by David Young
I’ve also been busy putting up the last of the decorations. The Christmas pyramid on the mantelpiece is already spinning round from the heat of the candle, and I’ve just lit the Räuchermännchen figurines too. That’s how I know it’s really Christmas – the incense almost makes the living room smell like a gingerbread house. I just love breathing it in! And next to them on the mantelpiece is the Nativity scene. Hansi says I need to hide that away when we have visitors, just in case some of them aren’t believers. Hansi isn’t, of course – it wouldn’t sit well with his Ministry work. But he knows I still like to say a little prayer now and again.
I love the excitement of Christmas. Whatever the Weihnachtsmann brings me, it can never compare to the gift I already have. My little Stefanie. My darling, darling Stefanie. She’s my real little angel.
She’s been crying a lot today, though. I’m not sure why. Ever since Hansi went out to the shops. She does miss her papa! Her tiny face lights up when he’s around. She’s a little monkey, though. She just won’t suck properly on my breasts, so I don’t think she’s getting the proper nutrition. She seems to like the formula milk better, but I would feel happier if she fed on natural milk. That’s the right way, surely? My nipples are really sore now because I was determined to get her to feed earlier. I put a few drops of formula on each one in turn, and it did get her sucking well for a bit, but she soon stopped and started crying again. Perhaps we’ll have to take her to the doctor? I’m worried she’s starting to lose weight. Hansi says it’s best to give her the formula. He makes up the bottles for me before he goes to work each morning. But sometimes I secretly throw them away. I’d rather she had proper milk.
I wonder if it’s anything to do with my fall? I hope that isn’t what’s making her a fussy feeder. That was a big shock, I’ll tell you. But it all worked out all right in the end. We’d just moved into the apartment, and of course there’s lots and lots of building work going on around us, because eventually they hope nearly a hundred thousand citizens will live in the city. And it’s only fair that they build those new homes as soon as possible. We can’t start complaining about building work.
Anyway, apparently I had a nasty fall over some pipes. I don’t remember anything about it, but Hansi says it knocked me out cold. They were so worried about the baby they had to perform an emergency Caesarean. The scars still hurt a bit. But the good thing is I don’t remember a thing about it. One moment there I was, nearly nine months pregnant, the next I’m coming round in bed and Hansi is cradling Stefanie in his arms. What a gift! I’m so lucky. But I was unconscious for a couple of days they say, so no wonder Stefanie had to start on formula for a bottle. Poor little thing.
Ah. A key turning in the lock. Hansi, I think.
‘Franzi?’ he’s calling. Hansi and Franzi, it’s our little joke. ‘You haven’t left Stefanie again have you?’ He’s slightly breathless, his face flushed, weighed down by the Christmas shopping.
‘She just seemed a little out of sorts. I put her in the cot in her bedroom for a sleep.’
‘But she’s not sleeping, Franzi. She’s bawling her head off. We’ll get complaints.’ I can’t believe I haven’t realised she’s been crying. Oh dear, I don’t like it when Hansi gets angry with me. I feel I’ve let him down. I feel a bit tearful. I hope a turn’s not coming on.
‘There, there. There, there, little one. Papa’s home now.’ He’s cradling her in his arms, rocking her, shushing her, and already she’s quietening a little. Why won’t she ever do that for me? ‘She’s soaked through, Franzi. Didn’t you change her? That rash is already quite bad.’ I can feel the tears starting to well up, I try to fight them back. Hansi doesn’t see because he’s taken little Stefanie straight through to the kitchen. I hear him put a bottle in a pan, the click of the electric hob being turned on. Then, after a few minutes, the noise of her sucking greedily. ‘There, there, little one. You were just hungry, weren’t you?’ He comes to the doorway, holding her, frowning. ‘You’ve got to remember to feed her, Franzi. She’s half-starved, the poor thing. When was the last time you gave her a bottle?’
I can’t really answer because I know my tears will start, and then I won’t be able to stop. I don’t really want that on Christmas Eve.
‘You weren’t trying to breastfeed her again, were you, Liebling?’
I give a small nod and choke back the tears. I can feel my nipples chafing against my maternity bra. They’re horribly sore. I know when I examine them in the mirror they’ll be red raw.
