The platform manager was waving a green lantern with one hand, closing the barrier to the platform with the other. A late passenger, mid-twenties, brown shoes and trousers, dark-grey overcoat, brown hair, no hat, ran up to the barrier, breathing heavily and arguing with the Reichsbahn employee, who kept his hand on the gate, holding it shut while watching the train pull out of the station.
Sergeant Seyler alighted at Kablow and was replaced by another operative. Willich left the train at the next stop.
Willich finished his statement, and I let him stand there for a bit longer. After a while I got bored and asked him a question.
“The passenger at Beeskow, the one who was late: your report doesn’t identify him,” I observed.
“No, Comrade Second Lieutenant.”
“Why not?” I looked up for the first time since Willich had entered the room. He was standing at attention and staring at the wall above my head.
There was no answer, and I scribbled myself a note. I could make something of the omission, but to be fair it hadn’t been Willich’s responsibility to identify the passenger. The Operations Staff at the county administration should have made sure he had been tracked down and questioned. Maybe they did, but if so, the report hadn’t been passed to me.
Unteroffizier Seyler was next. A more experienced operative who stood at attention until I let him sit down. His verbal report matched, word for word, what I had in the file in front of me. No, he hadn’t seen the late passenger, he was engaged in operational-observation on the other side of the train, keeping an eye on the traffic queueing up at the level crossing and watching passengers on the Fürstenwalde platform on the north side of the station.
I dismissed him and called for yet another grunt operative. This was the one who had accompanied Bruno between Zernsdorf and Königs Wusterhausen, replacing Seyler and Willich. I couldn’t find any gaps in his account, no hint of any oversight or transgression. He’d sat in the same carriage as Bruno, alighted with him at Königs Wusterhausen station, followed him through the underpass and into the Mitropa buffet where he’d handed over to an operative already in place.
I sent him away and looked at my watch, deciding to deal with the final operative, the one from the Mitropa, before I went to the canteen. This afternoon I would interview Holger.
“Anything useful?” Holger asked as he sat down on the other side of my desk.
“Few minor discrepancies and oversights, nothing big enough to get you off the hook.”
I held a deck of cigarettes over the table and Holger took one. He lit himself up and sucked hard, eyes down.
“You’ve got to pull yourself together,” I told him. “Act like you’re guilty and people will think you’re guilty. Come on, shoulders back, head up.”
Holger nodded, but remained slouched in the seat. I opened up the file, and tidied the papers in front of me, waiting for Holger.
“I’ve been told not to say about anything that happened at Building 74,” he said to his lap. “I can only tell you about the train journey with Bruno that day.”
“That’s what we’re here to talk about.”
Holger stared at the top of my desk for a little longer then, without raising his head, began to talk:
Holger boarded the international express at Cottbus and swept the train with another operative. A couple of Western pensioners were on board, otherwise only GDR citizens. They’d checked that the compartment reserved for Bruno was empty and retired to the last carriage in the train.
Arrival in Königs Wusterhausen was five minutes behind schedule, and Holger watched the passengers board.
“Every stop, scheduled or not, I stood by the window, kept an eye on who was getting on, who was getting off. No-one looked suspicious, no-one was out of place,” he told me. “I went down the train once we’d left Magdeburg, checked Bruno was still in his seat. He was dozing, a book on his lap-”
“What was the book?” I interrupted. This was new information, not in the written report I had in front of me.
“Russian fairy tales.”
“You could see that?”
“Next time I went past, the book was closed on the seat beside him, I could read the spine.”
I noted the title and asked Holger to continue. Time enough to puzzle over this detail later.
“The train was virtually empty, only Westlers on the way home and a few of our pensioners visiting relatives.”
“Tell me about the Westerners.”
“Nobody stuck out. It was all old folk, I didn’t pay much attention to them.” Holger was sitting a little straighter now, caught up in his account, but he was still looking down at the hands clasped in his lap.
“As far as I could tell, they all left the train before Cologne. Once we crossed the border, the train filled up and it was hard to keep track of individual passengers.”
“Any incidents at the border?”
“Not as far as I could tell. I couldn’t exactly stick my head out of the window while customs and the Pass and Control Unit were checking the train. But I can tell you Bruno definitely wasn’t pulled off.”
“Any contact with other passengers while you were going through West Germany?”
Bruno lifted his shoulders and let them drop. “I went through the train again after Braunschweig. The reservation slips on Bruno’s compartment had been removed, presumably by the West German conductor. A young lady was sitting opposite Bruno. They weren’t talking. In fact, Bruno seemed to be dozing again.”
“What about other operatives on the train?”
“As far as I know, I was the only one on board after Magdeburg. Or do you know differently?”
I didn’t. That is to say, I hadn’t been given any reports by watchers operating on the train once it had crossed into West Germany. I made a note to double check, and another to remind myself to find out who else had held exit visas valid for travel on that train.
“How’s the wife?” I asked.
Not expecting the change of subject, Holger glanced up, then quickly down again.
