Stasi Child (18 page)

Today is the first of my three days in the packing room this month. We’re still working on the bed contract, and as I lean down to start to fill another box I feel my neck spasm. The pain shoots down my back to my leg. I’m almost tempted to raise my hand, to try to convince Frau Schettler that the symptoms of my fifth-floor fall haven’t completely gone away. But instead, I fight through it, lifting the veneered headboard and sliding it in place at the bottom of the box.

All the time, I’m calculating. Thinking. Watching.

‘You’re very quiet today, Irma,’ says Mathias softly, to my left. ‘Is something on your mind?’

I don’t look at him, just shake my head. I don’t want anything to disturb my concentration. I need to reach my target as soon as possible, and then exceed it. Make them think I’m a reformed pupil, that I’m knuckling down and have seen the error of my ways. That way they will watch me less. It will give me a better chance.

The frame of the box is complete. It seems a slightly crazy system to me, but then I’m not a self-build furniture designer. All the components are in one box, which is why – when fully packed – they need two of us to lift them onto the trolley. I can only imagine a truck delivers them to each home at the other end, because there is no way they would fit in a standard-sized car, and no way that one person alone could lift them.

The headboard and footboard slide into the top and bottom of the cardboard box, giving strength to the structure with the bed’s sides supporting them. When constructed I imagine they will be just under two metres square, bigger than any bed I’ve ever seen in the Republic.

I slide the second side into the box. There’s now a hollow area in the middle, where we must fit all the bed slats, the corner posts and the fitting accessories, after putting in more layers of corrugated cardboard to protect the veneer.

Glancing around to make sure all the other children are busy working, I drop the roll of packing tape onto the floor and then lean down as though to pick it up. In an instant, I place the roll upright, so it forms a small wheel, and then stand up straight again. I wait a moment, making sure no one has noticed anything amiss. Frau Schettler, at the front of the room, is looking down at her desk, checking some document or other. Mathias to my left and Maria Bauer to my right are busy packing their own boxes. I give the wheel of tape a kick, and it shoots inside the hollow of the box. It’s a shot that Hans-Jürgen Kreische, the
Oberliga
’s top scorer, would have been proud of.

‘
Scheisse!
’ I cry.

‘What’s wrong?’ asks Mathias, ignorant of my little piece of trickery.

‘I’ve accidentally knocked the packing tape into the box,’ I say.

‘You idiot,’ says Bauer. ‘I’ll need that in a moment to seal this one. Just reach down and get it.’

I kneel down and scrabble around for a moment. Then peer inside.

‘I can’t see it. It’s gone right inside.’

Mathias sighs. ‘Well, you need to get it otherwise we’ll all fall behind target. Can’t you just crawl in?’

‘I’ll try,’ I say, sounding as reluctant as possible.

In fact, with the smooth veneer of the wood, I can slide in. I get on my back and lever myself inside. I feel the tape roll behind my head, about halfway inside. But I continue to squeeze in, taking the tape with me to the back of the box. I just wish I was thinner. Beate would have no problem and plenty of space. Mathias is thin enough but too tall, so he’d have to bend his legs slightly to get fully inside.

Then I hear Frau Schettler’s voice. She’s been alerted by all the commotion.

‘What on earth are you doing, Irma?’ I squint back towards the open end of the box, and see a pair of eyes staring back at me.

‘Sorry, Frau Schettler. The packing tape’s accidentally rolled inside. I’m trying to get it back.’ I scratch my fingers against the veneer of the headboard for effect.

‘Well, hurry up,’ she urges. ‘And make sure you don’t damage anything.’

She moves away, and I just lie there thinking for a moment. Thinking and calculating. It’s risky. Horribly risky. What would you do about air, food, drink? Going to the toilet? Yuck! But it is possible. I’ve proved that to myself.

I contort my arm behind my head to grab the tape roll, and then flex my heels to pull myself out of the box, centimetre by centimetre.

The heat rushes to my face as I stand back in position, and I’m breathing heavily.

‘That was really idiotic,’ sneers Bauer. ‘If we don’t reach our target, it’s your stupid fault. You’re so clumsy, Behrendt.’ I want to say something vicious back; I want to stuff the packing tape into her ugly mouth. But instead I just apologise, look embarrassed and get on with my work.

