The Helsinki Pact (35 page)

“Why did you do this? Why have
you got involved with these people? You’re such an honest,
straightforward girl. I just don’t see you in that context, joining
other people those rats spying on other’s people’s lives to try to
nail them for being who they are. Is it anything to do with what
happened to your brother?”

“Please just take my word for it
that I’ve always acted properly. Not all people in the organisation
are as bad as you think. And anything you can tell me will stay
between us. I promise you that.”

“All right then, I’ll trust you
for old time’s sake. It must be hard for you now, I imagine. The
boat is sinking and all the rats are trying to grab whatever’s left
and hiding their past.”

The waitress had finally brought
the beers and the two clinked their glasses. “I can only talk about
my own little world." Georg continued. "For the past three months,
we’ve been ordered to go through all the political trials of the
last five years and eliminate any page which makes reference to
prominent communist party members’ depositions against the
suspects. I’m sure that in small towns, where the new political
parties can’t check, they’re cutting the process short and just
throwing whole files away.” His disgust at this behaviour was
evident. “This way, they’re hoping not to get prosecuted. I
suspect, gut feeling only, that the same thing is happening in
every field. The Party and the Stasi controlled everything, did
what they wanted. They’re not simply going to hand all the evidence
over to Kohl, are they?”

“Did you hear about the
privatisation of the flour mill?” she said, trying to keep any
sense of importance out of her tone.

Georg seemed lost in thought, as
if he’d not registered what Bettina was asking. He took a long
draught of his beer. “Why would the communists privatise something
without being forced to? Find out the date and I’ll try to fish out
the file. All public acts need to be registered in the Court. The
only problem is that in my department we only have the acts
registered in the last year. The rest is in the
archives.”

“This must certainly have
happened in the last year.” Bettina said. “I’ll find out the exact
date, or at least the month, and let you know.”

“Without the date, it’s going to
be difficult. There are so many acts registered every day that it
would take me ages, certainly more than a day, to look through them
all. How long are you staying?”

“I don’t know. It depends how
some things develop.”

“I’ll ask some of my colleagues.
Where can I reach you if I find anything?”

“I’m staying in a farm on the
road to Meissen, maybe a couple of kilometres beyond the mill. The
woman is called Dornbush.” She gave him the telephone
number.

Georg left money for the beers on
the table and they got up to leave. They hugged closely then Georg,
waving goodbye, headed back to his office block.

“Perhaps on my way back I should
stop over at Jacob’s.” she thought as she returned to her car.
“Almost everyone there works at the mill so they should be able to
tell me what happened, and when.”

When she finally reached the low
wooden fence around the garden of the farmhouse Jacob’s two
terriers, Trap and Chupa, came over to greet her, barking madly,
whining and leaping up towards her, alerting the family. Jacob’s
father, Herbert, peered out. He was around fifty-five but looked
much younger as he kept in excellent shape doing most of the work
on the farm.

“Bettina, how are you? Such a
long time since we’ve seen you.” he said warmly, shaking her hand
and passing his left one through his long silver hair. The squeeze
felt like iron.

“Yes, probably a couple of
years.” Bettina said. “Everyone fine?” She knew them well, Jacob
having been her first boyfriend. They’d been inseparable until
she’d moved to Berlin, aged nineteen, and they’d gradually drifted
apart, finishing a few months later.

Jacob came out running and hugged
her warmly then leading her into the kitchen where Herbert opened
beers and poured out three glasses.

“How are things going at the
mill?" Bettina asked Jacob. "I stopped by and they told me it was
being restructured.”

“Happened a couple of months
back. That’s the good news” said Herbert. “Now I can use these lazy
sons of mine here at the farm for a change.”

“Can I say something or is this a
private conversation?” Jacob interrupted. “You weren’t even there
when they told us. You were here planting beans.”

“It happened exactly a month and
a half ago,” Jacob went on. “The Party officer called a workers’
assembly and told us that the committee had finally approved the
restructuring of the mill. Production levels had dropped, he told
us, while at the same time there was increased demand from the
city. They’d decided to buy new machines, do some renovation work
as well, and all that meant that the mill needed to be closed for a
period, probably around six months. However, in order to guarantee
the workers’ livelihoods the committee had decided to pay a full
six months’ salary in advance. They shut down a week later.
Everyone was extremely happy, as you can imagine.”

“Did they say anything else?”
Bettina asked.

“Something about changing the
name from Dresdener Mehl Kooperative to align it with the more
modern image of the country today. I believe Omega Mills was what
he said. No one really cared about the name anyway. We all called
it ‘the pastry’, as you’ll remember.”

“Nothing about it being sold, or
privatised?”

“Sold?” Herbert looked worried
and moved his chair closer to Bettina. “Privatised?”

Jacob looked shocked. “Sold? Are
you sure?”

“The guard at the mill told me
that it had been privatised. But maybe it’s all a mistake and it
simply changed names. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.” she
said. She didn’t know for certain what had happened and didn’t want
to worry the Klimas with rumours. The farm was struggling and the
family depended on their mill wages to survive.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have even
mentioned it.” she added. “The guard probably didn’t know the
difference between just changing a name and privatising something.
I’m sure it’s nothing.”

She drained her beer and got up.
“I’m afraid I’ve got to run now. Say hello to Anja and the rest of
the gang.”

Chapter 28

Tuesday January 16
1990

“I’M so sorry to have kept you
waiting but I had to finish checking these urgent reports. Today is
really hectic. I’ve got a thousand things to finish before I
leave.” Roehrberg glanced at his watch and made a brief note on the
pad in front of him.

