Rosa

PART ONE
ONE

1919

Berlin in December, to those who know her, is like no other place. The first snows take on a permanence, and the wide avenues from Charlottenburg to the Rondell breathe with a crispness of Prussian winter. It is a time when little boys drag their mothers away from the well-dressed windows at KaDeWe or Wertheim’s or the elegant teas at the Hotel Adlon and out to the Tiergarten and the wondrous row of marble emperors along the Siegesallee. Just as dusk settles, as the last flurries of the day swirl through the leafless trees, you can steal a glimpse of any number of little eyes peering up, hoping, just this once, to catch a stony wink from an Albrecht the Bear, or a Friedrich of Nuremberg with his large ears and dour expression. Just a wink through the snow to tell him that Christmas will be kind to him this year. “There, Mama, did you see! Do you see how he winked at me!” And the pride that next morning, bundled up beyond measure, racing out from his fine house on Belziger or Wartburg Strasse to tell his friends of his triumph. “Yes, me, too! Me, too!” Berlin in December.

This, however, was January, when the snow had turned to endless drizzle, so raw that it seemed to penetrate even the heaviest of layers. And whatever civility they might still be clinging to elsewhere, here on the east side of town, all the way up to the flophouses in Prenzlauer Berg, people had little time or patience for such gestures. Christmas had brought nothing, except perhaps the truth about how the war had been lost long before the summer, how the generals had been flimflamming them all the way up to the November capitulation. Oh, and of course, the revolution. Christmas had brought that, a thoroughly German revolution, with documents in triplicate, cries from the balconies, demonstrations and parades, tea still at four o’clock, dinner at seven, and perhaps a little dancing afterward up at the White Mouse or Maxim’s. Shots had been fired, naturally, a few hundred were dead, but the socialists-not the real socialists, mind you-were straightening everything up.

Still, it was the weather that had most people on edge. The rain just wasn’t giving in, and it was why Nikolai Hoffner, rather than waiting out on the tundral expanse of the Rosenthaler Platz, had snuck off to Rcker’s bar for something warm to drink. Years of experience had told him that nothing of any significance was going to happen today: later on, he would come to regret that arrogance. So, with a knowing smile, he had left the ever-eager Hans Fichte up on the square; at the first sign of trouble, Fichte knew where to find him.

Hoffner sat with a brandy (“I’d walk a mile for Mampe’s brandy, it makes you feel so hale and dandy!”), the early edition of the BZ am Mittag in front of him. He had not sat like this in weeks, a quiet read to clear the mind. And not because of the nonsense that had been going on out at the stables, or up at the Reichstag: all the pretty uniformed men had managed to disrupt traffic too many times, now, to recount. No, Hoffner had been up to his ears in real violence, genuine terror, hardly the kind plotted in Red pamphlets or designed in back rooms by overfed burghers calling themselves socialists. They played at revolution; he knew another kind. But for today-orders from on high-he was told to leave that alone and join the rest of his breed in the streets to make sure “nothing untoward” would come to pass.

Hoffner finished off the last of his drink and nodded to the barman to bring him another. As he was one of only three people in the place-a man at a corner table, his head tilted back against the wall, his mouth gaped open in sleep; a woman with a beer and bread, her business at one of the nearby hotels temporarily interrupted-the service was unusually prompt. The barman approached with the bottle.

“This, I’m sad to say, will have to be the last.”

Hoffner looked up from his paper. “I’m sad to hear.” He had a steady, reassuring voice.

“It’s this damned rationing,” said the man. “This and another bottle’s all I’ve got for the day. My apologies.”

Hoffner half smiled. “What do you care if the money’s coming from me or from someone else?”

“Simple economics, mein Herr. No brandy, fewer people in here to buy my sausages before they rot.” The man opened the bottle. “It’s called the distribution of capital, or something like that. You understand.”

Hoffner’s smile grew. “Completely.”

“And”-the man nodded as he poured-“the money’s not coming from you. It never does. So why don’t you be nice to me today and let someone else pay for the brandy?”

Hoffner reached into his coat pocket and produced a ten-pfennig coin. He placed it on the table.

The man smiled again as he shook his head. “No, no. I like that you don’t pay. You like that you don’t pay. We may be governed by socialists now, but it’s better that you hold on to your money.”

