Dark Mermaids E-Book

Anne Lauppe-Dunbar

• Herausgeber: Seren
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 391

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

A shocking story of the horrors of a political system that doped its youngsters to sporting superhero status, and then left them to fend for themselves. Shortlisted for the Impress and Cinnamon First Novel Prize, this East German noir thriller is set in 1990, a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Unhappy West Berlin police officer Sophia is called on to investigate the murder of her childhood friend Käthe, after her beaten body is discovered in Sophia's local park. Sophia is forced to return to the hometown she fled as a teenager with her enigmatic father Petrus, and Mia - a frightened child who turned up on her doorstep. She must investigate Käthe's murder and care for a mother she believed abandoned her. As she reluctantly delves into the sordid Stasi secrets of those she grew up with, Sophia uncovers a web of horrors about her own abusive past as a child-swimming star in the former GDR. But her hunt for the truth has not gone unnoticed by those close to her, people who still have too much to hide.

Leseprobe

Contents

Title PageDedicationCHAPTER ONECHAPTER TWOCHAPTER THREECHAPTER FOURCHAPTER FIVECHAPTER SIXCHAPTER SEVENCHAPTER EIGHTCHAPTER NINECHAPTER TENCHAPTER ELEVENCHAPTER TWELVECHAPTER THIRTEENCHAPTER FOURTEENCHAPTER FIFTEENCHAPTER SIXTEENCHAPTER SEVENTEENAcknowledgementsAbout the AuthorCopyrightSeren

Dark Mermaids

Anne Lauppe-Dunbar

To Stevie my teacher and friend without whom none of this would have been possible. To Ian who kept my feet steady and my heart strong; and my lovely two: Fiona and Jessica.

CHAPTER ONE

~

Berlin 1990

Pulling on her leather coat, Sophia strode along Bellevue- strasse, jumping on the U-Bahn crammed with fresh tourists ready for a weekend of the city’s particular magic. A group of drinkers lurched from one compartment to another, waving bottles and cans and growling out old songs about never-ending forests and mountains. Folding her long legs under the icy metal seat, Sophia burrowed into the worn coat, tucked her hair under the collar and thought about sex, as the night sky hung fog-mantled over the city and station signs and distant winding streets blurred.

Leaving Potsdamer Platz, they crossed the border where the Wall had just recently stood. The group roared, toasting one another with mouthfuls of supermarketSchnapps. An old woman, in matching nettle-green coat and handbag, sank further into her corner. She opened the bag just a crack. A flash of white. A pink nose nudged, then stained teeth chewed at the leather rim. One of the men prodded his mate. Pointed. The pair closed in. The woman zipped her bag shut as the drinker’s mate grinned and spat. His phlegm landed, a gelid mound, between Sophia and the door as, with a squeal of brakes, the U-Bahn juddered to a halt at Friedrichstrasse. The woman stepped onto the platform as the group yodelled a discordant chorus. Sophia followed, smiling as the woman whispered ‘Idioten’ to the rabbit in the bag.

The pavements were so full she had to dodge into the street to avoid the swarm. Talking, shouting, touching and laughing. EatingBratwurstwithSauerkraut, the city folk drankGlühweinfrom a forest of market stalls that had sprung up along Unter den Linden even though it was only November. Why couldn’t they stay at home and watch the news? They wanted, she supposed, to talk about their neighbours’ new freedom. To laugh and stare. The market traders responded by hiking up prices. It was all too easy to encourage the flood of visitors that poured in from East Germany to traipse across the old border, then spend what little money they had.

There they were: pointing at the former checkpoint. Staring at the newly created window displays, forming orderly queues at the entrance, until someone took pity and told themto open the door and go in. Every face was fixed in an expression of wonder, as if they’d stepped through the door into a Disney theme park full of brand new fridges and American jeans.

Tonight though, crowds were welcome. Moving between them, Sophia kept her eyes firmly on the pavement, although every now and then she checked the edge of the throng for green uniforms that could spell danger.

A large guy trailing a wailing child collided with her and apologised profusely, hisEntschuldigungpronounced with a throaty hum. What was that accent? Uneasy, she sidestepped down the next alley, pausing to catch breath and pull her hair back, wrapping the blue-black scarf tightly round her face. Near Rosmarinstrasse, she stopped again – stretching her neck to the sky: the distant boom of music was unmistakable. Heat tingled in her belly and between her legs.

There was the entrance, but a bouncer was leaning against the doorpost watching. She frowned and looked away; there’d been no mention of bouncers in the magazine flyer. Disappointment made her sour and grey. This guy could be a problem: he would remember things like her face. Her fingers burned with such longing that, almost moving against her will, she turned and, head down, dug out the entry fee. Inside the door, she handed over her worn leather coat; grabbed the numbered ticket and squeezed past a couple straining up against the wall. Both were moaning, swapping saliva and skin. The tight fist inside her stomach uncurled, opened, making her sigh as she made her way into the inky-black hall, signalling for a beer to avoid yelling through the booming music.

