Fatherland

Tour name, Unterwachtmeister?” March had a soft voice. Without taking his eyes off the body, he addressed the Orpo man who had saluted.

“Ratka, Herr Sturmbannfuhrer.”

Sturmbannfuhrer was an SS title, equivalent in Wehrmacht rank to major, and Ratka — dog-tired and skin-soaked though he was -seemed eager to show respect. March knew his type without even looking round: three applications to transfer to the Kripo, all turned down; a dutiful wife who had produced a football team of children for the Fuhrer; an income of 200 Reichsmarks a month. A life lived in hope.

“Well, Ratka,’said March, in that soft voice again. “What time was he discovered?”

“Just over an hour ago, sir. We were at the end of our shift, patrolling in Nikolassee. We took the call. Priority One. We were here in five minutes.”

“Who found him?”

Ratka jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

The young man in the tracksuit rose to his feet. He could not have been more than eighteen. His hair was cropped so close the pink scalp showed through the dusting of light brown hair. March noticed how he avoided looking at the body.

“Your name?”

“SS-Schutze Hermann Jost, sir.” He spoke with a Saxon accent — nervous, uncertain, anxious to please. “From the Sepp Dietrich training academy at Schlachtensee.” March knew it: a monstrosity of concrete and asphalt built in the 1950s, just south of the Havel. “I run here most mornings. It was still dark. At first, I thought it was a swan,” he added, helplessly.

Ratka snorted, contempt on his face. An SS cadet scared of one dead old man! No wonder the war in the Urals was dragging on forever.

“Did you see anyone else, Jost?” March spoke in a kindly tone, like an uncle.

“Nobody, sir. There’s a telephone box in the picnic area, half a kilometre back. I called, then came here and waited until the police arrived. There wasn’t a soul on the road.”

March looked again at the body. It was very fat. Maybe 110 kilos.

“Let’s get him out of the water.” He turned towards the road. Time to raise our sleeping beauties.” Ratka, shifting from foot to foot in the downpour, grinned.

It was raining harder now, and the Kladow side of the lake had virtually disappeared. Water pattered on the leaves of the trees and drummed on the car roofs. There was a heavy rain-smell of corruption: rich earth and rotting vegetation. March’s hair was plastered to his scalp, water trickled down the back of his neck. He did not notice. For March, every case, however routine, held — at the start, at least — the promise of adventure.

He was forty-two years old — slim, with grey hair and cool grey eyes that matched the sky. During the war, the Propaganda Ministry had invented a nickname for the men of the U-boats — the “grey wolves” — and it would have been a good name for March, in one sense, for he was a determined detective. But he was not by nature a wolf, did not run with the pack, was more reliant on brain than muscle, so his colleagues called him “the fox” instead.

U-boat weather!

He flung open the door of the white Skoda, and was hit by a gust of hot, stale air from the car heater.

“Morning, Spiedel!” He shook the police photographer’s bony shoulder. Time to get wet.” Spiedel jerked awake. He gave March a glare.

The driver’s window of the other Skoda was already being wound down as March approached it. “All right, March. All right.” It was SS-Surgeon August Eisler, a Kripo pathologist, his voice a squeak of affronted dignity. “Save your barrack-room humour for those who appreciate it.”

THEY gathered at the water’s edge, all except Doctor Eisler, who stood apart, sheltering under an ancient black umbrella he did not offer to share. Spiedel screwed a flash bulb on to his camera and carefully planted his right foot on a lump of clay. He swore as the lake lapped over his shoe.

“Shit!”

The flash popped, freezing the scene for an instant: the white faces, the silver threads of rain, the darkness of the woods. A swan came scudding out of some nearby reeds to see what was happening, and began circling a few metres away.

“Protecting her nest,” said the young SS man.

“I want another here.” March pointed. “And one here.”

Spiedel cursed again and pulled his dripping foot out of the mud. The camera flashed twice more.

March bent down and grasped the body under the armpits. The flesh was hard, like cold rubber, and slippery.

“Help me.”

The Orpo men each took an arm and together, grunting with the effort, they heaved, sliding the corpse out of the water, over the muddy bank and on to the sodden grass. As March straightened, he caught the look on Jost’s face.

The old man had been wearing a pair of blue swimming trunks which had worked their way down to his knees. In the freezing water, the genitals had shriveled to a tiny clutch of white eggs in a nest of black pubic hair.

The left foot was missing.

It had to be, thought March. This was a day when nothing would be simple. An adventure, indeed.

“Herr Doctor. Your opinion, please.”