by David Young
‘It takes a good few seconds to get ready,’ he shouted back. ‘Here we go.’
The craft began to hover, then the pilot tipped the nose forward and they were away, heading for the strange ski-jump-shaped shards that formed the two main buildings of the Interhotel.
*
As they landed on a patch of snow-covered lawn near the entrance, Müller saw the flashing blue lights of the local squad cars. Her heart sank at the sight of armed officers, guns at the ready. She didn’t want a shoot-out. Above everything, she needed her baby son unharmed. That was all that really mattered. But after that, her professional pride demanded that Johannes Traugott – her old childhood friend, Johannes – be taken alive to face justice. There were so many questions she needed to ask him.
At first the armed officers were reluctant to let Müller, Tilsner and Eschler through. Once Tilsner explained who Müller was and showed his pass – and Müller had a suspicion that what he’d flashed belonged to the Stasi, not the People’s Police – they relented.
They moved as fast as Müller was able through the lobby corridor towards reception, then saw the signs pointing in opposite directions to House One and House Two.
‘That way,’ shouted a uniformed police officer, pointing to the lifts for House One. ‘There’s a stand-off on the twelfth floor.’
Eschler took the stairs while Müller and Tilsner waited for one of six lifts. It was there in an instant, and then seemed to whisk them skywards at a rapid rate. But when they got to floor 12, the door wouldn’t open.
‘Scheisse,’ screamed Tilsner. ‘It must be in lockdown.’
Tilsner jabbed the button for one floor down, the eleventh. After the lift descended the single floor, the door opened and Tilsner helped Müller out. Armed police were in the stairwell leading back to the twelfth storey.
‘You can’t go up there,’ said the captain in charge.
Tilsner again flashed some sort of authority or pass. This time Müller looked over his shoulder and saw the emblem of a muscular arm holding up a rifle, with the flag of the Republic flying from it. Authority from the Stasi, as she’d suspected.
The police officer reluctantly allowed them through.
On floor 12, more police were guarding the entrance to what looked like luxury apartments. Tilsner frowned at Müller.
‘They’re reserved for the Party bigwigs,’ she said. ‘Honecker sometimes stays here.’
Tilsner obviously wasn’t in the mood for lessons on the Party leadership.
‘Where is he?’ he asked the policeman who seemed to be in charge.
The officer gestured with his eyes to the stairwell. Tilsner saw there was another flight. ‘I thought there were only twelve floors?’
‘There are,’ said the officer. ‘He’s on the roof.’
‘With the baby?’
The officer nodded.
‘The baby’s still alive?’ asked Müller, her voice high-pitched, panicked.
The officer nodded again. ‘The man came up here ranting and raving. Comrade Honecker’s here on holiday at the moment. The man was standing at the apartment door, shouting and screaming – something about his family home being stolen from him. Comrade Honecker instituted the emergency procedure.’
Tilsner gestured towards the stairwell. ‘We’re going up there.’
‘You can’t,’ said the officer. ‘I’m under instructions to shoot anyone who tries.’
Tilsner grabbed the man by his lapels. ‘Look, fish face. We’re going up there. I told you. This is the mother. It’s her baby. And this is our authority.’ Once again, Tilsner showed the pass – or letter of authority, whatever it was – but this officer seemed unimpressed.
‘I have my orders. No one goes up there.’
‘Try to stop us and you’ll be facing a long stretch in jail, mark my words,’ shouted Tilsner, spittle flying from his mouth into the policeman’s face.
Clutching her dressed Caesarean wound, Müller moved past them and detached the chain that was the only thing – other than the officer’s pointed rifle – stopping anyone from climbing up to the roof. She was sure the policeman wasn’t going to shoot. At least she hoped he wasn’t.
She heard Tilsner follow as the officer shouted: ‘I warned you.’ But there was no gunfire to back up his empty threat.
59
As soon as Tilsner opened the emergency door onto the roof of House One, Müller found herself almost being knocked back down the stairs by an icy blast of wind. Late March, but winter still hadn’t released its grip.
