pull the cardboard flaps together to conceal myself. But the dogs sniff me out, and stand there barking, as though they’re howling my name. I see the cardboard flaps open, and a female face framed by a green beret stares back at me. I read the badge on her lapel as I try to control my rapid breathing. The word Bundesgrenzschutz in white on green. I look at her face again. She’s smiling kindly.
‘Welcome to the Bundesrepublik Deutschland,’ she says, and I begin to cry.
38
February 1975. Day Fourteen.
East Berlin.
Müller took her shoes off and rested her feet on her office desk, rubbing gently where her boots had chafed at her toes. Since being summoned to the meeting in front of the panel of senior officers in Keibelstrasse, Reiniger had given her and Tilsner a list of mundane jobs to do: petty theft, a flasher, criminal damage. All involved legwork that would usually be the preserve of some uniform or other. But so far no actual disciplinary action had been taken against them. She’d been hoping for some speedy news from Jäger about Gottfried’s welfare, but perhaps that was unrealistic.
In the outer office, she saw Tilsner studying the teleprinter intensely, as it spewed out information in its slightly irregular way – a burst of a sentence, then nothing for several minutes till more came through. She could hear the clatter of printing resume, then saw Tilsner beckon.
‘Boss!’ he shouted. ‘Here, now. Look at this.’
She jumped up, still in bare feet, and ran through to see what had caught his attention. She peered at the printout that Tilsner was pointing to, but he seemed determined to tell her what it said in any case.
‘Big development, boss. You know you wanted me to check out the children’s home in the Harz with the local police? Well that was more of a problem than it sounded. The phones are down due to the snow. Anyhow I radioed them at Wernigerode. Turns out they were trying to get through to us too.’
‘Why?’
‘They wouldn’t say over the radio link. Said they’d telex it. And here it is. Another body’s been found. Same as before. A teenager again. Only this time next to the inner German border in the Harz, rather than by the Berlin Wall. But that’s why they wanted to let us know. Same sort of thing. Made to look as though the victim had escaped to the East from the West, and then been shot in the back from the West. They obviously read about the original case in Neues Deutschland, saw that you were the lead detective, and clearly weren’t aware that we’d been ordered off the case.’
‘Surely they’d have run it past one of their superiors, wouldn’t they? Then they’d have found out we’d been pushed aside.’
Tilsner shrugged. ‘It’s the country. Back of beyond in the Harz. That’s why you get all these superstitious tales of witches dancing in the forest, and that sort of rubbish. So no, thankfully they think we’re still the team in charge.’
‘And what do we know about the body? What age, what sex is the victim?’ asked Müller, conscious that she was sounding almost as excited as he was, and mentally chastising herself for it. The age-old moral dilemma for a homicide detective: it often takes a second murder to solve the first.
‘Teenager again – this time a boy, around the right age – between fifteen and seventeen.’
Müller breathed in deeply. ‘We need to go there to check it out. And we could call in on the children’s home at Schierke at the same time, to see whether those teenagers – if they’re still alive – truly are there. The trouble is, there’s no way Reiniger will let us. Not while I’m under investigation for supposedly exceeding my authority.’
Tilsner cocked his head to the side. ‘I thought you said Jäger wanted us back on the original case?’
‘Yes, but not openly.’
‘Reiniger seems to do his bidding though. I don’t know what sort of hold he has over him – there seems to be something.’ Müller remembered what Jäger had said: that Tilsner owed him. There were too many secrets in this case. Too many lies. She wasn’t sure what or who to believe.
The bell at the office front door rang. Both looked around for Elke, expecting her to answer it, then they realised it was too late in the evening and she’d already gone home. Tilsner went instead.
As he opened the door, Müller could see behind him it was the motorbike messenger from the Ministry of State Security, the one who regularly delivered Jäger’s messages. Tilsner took an envelope from him, closed the door and then brought it to Müller.
She broke the red wax seal, emblazoned with the Stasi’s emblem: the Republic’s flag, flying from a rifle held up by a muscular arm. And then tore open the envelope and began to read:
You and T must go to Harz. Latest killing there may be linked. Three Rügen teens are in Schierke home according to Ministry of Education records in Berlin. Please check this when in Harz. Reiniger cannot explicitly approve but he agrees. Do not contact him, just trust me. I will back you if any problems with Ministry. I have found Ewert’s mother, so will be taking her to morgue. Will contact you once you’re there via Wernigerode Volkspolizei. Good luck. KJ.
