by David Young
The flash of recognition took Müller’s thoughts back to the police university. The lecturer – a senior detective on secondment – who’d befriended her. Offered to help her up the career ladder. To smooth her path into the Kripo, as long as she agreed to the police’s version of the casting couch. She’d resisted, even though there was something in him – at that time – that she found attractive. Perhaps it was just a power thing: that he did have the ability to kick-start her career. Now she felt nausea well up. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to wipe the memory: him plying her with vodka, pressing himself against her, the foul smell of his breath only partially hidden by alcohol fumes, and then how he’d held her down, ripped off her clothing, thrust himself into her. How she’d been helpless as he grabbed her wrists, the pain tearing her insides as flesh tore against flesh, and then – just as he was about to finish – how he’d relaxed his grip in the ecstasy of the moment, and she’d smashed the vodka bottle against the table and jammed it in his face.
‘Aren’t you going to say hello, Karin? I’ve waited a long time for this reunion.’
She heard Irma gasp. ‘You know Neumann?’
‘Oh yes, she knows me, Irma. Intimately. We’ve even had a child together. That’s if you can call a twenty-week foetus a child. A twenty-week foetus that she killed. Was it a girl or a boy, Karin? Did you ever find out?’
Müller felt as though the whole room was spinning. She swallowed, but gave no answer, her eyes fixed on her shaking fingers as they gripped the table for support. She wished that she was back at the apartment on Schönhauser Allee. Taking out the baby clothes. Stroking them. Comforting herself.
‘I’ve never had the chance to have another child, Karin. Who would want to marry someone with a face like this?’ He stroked the scar tissue under his eyepatch. ‘You killed my only one. My only son or daughter. And my facial injuries and the scandal from you claiming I raped you – a claim which was patently untrue – meant I had to leave the force. They offered me a job in charge of the Jugendwerkhof under a new name. That or face trial. It wasn’t much of a choice. You cost me my job, and the chance of a child. You ruined my life. But I still felt some tie to you, despite your betrayal. I wanted to see you again. Now I’m not so sure it was a good idea.’
Müller looked up, and could see tears welling in the remaining eye of the man she knew as Walter Pawlitzki – a man now known as Franz Neumann, lately director of the Jugendwerkhof Prora Ost.
‘Have you been able to have other children, Karin?’
She forced herself to try to give nothing away, but knew he could probably see the pain, the longing, in her expression. As time slowed, she could see Irma watching the exchange intently, fingering her sharp metal meat knife.
Pawlitzki drew up a chair, and sat next to them at the table. Müller tried to catch Irma’s eye, hoping the girl wouldn’t do anything stupid. Müller knew that the former police university lecturer – the former Jugendwerkhof director – would have ensured the guards were ready to respond instantly should either of them try to attack him.
Müller drew in a deep breath, and held her former lecturer’s one-eyed gaze. ‘Did you murder Beate Ewert?’ she asked.
Pawlitzki rocked back in his chair, laughing.
‘It’s not a laughing matter,’ screamed Irma, her hand tightening round the knife handle.
‘Put that down, Irma. Immediately. Otherwise I will call the guards back.’ The girl’s grip loosened. ‘All I know is that Beate went to the party on the Brocken, and then on to Berlin. If you’re saying she’s dead, I certainly didn’t kill her. Can you say the same about Mathias, Irma?’ The girl lowered her gaze.
‘So what happened?’ asked Müller.
‘Why do you think I know what happened to her? And even if I did, would I really tell you that, Karin? You, a detective for the People’s Police of this good Republic.’ Pawlitzki took a bread roll, broke a piece off and began to butter it. ‘What I will tell you is that the problem arose when Beate recognised the photograph of the esteemed Joint First Deputy Minister for State Security in a copy of Neues Deutschland that one of the guards stupidly left on the breakfast table here.’ He kept his eyes on both of them, as he reached across to the breakfast-room’s magazine rack. ‘Here it is.’ He handed the paper to Müller. ‘The joint deputy boss of the Stasi, Generaloberst Horst Ackermann.’ Pawlitzki paused, and put the piece of bread roll into his mouth.