She crept after Tilsner onto the roof, holding on to the guardrail. She hadn’t known what to expect, but this was more terrifying than she imagined. The mock ski-jump structure came to an actual apex. The highest point was a narrow flat section – a ladder’s width, no more – with steep slopes falling away on each side.
‘Don’t move!’ The shout was almost lost in the wind. Müller trained her gaze on the figure at the other side of the roof, one arm clutching her baby son, the other with a gun raised, pointing at Tilsner. She tried not to let the height of the building enter her head. Tried not to freeze in fright as she had done as a teenager at the top of the Oberhof ski jump that this strange hotel roof resembled.
‘Don’t be stupid, Traugott,’ screamed Tilsner. ‘It’s over. It’s all over now. Put the gun down and slowly bring the baby to me.’
‘No!’ Johannes shouted back. ‘He’s my child. My son. The mother didn’t want children.’
Tilsner crouched down, and started to haul himself along the horizontal ladder at the apex of the roof. ‘I’m warning you!’ screamed Johannes. A shot rang out, ricocheting against the metal tubing of the ladder, a couple of metres in front of Tilsner. The baby started bawling. The sound stopped Müller’s heart. She had to save her child. She had to hold her son, if only for one moment.
‘I do want my child, Johannes. It’s me, Karin.’
The man looked confused, glancing at the baby held tightly in the crook of his arm.
Tilsner took advantage to move another rung on the ladder, but Johannes fired the gun again, this time aiming just a few centimetres from the detective’s grip. Müller heard the ricochet slam into the concrete behind her.
‘I told you, get back. Now. Otherwise next time it’s your head.’
Tilsner released one hand, and held it up. ‘OK, OK, I’m going back.’
Müller watched as her deputy tried to negotiate backwards as the wind howled up from the forest, over the top of the bizarrely shaped roof.
‘Please let me hold my baby, Johannes,’ Müller yelled across the divide. ‘Just once. Just for a moment. Please. It’s me – Karin. You remember. Little Karin Müller from Bergpension Hanneli. We used to play together in Farmer Bonz’s field. Here. Here in Oberhof.’
Johannes peered through the thick lenses of his spectacles, as though he couldn’t believe it.
‘Karin. Is it really you?’ Müller watched his body slump when he recognised something in her dishevelled looks which tallied with his memories of her as a little girl. ‘Oh my God,’ he cried, clutching her baby ever tighter.
Tilsner had by now negotiated his way slowly back to Müller’s side of the roof. ‘Keep him talking,’ he whispered into Müller’s ear. ‘I’ll go up the other staircase and get behind him.’
Müller pulled him to her. ‘Don’t do anything to risk the life of my child, Werner. Please.’
‘Karin. We have to do something. Your baby won’t survive up here with that madman for long. He could throw himself off – with the child – at any moment.’
Müller squeezed Tilsner’s arm till she saw him wince. ‘Please, Werner. I’m begging you.’
‘Just keep him talking. Concentrate on that.’
Johannes had slumped down by the chimney stack which belched out white smoke continually, like the funnel of a ship. He looked as though he was crying, staring down into the baby’s eyes.
‘It’s not true, Johannes, that I didn’t want my children. I
love them with all my heart.’
‘Then why did you kill your twins before?’ the man shouted back.
‘That’s not fair,’ sobbed Müller.
‘You were on the list, Karin. The Ministry for State Security list of women who chose to have illegal late-term abortions. Franzi found your records in Doctor Rothstein’s clinic in Berlin.’
‘Yes, but did it say why I had to have an abortion?’ screamed Müller, her anger now overcoming the pain.
Johannes looked confused again. He said nothing.
‘Did it?’ yelled Müller. ‘Did it say that I’d been raped? That they were the children of a rapist?’ The pent-up anger that Müller injected into every word thrown across the apex of the roof suddenly caused something in her body to break. She clutched her womb, the dressing, felt the stitches opening. Blood pulsing out. ‘Oh, God!’ she screamed, falling to the floor. ‘Let me hold my baby one time.’
