by David Young
‘He will. He has his orders, just like I have mine. And now you have yours too, but by all means ring or radio in to check if you wish.’ Jäger’s face wore a thin, supercilious smile.
Müller gave a long sigh. She turned briefly to Tilsner alongside her. He seemed relieved. He can get back to his new girlfriend now. She clenched her teeth, and returned her gaze to Jäger. ‘What exactly is this new information?’
‘I’m not permitted to tell you everything. But what I can say is it is connected to that so-called Committee for the Dispossessed.’
‘The group agitating against the nationalisations?’
Jäger nodded. ‘The one your childhood friend was involved with.’
‘But in Halle-Neustadt you said the group had disbanded, that all the active members had been arrested?’ Müller knew something wasn’t right with this convenient excuse for getting her off the case. She just didn’t know precisely what.
Jäger gave a small shrug. ‘Clearly I was wrong. Anyway, as a result of that, I’m sure you can understand that further inquiries into these murders have to be conducted by the Ministry for State Security. You’re free to go back to Berlin and Keibelstrasse.’
*
‘That’s a stroke of luck,’ said Tilsner, once they were back in the Wartburg. The transformation in his mood was near miraculous. ‘I could tell both of those cases were a can of worms from the start.’
Müller didn’t bother to answer. She felt frustrated and powerless. She tried to picture the photograph of the young Höflers in her head. The location was significant, she was sure.
‘It’ll be good for you too,’ continued Tilsner. ‘Will you go back out to Bulgaria for the rest of your holiday?’
The futility of cutting short her family’s Black Sea break was the least of Müller’s worries at the moment. Again, she didn’t answer her deputy, as he indicated to join the main road back towards Nordhausen and Berlin. She turned to him and studied his face. He looked as though all the cares of the world had been lifted from his shoulders.
‘Have you noticed how Jäger always seems to arrive at key moments?’ she asked.
Tilsner shrugged. ‘So? The Stasi have eyes and ears everywhere.’
Müller looked down at his watch. The glittering western watch. The one that no one on a police captain or lieutenant’s salary would be able to afford. The one that, to her, was almost like a badge that betrayed Tilsner’s Stasi sympathies.
‘On the Brocken, Jäger appeared with his cronies soon after you’d used the police radio in the car. That was convenient.’
Tilsner said nothing.
‘In Guben, the same thing happened. You use the radio. You refuse to tell me who you’re talking to. Not long after, as if by magic, Jäger is there on the scene.’
‘I’m not sure what you’re driving at, Karin.’
‘Oh, I think you know very well what I’m talking about, Werner. But this time, I’m determined to get to the bottom of things – with or without you.’
The sides of Tilsner’s mouth turned down. ‘Jäger has said we’re off the case. That’s an end to it as far as I’m concerned.’
‘Well, we’ll just have to see about that, won’t we, Werner? The Frankfurt Stasi tried to pull the same trick last time. Reiniger managed to let us circumvent it. I wouldn’t bet against him doing the same thing again.’
12
It was evening when they arrived back in Berlin. Tilsner invited Müller for a drink. It was presumably his attempt at a peace offering. She wasn’t interested – and in reality, probably neither was he, no doubt eager to get back to his new woman. Instead she checked whether Reiniger was still in his office. He was, despite the relative lateness of the hour.
‘Ah, Karin, come in,’ he said, after answering her knock on the door himself, as his secretary had long departed at the end of the working day. ‘Please sit down.’ He gestured to one of the armchairs by a low coffee table. He arranged himself in one of the others, hitching up the legs of his uniform trousers. ‘I’m sorry I can’t offer you coffee. Truda’s already left. I was just trying to get on top of my in-tray before calling it a night. What can I do for you?’
‘You’ve heard about the Karl-Marx-Stadt and Leinefelde cases, Comrade Oberst?’ asked Müller.
‘Yes, very unfortunate. And particularly annoying for you as you and your family cut short your holiday because of the cases. Take the rest of your leave, of course. If you like, I can obtain travel warrants for a new trip?’
