Stasi Child (3 page)

‘I’m not sure how much of an investigation this is,’ said Tilsner. ‘It seems it’s all wrapped up, and we’re an afterthought.’

Müller shrugged. ‘We’ll just have to do the best we can. Did it look to you as though she could have been shot from that building?’

‘What, the one over in the West? Maybe. It’s plausible . . . at a stretch.’ He shaped some snow from the top of a granite headstone into a ball, and then threw it to the ground. ‘But then to scale two walls, while injured, without our guards noticing? Were they all asleep? I very much doubt it.’

After a few minutes, they heard the breathless wheezing of a man behind them. Müller knew who it was without looking. Schmidt. ‘What is it, Jonas?’ she asked, as she turned around to be greeted by his florid features.

‘I think . . . you should come . . . and look at this, Comrade
Oberleutnant
.’

Schmidt ushered them back towards the protection barrier and over to the tracks made by the footprints, some twenty metres or so from the taped-off area of the body. He knelt down in the snow, and gestured for Müller to do the same.

‘Here, Comrade Müller.’ He reached into his pocket, and pulled out an envelope. ‘Look at this photograph of the girl’s shoes on the body.’

Müller took the picture from the envelope, and frowned. ‘Where did you get that from so quickly?’

Schmidt smiled and pushed the camera that was hanging round his neck towards her. It was smaller than the Praktica he’d been using earlier, and looked altogether cheaper and flimsier. ‘It’s a Foton. A Soviet instant camera. It might not look up to much but the results are just as good as from those American Polaroids. Anyway, look at the photo. Do you notice anything odd?’ The photograph was a close-up of the soles of the girl’s training shoes, still on her feet.

Müller shook her head slowly. ‘No, Jonas, I can’t say that I do.’

Schmidt passed it along to Tilsner, who held it up to shed more light from the leaden sky, but also shook his head.

‘Alright. So you’ve had a look at the photo. Now look at the actual prints in the snow. Notice anything strange there?’

The two detectives bent over the line of prints, puzzled. Tilsner gave a long, slow sigh. ‘Come on, just tell us. We haven’t got time for games.’

Müller’s face lit up all of a sudden. ‘
Gottverdammt!
’ Then, in a whisper: ‘Have you told
Oberstleutnant
Jäger yet, Jonas?’ The forensic officer shook his head. ‘Well, for the moment, please don’t.’

Tilsner was still bent down, frowning at the prints. ‘I don’t get it. They just look like footprints to me.’

Müller pointed at Schmidt’s photo. ‘Look at her feet in the photo. She’s got her shoes on correctly. Left shoe on left foot, right shoe on right foot.’

‘Yes,’ said Tilsner, the furrow on his brow deepening. ‘So what?’

Müller gestured towards the actual prints in the snow. ‘Look at those. Yes they’re pointing in the right direction, as though she was shot running away from the Wall. But look at the shapes. The right-hand shoe has made all the left-hand prints, and vice versa. It’s all the wrong way round.’ She looked up at Schmidt, who was standing now, stroking his pudgy chin. ‘What do you think it means, Jonas?’

‘Well, I don’t really know, Comrade
Oberleutnant
.’ He smiled. ‘I was rather hoping you two might tell me.’

‘What it means,’ said Tilsner, ‘is that someone’s disturbed the body. She was wearing her shoes the wrong way round when she was killed; maybe she put them on in a hurry if she was being chased. But whoever’s disturbed the body hasn’t noticed that, and when they put them back on, they put them on the correct way round.’

Now it was Müller’s turn to emit a long sigh. ‘That’s the most obvious explanation. But not the only one.’

‘What, then?’ asked Tilsner, meeting her eyes.

‘Best not talk about it here,’ she hissed, flicking her head towards Jäger, who by now had noticed their fixation with the footprints, and was walking towards them. When he reached them he cleared his throat, and the two detectives rose from their crouching position.

‘Anything of interest, Comrade
Oberleutnant
?’

‘Oh, bits and pieces,’ replied Müller. ‘We were just checking the direction of the prints. It appears the preliminary findings are correct, that she was running towards the East, away from the protection barrier.’

‘Yes, quite so.’ Then he lowered his voice. ‘Though I think you’ll agree that there are discrepancies, and no doubt you’ve now noticed some of these. I don’t want to go into too much detail here. But we need to meet tomorrow to go over everything.’