Johannes saw what was happening, dropped his gun, and ran along the narrow apex, panic concentrating his mind, making his footing sure and exact. In seconds he was there, crouching by her, holding the bawling child for her to kiss and cuddle. ‘Karin, Karin. I’m so sorry,’ he cried.
As she held her son, Müller could feel her life ebbing away as blood leached out of her onto the now soaked dressings from the split-open C-section.
As she drifted towards unconsciousness, she heard a shout. Tilsner. From the other side of the roof. Then a gunshot.
Johannes had been holding her hand tightly, but now he released his grip. But he hadn’t been hit. He was scrabbling to get away. Müller tried to hold on to him, but her strength had gone. ‘Don’t shoot,’ she tried to cry. But as Tilsner raised his gun arm again, as Müller’s vision blurred, she saw Johannes slip.
‘Karin,’ he yelled. ‘I’m sorr—’
He didn’t reach the end of his screamed apology. As his footing faltered, he fell backwards, down the icy, ski-jump-shaped roof. Over and over his body rolled. At first as if in slow motion, then faster and faster. Müller tried to hold her lower abdomen together as she watched Johannes’s spectacles spin off his body. Now, instead of tumbling, he was sliding, frantically scrabbling with his arms to try to cling on. But the iced-up, angled roof was as slick as the in-run had been on the ski jump all those years before. As pain pulsed through her, Müller knew she was powerless to save her one-time friend.
And then he disappeared off the end of the building. No elegant ski-jump take-off, no skis to land on. Nothing.
He’d fallen.
To his death, Müller assumed.
*
By now Tilsner was at her side. Eschler too. ‘You look after her, Bruno. Get her on a stretcher, into the helicopter and to the nearest hospital. We’ve got to save her. I’ll make sure the baby is safe.’ Then Tilsner grabbed Müller’s as yet unnamed son, turned and ran down the stairs.
*
In just a few minutes, Müller had been strapped to a stretcher by medics, and was being given an emergency blood transfusion even as they were moving through the lobby to the helicopter.
She was barely conscious but her first thought was that she needed to hold her son, in case this was it. In case this was the end. Her second thought – and she knew she shouldn’t care, but she did, was: Had Johannes survived?
She struggled to put the question to Eschler.
‘Tilsner said he did,’ Eschler replied. ‘An old snowdrift cushioned his fall slightly. But he’s in a bad way. Paralysed. They don’t think he’ll last long.’
‘I need to see him,’ croaked Müller, her voice fading as she fought to stay conscious.
‘But we’ve got to get you into the helicopter.’
‘Take me to him, Bruno, please.’
Eschler indicated to the medics carrying Müller to divert to the side of the building, where Johannes Traugott fell.
He stared up at her stretcher as Müller tried to raise herself.
‘Why, Johannes? Why? We were best friends.’
‘K-K-Karin,’ he spluttered. ‘I didn’t know –’
His head fell back into the snow. Medics attempted resuscitation – and somehow got him breathing again. There was still a chance he would tell Müller his story sometime. But it wouldn’t be now.
‘That’s it, Karin,’ shouted Eschler. ‘We’ve got to go. We have to get you to hospital as soon as possible.’
As they raced towards the helicopter, Müller saw a group of armed, leather-jacketed men move towards the area where Johannes was receiving medical treatment. She was surprised to see Malkus and Janowitz amongst them. Lifting her head, she saw them shooing the medics away from Johannes. Then they slipped out of sight as her stretcher was carried round the corner of the hotel. The medical team loaded her onto the KA-26, its rotors already turning manically, its skates just about to lift off. The roar of the engines drowned out virtually everything else, but they were fading as unconsciousness crept up on Müller. Just before she blacked out, she thought she heard a sound above the thwack-thwack-thwack of the rotors. This was different. A double thud.
She couldn’t be sure. Her brain wouldn’t focus her thoughts, and the noise of the helicopter’s engines and rotors overwhelmed virtually every other sound. But something at the back of her mind told her the noise was of pistol shots. Pistol shots muffled by the snow.
