Stasi Child (35 page)

Neumann – if he
was
behind all this – still hadn’t made himself known to her. As she dozed, the faxed photograph of his mangled face with its sinister eyepatch replayed in her head, forcing her back awake. Was he even here? And if so, what was he up to?

Irma grunted, and turned in her sleep, as much as the iron leg shackles would allow. She let Müller’s hand drop as she did, and now the detective felt even more alone. Perhaps Irma had been right to mock her attempts at rescuing her. It was true. She hadn’t done a very good job.

When she awoke, daylight was streaming through the cracks in the timber of the shed in which they were being held.

She turned towards Irma, and found the girl was already looking at her, smiling.

‘You know, in a funny way,’ said the girl, ‘I’m pleased you’re chained up here next to me.’ Her face darkened. ‘After Beate . . . after Mathias . . . I was getting lonely.’

Müller took her hand again. ‘Don’t worry, Irma, we will get out of this mess. We will escape.’

Irma shook her head. ‘Believe that if you want, but there is no escape. Even if we get out of here, we’re still in the Republic.’

Müller didn’t reply.

Irma snorted. ‘It’s OK for you, anyway. You’re one of them. You’re part of the system. You try living in a closed
Jugendwerkhof
. Then you would see why so many people are desperate to leave this shitty little country.’ Müller dropped her gaze. She didn’t want to admit the truth of what the teenager was saying. It struck too close to what she had always believed in.

The girl turned away, and stared up at the ceiling, where the half-rotted timbers of what Müller assumed was the mine house struggled to support the ancient roof. ‘You realise we escaped, don’t you? The only three children to have ever escaped from
Jugendwerkhof
Prora Ost.’

Müller frowned. ‘I thought you were transferred? Moved out by Neumann.’

Irma laughed. ‘No, we escaped. In the furniture packs. And we got to the West, before we were betrayed.’

‘Betrayed?’

‘Yes. By Mathias. You know he’s dead, don’t you?’

Müller nodded. She reached over and took the girl’s hand again, stroking it gently. ‘I’m sorry, I’m truly sorry, Irma. He was your friend too.’

‘Hah!’ Irma spat. ‘Friend? He was no friend of mine. He was besotted with Beate, but even she saw through him in the end. Mathias Gellman betrayed us, to the Stasi. They recruited him to spy on the children, and the teachers. And he did, to try to make his own life easier. When we were on the boat, when we were nearly in the West, he persuaded the crew to radio the authorities in the East, and they persuaded their counterparts in the West to send us back. The little shit was an informer. I’m glad he’s dead.’

Müller said nothing, shocked that the Stasi recruited children – it was the first she’d ever heard of it. She wasn’t sure if she believed it, but then she wasn’t sure what she believed anymore.

‘And do you know what else, Mrs Berlin Detective? I killed Mathias. I murdered him. I pushed him down those steps. So what are you going to do about that? Arrest me?’ Irma started laughing like a maniac, laughs that after a few moments devolved into sobs. ‘You can’t arrest me, can you? Because you’re as powerless as me in this shithole of a country.’

Müller tried to grab the girl’s shoulders, to hold her, to calm her. But Irma violently shrugged her off, and turned to face the wall.

52

Day Seventeen.

The Harz mountains, East Germany.

The door swung open and two guards in snow camouflage overalls entered. They unlocked the chains that bound Müller’s and Irma’s legs, and then prodded the two females with their rifle barrels out of the mine-house door. Müller shouted at them, saying she was injured and couldn’t walk quickly, and asking what had happened to her deputy. They wouldn’t reply. They were taken some fifty metres through ankle-deep snow, further into the forest, in the opposite direction to the inner German border.

‘This is where their lair is,’ whispered Irma. One of the guards gave her an extra sharp prod with his weapon for daring to speak.

Hidden in the trees, camouflaged by undergrowth and snow, steps led down to what appeared to be some sort of underground bunker. Like the mine house, it looked to Müller as though it had seen better days, but with its thick sealed metal doors, secured by release wheels, no one was going to be able to find them. ‘I think it was built by the Nazis,’ whispered Irma as they entered the concrete complex. ‘They take us here for a shower once a week. You’re lucky to get one on your first day. But I warn you, there’s no hot water. It will be freezing.’

