by David Young
‘You’re a bastard, Mathias. A complete and utter bastard and I will never, ever forgive you.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbles again, and then turns to negotiate the steps. Flashing in my brain are the images of Beate, the Jugendwerkhof, the elation at seeing the lights of Hamburg. Happy images of me and Mutti and Oma on the beach as a young girl. They close in on me, taunt me, and as Mathias takes his first step down, as he’s momentarily off balance, I push.
He falls.
His scream ends with a sickening thud at the bottom of those steep, slippery stone steps.
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. You see, I do remember some things from school.
49
February 1975.
The Harz mountains, East Germany.
I murdered Mathias Gellman, but no one will ever know.
Neumann hears the argument, hears the scream. He comes clambering down the ladder with a torch. I stand frozen to the spot, unable, or unwilling, to go to help.
‘He fell,’ I say.
Neumann brushes past me and runs down the steps, his torch beam leaping up and down, until it settles on Mathias’s head. An ugly open gash, and blood discolouring the stone floor of the mine. Neumann feels for a pulse. Starts mouth to mouth. All in vain.
While his goons continue to hack away at the rock face further along the level, he gets me to help him carry the body and haul it into the ore bucket, and then uses the pulley system to take Mathias to the surface.
I just sit at the top of the steps, thinking of dog woman and her kindly face . . . The short-skirted girls on the Reeperbahn . . . The drink of Coca-Cola and the currywurst and chips . . . The ketchup . . . And the bloodstains by Mathias Gellman’s head.
50
March 1975. Day Sixteen.
The Harz mountains, East Germany.
Müller looked at the black metallic tube pointing at her forehead, then moved her gaze a fraction to the gloved finger resting on the gun’s trigger.
She raised her eyes to those of her captor, who stared back from inside the hood of a white camouflage jacket. For some reason, the gloved finger did not move.
Instead, they both heard the crack of a tree branch some fifty metres back up the track. Müller and the man both turned towards the noise – the movement sending a flash of pain up from her injured legs. She saw her chance and tried to reach under her jacket for the Makarov pistol, but the guard was too quick for her, squeezed her arm and forced her to drop the weapon, kicking it away down the slope. As he did so, she made a grab for his gun, but he pulled her tight to him, and pressed the weapon to her temple. Müller felt herself gag – partly through panic, partly through the stench of his unwashed body.
‘Don’t move. Stay completely still,’ he hissed into her ear. Then he shouted back up the track, towards the noise in the trees. ‘Come out, with your hands up! Otherwise I’ll shoot her.’
For a moment there was no answer, and then Müller heard Tilsner’s voice. Despite the freezing metal of the gun barrel pressing into the side of her head, she felt relief flood through her.
‘Kriminalpolizei! You’re under arrest,’ her deputy shouted from behind the cover of the pine trees. ‘Drop your gun and release her.’
Müller’s captor kept her firmly gripped, jabbing the gun barrel even harder into the side of her head. ‘Tell him to drop his gun and come out,’ he whispered urgently. Müller stayed silent. He yanked her arm up behind her back. ‘Tell him. Now!’ Müller still refused to speak, not wanting to undermine what little advantage Tilsner may have.
Trying to ignore the pain in her arm, she started to squirm away, but her captor tightened his grip still further, forcing her arm up and back until she thought she would black out. ‘I’m losing patience,’ he hissed, jabbing the gun at her temple. She saw him about to squeeze the trigger.
Tilsner shouted out again. ‘Release her! I won’t give you another warning.’
While the guard concentrated on keeping his hold on her, Müller lifted one leg and kicked back with her ski boot into his shin. Surprised, his grip loosened for an instant, and Müller forced herself sideways into a bank of snow, creating enough space between them to give Tilsner a safe target, praying that he would grab his opportunity.
Up the slope, Tilsner stepped out and aimed. The same instant, the man swivelled and raised his gun arm. A flash from Tilsner’s weapon. Then two cracks, microseconds apart, echoing through the mountains and trees.
