hospital – not to mention carbolic soap – the dead assumed less and less of the hospital’s dwindling resources.
‘Pity,’ grumbled the attendant.
‘What is?’
‘That you’re not from the State Labour Service so I can get rid of him.’
‘I didn’t know he was looking for a job.’
‘He was a foreign worker. So I’m waiting on the paperwork that will enable me to send his remains down to the incinerator.’
‘I’m from the Alex, like I said. I’m sure there are jobs there that could be done by dead men. My job, for example.’
For a moment the morgue attendant thought of smiling and then thought better of it.
‘I’ll only be a minute,’ I said and took out the switchblade I had found on the ground under Nolli Station.
At the sight of the long blade in my hand, the attendant backed off nervously. ‘Here, what’s your game?’
‘It’s all right. I’m trying to establish if this knife matches the victim’s stab wounds.’
Relaxing a little, he nodded at Vranken’s remains. ‘Least of his problems I should have thought: Being stabbed.’
‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But before a train ran him over—’
‘That would explain a lot.’
‘Someone stabbed him. Several times.’
‘Evidently not his lucky day.’
I slid the blade into one of the more obvious wounds in the dead man’s pale torso. ‘Before the war you used to get a proper lab report with photographs and descriptions so that you didn’t have to do this kind of thing.’
‘Before the war you used to get beer that tasted like beer.’ Remembering who and more particularly what I was, he added quickly, ‘Not that there’s anything wrong with the beer now, of course.’
I didn’t say anything. I was glad he’d spoken out of turn. It meant I could probably avoid filling out the morgue’s paperwork – Commissioner Lüdtke had told me to drop the case, after all – as a quid pro quo for ignoring the attendant’s ‘unpatriotic’ remark about German beer. Besides I was paying nearly all of my attention to the knife in the stab wound. I couldn’t say for sure that it was the murder weapon, but it could have been. It was long enough and sharp enough, with just one edge and a blunter upper side that matched the wound almost perfectly.
I pulled the blade out and looked for something to wipe it with. Being a fussy type, I’m particular about the switchblades I keep in my coat pocket. And I figured I’d already encountered enough germs and bacteria just walking through the hospital without squirrelling away a private cache of my own.
‘Got anything to wipe this with?’
‘Here,’ he said, and taking it from me he wiped it with the corner of his lab coat.
‘Thanks,’ I said.
I could see that he was anxious to get rid of me and when I suggested that there was probably no need to bother with the paperwork, he agreed with alacrity.
‘I don’t think he’ll tell, do you?’ said the attendant. ‘Besides, I don’t have a pen that works.’
I went outside. It was a nice day so I decided to walk back to the Alex and eat lunch at a counter I knew on Karl Strasse, but that one was closed because of a lack of sausage. So was the one on Oranienburger Strasse. Finally I got a sandwich and a paper at a place near the Stock Exchange, only there was even less of interest in the sandwich than there was in the paper, and probably in the Stock Exchange, too. But it’s foolish to give up eating bread because you can’t get the sausage to put in it. At least I was free to still think of the bread as a sandwich.
Then again, I’m a typical Berliner, so maybe I’m just hard to please.
When I got back to the Alex I had the files on all of the summer’s S-Bahn murders sent up to my office. I suppose I wanted to make doubly sure that Paul Ogorzow was the real killer and not someone who’d been made to measure
‘Pity,’ grumbled the attendant.
‘What is?’
‘That you’re not from the State Labour Service so I can get rid of him.’
‘I didn’t know he was looking for a job.’
‘He was a foreign worker. So I’m waiting on the paperwork that will enable me to send his remains down to the incinerator.’
‘I’m from the Alex, like I said. I’m sure there are jobs there that could be done by dead men. My job, for example.’
For a moment the morgue attendant thought of smiling and then thought better of it.
‘I’ll only be a minute,’ I said and took out the switchblade I had found on the ground under Nolli Station.
At the sight of the long blade in my hand, the attendant backed off nervously. ‘Here, what’s your game?’
‘It’s all right. I’m trying to establish if this knife matches the victim’s stab wounds.’
Relaxing a little, he nodded at Vranken’s remains. ‘Least of his problems I should have thought: Being stabbed.’
‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But before a train ran him over—’
‘That would explain a lot.’
‘Someone stabbed him. Several times.’
‘Evidently not his lucky day.’
I slid the blade into one of the more obvious wounds in the dead man’s pale torso. ‘Before the war you used to get a proper lab report with photographs and descriptions so that you didn’t have to do this kind of thing.’
‘Before the war you used to get beer that tasted like beer.’ Remembering who and more particularly what I was, he added quickly, ‘Not that there’s anything wrong with the beer now, of course.’
I didn’t say anything. I was glad he’d spoken out of turn. It meant I could probably avoid filling out the morgue’s paperwork – Commissioner Lüdtke had told me to drop the case, after all – as a quid pro quo for ignoring the attendant’s ‘unpatriotic’ remark about German beer. Besides I was paying nearly all of my attention to the knife in the stab wound. I couldn’t say for sure that it was the murder weapon, but it could have been. It was long enough and sharp enough, with just one edge and a blunter upper side that matched the wound almost perfectly.
I pulled the blade out and looked for something to wipe it with. Being a fussy type, I’m particular about the switchblades I keep in my coat pocket. And I figured I’d already encountered enough germs and bacteria just walking through the hospital without squirrelling away a private cache of my own.
‘Got anything to wipe this with?’
‘Here,’ he said, and taking it from me he wiped it with the corner of his lab coat.
‘Thanks,’ I said.
I could see that he was anxious to get rid of me and when I suggested that there was probably no need to bother with the paperwork, he agreed with alacrity.
‘I don’t think he’ll tell, do you?’ said the attendant. ‘Besides, I don’t have a pen that works.’
I went outside. It was a nice day so I decided to walk back to the Alex and eat lunch at a counter I knew on Karl Strasse, but that one was closed because of a lack of sausage. So was the one on Oranienburger Strasse. Finally I got a sandwich and a paper at a place near the Stock Exchange, only there was even less of interest in the sandwich than there was in the paper, and probably in the Stock Exchange, too. But it’s foolish to give up eating bread because you can’t get the sausage to put in it. At least I was free to still think of the bread as a sandwich.
Then again, I’m a typical Berliner, so maybe I’m just hard to please.
When I got back to the Alex I had the files on all of the summer’s S-Bahn murders sent up to my office. I suppose I wanted to make doubly sure that Paul Ogorzow was the real killer and not someone who’d been made to measure
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