The man popped the cork back into the bottle and headed for the bar. “Time to wake up, Herr Professor Doktor,” he said as he moved past the man in the corner. The man at once opened his eyes, looked around in a daze, and then, in one fluid movement, pawed out his beard, picked up his umbrella, and stood. Upright, he seemed far more impressive, though from the look of his clothes, one had to wonder how much sleep he had gotten in the last few days. He peered over at Hoffner. “Is it safe out there, mein Herr?”

Hoffner continued to read his paper. “Safe as can be, Herr Professor Doktor.”

“Excellent.” The man turned to the barman. “My thanks, Herr Ober.” And, placing his hat on his head, he started for the door, stopping momentarily to bow to the lady. “Madame.” He then glanced quickly through the windows, and was gone.

Hoffner scanned through several stories, all of which were doing their best to assuage a devoted readership. The Reds were dead: good old Liebknecht had gotten his in the park, little Rosa in the clutches of a murderous mob, though her body was still missing; Chancellor Ebert could be trusted with the government; business was on the rise, so forth and so on. And yet, even within the lines meant to pacify, the BZ had that remarkable capacity to stir up a kind of subdued panic:

Reichs Chancellor Ebert, with the full cooperation of a diligent military, has declared the streets once again safe for the men and women of Berlin. Hurrah! With the National Assembly election only days away, we must thank this provisional government for the speed with which it has put down the Bolshevik-inspired insurgency, and hope that it is equally tireless in its efforts to hunt down the deluded lone sharpshooters who still infest our city. Those living in the area between Linienstrasse and the Hackescher-Markt are advised to remain indoors for the next twenty-four hours.

The woman at the table laughed lazily to herself. Still pretty at twenty-two, twenty-three, she jawed through her bread. She was wearing the unspoken uniform of those girls who sell roses and matches at the restaurants along Friedrichstrasse-the silk-thin dress, ruffles along the low collar and cuffs, the dark cloche hat with its front trim tucked up, just so-except hers was well past its prime, the sure indication that she, too, had progressed. All pretense long gone, she spoke her mind. “It’s so easy to spot one of you,” she said, not looking up. “Long brown coat, brown shoes, brown hat, brown, brown, brown.”

Hoffner flipped to the next page. “One might say the same of you, Frulein.”

She bit into a wedge of bread. “But you won’t. As a gentleman.”

“No, of course not. As a gentleman.”

The woman started to laugh again as she picked at the remaining slab of bread, her fingers like little bird beaks pecking at the crust. “Another glass of brandy for my friend, Herr Ober,” she said, her eyes fixed on the bread. “We must make sure to keep our men of the Kripo warm and happy. Who will protect us from the Russian hordes?” Another laugh.

Hoffner folded his paper and placed it on the table. “Alas, Frulein, but the Russians are out of the Kriminalpolizei’s jurisdiction. We deal only with the Berlin hordes.”

The man at the bar smiled quietly and retrieved the bottle, but Hoffner shook his head and pushed back his chair, a bit farther than he had anticipated needing. His wife was pleased that he was having no trouble keeping the weight on, a testament to her culinary skills amid all the shortages. Not that he was fat, but Hoffner had a certain image of himself that he was, as yet, unwilling to part with: good height, deep eyes, dark hair (he had gotten the latter two from his Russian mother, likewise the first name), reasonably fit, and with a thin scar just beneath the chin, a worthy reminder of championship days as a Gymnasium fencer. At forty-five, however, several centimeters had vanished to the slight roll in his shoulders; the depth of his eyes had relocated south to a pair of ever-widening bags; and while the hair was still full, dark most certainly would have been a stretch. As to the rest, more like distant friends than close companions.

“Thank you, Frulein,” said Hoffner. “But I’m guessing you’ve got better things to do with your hard-earned money.”

The front door opened and a pocket of chilled air quickly made the rounds. There, slick from the rain and out of breath, stood Hans Fichte, his eyes on Hoffner.

“Shut that door,” barked the barman as he placed the bottle back on its shelf.

Fichte did as he was told, and moved quickly to Hoffner’s table. “You’re needed back in the square, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar. It’s-” He glanced around, then leaned farther in over the table. “It’s important we get back.” Fichte spoke as if he actually thought someone other than Hoffner might have any interest in what he was saying.

