by David Young
‘Ah, comrades,’ he boomed, once he was inside the room, clapping his hands together. ‘It’s wonderful news about the baby girl, I hope you’ll agree.’ He surveyed the incident room and everyone inside it: as well as Müller and Tilsner, Eschler and his team were there, Wiedemann from the records department, and – of course – Malkus with his ubiquitous sidekick, Janowitz. ‘Although the resolution was perhaps fortuitous, I’d still like to congratulate all of you for your persistence and determination. I know that to some extent your hands were tied, but I hope you understand why.’ He gave Müller a hard stare, as Malkus smirked by his side. ‘What I’ve been particularly pleased about is the way we’ve worked together with the Ministry for State Security – Major Malkus and his team – and Comrade Malkus is now going to explain where we go from here.’
‘Yes, many thanks, Comrade Oberst. What I haven’t been able to tell you all so far is the full reason why we needed the police operation in the Salzmann case to be low key.’ Müller found herself blushing for no good reason under the Stasi officer’s amber-eyed gaze. Perhaps she felt guilty for using every opportunity to stretch the parameters of the investigation. Malkus paused for a moment with his eyes on her. Did he know what she was thinking? ‘Yes, the reputation of Halle-Neustadt was important. But that was perhaps something of a smokescreen. The real reason, and the reason why we’ll now need to scale down the inquiry even further, is that Ha-Neu is about to play host to an important international visitor. Nothing can undermine this visit – I want to make that absolutely clear.’ He glanced down at his watch. ‘In a moment, we’re going to be joined by a senior officer from the Ministry for State Security, and he will be giving you a full briefing.’ A smirk still played on Malkus’s face, and Müller noticed that – for much of the time – it appeared to be directed towards her. ‘The foreign visitor will be our esteemed socialist comrade, the Prime Minister of Cuba, Fidel Castro.’
Castro’s name, and then a knock on the incident room door, told Müller who would be on the other side, even before Oberst Frenzel had bellowed the words: ‘Come in!’
The tanned features of the Stasi officer who strolled into the room simply confirmed what she already knew. It was Jäger. Ministry for State Security colonel Klaus Jäger. The man who’d had her pretty much dancing to his own tune throughout their previous big case back in Berlin. She almost didn’t recognise him. Instead of looking like a Western television newsreader – his normal mien – now, with a Caribbean suntan and new haircut, he seemed to have moved up into the movie star league.
When she and Tilsner had been back in the Hauptstadt, examining the skeletons of the babies in Rothstein’s former illegal abortion clinic, Müller had tried to get back in touch with Jäger to see if he could help in tracking down her birth mother. Her calls had gone unanswered, and she’d assumed he was still on assignment in Cuba, the assignment he’d tried to recruit her for at the end of the previous case. But now he was here, standing in person in front of her. To prepare for the visit of Fidel Castro, and everything that entailed.
*
Müller found herself grinding her teeth, sitting on her hands, trying to prevent herself doing or saying anything stupid. Tilsner’s shoulders had slumped. He looked fed up. She was simply angry. As Jäger and Frenzel’s briefing continued, it was clear that only a skeleton team would remain on the Salzmann twins case: Müller and Tilsner themselves, and only a couple of the team of Stasi operatives who until now had been working under Tilsner, ploughing through the piles of handwriting samples from old newspapers and forms. Schmidt would be sent back to the Hauptstadt. Eschler and his men would be working full-time on the Castro visit. Even Müller and Tilsner would have to help out on that as required. Jäger caught her eye, a slight smirk playing on his mouth. Their case was being assigned the lowest possible priority, just as the twin baby skeletons found in Berlin had offered the hope of a possible breakthrough. It was what Janowitz had been pushing for – and Müller had always been suspicious as to why – for some time. Now he’d got what he wanted thanks to Castro’s visit. And Maddelena had been ‘found’ just before that visit commenced. The timing was convenient, to say the least.