A swarm of bodies vibrated on the dance floor. Some in perfect rhythm, others touching: hand on shoulder, mouth to ear, leaning close to shout a word or two, weaving one way, swirling the other. Watching them she felt her body swell to a beat strong enough to pulse through bone. What would they see if they looked? A thin unyielding face or the dark-haired beauty Hajo had said she was? Long-limbed, supple with muscled arms and swimmer’s legs. On a good day her eyes were deep blue, like a wolf – flecked with grey.

She checked the edge of the crowd for dealers: one figure joining another, drifting to the fringe, by the doorway, just far enough from the bright lights. The briefest of touches accompanied a nod, a hand to mouth, casually slipping the discreet pill between lips as the buyer swallowed his choice of drug with water or beer. White powder? Finding a clean surface in here to chop and inhale would be impossible. She preferred to inject, but only if the needle came in its plastic sanitised packaging. A cocaine fix was like magic: a buzzing, talking, fizzy-tingle that had walls bulging, the wind whispering crazy secrets to a moon that swung heavy and metallic in the sky. No, tonight she’d buy the white dots that warmed her icy blood enough to dance and, more importantly, feel. She nodded as they glanced towards her. Swapped money for five powdery circular fragments. Bought a glass of cold vodka and placed one ecstasy pill on her tongue.

Now the delicious wait. The smoky room would soon feel hot, thick as a creamy orgasm. Music would blast through loosening bone, slack and easy under deliciously hot, wet skin.

Spotlights swung across the crowd, winking silver to green. She drank until the floor became a sticky pool of sliding limbs, the night at its shuddering darkest. Then she danced, weaving her mind to the sound, moving like silk on water. Now she could see everything and nothing. There were no more boxed-in limitations. No more what she could, and what she could not do, just one long pounding wave of silver-green dancers moving closer.

From the edge of the crowd a slim-hipped stranger separated. His shoulders were broad, hips pushed forward, confident yet enquiring. Her nipples tightened, aching as she watched his shadow thicken moment by moment. He had a cruel full mouth that smiled above a determined chin. Blue eyes, hooded yet bold. Someone she recognised – yet a total stranger. As they danced, Sophia glanced up. His face should be less than symmetrical, the right eye tilting, slanting towards his right ear. But this young man was chiselled and perfect. How would he taste? She licked the downy fur on the back of his neck, slicked with sweat: bit down gently. He gasped, held her wrists and slid close, melting, before thrusting up hard against her.

It was always so easy – this glide from loose to electric, nothing more than motion and sensation. They melted from the crowd, hailed a taxi. In his apartment she undressed as he watched, one hand moving in practised rhythm. ‘Kneel on the bed,’ he told her. Oh. She could feel him, right there. Skin on skin. Deeper. Working with an intense, furious focus. She moaned, drifted in the white-pill dream. Muscles strained. She was swimming. Water above and below. No. She was lying on the bed. Not in water. The stranger was hunched above her, his face twisted tight. Eyes shut. She moved up/down, closed her eyes, swimming through bleached light that rippled across pale blue tiles lining the bottom of the pool. Raised her eyes above the surface. Noise. Row after row of children paraded to clapping hands. Eyes stared. Voices whispered, ‘Faster. Turn now, turn.’ She shot under-and-through in a practised arch. Dive. Dark shapes leaned over the pool edge, floating, dead. Dead as Diertha. Oh. Swim, swim deeper.

The stranger moaned. Jerked. Swore. Too soon, too soon. He came, tucking his damp face in the curve of her neck like a child. Silence. A distorted clicking. Was that the distant splash of swimmers? She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see. The water was blood. Something wet bumped against her shoulder. What was that bobbing white shape: a child’s limb?

***

Panic: Sophia sat up sick and dizzy. She’d bitten her lip. Gagging, she slipped from the bed and fumbled her way into a strange bathroom. In the dark she trickled water, but not so much as to make a noise. Cupped her hands and rinsed out her mouth. Her jaw, head and shoulders were so tense they burned. Still dizzy, she sneaked back into the bedroom, dreading the possibility that she might have woken him. Thankfully the stranger with the cruel mouth, that mouth, was deep asleep. Sophia fingered her way around the silent room. The curtains were newly washed. A crack of light sneaked between the fabric to rest on a desk and chair, and – halleluiah, most of her clothes were strewn across a second chair by the window.

She peered, then fumbled around at the bottom of the bed to find her knickers. He looked young, so young, too bloody young – talking about banks, his lifeblood circulating numbers and money. At her age she should know better.

Pulling on her coat, she glanced over to the bed with a ready excuse should he wake (people to see, things to do,anything). Crept to the door and carefully released the latch.

Outside in the empty, dimly lit corridor, she leaned against the wall, tasted blood and, deciding against the lift, shoved open the fire exit and limped down the stairs, counting three floors of grey cement lit by a dull, flickering light. At last: out in the open. She spat into the gutter and inhaled the familiar smell of car fumes accompanied by the scent of fresh rain.