Fichte was a large man, over two meters tall, and with wide, thick shoulders. A strip of flaxen hair, matted in sweat and rain, held to the top of his brow, and his usually gray/white cheeks were blistered in odd blotches of red. A single drop-let it be perspiration-clung to the tip of his nose, which was too long for his narrow face, and which always gave him a look of mild disdain. At twenty-three, Fichte still had a boyish smoothness to his complexion, though the ordeal of the last six weeks was beginning to dig out some distinguishing lines: hardly what one would call character, but it was something.

The fact that Fichte had reached twenty-three-uncrippled and completely unconnected with any of the convalescence asylums that had recently surfaced throughout the city and the Reich-made him something of an anomaly. Fichte had been fit enough to serve his Kaiser in 1914, or at least up through the second week of September 1914, when, in a moment of profound stupidity, he had volunteered during a drill to demonstrate how to use one of the early gas masks, those chemically treated masks that required wetting with a special activating agent immediately prior to use. Hans had not known about the need for the wetting. The gas had come on, he had inhaled, and from that moment on, he had ceased to be fit enough to serve his Kaiser.

Damaged lungs, however, were just fine for the Schutzmannschaft (municipal beat cops), and after three years of stellar duty, Fichte had applied and won transfer to the Kripo. He had been presented to Hoffner two and half months ago as his Kriminal-Assistent (detective in training), a replacement for a partner of twelve years who had volunteered and then gone missing in 1915. Victor Knig had come as close to a friend as Hoffner had permitted, and his death had taken some time to get over. With the choices on the home front greatly diminished, the Kriminaldirektor (KD) had been kind enough to let Hoffner work alone for the better part of four years. Hans Fichte was now the price for that kindness.

“So important,” Hoffner said as he got to his feet, “that you’ve decided to leave the square yourself?” He was waiting for a response. “In the future, Hans, find a boy-there’s always one roaming about-and send him to get me. Yes?”

Fichte thought for a moment, a mental note etched across his face. When it was properly filed, he nodded, and then headed for the door.

Hoffner followed, stopping as he reached the bar. “One more for my friend,” he said. He pushed a coin along the uneven surface, then turned to the young woman’s table and placed several more in a neat stack next to her glass. She continued to stare at her bread.

“It’ll cost you a lot more than that, Herr Detective,” she said.

Hoffner slowly pulled his hand away. “No-I think umbrellas go for about that much in this weather, Frulein.”

She looked up. A kind, if sparing, smile curled her lips.

Hoffner turned back to the bar to find two small glasses filled with brandy. “Come on, Fichte. It’ll do you good. Whatever’s up on the square can wait while you get a bit of warming-up.”

Fichte hesitated, then strode to the bar and downed the brandy in one swift movement. He stood there, awaiting his next assignment. Hoffner did his best to ignore the deferential stare as he sniffed at the liquid and then tossed it back. He placed the glass on the bar. “You’re welcome, Fichte.”

Another moment to consider. “Oh. . 0A0; yes. Thank you, Herr Komm. . 0A0; Hoffner.”

“And to you as well, Herr Economics.” Hoffner tipped his hat to the young lady and motioned Fichte to the door. Together they stepped out into the street.

The brandy, as it turned out, was no match for the city’s infamous Berliner Luft, a smack of frigid air just the thing to set Hoffner’s eyes tearing. He turned up his coat collar and pulled his hat down to his face. His wife had insisted he take a scarf, but he had left it back at the office: Martha would find a certain pleasure in that later tonight. Hoffner noticed Fichte was sporting a nice thick woolen muffler. And who’s been taking care of him, Hoffner wondered.

They turned right, the rain spraying up at them through the wind tunnel that was the block of tenements. The street was deserted, its gray stone merely a faade for the life that lay hidden beyond. Too many times, Hoffner had been forced to venture into the inner courtyards, each dripping with laundry-Turkish, Polish, German-endless lines of clothes that spoke to one another in a kind of ragged semaphore. And within the crumbling buildings, the squalor grew only more oppressive, dank hallways leading blindly from one hovel to the next, each filled with the smell of rotting cabbage. The worst was the “Ochsenhof” (“cattle yard”), with its dozen entrances and twenty stairways, all leading nowhere, pointless escapades in search of criminals all too secure within its walls. It was a vast, silent place to the men of the Kripo, indecipherable and thus impregnable.

