Stasi Child (34 page)

I wait till we’re climbing the ladder down the shaft; Mathias is a few rungs below me.

‘Psst,’ I hiss. ‘There is just one thing I don’t understand. Why did you want to escape with us, if you felt they were going to look after you in the East, and let you leave the
Jugendwerkhof 
?’

He doesn’t answer me until we reach the intermediate platform. Then he turns towards me, as I tackle the last couple of rungs. I see his face thrown into angular relief by the dim light of the mineshaft. He’s no longer the pretty boy he was. Months of working here, underground, in the dust and grime, have taken their toll.

‘I couldn’t bear to be parted from her, Irma. I knew she wanted to go to the West. I hadn’t told her about the informing – she would have hated me for it. So I had to go with her, there and then.’

I hold his gaze. He looks down at his feet. There’s something he’s not telling me, and I think I know what it is. I’ve suspected it for some time now.

‘Your last bit of informing,’ I say, and I’m sure he can hear the hatred and anger that fills my voice. ‘That was on the ship, wasn’t it? When you said you’d already been above deck?’

He won’t look up at me. He’s too ashamed. ‘Yes,’ he says, his voice barely above a whisper.

‘You had them radio the Republic.’ He nods, almost imperceptibly. ‘And they told you about the teenage repatriation agreement, didn’t they?’ No reaction. ‘Didn’t they, Mathias?’

Another tiny nod.

‘And I’ve a good idea who it was you were telling in the Republic. It was the Stasi, wasn’t it? They recruited you in Prora, didn’t they?’

‘I’m sorry, Irma. I’m so, so sorry.’

I pause for a moment to let it all sink in. But I’m not going to let him off the hook. ‘Why did you do that, Mathias? Why turn us in when you and Beate were so close to winning your freedom together?’

‘Because I knew there was a good chance we would fail. And even if we didn’t, with us being minors I knew it was likely we would be sent back to the East. And then –’

‘Then what?’

‘Then those hopes of getting out of the
Jugendwerkhof
, getting a place at university. Starting a life with Beate. They would all be in ruins.’

It all makes sense now. Why the
Bundesgrenzschutz
officers were already waiting at the quayside in Hamburg; they weren’t just checking the boat on the off-chance. They’d been tipped off, by people in the Republic. And they in turn had been tipped off by Mathias Gellman. Mathias Stasi spy Gellman. Working for the same organisation that had made sure my Mutti ended up in prison; the same organisation that had made sure I was separated from Oma, and dumped in hateful
Jugendwerkhöfe
.

‘You’re a bastard, Mathias. A complete and utter bastard and I will never, ever forgive you.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbles again, and then turns to negotiate the steps. Flashing in my brain are the images of Beate, the
Jugendwerkhof
, the elation at seeing the lights of Hamburg. Happy images of me and Mutti and Oma on the beach as a young girl. They close in on me, taunt me, and as Mathias takes his first step down, as he’s momentarily off balance, I push.

He falls.

His scream ends with a sickening thud at the bottom of those steep, slippery stone steps.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. You see, I do remember some things from school.

49

February 1975.

The Harz mountains, East Germany.

I murdered Mathias Gellman, but no one will ever know.

Neumann hears the argument, hears the scream. He comes clambering down the ladder with a torch. I stand frozen to the spot, unable, or unwilling, to go to help.

‘He fell,’ I say.

Neumann brushes past me and runs down the steps, his torch beam leaping up and down, until it settles on Mathias’s head. An ugly open gash, and blood discolouring the stone floor of the mine. Neumann feels for a pulse. Starts mouth to mouth. All in vain.

While his goons continue to hack away at the rock face further along the level, he gets me to help him carry the body and haul it into the ore bucket, and then uses the pulley system to take Mathias to the surface.

I just sit at the top of the steps, thinking of dog woman and her kindly face . . . The short-skirted girls on the Reeperbahn . . . The drink of Coca-Cola and the currywurst and chips . . . The ketchup . . . And the bloodstains by Mathias Gellman’s head.

50

March 1975. Day Sixteen.

The Harz mountains, East Germany.

Müller looked at the black metallic tube pointing at her forehead, then moved her gaze a fraction to the gloved finger resting on the gun’s trigger.

She raised her eyes to those of her captor, who stared back from inside the hood of a white camouflage jacket. For some reason, the gloved finger did not move.