The man fell forward into the snow, crimson discolouring the back of the white army ski jacket where the bullet had passed through his body. No sound came from him, no movement. She turned her head to look back up the slope, to congratulate her Unterleutnant, to thank him for saving her life. But Tilsner, too, lay in a crumpled heap in the snow.
Müller dragged herself up the incline towards him, the snow and her injuries slowing her progress, pain pulsing from her leg wounds. He was calling her name. He’s still alive. But the voice was faint, and growing fainter.
Müller finally reached him, and knelt in the snow. She ripped off her scarf and held it to his chest as blood pumped out.
‘Karin . . . K-K-Karin,’ he gasped, trying to reach up and touch the side of her face. His arm fell back.
‘You’ll be alright, Werner. You’ll be alright.’ But even as she said it, the blood soaking into her scarf told her otherwise. She tried to remember her first-aid training, but all she could think of was not wanting to lose him.
‘I’m s-s-s-sorry, Karin. So sorry.’
‘You’ve nothing to be sorry for. You’re a hero of the Republic. You saved my life.’ She brought her mouth towards his. Wanting to kiss him. Breathe life into him. Anything.
Tilsner tried feebly to push her back. ‘S-s-s-sorry –’
His attempts to form words stopped.
She felt for a pulse – it was still there, faint, but still there. She looked up and down the slope – how could she get help? They’d been stupid to come without Baumann or Vogel who at least knew the terrain. She’d been stupid. Tilsner had said they needed back-up. Now he was lying here, dying, and she couldn’t help him.
She was so beside herself she only half-heard the engine of the Soviet Gaz as it approached from the valley, its four-wheel drive able to cope with the gradient in a way that the Wartburg couldn’t have done – even with snow chains. When she finally looked up from Tilsner’s body, as life seeped from it, and found not one, but two guns pointing in her face, she was almost beyond caring.
The bumps in the track sent jolts of pain through Müller’s tenderised frame. She knew these people were her captors, not saviours, but she had pleaded with them to do something to help Tilsner. Finally the two gunmen had lifted her dying deputy’s body into the back of the Gaz. Müller closed in on herself – desensitised by the blindfold they’d wrapped tightly over her eyes, numbed by grief over Tilsner. She knew he wasn’t going to survive. It was almost as though the object of her mission, to rescue the remaining girl, had become irrelevant. All she could think of was Werner, and what might have been.
The vehicle finally came to a halt. Müller urged the men to attend to Tilsner, but they ignored her and instead she was dragged from the back of the Gaz–69 and forced to stand upright, while he lay dying inside. She winced from the brightness of the snow as her blindfold was removed, and then felt the jab of metal in her back as she was pushed forward. To the side of the track, sheltered by the pines, she saw an old wooden shed. This must have been the building she’d seen on the map, next to the mineshaft. Its windows – if that’s what they were – were shuttered closed, and snow had drifted halfway up the building’s sides. One of the men, his face half-hidden by a scarf, pulled back the wooden beam that was holding the door closed, and then his accomplice shoved Müller inside.
In one corner, hunched into her woollen, filthy Strickpulli, her face bruised and reddened, a teenage girl looked up at Müller with a mixture of what seemed to be hope and l
onging. It was Irma Behrendt, struggling to stand against the weight of her chains. Despite the bruising, despite the emaciated face, Müller recognised her as the last of the three teens who had supposedly been transferred from the Rügen Jugendwerkhof in May last year. Her red hair was tangled and dirty, but she was alive: the sole survivor of the three. Müller’s captors tied her to an iron pillar next to the girl, and lashed the detective’s wrists together.
As the guards left, and barred the door closed behind them, Müller turned to the teenager.
‘Irma,’ she whispered. The girl turned in shock, wondering how this woman knew her name. ‘We will survive, Irma,’ continued Müller. ‘We have to. When the local police realise I’ve disappeared they will look for us.’
The girl just continued to stare, shafts of light from the gaps in the decaying timber walls highlighting her matted red hair and her emaciated features.
‘Who are you?’ she finally asked.
‘Police Oberleutnant Karin Müller. I’m married to Gottfried Müller – he used to teach at your Jugendwerkhof .’
