Stasi Child (39 page)

‘They’re the original surveillance photographs from the sanatorium at the Rügen youth workhouse. Ackermann and Pawlitzki, working together, seem to have used them to mock up the photographs of your husband. We found both their fingerprints on them.’

Müller replaced the negatives, then handed the envelope back to the Stasi lieutenant colonel. She didn’t want them. It was part of her history now. A part she wanted to forget.

‘What about the Volvo limousine? I still don’t understand why that was used?’

‘We’re not sure who dumped the body. We think it was Neumann – or Pawlitzki if you prefer – using Ackermann’s limo. Ackermann had an identical one to the one at the West Berlin hire place; he would use it on visits to the western sector. Visiting prostitutes – though why he needed to go to the West to do that, I don’t know. There’s plenty this side of the barrier, including – by the way – Beate Ewert’s mother. That’s how her daughter ended up in the
Jugendwerkhof
system. Her mother was considered an unsuitable role model. Anyway, Ackermann regularly swapped the two cars round. We’re not sure why. We don’t even know if the hire company ever realised which car was which.’

Müller frowned. ‘But if he could do all that, why did he and Neumann need to dig the tunnel in the mine? He could have simply defected at any stage.’

‘The tunnel must have been their last resort. One he had to use when he finally realised we were onto him, and when we’d sealed the Republic’s borders. That was why the initial investigation had to be headed by you, a People’s Police detective, rather than anyone in the Stasi. We didn’t want him to realise he was being investigated by members of his own Ministry.’

‘And what about all the convenient geographical clues?’ asked Müller.

Jäger shrugged. ‘I don’t really understand that myself. All I know is that they fitted in with the rumours we’d heard about illicit activity on the part of Ackermann: the parties involving underage girls on Rügen. We knew three of them had gone missing. The rumours reached another of the Ministry’s deputy heads: Markus Wolf, head of the Main Intelligence Directorate. He decided the bad apple at the top of the pile had to be removed – but, as I said, we couldn’t have Stasi agents investigating Stasi generals.’

Müller frowned. ‘Maybe what Pawlitzki claimed about the clues was the case, then?’

‘What was that?’

‘That he wanted to lure me there. That he knew I would be investigating the case.’

Picking up a pen, Jäger seemed to make a note of what she was saying. Unless he was just doodling on the pad. She couldn’t quite see. ‘That’s possible, I suppose. You were the Mitte murder squad head.’

‘Were?’ asked Müller, alarmed.

‘We may have a new role for you,’ said Jäger, twirling round on the seat like a young boy with a new discovery.

‘I don’t want a new role.’

He smiled at her. ‘Don’t reject it out of hand. I’ll let you know more about it in due course.’

There was something else left unanswered, which Müller needed to know. ‘What will happen to Irma?’

Jäger gave a long sigh, then clicked the end of the pen and placed it down. ‘She will have to return to the
Jugendwerkhof
. ’

‘No!’ interrupted Müller. ‘She’s not going back there. I won’t allow it.’

Her outburst seemed to leave Jäger unperturbed. ‘I don’t see that you have any choice in the matter,’ he said. ‘She is under the care of the Ministry of Education, not the
Volkspolizei
. She is very fortunate not to be facing a murder charge.’

‘There are no witnesses. Neither Vogel nor I would testify against her. Surely you cannot be so cruel as to send her back to that godforsaken place?’

Jäger looked at her sternly. ‘Careful, Karin. I’ve already done a lot for you, made sure you aren’t facing any disciplinary charges. Why should I go out on a limb over this, and why do you care?’

‘It’s just those girls . . . they could . . . they could be –’

‘Your daughter? The one you aborted?’

His words were like a stab to Müller’s heart. ‘How . . . How do you know about that?’

‘It’s the Ministry for State Security’s job to know about people. Especially those working for it. That’s one of the reasons you were chosen for this case. You had a very personal reason to make sure those involved were brought to justice. The other reason, of course, is that you’re young, inexperienced, slightly out of your depth.’ Müller knew she ought to feel anger at the slight, but she’d long suspected Jäger hadn’t recruited her on the basis of ability. ‘Your youth made you vulnerable, malleable. More willing to do what I required.’

