by David Young
All of a sudden, the in-run seemed to extend forever. The landing zone looked impossible to hit. The quiver of fear shook her athletic teenage body. Where had that sudden fear come from, when she’d been so fearless before? It was almost as though it had been beamed into her via Johannes’s disapproving gaze. The boy she’d been too young and powerless to protect in his own moment of terror. She’d never tried to find out what had become of him – she’d cast him out of her life.
And when they called her name – Karin Müller – she felt that same terror he must have felt when the soldiers took him, his family and his family home away. She sat there, unable to launch herself, perched shivering on the bar.
She knew she couldn’t jump, and would never jump again.
43
When she came round, Müller was initially disoriented. Had she – in fact – made that last ski jump? Overcome that sudden fear which had gripped her on seeing what she thought was Johannes’s face . . . but then crashed, hitting her head, which hurt like hell. She felt sick just as she had these last few weeks, fearing she was . . .
Pregnant.
As the fog of confusion lifted, she saw not Johannes’s face, but Emil’s – Emil Wollenburg’s – leaning over her bed. Her hospital bed, his eyes and expression full of concern.
‘You’re back with us then, Karin.’
She started to try to get out of bed, unsure what she was supposed to be doing. Protecting Castro, Honecker. Explaining to Johannes. Why she had been able to stay in Oberhof and he hadn’t. Why seeing him on the hill had frozen her with fear, left her unable to jump. And she wanted to ask him questions too. Why was he in Ha-Neu? What was he doing tackling the protester? But had it even been Johannes? She shook her head to try to clear it, then wished she hadn’t, the thud of pain like a hammer inside her skull.
‘Settle down,’ said Emil, pushing her back gently until her head was resting on the pillow once more. ‘You’re going to have to take it easy for a few days.’
‘What happened?’
‘You fainted. Hit your head. It must have been the excitement of one of Prime Minister Castro’s legendary speeches.’
‘No. I saw something. I saw him.’
Emil’s face creased in concern. ‘Who did you see?’
Johannes, she wanted to say. You know, the friend I abandoned. The friend I allowed the soldiers to take away. But no words came out of her mouth. Who was Johannes to Emil? He didn’t know him. He wouldn’t understand.
When Müller failed to answer, Emil reached over from his seat at the hospital bedside, and held her hand in his.
‘While you were unconscious, they performed an ultrasound.’
Müller’s eyes opened wide in alarm. ‘I don’t want to know.’ She saw the hurt in Emil’s face, his wounded pride. In her befuddled state, she knew she had to repair the damage. ‘I don’t want to know the sex if . . . if I am pregnant.’
‘You are. The scan confirmed it. And all healthy despite your fall. But I didn’t want to know if it was a girl or a boy either. I asked them not to tell me anything, other than to confirm whether you were pregnant or not.’
Müller laid her head back on the hospital pillow again, and laughed. ‘All those years that I haven’t used precautions, because . . .’
‘Because you thought it was impossible for you to get pregnant after what happened to you at the police college? Maybe you’ve just been lucky . . . or unlucky.’
Müller gripped the fingers of Emil’s hand. ‘What about you, Emil? Are you pleased?’
‘Hah!’ he laughed. ‘Can’t you tell from my smile?’
But for Müller, the news was tinged with worry. What would happen now with the investigation into Karsten Salzmann’s abduction and death? The snatching of baby Tanja Haase? The Andereggs’ stolen and dead twins? If she was being blessed with a child, it seemed horribly unfair to not continue the hunt for the person – or persons – who had wreaked such misery on others.
As if reading her mind, Emil put her fears into words. ‘You’ll have to take it easy. Especially after that bang on your head, and the fall. You could have miscarried. It won’t be safe for you to carry on with your current job.’
‘No!’ she shouted, digging her nails into the palm of his hand. She watched him wince from the resulting pain, and almost enjoyed it. ‘I’m not going to lose my job as head of a murder squad again and become a good little doctor’s wife at home. You can forget about that.’ Almost as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. Emil looked crestfallen. Although she’d been honest, it was presumptuous. There had been no offer of marriage. Perhaps there never would be. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean it to come out like that. But I want to work. I enjoy my work. If we’re having this baby –’
‘If?’