‘I’ve heard of him,’ said Müller, turning the newspaper face down. If they got out of here alive, she didn’t want Irma to recognise the Stasi general and try to take her own revenge. All the time, with half an eye, she was looking round the room, wondering if there was a way to escape. But she also wanted to hear what Pawlitzki had to say.
‘He was guest of honour at the winter fancy-dress party on the Brocken. It was actually he who asked Beate to attend. He thought she was still in the Jugendwerkhof, but as until recently I’ve been able to go back and forth between Rügen and the Harz, I still got the message he sent to Prora.’
‘The sick bastard,’ screamed Irma. ‘And you just served her up to him on a plate.’
‘I was just following orders, Irma.’ Pawlitzki looked down at his hands. Müller noticed they were shaking, and his voice sounded almost tearful. ‘It’s not something I’m proud of. But it’s how this Republic is run.’ He tried to compose himself, folding his arms across his stomach. ‘And as far as I know, they went back to Berlin. But it’s Ackermann you need to find, not me. And good luck with that. I don’t think you’ll get very far trying to arrest the deputy head of the Stasi.’
Something in Pawlitzki’s expression told her that he was still withholding information, that he knew more than he was letting on.
‘How do I know you’re not just lying to save your own skin?’
Pawlitzki sighed, and took a sip of coffee.
‘What reason do I have to lie?’
Müller watched him place his coffee cup down, reach under his coat and draw out a gun. She recognised it immediately: a Walther PKK – a Polizeipistole Kriminalmodell, easily concealed for undercover work, and the inspiration for her own Makarov. He fingered the gun lovingly.
‘Whatever I tell you, you won’t be telling anyone else. I tried to do my best by the three teenagers, but when they were handed back by the West Germans, I had to intercept them at the Helmstedt autobahn crossing. I was under orders to make sure they told no one about their escape or their methods, and moreover that they were in no position to make allegations against Comrade Generaloberst Ackermann. Helping our work here was a necessity. I’m sorry it hasn’t turned out as intended.’
Irma stood up now, and made a move towards Pawlitzki. Müller held her back as she launched her invective. ‘Don’t claim you’re sorry. You treated us like shit in Prora and you’ve treated us even worse here.’ She aimed a globule of spittle at Pawlitzki’s face.
As he wiped it off, deathly calm, Müller asked about Mathias. ‘Why did you try to make out that Mathias’s death was murder? What was that all about? Why try to make it look like the killing in the cemetery in Berlin?’
‘Because I’d seen that case in the papers, I wanted to lure you here. I knew a similar killing would do just that. That you would be sent to investigate. Despite what you did to me, I still have feelings for you, Karin. These last few years, I’ve thought about you almost every day. The things we did –’ Pawlitzki was sweating now, even though the temperature in the bunker was cool. He wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve as he continued to talk at machine-gun speed. ‘I knew that if I faked Mathias’s death to look like Beate’s murder, the local police would ask you for help. Presumably that’s why you’re here?’
‘I’m here because I was captured by your guards, the same guards who shot my deputy. But if I have my way you will be arrested, and face ultimate justice.’
Pawlitzki shook his head, fingering his gun, a look of disappointment at her answer clouding his face. ‘It won’t happen, Ka
rin. Don’t you see? They couldn’t afford for any of this to come out. It would undermine the very fabric of the regime.’ He leant back in his chair again, wiping the hair back from his forehead. ‘In any case,’ he said, lifting the gun and then releasing the safety lever, ‘as I’ve already said, you’re not going to be around to arrest me. But I’ve got to hand it to you, you’ve followed my clues well.’
‘Your clues?’ asked Müller.
‘In the lim—’
‘I thought you said you had nothing to do with the body in the cemetery?’
Müller could see his confusion. He’d let something slip that he hadn’t wanted to, in his attempts to boast about how clever he’d been. But then Pawlitzki shrugged. ‘You’re not leaving here, and I am.’
‘Well, if I’m never getting out of here alive, there’s no harm telling me what all the digging in the mine is for . . .’