*
As the meeting broke up, Eschler looked over apologetically at Müller. She gave him a wry smile as she, Tilsner and Schmidt retreated to the sanctuary of Müller’s small office down the corridor.
‘So what do we do now?’ asked Tilsner, pulling over a seat and slumping down into it, his arms flopping onto his thighs.
‘We keep going,’ replied Müller, but she was aware of the lack of enthusiasm in her voice. ‘We’ve only just found an important new lead.’
‘What, the baby skeletons by the new Palace of the Republic? It’s not much of a lead. The only connection is the bus ticket. It’s tenuous, at best. At worst . . .’ Tilsner threw his arms open.
‘At worst, what?’ Müller snapped.
‘At worst, ridiculous. Clutching at straws. You know it. I know it.’
Müller pursed her lips. If they were going to get anywhere with a slimmed-down team, everyone needed to be pulling in the same direction. Tilsner’s heart didn’t seem in it anymore. She felt another wave of nausea rise up from her gut. What was wrong with her? For the last few weeks she’d felt under the weather. Since before the trip to Berlin.
‘What about you, Jonas?’ asked Tilsner. ‘You’re keeping very quiet . . . for once. I bet you’re thrilled you’re going back to Berlin.’
‘Hmm. Yes and no,’ replied Schmidt. ‘It’s never ideal leaving a case unsolved. But it will be good to get back to the family, I’ll admit. I don’t think my wife’s been finding it very easy with me away.’
‘No serious problems, I hope, Jonas?’ asked Müller.
The forensic officer shook his head. ‘I hope not. I told you there had been a few issues with Markus. The usual teenage boy stuff . . . I think.’
‘You’re too soft on him, that’s your problem,’ said Tilsner.
Schmidt shrugged, and then rose from his seat. ‘Anyway. I’d better be getting back to the flat to pack. My train to the Hauptstadt leaves first thing tomorrow morning. Oh, one thing, Comrade Oberleutnant.’
‘What’s that, Jonas?’
‘You might want to have a chat to Leutnant Wiedemann. As we were going into the meeting just now, he gave me the impression he might have found something of interest.’
‘Concerning what?’ asked Müller.
‘Concerning the baby skeletons in Berlin.’
*
Leutnant Dieter Wiedemann continued to peer at various documents on his desk for a moment after he barked an ‘Enter!’ in response to Müller’s knock on his office door. When he did look up, his red face broke into a wide smile, like a tomato cut open by a knife.
‘Comrade Oberleutnant. How fortuitous. I was just about to come and see you.’ He rose from his chair and offered her his hand. The officiousness of July’s Party meeting seemed forgotten. Müller had, in any case, made sure that she’d turned up on time to all the subsequent Party gatherings, heeding Malkus’s warning shot across her bow. ‘Did Comrade Schmidt mention anything to you?’
‘Yes,’ smiled Müller. ‘That’s why I’m here. What have you got, Dieter?’ Müller’s use of his first name was deliberate. For those too attached to the use of ‘Comrade this, Comrade that’ there was no better way of catching them off guard, and getting them to reveal more than they otherwise would have.
‘It’s very interesting. I’ve just been going through the file again. It’s an incident from 1967, before my time here, I’m afraid. I was an Unterleutnant in Leipzig then.’
‘An incident?’
‘Well, yes.’ Wiedemann rotated the file on his desk so that Müller could see it. Then traced his finger over an entry. ‘See here. A report of two babies going missing.’
‘Twins?’ There were so many pairs of twins involved in this strange case. Too many for it to be a coincidence. There had to be a reason.
Wiedemann nodded. ‘But,’ the lieutenant lowered his voice, ‘as with your current investigation, the Ministry for State Security seems to have been involved at an early stage.’ Müller was surprised that Wiedemann – as the People’s Police Party representative – seemed happy to take her into his confidence over this. ‘The babies weren’t found – but again, it looks like there was no general alert. From the reports, it appears everything was kept rather hush-hush.’
‘As now.’