‘All right, when. When we have this baby, I’m going to be continuing to work.’
‘But surely not as –’
‘Yes,’ she said, firmly. ‘As the head of a murder squad. That’s what I do. The People’s Police promoted me to that position, and although at one stage they may have regretted it, they’re happy enough to trumpet how it shows that equality is very much in place in the Kripo – even though there are no women in leadership roles. So you’ll need to get used to it, Emil.’
Her doctor boyfriend raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. The semi-argument over her role as a mother had cleared her mind, and she realised he was still wearing his white doctor’s coat. He saw her staring at it.
‘Yes. I’m still on duty. I just came to see you in my lunch hour.’ He glanced down at his watch. ‘I need to get back.’ He leaned in for a kiss on the cheek, but she rotated her face, held the back of his head, and made sure it was full on the lips.
‘Well done, Papa,’ she whispered.
He rubbed her belly in turn. ‘And well done to you too, Mutti.’
*
She’d hoped her next visitor would be Tilsner, to bring her up to speed with the case – or cases, if they were unconnected. But instead it was Jäger. On his own. No sign of Malkus or Janowitz, thankfully. Since Jäger’s appearance on the scene, the local Stasi officers seemed to have melted into the background. But how long would that continue now that the Castro visit was over?
‘You nearly stole the show, Karin,’ he laughed. ‘Comrade Castro continued manfully over the shouting, but your fall stopped his speech. He had to pause until the medics had safely got you on your way to hospital. What happened?’
Did Jäger need to know she was pregnant? She wasn’t going to tell him, at least not until things were so obvious she could no longer hide it. But aside from a slight swelling that she’d previously put down to overeating, nothing was showing yet. ‘In all the jostling I lost my balance, Comrade Oberst.’ She couldn’t help herself uttering the formality, despite the unusual – and informal – setting. ‘I fell and hit my head. Knocked myself out, apparently, though I remember little of it.’
‘How long are they planning to keep you here?’
‘I think just a day or two for observation. Tilsner will be able to take charge while I’m away, don’t worry. Did you arrest –’
Jäger held his hand up to stop her, while glancing around the hospital ward. He leaned in closer. ‘Let’s not talk about it here, Karin. But yes, everything was dealt with successfully. I don’t think it’s part of anything bigger, anything to worry about. I can tell you more once you’re out of hospital.’
‘What about the other matter?’
Jäger looked puzzled. ‘What other matter?’
‘The questions I had for you. The information I wanted you to find.’
‘Ah. No, I’m sorry. As you can imagine, I’ve been very busy with the Castro visit. But now that’s done and dusted, I may have more time. I haven’t forgotten, don’t worry.’
With that, he patted the bedclothes over her legs and said his goodbyes.
The lack of progress in finding information about her natural mother – or her fat
her – was a disappointment to Müller. If – and it was a big if – they were still alive, they would soon be grandparents. That made it all the more vital to discover their whereabouts for their sakes, for Müller’s sake and – as she rubbed her stomach – for the sake of her unborn child.
44
September 1975
Wohnkomplex VIII, Halle-Neustadt
I knew it couldn’t last. Whenever something wonderful happens to me, something horrible follows it – always, always, always. We were so happy. I was feeding Heike properly with the bottles, just as Hansi told me to. I’m sure it wasn’t my fault.
But Hansi had always warned me that the doctor had said she was quite a fragile child. What with her being born early after I had my blackout. But to me, she seemed to be doing well.
So it was a horrible shock to learn – after visiting the doctor for a check-up (for myself, not the baby, she stayed with Hansi in the flat) – that Hansi had had to take Heike in to the hospital. And that she’d been admitted. She was very poorly, he said, and had to be put in an isolation ward.
‘Can I visit her?’ I asked. I’m sure he could see the need in my eyes.
