by Val McDermid
She shook her head. “No, of course not. What we do have is individual lists for each of the institutions involved in this programme. There were six main centres where the euthanasia was carried out, but for each of those there were several feeder institutions. We hold records for all of these.” She saw his look of dismay and smiled. “Please don’t despair. The good news is that all our data has been computerized, and so it is relatively easy to access. Normally, I would insist that you carried out any study here on the premises, but I can see that these are special circumstances. Perhaps you would like to contact Ms. Becker and ask her to fax me a warrant that would allow me to provide you with hard copies of our data under a confidentiality agreement?”
Tony couldn’t believe his luck. For once, he’d found a bureaucrat who didn’t want to put obstacles in his way. “That would be extraordinarily helpful,” he said. “Is there a phone I can use?”
Dr. Wertheimer pointed to her desk. “Be my guest.” He followed her across the room and waited while she scribbled down the fax number. “I expect it will take a little time for her to obtain the necessary warrant, but we may as well make a start. I’ll go and ask one of my colleagues to print out the appropriate data. I’ll be back shortly.”
She bustled out of the room, leaving Tony to call Petra. When she answered her mobile, he explained what he needed. “Shit, that’s not going to be easy,” she muttered.
“What’s the problem?”
“I’m not supposed to be working on this, remember? I can hardly make a formal request for a warrant for a case that’s nothing to do with me. Have you seen the papers?”
“I’ve seen Die Welt.”
“Believe me, that’s the least of our worries. But now that everybody knows there’s a serial killer out there, of course, they also know it’s really nothing to do with me.”
“Ah,” Tony said. He’d wondered when the woman who got things done would finally hit a brick wall. It was just a pity that it had happened now.
“Let me think…” Petra said slowly. “There’s a guy in KriPo who really wants to work in intelligence. I know he’s got the right people in his pocket. Maybe I could persuade him that it would help him get a move on to my team if he pulled some strings for me on this.”
“Is there anything that’s beyond you, Petra?”
“This might be. Depends how sensitive this guy’s bullshit detector is. Keep your fingers crossed for me. Oh, and something very interesting came up in the Köln investigation. Marijke just e-mailed me about it. They found a colleague of Dr. Calvet’s who remembered her saying something about a meeting with a journalist from a new e-zine, though she couldn’t swear to when they were supposed to get together.”
“That confirms what Margarethe told her partner.”
“More than that, Tony. It tells us we’re on the right track.”
He could hear a note of excitement in her voice. “What do you mean?”
“The colleague remembered the alias the journalist was using.” She paused expectantly.
“And?”
“Hochenstein.”
“You’re kidding.” He knew she wasn’t.
“The colleague remembered it because it isn’t exactly a common name and, of course, Hochenstein has particular resonances for experimental psychologists in Germany.”
“I bet it does. Well, at least that tells us I’m fishing in the right river.”
“Happy hunting. I’ll talk to you later.”
He replaced the phone and walked over to the window. Dr. Wertheimer had been right. This wasn’t a view for anyone who had depressive tendencies, he thought. He imagined the children cooped up behind these high walls, their lives narrowed to the prospect of death or torture. He supposed some of them were too profoundly handicapped to have been conscious either of their surroundings or their imminent fates. But for the others, those incarcerated because of their supposed anti-social behaviour or minor physical defects, the anguish must have been unbearable. To be wrested from their families and dumped here would have traumatized the best-adjusted of children. For those already damaged, it must have been disastrous.
His reverie was broken by the return of Dr. Wertheimer. “The material you need is being printed out,” she said. “We have lists of names and addresses, and in many cases there are also brief digests of some of the so-called treatments they endured.”
“It’s amazing that the records survived,” Tony said.
She shrugged. “Not really. They never thought for a moment they would ever be called to account. The idea that the Third Reich might collapse so spectacularly and thoroughly was unimaginable for those who were part of the establishment. By the time the truth dawned on them, it was too late to think of anything else except immediate personal survival. And it soon became clear that there were far too many guilty men and women for any but the most senior to face retribution. We began archiving records in the early 1980s and, after reunification, we were able to track down most of the old ones from the East too. I’m glad we have them. We should never forget what was once done in the name of the German Volk.”
“And what exactly was done to these children?” he asked.
Dr. Wertheimer’s eyes lost their sparkle. “The ones who survived? They were treated like lab rats. Mostly they were kept down here, in a series of cells and dormitories. The staff called it the U-Boot—the submarine. No natural light, no sense of night and day. They did various experiments with sleep deprivation, altering the length of the perceived days and nights. They would allow a child to sleep for three hours, then wake it and say, ‘It’s morning, here’s your breakfast.’ Two hours later, they would serve lunch. Two hours later, dinner. Then they would be told it was night and the lights would be turned off. Or else the days would be stretched out.”
“This was supposed to be research, right?” Tony asked, the tang of disgust in his throat. It never failed to appal him that members of his own profession could move so far from the avowed duty to help those entrusted to their care. There was something frighteningly personal about this case, summoning as it did the images of a nightmare that had been created by men and women who must at some point have believed in the therapeutic possibilities of their work. That they could have been so readily corrupted from that ideal was frightening because it was a stark reminder of how thin the veneer of civilization truly was.
