Specht opened a desk drawer and retrieved something from it that Jäger couldn’t quite see behind the clutter on the desk. ‘I don’t think it is, Jäger. You’re treading on very thin ice. Now you come here questioning the techniques of our sports schools. Techniques, I’d remind you, that led to our small country rubbing the rest of the world’s noses in it at the last Winter Olympics. We won more medals than any other country, Jäger. Think what that means. It’s an incredible success, and our sports schools are without parallel. The fact that they sometimes administer a few vitamins to the athletes is neither here nor there.’

‘They’re not vitamins, they’re dr—’

Specht held up his hand like a traffic policeman. ‘Enough, Jäger. Which department do you think oversees this “vitamin” programme, and takes the credit for its success?’

Finally, Jäger realised his stupidity.

‘Exactly, Jäger.’ Specht rubbed the white bust of Dzerzhinsky on his desk, identical to that on Bahlow’s, and countless others in Ministry offices around the country. ‘Iron Felix would be proud of us. But not, I’m afraid, of you. I suggest you get back to what it is you’re supposed to be doing, otherwise your time working for the Ministry might be shorter than even you envisaged. You’re some way off retirement. If you lost your job now, what the hell do you think you would do?’ Then he picked up the object he’d retrieved from the desk drawer, and Jäger finally realised what it was.

A cigarette lighter.

‘I shall file the results of your investigation most carefully, Klaus, thank you so much. That will be all. See yourself out.’

As he got up to leave, realising any more discussion was futile, Jäger watched Specht set fire to a corner of Schmidt’s document, and throw it in his waste paper bin. Once he was satisfied it had been destroyed, he doused the fire with a glass of water on his desk.

Jäger stood there, paralysed, watching.

Then he finally turned and left, realising bitterly that Specht’s unique brand of ‘filing’ was a metaphor for what had happened to his own career.

Chapter 45

45

ARNIE

People’s Police HQ, Dresden

March 1982