by David Young
*
Müller had done a rough calculation of how many babies of the right age there should be: around two hundred and fifty, according to her notes. About one hundred and twenty-five, then, should be girls, assuming an equal division of the sexes. When they’d checked with the hospital and health visitors, the figure was slightly higher. One hundred and forty. She decided the safest policy was to have two teams of two: a detective and a health visitor in each, with herself and Vogel being the obvious choices. Coming from Berlin, they’d be less likely to be recognised, although any of the mothers from Komplex VIII’s crèche – where Klara Salzmann had staged her one-woman appeal – could possibly put two and two together. But Müller and Vogel had gone directly to the side room where Frau Salzmann was being held. With a bit of luck, they hadn’t been noticed.
Müller calculated that – with a twenty-minute search and interrogation at each address – each team could get through about fifteen visits a day. That meant that, within a week, they should be able to work their way through the whole of Halle-Neustadt. The neighbouring city of Halle itself and surrounding towns and villages were another matter. Halle alone would probably take at least twice as long.
After briefing Vogel and the two health visitors, Müller began her search in her own residential complex – number six. There were around thirty families to visit here: perhaps a couple of days’ work.
*
Müller’s sixth home visit was apartment block 956, flat 276, in Wohnkomplex VI. Each of the three parts of the address ending in six. Those three sixes – the Devil’s number – might have been significant to Müller if she was superstitious or religious. She wasn’t. Nevertheless, the visit seemed to have some unspoken significance, even before she and health visitor Kamilla Seidel had rung the apartment’s bell. Each of the previous five babies had been towards the upper end of their age range: weighing too much to be Maddelena, and looking nothing like her either.
As they climbed the stairs to the second floor, Kamilla echoed the detective’s own thoughts. ‘I feel this could be the one, Comrade Oberleutnant. I’m not sure why, but . . .’ Müller had decided the best policy was to brief the two nurses – in a limited way – about the operation. She hadn’t mentioned the death of Karsten, but she had told them about the missing baby – warning them they were not to discuss it with anyone, not even their own families. If they did, their jobs would be at risk.
‘Let’s wait and see, Kamilla. It would be lovely to find her so soon, but that would feel a bit too easy. Things rarely work out like that.’
The door was opened by a girl who looked like she should still be at school, holding a tiny baby wrapped in a shawl. With her fresh complexion and total lack of make-up, the girl looked far too young to be a mother. Müller already knew from studying the relevant files that the girl’s name was Anneliese Haase, and her baby was called Tanja. Müller showed her fake Health Ministry ID card, and explained what they were doing.
‘It’s nothing to be alarmed about, Anneliese. We simply want to weigh Tanja, do a few simple health checks, and give you some nutritional advice. It’s a new government scheme to make sure the Republic’s youngest citizens get the best possible start in life.’
The girl looked dubious, but ushered Müller and Kamilla inside. Tanja immediately began bawling, and wouldn’t respond to her mother’s attempts to calm her with a soft rabbit toy. In the end, an apologetic Anneliese explained she would have to feed her daughter. She sat on the lounge sofa, arranged a towel across her lap while cradling Tanja with her other arm, and then opened her maternity bra for the baby to begin to suckle.
For Müller – although ostensibly this was a perfect example of Tanja getting the required nutrition – it just represented another delay. They were already slipping behind schedule with more than half the day gone, and only five babies ‘processed’.
‘Is she a good feeder?’ asked Kamilla, as she and Müller sat waiting at the dining table.
‘Yes. She knows what she likes. She’s a very greedy girl, aren’t you, Schatzi?’
‘And how long does she feed for at each session?’
‘Usually at least ten minutes – but if she’s very hungry it can be as much as an hour. Luckily I produce plenty of milk. I’ve even started donating some to the milk bank in the centre of Ha-Neu.’