‘Quite. The only conclusion that makes sense is that this was the very dawn, the birth of Halle-Neustadt – before it had actually been given that name. When it was the bright new chemical workers’ city. A flat for everyone. The socialist dream. You understand what I’m saying?’
‘The authorities didn’t want anything detracting from that image.’
‘Quite so.’
Müller sat down with the file on her lap, leafing through it.
‘You won’t find out what happened in there, Comrade Ober—’
‘Let’s dispense with the formalities, Dieter. It makes me nervous. Karin is fine.’
‘Well, Karin. The story continues in this file.’ Wiedemann riffled through another folder on his desk, and then opened it about halfway through, and again rotated it so Müller could see. ‘Look here, the same couple who’d reported the missing babies are charged with child neglect. Both were jailed. The husband for a year, the wife for six months.’
‘For neglect of the twins that went missing?’ Müller’s face screwed up into a puzzled frown.
Again, Wiedemann leaned over the desk to point out the relevant part of the report to Müller. ‘Yes. They were accused of allowing their own children to starve to death. Yet according to the People’s Police report, the bodies were never found.’
That just didn’t make sense to Müller. ‘But surely without the bodies there would not be sufficient evidence to convict them?’
Wiedemann sat back down in his chair and shrugged. ‘Well . . . the father already had reports in other police files about him. About his supposed counter-revolutionary attitude. But as regards evidence, we don’t have all the details in the file, I’m afraid.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Because the inquiry was taken out of the hands of the Halle Kripo, by the –’
‘Ministry for State Security.’
‘Exactly, Karin. Exactly.’
36
Wiedemann had also managed to find out where the couple concerned – Hannelore and Kaspar Anderegg – lived now, some eight years later. After their jail sentences they’d been permitted to return to Ha-Neu, rehoused in the newly built Block Ten. It seemed a low number to Müller, compared to the numbering system for the other apartment blocks in the new town, so she queried it with Wiedemann before setting off with Tilsner to try to track them down. The block was reputed to be the biggest and longest in the Republic. Part of Komplex I, it had been renumbered as Ha-Neu expanded. It was now split into four, each unit separated by a pedestrian passageway to ensure citizens didn’t have to walk all the way round to reach the pharmacy and post office at the complex centre. The new block numbers were in the six hundreds, but still the ‘Block Ten’ tag lived on. The Andereggs lived virtually exactly in the centre, at the southern end of what was now Block 619.
Once they’d climbed the stairs to the third floor, Tilsner hammered on the apartment door. There was no reply. He waited a few seconds, then tried again, rapping even harder. As he was about to shoulder-charge it, Müller placed her hand on his arm and shook her head. Given their inquiry now seemed to be on borrowed time, she didn’t want to have to explain away the complication of a broken doorframe, connected to a couple whose case had originally been handled by the Stasi.
They had just turned, and were making their way back down the corridor, when the door opposite the Andereggs’ clicked open.
‘What’s all that racket?’ an elderly woman asked. ‘I’ll report you to the Citizens’ Committee. Or the People’s Police.’
Müller and Tilsner turned back, and Müller drew out her Kripo ID. ‘There’s no need for that, citizen. We are the police. Kriminalpolizei.’
The woman adjusted her housecoat at her neck, and fiddled with her hair, as she peered at the proffered identity card. ‘Well, you won’t find them here. Not till much later. They both work at the chemical works.’
‘Which chemical works?’ asked Tilsner.
‘That giant one near Merseburg.’
‘That’s not much help, is it?’ Tilsner said sharply. The old woman shrank back. Müller glared at her deputy.
‘What the Unterleutnant means is, do you know which of the two main factories it is please, citizen? There are two near Merseburg.’
‘Leuna, I think. Leuna – not Buna.’
Müller’s heart sank. Finding them at the Buna works – to the north of Merseburg – would have been hard enough. But Leuna meant a longer journey – and Leuna was the biggest chemical factory in the whole of the Republic.
‘Do you know which part of the complex they work in, citizen?’ she asked.