I speed up, filling the boxes like a machine. Inside my head I’m planning and thinking. Of Sassnitz. Of Sweden. Of freedom.

26

February 1975. Day Ten.

East Berlin.

The jangling of the phone cut through Müller’s skull, which throbbed with another headache. A strong sense of déjà vu – wasn’t this how it all had started ten days earlier at Tilsner’s apartment? She looked at the clock. Just past seven. She’d had less than five hours’ uncomfortable, broken sleep on the floor of the office. Now every part of her body ached. She yawned, covering her mouth from habit though no one was watching, and then picked up the receiver. It was Schmidt.

‘Ah, Comrade Müller. I’m glad I’ve tracked you down,’ he said. ‘I tried your home but there was no answer.’ Gottfried had probably turned over and covered his ears with the blankets, thought Müller, just as I was tempted to. ‘We’ve found a few bits and pieces in the limousine. Lucky, really, because the vehicle had been pretty thoroughly cleaned. I’m testing them now.’

She forced herself to sound interested and awake. ‘That’s good, Jonas. What have you got?’

‘Well, the most important thing is that – as we suspected – the tyre pattern matches those we found at the cemetery. Gislaveds, as I said. But there’s more, Comrade
Oberleutnant
. Cleaning never erases everything, in my experience. We’ve found grains of what looks like sand, and some vegetable matter that I’m trying to pin down at the moment. Also soil samples and clothing fibres. I’ve done an initial check: some of the fibres match the girl’s clothing, some don’t.’

‘So we know the girl was definitely in the limousine?’

‘I don’t think we can say that with any certainty. The fibres could have come from someone else. Someone wearing similar clothes. It’s a start, though. Why don’t you come along to the lab in a couple of hours? I can show you how the tests are progressing.’

Müller slowly pressed her hand to her brow, trying to push away the thud of pain. She wasn’t really in any state to spend hours in a lab. Perhaps she’d be better going back to the apartment and trying to make her peace with Gottfried. But then she wasn’t in much of a state for that either. ‘Don’t you want to get some sleep first, Jonas? You’ve been at it all night.’

The
Kriminaltechniker
laughed. ‘This is what I joined up for, what I trained for. I think this could be our breakthrough. Shall I see you in a couple of hours?’

‘OK, Jonas, OK.’ Dealing with the forensic officer and what he’d found would be easier than going back to confront her husband. Müller rang off. Before she left for the police headquarters, she raided a couple of aspirin from the first-aid cupboard, and then crossed to the sink. Picking the cleanest-looking mug from the draining board, she swilled it out, half-filled it with water and then dissolved the pills and drank the mixture. Just as Schmidt needed his regular intake of sausages to function properly, she seemed more and more these days to be relying on headache pills.

By the time she reached the forensic lab, Schmidt was hunched over a microscope issuing instructions to a colleague. After repeatedly peering through the lens, he was comparing his findings with a series of reference books that the other officer ferried to him.

‘Ah,
Oberleutnant
Müller. Thanks for coming. I think we have some new information for you. And can I introduce you to Andreas Hasenkamp here, from the Ministry for State Security?
Oberstleutnant
Jäger sent him to assist us.’ In contrast to Schmidt’s corpulence, Hasenkamp was rake-thin, with incongruous bushy sideburns on an otherwise near-bald head. Müller shook his proffered hand, while she wondered just what Jäger’s definition of ‘assist’ meant in practice.

Schmidt ushered her towards a microscope. She could see a slide under it, which even without magnification looked like a piece of seaweed. Müller closed her left eye and squinted down the eyepiece with her right. ‘OK, Jonas. It still looks like a piece of seaweed, only bigger.’

Schmidt laughed. ‘Absolutely correct, Comrade Müller. What’s interesting, though,’ he continued, ‘is the type of seaweed. Look here at this book, and then look in the microscope. Similar, no?’

Müller nodded, though she wasn’t sure. ‘What species is it?’

‘Well, the species in the book you’re looking at is
Fucus vesiculosus
, more commonly known as bladderwrack.’ Müller shrugged. The Latin meant nothing to her, though she had at least heard of the common name. Schmidt had one eyebrow raised and was smiling. ‘But the species under the microscope is slightly – but significantly – different, and I’m rather pleased with myself that I’ve spotted the variance. It’s
Fucus radicans
. It looks very similar to the naked eye.’ Müller noticed that Schmidt was rushing his words, barely stopping to take a breath. ‘But this species is smaller, despite the magnification of the microscope. Now, you find bladderwrack all over seashores in the northern hemisphere so that wouldn’t have helped us much. But you only find
Fucus radicans
in one place.’