Outside, however, all was serene. The stones blended effortlessly into the darkened haze of sky, only those occasional passersby bold enough to peek out from under the brims of their hats able to determine where one left off and the other began. Hoffner was not one of these: he pressed his head farther down to meet the wind. By the time he and Fichte had made it to the square, his pants were once again damp through from the knees down: at least the exertion was helping to keep him warm.

Surprisingly, the wind was taking no interest in Rosenthaler Platz. People were jumping on and off trams without the least sign of aerial difficulty, and whatever Fichte had thought demanded his immediate attention, Hoffner could find nothing that was even remotely out of the ordinary: like a painted newsreel clip, the square buzzed in accelerated activity. There was the requisite line outside the windowed cafeteria that was Aschinger’s, the hawkers of neckties and sponges and fruit brandies in front of Fabische’s on the corner (“A suit, mein Herr? Take one, Ready-To-Wear!”), and the usual mayhem of cabs, horsedrawn carts, and pedestrians darting in and out of one another’s ways. Rosenthaler Platz had taken no time off to breathe during the revolution; why should it do so now?

“Well,” said Hoffner as they maneuvered their way through the crowd, “I can see why you raced back to get me.”

“The building site, Herr Inspector.”

Fichte led Hoffner up toward the subway excavations. The fencing around the northern tip of the square had been there for almost a year, a promise from the Kaiser that his capital would be home to the finest trams and underground trains in Europe. Few Berliners took notice anymore of the wooden slats that sprouted up around the city, most Stdters resigned to the ongoing renovations that had been a part of their lives for the past twenty-five years. Wilhelm’s insecurity about his chosen city had led him, over time, to reinvent her as a paean to grandeur in the architecture of her monuments, churches, government buildings, stores, hotels, and, yes, railway stations. It was said of Berlin that even her bird shit was made of marble.

Then again, the slats did make for nice advertising space. A large placard of a cigar-smoking goblin peered down at Hoffner as he followed Fichte toward the site. The lime-green skin against the cerise background, at first off-putting, quickly became hypnotic. The creature had an almost maniacal smile, the cigar evidently just that good to take him to the edge of sanity, although why a goblin would need any kind of stimulus for that sort of behavior had always puzzled Hoffner. A cigar, though, would have been nice right about now.

Fichte and Hoffner moved out into the square, jumping the tram rails as they sidestepped a cab, its goose-squawk horn eliciting a growl from Fichte. A single patrolman stood guard atop the wooden ramp that led up to what, until recently, had been the boarded-up entrance to the pit behind the fencing. He put out a hand as Hoffner and Fichte approached.

“It is forbidden, meine Herren.” The man’s German had the precision of working-class Berlin, the extended roll of the r’s a pompous display of office. He kept his woolen short-coat buttoned to the neck, its band collar sporting the single stripe of a constable, his lip-brimmed helmet topped by the ubiquitous silver imperial prong. “Please turn around-” The man caught himself as soon as he recognized Fichte. “Ah, Herr Detective.” There was nothing apologetic in the tone.

Hoffner knew this type, a Schutzi-lifer who considered the very existence of the Kripo a slap in the face, even if, every year for the past fifteen years, he had applied and been rejected for transfer. Still, it was the chain of command. Order had to be preserved. The man stepped aside.

Hoffner nodded. “Patrolman.”

A white-gloved finger smoothed through a perfectly pruned moustache. “Detective.”

Hoffner moved past the man and began to make his way down a second ramp behind the fencing. As he did so, he turned his head and corrected, “Detective Inspector.”

Inside, the building work was far more extensive than one might have imagined from the square. An area, perhaps twenty meters by ten, extended to the far fencing, most of it still earth. Closer in, however, stood the top staging of a tower of wooden scaffolding that dug deep into the ground. From their vantage point, Fichte and Hoffner could see only a fraction of the edifice, its depth apparent only once they stepped out from the ramp and moved to the ladder at its center. A second patrolman stood directly behind the small hole of an entrance. Hoffner looked at the man, then peered down the shaft. “Must be a good fifteen meters,” he said. Police lamps, recently attached, hung along the rungs, all the way down. Hoffner looked back up, a thoroughly disingenuous smile on his lips. “May we?” The man said nothing as Fichte took hold of the top rung and started down. Hoffner followed.