He leaned back in his chair and
smiled at her and although he'd reverted to his earlier urbane and
charming manner Bettina felt patronised and wrong-footed. "My own
fault, I suppose." she'd thought "I shouldn't have just turned up
at HQ and expected to waltz straight in to see Roehrberg without an
appointment. So much for his being at my disposal."

She'd been given coffee when
she'd turned up but that had long been drunk and no refills had
been offered. She spent her time going over what she knew of the
recent events, trying to identify patterns and make some sense of
the remaining mysteries. Eventually his secretary had led her into
the inner office where Roehrberg was working through and
occasionally signing documents piled on his desk. Barely looking up
he waved her to the sofa and continued his work for two or three
minutes. She noticed that today he was wearing horn-rimmed reading
glasses, finally removing them and placing them carefully on the
desk. They made him look even more interesting, she thought, and
then for a moment found herself musing on how Thomas would look in
glasses.

“You’re leaving?” She tried to
keep the surprise out of her voice. He nodded.

“Yes, early tomorrow morning.
It’s the mission I told you about, the one for which we needed the
funds. The unexpected lack of the money is causing problems with
some of our key informants in France. I have to go over and talk to
them and make sure things continue as planned." He moved a document
from one pile to another and made a further note on his pad. "But
Spitze will remain here - please speak to him if you need any more
help. I assume that you've come to tell me that now that matters
have been cleared up replacement funds will be sent shortly,
right?”

“Well, I can’t promise that. I’m
not sure how … ”

“Yes, I understand it’s not your
decision but you all do need to understand in turn that our work
here continues. Berlin can’t just sit around doing nothing and have
us wait until it gets round to sorting things out. Did you give
Dieter the update on Henkel?”

“Yes, I spoke to him briefly
yesterday. He was glad to learn that the solution was apparently so
straightforward, if distressing for everyone who knew Henkel." She
decided to try to assert some authority of her own, took a file out
of her bag and made a show of looking for something there before
answering. "But there are a couple of things he asked about and so
I still need to check these before I can complete my report.
Forgive me, but, as I’m sure you understand, it’s a very delicate
matter. One crucial aspect is whether you’ve asked a specialist to
verify the handwriting of Henkel’s letter and whether he’d
confirmed that it was Henkel's.”

There was a long silence as
Roehrberg stared at her. She noticed with dismay that his eyes
narrowed and hardened and his face became livid, relieved only by
spots of colour on his high cheekbones. His nostrils flared and he
breathed in heavily. She watched as his shoulder started to rise,
the right arm tensing and the palm of his hand ready to smash down.
With a visible effort he controlled his movement, shut his eyes for
a moment, then breathed out and lowered his arm slowly to rest on
the desk.

“You’re implying that you, that
Dieter, thinks that someone murdered Henkel and falsified his
handwriting? You think I don’t recognise the handwriting of my
subordinates almost as well as my own? I see these people’s
handwriting on scores of documents each month. It’s preposterous.
The idea that the note wasn’t written by Henkel is just ridiculous.
Quite ridiculous.”

“Of course!” she said. “Naturally
I see that. But you know how people sometimes get odd ideas into
their heads even if they’re ridiculous. Sometimes it’s just box
ticking, excessive bureaucracy. Left to myself ... ”

“Dammit!” she thought “Why did I
have to add that last bit rather than hold my nerve.”

“Unfortunately Dieter won’t
authorise the release of replacement funding until he has my
report." She breathed slowly and deeply to calm herself again.
"He’s made it clear that it’s got to include a certificate of
handwriting verification before it can be accepted.” The silence
continued.

“I’m sorry.” Roehrberg said
smoothly. “Forgive me. Of course you’re right. It’s routine to do
such checks but in this case I just didn’t think about it. Gerd was
a friend and we’ve worked together a long time. I know his
handwriting intimately and the idea of a forgery never occurred to
me. But of course you’re right and we should have run standard
checks. I’ll order them immediately and stress the urgency and we
should have the results by early evening. Anything to get this
story over and done with. Anything else?”

“Yes, there’s one thing I don’t
quite understand.” Bettina shifted in her chair. “You told me that
the funds were ordered for three missions - in France, England and
West Germany. What I don’t understand is why the foreign money that
was ordered was a combination of Deutsche Marks and French Francs
only; there were no English pounds whatsoever.”

“I’m afraid I can’t answer that
question. It was Gerd who handled all the practical aspects like
that. I just checked that the projects were progressing as
scheduled, told him broadly what we’d need and when and he just got
on with it. The project in the UK is certainly not as far forward
as the others and so possibly the funding there wasn’t going to be
needed until later on, assuming we’re all still here, that is. You
could ask Spitze later. He might have a better idea.”

He looked at his
watch.

“Now I hate to do this, but I
really need to get some more work done today. Why don’t you talk to
Spitze, ask him about the English money gap and anything else you
need to know, and you’ll probably get answers to all your
questions. If there are any issues outstanding, you can ask me at
dinner, if you’d be so kind as to accept this as my invitation for
tonight. And I’ll bring a copy of the forensic report on Henkel’s
suicide note with me for you to take away.”

“Thank you. I’d be delighted to
have dinner with you.” she said.

“Shall I come to pick you up?
Where ... ”

“Don’t worry. I’m from Dresden
and I have my own car here. I just need the address.”

"We call it Heinrich's" he said
smoothly "and it's the just down the hill from my house. If you
came there we could walk down together."

"Oh, I know it well. Best if I
just go direct, I think."

He jotted down his address and
that of the restaurant and handed the note to her.