As she showered, Müller examined her wounds. It was her legs she was most concerned about: the broken flesh was bruised, inflamed. Pain flashed from the wound as the water hit, forcing Müller to grit her teeth. She knew she needed hospital treatment, probably stitches. She glanced over at Irma who pulled a face, then smiled.

‘Your leg doesn’t look too good,’ she said. ‘Try to insist they take you to hospital. It might be a way out.’

‘What about you?’ Müller shouted over the noise of the shower spray.

‘If you get out, you can come and rescue me. But do it properly next time, with some back-up. Not in the amateurish way you tried this time.’ She smirked at the detective.

Müller turned away, feeling herself redden at the comment.

Clean clothes – shapeless unisex track suits and T-shirts – had been left on the side for them. Once they were dressed, the guards took them to another underground room. Wood panelling covered the walls, and the furniture was traditional Harz farmhouse style. A touch of luxury that couldn’t mask the underlying odour of damp and earth.

Breakfast was laid out on a table: fresh rolls, cheese, ham, coffee. It was as good as the one at the Wernigerode guesthouse.

Minutes after they’d started eating, the door opened.

‘It’ll be Neumann,’ whispered Irma.

But it wasn’t. At least to Müller it wasn’t.

Because as she looked up from her coffee, standing before her with the good side of his face in profile – but greyer, thinner, more unkempt – was a man who she’d vowed, years before, to never set eyes on again. Now she knew why the faxed photo Jäger had sent to Wernigerode had seemed strangely familiar – even though she thought she hadn’t recognised the man portrayed in it. Here, from a different angle, she did.

The flash of recognition took Müller’s thoughts back to the police university. The lecturer – a senior detective on secondment – who’d befriended her. Offered to help her up the career ladder. To smooth her path into the
Kripo
, as long as she agreed to the police’s version of the casting couch. She’d resisted, even though there was something in him – at that time – that she found attractive. Perhaps it was just a power thing: that he did have the ability to kick-start her career. Now she felt nausea well up. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to wipe the memory: him plying her with vodka, pressing himself against her, the foul smell of his breath only partially hidden by alcohol fumes, and then how he’d held her down, ripped off her clothing, thrust himself into her. How she’d been helpless as he grabbed her wrists, the pain tearing her insides as flesh tore against flesh, and then – just as he was about to finish – how he’d relaxed his grip in the ecstasy of the moment, and she’d smashed the vodka bottle against the table and jammed it in his face.

‘Aren’t you going to say hello, Karin? I’ve waited a long time for this reunion.’

She heard Irma gasp. ‘You know Neumann?’

‘Oh yes, she knows me, Irma. Intimately. We’ve even had a child together. That’s if you can call a twenty-week foetus a child. A twenty-week foetus that she killed. Was it a girl or a boy, Karin? Did you ever find out?’

Müller felt as though the whole room was spinning. She swallowed, but gave no answer, her eyes fixed on her shaking fingers as they gripped the table for support. She wished that she was back at the apartment on Schönhauser Allee. Taking out the baby clothes. Stroking them. Comforting herself.

‘I’ve never had the chance to have another child, Karin. Who would want to marry someone with a face like this?’ He stroked the scar tissue under his eyepatch. ‘You killed my only one. My only son or daughter. And my facial injuries and the scandal from you claiming I raped you – a claim which was patently untrue – meant I had to leave the force. They offered me a job in charge of the
Jugendwerkhof
under a new name. That or face trial. It wasn’t much of a choice. You cost me my job, and the chance of a child. You ruined my life. But I still felt some tie to you, despite your betrayal. I wanted to see you again. Now I’m not so sure it was a good idea.’

Müller looked up, and could see tears welling in the remaining eye of the man she knew as Walter Pawlitzki – a man now known as Franz Neumann, lately director of the
Jugendwerkhof
Prora Ost.

‘Have you been able to have other children, Karin?’

She forced herself to try to give nothing away, but knew he could probably see the pain, the longing, in her expression. As time slowed, she could see Irma watching the exchange intently, fingering her sharp metal meat knife.

Pawlitzki drew up a chair, and sat next to them at the table. Müller tried to catch Irma’s eye, hoping the girl wouldn’t do anything stupid. Müller knew that the former police university lecturer – the former
Jugendwerkhof
director – would have ensured the guards were ready to respond instantly should either of them try to attack him.