Müller slumped forward in her chair, trying to shut out what he was saying. She’d removed her sling the previous day when she’d gone down the mine, and hadn’t put it back on. But the wound in her arm still hurt as she held her head in her hands.

A small smile played on Jäger’s face. He didn’t seem like the affable western newsreader now. ‘However, turning back to Irma Behrendt’s future, there may be another way,’ he said. ‘We might be prepared to let Irma stay with her grandmother at the campsite in Sellin. Her mother is due for release from jail shortly, isn’t she?’

‘I think that’s right.’ Müller no longer trusted anything Jäger said or did.

‘I will have to speak to Irma first,’ he said. ‘She will have to agree to certain conditions. But yes, it might be possible to meet both your wishes and our needs at the same time.’

He rose from the chair. ‘I think that just about concludes things here. Why don’t I take you to see Tilsner?’

59

March 1975.

East Berlin.

As she looked through the window of the door into the intensive care unit, Müller was shocked by the number of tubes attached to her deputy. His face was partially covered with a breathing mask, and the surrounding flesh was horribly pale. She was about to push open the door when Jäger reached out his arm to stop her and gestured with his eyes to the side of the room.

There sat Koletta – his wife – and his two children. They wouldn’t welcome her. Koletta would blame her for leading her husband into danger, even if she knew nothing of Müller and Tilsner’s intimacy. She backed away, and slumped on a seat in the corridor outside. Jäger sat down next to her.

‘He’s a good officer. For you . . . and for us,’ he said.

Müller wasn’t sure how Jäger would expect her to react, whether he thought she would be surprised. But she wasn’t. She’d guessed some time ago, although she could not have guessed whether the arrangement was official. What Jäger was saying was simply confirmation. She shrugged, as though it didn’t matter to her.

Jäger smiled. ‘Who do you think radioed to tip us off from the Brocken when you insisted on setting off on your lunatic mission with just two officers and two guns? If he hadn’t, you wouldn’t be standing here now, and I would be attending a double funeral.’

‘Was that what he was doing when he went off on his own in West Berlin?’ she asked.

Jäger nodded. ‘He needed to pick up some documents for a little industrial espionage racket we were running.’

She sighed. ‘He’s still a good man. He’s someone you’d want on your side rather than the enemy’s.’

‘A good man. I’d agree. And a good photographer.’

Müller felt the blood drain from her face. She turned towards the Stasi
Oberstleutnant
, her brow furrowing. ‘But you said it was Pawlitzki and Ackermann who faked those pictures of Gottfried with the girl.’

Jäger laughed. ‘That’s right. Tilsner’s interest was in photographing churches.’ Müller gasped, but Jäger wasn’t finished. ‘But why he provided pictures to the Ministry for State Security from his own apartment is more of a mystery. Perhaps he had a personal reason for wanting your marriage to come to an end?’

It was the final straw for Müller. She grabbed Jäger by the lapels of his coat. ‘You bastard,’ she spat.

He smiled, and loosened her fingers. ‘Careful, Karin. After all that’s happened it would be unfortunate if you found yourself on a disciplinary charge after all.’

She got up, straightened her coat and stomped off down the corridor without a backward glance. The
Arschloch
! She’d gone along with his little games, done her best, but she wasn’t playing them anymore.

When she reached her apartment block on Schönhauser Allee, she saw the Bäckerei Schäfer van had returned to its usual place. That was probably Jäger’s doing too. In the lobby, she stopped to pick up her mail: three letters – two official-looking ones and one with a West German postmark.

Her legs weighed her down as she climbed the stairs to the apartment. Frau Ostermann’s door clicked open when she reached the landing. The infernal woman had probably been watching out for her.

‘Frau Müller,’ she said. ‘Is everything OK between you and your husband? I haven’t seen him around much recently.’

Müller turned to the interfering woman. ‘Is that any business of yours, Citizen Ostermann? I don’t think it is, is it?’

The woman snorted, and clicked her door shut again, retreating inside. Once the door closed, Müller shot her the
Mittelfinger
. She wasn’t in the mood.

Müller entered the flat with a heavy heart. It would be quiet enough for Ostermann from now on. Because there was just her. On her own.