A cab was turning the corner into the next street. She whistled. The driver slowed, checking in his mirror to see if she was fit for his newly cleaned cab. The number plate was unknown. Good. She wasn’t in her police uniform, no need to worry. Her hands weren’t shaking, no giveaway signs of drugs or drink. Sophia tied her hair back with her scarf, wiped her mouth, just to make sure, and strode towards the waiting cab.

Home: instinctively she paused and remembered: spies, People’s Police, Stasi? She knew what they could do and listened before opening the main door. Nothing, only the low hum of traffic from across the other side of the park, mixing with the slow air of a Sunday morning. Climbing the stairs to the top floor, she unlocked the apartment; double locked it from inside. Her clothes were gluey with sweat, smoke and the sickly sweet smell of sex. She peeled them off, leaving the pile on the floor and shivered her way to the bathroom, placing the four extra pills she’d bought in a plastic bottle marked Sleeping Pills. Her father might check. He did, she knew he did. Petrus the doctor, always right, always looking out for her. Only last month he’d found out about her secret dancing. She’d called him from a phone box, trying to hide the bruises on her stomach and legs by showing him her face. He’d forced the truth out. Now when he asked if she’d seen sense, she refused to answer.

Peering into the mirror, Sophia opened her mouth wide to stare at a blistering row of tooth marks along its right side. Christ. The purple circles under her eyes made her look like a vampire. Okay, one bruise on her shoulder. Minimal damage, she decided. Though god, it hurt like hell to pee.

Standing in the shower, eyes closed, face turned to the stream of cleansing water, she calmed. Washed her hair, inhaled the comforting normality of eucalyptus shampoo. Lately her dreams had been filled with milky faces that melted before she could see what they wanted. Diertha was one of them. Stupid Diertha, her cousin, roommate and bully at training camp, never seemed to leave her thoughts. During sleep, the ghostly voice told her things she didn’t want to hear. ‘They invited me, not you, to the head office,’ Diertha would boast in her most annoying whiney voice. ‘Your trainer was there. You know the one, little Sophi? Red face. Small hands? They kept me there all night, until I was bleeding.’ Sometimes, she loomed above weighed down with reasons to kill Sophia as she struggled to wake.

Enough. She’d placed that time in the ‘forgotten drawer’. Best to throw away the flimsy dance clothes right now – or at least the moment she was dry, and not go ever again as the nightmares were always worse when she took drugs. That thought had come and gone many times. Now, as before, it vaporised in the steam.

In the kitchen she made strong coffee, adding cream and stirring in three spoons of sugar, lapping up the nectar as dawn broke over a November Berlin. The ghostly voice inside her head wanted her to remember, but her father had insisted she forget, so she’d do what she always did to calm herself. She’d paint. The feel of the brush, the sensation of stroking wet oil to canvas, brought with it the burn of childhood love. Not true mother-love, that had been fleeting, hardly remembered. This love was for Frau Schöller who had cared for Sophia as if she were her own child; showing her how mix colour, how to take joy from simple things like the sun rising, the smell of newly baked bread. When Sophia painted, it was as if, for a short time, she found her way back to that memory.

Dragging the easel to the window, she angled it to face outward; squeezed oils onto the palette. Layering blue on green, she made the sea. That daub of grey was a distant whale, the dash of orange and white: a clown fish darting to safety inside his own anemone-home. Time crept from early morning to a rain-soaked afternoon before she stopped, dipping brushes in white spirit. Her mouth was healing fast so she rinsed with mouthwash, heated the last of the vegetable soup and drank a cup of thick sweet hot chocolate, a leftover of childhood comforts. Finally, when she believed she might sleep, Sophia limped to bed, leaving the light shining in the sitting room. Wrapped tight, eyes closed; she prayed ‘Please, oh please, just let me sleep.’

***

When the alarm began its penetrating ring, Sophia whacked the ‘off’ button and lay dozing in the warmth of the cosy bed, listening to the rain tap against the bedroom window. Wonderful. She’d slept well; something that often happened after.

The side lamp threw an arc of gentle light across the bed and white rug. Shoving her feet in a pair of ratty old slippers, she opened the top right drawer where contents were precisely organised: white bras, folded chastely next to white pants and brown socks. The left drawer was filled withotherunderwear: satin, basque with ruched lace, ribbons and ties, black suspenders – stuff that just wouldn’t fold – her secret life in black and purple.

In the closet, yellow police-issue shirts hung next to brown trousers, keeping company with the solitary spare police jacket. It made no difference that she’d easily earned a place on the informally dressed investigation team, and was often asked for to help with cases the Berlin police found impossible to solve – particularly those that involved people or officers from the GDR. Now, just after the Wall, the west Berlin police were only beginning to realise just how far the Stasi had penetrated every aspect of the eastern police force.

Sophia chose to wear her uniform. If working undercover, she wore black. So what if her colleagues thought her a pedant unable to throw away the vestiges of a GDR childhood.