But his eyes looked cold, hard. He can get like that sometimes. ‘No, Franzi. I’m sorry. She’s gone to the Ministry hospital. She’ll get the best care there. I hope it will only be for a few weeks.’
‘Weeks?! I can’t see her for the next few weeks?’
He shook his head. ‘Don’t make this difficult, Franzi. It’s for the best. You know what happened last time.’
There wasn’t a lot I could say to that. I know he still blames me for what happened to Stefi. But that was nearly ten years ago, surely he will forgive me at some stage. I did my best. Oh Heike, Heike. I hope you will be all right. I’ll pray for you every night.
45
December 1975
Halle-Neustadt
Weeks, then months passed, with little or no progress in the investigation. The handwriting search still seemed their best hope of a breakthrough, but it was a gargantuan task that proceeded with glacial speed. For Müller and Tilsner, working on the inquiry was hampered further by having to pick up some of the more mundane criminal cases in the new town: thefts, assaults and other anti-socialist activity. Janowitz, on behalf of the Stasi, had in a number of meetings openly stated that there was little point in Müller and Tilsner still being seconded from Berlin, and implied that the Stasi could now handle the investigation – or what was left of it – on their own.
Now winter was upon them. If Halle-Neustadt in the summer and autumn was all that was right with the Republic – with the promise of a shining new apartment for all citizens – that couldn’t be said to be true in winter. As the calendar turned to December, everyone started to think about Christmas, with decorations already for sale in the Kaufhalle and special products on sale at Klara Salzmann’s meat counter. But Müller felt anything but festive. The smogs here – with the brown coal and chemical pollution from Leuna and Buna – were as bad as, if not worse than, anything she’d so far encountered in the Hauptstadt. And while her morning sickness had eventually cleared, now her ever-expanding belly was starting to weigh her down. He – or she – was going to be a big one.
The acid smogs had given her a hacking, persistent cough, much to Tilsner’s annoyance.
‘You need to get that checked out. Or buy some cough mixture, one of the two. I don’t want you giving it to me.’ Müller threw him a withering look.
They were both heads down, helping the Stasi team wade through the piles and piles of waste newspapers collected by the Pioneers on their barrows. The actual collecting was now at an end, but Müller, Tilsner and the MfS operatives were little more than halfway through the giant stacks of newspapers, and the forms obtained by less innocent methods. One of these had been a fake competition at the various Kaufhalle around Ha-Neu, where shoppers – if they wanted to win – had to complete a verse in capital letters in their own handwriting: one which contained plenty of capital ‘E’s.
Tilsner sighed, and slammed the pile of newspapers he’d just been about to check back down on the table. ‘Scheisse! This isn’t what I signed up for, Karin. We’re getting nowhere.’ He got up from the table and went across to make coffees for the team.
Müller moved to his chair and started on his discarded pile – attracted by the photograph on the front of the uppermost paper, a copy of Neues Deutschland. It was the report from a couple of months back of Fidel Castro’s visit to Ha-Neu. The photograph obviously showed nothing controversial – just the local Party secretary, flanked by Castro and Honecker, in front of a scale model of Ha-Neu. She scanned the report itself. What did she expect to find? Mention of her fall? Mention of the rumoured Committee for the Dispossessed, who Jäger now claimed had disbanded after the arrest of some of their leading members? Unsurprisingly, there was none of that. Just tedious accounts of the various long-winded speeches.
As Tilsner whistled to himself by the coffee machine, Müller idly turned the pages of the paper till she got to the puzzle section. Her eye scanned down to the crossword. Suddenly she felt a pricking sensation on the back of her neck.
‘Come and look at this!’ she shouted, leaping up at the same time.
The rest of the team huddled round, Tilsner sloshing coffee on the floor from his and Müller’s cups as he rushed over. Müller felt the baby in her womb kick out in complaint at being disturbed. She didn’t care. He or she would have to get used to it.