“And the kid—Hannes, isn’t it? How’s Hannes?
“Got his Jugendweihe coming up next spring, doing the classes, already got a suit for the ceremony. He can’t wait for all the presents.”
I nodded, not really interested in his son’s coming-of-age ceremony, I just wanted Holger to relax a bit. The last thing I needed was for him to slouch out of my office, looking like a guilty man, not if I was going to tell Major Kühn that Captain Holger Fritsch was innocent.
While my friend talked about his son and how proud the wife and mother was, I turned my attention to the bottom drawer and pulled out a couple of glasses and a bottle.
“Chin up,” I told Holger. “We’ll get it sorted. Just act normal, OK?” I handed over a glass, brimful with clear alcohol.
We held our glasses up and, for the first time that day, he looked me in the eye.
“To keeping you off the hook!” I toasted.
12
Berlin Lichtenberg
I went to see Holger after work the next day. He lived in a block opposite a self-service market on Gounodstrasse. I rang the bell and he came down to let me in, surprise written all over his face.
“Are you meant to be here?” he asked, peering up and down the street, checking whether the neighbours had spotted me.
“Let’s go upstairs,” I suggested as I squeezed past him and started up the steps. “Which floor?”
Holger and his family were on the top floor of a four storey concrete block, same design as I lived in except he had a three-room flat.
He ushered me down the narrow hallway and I caught a glimpse of his wife moving around in the kitchen as I went past.
In the living room, a standard lamp in the corner cast yellow light over a brown corduroy couch and armchairs. Brassy lametta decorated the moulding at the top of the walls. A listless spruce loitered in one corner, waiting to be hung with baubles and festive lights.
“Relax,” I to
ld Holger as I shut the door. “Kühn gave me permission to take a closer look at all of you. If anyone is curious enough to ask, I’ll tell them that’s why I’m here.”
Holger sank onto the couch, clasping his hands in his lap. He remained like that, examining his hands, so I opened the door to the hall.
“A beer?” I asked, but didn’t wait for an answer, just headed around the corner to the kitchen.
A surprise was waiting for me. Holger’s wife was standing in the doorway, wiping her hands on a flowery pinny. But it wasn’t her presence that had unsettled me, it was her looks.
“You must be a colleague of Holger’s?” she enquired, holding her now-dry hand out for me to shake.
“Reim,” I managed to answer, holding my own hand out.
Her long fingers clasped mine. Her skin was soft and her smile was adorable. And her eyes—her eyes were such a deep blue it felt like I was staring into the Baltic sky on a clear summer’s evening. I’m sorry if I’m telling this like I read it in a cheap romance magazine, but that’s how it felt at the time.
“Why don’t you give me my hand back? That way I can get you a coffee—or would you prefer a beer?” That smile again.
I let go of her hand and watched as she fetched a couple of bottles from the fridge, took the bottle opener from a hook and put everything on a tray with a couple of glasses.
“Are you stopping for tea? It’s just potato salad and sausage, but you’re very welcome to join us.” She gave me the tray.
“No, I can’t stop long.” I retreated down the hall, wondering where Holger had been hiding his wife all this time.
In the living room, Holger was still staring at his hands and didn’t notice me take a deep breath.
“Here’s your beer.” I clinked bottles with him and we drank from the neck, leaving the glasses where they were on the tray.
“You’ve been ordered to take a closer look at me?” Holger asked after a sip or two.
“No. I asked for it—like I said, it makes it easier for us to meet without raising suspicion.”
Holger didn’t show any signs of hearing what I’d just said, he took another sip of beer then stared out of the window. You could see the flat roof of the supermarket from here, ventilators set into a wrinkled, tar-paper surface.
“I came to tell you that I’ve handed in my preliminary report, there’s no good reason to suspect any of the babysitting team. I did find a few holes in the others’ accounts, just to show willing. But you’re in the clear.”
“Why wouldn’t I be in the clear?” Holger came to life, his eyes swivelled around to meet mine. They were deep in his head, dark tunnels that spoke of sleepless nights. “It was the mole that shopped Bruno, I told you that. Someone on the interrogation team! So what are you doing about it? That’s where you should be looking.”
“The squirrel feeds slowly-” I began, but Holger cut me off.
“Don’t start quoting idioms at me! I know you’re taking things slowly, but can’t you see I’m worried? Not just for me, but for Ilona and Hannes, I’ve got them to think about, too.”
I held my hands up, appealing for calm. When Holger’s gaze dropped again, I told him how the meeting with Major Kühn had gone, that he’d given me a bit of leeway to do some more digging.
“He won’t let me talk to the interrogation team. You can understand that, can’t you? It’s a rank thing—he won’t even let me read their cadre files, never mind the interrogation transcripts.”
“So you’re not going to be much use in finding this mole, are you?”
I looked away. Holger had hit the nail on the head. Bit ungracious, perhaps, but he wasn’t wrong.
13
Berlin Lichtenberg
The coffee was weak and sour, the slice of ham was as gristly as the dry bread roll it was hiding in. I prodded my breakfast again and decided to leave it on the table.