Müller groaned inwardly about the delay, and Kamilla’s dull – but necessary – questions. ‘We can wait for a few minutes, Frau Haase, but we do need to see other citizens. So let us know as soon as you think we may be able to weigh her without causing too much distress.’ She caught Kamilla’s gaze and motioned with her eyes to the health visitor’s equipment bag. Kamilla took the hint, and started getting the baby scales out. Within a couple of minutes, Anneliese had removed her nipple from Tanya’s mouth.
‘She should be OK now. She can have more after you’ve gone if she starts getting upset.’
Kamilla picked Tanya up and began the weighing procedure, noting her weight with and without a nappy. Müller meanwhile got the Foton instant camera from her bag and took two photos of Tanya’s face. One, face-on, from above, and the second from the side, in profile. She and Vogel would go through any promising photos later at the incident room.
Reaching into her bag again, Müller pulled out a cellophane-wrapped black-and-white photograph of Maddelena. She passed it to Anneliese.
‘This is an example of an undernourished baby we found recently. You haven’t seen a baby looking like this, have you? At the crèche, at any mother’s groups, when you’re out and about with Tanya in her pram. Anything like that?’ It was a small deception. One that Malkus wouldn’t approve of, but then he didn’t need to know the minutiae of what Müller and Vogel were up to.
Anneliese shook her head.
‘Well, if you do,’ continued Müller, ‘please get in touch with Kamilla at the hospital immediately, and she will contact me, then we can take appropriate action.’ She passed the young mother a business card with the hospital’s logo, but the number was in fact a hotline to the police incident room, staffed by one of the typists and arranged by Müller earlier in the day. ‘And thanks for your cooperation, Anneliese. Tanya looks to be a very healthy young lady, and she’s clearly a good feeder. Is her weight OK, Kamilla?’
‘She’s perfect. A little above average for her age, but that’s nothing to worry about.’
Anneliese Haase picked up the child, her pride obvious in her beaming face, and then showed the two women to the door.
*
Müller and Kamilla made the short journey to the northern part of neighbouring Komplex V for lunch, at the Donkey Windmill – the Eselsmühle. The cutesy pink-washed mill, with its four blades turning slowly in the summer breeze, made for an anachronistic sight, overshadowed as it was on its eastern flank by towering slab apartment blocks. Modern and ancient made uncomfortable bedfellows, thought Müller, as she parked the Wartburg next to the mill. But she’d chosen it deliberately. It took pride of place on postcards of Ha-Neu, and – thanks to the children’s donkey rides offered in the green space alongside – was a popular choice with young families. Young families who might just have even younger babies. One of whom might be the cuckoo in the nest they were looking for: Maddelena Salzmann.
‘Do you want to order?’ Müller asked Kamilla. ‘I’ll be with you in a moment. I just need to radio in to the incident room. Could you get me a potato salad and a Vita Cola? And get yourself whatever you’d like.’ She handed Kamilla a ten-mark note. After the woman had climbed out of the car and made her way into the restaurant, Müller picked up the radio handset, crouching down to avoid the prying eyes of customers sitting in the afternoon sun outside the mill.
Eschler answered.
What he said immediately sent Müller’s heart rate soaring.
The uniform team had made an arrest.
17
Müller radioed Vogel, instructing him to stop what he was doing and make his way back to the incident room. The
y then drove out of Ha-Neu along the Magistrale, over the two branches of the river Saale, and turned north through the old part of Halle – following the south-to-north line of river tributaries, past the west wing of the imposing Moritzburg castle.
‘Where are we heading to?’ asked Vogel.
‘The Roter Ochse,’ Müller replied as she swung the Wartburg round another bend.
‘I thought that was a Stasi remand centre?’
‘It is. But the police don’t have any interrogation cells in Ha-Neu, so they use this instead.’
Müller peered to her right. The Roter Ochse, or Red Ox, seemed to earn its name: it sat solidly, with its four corner towers looking a bit like the thick-set legs of a bull, its hide formed by millions of red bricks. She felt fear clutch at the bottom of her stomach, but she wasn’t sure why.