Showered, she dragged a brush through her hair until every strand was pulled into a neat, tight, bun. A thin face gazed sternly from the mirror. Make-up? She rarely wore any, was resigned to be whatever she was, although often she wasn’t at all sure what that might be. Two skins, she decided, pulling on the uniform daffodil shirt, tucking her portion of the childhood friendship bracelet into her top pocket: two skins that chafed, occasionally moving as one when she was running, frightened or having sex. The pile of clothes still lay on the floor. Disgusting. Pulling on plastic gloves, she dumped everything into a tightly sealed bag.

A shrill buzzing. The bloody doorbell. She leaned forward, peering through the spy hole. No one?

‘There’s a letter for you, Frau Künstler, handwritten,’ Frau Weiner yoo-hooed up the stairs. Out on the landing Sophia lifted her hand in a half wave before retreating and slamming the door. Already three letters made up a pile that sat unread on the kitchen table. Her address – 14 Tiergartenstrasse – written in a slanted, messy hand, a hand she knew only too well. She gulped down coffee with the last of the cream, shrugged on her green jacket and hugged the fabric tight. The safety of a uniform:one of many, not recognisable, not alone. The beige trousers weren’t flattering but they hid her well, as did her cap with the insignia of Police Investigation Squad perched on the front. As she did every morning, she touched the medals that hung by the door. They clinked, a hollow sound against the wall.

Lifting the bag of washing, she ran downstairs, unlocked the mailbox and pushed the latest envelope to the back: out of sight out of mind. In the basement, she dumped the bag on top of her washing machine; turned and unlocked the door through to the garage. Sometimes she ran to work, loving the feel of hard concrete under her feet. But today, already late: she’d take the car. A broken bike, along with a mattress and chair, sat in the furthest corner of the garage, stinking of urine: a clear invitation for homeless drunkards. Right, that was it. The note she stuck on the residents’ board wouldn’t be so damn polite this time. Keeping the windows shut she drove out onto the street, along Kantstrasse towards the Orangerie Pavilion, and finally, left into Charlottenburg police headquarters.

No room in the already over-full car park. She reversed, drove furiously down towards Mollwitzstrasse, squeezing into a narrow space opposite the bakery.Salzbrötchen? The thought of the butter and salt roll made her mouth water. What the hell. She jogged across to the bakery and bought two.

Monday briefing was well underway. There was another bulky envelope on her desk, her name written in capital letters across the front. Why couldn’t Maria leave her be? She listened with half an ear as Hajo, in a clean shirt and rumpled trousers, began to update them about the current investigation while, under the desk like a schoolgirl, she broke her salted roll into chunks. Hajo needed a haircut: thick dark curls nestled along the bottom of a strong neck. How delicious would it be to run her fingers through those curls? She lifted another section of roll to her mouth. Better not be too obvious about chewing.

They’d found a body in a lake at the park right across the road from her apartment. A girl? A woman? No one seemed sure. How difficult could it be?

‘Sophia?’ Hajo was glaring.

‘What?’ A bit of bread lodged itself in her throat.

‘Take Ernst and get down there.’ Her colleagues sniggered as she coughed.

Ernst was an arsehole. True to form he grinned and lifted his middle finger, wiggling it while Sophia caught Hajo’s eye and smiled, showing her teeth. My god, he was grinning back, his green eyes seeing far too much. Lovely eyes: so strong, sure and steady. Her neck grew warm and she looked away. He straightened, broad shoulders stretching, leg muscle tightening under faded blue trousers, and dumped a fresh murder book in front of her, then leaned over. ‘Keep your notes legible this time.’ He was there, so close.Ah. Heat on her neck; he was breathing warm air on the spot between her ear and shoulder. Ernst made a rude comment, his mates dutifully giggled. ‘Well?’ Hajo straightened. ‘What are you waiting for?’

Trying not to think: his mouth, her neck, Sophia drove back to her apartment where she could park for free as Ernst jabbered on about how work colleagues were only good for a shag and if Hajo wasn’t available he’d be up for it. There must be one hundred ways to kill the little twerp: using him as a speed bump, reversing to make quite sure; leaving him in a very tight dark place; launching him into the path of a speeding car, or maybe just shooting him?

A small crowd had gathered on the footbridge that led to the moss-coveredLuiseninselisland monument. The ambulance crew were moving the body to the water’s edge; they looked relieved as Ernst began edging the crowd back. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he shouted, ‘your morning’s entertainment is now over.’ One spectator muttered about their walk being spoiled as Sophia slid down a muddy embankment.

‘You shouldn’t have moved her,’ she said.

‘Oh, you’d rather we simply assumed she was dead?’ The paramedic had a smudge of black pondweed on the tip of an angular nose. Under a bright red and yellow striped hat quiet brown eyes assessed her.

‘I need to know where she died.’

‘Over there.’ He pointed two foot into the shallow icy water. ‘Stabbed in the stomach and neck.’