The air quickly thickened, and the smell of damp earth-at the top quite pleasant-gave way to something less inviting as they descended, familiar, yet nondistinct. It was only when he reached the bottom and stepped away from the ladder that Hoffner recognized the odor. Human feces. Muted, but undeniable.

The two Kripomen were now standing in the first of a series of man-made caverns, wide mining shafts that spoked out from the central area. The subway station at Rosenthaler Platz had evidently been chosen to house an underground arcade-shops, cafes-the skeleton of which had been near to completion before the work had been shut down. All that remained by way of construction material, aside from the timber and steel supports, was the odd piece of wiring and the scrawl on the wooden slats, measurements and the like penned in a dull charcoal. A few of the slats had gone missing, though Hoffner recognized that they had been well chosen; none of the gaps looked to be threatening the pit’s structural integrity. He had to hand it to the poachers.

He never imagined, however, that these poachers would be standing directly behind him, or rather sitting. And yet there, along a narrow wooden bench in an adjoining cavern, sat an utterly unexpected foursome-husband, wife, and two sons of perhaps eight and ten. They were all neatly dressed, considering the circumstances, the man in a worn coat and tie, the woman in a long dress in need of a good cleaning, all with overcoats folded in their laps. The gaunt faces stared straight ahead as if, with a kind of macabre persistence, they were waiting for a train. Off to the side were what looked to be two well-worn feather beds sitting atop several of the absent slats, a small wooden table, a bucket, and a camping fire. A steel trunk rounded out the furnishings.

Two more patrolmen stood at either end of the bench. A third-a sergeant, from the braiding on the brim of his helmet-stood by the fire. He took a step toward Hoffner. “Herr Detective, I am-”

“Yes, I’m sure you are,” said Hoffner as he turned to Fichte. “I think my partner can fill me in.”

The attention seemed to catch Fichte by surprise. When Hoffner continued to stare, Fichte finally said, “Apparently they live down here. The man was an engineer-”

“Division Two, Firma Ganz-Neurath.” The voice came from the father. Hoffner turned. “I am a designer for this site,” the man continued in an accent tinged with something other than German. “Under the direction of Herr Alfred Grenander. We have only been living here. Nothing else. Nothing else.” There was a wavering sincerity in his tone, one that Hoffner recognized all too well. It was usually reserved for the third or fourth hour of interrogation, that time when a man tries to convince himself of his own innocence. “I am not ashamed to be here.”

Hoffner kept his gaze on the man, then turned to Fichte. “He’s not ashamed to be here,” he echoed wryly.

Fichte nodded. “From what we can make out, he lost his position. They had a choice. Either hold on to their flat, or eat. They decided to eat. It’s actually pretty livable down here. It’s dry, warm, and except-”

“Yes,” said Hoffner. “I can smell it.”

Again, Fichte nodded.

“And the boys?”

“On the rolls at a nearby school. They haven’t missed a day.”

Hoffner looked back at the family. Again, he waited. “Why am I standing down here, Herr Kriminal-Assistent?” Before Fichte could answer, Hoffner continued, enjoying his audience: “He seems like a nice-enough fellow, decent. Amid all the shortages, war, revolution, he’s managed to find a way to keep a-well, to keep something over his family’s head. He sends his children to school. He’s been an engineer with Ganz-Neurath, Division Two, under the tutelage of the great Grenander himself. What more can we ask of him?” Hoffner peered over at the sergeant, then slowly moved toward him. “But, of course, for the Schutzmannschaft, this poses a problem. Criminals everywhere, and they choose to spend their time on-”

“We have no interest in this man,” said the officer.

Hoffner had not expected the response. For a moment he said nothing. Then, with an audible sigh, he turned to Fichte and said, “Why am I down here, Hans?”

Even in the dim light, Hoffner recognized the slight tensing in the younger man’s expression. With a jabbed thumb over his shoulder, Fichte said, “This way.” And without further explanation, he picked up a lamp and started toward the central tunnel. With no other choice, Hoffner did the same.

