Stasi Child (26 page)

‘We have no record of that,’ said the officer in the centre of the table. ‘And
Oberstleutnant
Jäger has been removed from the case too.’ Müller tried to disguise her shock at this news. ‘And for you,
Oberleutnant
, things are more complicated. As well as exceeding your authority, I gather you’re aware by now that your husband stands accused of anti-state –’

‘I haven’t been allowed to see my husband.’

‘We will see about rectifying that.’

The chairman of her inquisitors gave a questioning glance to his right, the opposite side to Reiniger, where an officer in the olive-green uniform of the Stasi gave a small nod. ‘You will be allowed an accompanied visit to your husband. But you have to understand that his activities – if proven – are incompatible with the husband of an officer of the People’s Police. So, should you be allowed to continue with your career once our inquiry is over, it will be on the understanding that you obtain a divorce. In the meantime, you too may return to your office, and wait for
Oberst
Reiniger to assign you new duties.’

‘So I’m being removed from the Mitte Murder Commission?’

‘No. Not for the time being. But – as I said – the missing person’s inquiry in connection with the body of the girl at St Elisabeth cemetery is being taken away from you. You should do nothing – I repeat
nothing
– more in connection with the case. Do you understand, Comrade
Oberleutnant
?’

Müller nodded. She felt numbed. Was this the beginning of the end of her police career? Perhaps – back at the graveyard when this had all started – Tilsner had been right. They never should have become involved in this case. But Jäger hadn’t really given them any choice.

‘You can go back to the office now,
Oberleutnant
,’ said Reiniger. ‘I will speak to you later today about your new duties, and about arranging a visit to your husband.’

Müller stood and saluted, then turned on her heels. All she could think of was the poor girl in the cemetery, her eyeless sockets and the pathetic black nail ‘varnish’. As she closed the door on the five officers, she wondered if anyone would bother – or dare – to challenge the official account of the girl’s death, now that she and Jäger had been conveniently removed from the equation.

35

Day Thirteen.

East Berlin.

Müller stared up at the grim buildings that housed the Stasi headquarters, after being summoned there from the office in Marx-Engels-Platz just an hour after leaving the meeting in Keibelstrasse. On all sides, pebble-dash beige concrete walls towered above her, with darker bands of brown highlighting some of the floors – at least twice as high as Prora, maybe more. Was Gottfried being held in one of these rooms? That’s what she’d perhaps naively assumed. But she was wrong: the tall, sharp-faced Stasi captain who’d met her at the checkpoint –
Hauptmann
Schiller – was planning on taking her on a car journey.

She followed the Stasi officer to rows of parked cars in the central courtyard. He went to one of them, and opened the door for her. It was a Volvo.
Of course
. Müller ducked inside. Leather seats, the smell not unlike the Mercedes they’d used to go to West Berlin. She hunched herself into the seat as Schiller opened the driver’s door and climbed in.

After driving through unfamiliar eastern parts of the Hauptstadt, they came to another checkpoint, and Schiller again flashed his ID as a guard peered in through the window.

Once they were waved through, Schiller finally broke the silence. ‘You’re privileged,
Oberleutnant
,’ he said. ‘This is a restricted zone. Even for a
Kriminalpolizei
officer like yourself. You won’t find it on any street maps of the Hauptstadt.’

On their right, she saw a watchtower at the corner of a four-metre high wall, topped with barbed wire. It looked like a section of the protection barrier, although this was several kilometres further east. ‘Here we are,’ said Schiller.

The Stasi captain again showed his pass and the gates to the compound opened. Schiller parked the Volvo in the courtyard, turned the engine off and then gestured to Müller to follow him inside.

Their footsteps echoed down a series of corridors – a labyrinth she knew she would have no way of negotiating without someone to guide her. Every few metres there were gates of steel bars, with some sort of control lighting system.
Green on, red off
. Müller wondered what it meant when the lights were switched the other way.

Towards the end of a particularly long corridor, Schiller stopped at a door on the left and knocked. A male voice commanded them to enter.

A middle-aged man with a round face and too obviously dyed black hair stood up as they entered, rubbing his eyes and then replacing his spectacles. Schiller performed the introductions.