Pawlitzki sucked his teeth, uncertainty etched across his face. ‘It’s a tunnel. Ackermann and the others involved in abusing the girls wanted an escape route. We’re already under the border, going upwards. Just a few more metres and we’ll be through. And, believe it or not, I didn’t want to leave without seeing you again. I think about you still, you know. Your body . . . your smell.’ His thin smile caused a wave of nausea to run through her, and he frowned. ‘But now you’re here, I can see that’s not going to happen. So it will have to be the other way. What is it they say, an eye for an eye? Well, I need paying back with more than just an eye for what you’ve done to me. You turned me into this monster.’ He lifted his eyepatch, and Müller expected to recoil in horror. But this wasn’t like the bloody, ripped mess of Beate’s eye socket in the cemetery. The skin was pale, healed – more like the smooth skin on the girl’s hands.
Müller realised the man was crazy, but their best chance was to keep him talking, to use his warped feelings for her to their advantage.
‘I’m sorry,’ she lied.
‘Sorry? Sorry doesn’t do it, I’m afraid.’
She moved closer to him, still keeping eye contact, and then placed her right hand on his arm. He looked down at where their two bodies joined once more, his distorted face creased in confusion and indecision. Müller thought she saw something else in his Cyclops-like eye. Was it lust? Some sort of crazed love? It was something to cling onto: a possible last chance for herself and Irma.
Still holding Pawlitzki’s arm lightly, she began talking in a soothing voice. ‘I can understand what a burden this must have been to you. And we’re not so very different. My own marriage is in trouble. I’m about to be kicked out of the police force. I’ve no reason to stay in the Republic any more than you. What I did to you was awful, I can see that now. And I do think of you too – of us –’ She moved her face closer to his. At the same time, with her left hand behind her back, directly in Irma’s vision, she made a tiny stab with her finger into her back. Müller continued to move in, as though to kiss him, even though the thought disgusted her. Even the memory of kissing him disgusted her. Her abortion disgusted her. The rape that led to him losing his job disgusted her. But in his good eye, she could see his longing, his need. They only needed an instant.
At that moment, Irma jumped up. Before Pawlitzki could change his mindset and retrieve his gun, Müller grabbed both of his arms and Irma plunged the meat knife into his neck. All the force from muscle built in months of slavery concentrated into one blow. Pawlitzki went white with shock, blood pumping from the wound.
He fell back, trying to stem the blood flow with one hand. ‘Guards,’ he shouted. There were responding noises and shouts outside the room, but then the sounds of automatic gunfire.
A plain-clothes officer burst in through the door. Another round of automatic fire into Pawlitzki’s abdomen, chest and head, finishing the job Irma had started. He slumped back. Müller looked up in shock as another man entered the subterranean room.
Jäger!
Everything was unfolding so quickly, Müller struggled to make sense of it. She was about to say something to the Stasi lieutenant colonel when she saw the first officer raising his gun arm, aiming towards Irma. She screamed ‘No! No!’ at Jäger, but the Oberstleutnant made no effort to stop the gunman. Müller in that instant leapt across to shield the girl with her body.
She saw the flash, felt bullets tear into her flesh. Only then did she hear Jäger’s cry of ‘Hold your fire!’
53
March 1975.
Hohenschönhausen, East Berlin.
Gottfried Müller had tried to keep count of the days in his head, but with the constant yet irregular flashing of the light at night-time, he’d pretty much lost track. Ten days, eleven, two weeks . . . he had no clear idea.
His visit from Karin had been the one thing he was clinging to. Surely she would help him? But a strict coldness gripped his heart as he recalled her guilty expression when she’d admitted the photographs of her entwined with Tilsner were genuine. And there had been the second bout of questioning. It didn’t seem to be the fake photographs they were interested in anymore . . . Instead they’d been focusing on Pastor Grosinski. Saying he’d been spying for the West. And that Gottfried had been passing him information, information about the police, his wife, her latest murder case. That, they said, constituted spying in itself . . . Helping a foreign power to undermine the Republic.