Instead, they both heard the crack of a tree branch some fifty metres back up the track. Müller and the man both turned towards the noise – the movement sending a flash of pain up from her injured legs. She saw her chance and tried to reach under her jacket for the Makarov pistol, but the guard was too quick for her, squeezed her arm and forced her to drop the weapon, kicking it away down the slope. As he did so, she made a grab for his gun, but he pulled her tight to him, and pressed the weapon to her temple. Müller felt herself gag – partly through panic, partly through the stench of his unwashed body.

‘Don’t move. Stay completely still,’ he hissed into her ear. Then he shouted back up the track, towards the noise in the trees. ‘Come out, with your hands up! Otherwise I’ll shoot her.’

For a moment there was no answer, and then Müller heard Tilsner’s voice. Despite the freezing metal of the gun barrel pressing into the side of her head, she felt relief flood through her.

‘
Kriminalpolizei!
You’re under arrest,’ her deputy shouted from behind the cover of the pine trees. ‘Drop your gun and release her.’

Müller’s captor kept her firmly gripped, jabbing the gun barrel even harder into the side of her head. ‘Tell him to drop his gun and come out,’ he whispered urgently. Müller stayed silent. He yanked her arm up behind her back. ‘Tell him. Now!’ Müller still refused to speak, not wanting to undermine what little advantage Tilsner may have.

Trying to ignore the pain in her arm, she started to squirm away, but her captor tightened his grip still further, forcing her arm up and back until she thought she would black out. ‘I’m losing patience,’ he hissed, jabbing the gun at her temple. She saw him about to squeeze the trigger.

Tilsner shouted out again. ‘Release her! I won’t give you another warning.’

While the guard concentrated on keeping his hold on her, Müller lifted one leg and kicked back with her ski boot into his shin. Surprised, his grip loosened for an instant, and Müller forced herself sideways into a bank of snow, creating enough space between them to give Tilsner a safe target, praying that he would grab his opportunity.

Up the slope, Tilsner stepped out and aimed. The same instant, the man swivelled and raised his gun arm. A flash from Tilsner’s weapon. Then two cracks, microseconds apart, echoing through the mountains and trees.

The man fell forward into the snow, crimson discolouring the back of the white army ski jacket where the bullet had passed through his body. No sound came from him, no movement. She turned her head to look back up the slope, to congratulate her
Unterleutnant
, to thank him for saving her life. But Tilsner, too, lay in a crumpled heap in the snow.

Müller dragged herself up the incline towards him, the snow and her injuries slowing her progress, pain pulsing from her leg wounds. He was calling her name.
He’s still alive
. But the voice was faint, and growing fainter.

Müller finally reached him, and knelt in the snow. She ripped off her scarf and held it to his chest as blood pumped out.

‘Karin . . . K-K-Karin,’ he gasped, trying to reach up and touch the side of her face. His arm fell back.

‘You’ll be alright, Werner. You’ll be alright.’ But even as she said it, the blood soaking into her scarf told her otherwise. She tried to remember her first-aid training, but all she could think of was not wanting to lose him.

‘I’m s-s-s-sorry, Karin. So sorry.’

‘You’ve nothing to be sorry for. You’re a hero of the Republic. You saved my life.’ She brought her mouth towards his. Wanting to kiss him. Breathe life into him. Anything.

Tilsner tried feebly to push her back. ‘S-s-s-sorry –’

His attempts to form words stopped.

She felt for a pulse – it was still there, faint, but still there. She looked up and down the slope – how could she get help? They’d been stupid to come without Baumann or Vogel who at least knew the terrain. She’d been stupid. Tilsner had said they needed back-up. Now he was lying here, dying, and she couldn’t help him.

She was so beside herself she only half-heard the engine of the Soviet Gaz as it approached from the valley, its four-wheel drive able to cope with the gradient in a way that the Wartburg couldn’t have done – even with snow chains. When she finally looked up from Tilsner’s body, as life seeped from it, and found not one, but two guns pointing in her face, she was almost beyond caring.

The bumps in the track sent jolts of pain through Müller’s tenderised frame. She knew these people were her captors, not saviours, but she had pleaded with them to do something to help Tilsner. Finally the two gunmen had lifted her dying deputy’s body into the back of the Gaz. Müller closed in on herself – desensitised by the blindfold they’d wrapped tightly over her eyes, numbed by grief over Tilsner. She knew he wasn’t going to survive. It was almost as though the object of her mission, to rescue the remaining girl, had become irrelevant. All she could think of was Werner, and what might have been.