Because there they were, as clear as a rare clear day over Ha-Neu. In every completed clue which included an ‘E’, the handwriting exactly matched the strange letter ‘E’s discovered by Schmidt in the newspaper back in the summer. The newspaper which had been used by the killer – or rather the abductor – to wrap up Karsten Salzmann’s cold, tiny, dead body.
*
All the piles of waste paper had been labelled by the Pioneer teams with residential complex number, block number, floor number and – where known – the actual apartment number. That’s what Müller and Tilsner had told them they had to do to get their pocket money reward from the People’s Police fund. Now their diligence, their accuracy, would be put to the test. Thankfully this pile of papers had the full information: Complex Eight, Block 358, Apartment 329 on the third floor. Without having to check on the street map of Ha-Neu pinned to the wall, Müller knew immediately where Block 358 was. Ha-Neu’s strange layout was now almost indelibly printed on her brain. It was in the far north-east of the new town, right on the edge. Bang next to Stasi headquarters.
Tilsner had worked it out too. He cupped his hand to her ear. ‘I bet it’s on Malkus’s forbidden list.’
‘I don’t care if it is,’ whispered Müller, careful not to let their Stasi colleagues hear.
Tilsner was all for haring round there straightaway, blue lights and sirens announcing their coup. But Müller advised caution.
‘After six months we’re not in any rush. Let’s find out as much as possible about who lives there first. Is it a family? A single person? Where do they work? That sort of thing. Once we’re armed with the facts, then we can go in and get the bastard.’
‘Or bastards.’
Müller nodded, and rubbed her stomach thoughtfully.
*
Their investigations – with the help of the Stasi – revealed the occupants were an elderly couple, with no connections with the MfS despite where they lived. Müller was disappointed at first: they didn’t fit the expected profile of baby abductors, although originally the graphology expert Professor Morgenstern had insisted the handwriting may have been a pensioner’s. But when they discovered the couple had never had children, and that medical files for the wife – Gertrud Rosenbaum – showed a number of miscarriages, Müller became convinced they were on to something. Her conviction became near certainty when Tilsner revealed that Frau Rosenbaum was a voluntary helper at the paediatric wing of the hospital.
*
They could have taken a softly-sof
tly approach with the pensioner, but Müller decided to go in hard. She ordered a dawn raid and arrest – with Frau Rosenbaum taken straight to the Red Ox remand centre. Müller knew people in Ha-Neu and Halle itself feared the Red Ox. Frau Rosenbaum was old enough to know its history: originally opened as a penal and reform centre by Prussia in the mid-nineteenth century, under the Nazis it had entered its darkest period – as an execution centre.
Müller and Tilsner sat side by side in the bare interrogation room, behind a desk with a single telephone and single lamp. On the other side of the desk, a lone stool. Guards from Eschler’s uniform branch brought the old woman in, and then pushed her down on the stool, cuffing her hands together over her lap. Normally, the two detectives would use a good Kripo, bad Kripo technique. But Müller couldn’t be bothered. She just wanted to frighten the woman, who sat sobbing in front of them.
‘What have you done with Tanja?’ she barked.
The woman looked startled. ‘What do you mean? I’ve done nothing wrong.’
Tilsner slammed his hand down on the table, vibrating the bell on the plastic phone. ‘The baby you stole.’
‘I wouldn’t do anything like that.’ She stared into Müller’s eyes. ‘You’re a woman. You have to believe me. Who is Tanja? Is she a girl from the paediatric ward? I just go there to help out. I don’t even get paid. I love little children. I would never harm one, never steal one.’
Müller held the woman’s gaze. ‘Where were you on the evening of October the twenty-first this year?’
She could see the panic in the woman’s eyes as she realised the seriousness of the allegations. Her whole body was shaking with fear. ‘I . . . I can’t remember. How can you expect me to remember? W-w-what day was it?’
Tilsner started to turn the pages of his notebook to check, but Müller recalled it straightaway. ‘It was a Tuesday.’
The woman became even more agitated, holding her hand to her wrinkled brow. ‘A Tuesday evening?’