Back in my office, I considered what Holger had said to me the night before. I still thought he was right: even if there was a mole in the Ministry I wasn’t going to get anywhere near him unless I stopped wasting my time interviewing the babysitters and started doing some proper investigating. A West German mole wouldn’t be somebody in the lower ranks, tasked with basic operational activities. He’d be higher up, somebody with access to files, somebody involved in operational planning.
I should write that in the new report I was preparing for Major Kühn, it would make for more interesting reading than the trivial infractions I’d uncovered so far. There are only so many ways you can say: things weren’t done exactly by the book, but there’s no reason to suspect the babysitters have done anything which might have compromised Bruno’s legend.
Right now my biggest headache was that I had to find something new to report on. I’d asked for more leeway in investigating the babysitters as a way to provide cover for my regular chats with Holger, but now it was time for me to justify that request. I couldn’t deliver a report less than twenty-four hours later saying there was no point in doing any more digging, thank you very much. Like it or not, I’d have to put a bit more effort into this, if only to fill a few more pages in the file.
With a sigh, I got up from my desk and headed for the registry.
I arrived at the archives by way of Kühn’s secretary, where I picked up the paperwork I needed. I shoved the stamped and signed chit across the archivist’s desk, it was a request for the files of all the people holding an exit visa issued for the train Bruno was on the day he headed back to Bonn.
The archivist sucked his teeth for a bit, then told me to come back the next day.
That was fine, I had another stamped and signed chit, this one demanded an express service. The archivist nodded and was back within ten minutes, holding a thin file and a place card.
“The files are out, ZAIG/II have them. Should have come back a few days ago,” the archivist grumbled. He slid the file across the counter, keeping hold of the place card. It was upside down, and his hand obscured most of it, but I managed to read the name of the lender: Major Kühn.
I sat at one of the desks and opened the file. It was an appendix to one of the files I already had in my office, the one withdrawn by Kühn before he passed it on to me. A lot of what was in this file was the same as in the copy I had spent so many hours reading and re-reading. Some new information had been added though, presumably it had been filed since Kühn withdrew the main file.
One of the new additions was a full list of babysitters on Bruno’s case that day.
I checked the list, mentally ticking off those I had already interviewed. They were all there, all except for a couple of new names, names of operatives who had been on the express train to Cologne after it crossed the border into West Germany. I made a note of those names then took the file back and requested the cadre files for the two babysitters I’d just found out about.
This was interesting, at least on a theoretical level, but really it was just more material to follow up and pad my report with. I was about to return the file when a circulation list attached to the document caught my eye: Holger’s name was on there, and he’d initialled it to acknowledge sight of the document.
I stared at the circulation list. It was evidence, only a couple of days previously, Holger had sworn that he didn’t know whether he was the only operative on that train after it left Marienborn.
14
Berlin Lichtenberg
I withdrew the cadre files of the two new babysitters and took them back to my office then went up to the brass’s corridor.
“Where can I find a West German train timetable?” I asked Kühn’s secretary.
“I haven’t got one.” She glared at me as if I’d made an indecent suggestion.
“I realise that, Comrade Ehrlich, but I thought perhaps you’d have an idea where I might find such a thing?” I said it as sweetly as I could. Any sweeter and I’d be choking on my own vomit.
“Try Administration Rear Services,” she suggested after another scowl.
<
br /> I tried Administration Rear Services, who sent me to the travel department. It took me half an hour and quite a few of my skills of persuasion to get hold of a copy of the West German Bundesbahn timetable. It was a heavy thing, much thicker than the Reichsbahn version, and I had to look at several pages before I found what I was looking for: International express D444, Görlitz to Cologne via Marienborn and Helmstedt.
I was interested in whether it had any long stops while in West Germany, long enough for Bruno to get off the train and make a phone call before getting back on and continuing his journey. But on inspection, I could see the only stop longer than four minutes was at the first station after the border. In Helmstedt, the Reichsbahn locomotive from the East is uncoupled and a Bundesbahn engine attached—that takes time, enough time to leave the train for a few minutes.
I copied the timetable information into my notebook and went back to my office to look at the cadre files of the pair of babysitters who’d accompanied Bruno and Holger on the journey to Cologne.
They both had standard backgrounds. Both pretty much at the start of their careers, just a few years experience. Both had wives and children who could remain in the country as security when the husbands went West on the job. One had done his national service on the border, the other in the barracked police reserves, the VP-Bereitschaften. Both were Party members, and until they’d reached 25 years of age had both remained in the FDJ youth organisation. There was nothing to commend or criticise the pair for—no black marks against them. But I still decided to call them in for a chat.
After a couple of hours of picking at their stories, I wasn’t any further. They’d sat in different compartments in the same carriage as Bruno, had regularly checked on his status as they walked up and down the aisle, ostensibly on the way to the toilet or the buffet car. Bruno had spent his time looking out of the window, reading what looked like a children’s book or dozing.
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