The vehicle finally came to a halt. Müller urged the men to attend to Tilsner, but they ignored her and instead she was dragged from the back of the Gaz–69 and forced to stand upright, while he lay dying inside. She winced from the brightness of the snow as her blindfold was removed, and then felt the jab of metal in her back as she was pushed forward. To the side of the track, sheltered by the pines, she saw an old wooden shed. This must have been the building she’d seen on the map, next to the mineshaft. Its windows – if that’s what they were – were shuttered closed, and snow had drifted halfway up the building’s sides. One of the men, his face half-hidden by a scarf, pulled back the wooden beam that was holding the door closed, and then his accomplice shoved Müller inside.

In one corner, hunched into her woollen, filthy
Strickpulli
, her face bruised and reddened, a teenage girl looked up at Müller with a mixture of what seemed to be hope and longing. It was Irma Behrendt, struggling to stand against the weight of her chains. Despite the bruising, despite the emaciated face, Müller recognised her as the last of the three teens who had supposedly been transferred from the Rügen
Jugendwerkhof
in May last year. Her red hair was tangled and dirty, but she was alive: the sole survivor of the three. Müller’s captors tied her to an iron pillar next to the girl, and lashed the detective’s wrists together.

As the guards left, and barred the door closed behind them, Müller turned to the teenager.

‘Irma,’ she whispered. The girl turned in shock, wondering how this woman knew her name. ‘We will survive, Irma,’ continued Müller. ‘We have to. When the local police realise I’ve disappeared they will look for us.’

The girl just continued to stare, shafts of light from the gaps in the decaying timber walls highlighting her matted red hair and her emaciated features.

‘Who are you?’ she finally asked.

‘Police
Oberleutnant
Karin Müller. I’m married to Gottfried Müller – he used to teach at your
Jugendwerkhof 
.’

‘And you’ve come to rescue me?’ The girl snorted, sounding half-delirious, staring at Müller’s tightly bound hands. ‘You haven’t done a very good job.’ She laughed. Then she grew serious. ‘Have you any news of Beate?’ Müller tried to give nothing away. But her silence, and the way she dropped her eyes, spoke for themselves. ‘She’s dead, isn’t she?’

Müller gave a long sigh, but her lack of an answer was enough for Irma. The girl began to scream, high-pitched, terrible wails. Müller would have covered her ears if she could. Instead she tried to shush Irma gently, but to no avail. The girl was slumped forward, but the shuddering of her body told Müller that her tears were still falling.

‘We will be OK, Irma. I’m sure we will.’

But though she spoke with confidence, she didn’t expect the girl to take the words at face value. Müller didn’t even believe them herself.

51

Day Seventeen.

The Harz mountains, East Germany.

Müller was left alone with Irma overnight, their hands untied, their legs shackled to the floor, with just filthy damp mattresses and blankets as bedding. She held the girl’s hand. She knew that wasn’t just to give the teenager comfort. Müller herself needed that connection with living flesh and blood. Irma was asleep, breathing heavily – more accustomed to her captivity than Müller was. The detective tossed and turned as far as her shackles and injuries would allow. Each time she tried to move, the stabbing pains from her legs reminded her of the crash into the tripwire.

In the darkness, she thought of Tilsner. There was nothing she could do for her deputy. She didn’t know his precise fate, but when they’d been bundled into the Soviet 4x4, she was conscious that he was already in his death throes. Her prospects – and those of the girl she was trying to save – didn’t seem much better. Whoever had captured her and the girl she was certain it must be someone connected to Neumann and the
Jugendwerkhof
on Prora. Although the guards to this hideout had worn snow camouflage dress similar to that of the Republic’s People’s Army, this was no formal arrest.

What of Gottfried? As far as she knew, he was still incarcerated by the Stasi, unless Jäger had fulfilled his part of the bargain and had somehow got him free or reduced the charges he faced. She’d missed her opportunity to help him. She should have acted earlier. Why hadn’t she asked Schmidt to examine the photos of Gottfried and the murdered girl straightaway and give her an immediate assessment of her husband’s claims that they were fakes? Now she was helpless, and couldn’t believe she or Irma were going to get out of here alive, or that she would ever see Gottfried and their Schönhauser Allee home again. She remembered what had been done to Beate, before and after death, and shuddered.