It was madness, absolute madness. But in his tiredness, his hopelessness, his utter fatigue, Gottfried wasn’t entirely sure what he’d agreed to. It was true – he had talked to the pastor about his marriage, and about the murder case. But that was merely meant as an example of the problems Karin and he faced. Her obsession with her work. But when they’d thrust the papers in front of him, he wasn’t sure what it was he’d actually been forced to sign.
The sound of keys being turned in the lock startled him. Was this it? Would they just take him into a yard somewhere and shoot him? It was the same guard who’d taken him to the two interviews with Hunsberger. Gottfried tried to cling to the bed, but the guard roughly grabbed his hands, forced them together and cuffed him.
‘No!’ he screamed. ‘I haven’t done anything. It’s all a mistake.’ The guard yanked him to his feet, but Gottfried was too weak to resist. Then he was prodded in the back, and forced to walk into the corridor. The red lights, doors, the clanking and clanging of metal. Finally, the garage with blinding floodlights, where he’d arrived the first day. And there it was again: the prison on wheels in which he’d been transported here.
‘Where are you taking me?’ he shouted as another guard arrived; both guards tried to push and pull him into the small van. Finally, he gave up, stopped resisting and let them do with his body whatever they wanted.
He was shoved into one of the tiny cells in the back of the vehicle, forced to crouch once more in the darkness – the too-small cell that stank of piss and shit, his body unable to stretch out, crushed against the sides, the floor and the roof.
Then the engine started, and Gottfried readied himself to endure a reprise of his journey all those long days and nights ago. He didn’t know where they were taking him then, and he didn’t know now. Acceleration, deceleration. Stop. Start. Banging him about just like before. Was he being taken to another jail? Or did a far worse fate now await him?
54
Day Seventeen.
The Harz mountains, East Germany.
Müller grabbed her left arm and squeezed to try to stop the flow of blood. At the instant the officer had fired, Jäger had stuck out his arm, pushing the barrel away fractionally – enough so that she just caught a glancing blow. Müller knew she had been lucky.
She felt Irma under her, moving. Alive.
Jäger stepped towards them.
‘Don’t touch me,’ Müller screamed. ‘Or her.’ She’d trusted him . . . Those intimate meetings at the Kulturpark, the Märchenbrunnen, the Weisser See. Yet an instant earlier, Jäger would have quite happily allowed Irma to be shot dead.
The Stasi
Oberstleutnant backed off. He began issuing new orders to the plain-clothes officer – presumably a Stasi agent allied to Jäger’s faction. From outside, Müller could hear more gunfire, more screams and the sounds of explosions.
‘Are you OK?’ whispered Irma, shuffling to try to get comfortable under the weight of Müller’s body.
‘Yes, are you?’ asked the detective. She felt Irma’s head nod behind her, felt the grip from the girl on her good arm.
Jäger moved out of the room, issuing more orders, and then suddenly – in front of her face – there was the friendly giant smile of Hauptmann Baumann, and behind him, Unterleutnant Vogel. Kripo officers like herself; people she felt she could trust.
‘I’m only moving away from her if you guarantee she won’t be harmed,’ she said to Baumann.
He nodded. ‘You’ll both be OK. I give you my word.’ He unwrapped a bandage handed to him by Vogel, and wrapped it tightly round the flesh wound in Müller’s arm. ‘We need to get you to hospital as soon as possible.’
‘She has to come with me. Don’t let Jäger near her,’ she said, fiercely.
Vogel helped Baumann to lift Müller up. The junior officer smiled too. ‘We will look after you both, Oberleutnant Müller.’ Then Baumann knelt down to comfort Irma and double-check that she was unharmed.
Müller glanced at Pawlitzki’s crumpled body in the corner of the room. The second former police colleague shot dead in less than twenty-four hours. At least, she assumed Tilsner must be dead.
‘Have you found Werner?’ she asked Vogel.
He lowered his eyes, and nodded slowly. She didn’t have to ask if he was dead. She could see it in Vogel’s expression.
‘He’s being taken to hospital. But it doesn’t look good.’