“This was indeed supposed to be research,” Dr. Wertheimer agreed sadly. “It was supposed to help the generals decide how hard troops could be driven. Of course, it had no practical application whatsoever. It was simply the exercise of power over the weak. Doctors indulged their own whims, tested their own notions to destruction. We had a water torture cell here where they performed acts of unspeakable cruelty both physical and mental.”
“Water torture?” Tony’s interest was pricked.
“We weren’t the only institution to have such a facility. Notoriously there was also one at the Hohenschönhausen prison in Berlin, but that was for adults. Here, the subjects were children and the intent was supposedly experiment rather than punishment or interrogation.”
“Did they force water down the children’s throats at all?” Tony asked.
Dr. Wertheimer frowned at the floor. “Yes. They conducted several series of experiments to test physical resistance to this. Of course, many of the children died. It takes a surprisingly small amount of water to drown a child if you force water into their airway.” She shook her head, as if willing the images away. “They also used it in psychological experiments. I don’t have the details of those, but they will be in the records somewhere.”
“Would you be able to find them for me?”
“Probably not today, but I can have someone make a search.” Before Tony could respond, the fax phone rang. Dr. Wertheimer crossed the room and watched as the paper spewed out. “It looks as if your colleague has been successful,” she said. “It’ll take a while for everything to be printed out. Would you like to take a tour of the castle
while you wait?”
He shook his head. “I don’t feel much like a tourist experience right now.”
Dr. Wertheimer nodded. “I quite understand. We have a cafeteria in the main courtyard. Perhaps you would like to wait there, and I’ll bring the material to you?”
Three hours later, he was back on the road, a thick bundle of papers in a padded envelope next to him. He wasn’t looking forward to reading the contents. But, with luck, it might take them a small step closer to a killer.
The wind tumbled Carol’s hair and dredged the stale city air from the depths of her lungs. She could imagine how easily Caroline Jackson might have succumbed to the delights of being whisked off into the spring sunshine in a BMW ragtop roadster. What woman wouldn’t? But although part of her was enjoying the sensation of racing down an autobahn at a speed far in excess of anything she could legitimately have experienced in the UK, there was nothing unalloyed about her reactions. Carol was subsumed in Caroline, but she knew who was firmly in control.
Tadeusz had called for her at half past ten, having phoned to instruct her to dress warmly but casually while teasingly refusing to tell her why. When she’d emerged on the street to find him at the wheel of a black Z8 with the top down, he’d taken one look at the thin jacket covering her sweater and pursed his lips. “I was afraid of this,” he said, going round to the boot. He produced a heavy sheepskin bomber jacket and handed it to her. “This should fit you, I think.”
Carol took the coat gingerly. It wasn’t new. There were creases at the elbow that proved that. She took off her own jacket and slipped her arms into the sleeves of the sheepskin. He was right. It fit as snugly as anything in her own wardrobe. She detected the faint musk of a heavy perfume she would never have worn. She looked up at Tadeusz with a wry smile. “Was this Katerina’s?” she asked.
“You don’t mind?” he said anxiously.
“As long as you don’t.” Carol hid her unease with a smile. There was something unnervingly creepy about wearing Katerina’s clothes. It felt as if somewhere in Radecki’s head, the boundaries were starting to blur. And that almost certainly spelled danger for her in one way or another.
He shook his head and opened the passenger door for her. “I cleared out most of her clothes, but I kept one or two things that I loved to see her in. I didn’t want you to be cold today, and it seemed somehow less presumptuous than going out and buying something for you.”
She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “That was very thoughtful. But, Tadzio, you don’t have to take responsibility for me. I’m a grown-up with my own platinum card. You don’t have to second-guess my needs. I’m used to meeting them myself.”
He took the gentle rebuke well. “I never doubted it,” he said, handing her into the car. “But sometimes, Caroline, you have to give in to being pampered a little.” He winked and walked round to the driver’s seat.
“Where are we off to, then?” she asked as they turned left down the Ku’damm towards the ring road.
“You said you wanted to see how things work in my business,” Tadeusz said. “Yesterday, you saw the legitimate side. Today, I’m going to show you how we move our commodities. We’re going towards Magdeburg.”
“What’s at Magdeburg?”
“You’ll see.”
Eventually Tadeusz pulled off the autobahn and, without pausing to consult a map, he took several turns that finally brought them to a quiet country road meandering among farms. After ten minutes or so, the road ended on the banks of a river. He turned off the engine and said, “Here we are.”
“Where is here?”
“The banks of the River Elbe.” He gestured to his left. “Just up there is the junction with the Mittelland Kanal.” He opened the door and climbed out. “Let’s walk.”
She followed him along a path by the river, which was busy with commercial craft ranging in size from long barges loaded down with containers to small boats carrying a few crates or sacks. “It’s a busy waterway,” she commented, falling into step beside him.