As they held up their ID cards they were shown to a visitors’ parking area, and then found they had a two-man escort by Stasi officers. At the entrance to the building itself, their escort changed personnel. Then they were climbing the stairs up to the remand centre – in silence, apart from the echoing sounds of their footsteps. It had the same smell of concrete, metal and disinfectant as the prison in the Hauptstadt where Gottfried had been held. The same red and green control lights. The same harsh noises. Every corridor was painted in an identical fashion. An olive-green lower wall, with cream above. After the third corner turn, Müller already knew she was lost and – without the ever-present escort guards – would have struggled to find her way out.
Eventually, they arrived at a cell with an open door. Sitting inside, with a frown on his face, was Eschler. Beside him, Malkus. Müller was immediately on her guard. Malkus gestured to the two other chairs in the room, indicating that Müller and Vogel should sit down.
‘Thanks for getting here so quickly, comrades. We might have got a bit of a breakthrough thanks to Comrade Eschler and his team. Eschler, would you like to brief them?’
‘Certainly, Comrade Major. I think it’s a bit early to say it’s a breakthrough, though. Anyway, in the next cell we have a prisoner. He’s a thirty-five-year-old. We found him in one of the tunnels. Sleeping rough.’
‘Homeless?’ asked Müller, aware of the note of incredulity in her voice. According to Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler’s weekly current affairs programme, Der schwarze Kanal, such things only happened in the West. His view seemed to be borne out in the rival Western TV news programmes Gottfried had liked to watch, which for the last few years had been full of miners’ strikes, electricity shortages, three-day weeks . . . and homelessness.
Malkus tapped his pen on the desk. ‘That’s not for broadcast outside this room. I dispute the claim he’s homeless. He says he’s unemployed too. We all know that doesn’t happen in the Republic.’
‘Nevertheless,’ continued Eschler, ‘there was evidence he had indeed been sleeping in this particular heating tunnel for a few weeks. Blankets, discarded vodka bottles, cardboard boxes constructed into a makeshift den to keep himself warm – even though at the moment in the summer heat it’s stifling down there.’
‘Down where, exactly?’ asked Vogel.
‘Wohnkomplex V. In the heating duct between the Donkey Mill restaurant and Block 815. It’s a spur off the main circuit with pretty much waste ground above. It runs under where they do the donkey rides for kids. I think he thought he was safe there. Because it only runs to the Donkey Mill, it probably doesn’t get checked by maintenance workers as often as the main ducts between the apartment blocks themselves.’
‘OK,’ said Müller, realising that was the exact same place she’d just come from. ‘But a homeless and unemployed man, though unusual, doesn’t necessarily add up to a child abductor. What makes us think he’s our man?’
‘It was the reaction of the sniffer dog to his bedding,’ said Eschler. ‘The same dog that found the baby doll wrapped in the blanket. It’s been trained to hunt out Maddelena’s scent.’
‘Maddelena’s scent?’ queried Müller. ‘I thought it had been trained to recognise the smell of the bedding used by Maddelena. That’s not necessarily the same thing.’
Before Eschler could answer, Malkus jumped in. ‘Let’s not get bogged down in details. This is our best lead so far. And if he’s guilty, we’ve solved the case – and got a down-and-out off the streets.’
Müller sighed. ‘We won’t have solved the case, Comrade Major, until we find Maddelena. That’s our priority now, especially as it looks as though Karsten’s death wasn’t murder.’
Malkus reddened. Müller felt she had perhaps overstepped the mark. But the Stasi major nodded slowly. ‘You’re correct, of course, Comrade Oberleutnant.’
Müller got to her feet and smoothed out her clothing. ‘Right. Well, I’d better get in and start questioning him. What’s his name?’
Eschler handed her a file. ‘Stefan Hildebrand.’
She waved the folder. ‘Anything relevant in here?’
‘A few petty theft convictions, a spell in jail. Nothing you wouldn’t expect.’
‘And no form for child abduction or anything remotely connected with it?’
‘No,’ Eschler said.
Malkus stood up, and made as if to join Müller with the questioning. She held her hand up.