‘
Oberleutnant
Müller, this is
Major
Hunsberger. He’s in charge of the investigation into your husband, Gottfried.’

The Stasi major ushered them to sit. ‘I’m pleased to meet you,
Oberleutnant
Müller, though I wish the circumstances were more pleasant. In a moment we will bring your husband in to see you, but there are a few things we need you to look at first.’

Müller nodded, but said nothing.

Hunsberger reached into the pile of papers on his desk, and drew out a selection, which he placed in front of him, smoothing out the pages. He pushed his glasses back up his nose again, and brandished one of the documents between his thumb and forefinger. ‘What we have here is a signed request from your husband Gottfried to terminate your marriage.’

‘
He
wants to divorce
me
?’

‘That’s correct,’ said Hunsberger. ‘I believe you have already been briefed about our surveillance pictures showing you with your deputy, Werner Tilsner. We, of course, had to show those to your husband.’

Müller felt a sudden coldness inside. She breathed, slowly, deeply. Struggling for air.

‘He requests a divorce on the grounds of your adultery.’

She held the Stasi officer’s gaze. ‘I didn’t commit adultery. Those photographs are not what they seem. This is outrageous!’

Hunsberger ignored her denial, but paused a moment. ‘However,’ he continued, placing the document to one side, and instead picking up a photograph, ‘it doesn’t suit our purposes for the divorce to be initiated by him. We simply wanted to demonstrate to you that your marriage has no future. I think you’d agree with me there. And while you were away in Rügen, we received new evidence. This.’ Hunsberger thrust the photograph under her nose.

Müller recoiled in shock. She immediately recognised the girl in the photo from the pictures reluctantly supplied by the
Jugendwerkhof
deputy director: it was Beate Ewert. Here she was with her eyes closed, the back of a man’s head in view, his hand on her teenaged breast. Hunsberger handed her a second photo, from a slightly different angle. Now, from the side of the man’s face, she could clearly see it was Gottfried, kissing the girl on the mouth.
No!
This couldn’t be true. These photos had to be fakes. She swallowed repeatedly, fighting the urge to be sick. Hands shaking, she turned the photos face down.

Now it was Schiller’s turn to speak. ‘I’m sorry we had to show you these, Comrade
Oberleutnant
. The girl is only fifteen. You know what that means from your police legal training?’

Müller nodded. ‘Section 149 of the Republic’s criminal code,’ she said in a quiet voice.

‘Exactly,
Oberleutnant
Müller,’ said Hunsberger. ‘In the event a victim’s moral immaturity is exploited, then the perpetrator is guilty of a criminal act. But irrespective of the criminality or not, is this really the sort of man to whom you wish to be married?’

Schiller joined the fray now. ‘If so,
Oberleutnant
, I’m afraid you will have to resign from the force immediately.’

Müller felt as though her whole body was collapsing in on itself. She couldn’t believe this was something Gottfried would do; yet now those pictures were indelibly etched on her brain. Shocking images. If she accepted them as fact, she knew she had to accept that she had married a pervert. She and Gottfried had their problems, and their marriage had long been teetering on the edge of breakdown, but surely he wouldn’t have stooped to that?

With tears beginning to pool in her eyes, she raised her head and looked first at Schiller, then Hunsberger. ‘I need to talk to him first. Whatever evidence you have, whatever photographs you have, I need to hear it from him. You must at least allow me that.’

The two Stasi officers looked at each other, then Hunsberger nodded. ‘We will let you see your husband now.’

They seemed content to leave her alone in the interrogation room until Gottfried was brought to her. But judging by what had happened so far – the photographs she’d been shown – she was under surveillance anyway.

She fiddled with the buttons on her jacket as she waited. What she’d seen – Gottfried molesting Beate – it didn’t bear thinking about. It was scarcely credible. And yet the evidence was there.

As Gottfried was finally brought into the room by one of the guards, she found herself moving back in her chair towards the window, edging away. He hadn’t looked up, and his cowed demeanour indicated that he believed he’d been brought in here for another bout of questioning. She noticed a bruise on the side of his face. Apart from that, his skin was deathly pale, his eyes sunken into their sockets. Finally, as the guard cuffed Gottfried’s hands together, her husband raised his head.

