Stasi Wolf

by David Young

  Müller paused. A church-like silence had fallen on the room. Wiedemann cleared his throat. ‘I understand all that, Comrade Oberleutnant. But what are we, the police, doing, and how are we making sure we’re meeting Party objectives in the investigation?’

  ‘I’ve just come back from interviewing the parents. Their alibis seem solid. We still have to regard them as suspects, but personally I believe their grief is genuine. They don’t feel we’re doing enough. They want a visible police presence out on the streets searching for their daughter. It seems unfair to deny them that, and it’s hampering our investigation.’

  Stepping forward from the back of the room, Janowitz moved to stand alongside Wiedemann. ‘We know your feelings on the matter, Oberleutnant. But the Ministry of State Security has not taken this decision lightly. You would be wise not to disregard it.’

  Müller tried to make sure she retained a neutral expression. She didn’t want either Malkus or his number two to have the excuse to act against her. And Janowitz made her shudder – there was something about the man that unnerved her. She turned to Vogel. He could face the flak for a moment. ‘Comrade Vogel has just returned from conducting interviews at the hospital. Anything to report from there, Unterleutnant?’

  If he was annoyed about being forced into the spotlight, Vogel hid it well, and launched into a smooth explanation of his series of interviews with medical staff in the paediatric unit. But just as he was starting the more difficult task of explaining how he’d done this in a way which would meet with Party approval, the phone rang. Eschler reached to answer it. Müller could see the People’s Police captain’s face crease with worry. He looked up at Müller as the call continued, and beckoned her with his eyes. He held his hand over the mouthpiece and whispered in her ear. ‘It’s the kindergarten in Komplex VIII. Some sort of emergency. The uniforms think it may be of interest to the inquiry, Comrade Oberleutnant.’

  14

  February 1966

  Halle-Neustadt

  No. No. Not little Stefanie. Oh my God. What will Hansi think of me now?

  I mustn’t panic. I know I mustn’t panic. Come on, Franziska. You were a trained nurse, before you started having your turns. You know what to do.

  Tilt her head back. Ear to her mouth. I can’t hear anything. I can’t hear anything at all.

  Five rescue breaths. I seal my mouth over hers, hoping I won’t be sick. Blow hard, Franzi. Blow hard. One. Breathe. Two. Breathe. Three. Breathe. Four. Breathe. Five. Breathe.

  Listen. Watch. Nothing, nothing. Oh God. What will everyone think of me? I’d wanted her for so long, for so many years. Don’t cry. Keep under control.

  What’s next? Chest compressions.

  Scheisse! I can already see her lips turning purple. Oh Stefi, Stefi, don’t go. Mutti’s here.

  Push, Franzi. Push! Two fingers on the middle of her chest. Push firmly. Release. Do it again. Do it again. Counting. Up to ten. Up to twenty. Still nothing. Still nothing. Please, Stefi. Please. Your Mutti loves you. I didn’t mean you any harm.

  I’ll have to ring Hansi. He’ll know what to do. He never likes me calling the doctor directly. He likes to do it. He’s calmer. Sometimes I panic, say the wrong things.

  Seal her mouth with my lips again, and blow. Blow.

  Do it all again, Franzi. Maybe there’s still a chance. Two fingers. Middle of Stefi’s chest. Push hard. Make sure her chest goes in. Then release. Once more. Twice. Three times.

  I’m going to carry on. I’m not going to give up. All I ever wanted was Stefanie. She was my little gift from God. From heaven. I never believed I’d be able to have her. Please, God. Please. That’s twenty pushes.

  I listen. Still nothing.

  Seal her lips again, the taste of the salt from my tears mingling with the taste of stale milk from her lips. Blow, Franzi. Blow. Please breathe, Stefi, my darling. Please breathe.

  15

  July 1975

  Halle-Neustadt

  Müller, Vogel and Eschler piled into one of the People’s Police’s marked squad cars, with Fernbach driving. Ignoring the previous warnings from Malkus and Janowitz not to draw attention to the inquiry, Eschler switched on the flashing light and siren. Müller didn’t pull him up for it. The sight of police cars on emergency calls in the Republic was common enough. Lenin’s idea that under communism, crime would wither away as the excesses of individuals disappeared . . . well, Müller’s own profession wouldn’t exist if that was the case.