Sophia edged closer, then knelt as a pair of mud-stained ambulance staff began clearing a safe way for the stretcher to transport the body to the morgue. Icy black liquid seeped through her trousers making her knees feel as if they were bleeding. The body lay half submerged in mud. A muscled form twisted to spidered angles. Ratty hair floated in filthy water. The victim’s face was half submerged. Sophia leaned closer. Freckles. A snub nose. A livid bruise under her left eye. No.

‘Turn her onto her back. Careful I said, careful.’

Käthe? The water blurred. Pain in her chest. Breathe. Don’t faint. No. Käthe wasn’t here. She was in the other place; that long-ago home. Safe. Married. Happy. Content. All the things Sophia was not. This was someone else curled up like a bruised fist, the wretched shape horribly grey and wrinkled. What to do? Pretend this wasn’t happening? Oh god. She touched her friend’s hand. Ice cold. Her body was stiff, rigor mortis setting in, but the face was as familiar as if she’d seen her yesterday, not thirteen years ago.

***

Late. They were late! Out of the door, down the path, satchels swinging behind them. Sophi first. She was always first because she knew how to run. Oops. Damn. There it was, beetling between two houses. Run. Run faster.

‘The bus!’ Käthe’s gasp was way too close. Sophi sped up, veered round the corner. Slid. Her left shoe! The shoe sailed through the air and landed smack bang in a deep puddle. Käthe barrelled into her back. It hurt. Sophi lurched forward. Her sock. Her foot. Käthe grabbed. Pulled hard just as she began to fall.

‘Help.’ There’d be hell to pay. New blue shoes for a new year at school. Mama telling her how lucky she was. Papa telling her she was to keep them clean. Käthe waslaughing. She had her hand over her mouth to hide it. Sophi wanted to thump her. Right on her perfect little nose. Make it bleed. But her own laughter came bubbling up, sneaking out her mouth as Käthe dashed to the nearest garden fence, broke a branch from a leafless shrub and poked at the puddle.

‘Come to me, little fish,’ she chanted, trying to hook the shoe which filled with brown water. ‘Sophi, hold my bag.’ Käthe leaned forward, a question mark shape with wild hair and freckles that dotted across a flat peevish face with raisin eyes. Her soft blue hat wobbled. Oh please don’t let it fall. Käthe’s shoes were old, so old you couldn’t tell what colour they’d been. She didn’t care about them, but she loved her new hat.

The bus had stopped at the end of the road. There was Maria! Her heart-shaped face and huge blue eyes that made boys write her stupid notes, pressed up to the window.Well, she could keep those dopy eyes, but one day Sophi would have hair just like Maria who was waving like a mad thing as the mothers marched the Kindergarten children to their seats, checked the list with the driver, then stood in a group on the pavement to wave.

‘Put it on.’ Käthe waved the shoe in her face. It was wet and cold. She strapped it tight and ran after Käthe whose arms wind-milled as she legged it towards the bus. Maria’s face vanished, then she burst out of the sliding doors, grinning.

‘Come on,’ she yelled as the bus driver furiously beeped the horn. ‘He can’t drive because I’m keeping the doors open.’

‘You three are nothing but trouble.’ The bus driver closed the doors so fast Sophi’s bum nearly stuck. They collapsed onto a bench seat screeching as the bus hiccupped and joined the slow traffic on the main road.

***

‘Wake up.’ Sophia tried to haul Käthe from the freezing mud. ‘Dearest. Wake up.’ The body slid from her fingers.

‘You really shouldn’t.’ The paramedic had his hand on her arm. Käthe’s nose was broken. Her dead eyes staring. Sophia leaned in and wrapped her arms around her friend’s shoulders. She had to tell her how much she’d missed her. Ask her why she was here.

‘You do realise she’s dead?’ The paramedic sounded worried. Perhaps he thought he’d have to carry them both up the bank? The thought made her gasp out a laugh.

‘Let me do my job.’ Sophia stroked matted hair back from that poor battered face, and closed her friend’s eyes. Oh god. What to do? Had Käthe been trying to find her, even though she wasn’t to be found? Father had said it was best to start again. Right from scratch. But what if Käthe had needed help? She should have been there, that’s what friends did. Sophia brushed away tears, leaned forward, kissed her friend’s bruised face and folded her hand over the sodden scrap of paper and small photo from Käthe’s jacket pocket.

CHAPTER TWO

~

Mia wriggled on the metal seat and thought about chilblains, piles and her dead mother. It was way too early to be awake, and the shabby grey platform of the train station was freezing. When she was little, she’d imagined mother as a smiley face, not the hulking giant called Diertha, she’d been shown scowling into the camera. Every day Mia checked her thin stern face in the mirror, with its bug eyes and messy brown hair, and looked to see if her arms, like her mother’s, were thickening to massive tree trunks. Stuff like that happened when you turned fourteen.