‘And you’ve come to rescue me?’ The girl snorted, sounding half-delirious, staring at Müller’s tightly bound hands. ‘You haven’t done a very good job.’ She laughed. Then she grew serious. ‘Have you any news of Beate?’ Müller tried to give nothing away. But her silence, and the way she dropped her eyes, spoke for themselves. ‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’
Müller gave a long sigh, but her lack of an answer was enough for Irma. The girl began to scream, high-pitched, terrible wails. Müller would have covered her ears if she could. Instead she tried to shush Irma gently, but to no avail. The girl was slumped forward, but the shuddering of her body told Müller that her tears were still falling.
‘We will be OK, Irma. I’m sure we will.’
But though she spoke with confidence, she didn’t expect the girl to take the words at face value. Müller didn’t even believe them herself.
51
Day Seventeen.
The Harz mountains, East Germany.
Müller was left alone with Irma overnight, their hands untied, their legs shackled to the floor, with just filthy damp mattresses and blankets as bedding. She held the girl’s hand. She knew that wasn’t just to give the teenager comfort. Müller herself needed that connection with living flesh and blood. Irma was asleep, breathing heavily – more accustomed to her captivity than Müller was. The detective tossed and turned as far as her shackles and injuries would allow. Each time she tried to move, the stabbing pains from her legs reminded her of the crash into the tripwire.
In the darkness, she thought of Tilsner. There was nothing she could do for her deputy. She didn’t know his precise fate, but when they’d been bundled into the Soviet 4x4, she was conscious that he was already in his death throes. Her prospects – and those of the girl she was trying to save – didn’t seem much better. Whoever had captured her and the girl she was certain it must be someone connected to Neumann and the Jugendwerkhof on Prora. Although the guards to this hideout had worn snow camouflage dress similar to that of the Republic’s People’s Army, this was no formal arrest.
What of Gottfried? As far as she knew, he was still incarcerated by the Stasi, unless Jäger had fulfilled his part of the bargain and had somehow got him free or reduced the charges he faced. She’d missed her opportunity to help him. She should have acted earlier. Why hadn’t she asked Schmidt to examine the photos of Gottfried and the murdered girl straightaway and give her an immediate assessment of her husband’s claims that they were fakes? Now she was helpless, and couldn’t believe she or Irma were going to get out of here alive, or that she would ever see Gottfried and their Schönhauser Allee home again. She remembered what had been done to Beate, before and after death, and shuddered.
Neumann – if he was behind all this – still hadn’t made himself known to her. As she dozed, the faxed photograph of his mangled face with its sinister eyepatch replayed in her head, forcing her back awake. Was he even here? And if so, what was he up to?
Irma grunted, and turned in her sleep, as much as the iron leg shackles would allow. She let Müller’s hand drop as she did, and now the detective felt even more alone. Perhaps Irma had been right to mock her attempts at rescuing her. It was true. She hadn’t done a very good job.
When she awoke, daylight was streaming through the cracks in the timber of the shed in which they were being held.
She turned towards Irma, and found the girl was already looking at her, smiling.
‘You know, in a funny way,’ said the girl, ‘I’m pleased you’re chained up here next to me.’ Her face darkened. ‘After Beate . . . after Mathias . . . I was getting lonely.’
Müller took her hand again. ‘Don’t worry, Irma, we will get out of this mess. We will escape.’
Irma shook her head. ‘Believe that if you want, but there is no escape. Even if we get out of here, we’re still in the Republic.’
Müller didn’t reply.
Irma snorted. ‘It’s OK for you, anyway. You’re one of them. You’re part of the system. You try living in a closed Jugendwerkhof. Then you would see why so many people are desperate to leave this shitty little country.’ Müller dropped her gaze. She didn’t want to admit the truth of what the teenager was saying. It struck too close to what she had always believed in.
The girl turned away, and stared up at the ceiling, where the half-rotted timbers of what Müller assumed was the mine house struggled to support the ancient roof. ‘You realise we escaped, don’t you? The only three children to have ever escaped from Jugendwerkhof Prora Ost.’
Müller frowned. ‘I thought you were transferred? Moved out by Neumann.’