  Fernbach accelerated away, drawing the stares of passers-by. They swung out onto the Magistrale, into the fast lane, as cars and trucks pulled over to let them through. In just a couple of minutes, with a screech of brakes, they were outside the kindergarten, in another of the town’s nameless streets.

  Saying little, the four police officers rushed inside the building, brandishing their IDs. The staff pointed to a side room, away from the main kindergarten and crèche. As Müller and the others entered, she was unsurprised by who she found. Sitting on a chair, head in her hands, was a clearly distraught Klara Salzmann – surrounded by three uniformed police officers. Maddelena’s mother looked up with a half-snarl on her face as she heard Müller’s voice.

  ‘It’s all right, comrades,’ Müller said to the three officers. ‘We can deal with it from here.’

  The three uniforms started to protest, but Eschler held his hand up to silence them. ‘What Oberleutnant Müller says is correct. We know this citizen. She’s involved in a wider investigation.’

  ‘But she was upsetting the staff and the children,’ said one of the three, a young female officer. ‘She should be arrested.’

  Klara Salzmann snorted. ‘Arrested? Me? I’m just trying to do what you should all be doing. Showing everyone this.’ Frau Salzmann shrugged off the arm lock she was in and picked up a photograph from the table next to her. Müller could see it was a picture of Maddelena – a close-up of her face. ‘All I was doing was asking if anyone had seen this baby. My baby. My Maddelena. It’s not fair that no one’s doing anything. It’s not right.’

  Eschler motioned with his eyes for the three uniforms to leave the room.

  ‘You’re not going to be arrested, Klara,’ said Müller. ‘But you’re not making it easy for us. You must allow us to do our jobs and conduct the investigation our way. I can understand why you did what you did, but we can’t allow it to go on.’ Even as she spoke, Müller could hear her own words ringing false. Malkus’s strictures were hampering the inquiry. There surely must be more behind the ever-present need for secrecy, something she was determined to uncover. But even Müller couldn’t allow Klara Salzmann to go around the town acting like a vigilante.

  The fight seemed to go out of the woman. She buried her head in Müller’s shoulder and clung to the detective as Müller lightly stroked her back.

  *

  As she and Vogel ushered Klara Salzmann into the back of their police vehicle, Müller took a few seconds to scan the surroundings, hoping not too many people had seen the commotion. Like most of the childcare facilities in Ha-Neu, this kindergarten in Komplex VIII was in a green square, bounded on three sides by Plattenbauten. Mothers didn’t have far to go to the crèche or the kindergarten from their apartments. After a few weeks’ maternity leave they were expected to be back at their factory or shop jobs, helping the Republic to meet its ever-increasing targets: the majority of them working alongside their menfolk at Leuna and Buna, catching the S-bahn each day from the main station. Thankfully, onlookers and gawpers were absent – it looked as though the Stasi’s cloak of secrecy was pretty much intact, at least for now.

  Eschler and Fernbach made their own way back to the incident room, while Müller and Vogel took Klara Salzmann to her apartment – Vogel driving, with Müller in the back of the vehicle, still comforting the distraught woman. Vogel took one hand off the wheel and passed his cigarettes and lighter towards Müller. She offered Klara one, and then lit it for her, the woman’s fingers shaking as she took a deep drag.


  *

  The alcohol fumes hit Müller’s nostrils as soon as Klara Salzmann opened the door to her flat. The three of them followed the scent towards the living room. There they found Reinhard Salzmann slumped on the sofa, snoring loudly, a three-quarters-empty bottle of crystal vodka on the coffee table. His trousers were damp at the crotch. Müller at first thought he’d wet himself in his alcoholic stupor, but then noticed the vodka glass on the floor. His last tot of Blue Strangler had ended up spilled on his clothes, rather than adding to what was already a potent mix in his stomach.