The woman shook her blue-rinsed, thinning hair. ‘I’m sorry, no. But they do work together, I can tell you that. Ever since that incident with their children he doesn’t let her out of his sight. I think he’s frightened.’
‘Frightened?’ asked Tilsner. ‘Of what?’
‘Of retaliation, I suppose, comrade. Everyone knows what happened, even though they never talk about it. They keep themselves to themselves.’
‘Did you ever see them out with their children, before . . . ?’ Müller’s words trailed off, but the woman knew what she was talking about.
‘No.’ There was a groaning sound from inside the apartment. ‘Sorry, that’s my husband. He’s bed-ridden. I need to get back to him. But no, by the time they started living here it had all been dealt with. They’d served their sentences. She arrived first. He got longer. Although why that was, I’ll never know. Neglect of a child. Two children in this case, poor little mites. That’s the mother’s fault, don’t you think, comrades?’ Another groan from inside was this time followed by a feeble shout. ‘If that’s all, I’d better go.’ With that, the woman closed her door before either Müller or Tilsner had time to object.
*
Given the close links to Halle-Neustadt, Müller realised they should perhaps have visited Leuna before now. But the giant complex had virtually been ruled out of bounds by the Stasi: certainly they hadn’t wanted the alarm raised.
The drive in the Wartburg took some thirty minutes – around thirty kilometres – but they were only about halfway there when the acrid chemical smells hit the back of Müller’s nose and throat, and triggered a coughing fit. Already from this distance they could see chimneys belching out white smoke into a hazy sky.
‘It’s worse than one of the Hauptstadt’s smogs,’ complained Tilsner. Taking one hand off the steering wheel, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. ‘Do you want to put this over your nose?’
Müller examined it with distaste without touching. It didn’t look clean. She shook her head. ‘I’ll survive.’ But as she said it, she felt another lurch of nausea from deep inside her body, something that had been happening all too often in recent weeks.
As Tilsner stuffed the dirty square of material back into his pocket, he glanced up at the rear-view mirror, and frowned.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Müller.
Tilsner shrugged. ‘Maybe nothing.’
Müller was suddenly thrown forward and to the side as Tilsner took a right-hand turn without warning, and almost without slowing, the Wartburg’s tyres sliding and screeching as the rubber burnt its imprint onto the concrete road. Then he slammed on the brakes, throwing her forward.
‘What the . . . ?’
Tilsner grabbed her head and yanked it round to look back at the junction, just in time to see a black Skoda pass by, its driver staring at them intently.
‘It
was following us,’ explained Tilsner.
Müller glared at him angrily. ‘I don’t care. Next time warn me when you want to play at being a boy racer. I could have been thrown through the windscreen.’
Tilsner just smiled.
*
Once they arrived, with the Skoda driver seemingly having got bored of his pursuit – or content with having got his message across – it was pot luck which of the many entrances to the Leuna works might yield success. In the end, they chose Entrance One, with its neoclassical architecture, borrowed no doubt by the Nazis to convey a sense of power and importance. At least, that was the impression Müller got as they were escorted by an official under the entrance façade, with its portico and Doric columns.
In the end, locating the Andereggs was surprisingly easy. Müller and Tilsner were informed that they were eating a meal in the canteen.
If Müller had had to guess who the couple were – without the aid of photographs – she would have succeeded. Because they were eating alone, opposite each other, at one end of a bench table in the giant hangar of a restaurant. An official from VEB Leuna-Werke escorted the two detectives all the way to where the Andereggs were sitting.
Kaspar Anderegg – concentrating hard on his meal of meat and potatoes – didn’t deign to look up as Müller, Tilsner and the factory representative approached. But Hannelore did, with a rather cowed expression, thought Müller, as though difficult conversations with officials were something she’d had to get used to over the years.
Once Müller had shown her ID, Kaspar did eventually slam down his knife and fork, and fixed her with a hard stare.
‘We don’t like talking to the police,’ he said. ‘We’ve nothing to say to you.’
The factory official rolled his eyes at the two detectives, and left them alone to conduct what looked as though it was going to be a difficult conversation.