‘Karin!’ he said, clearly shocked at her presence. She didn’t react, just continued to stare at him. Part of her wanted to reach out to him, to hug him close, to give him comfort. Part of her wanted to tear his hair out. How could he have done such a thing? Gottfried had always been so considerate, so attentive to her needs. The first time they’d made love he had immediately sensed that she’d been damaged, that she needed tenderness. Yet the photographs now in the hands of the Ministry for State Security told a very different story.

‘Karin, they’ve done a terrible thing to me. To us. The photo of me with the girl. You know it’s faked, don’t you?’

Müller shook her head, sadly. ‘Why would anyone fake that, Gottfried? How could anyone fake a photograph like that?’

‘Please, Karin. Believe me. You must believe me. You know they’ve done it – you saw the fakes they made of you kissing Tilsner,’ he continued. ‘I know I’ve been very suspicious and possessive, but in my heart I know you wouldn’t do that to me.’ Müller said nothing, and Gottfried continued, a half-crazed look in his eyes. ‘I knew it couldn’t be true, but they made me sign a document asking for a divorce. At first I believed it must be true, but then they showed me the doctored photo of me with Beate. It’s disgusting. It never happened. What are they trying to do to us? Can’t you do something?’

Müller closed her eyes for a few seconds, and clasped her hands tightly together in an attempt to stop them shaking. She didn’t know what to think. Everything just seemed to be falling apart. Did she believe him? He was obviously capable of deception: the condom packet hidden on top of their wardrobe in the apartment was sufficient evidence of that. She gave a long sigh. ‘And the photograph of you at the church with the Pastor? That’s a fake too, I suppose?’

She watched her husband’s head drop to his chest.

‘No,’ he said, his voice barely a whisper. ‘I shouldn’t have done it. I put you in an embarrassing position. I’m sorry.’ Then he lifted his head again, his eyes still full of paranoia. ‘I didn’t even visit Beate in the sanatorium; it was Irma, her friend. They’ve doctored the photograph, just like with you and Tilsner –’

Müller felt the moisture gathering in her eyes. Gottfried tried to reach out to her, but she pushed his hand away. ‘The photo of Tilsner and me is accurate. It’s what happened,’ she said flatly.

She saw in his eyes, his expression, that he felt she’d betrayed him. All of a sudden, the fight seemed to go out of him. He slumped in his chair.

‘They’ve asked me to sign the divorce papers –’

‘– no, no, please Karin, please help me, I –’

‘I don’t know what to think,’ said Müller. She met his eyes and stared hard into them. ‘If what you say is correct, it calls into question the very methods of the Ministry for State Security. So be careful what you say out loud, whatever you believe.’

‘But will you help me?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t even know if I can. I’m just an
Oberleutnant
in the People’s Police – people far more senior than me are in charge.’

‘Please, Karin. Please. I swear to you I’m telling the truth.’

Gottfried got down on his knees. She tried to pull him to his feet, and then bent to whisper in his ear. ‘I don’t know if I can help you, but I will try. But if it turns out you’re lying, and if that ends my career –’ She didn’t complete the sentence. Instead, she gently moved his chin up, so he had to meet her eyes. In doing that, she felt his weakness, felt that he was a broken man and felt that they still had some connection, no matter how badly it had been strained.

‘Guards,’ she shouted. The guard waiting outside the door unlocked it and strode in. ‘Please take this prisoner back to his cell.’ She turned away from Gottfried, and stared out of the window.

‘Karin! Karin!’ he shouted. ‘At least get someone to examine the photographs.’ She didn’t turn round. Not until she heard the metallic clang of the door being closed. Then she picked up the black-and-white prints that Hunsberger had left on the desk, and rang for Schiller to escort her out.

As Schiller drove past the barrier that signalled the edge of the restricted area, he asked Müller where she wanted to be taken. She thought about it for a moment. In many ways, she didn’t want to go back to the flat – it would seem cold, empty, lonely, and in her current mood she wasn’t sure she could cope with it. The only way she would survive this would be by throwing herself into her work, so maybe she should go to the office. But the empty apartment would have to be faced some time.

‘Take me to Schönhauser Allee, please.’