60
Tilsner knew he should be interviewing Franziska Traugott, probing her story, finding out to what extent she had been in league with her husband. Could she throw any light on who in the Stasi had doctored the accident reports from the 1950s? But she was safely in custody in the Red Ox. It could wait an hour or so. First he wanted to know how Müller was, wanted to see her in the flesh. To know that she’d survived.
He saw Emil Wollenburg waiting on a chair outside the intensive care unit of Halle hospital, holding his head in his hands. Müller had initially been taken to Suhl – the nearest major medical centre – but transferred up to Halle when staff at Suhl said there was little more they could do for her. The fear was that the massive amount of blood loss could have caused brain damage; although clinging to life, Tilsner’s boss was now in a coma.
Tilsner sat down next to Müller’s boyfriend and – although he felt uncomfortable doing it – put his arm round the man.
‘Any news, Emil?’
The doctor looked up with a defeated expression on his face, shaking his head. ‘We’re just waiting, hoping.’
‘What about the twins?’
Wollenburg gave a wry laugh. ‘They’re fine. Fit as fiddles – even though they were “born”, if you can call it that, a few weeks early. Fine pair of lungs on both of them. They’re safe in the paediatric unit. Properly guarded, before you ask.’
‘Any names yet?’
‘Hah! Do you think my girlfriend would thank me if I tried to name them before she had her say? You know what she’s like.’ Then his face darkened again. ‘Let’s just hope she gets a say. They’ve given her two full blood transfusions already.’
‘So can I go in and see her?’
Wollenburg shrugged. ‘As far as I know, yes. I’ve been sitting with her most of the time – reading to her, that sort of thing – but I find it too painful carrying on a one-way conversation after a while. I just wish there was more I could have done. I felt like a spare part staying here with our daughter while Karin went off risking her life.’
Tilsner gave the man’s shoulder a squeeze. ‘You’re a doctor, you save lives every day. Karin did a great job. She saved your son. Whatever happens, you’ve got a lot to thank –’
Shrugging himself from the detective’s grip, Emil Wollenburg stood up. ‘Let’s not talk about “whatever happens”. I need to try to stay positive. Do you want to come in and see her?’
*
Tilsner was shocked at how pale she looked. Up close, with all the life-support paraphernalia attached to her, he felt her mortality, her vulnerability. Even on the roof of the Interhotel, when it was obvious something had
gone horribly wrong and the haemorrhaging had begun, Müller had somehow conveyed the impression that everything would work out in the end. Tilsner rubbed his hands over his wrists, right hand on left wrist, left on right, uncertain what to do – not knowing what could possibly help her.
‘It’s OK,’ said Wollenburg, laying a hand on Tilsner’s shoulder – reciprocating the gesture the detective had shown him moments earlier. ‘I was shocked the first time I saw her. They say she’s stable, but . . .’
Tilsner stared at the various monitors, as they beeped and pulsed in regular patterns, numbers flashing up which he didn’t really understand.
‘It wasn’t the C-section splitting that’s caused the blood loss. Some shrapnel from the shooting nicked an artery in her groin.’
Tilsner grimaced at the thought.
‘You can sit with her,’ said her boyfriend. ‘Hold her hand, maybe talk to her, though there’s no indication she can hear anything. I find it helps me, even if it’s not helping her.’
Tilsner pulled up a chair, and then gently took Müller’s hand in his, careful not to dislodge the saline drip tubing where it entered her horribly pale skin.
‘Hello, Karin,’ he said, squeezing her fingers. ‘I miss you at work, you know. I’ve got to formally interview Franzi Traugott this afternoon, and I’m not really looking forward to it, not without you there. She’s an odd one. She’s trying to lay it all at Johannes’s door. Now she might be right, but I’d be a lot happier if you were there with me. You’d see through her lies, I know.’
He was aware that Emil Wollenburg had moved out of the room again, leaving the two detectives to their tête-à-tête that only one of them was actually participating in. Tilsner looked at Müller’s closed eyelids, hoping to see a flicker – some sort of movement – but there was none.