Irma laughed. ‘No, we escaped. In the furniture packs. And we got to the West, before we were betrayed.’
‘Betrayed?’
‘Yes. By Mathias. You know he’s dead, don’t you?’
Müller nodded. She reached over and took the girl’s hand again, stroking it gently. ‘I’m sorry, I’m truly sorry, Irma. He was your friend too.’
‘Hah!’ Irma spat. ‘Friend? He was no friend of mine. He was besotted with Beate, but even she saw through him in the end. Mathias Gellman betrayed us, to the Stasi. They recruited him to spy on the children, and the teachers. And he did, to try to make his own life easier. When we were on the boat, when we were nearly in the West, he persuaded the crew to radio the authorities in the East, and they persuaded their counterparts in the West to send us back. The little shit was an informer. I’m glad he’s dead.’
Müller said nothing, shocked that the Stasi recruited children – it was the first she’d ever heard of it. She wasn’t sure if she believed it, but then she wasn’t sure what she believed anymore.
‘And do you know what else, Mrs Berlin Detective? I killed Mathias. I murdered him. I pushed him down those steps. So what are you going to do about that? Arrest me?’ Irma started laughing like a maniac, laughs that after a few moments devolved into sobs. ‘You can’t arrest me, can you? Because you’re as powerless as me in this shithole of a country.’
Müller tried to grab the girl’s shoulders, to hold her, to calm her. But Irma violently shrugged her off, and turned to face the wall.
52
Day Seventeen.
The Harz mountains, East Germany.
The door swung open and two guards in snow camouflage overalls entered. They unlocked the chains that bound Müller’s and Irma’s legs, and then prodded the two females with their rifle barrels out of the mine-house door. Müller shouted at them, saying she was injured and couldn’t walk quickly, and asking what had happened to her deputy. They wouldn’t reply. They were taken some fifty metres through ankle-deep snow, further into the forest, in the opposite direction to the inner German border.
‘This is where their lair is,’ whispered Irma. One of the guards gave her an extra sharp prod with his weapon for daring to speak.
Hidden in the trees, camouflaged by undergrowth and snow, step
s led down to what appeared to be some sort of underground bunker. Like the mine house, it looked to Müller as though it had seen better days, but with its thick sealed metal doors, secured by release wheels, no one was going to be able to find them. ‘I think it was built by the Nazis,’ whispered Irma as they entered the concrete complex. ‘They take us here for a shower once a week. You’re lucky to get one on your first day. But I warn you, there’s no hot water. It will be freezing.’
As she showered, Müller examined her wounds. It was her legs she was most concerned about: the broken flesh was bruised, inflamed. Pain flashed from the wound as the water hit, forcing Müller to grit her teeth. She knew she needed hospital treatment, probably stitches. She glanced over at Irma who pulled a face, then smiled.
‘Your leg doesn’t look too good,’ she said. ‘Try to insist they take you to hospital. It might be a way out.’
‘What about you?’ Müller shouted over the noise of the shower spray.
‘If you get out, you can come and rescue me. But do it properly next time, with some back-up. Not in the amateurish way you tried this time.’ She smirked at the detective.
Müller turned away, feeling herself redden at the comment.
Clean clothes – shapeless unisex track suits and T-shirts – had been left on the side for them. Once they were dressed, the guards took them to another underground room. Wood panelling covered the walls, and the furniture was traditional Harz farmhouse style. A touch of luxury that couldn’t mask the underlying odour of damp and earth.
Breakfast was laid out on a table: fresh rolls, cheese, ham, coffee. It was as good as the one at the Wernigerode guesthouse.
Minutes after they’d started eating, the door opened.
‘It’ll be Neumann,’ whispered Irma.
But it wasn’t. At least to Müller it wasn’t.
Because as she looked up from her coffee, standing before her with the good side of his face in profile – but greyer, thinner, more unkempt – was a man who she’d vowed, years before, to never set eyes on again. Now she knew why the faxed photo Jäger had sent to Wernigerode had seemed strangely familiar – even though she thought she hadn’t recognised the man portrayed in it. Here, from a different angle, she did.