Fatherland

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 gray hair and cool gray eyes that matched the sky. During the war, the Propaganda Ministry had invented a nickname for the men of the U-boats—the "gray 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 on 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 humor for those who appreciate it."
      They gathered at the water's edge, all except Dr. Eisler, who stood apart, sheltering under an ancient black umbrella he did not offer to share. Spiedel screwed a flashbulb onto 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 meters 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 onto 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."
    With a sigh of irritation, Eisler daintily stepped forward, removing a glove from one hand. The corpse's leg ended at the bottom of the calf. Still holding the umbrella, Eisler bent stiffly and ran his fingers around the stump.
    "A propeller?" asked March. He had seen bodies dragged out of busy waterways—from the Tegelersee and the Spree in Berlin, from the Alster in Hamburg—that looked as if butchers had been at them.
    "No." Eisler withdrew his hand. "An old amputation. Rather well done, in fact" He pressed hard on the chest with his fist. Muddy water gushed from the mouth and bubbled out of the nostrils. "Rigor mortis fairly advanced. Dead twelve hours. Maybe less." He pulled his glove back on.
    A diesel engine rattled somewhere through the trees behind them.
    "The ambulance," said Ratka. "They take their time."
    March gestured to Spiedel. "Take another picture."
    Looking down at the corpse, March lit a cigarette. Then he squatted on his haunches and stared into the single, open eye. He stayed that way a long while. The camera flashed again. The swan reared up, flapped her wings and turned toward the center of the lake in search of food.

2

    Kripo headquarters lie on the other side of Berlin, a twenty-five-minute drive from the Havel. March needed a statement from Jost and offered to drop him back at his barracks to change, but Jost said no: he would sooner make his statement quickly. So once the body had been stowed aboard the ambulance and dispatched to the morgue, they set off in March's little four-door Volkswagen through the rush hour traffic.
    It was one of those dismal Berlin mornings when the famous Berlinerluft seems not so much bracing as merely raw, the moisture stinging the face and hands like a