Müller drew in a deep breath, and held her former lecturer’s one-eyed gaze. ‘Did you murder Beate Ewert?’ she asked.

Pawlitzki rocked back in his chair, laughing.

‘It’s not a laughing matter,’ screamed Irma, her hand tightening round the knife handle.

‘Put that down, Irma. Immediately. Otherwise I will call the guards back.’ The girl’s grip loosened. ‘All I know is that Beate went to the party on the Brocken, and then on to Berlin. If you’re saying she’s dead, I certainly didn’t kill her. Can you say the same about Mathias, Irma?’ The girl lowered her gaze.

‘So what happened?’ asked Müller.

‘Why do you think I know what happened to her? And even if I did, would I really tell you that, Karin? You, a detective for the People’s Police of this good Republic.’ Pawlitzki took a bread roll, broke a piece off and began to butter it. ‘What I will tell you is that the problem arose when Beate recognised the photograph of the esteemed Joint First Deputy Minister for State Security in a copy of
Neues Deutschland
that one of the guards stupidly left on the breakfast table here.’ He kept his eyes on both of them, as he reached across to the breakfast-room’s magazine rack. ‘Here it is.’ He handed the paper to Müller. ‘The joint deputy boss of the Stasi,
Generaloberst
Horst Ackermann.’ Pawlitzki paused, and put the piece of bread roll into his mouth.

‘I’ve heard of him,’ said Müller, turning the newspaper face down. If they got out of here alive, she didn’t want Irma to recognise the Stasi general and try to take her own revenge. All the time, with half an eye, she was looking round the room, wondering if there was a way to escape. But she also wanted to hear what Pawlitzki had to say.

‘He was guest of honour at the winter fancy-dress party on the Brocken. It was actually he who asked Beate to attend. He thought she was still in the
Jugendwerkhof
, but as until recently I’ve been able to go back and forth between Rügen and the Harz, I still got the message he sent to Prora.’

‘The sick bastard,’ screamed Irma. ‘And you just served her up to him on a plate.’

‘I was just following orders, Irma.’ Pawlitzki looked down at his hands. Müller noticed they were shaking, and his voice sounded almost tearful. ‘It’s not something I’m proud of. But it’s how this Republic is run.’ He tried to compose himself, folding his arms across his stomach. ‘And as far as I know, they went back to Berlin. But it’s Ackermann you need to find, not me. And good luck with that. I don’t think you’ll get very far trying to arrest the deputy head of the Stasi.’

Something in Pawlitzki’s expression told her that he was still withholding information, that he knew more than he was letting on.

‘How do I know you’re not just lying to save your own skin?’

Pawlitzki sighed, and took a sip of coffee.

‘What reason do I have to lie?’

Müller watched him place his coffee cup down, reach under his coat and draw out a gun. She recognised it immediately: a Walther PKK – a
Polizeipistole Kriminalmodell
, easily concealed for undercover work, and the inspiration for her own Makarov. He fingered the gun lovingly.

‘Whatever I tell you, you won’t be telling anyone else. I tried to do my best by the three teenagers, but when they were handed back by the West Germans, I had to intercept them at the Helmstedt autobahn crossing. I was under orders to make sure they told no one about their escape or their methods, and moreover that they were in no position to make allegations against Comrade
Generaloberst
Ackermann. Helping our work here was a necessity. I’m sorry it hasn’t turned out as intended.’

Irma stood up now, and made a move towards Pawlitzki. Müller held her back as she launched her invective. ‘Don’t claim you’re sorry. You treated us like shit in Prora and you’ve treated us even worse here.’ She aimed a globule of spittle at Pawlitzki’s face.

As he wiped it off, deathly calm, Müller asked about Mathias. ‘Why did you try to make out that Mathias’s death was murder? What was that all about? Why try to make it look like the killing in the cemetery in Berlin?’

‘Because I’d seen that case in the papers, I wanted to lure you here. I knew a similar killing would do just that. That you would be sent to investigate. Despite what you did to me, I still have feelings for you, Karin. These last few years, I’ve thought about you almost every day. The things we did –’ Pawlitzki was sweating now, even though the temperature in the bunker was cool. He wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve as he continued to talk at machine-gun speed. ‘I knew that if I faked Mathias’s death to look like Beate’s murder, the local police would ask you for help. Presumably that’s why you’re here?’