Everything in the West was supposed to be shiny, clean and new – stations and waiting rooms kept warm and made to look friendly. Well, this place was the same as home: full of dark shadows that seemed to float at the outer edges of your sight. You thought you were imagining them, but they were there. Mia had chosen a seat near the ticket office and pretended to fall asleep; but really, she was watching. Oma said she had the most amazing eyes, eyes like a princess, but she didn’t feel like a princess now, just fed up and hungry.The train was supposed to have arrived ages ago. There was a narrow kiosk selling hot drinks and rolls, but she was too frightened to go and buy anything. Someone might decide to be nosy and ask why she wasn’t in school; they’d find out where she lived and tell the police that she’d escaped. The Stasi would go to Oma’s house and arrest her. Torture her. Put her in one of those awful cells everyone knew about: ice-cold rooms where you stood in water, windowless chambers where lights blinded you – lights that were never turned off. Perhaps they’d even go to Mia’s school? Oma was all she had. OK, not her real grandmother. Grandmother Ulrike had died years ago. So had Horst, a grandfather she’d never even met. No one ever talked about Mia’s father. It was like he didn’t exist, though of course he did. You had to have a man and a lady to do sex; else she’d never have been born. It wasn’t a nice thought: a huge mother naked with a father person.

She glared at the carefully dressed woman on the next bench whose hair was pulled back into a tight knot, on her neck an angry red birthmark spread out like a mushroom. Had she moved nearer? Mia glared harder. The woman edged back. Good. She wasn’t going to cry, not here, not ever again, though it was hard to stay calm. Oma had told her what to do once she got to Berlin.

With a deep breath, Mia picked up her backpack and stomped over to the kiosk window. ‘A coffee and roll please.’Typical. The girl serving behind the counter didn’t even look up. She just waited while Mia sorted out the right money, before handing her a paper cup and roll. Mia warmed her hands against the hot liquid. She’d chosen a shiny roll topped with sugar-crystals. The crystals tasted sour. Yuck, salty. Good job the rest of it was buttery. She’d had to get off at Grünewald Station. The ticket collector said the train didn’t go via Tiergarten Station, but headed off to Tegal Airport: no point going there.

Across the street, the name of the square made her smile: Schmetterlingsplatz – a funny name. Oops. She pulled her mouth down and chewed. People didn’t smile when they were on their own. The coffee had finally cooled enough to drink, but she ached to be home so much it hurt like a bruise. She’d made up her mind weeks ago. Someone had to do something: and there was no one else but her. That morning Oma had stuffed money into her pocket, money they didn’t have. Mia had edged her grandmother away, just about to say she didn’t want the notes, when she realised Oma was shaking. Just like that she’d grown up. Terrified, clear-headed, she’d smiled brightly like nothing was wrong, like it wasn’t a stupid time in the morning, and taken time to lift her bag, so that when they said goodbye Oma would be strong again. Able to wave with an impatient hand as if to say go on, hurry up; I’ve got loads to do. Mia blinked and drank the last of the lukewarm coffee. She had two addresses in West Berlin. She was to go the woman’s address. If no one was there (she had to be absolutely certain), go to the other. Both people would help, Oma was sure, but she’d refused to say why the woman’s address was better, or why she hadn’t said anything about these two people ages ago, when things weren’t so bad. It was so unfair. Mia slouched over to the nearest bin, threw her cup away and walked to the timetable display, running a finger along all the trains scheduled for Breden. Her watch said it was just after eleven. There was one due in ten minutes; she could go home, look after Oma and write to them instead.

***

Käthe’s muscled, twisted shape had imprinted itself in Sophia’s mind. Aged twelve, she’d been as skinny as an exclamation mark. Building such bulk on a frame like that would have been almost impossible. So she must have taken steroids.What to do? Someone should be caring for her. This was her old friend, not a stranger. Sophia had written to her once, so long ago, including a small photo of her in a uniform as a kind of joke. Käthe knew only The People’s Police and Stasi. West Berlin Officers were nothing like them. She’d posted it as far away from home as she could get. Then waited, heart in mouth, for the Stasi’s pre-dawn knock: her father’s fury when he knew what she’d done. Now, as if to remind her of her past, Maria’s bulky envelope emerged from under the pile of still-to-be-processed mail. Would it say something about Käthe? In her mind their faces stared. Käthe, sharp-eyed and coltish. Maria soft as lavender, yet stubborn as a mule when it suited. Oh, what was she to do? Käthe’s parents would be wondering. Maria would be waiting for a call, and all Hajo could do was to stare at the lack of information on the murder board. There was no knife. No name. No address. No papers. No prints on file. If this continued for the next two days, the investigation would be put on hold. Father would approve. He’d say how things were better left unsaid; their lives safe as long as they kept the past and present separate. But now?

‘She’s from East Germany.’ Sophia bent the envelope in half and shoved it in her coat pocket. She’d read what Maria had to say first, then decide what to do.

‘Oh?’ Hajo turned.

‘Her clothes, Hajo. Fake Levi jeans, and the jacket’s from Intershop.’ They’d believe her. She’d proved herself highly competent, if dogmatic.

‘And you’re sure you don’t recognise her.’

Through the window and across the car park was the station gym. A lone figure struggled on the treadmill, his steps slow and heavy: the effort too much to bear. The scrap of paper in her pocket was her business. If she told,theywould arrive just as father said. No one was safe. Everyone talked about a unified Germany, but there was no such thing.