Müller watched Tilsner’s face fall at the news his weekend would be disrupted. She wondered what else he had planned for his Saturday and Sunday without the wife and kids.

‘Do you want us to come to the Ministry offices at Normannenstrasse?’

Jäger shook his head. ‘It’s better if we meet somewhere quiet.’ As he whispered this, he glanced over at the other officers gathered around the site of the body, who seemed to be supervising its removal. ‘I’ll let you know in due course where that will be. Until then, keep any information strictly between yourselves.’

He shook hands with the three of them, and then strode towards the cemetery exit. Müller watched him depart, wondering what sort of a case they’d been handed. One in which a senior Stasi officer wasn’t prepared to share information with his own Stasi colleagues. She looked up at the sky, and its ever-darkening clouds, then glanced at Tilsner. His sarcastic smile had been wiped clean: in its place, a look of apprehension, almost fear.

2

Later the same day.

The specks of white fell rapidly now.
Oberleutnant
Müller watched as the arc lights spaced along the Anti-Fascist Protection Barrier periodically highlighted the fall of the tiny frozen flakes, glistening in the shafts of light, before the blackest of nights took hold again. They needed to work fast.

As she went over the case in her head, her stomach rumbled. Hours without proper food – just a quarter broiler from the outdoor stand in Marx-Engels-Platz when they’d returned to the office earlier in the day. She could do with a good home-cooked meal. Would Gottfried have one waiting for her? That seemed unlikely after her night with Tilsner, and her failure to return to the marital apartment. At least this case was likely to feature in tomorrow’s newspaper – and the story might give her the cover she needed.

A few paces ahead, Tilsner lifted the red-and-white tape and ducked underneath. The sweep of the searchlights periodically illuminated their path, but when their brightness moved away Müller was grateful for the torches they had brought. It wasn’t the site of the now-removed body they were interested in, but the approach to it. The approach from the wall side of the cemetery, where Jäger had showed them the footprints and tyre tracks a few hours earlier.

Tilsner shone his torch along the path. It had only just started snowing again, so the tracks – their general outlines at least – were still relatively clear. And that was enough.

Forensic officer Jonas Schmidt had telephoned them at the Marx-Engels-Platz office some thirty minutes earlier – just as Müller and Tilsner were about to finally call it a day and return home, separately this time. The chance to delay her showdown with Gottfried had been something of a relief, despite the tiredness that weighed her down.

Schmidt had a theory about the tyre tracks, and needed them to return to the cemetery immediately. Now – alongside Müller – the forensic officer reached into his overcoat pocket.

A rustle of protective cellophane punctured the cemetery’s silence, as Schmidt started jabbing his finger at one of the monochrome photos he’d taken earlier in the day.

‘Here, Comrade Müller. It’s just as I said on the phone,’ he said, spitting the words out in his excitement. He flicked his torch between the photo in his hand and the tyre tracks on the ground. ‘It’s the pattern in the snow. They certainly don’t match any of the tyres that would have been on the cemetery groundsman’s vehicle. They’re western tyres. Car tyres.’

Müller frowned, concentrating on the flashing torch beam. Why had a car from the West been in the cemetery, near where the girl’s body had been found? As she mulled over the peculiarity of the case, she looked up and followed the beam of one of the searchlights. Her eyes tracked its movement to the southwest, along the line of the anti-fascist barrier, towards the entrance to Nordbahnhof S-bahn station – or at least to what had been the entrance. Now it was walled up, forgotten.

Müller rubbed her gloved hands together to try to keep the blood circulating in her fingers, and returned her gaze to the tyre imprints. ‘We’re not going to be able to see much detail now because of the new snow,’ she complained to the
Kriminaltechniker
. ‘Have you already checked the photos against the files at the lab? When you say a western car, can you pinpoint a make and model?’

‘Yes, I went through all the files, comparing against each tyre pattern we have a record of. It took me several hours. As I say, it certainly wasn’t a gardening vehicle. Definitely not a Trabi. Or a Wartburg, or anything from the Republic. Not Soviet either . . .’

Tilsner sighed in exasperation. ‘Spit it out, Jonas. My bollocks and every other piece of me are turning to ice, and I don’t quite understand why you’ve dragged us all the way back here if you’ve already worked out what car it was.’