KJ. Klaus Jäger. How had he heard about this new Harz killing before they had?
‘Well?’ asked Tilsner expectantly.
Müller realised she’d just been standing there, thinking things through, worrying that the latest development could be part of an elaborate set-up by the Stasi lieutenant colonel. ‘Jäger’s saying we should go to the Harz. He already knows about the new body.’
Tilsner whistled through his teeth. ‘It figures, I suppose. He’s got his fingers in lots of pies.’
‘And I gather you two go back a long way?’ Müller held Tilsner’s eyeline, challenging him.
He dropped his eyes, and scuffed his left shoe on the floor, as though kicking an imaginary stone. Embarrassment or guilt? ‘I suppose he told you that, did he? It’s not something I want to talk about.’
‘Why not?’
Tilsner raised his eyes. ‘Ask him,’ he said, an edge to his voice. ‘He’s not as clean as he makes out. I’m not even sure we can trust him.’
Müller said nothing, just lifted Tilsner’s cuff and pointed to the watch.
‘It’s a nice watch,’ he said. ‘I like good watches.’
Müller shrugged. ‘I was just wondering, Werner –’
‘Wondering what?’
‘When Jäger said you two went back a long way, was that all the way to Stasi school?’
Tilsner sneered at her, turned his back and appeared to study the teleprinter again.
‘You’d better get the Wartburg ready,’ she said. ‘It’ll need snow chains. And you might need to go home and pack a case.’
He turned, his face still grim after the argument. ‘We’re not going tonight, are we? There’s been a huge dump of snow in the Harz; it’s sleeting here and the roads will be awful.’
Müller imagined the teenager’s body, lying in a snow-covered Harz forest. And the poor girl from St Elisabeth’s cemetery, who they still hadn’t identified, with her ragged black cape and pathetic attempts to mimic black nail varnish.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We need to leave as soon as possible. Time may be running out.’
39
Day Fourteen.
East Germany.
A mixture of rain and sleet hammered against the windscreen of the Wartburg, as they drove southeast through the outskirts of the Hauptstadt towards Bohnsdorf to join the motorway system. Tilsner leant forwards in the driver’s seat, wiping away condensation from the inside.
‘Can’t see a thing,’ he complained, narrowly missing a broken-down motorbike at the side of the road, swerving at the last minute.
‘If you can’t see, then slow down, or stop,’ she warned.
‘I thought we were in a rush to view this boy’s body?’
‘We are. But I’d rather get there alive.’
Ever since Magdeburg, the snow had started settling on the road, slowing their progress. Müller could now see cloudlets in front of her face each time she breathed out. As the road climbed towards Blankenburg, she felt the tyres start to slip from under them.
‘Scheisse,’ said Tilsner. ‘Time for the chains.’ He pulled his gloves on, wiggled his fingers to warm them and then got out of the car. No traffic seemed to be passing. No one else was stupid enough to travel in this, thought Müller. It took Tilsner about fifteen minutes of manoeuvring the car, centimetre by centimetre, fiddling with the chains, before he was back inside, shivering.
‘Can you warm my hands up?’ he asked, resting one on her thigh, his teeth chattering.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to start any of that stuff again. Think of your children.’ But as she said it, she knew it was only partly true. It might just be a physical thing, but it was there – and she wasn’t sure how long she’d be able to resist.
Tilsner stared into her eyes. ‘Don’t lay that on me. I might not be a good husband, but I try to be a good dad.’
Müller took his hand and placed it firmly back on the steering wheel. ‘Let’s just get there as soon as possible.’
It was almost another hour’s laborious driving to Blankenburg, at little more than walking pace. When they finally got to the edge of the town, with its medieval buildings, Tilsner sighed. ‘Nice place, but I’ve had enough.’
Müller grimaced. ‘It’s only another fifteen kilometres or so to Wernigerode. And I thought you said the police there had arranged accommodation?’
‘They have, but I’m shot. Would you like to drive the rest of the way?’
Müller didn’t answer.