‘Sophia, can I have a word?’

Ernst coughed. The two officers from her team found their desks fascinating as she followed Hajo into his office. ‘What’s wrong?’ He shut the door. All she had to do was ask for help. Explain how all her past was supposed to have disappeared, never to return. Käthe and Maria left behind. She could lean into him; let him try and understand. ‘Sophia. You would say, wouldn’t you?’

‘Yes.’No. But how could he understand? She’d lived in fear of a thing so huge; you never knew where it began or ended.

‘There’s no reason to be frightened,’ he said, and she wanted to cry because there was, and he would never, ever, comprehend.

***

People began to arrive, jostling for the best spot on the platform. Mia edged back and stood, bag ready, wondering what to do as, three minutes later, the Berlin Central train arrived. She had to get on, or consider herself a scaredy cat. She found a seat as far away from the nosy mushroom woman as possible and stared out the window. Massive cranes teetered over dangerous black holes. Men in white hats swarmed up metal frames. They looked like beetles building loads of new homes. Oh – there was a bit of the Wall again. It had been part of her life since forever and now, finally, the horrid thing had come down – she’d seen the party on TV. Oma said it had been a symbolic Wall, but that didn’t make sense. What could be symbolic about a Wall? It was best not to listen when Oma started going on about communism and what East Germany was supposed to have been like. All Mia knew was that she hated the fear that sneaked up on everyone. No one talked, because everyone was terrified that something might get back to them. The dark shadows: Stasi, People’s Police, Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter. The bus driver or your best friend might be informers. They’d report you for watching the wrong TV channel, phoning someone who lived in West Germany – even if that person was a relative. Anything reported was investigated until it became true. According to Oma people still watched. Her teachers, the shop assistants, their friends and neighbours, monitored their movements in case she and Oma did anything unusual, in case they packed up and left. Well, she just had. She’d walked to the local station and got on a train just like that, and look – Ta-da. Nothing had happened.

Only a few weeks ago Oma had made a real fuss about her friend’s daughter crossing the old border, saying how foolish she was. OK, so Mia had listened to one part of her grandmother’s warning and hadn’t told her best friend. Now she wished she had because Gerda would definitely have come with her. Right then. Four stops before the place called Tiergarten. So far she’d counted one. Nosy woman had left the train at Zoologischer Garten, and now the carriage was full of people who looked different: the posh kind with sharp haircuts, perfectly ironed clothes and expensive leather bags. They didn’t stare, but checked their own reflections in the window. One old lady made a fuss about her make-up, using a miniature silver hand-mirror. At Tiergarten, Mia dragged her worn bag across her shoulders and trudged out of the station looking for directions to the park.

***

Something had to be done. Sophia drove to Tiergarten Park. Someone must have seen something. In a homeless shelter an elderly drunk, bulbous nose poking from under what must once have been a button-up child’s pink bonnet, admitted he’d seen a girl walking across the park that afternoon. A man in a long expensive woollen coat had spoken to her. The drunk only knew because he’d had a coat like that once – a likely story. Nevertheless, Sophia wrote everything down and pressed for details. The man had worn leather gloves and a soft, old-fashioned bowler. The young lady had seemed glad to see him. She’d smiled as they walked past the squat. ‘Not that they noticed me. Not even a glance,’ he whined.

Back home, Sophia dug out the scrap of paper and photo found in Käthe’s pocket. The photo was as daft as the one she’d sent to her friend. Käthe crouched inside her ring, about to circle and hurl the disc. She’d squeezed her bulk into Lycra shorts and a tiny t-shirt with the GDR logo stretched impossibly wide across her massive chest. The note? Well, that had already been read a hundred times: her address written in Käthe’s messy scrawl. Was it time to change jobs? Disappear? No. Please no.

‘Just keep to the straight and narrow,’ she muttered, opening the car door, peering at the imaginary chasm that would open if she didn’t obey the rule of silence. Rules were good; they kept her safe and moving forward, but still … didn’t she have to find out what had happened to her old friend?

The pile of useless furniture lay undisturbed in the corner of the garage. Sophia hunted round in the car for a scrap of paper. Maria’s envelope! She tore a square from the back and wrote ‘The rubbish in the garage must be moved IMMEDIATELY,’ signing it with capitals. The twinge of intense pleasure was streaked with regret because maybe, sometimes, she wanted to be liked.

She stuck the note on the communal board inside the hallway and glanced up. Perfect – today was the tenants’ quarterly meeting. The note would be dutifully read. Would someone mention her name? No. They’d drink coffee and eat Frau Weiner’s biscuits whilst being efficiently propelled to discuss the mystery of the vanishing washing powder. Why, only last week Sophia had bought two boxes and placed one on Frau Weiner’s washing machine.

In the washroom she stripped to bra and knickers, dumping her work clothes in the machine – before pulling on running trousers and top. Laced her shoes, unhooked the thinnest fleece and exited out of the side door.