Schmidt stood now, frowning, and shoved the photographs back inside his coat pocket. ‘Well, that’s just it. I’ve a good idea of the make, but not the model. That’s why I wanted to come back and for you two to come with me.’

He got his torch out again and scanned it over the tyre tracks.

‘Ah good! I wondered if that might help. Whatever it was, it had a long wheelbase,’ he said. He gestured with his arm, sweeping the torch beam in an arc, like a mini-version of a barrier searchlight. ‘See. You can tell from the width of the turning circle. In fact, a
very
long wheelbase. Strange.’

‘What, like a truck or a bus?’ asked Müller, conscious of her teeth chattering in the deepening cold.

‘No, no. It was a car. Just a very long car. A limousine. And . . . Hang on a –’

Müller shone her light at his face. All the colour had drained out of it.

‘What, Schmidt? Come on, spit it out!’ shouted Müller.

But Schmidt just shook his head. Müller could see the forensic officer was shaking. From the cold? Or from fear?

Schmidt started mumbling to himself. ‘It can’t be. It can’t be. I must have made a mistake.’

Tilsner stepped closer. ‘
What
can’t it be? What were you about to say?’

‘Come on, Jonas,’ cajoled Müller. ‘Whatever you know you should tell us. Nothing can be so bad. The truth will out.’

Schmidt looked at the female
Oberleutnant
with pleading eyes. Then his shoulders slumped.

‘The tyre marks are Swedish – as I said, I looked them up at the lab. A Volvo. They have a very . . . a very idio . . . idiosyncratic pattern.’ He looked at them with desperate eyes, as if the significance were obvious. ‘The car was a long-wheelbase Volvo.’

Müller was perplexed. ‘So, a truck? I thought you said it wasn’t a truck?’

Schmidt just stood shaking his head.

But for Tilsner the penny had dropped. ‘Jesus!’ he exclaimed. ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!’

‘What?’ shouted Müller, stamping her foot in the snow in exasperation.

‘Do I have to spell it out, boss? A Volvo . . . A limousine . . .’

Müller suddenly clutched her forehead.
Scheisse!
The images of official state parades with Volvo after Volvo of party bigwigs played through her head. If Schmidt was correct, it looked like an official car – a government car – had been here in the cemetery. Near the body.

Tilsner cupped her ear with his hand, lowering his voice. ‘Karin, we have to talk to
Oberst
Reiniger. Immediately. We need to get him to take us off this case.’

Müller moved back slightly, staring into his electric-blue eyes, and gave an almost imperceptible nod.

3

Day Two.

Schönhauser Allee, East Berlin.

Sleep in her own bed came easily to Müller and the expected dreams featuring the mutilated face of the girl from the cemetery never materialised. But when she woke, she was initially disoriented to find herself alone. Gottfried, unsurprisingly, hadn’t been waiting with dinner ready when she’d finally got home the previous evening, and he hadn’t come back to share the bed.

Now a door slammed. She could feel his presence in the lounge, hear him banging in the kitchen, the crash of pans and crockery not unlike the din Tilsner had made the day before. These noises, though, had the extra force of anger behind each bang and clatter – a percussionist building to the climax of a dark musical piece.

Müller pulled the bedcovers over her head. If he came into the bedroom she would pretend to be asleep, hopefully putting off any confrontation until he was in a better mood. She turned on her side, pulling the blankets and sheets tight to her ears. Then, the sound of a bowl or cup breaking on the floor convinced her that she would have to confront him now.

She slid out of bed, and into her matching slippers and dressing gown. Her toes luxuriated inside the lilac cotton – one of her few indulgences from the Intershop. Running her fingers through her hair as a makeshift comb, she moved the few metres through to the living room, sliding the slippers along the wooden-block flooring, too tired to raise her feet. She leant on the side of the doorframe of the galley kitchen, and watched her husband as he fussed around clearing whatever had broken with a dustpan and brush.

‘I’m sorry for Thursday night,’ she said. ‘A particularly nasty murder.’ She saw the day’s
Neues Deutschland
lying on the worktop, which he’d brought back on the way from wherever he’d been. ‘You might have seen it in the paper.’

Gottfried didn’t respond or acknowledge her, but threw the contents of the dustpan into the bin, and then resumed his coffee-making, crashing the pan down on the hob.

‘It took longer than we expected,’ she said.