‘Hirsutism in girls, far beyond the hair growth that normally comes with female puberty. The thighs, for example, would become hirsute, as well as muscular. It can cause havoc with the reproductive system too – infertility is a real possibility. And then in boys, evidence of breast development and nipple enlargement. In the documents, there’s also a secret report from a Stasi unofficial collaborator, which shows how pupils are threatened with expulsion from the school if they refuse to take what are euphemistically known as “vitamin pills”. But Oral Turinabol is not the only drug used. There’s mention of steroid substances with various numbers attached which correspond to slightly different chemical compositions: 646, 648, 482, 12 et cetera, et cetera . . . the list just goes on and on.’

Müller realised these documents, and their horrific contents, were highly dangerous to her and Schmidt – as well as to Frau Voights.

As for the school’s director, who’d launched himself to his death from the top of Dresden’s TV tower, here was more than sufficient motive. If – as the deputy director had claimed – her boss, Heinz Schenk, loved the children almost as though they were his own, finding out they were being treated as sporting guinea pigs, with horrific effects on their health, might have been the final straw. Either that, or he had been complicit in the doping, and couldn’t live with his conscience. Or perhaps there was an even more sinister explanation. Perhaps Schenk had been trying to put a stop to it all, perhaps he’d been trying to expose it, so that his leap from the TV tower wasn’t as accidental as it looked.

For Müller, it was more evidence that the Republic was rotten at its core. As well as rescuing her own children from the school as soon as was practical, she would have to inform Jäger. It was only fair. Jannika and Johannes might still be too young to be administered these so-called vitamin pills. Jäger’s son Jens, however, was a teenager already – and therefore right in the firing line.

Chapter 42

42

Although Tilsner had given the impression to Müller and Schmidt that he was annoyed at being kept out of the loop, in reality it gave him the space to do something he’d been wanting to do for some time. In fact, ever since it became obvious their current case was – at best – heading for a messy, compromised resolution controlled by the Stasi.

To some extent, it was unfinished business. What he’d almost achieved some three years ago on the frozen Ostsee. Guilt, and his loyalty to Karin, had thwarted him then. But since that time, he and an old friend from his childhood in Gardelegen had been preparing.