  ‘You see why I felt I had to do something,’ said his wife. ‘He’s not capable. He just hits the bottle all the time. That’s why he was ranting at you the other day. I’d hidden it from him. He was angry as much about that as about what you’re doing to find Maddelena. We’re wrecks, Oberleutnant, both wrecks. Unless we find her, we’re finished. Even if we find her, we’ve still lost Karsten.’ The woman sat down next to her husband and stared hard at Müller. ‘I’m sorry for what I did earlier. It won’t happen again. But please find her.’

  *

  Back at the police headquarters for Ha-Neu, Müller called Vogel and Eschler to a meeting in her office. It was hardly big enough for the three of them. Müller hitched up her skirt and perched on the table, with the two male officers leaning against each side wall.

  ‘Although she didn’t go about it the right way, Klara Salzmann had a point,’ said Müller. ‘We have to do more.’

  ‘I don’t see how we can,’ said Eschler.

  ‘We can. I’ve been thinking about it. We need a good reason – other than an apartment-by-apartment search for a missing baby – to check on every family with a child of, say, under three months old.’

  ‘But how would we do that without raising suspicions?’ asked Vogel, pulling a cigarette from his pack of f6’s, and then motioning the packet towards Müller and Eschler, who both shook their heads.

  Müller stood and turned to the window, looking out over the Salzmanns’ Y-section high-rise block, and then turned back towards the other two officers. ‘Families with babies will have health workers checking on them regularly. That’s what we’re going to be. Health officials. We’ll come up with some story that local health officials are starting a nutrition drive. To make sure that all babies are being fed properly. We can use it as cover. We’ll plant a story in the local paper to give it greater credence.’

  ‘I can’t see Malkus and Janowitz allowing that,’ said Eschler, frowning.

  Müller fixed him with a stare. ‘If you have a better idea, by all means let me know, Bruno. As for Malkus and Janowitz –’

  They were interrupted by a knock on the door.

  ‘Come,’ shouted Müller.

  It was Wiedemann.

  ‘Ah. Comrade Oberleutnant, I’m glad you’re back. Hauptmann Janowitz wants to talk to you.’

  ‘Can’t it wait? You can see we’re in the middle of a meeting.’

  ‘No, I don’t think it can, Comrade Oberleutnant.’

  16

  Müller followed Wiedemann back to his own office, lined with boxes and boxes of files from previous cases. Janowitz was already sitting there, but so – to Müller’s surprise – was Malkus, twirling his pen as he waited. Neither of them rose to greet her. Malkus simply gestured with his eyes to an unoccupied chair across the desk from him and his deputy.

  ‘Thanks for coming so quickly, Comrade Oberleutnant, and I’m sorry if I’ve disrupted your meeting.’

  Müller shrugged. ‘It’s no problem. I wanted to talk to you anyway, Comrade Major. But what was it you wanted to see me about?’

  ‘It’s just that I heard that the Party meeting didn’t go quite as smoothly as it usually does,’ said Malkus, tapping the end of his pen on his notepad. ‘I just wanted to find out why, and whether there’s anything we can do to help.’

  She looked at the faces of the other two – Wiedemann and Janowitz. They both had identical expressions punctuated by thin, supercilious smiles. ‘It seemed to go perfectly well to me, Comrade Major,’ said Müller. ‘But I was conducting an interview and missed the beginning. Was there a problem before I arrived?’

  It was Janowitz who spoke first as Malkus sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. ‘No. The problem was the fact that you were late. Perhaps we do things differently here.’

  Malkus leaned forward now. ‘Our monthly Party meetings are compulsory, Comrade Oberleutnant, and we expect everyone to take them seriously – especially senior officers such as yourself.’

  ‘I apologise, Comrade Major. Next time I will put vital interviews, essential to advancing the case, to one side.’

  Malkus’s face reddened, but he didn’t immediately rebuke Müller. Instead, Janowitz seemed to smell an opportunity to further undermine her.

  ‘The thing is the case isn’t really advancing, is it?’ said the Stasi captain. ‘I’m not entirely sure why a team from Berlin is necessary at all. It just seems to complicate things.’ He turned to his superior officer. ‘My view, Comrade Major, is that we should now take this out of the People’s Police’s hands, and deal with it ourselves.’