Hansi comes over and gives me a half-hug with one arm, careful to avoid my chest, his other still holding Stefanie as she sucks away at the bottle. ‘Franzi, Franzi,’ he says. ‘Whatever are we going to do with you? Whatever are we going to do?’
10
July 1975
Halle-Neustadt
As Eschler reached out to pick up the tiny body from its surrounding blanket, Müller yelled at him to stop, her shout repeating in ever-diminishing echoes along the tunnel.
The People’s Police captain turned in surprise. ‘It’s just a doll, Oberleutnant. I doubt it has anything to do with the investigation. Children sometimes manage to break in and play down here. And why would a baby have a life-sized doll, even if she had been here?’
Müller was grateful that the darkness of the underground duct hid her embarrassment. Her face burned. She’d been convinced it was the body of Maddelena, unlikely as it seemed. What was making her so jumpy? ‘Nevertheless, Comrade Hauptmann. We ought to treat it like any other potential piece of evidence. Kriminaltechniker Schmidt, can you do the honours, please?’
Schmidt moved out from behind her, knelt down, and – his hands covered in protective gloves – bagged up the doll. Once he’d done so, Eschler motioned to the dog handlers to continue moving forward, and the search resumed.
*
The doll was the only thing of note they found, and after a couple of hours’ searching, Eschler suggested they resume the next day. It was already mid-evening, so Müller agreed.
The dogs and handlers returned to base, and Fernbach and his men returned to their families at the end of another frustrating day, hampered as the investigation was by the parameters imposed by Malkus and Janowitz. Müller invited Eschler to join her, Vogel and Schmidt for an after-work drink to talk things over. There had to be some way of making progress without incurring the wrath of the Stasi. Eschler suggested a guest house, the Grüne Tanne, in the village of Halle Nietleben, a short drive from the apartment assigned to Müller, Vogel and Schmidt. It had a private back room the local police often used for informal meetings. Eschler rang from the incident room to make sure it was free.
Müller made a point of ordering the drinks for everyone. Although she had warmed more to Eschler, she felt it was important to keep laying down markers that she was in charge. Especially after the embarrassment of the doll incident.
After the waiter had brought their four drinks out, Müller drew her notebook from her case and clicked her ballpoint pen.
‘So.’ She drew in a long breath. ‘I hope you’ll agree we need to do something different to move things forward. That’s no reflection on the way the case has been run so far, Bruno. I think it was right to concentrate the search on the heating tunnels, waste ground, those sorts of areas. But I want to look at places where mothers congregate. Crèches, kindergartens, play areas.’
Eschler frowned. ‘That makes sense, of course. But it’s a big assumption that the abductor – who’s almost certainly Karsten’s killer – would allow Maddelena to be seen anywhere like that. Isn’t it more likely they’d have hidden her away?’
‘Possibly,’ admitted Müller. ‘But mothers talk to other mothers about their babies. One of them may have noticed something strange. And I’m convinced we need to treat this primarily as a missing persons inquiry. If we find Maddelena, the chances are we will find Karsten’s killer. The trouble is, if we start asking too many people too many questions, the Ministry for State Security will be down on m
e like a ton of bricks.’
Vogel leaned forward in his chair. ‘Why is the search being limited to Halle-Neustadt? What makes us think the person we’re hunting comes from this particular city? Why not Halle itself? Leipzig, even?’
Eschler wiped some beer foam from around his mouth with a paper napkin. ‘You’re right, Comrade Unterleutnant. There is no guarantee the person we’re hunting comes from Ha-Neu. There’s no guarantee that Maddelena is still in the Halle area. And other police districts have been informed. Police in the Hauptstadt. That is, after all, why you and Comrades Müller and Schmidt are here. But the suitcase with Karsten’s body inside was thrown from a section of the rail line which runs between Ha-Neu and Merseburg and the chemical works at Leuna and Buna. From the angle of impact, and the side of the embankment it was found, we know it was thrown from a train going from Ha-Neu. Probably from one of the commuter trains going to the chemical works. They run twenty-four hours a day to service the round-the-clock shifts at both factories.’
