HALF an hour later he was pushing through the scuffed wooden doors into the Berlin city morgue. Without his uniform he felt naked. A woman cried softly in one corner, a female police auxiliary sitting stiffly beside her, embarrassed at this display of emotion in an official place. He showed the attendant his ID and asked after Martin Luther. The man consulted a set of dog-eared notes.
“Male, mid-sixties, identified as Luther, Martin. Brought in just after midnight. Railway accident.”
“What about the shooting this morning, the one in the Plate?”
The attendant sighed, licked a nicotined forefinger and turned a page. “Male, mid-sixties, identified as Stark, Alfred. Came in an hour ago.”
That’s the one. How was he identified?”
“ID in his pocket.”
“Right.” March moved decisively towards the elevator, forestalling any objection. “I’ll make my own way down.”
It was his misfortune, when the elevator doors opened, to find himself confronted by Doctor August Eisler.
“March!” Eisler looked shocked and took a pace backwards. “The word is, you’ve been arrested.”
“The word is wrong. I’m working under cover.”
Eisler was staring at his civilian suit. “What as? A pimp?” This amused the SS surgeon so much he had to take off his spectacles and wipe his eyes. March joined in his laughter.
“No, as a pathologist. I’m told the pay is good and the hours are non-existent.”
Eisler stopped smiling. “You can say that. I’ve been here since midnight.” He dropped his voice. “A very senior man. Gestapo operation. Hush hush.” He tapped the side of his long nose. “I can say nothing.”
“Relax, Eisler. I am aware of the case. Did Frau Luther identify the remains?”
Eisler looked disappointed. “No,” he muttered. “We spared her that.”
“And Stark?”
“My, my, March — you are well-informed. I’m on my way to deal with him now. Would you care to join me?”
In his mind March saw again the exploding head, the thick spurt of blood and brain. “No. Thank you.”
“I thought not. What was he shot with? A Panzerfaust?”
“Have they caught the killer?”
“You’re the investigator. You tell me. "Don’t probe too deeply" was what I heard.”
“Stark’s effects. Where are they?”
“Bagged and ready to go. In the property room.”
“Where’s that?”
“Follow the corridor. Fourth door on the left.” March set off. Eisler shouted after him: “Hey March! Save me a couple of your best whores!” The pathologist’s high-pitched laughter pursued him down the passage.
The fourth door on the left was unlocked. He checked to make sure he was unobserved, then let himself in.
It was a small storeroom, three metres wide, with just enough room for one person to walk down the centre. On either side of the gangway were racks of dusty metal shelving heaped with bundles of clothing wrapped in thick polythene. There were suitcases, handbags, umbrellas, artificial legs, a pushchair — grotesquely twisted — hats…From the morgue the deceased’s belongings were usually collected by the next-of-kin. If the circumstances were suspicious, they would be taken away by the investigators, or sent direct to the forensic laboratories in Schonweld. March began inspecting the plastic tags, each of which recorded the time and place of death and the name of the victim. Some of the stuff here went back years — pathetic bundles of rags and trinkets, the final bequests of corpses nobody cared about, not even the police.
How typical of Globus not to admit to his mistake. The infallibility of the Gestapo must be preserved at all costs! Thus Stark’s body continued to be treated as Luther’s, while Luther would go to a pauper’s grave as the drifter, Stark.
March tugged at the bundle closest to the door, turned the label to the light. 18.4.64. Adolf Hitler PL Stark, Alfred.
So Luther had left the world like the lowest inmate of a KZ — violently, half-starved, in someone else’s filthy clothes, his body unhonoured, with a stranger picking over his belongings after his death. Poetic justice — about the only sort of justice to be found.
He pulled out his pocket knife and slit the, bulging plastic. The contents spilled over the floor like guts.
He did not care about Luther. All he cared about was how, in the hours between midnight and nine that morning, Globus had discovered Luther was still alive.
Americans!
He tore away the last of the polythene.
The clothes stank of shit and piss, of vomit and sweat- of every odour the human body nurtures. God only knew what parasites the fabric harboured. He went through the pockets. They were empty. His hands itched. Don’t give up hope. A left-luggage ticket is a small thing — tightly rolled, no bigger than a matchstick; an incision in a coat collar would conceal it. With his knife he hacked at the lining of the long brown overcoat, matted with congealing blood, his fingers turning brown and slippery …