She closed the apartment door and slumped on the sofa, the exhaustion of the last few days and weeks catching up with her. Placing the two official-looking letters on the coffee table, she tore open the West German postmarked one, half-suspecting who it was from. She could feel tears begin to prick her eyes, but tried to fight them back as she read the typewritten letter, dated from two days earlier:

Heilbronn,

Federal Republic of Germany

Dear Karin

I’m sorry it had to come to this, and I am sorry I didn’t get a chance to see you before I left. You’ll know by now that those photographs from the reform school were fakes. But apart from that, after what you told me about you and Tilsner, the deal they offered me to leave the Republic was too good to turn down.

That does not mean that I do not think of you with affection. I still do. We had a lot of good times together. But I always felt there was something missing from your life – some big sadness – and I was never able to compensate for that fully. Perhaps you will manage to find someone else who will.

Anyway, this is just a very quick note to say there are no hard feelings on my part. I would hope one day that I will be able to visit you and that we can remain friends at least, and that you will remember me fondly.

I’m hoping that I may be able to land a job quite quickly, despite the poor unemployment situation in the West. Good maths teachers are in short supply, and there’s a position I’m going to see about tomorrow in Bad Wimpfen – a small town near here in a pretty spot on the River Neckar. It’s all quite exciting, if a little frightening.

Don’t think badly of me.

At the end of the typing, the only piece of handwriting: his name, Gottfried, and a single ‘X’ for a kiss.

Karin ignored the other two letters. Instead, she went to the bedroom and reached up to the top of the wardrobe for the key. Then she sat on the end of the bed and turned the drawer lock.

Sometimes just stroking the clothes would be enough to comfort her. But not today. She got out the two sets of baby clothes, one blue and one pink, and arranged them carefully side by side on the bed. She stroked them as the tears fell. Because Pawlitzki hadn’t been cheated of one son or daughter – he’d been cheated out of one of each: a boy and a girl. Twins that, if she’d continued with her unwanted pregnancy, would have put an end to her police career there and then.

The twins that she knew she could never replace.

Oberleutnant
Karin Müller had lost her babies, lost her husband and didn’t know if her deputy would survive his injuries. But she had saved a young girl’s life. She hoped Irma Behrendt would now find happiness and make the best of her second chance.

60

March 1975.

Ostseebad Sellin, Rügen, East Germany.

I’m so excited. Over the past few years – years of utter misery – this is the day I’ve been waiting for, and I know Oma feels just the same. Our little gathering is quite small. Some people in the town still do not want to be seen with us. I suppose I can understand that. But those of us who are here have dressed in our best clothes, put on our finest make-up, even polished our shoes.

In the last week, I’ve been helping Oma make the small campsite house look attractive once more. Repainting the front in brilliant white that sparkles in the spring sun. And then helping her bake the cakes and make the paper decorations. It won’t be long until Oma will open for the season, at Easter, and she has promised that if trade is good, I can have a job looking after the campsite, earning my own money at last. Not the pathetic pocket money at the
Jugendwerkhof
, but a proper wage, albeit a small one.

The front doorbell rings. We shush each other and giggle, trying but failing to keep quiet. Laurenz – Frau Brinkerhoff’s son – gives me a look of encouragement, and a smile. I blush under his gaze. He’s asked me out next week, to the cinema in Göhren, up the road. My first proper date. I’m so nervous.

The bell rings a second time. I can see the shadow of someone through the knobbly-glazed front door. Before I open it, I check my new hairstyle in the hall mirror and brush my fringe out of my eyes.

As I pull the door open, and see her, I’m already speaking: ‘I’m sorry we don’t have any spaces free. We’re not open for the season yet.’

I see her face crease in confusion.

‘I . . . I . . . haven’t come to camp here,’ she stutters. I know she’s wondering who this new girl is at the door. Finally, I see her look again at my red hair, at the colour of my eyes. She realises who I am, and that I’m joking.

‘Irma!’ she cries. ‘Is it really you?’ I just nod, and she hugs me – tighter than she’s ever hugged me before. I can’t speak because I know that then the tears will fall, and won’t stop. She breaks the hug, and pushes me back slightly to take another look. She strokes my face. ‘You’re so beautiful. What’s happened to you? My beautiful, beautiful girl.’ The tears are flowing down her face freely. She is thinner than I remember. She has more lines and wrinkles, probably more than she should at her age. The years in jail have taken their toll.