“Precisely. You know, when people think of moving illegal goods around, whether that’s arms or drugs or human beings, they always think of the fastest ways of doing it. Planes, lorries, cars. But there’s no reason for speed. You’re not carrying perishable cargo. And smuggling really started on the water,” Tadeusz said. As the canal came into view, he reached out and took her hand in his.
“This is one of the crossroads of the European waterways,” he said. “From here, you can go to Berlin or Hamburg. But you can go much, much further. You can use the Havel and the Oder to take you to the Baltic or into the heart of Poland and the Czech Republic. In the other direction, there’s Rotterdam, Antwerp, Ostende, Paris, Le Havre. Or you can go down the Rhine and the Danube all the way to the Black Sea. And nobody really takes much notice. As long as you have the proper seals on your containers and the appropriate documents, there’s nothing to worry about.”
“This is how you move your merchandise?” Carol said, sounding bemused.
He nodded. “The Romanians are extremely corruptible. The drugs come across the Black Sea, or else from the Chinese as payment for their travel. The guns come from the Crimea. The illegals come into Budapest or Bucharest on tourist visas. And they all get packed into containers with official customs seals and end up where I want them to be.”
“You pack people into containers? For weeks at a time?”
He smiled. “It’s not so bad. We have containers with special air filters. Chemical toilets. Plenty of water and enough food so they don’t starve. Frankly, they don’t care how bad the conditions are as long as they end up in some nice EU country with a welfare system and a lousy procedure for getting rid of asylum seekers. One of the reasons they love your country so much,” he added, giving her fingers a gentle squeeze.
“So you load them all up in the docks on the Black Sea? And everybody turns a blind eye?” Even with corruptible officials, Carol thought this was a rather chancy operation.
He laughed. “Hardly. No, when the containers leave Agigea, they’re full of perfectly legitimate merchandise. But I own a small boatyard about fifty kilometres from Bucharest. Near Giurgiu. The barges pull in there and the loads are…how can I put it? Rectified. The legitimate cargoes are transferred to lorries. And our tame customs officials replace the seals so everything is exactly as it should be.” He dropped her hand and put an arm round her shoulders. “You see how much I trust you, that I tell you all this?”
“I appreciate it,” Carol said, trying not to show how overjoyed she was at the precious intelligence she had gained. “So how many containers do you have in operation at any given time?” she asked. It was, she felt, the sort of thing a businesswoman like Caroline would want to know.
“Between thirty and forty,” he said. “Sometimes there’s only a small amount of heroin on board, but it still means you need access to a whole container.”
“That’s a big investment,” Carol said.
“Believe me, Caroline, every container pays for itself many times over every year. This is a very lucrative business. Maybe if things work out for us with the illegals, we could move some other merchandise?”
“I don’t think so,” she said firmly. “I don’t get involved in drugs. It’s too dodgy. Too many stupid people thinking it’s easy money. You have to deal with such shitty, unreliable toerags. People you wouldn’t want in your town, never mind in your house. Besides, the police pay far too much attention to drugs.”
He shrugged. “It’s up to you. Me, I let Darko deal with the scum. I only talk to the people at the top of the tree. What about guns? How do you feel about them?”
“I don’t use them and I don’t like them.”
Tadeusz laughed in pure delight. “I feel the same about drugs. But it’s just business, Caroline. You can’t afford to be sentimental in business.”
“I’m not sentimental. I’ve got a very good and very profitable business and I don’t want to have to deal with gangsters.
”
“Everybody needs a second profit centre.”
“That’s why I bought the airbase. That’s why I’m here now. You supply the workforce, that’s all I need.”
He pulled her closer to him. “You shall have them.” He turned and kissed her lips. “Sealed with a kiss.”
Carol allowed herself to lean into him, aware she mustn’t reveal the repugnance his revelations had engendered in her. “We’ll make good partners,” she said softly.
“I’m looking forward to it,” he said, his voice heavy with secondary meaning.
She chuckled as she pulled free of his embrace. “Me too. But remember, I don’t mix business with pleasure. First, we do the business. Then…who knows?” She skipped away from him and ran back down the path towards the car.
He caught up with her halfway along the river bank, grabbing her round the waist and pulling her close. “OK, business before pleasure,” he said. “Let’s go back to Berlin and make some plans. I’ll call Darko and get him to meet us. We’ve got a quiet little office in Kreuzberg where we can sit down and make some firm plans and talk money. Then tonight we can relax.”
Oh shit, Carol thought. This was all moving faster than she really wanted. How was she going to get out of this in one piece?
31
Petra looked up gratefully from her computer as The Shark barged into the squad room. Her head was a slow throb of red-eyed pain from too many hours staring at the screen. Her only break had been arranging the warrant for Tony. Late-night reading of the murder files followed by a morning of assimilating Carol’s reports and cross-referencing them with the existing files on Radecki had left her convinced she could no longer avoid a visit to the optician. This was it, then. The end of youth. First it would be reading glasses, then contact lenses, then she’d probably need a hip replacement. It all felt too grim to think about, so even The Shark was a welcome distraction.
“Got any codeine?” she demanded before he could open his mouth.