Müller nodded slowly and turned towards Schmidt. ‘Does that tally with your inspection at the trackside, Jonas?’
‘It does, Oberleutnant. It does,’ said Schmidt, looking up from the food menu.
‘Our best guess,’ continued Eschler, ‘is that the killer threw the case from one of the night trains, just before the train reached Angersdorf. The ground there is quite marshy. Perhaps he was hoping to throw it far enough to clear the embankment and land in the marsh. Maybe he – or she – mistimed the throw slightly. Or the case was heavier than he thought and dropped to the ground more quickly.’
Müller watched Schmidt about to launch into his explanation of how heavy and light objects fall at the same rate in a vacuum. She mouthed a silent ‘no’ to cut him off, then continued before Eschler realised what was happening.
‘And no one on the train saw anything?’ she asked.
Eschler shrugged. ‘No one that we’ve managed to find. Or at least, if they did, they’re not admitting anything. But we’ve had to go fairly gently with the questioning, for the same reasons we can’t do an apartment-by-apartment search. The Stasi offered to help us out.’
‘The Stasi? Who, Malkus?’
Eschler gave a stern-faced nod. ‘Last night they had agents on the night trains, showing people photos of the suitcase, without admitting what had been inside it. When people asked too many questions back, the agents – they were posing as police officers – just said they were investigating a robbery.’
Müller took a sip of her wheat beer, savouring the sweet flavour: sweeter than those she was used to in the Hauptstadt. She didn’t like the way Malkus and his team seemed to have wormed their way into the very heart of this investigation, an investigation which was still nominally the preserve of the People’s Police. ‘What about the chemical works themselves? Have you – or the Stasi – questioned people there?’
Eschler sighed. ‘We would face the same problems. Many – perhaps most – of those who work at Leuna and Buna live in Halle-Neustadt. As you know, that’s why the new town was built. The chemical workers’ city – that was always the plan. So if you raise the alarm with too obvious an operation at either of the chemical works, you’re in effect doing exactly what the Ministry for State Security has forbidden us to do in Ha-Neu itself. Though I can’t answer for the Ministry. They’re a law unto themselves, and only tell us what they want us to know.’ The People’s Police captain paused to take a long draught of beer, as though quenching his thirst might wash away the frustrations of the case. ‘I don’t want to sound like I’m making excuses, but it’s not straightforward.’ Müller couldn’t help thinking that the Stasi’s logic didn’t make sense. The levels of secrecy seemed like overkill. Unless there’s some big secret they don’t want us to uncover – something else linked to the abductions, she thought.
Vogel drummed his fingers on the table. ‘I’m still not convinced the search should be limited to Ha-Neu. Doesn’t the rail line split at Angersdorf? S-bahn trains head towards Halle Süd – it’s not just trains going between Ha-Neu and the chemical works and Merseburg.’ Müller was impressed that her young deputy was prepared to challenge Eschler’s suppositions, but the police captain seemed unmoved.
‘It’s not just the evidence of where and how the suitcase was dumped,’ said Eschler, frowning. ‘The baby’s body was wrapped in a newspaper. But there was also an advertising flyer in the case for Kaufhalle special offers – from the central Kaufhalle in Ha-Neu.’
‘Where Klara Salzmann works,’ said Müller.
Eschler nodded. ‘That’s right.’
The mention of supermarket special offers seemed to rouse Schmidt, who’d been sitting quietly sipping his beer while still looking longingly at the menu. ‘What was the flyer actually for, Comrade Hauptmann? Any specific foods?’
Eschler paused, and looked slightly alarmed. ‘Scheisse!’ he exclaimed.
‘What’s wrong, Bruno?’ asked Müller.
The police officer held his head in his hands. ‘I should have thought. I was concentrating too much on it being something that linked Karsten’s killer to Ha-Neu – the fact that it was from the central Kaufhalle. But the flyer was for special offers on cooked meats. Hams, salamis, that sort of thing. It’s an obvious link to an actual person, isn’t it? To a potential suspect.’
‘To whom? And what’s the link?’ asked Schmidt, confusion written on his face.
‘The meat counter at the central Kaufhalle. That’s where Klara Salzmann works.’