Müller shook her head. ‘That’s not what I want. What I need is your permission to continue investigating these two killings. Something just isn’t sitting right with them for me.’
Reiniger frowned, clasping his hands across his stomach. Then he opened his hands towards her and shrugged. ‘Why do you think I have any more control over this than you do? The decision has been made. The apparent involvement of this counter-revolutionary group means it has to be a matter for the MfS.’
Müller placed both her elbows on the chair arms, and steepled her fingers. ‘Can you at least tell me what this new information is? Why they are convinced that this Committee for the Dispossessed is involved?’
‘I believe it was an anonymous tip-off.’
‘An anonymous tip-off? How convenient.’ She thought of Tilsner and his uncanny ability to mimic regional accents. He’d pulled a similar trick before, and she wouldn’t put it past him to have done the same again.
‘Don’t be like that, Karin. I can appreciate you’re annoyed and frustrated. But as I told you when we set up this new unit, we need to work with the Stasi, not against them. We’re all on the same side.’
*
The consolation for Müller was that she could now drive to Schönefeld the next day to welcome Helga and the twins as they arrived back from Bulgaria.
She managed to get hold of Helga in a late evening phone call to tell her the news.
‘That will be much more convenient than getting the S-bahn. And the twins will be delighted to see you.’
‘How are they?’
‘Well, Jannika’s been as good as gold.’
‘And Johannes?’
‘Hmm. I suppose you could say he’s been rather spirited. You know how he is.’
Müller vowed to herself to give more help to her grandmother now that she was between cases again. But at this stage, she didn’t tell the older woman about being taken off the case so quickly. She didn’t want Helga realising yet that their holiday had been cut short in vain.
*
The next day, Müller felt such a rush of joy – such breathlessness – as she saw Helga wheeling Jannika and Johannes in the pushchair, that she had to fight back the tears.
She gave Helga a hug, kissed Jannika, and then gave in to Johannes’s back-arching and screaming and scooped him into her arms. She covered him in kisses as he yanked at her hair. Then she handed him to Helga, as she picked up Jannika. ‘Mutti, Mutti,’ shouted her daughter, clapping her hands and smiling broadly.
‘We should celebrate,’ said Müller. ‘I’ve got a few days off now.’
Helga’s face creased into a frown. ‘I thought you’d been called back because of a new important case.’
Müller shrugged. ‘I was. But there’s been a bit of . . . a bit of a misunderstanding. It looks as though we came back from Bulgaria for no reason.’
‘How odd. And annoying,’ said Helga, her frown deepening.
‘I’m sorry. There was nothing I could do about it, and I’ve only just found out. But I’ve still got a few days off. We can go to the park, the lakes, maybe even the Kulturpark Plänterwald.’
Helga smiled. ‘That would be fun. They’re a bit young for the rides, though.’
‘We can go on gentle things like the Swan Boats. Even Johannes couldn’t get up to much mischief on those.’ She tweaked her son’s nose, eliciting a giggle. It was so good to have them back.
*
The following day was a beautiful summer day in Ber
lin with blue skies and a light breeze to take the edge off the warm temperatures.
Rather than go to the Kulturpark, Helga’s preference was for more sunbathing and paddling – to try to extend the holiday feeling they’d just had snatched away from them. They took the tram out towards Hohenschönhausen – the site of the Stasi prison where Müller’s ex-husband Gottfried had been held. But Müller had no intention of visiting there again, not if she could help it. Instead their destination was Strandbad Orankesee.
*
Müller looked after most of the childcare to give Helga a rest, but at one point her grandmother took the twins off in the pushchair to get an ice cream, leaving Müller a few moments to sunbathe in her bikini, and think over the events of the past few days. At the forefront of her mind was a feeling that somehow she’d been cheated. She tried to relax as she lay back, picking up fistfuls of sand with each hand, then letting the grains slowly run out between her fingers. As she closed her eyes, the image that seemed to be projected onto her eyelids was the one of Herr and Frau Höfler as a teenage couple, in front of that town hall. It would be a long task, but surely if she looked through books on German architecture or history, or significant buildings, she could find out where it was?
