“So this is where you saw them?”
I’d already told her twice and now Erika was asking me again. We were standing in front of the Durchgangsheim, Erika had a map in her hands.
“And they came from there?” she asked, pointing right.
“Erika, how many times? I was standing here, they came round that corner in a car.” I took the map off her. “Why don’t we just go and have a look what’s round that bend?”
I had a look at the map, and saw why Erika was so confused. There wasn’t anything much around the corner: a church, three shipyards, a few houses, a couple of other buildings and what looked like a park.
“Well, they won’t have been at the shipyards, will they? So let’s concentrate on those other buildings.”
“Why have they got it in for Martin?” I wondered aloud while we walked towards the end of the peninsular.
“Bad luck, I guess. Martin always manages to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But he’d probably say it’s the other way round: that he’s always in the right place.”
I tried to grin at Erika’s crap attempt at humour. “But this all seems so, I don’t know, kinda random.”
We’d passed the church and graveyard and the last residential house.
“Maybe it is random. But Kaminsky needs a scapegoat. He’s been winding the whole country up for weeks, you know how tense it’s become. Now he needs a trigger to make that tension spill over into action.”
“So you think Kaminsky could have planned this?” Erika’s theory reminded me of what Dmitri had said. Kaminsky was a real piece of shit, but would he gamble everything on something so risky?
“Framing Martin benefits Kaminsky,” she replied.
We’d left the last boatyard behind, the clanging of hammers and the ring of tools faded. Calm descended—birds twittering, children playing—I could even hear the lapping of the river against the pilings. The kids that I’d heard were outside a building with lots of large windows. A woman, just a bit older than me, was keeping an eye on them.
“What’s this place?” I asked her, trying to look friendly.
“We call it the Blue House. And what do we call yous?”
“We’re looking for two men who were in this area last week.” Erika showed the woman her RS pass.
The woman laughed. “Well, if yous are looking for men hanging around ye’ve come to the right place! Blue House is where us bargees hole up while we wait to go through West Berlin.” She gestured at a couple of freighters that were moored up nearby, and then at another dozen or so on the far side of the peninsular. “We’ve been held up these last few weeks because the Wessis are playing silly buggers with the border checks. And afore you ask we can’t get down the River Oder because water levels are low. So we’re stuck hanging around here, just like the old days.”
Erika poked a couple of photos under her nose, probably to shut her up.
“Who are they?”
“Have you ever seen either of these men?”
“That one’s a cop!” the woman stabbed her finger at Steinlein’s mugshot. “I saw him once in uniform, lots of silver and gold pips weighing down his shoulders. But usually he was just wearing normal clothes-”
“When did you see him?”
“I dunno, when did we arrive? Must have been Thursday, yeah, Thursday because Willi was bringing his lighters over from the power station. I was stood here watching them come alongside when I saw that cop. Limping, had a cane. But as for that other one …” She shook her head.
“Anyone here who might have seen this person?” Erika shuffled Martin’s picture to the top.
“You’ll be after asking old Henning. Goes to church twice a day, and wanders up and down the road when he’s not on his knees. That’s his boat, there, the push tug, keeps it nice and tidy, does our Henning-”
“Could you fetch Henning for us?”
Erika was being so patient, I would have totally lost it by now if I’d been asking the questions. But the woman was already heading into the Blue House, still talking: “You mind and keep an eye on those kids for me …”
As soon as she was out of earshot I grabbed Erika’s arm, shaking her with excitement.
“We’re finally getting somewhere, we know Steinlein was here last Thursday!” I said to her.
“Don’t get your hopes up too soon, we’ll need a lot more than this to get Martin out. And until we do, we haven’t got any hope of stopping Kaminsky.”
Before I got totally depressed by Erika’s über‑realism this Henning guy appeared. He wasn’t that old, maybe the same age as Martin or Erika, so definitely not quite ancient. He lumbered to a halt in front of us, and stood, waiting patiently for something to happen. At least it didn’t look like he was going to blether on and on like the last person.
“We’re wondering if anyone here saw either of these two men,” said Erika holding out the photos of Martin and Steinlein.
“Aye.”
“Which one?”
“That one first.” He pointed at Martin’s picture. “Looked beat up. Black eyes, bit of a limp. Thursday it were. Then the second one come out about ten minutes later. He had a limp too, worse than the other.”
“Where?”
The man walked a few paces until he had a clear view down the road and pointed.
“That building there?” Erika asked.
The man nodded, waiting patiently for further questions.
“What were they doing in there?”
“How would I know a thing like that? Plenty of shouting, mind. Could hear them cussing and blinding from the road.” Henning shook his head in disgust.
“Did you see either of them before Thursday?”
“Just that once. But if you ask Paule, he were here since the Monday of last week.”
“Can we speak to Paule?”
“Ha! Only if yous are psychic.”
Psychic? The way he said it made me think of sinking boats and drowning sailors, or maybe Steinlein ran amok with his service weapon. But it was more prosaic than that.
“Our Paule and his crew: long gone. Set off yesterday, they did. Tekkin’ a load up to Eberswalde.”
***
Erika got on the smoky Ikarus bus to the S-Bahn station. She’d be in Oranienburg in just over an hour, hopefully she’d manage to catch up with Paule’s barge and get a statement from him. It definitely looked like Dmitri was right: Martin and Steinlein had been up to something. Which meant Steinlein should know what Martin was doing last week.
Steinlein was the key to this whole thing. But what part had he played? He was based out of Schottstrasse police station, same as Neumann, and that was where they’d charged Martin—was Steinlein involved in framing our friend?
I crossed the road to look at the weird little building that the bargee had pointed out. It was half pre-fab concrete, half old-build. Two rusty gates closed off the drive, one of the gateposts had a sign: Council of Ministers of the GDR. Weeds were growing through the concrete slabs of the driveway.
But the thing that I noticed was that some of the weeds were crushed, as if they’d been driven over.
I tried the gate, expecting it to be all creaky and squeally, but it swung open soundlessly. I had a look around: three doors, I checked the locks on each. I looked through the dusty window of the first door, I could see a hall and a flight of stairs. On one side was a metal cupboard, the doors hanging open, revealing empty shelves. There was nothing else to see. A look through the windows told me all the other rooms on the ground floor were just as empty, just some of those gormless portraits of Erich Honecker which suggested the building hadn’t been used for over four years. But the crushed weeds told a different tale.
I was cycling away, heading towards Ostkreuz, trying to solve the riddle of the crushed grass when two cops waved to me from the side of the road. I looked around, no-one else about, they were definitely flagging me down.
I pulled into the kerb and put my hand into my pocket, reaching for my RS pass.
“What are you doing here, miss?” asked one.
“State business,” I answered, showing them my RS pass.
The one that had spoken took my pass, looked at it then gave it back to me. As soon as I’d pulled the pass on them their arrogance had given way to confusion.
They took a few steps back and held a short, worried conference.
“Our apologies, miss, we’ve received reports of suspicious activity … person answering your description.” The cop touched his fingers to the peak of his cap, and I cycled on.
At the next corner I looked over my shoulder. One of the cops was holding his radio mike to his mouth, the other was staring after me.