The air grew still heavier as they made their way deeper into the maze. Fichte stopped at one point to pull a small glass inhaler from his coat pocket, the nebulized liquid making a sharp puffing sound each time Fichte sucked in. Hoffner had learned not to notice these brief episodes; the shame in Fichte’s face was something he didn’t care to see. Hoffner slowed and waited until Fichte had picked up the pace again. Two caverns on, they stopped. A lone patrolman stood at the entrance.

It was the odor that gave it away. Decomposing flesh, when kept moist, takes on a scent not unlike rotting fruit with a bit of sulfur thrown in. Hoffner had actually experimented with various mixtures some years ago. He had kept a number of covered bowls in a remote area of the cellar at police headquarters, all filled with different concoctions. It had taken him nearly two weeks to hit on the right combination. When asked why he was doing this, Hoffner had explained that it could be used to train detectives how to sniff out hidden or buried corpses: take the bowl, place it behind some boards, etc. They had all gotten a good laugh out of it until a young assistant detective by the name of Bauman had cracked the infamous Selazig case of 1911 by nosing around the man’s office. Selazig had been in the pickled-herring business and believed that the smell of his cannery could hide anything he might be keeping behind the walls of his office. Detective Bauman had been doing a routine check of the man-the disappearance of his wife and son, missing money, Herr Selazig distraught beyond all measure-when he happened to detect something of a familiar scent coming from behind a large filing cabinet. So acute was Bauman’s nasal prowess that he had actually distinguished the smell of rancid pears, so he described it, from that of three-day-old fish. The bodies had been found within a small chamber behind the wall, each laid out perfectly on an altar of sorts, bits and pieces of arms and legs having been nibbled away. Selazig had gone to the gallows, Bauman to Kriminal-Bezirkssekretr (detective sergeant), and Hoffner back to his experiments, along with a short article titled “The Odor of Death” published in Die Polizei, August 11 issue, a framed copy of which still hung in his office.

“It’s just here,” said Fichte as he moved through the cavern and knelt down in front of a mound by the far wall. He placed his lamp to the side and waited for Hoffner to draw closer. He then began to pull back the tarp.

Hoffner leaned over. “I’m surprised he didn’t post another moustache back here.”

“He tried,” said Fichte. “I told him that wouldn’t be advised.”

“Good. Who found it?”

“The older boy. He was rummaging.”

Hoffner crouched down and drew his lamp closer in to the corpse. Fichte had learned to take careful note of his partner at these moments. Gone was the waggish smile. In its place, a concentrated gaze lingered over the body and the areas just around it, every inch cataloged for later use. Without warning, the eyes would dart to a wall, or the space by the entrance, hold for a moment, then return for more probing. Fichte knew to say nothing.

Hoffner’s first inclination was to flip her over, check her back, look for the markings that had been so much a part of his life-their lives-since that first grisly discovery in early December. But this woman was too young to have anything to do with that. Strange to feel relief at the side of a murdered woman, he thought. “So,” said Hoffner, his tone matching his focus, “how many have been back here?”

“The boy and the father, and one or two of the patrolmen.”

“One or two?”

“They’re not convinced it’s our case. Keeping their mouths tight. They’re waiting for a Leutnant to arrive. That’s why I was in such a hurry.”

“Right. We’ll need shoe molds from each of them to match against all of this. And photos of everything before the body is moved.” Fichte jotted down a note in his pad as Hoffner continued to speak. “The boy, the father. They’ve seen no one else down here?”

Fichte shook his head. “It turns out there might actually be another three or four ways down into the site. It’s impossible to know how many, or where. According to our ex-engineer, the station promenade was to have extended as far east as Blowplatz.”

“Blowplatz? That’s over half a kilometer. Wonderful.”

The clothes were in surprisingly good shape. In cases like these, they were either missing entirely-the motive for the killing-or had succumbed to the elements-caked-on mud, gnawing rats, etc. Not so here. The woman’s skirt and bodice looked almost new, and she was wearing a pair of intricately woven lace gloves. That seemed odd. “And nothing’s been moved?” said Hoffner.