‘It’s still a police matter at the moment, Comrade Major.’ She tapped Vogel on the shoulder. ‘Martin, why don’t you join me in there?’ Then she turned to Malkus again. ‘Is that OK with you, Comrade Major? ’
Malkus looked as though he was about to disagree, then sat down in his chair and waved them away. ‘Go on, then. But make sure you get something to stick on him. We need results, and quickly.’
18
Stefan Hildebrand looked much as Müller expected. Gaunt face covered with an unkempt salt-and-pepper beard, and sunken eyes with dark shadows under them. Müller found herself holding her breath as she and Vogel sat down opposite the man: he may have managed to find enough food – and certainly enough alcoholic drink – to survive in the heating tunnels, but he clearly hadn’t managed to get hold of any personal hygiene products.
He raised his head and looked up at the two detectives. ‘Why do they keep asking me about this baby girl?’
‘What baby girl?’ asked Müller.
‘Maddelena? I think that was her name. I don’t know anything about any babies.’
Müller gestured with her eyes towards the plastic evidence bag containing the blanket, which Vogel had brought into the room. Her deputy lifted it onto the table and slid it towards Hildebrand.
‘We believe this blanket was in her hospital cot,’ said Vogel. ‘What can you tell us about it?’
Hildebrand reached out towards the package.
‘Don’t touch it,’ warned Müller. ‘Just have a look through the plastic. Do you recognise it?’
The sides of Hildebrand’s mouth turned downwards, and he frowned. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘Well, it was found in your possession,’ said Vogel. ‘And the sniffer dogs smelt Maddelena’s scent on it. How do you explain that?’
Hildebrand shrugged. ‘I’ve got a few old blankets. I just collect them as I find them. Don’t really need them at the moment, but in the winter –’
‘I’m not really interested in your living habits, Citizen Hildebrand,’ said Müller. ‘What we want to know is where you got this particular blanket.’
The prisoner leant forward on his stool, peering more closely at the package. ‘I think I got that quite recently, if it’s the one I think it is. From the duct near the hospital, if that helps. It had just been dumped there along with some other bits and bobs. Most of it was rubbish.’
‘And why were you near the hospital?’ asked Müller.
‘It wasn’t for any particular reason. During the day I stay in the duct that leads to the Donkey Mill. It feels safer there. No one’s ever bothered me, not until today when the Vopos came after me. But at night I scout around the other tunnels, occasionally go above ground to see what I can scav
enge at the back of the Kaufhalle. You’d be amazed how much food gets chucked out.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ said Müller. ‘You know as well as I do that there are no jobless, no homeless people in the Republic. There’s a job for everyone, a home for everyone – if you actually want one, Citizen Hildebrand. So I don’t believe you. All I want to know is what have you done with Maddelena?’
‘And what have you done with her twin brother, Karsten?’ added Vogel. ‘You realise they were only a few weeks old. They were in hospital for a reason. Without medical attention, they will most probably die. So why don’t you tell us where they are?’
Müller saw the fear in Hildebrand’s eyes. Vogel’s deception about Karsten, not telling the man he was dead, might just trip him up. It might encourage him to reveal vital information. If he was their man.
‘Twins? I don’t know anything about twin babies. I don’t know anything about this Maddelena you keep going on about, or her brother. I accept I’ve done wrong, that I shouldn’t be living down in the tunnels. But I just couldn’t stomach the job they gave me after I’d been freed from prison. Sweeping the bloody roads, when I’m a trained scientist. I put in an application to go to the West. I lost my job because of that. And then they started making up stories about me to my wife. She left me.’ He sighed, and held his face in his hands. Then he looked up at Müller. ‘What would you do if that happened?’ Müller thought back to her and Gottfried’s troubles: they hadn’t been so very different.
‘Your personal affairs are no concern of mine, Citizen Hildebrand.’ She moved the bag containing the blanket to one side of the table, reached into her briefcase and brought out an envelope. Opening it, she showed it to Hildebrand. A photograph of a battered red suitcase. The case that Karsten’s tiny body had been stuffed into.
‘Do you recognise this case?’
Hildebrand shook his head.
‘Answer, please!’ shouted Vogel.