***

Everyone was hurrying, no one just walked. Mia tried to work out exactly where she was standing, because if she knew where she was she’d know where to go. The street was crammed with cars trying to squeeze into every available space – it wasn’t safe. Any moment now they’d miss a turn, forget to slam on their brakes and crash. Her hands were clammy. Breathing too fast she walked a few steps one way, turned, walked back, coming full circle. She was going to faint, scream, burst. Hang on, there it was. The golden angel statue, just to her left, not straight ahead as she’d been told it would be. Legs wobbling, wanting very badly to pee, she waited for the lights, hitched the bag securely over both shoulders and walked towards the statue.

The park was silent. Dead leaves lay slimy and rotten on the grass. The lakes were dirty black. On the surface of the nearest, spirals of green algae belched and popped. This was more like home: always quiet, everything just rotting away. Hang on, that was wrong. It had to be different here. There was all the building work she’d seen from the train, and, just to prove the point, over to her right a new red and yellow playground stood out from the dripping, fog-laden trees. There was a tiny child in a bright blue coat in the sandpit, digging with a spoon-sized yellow shovel. The child’s mother was trying to convince the little girl that putting her hands in her mouth and eating sand, was going to give her tummy ache; far better to come home and have a hot chocolate and a biscuit?

Mia looked away. She wasn’t lonely, she just didn’t like being on her own. If Gerda were here they would have laughed, run over to the swings to dare each other: go higher,higher– until she’d go so high her heart would pretty much stop, because she’d imagine the swing going right over the bar. They’d forget all about finding people. Gerda would say: ‘So what. Who cares?’ and carry on swinging.

The people she was meant to find might have moved! Mia walked faster. It was all very well to worry, nothing she could do about it now. She was beginning to sound like Oma. Mia muttered the well-known words: ‘That’s just the way it is.’ Dumb words that made no sense, particularly when sense was needed.

There was the golden statue. But it wasn’t called ‘Golden’ or ‘Angel’ or even ‘Statue’. Bloody hell, she’d got the wrong one. There were probably hundreds of statues that looked exactly the same, all over the city, in every nasty damp park. Plus whoever had built this one had been really thick because from where she was standing she couldn’t even see the top. The plaque said ‘The Victory Column’. What victory? She didn’t know about any stupid victory.

Wait. Her instructions said: golden statue in the centre of Tiergarten Park, cross the park to Tiergartenstrasse. Right. OK. That was way over there, on the other side. Mia ran, weaving her way past trees, over the slippery mossy ground towards the street. She stopped, breathing hard, the straps on the bag were pulling and now shereallyneeded to pee – but everything was okay because the sign on the corner read Tiergartenstrasse. She’d definitely find the house now. Mia walked all the way down the street on one side. She’d ring, or knock, and the door would open and everything would be just like she’d imagined it.

***

Crossing the road to the park, Sophia took the time to breathe and notice the late afternoon light. Dark and soft, she thought, stretching her arms up and looking at the sky. At such moments it seemed that everything was possible. Something new and wonderful could magically happen – like stepping into a new skin, escaping to a world where no one knew you and you could, really, truly, become someone else. She laughed: that chance had come and gone. Breath rasping in the cold air, Sophia eased into a slow run. Time to dream about Hajo biting her neck, undressing her while his eyes darkened, Hajo naked above her, the weight of him making her gasp, yet feel utterly secure.

All that heat would vanish when she told him she’d lied.

She was breathing too fast. Stop. A panic attack would bring helplessness, then fury at her own weakness. Focus on the one thing that calmed her – painting, blue on white, the coal-black depth of a winter sea, the possibility of mermaids that were strong and fearless, able to swim and never tire. The strangeness of time – why it dragged when she was on surveillance, or how it rushed out of the back door when she painted.

The evening light was dense and cloudy, thick enough to hide the golden angel perched on the Victory Column. Each time Sophia ran past she thought the statue, like Diertha, was frozen in time, easy prey to the boom of aeroplanes and bird crap. Her cousin hadn’t deserved her watery grave any more than Käthe. Was there a connection? No, absolutely not, but the voice in her mind said there was.

Bloody Diertha drowning herself when she realised she’d never make it as an Olympic star.Too fat and clumsy. Sophia lengthened her stride, relaxing into a comfortable rhythm through the park. A new shopping trolley blocked the entrance to the old bomb shelter.The stench of urine and beer leaked through the air. Thank god it wasn’t her turn for this month’s clean up. The residents griped, wept and (more often than not) crapped themselves before they were forced to leave. They might as well be dead. She could see no purpose to lurking, half-seen at street corners, outside off-licences, wanting drink, wanting drugs, wanting money.

No papers had been found near poor Käthe’s body, and everyone in the GDR had papers.

And what about them: five unopened letters. More were likely to arrive: Maria had always been a horribly stubborn friend. How odd to forget someone so completely, only to remember, years later, their most annoying habits.

Doubly annoying because it was Sophia’s past and she had every right to forget.

***