“As far as I can tell, no. The boy said he saw her, then ran for his father. They brought the moustache. I followed.”

Hoffner nodded slowly. “And how long do we guess she’s been down here?” He took a pen from his coat pocket and brushed the hair back from her face.

“Rate of decay, rats. I’d say about a week, week and a half.”

“Good.” Hoffner liked it when Fichte got something right. He moved farther down the corpse. “But the clothes say otherwise.” Hoffner used his pen to lift the hem of her dress and examine the legs. What he saw momentarily startled him. The flesh on the legs was almost entirely rotted through, with a small puddle of worms and crawling ants camped in between her knees. In an odd way, it looked as if they had been placed there, caged by the legs, and given free rein to go about their business, but only as far as the mid-thigh. There, Hoffner noticed something slick on the flesh, something that was keeping the worms at bay.

Fichte had seen it, as well. It was as if they were looking at two entirely different corpses, one a week postmortem, the other at least six. For several moments Hoffner said nothing as he stared at the strange sheen.

“Someone’s been taking care of her,” he finally said. He let the hem fall back. “Flip her over,” he said as he stood.

Fichte peered up at him. There was a momentary plea in the boy’s eyes, as if to say, They told us we were off this today. Then, with a conscious resolve, Fichte reached under her shoulders and slowly pulled her over.

“Oh God” was all he could get out.

Police headquarters were a disaster.

Hoffner hopped out of the ambulance and motioned for the medic to continue driving through the main gate, or at least what was left of it. For a place he had been coming to six days a week for the past eighteen years, it was almost unrecognizable. The once-imposing line of redbrick archways looked ashamed of itself. Four days removed from the final assault, and the crumbling masonry-chalk-white-was doing little to hide the naked slats of wood that pockmarked the faade. Worse were the iron gates that skulked behind, all at wild angles, bent like spoons for a child’s amusement. And along the lower floors, turreted windows peered out blindly from empty sockets, shards of broken glass still clinging to their disfigured panes. Such was the crowning achievement of Alexanderplatz in the wake of revolution.

A trio of soldiers stood lazily by the gate, guns resting on the ground, their collars pulled up tight to fight back the chill. Each sucked on a cigarette, though the tobacco-where they had managed to scavenge that was anybody’s guess-was clearly too harsh for their young lungs. For a fleeting moment Hoffner thought of his own boys, younger still. He would have to teach them how to smoke properly one of these days. None of the soldiers took even a moment’s notice as the ambulance moved past them.

Hoffner had lost track of the different uniforms now strewn about the city-Guard Fusiliers Regiment, Republikanische Soldatenwehr, Section Fourteen of the Auxiliary, so forth and so on-the names and insignia all melding into one another. The majors and colonels who had once led them no longer seemed to matter. These were simply boys with guns in a once-civilized city.

The trouble had all begun quite innocently some ten weeks ago, when the sailors and stokers in Kiel had decided that they, like the great General Ludendorf, had had enough. Ludendorf had fled to Sweden at the end of October. They, unwilling to suffer through another humiliation at the hands of the British, had simply left their ships. On the fourth of November-in a moment of genuine socialist spontaneity-they formed a Workers’ and Sailors’ Council and took their defiance beyond the naval base to the city hall. Naturally, soldiers were sent in to suppress the uprising, but when the boys arrived-for they were mostly boys, after all-they discovered that it was not a wild mob that they had come to destroy, but a group of the dedicated proletariat. And so the soldiers joined them, and the word spread: Munich, Bremen, Hamburg, Dresden, Stuttgart. By the time the Kaiser declared the armistice on the eleventh, Germany was already comfortably ensconced in revolution.

Berlin, of course, was not one to miss out. On the ninth, Karl Liebknecht-son of the late socialist leader Wilhelm, and himself a recent political guest of Luckau prison-took to the streets with a legion of striking workers behind him. They marched under the banner of Spartakus-the new communist party-and declared the birth of the Free Socialist Republic from the balcony of the Royal Palace. Within days, Rosa Luxemburg was with them. She had spent the better part of four years in Breslau prison, her virtual isolation having done nothing to shake her devotion to the cause. There had been rumors-bouts of hysteria, the possibility that little Rosa had slipped off into madness while caged at the far reaches of the Empire-but she showed none of it on her return to Berlin. She had come to take the revolution as far left as humanly possible, and it was there that the real difficulties had begun.