*
When they got back to the apartment block in Strausberger Platz, Johannes started playing up again, as though he didn’t want his day out to end. While Helga tried to calm the children before they got in the lift, Müller had a quick check of the apartment’s mailbox in the lobby. There seemed to be nothing of much significance, except for one handwritten letter, addressed to her at Keibelstrasse, and obviously forwarded by the office there. Presumably her colleagues had assumed it was personal mail, and had sent it on thinking Müller wouldn’t want to wait till after her leave to open it.
She looked at the handwriting. She felt a knot tighten in her belly.
It looked suspiciously like Gottfried’s. She dismissed the thought. It wasn’t possible – Jäger had said he was dead. He’d even taken her to the execution site in the forest.
She looked at the stamp and postmark. A DDR stamp, so from within the Republic. The postmark: Gardelegen. At the back of her mind she’d heard of the place, but she wasn’t sure why or exactly where it was. She tore the envelope open, and immediately realised it wasn’t from her ex-husband.
But she didn’t know who it was from, because it was unsigned.
She read the note:
I understand you are looking into the killing of ‘Herr Ronnebach’.
I can give you some information.
Meet me in a week’s time (Saturday 29 July) at 1 p.m. at the following grid coordinates: 52°34’26.3”N 11°20’55.3”E
I will wait there for thirty minutes.
13
March 1945
Kohnstein mountain, near Nordhausen
We know it’s nearly over for the Germans – that they’re facing defeat. I can’t believe Marcellin and I have survived eighteen months down here. Conditions got a little better when the camp itself was completed. We no longer had to sleep in the tunnels, amid the stink of shit and the dust.
There are various signs of imminent defeat for the Nazis. We have to cling on and survive until then. I try not to dream of going back to the island, to the village. I don’t want to kill myself through hope. But sometimes my mouth salivates at the thought of gulping a raw oyster down whole. The most tangible sign is the number of air raid alarms, the number of alerts about enemy plane movements. If it looks like the complex itself will be bombed, one of the Kapos bangs an iron bar against a suspended piece of scrap iron. We always feel a frisson of fear then, but also the buzz of excitement – willing the Allies to strike home. Sometimes when we’re above ground we’ll even see a plane dive-bombing in the distance, attacking a German target.
Parts become scarce. There is less work because of that. And the lights have been dimmed – presumably because the Germans are running short of raw materials to run their remaining power stations. That half-light is another sign that the Nazis have been beaten.
You would think the Germans themselves, the civilian workers and their wives, would be cowed, would show the defeat on their faces. But often they seem delirious. Singing at the top of their lungs. Even singing American songs.
‘I can’t understand it,’ I whisper to Marcellin, as we make a pretence of doing more welding. Often these days we take things apart, just to put them back together again, spinning the work out, making it appear as if we’re still busy. ‘Why are they glorying in their own country’s defeat?’
‘You cannot judge them by the standards of others,’ replies my brother. ‘They disgust me. They always have. They always will. They’re little better than animals.’
But the eve of defeat brings its own dangers. There are rumours some of the Russians have tried to mutiny.
There’s an execution site at the far end of one of the two parallel main tunnels – Tunnel B.
For some reason, to send us a message perhaps about what will happen if we try to rise up, a group of French prisoners – including myself and Marcellin – are paraded past as the executions take place.
There are nine Russian prisoners, standing in a line in a half-metre-deep trench with their heads uncovered. A piece of wood is locked in each man’s mouth, secured by iron wire twisted behind their heads, a little like a horse’s bit.
Each man has his own noose made from steel cable. There are nine nooses, attached to a horizontal metal rod. In the centre of the rod, another thicker cable is holding it up.