Müller furrowed her brow. ‘We have to consider the Salzmanns as suspects, of course. But Klara was on maternity leave when the twins were taken. Why would she have one of these leaflets?’
‘It may be worth following up, though,’ said Vogel. ‘Perhaps one of her work colleagues had a grudge against her. Or was jealous of her twins.’
Eschler nodded half-heartedly. ‘It’s possible. But then to actually abduct them . . . kill one of them? It seems a little far-fetched.’
Müller sighed. ‘We need to check it out. Bruno, could your team do that, please?’
‘Of course. There’s the monthly Party meeting at the office tomorrow – we’ll all have to attend that – but we can fit in interviews before and afterwards.’
‘Good,’ said Müller, breathing in and stretching out the tension from her body. ‘Let’s hope tomorrow’s autopsy gives us something stronger to go on. I shouldn’t need to remind you all that in these sorts of cases making an early breakthrough is vital. Karsten’s already dead. And poor Maddelena was being kept in hospital for a good reason – because she was a weak and premature baby. Let’s just hope she’s a fighter. We need to do everything we can to find her, before it’s too late.’
11
The next day
Müller spent most of the night tossing and turning, her body sticking to the sweaty sheets, struggling to sleep with the summer night-time temperature not dropping much below twenty degrees. She chewed over the case in her mind, trying to get it into some semblance of order. It nagged her that the questioning on the night trains had been carried out by Stasi agents. She had no way of finding out what – if anything – they’d discovered, beyond what Malkus or Janowitz was prepared to divulge. And there was an unsettling cloud of secrecy hanging over the inquiry, a little like the clouds of pollution belched out by the area’s chemical complexes.
By morning, although she didn’t feel refreshed, she had at least decided on a way forward, one she would share with the other officers after the autopsy into Karsten Salzmann.
*
Doctor Albrecht Ebersbach differed from the two forensic pathologists Müller had worked with on her most recent cases in one key respect. The pathologists in the Hauptstadt and the Harz both, in their own way, kept up a running commentary about what they were doing, what they were finding. Ebersbach didn’t. In fact, he said very little at all. It unnerved Müller.
Without the distraction of conversation, of asking questions – Ebersbach�
��s very bearing seemed to discourage them – Müller found herself spending too much time looking at baby Karsten’s body. It was so small. So vulnerable. The bruises on his head must have been inflicted by the cruellest of killers. Bruises on the chest too. Who could do that to a baby – a baby of only a few weeks old? Müller tried to look away, look at the mortuary assistant, Vogel standing next to her – anyone, anything. But her eyes kept being drawn back to Karsten, as Ebersbach repeatedly lifted him, turned him, and examined him minutely – without saying a single word. The child’s arms and legs flopped around obscenely – unlike the rigidity of the life-sized baby doll they’d found in the heating tunnel.
Müller cleared her throat. She would have to break the silence at some time, and neither Vogel – alongside her – nor the doctor were saying anything. ‘Is there anything you can tell us that may help us, Doctor?’
The crown of Ebersbach’s ginger head stayed down for a moment, hovering over Karsten’s body, almost as though he hadn’t heard her question. Then he slowly raised it, but instead of looking directly at Müller or Vogel, he seemed to be staring through his thick horn-rimmed glasses at a point a couple of metres above her. His forehead was creased into a severe frown.
‘It’s an odd one,’ he finally sighed. ‘Very odd.’ Then he returned his gaze to the baby’s body, and started to gently poke it again. Opening the mouth, lifting the tongue. Opening the eyes and looking under the lids.
Müller wasn’t going to let him get away with such an unenlightening response. ‘Odd in what way, Doctor Ebersbach?’
Ebersbach lifted his head again and sighed. This time he did meet her eyes, with a quizzical expression. ‘Well, on the surface, this seems like a straightforward case of abusive head trauma. You see these bruises on each side of the face?’ Ebersbach pointed them out as Müller and Vogel leaned over the tiny body. ‘There’s also a rib fracture.’ The forensic pathologist pressed on the baby’s ribcage and Müller watched it give way under the pressure. She felt the bile rise in her throat as nausea gripped her. She tried to concentrate on what the doctor was saying, rather than what he was doing to the body.