  Müller found her own face reddening. It was a frustrating case, it was true. But now she was here, she was determined to try to solve it. And she certainly didn’t want Janowitz deciding whether or not she, Vogel and Schmidt should be taken off it.

  There were a few moments of awkward silence as Malkus sat stroking his chin, calculating his next move. Eventually he turned to Wiedemann and Janowitz. ‘Could you two Comrades leave us for a moment, please? I wish to talk to Oberleutnant Müller alone.’

  *

  When they’d left the office, Malkus locked the door behind them. Then he returned to the desk, but sat on it rather than behind it, so that once again his eyeline was above that of Müller.

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t try to show me up in front of more junior colleagues, Karin,’ he said, gently. ‘The matter was referred to me by Hauptmann Janowitz, so I had to deal with it. But while you’re here in Halle-Neustadt, you need to play by our rules. We can’t just operate on our own terms. It might surprise you to know that I face the same sort of pressures as you. You saw an example of that just now. If I start bending the rules for you and your team, then hardliners such as my deputy will soon be reporting on me, and making my life difficult. So I want you to turn up promptly to the Party meetings in future, and take them seriously, please. Can we agree on that?’

  Müller was angry that this slavish adherence to Party doctrine seemed to take precedence over the actual inquiry. But after holding Malkus’s gaze for a moment, she nodded.

  ‘Good,’ the Stasi major continued. He continued to hold her stare. ‘And the incident at the kindergarten involving the mother was unfortunate. That’s just the sort of thing we want to avoid. But my agents tell me you dealt with it quickly and well, so I’m grateful.’ Müller had to fight back an ironic smile from playing on her face. In damning her with faint praise, Malkus had also demonstrated how the Stasi did know everything she and her team did – its tentacles stretching everywhere.

  After a pause to let the meaning of his words sink in, it was Malkus’s turn to smile ironically. ‘Now, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?’

  Müller got up from her chair, walked towards the window, and then turned back to Malkus. Now she was standing, and he was perched on the desk, she felt she’d removed the psychological advantage he always seemed to be seeking. But she still felt uncomfortable in the glare of his amber eyes.

  ‘We need to move the investigation up a gear, Comrade Major. It’s getting nowhere very quickly. The incident in the kindergarten was a direct result of the parents’ frustrations at the way we’re investigating with one hand tied behind our backs. So we need to do something different. I want to search every apartment of every citizen in Ha-Neu with a baby of under three months old. And if possible I’d like to extend that to Halle itself, and surrounding towns such as Merseburg. P
erhaps Schkeuditz too. We’ll do it in such a way as to avoid raising people’s fears. In fact, it may, in its own way, be a force for good.’

  Malkus frowned. ‘I don’t see how you’ll be able to do that without specifically countermanding our instructions that there should be no apartment-by-apartment search.’

  ‘It won’t be every apartment. It will be very specifically targeted. And we will pose as health workers. It will be a campaign to make sure infants are being fed properly, that they’re getting the correct nutrition. That sort of thing. We’ll take a trained paediatric nurse with us to weigh each child. All officers involved in the search will be given training to make sure it looks like an authentic campaign. And – with the involvement of the nurse – to some extent it will be.’ She held her gaze on the Stasi officer until he looked down at his notepad and sighed.

  ‘Let’s for a moment imagine that I’ll permit this. Why on earth do you think this missing baby will be hidden in plain sight? Surely it will have been locked away somewhere?’

  Müller shrugged. ‘Perhaps. But by getting into the homes of parents of new babies, even if we don’t find Maddelena herself, we may find some evidence that leads us to her. In any case, for the moment, it’s the best we can do.’

  Malkus leant back in his chair and clasped his hands together. ‘Very well. I’m not going to give you the official green light, but equally I won’t stop you. It will be up to you if you want to try to involve the People’s Police in Halle itself and the other towns you mentioned. But everyone involved, including any healthcare professionals, must be sworn to secrecy over what we’re actually doing. If this backfires, on your head be it.’ Then his expression relaxed. ‘Privately, unofficially, it sounds like a good plan. Well done. Let’s hope it produces results, for all our sakes.’