A group of SS troops is in charge, but it is left to a high-ranking prisoner to put each noose around each of their heads.
The central cable – high above the nine men – coils around the drum of an electric winch.
An SS Sergeant Major – this one is nicknamed Horse Head by us, I can’t remember why – gives a signal. Then the executioner switches on the motor.
There’s a droning noise, and the nine men, as they are slowly strangled, are raised by the winch until they’re level with us – ground level.
As we parade past, we have to look straight into their faces and watch their eyes rolling back into their heads.
But death isn’t instant.
They spin slowly. Their bodies spasm.
It takes more than a minute as we slowly walk past.
Nine dead men. All in a row.
I never knew their names. But I will never, ever forget those faces.
14
July 1977
Bezirk Magdeburg, East Germany
Müller had never been to this part of East Germany before. She drove the Lada along straight, virtually traffic-free roads, past the occasional town or village, then kilometre after kilometre of thick dark forest. Nearer and nearer to the state border and the West.
At first, Tilsner had flatly refused to come with her, insisting they were off the case, and threatening to tell Jäger what she was up to. Müller persuaded him not to. She also played on his loyalties.
‘Remember what happened that time on the Brocken, when I was separated from you? You’re my right-hand man. I need you.’
He relented. But she held back the detailed information about where they were going, in case he changed his mind. All she revealed was that it was in Bezirk Magdeburg: a vast area stretching from the Harz Mountains in the south, to the north of the Altmark – the so-called cradle of Prussia.
As they crossed the Elbe at Tangermünde, Tilsner could no longer contain his frustration about her withholding the destination. He was never a particularly good passenger anyway. Usually he would drive, and normally they would have taken the Kripo Wartburg. Müller preferred to be in her own car.
‘I know this area,’ he said. ‘Better than you seem to, judging by the number of times you keep referring to that map on your lap. Here, give it to me. Where exactly are we going?’
Müller considered resisting, but realised it was futile. She let him pick the road atlas up, but
instead of consulting it, he just placed it on the dashboard shelf.
‘To Estedt,’ she said. ‘A small village north of Gardelegen.’
‘I know it,’ said Tilsner.
‘I thought geography wasn’t your strong point?’
‘It isn’t. But I’ve family from these parts.’
Müller turned her heads towards him, while keeping half an eye on the road ahead. ‘You never said before.’
Tilsner shrugged. ‘They’re only distant relatives.’
*
In Stendal, Müller remembered from the map the quickest way was to continue west along Fernverkehrsstrasse 188, towards Gardelegen. But Tilsner directed her instead along a minor road to the north-west, towards the villages of Steinfeld and Kläden.
She frowned. ‘Why are we going this way?’
‘It’s prettier, and we’ll avoid any traffic.’
The coordinates in the message sent to Müller related to a wooded area about a kilometre directly west of Estedt. The village itself lay to the north of Gardelegen, on the main road north towards Salzwedel. It would have been much easier just to go to Gardelegen itself, then drive north. But Tilsner seemed to have brought them a circuitous route down country lanes from the north-east.
*
When they reached the centre of the village, Müller parked the Lada near the church, and then pulled out a copy of a larger scale map from her briefcase.
‘You’re being very mysterious, Karin. Where are we going, and what are we doing?’
‘We’re going for a walk. To meet someone.’ In truth, although Müller knew the directions from here, she wasn’t sure what to expect. Was it some sort of trap they were walking into? Should they simply have detailed the local police in Gardelegen to make the rendezvous, hoping that whoever it was who wanted to get in touch wouldn’t just be willing to talk to Müller herself?
*
The main road which bisected Estedt was surprisingly busy, with lorries speeding each way. Once they’d dodged the traffic, they found the lane Müller was looking for. It dipped down slightly between ploughed fields on either side, and then became an earth and grass cart track. In winter, they would have needed gumboots – it might even have been impassable. But now – in high summer – they could cope perfectly well in their street shoes.