‘Where’s Pirna?’ asked Tilsner.

Müller shook her head in frustration. ‘It’s a largish town about twenty kilometres south-east of Dresden, in the Elbe Valley. The gateway to Saxon Switzerland.’

‘And,’ said Schmidt, ‘a bus ticket from Sonnenstein to Pirna station.’

This time it was Müller’s turn to question the geography. ‘Sonnenstein?’

‘It’s a new development of Plattenbauten in the eastern part of Pirna – about three kilometres from the railway station, Comrade Hauptmann.’

‘But we’ve nothing to connect the purse to the glasses or to the victim, have we?’ said Tilsner.

‘Well . . . maybe,’ replied Schmidt. ‘The argument that was reported by Petra Abt – according to her testimony – happened at around ten thirty on Monday evening, I think. The bus ticket was from approximately 5 p.m. on Monday, and the train ticket was bought at five 5.25 p.m. and validated on the S-Bahn at five thirty-four. So that does all tie in.’

‘But it could be totally unconnected,’ said Tilsner.

Schmidt’s face fell.

‘Of course it could,’ said Müller. ‘But equally the tickets could belong to our victim.’

Schmidt held the bagged, flower-print purse up to the light. ‘I suspect this is a woman’s purse, Comrade Hauptmann.’

‘OK. But it could belong to the woman he was arguing with,’ countered Müller. ‘If the man involved in the argument was the victim.’

In her head, she continued with a series of qualifiers.

If the evidence was genuine.

If it hadn’t been tampered with by Bahlow and his cronies who – after all – had got to the scene some twenty-four hours before the police.

More than that, if it hadn’t actually been planted by the Stasi – lock, stock and barrel.

Chapter 11

11

The February day was drawing to a close and they’d made precious little progress. Did the bus and rail tickets provide something to work on, or were they just a false lead – planted or otherwise?

Müller weighed up the few options she had, and decided they were worth following up with a visit to Pirna – taking the opposite route to the owner of the lost, or discarded, purse.

When she told Tilsner she wanted him to carry on going through the missing persons files, his face fell.

‘We’re not getting anywhere, and we suspect our victim may be a foreigner anyway.’

‘Still, it needs doing, and I’d like you to do it, please. Also put out an alert to other police districts in the Republic with the man’s description, such as it is, and see if we can find a match.’

Tilsner didn’t reply, other than to issue a dissatisfied grunt, and turn back to the files.

‘I’ll catch up with you later once I’m back from Pirna.’

This time, from her deputy, there was just silence.

*