‘Where?’ asked Müller.

‘In the Ostsee, Comrade Müller. It’s specifically adapted for the brackish waters there. Water that doesn’t have as high salinity. A mixture of salty seawater and fresh water from the inflowing rivers.’

Müller frowned. ‘We could be talking about the northern coast of the Republic: Denmark, Sweden, the Soviet Union – anywhere that has an Ostsee coastline.’

Schmidt’s face fell momentarily. ‘That’s true,
Oberleutnant
. But what we’re trying to do is build up a picture. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle or a crossword. Once we have enough pieces fitted together, or words in their correct place, the rest of it will follow.’

The detective nodded. ‘What else have you got?’

‘Andreas has a sample set up on the microscope over there.’ Schmidt gestured to a side table. ‘Comrade Hasenkamp, perhaps you could talk the
Oberleutnant
through that?’

‘With pleasure. This way Comrade Müller.’ He drew up a chair for her by the second microscope. Müller looked down the eyepiece, but what she saw was meaningless to her. It just looked like a beige smudge within a brown smudge. ‘What’s that?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid it’s not as clear-cut to the untrained eye as our other sample,’ said Hasenkamp. ‘But what you’re looking at is a sample of soil containing an undeveloped seedling from a subalpine zone.’

Müller lifted her head, and rubbed her chin. ‘So from the Alps?’ She sighed. ‘Another very wide area.’

‘Well it could be from the Alpine area, from just below the treeline. That’s what we mean by subalpine. But in this case it isn’t. It’s from that altitude, but this type of soil combined with the subalpine seedling is only found in one place in Europe, if not the world.’

‘Put me out of my misery,’ said Müller.

Hasenkamp smiled. ‘It’s the Harz mountains.’

‘But that could be the DDR or the Federal Republic?’

‘Not in this case. We can pinpoint the location very accurately. The only place in the Harz that could produce a subalpine seedling like this is the Brocken, which is more than 1,100 metres high. And, of course, it’s in the Republic.’

Müller visualised the mountain. She’d never been there, but she’d seen pictures at school. At its summit, the Republic’s main listening station – intercepting enemy messages from the West.

‘Good work, both of you,’ she said. ‘But the Ostsee and the Harz are hundreds of kilometres apart.’

Schmidt exhaled slowly. ‘I know, Comrade Müller. I know. But I’m afraid your job is to stitch these clues together. However, don’t despair. There are also the fibres, and there’s a theory I’m working on there that may just take us forward.’

Müller frowned. ‘What’s that?’

‘Oh, I don’t want to say before I’m sure. I need to do some more work, but it won’t take long. If you’d be so kind, Andreas and I have been working all night. A coffee and perhaps a sandwich from the canteen would help our thought processes. Would that be possible?’ Schmidt grinned.

‘OK, Jonas, OK. Can you show me to the canteen, Comrade Hasenkamp?’ She had no faith in her own abilities to find it through the warren-like corridors of police headquarters.

‘With pleasure,
Oberleutnant
. It’s open on Sundays. As you know, the headquarters of the People’s Police never shuts.’

27

Day Ten.

East Berlin.

As she approached her Schönhauser Allee apartment building, Müller noticed that the Bäckerei Schäfer van had finally left – the streetlight it was normally parked by was simply illuminating an empty stretch of road. The mystery of who owned the vehicle remained unsolved. Elke had checked the small bakery of the same name on Alexanderplatz, but they just sold bread and cakes in situ. They didn’t even have a delivery van. Anyway, it had gone. Was she being paranoid? The strange agent who’d turned up at the Märchenbrunnen, watching her and Jäger. The attempt to kill – or at least frighten – her by whoever was driving the black car round the West Berlin ring road. Everything seemed to be closing in on her.

The sense of foreboding she felt increased further once she’d climbed the stairs to the landing outside her and Gottfried’s apartment. Something was wrong. There was no noise – normally Gottfried could be heard singing along to one of his infernal western rock tracks, oblivious to what the neighbours might think. Especially at the weekend, on a Sunday evening, when he almost always stayed in the flat.