‘I’ll take that as a no. OK, we need to find rooms here then, and call the Wernigerode police and apologise. I’m sure they’ll understand.’
Müller woke in the early hours in the middle of a dark dream. It featured Beate Ewert, Gottfried, Richter, Jäger and her – all at Prora. She’d suddenly become a girl again. Jäger was the director of the home. One of the teachers was making a grab for her, reaching for her breast, and – as she saw his face – she realised it was Gottfried. She tried to fight him off, push him away. Then Prora was replaced by the police college, but she was still struggling with a man. Not Gottfried, no it was him, it was . . . He wouldn’t release her until she pushed with all her strength, holding something sharp in her hand. And then she was awake, sweating, throwing off the heavy mountain blankets. The perfect darkness initially disorientated her. For an instant she was still at the college, in his room with the lights off. Then she remembered. She remained bolt upright for a few seconds, heart thumping in her chest, and switched on the bedside lamp.
She went out onto the landing, to the guesthouse’s shared toilet, and then to wash her hands. She jumped back slightly as she realised Tilsner was already there, drinking a beaker of water and admiring himself in the mirror. He saw her reflection, smiled and turned around.
‘You couldn’t sleep either, I guess? Do you want to come and join me?’
For an instant, the idea seemed attractive. A warm muscular body to hold her, to protect her from her dreams in this nightmare murder case. But she knew she ought to resist the temptation. If she didn’t, they’d be finished as a partnership. It couldn’t carry on if they became embroiled in a serious relationship, and surely that’s what would happen if she said yes. But she doubted he’d leave his wife and kids, and she wasn’t ready to become someone’s mistress.
She smiled, shoved him out of the way and began washing her hands.
‘That’s a no then, is it?’
She just laughed, and returned to her own room.
40
Day Fifteen.
East Germany.
The snowstorm had abated overnight, and by the time Müller and Tilsner set off in the Wartburg, the ploughs had cleared the route to Wernigerode. A journey that might have taken more than an hour or longer the previous night was completed by Tilsner in around twenty minutes. The sun had broken through the clouds, and Müller needed her sunglasses as she admired the scenery to the left-hand side of the road: dazzling white snow softening the angles of the spruce forests of the Harz.
The local Kriminalpolizei were expecting them, and for the next part of their journey to the site where the boy’s body was found, they followed the Wernigerode Kripo officer and his assistant, in a virtually identical Wartburg. The police captain – with a rhythmical name of Hauptmann Baumann, and a ruddy mountain complexion – had briefed them that the body had been found close to the border zone, in the forest a few metres from where Fernverkehrsstrasse 27 came to a dead end. The road was chopped in two there by the inner German border.
A few hundred metres past Elend, the police car in front stopped, and Baumann got out and came to speak to them. As Tilsner wound open the driver’s window, Baumann leant down, his muscular arm resting half in, half out of the vehicle, looking to Müller a bit like the bough of a tree. Solid, dependable, she thought; they would be safe with Baumann.
‘You’ll need to put the snow chains on from here onwards, Unterleutnant. It hasn’t been ploughed. The road’s rarely used except by border tr
oops. Anyone else has to have a special permit.’
Müller leant across Tilsner. ‘Would that include Franz Neumann, the Jugendwerkhof director we asked you to investigate?’
Baumann slapped his oversized gloved hands together in the cold. ‘It would. But we haven’t found any trace of him in this area. And the children’s home at Schierke has no record of the three teenagers who were supposed to have been transferred there.’
‘So how come all the records show they were transferred?’ asked Tilsner.
The Kripo captain sighed and shrugged. Then he clapped his glove against the Wartburg’s windscreen, shaking the car on its suspension springs. ‘We can talk about all that back at the office. First you must get your snow chains on, so we can show you the site of the body.’ He walked back towards the car in front, opened the boot and started to remove his chains. Tilsner mirrored his actions for their own vehicle.
When he was back in the car, and they’d begun to follow the Harz officers again, Tilsner turned to Müller. ‘Neumann obviously faked those records in Rügen,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ agreed Müller. ‘But somehow he also seems to have altered state records in the Department of Education. Or else someone helped him to do that. We need to find him, and fast. Jäger said he would send a picture through to Wernigerode. We need to ask them about that when we’ve finished here.’