Had the revolutionaries been of one mind, thousands of innocents might have been spared the fighting. But the revolutionaries were socialists: Karl and Rosa wanted the genuine article, workers of the world rising as one, the death of capitalism, so forth and so on; Chancellor Ebert and his Social Democrats-terrified of a Soviet-style putsch-wanted a National Assembly, elections, and perhaps even a bit of help from various capitalist concerns so as to get the country up and running again. They might have called themselves socialists, but they were a peculiar breed willing to bring back the monarchy-in name only-in the hopes of restoring order. And then there were the sailors-the People’s Naval Division-just back from the front, leftists through and through, so long as they got their pay.

Revolution, however, matters only when the soldiers decide to take sides. In early December Prince Max von Baden and the General Staff chose Ebert, and while there were brief moments of hope for Spartakus after that-Christmas Day on the Schloss Bridge, cannons at the ready, hundreds of armed civilians forcing the government troops into retreat; January sixth, thousands more marching along the broad Siegesallee toward the War Ministry-they were only moments. Karl and Rosa made speeches and printed articles and convoked meetings, but in the end they were left to live on the run and on borrowed time. Troops had been spilling in from the front like so much dirty scrub water since late November. They were hungry for a fight, and needed someone to blame for their recent defeat. Who better than the Soviet-styled Spartakus? Oddly enough, it was Police President Emil Eichorn who was the one to give Ebert his opportunity to mop everything up. Eichorn’s allegiance to the Spartakus movement had never been much of a secret. The new government could ill afford that kind of official opposition, and so, on the eleventh of January, it was Eichorn’s politics that ultimately turned the police buildings on Alexanderplatz into the last battleground of the revolution. Refusing to leave his desk after receiving his dismissal papers-and with a group of Spartacists on hand to defend him-Eichorn gave Ebert no choice but to send in a battalion. It was only yesterday morning that the morgue had removed the last of the corpses.

The men of the Kripo had been elsewhere on the fateful day: they had known what was coming and had left Eichorn alone with his revolutionaries. Even so, there was still bad blood between the government soldiers and the men of police headquarters. It was why Hoffner now chose not to meet them head-on.

He sidestepped his way through several clumps of fallen brick and, turning right with the building, headed down Alexanderstrasse. Hoffner pulled open the outer gate and then made his way to the third door down. The building had lost power on the twelfth, the corridors once again lit by gas lamps. Hoffner followed his shadow to the back stairwell and headed up.

It was on the third floor that he finally ran across another human being. As it turned out, first contact came in the form of Ludwig Groener, distant nephew or cousin or something of the great General Wilhelm Groener, who had played so pivotal a role in December by placing the army in Ebert’s hands. Unlike his epic forebear, however, Groener the lesser marched to the rear, still a detective sergeant at fifty-one, with fewer and fewer cases coming his way. He had become quite proficient with paperwork, and now rarely left the building. Not that he was unpleasant, or embittered by his place in the grand scheme: he was, but that wasn’t the problem. Groener simply had the most notoriously foul breath. It seemed almost inconceivable that such a small man could produce so overwhelming a stench. Hoffner kept to his side of the hall as they passed.

“I hear you’ve found another one.” Groener’s voice trailed after him.

Hoffner stopped and turned around. Groener had gotten the hint over the years: he kept at a healthy distance during these conversations. “Really?” said Hoffner. “And who’d you hear that from?”

“The KD wants to see you.”

“The KD? Dropping off some files, were you, Groener? Overheard a little something?”

Groener ignored the comment. “He’s waiting in his office.”

Hoffner turned and headed down the corridor. “Then it’s lucky I ran into you,” he said over his shoulder. “Otherwise I would have been completely at a loss.”

The men of the Kripo-known within police circles as Department IV-worked entirely out of the third floor, all four sides around the great courtyard given over to their offices, examination rooms, and archives. Hoffner’s office was along the back of the building, tucked safely away within the one spot that had managed to avoid the two-day battle for headquarters.

Stepping into the cramped space now, it was as if the first weeks of January had never taken place at all. Everything was as it had been, as it would be: open files littered the desk; bound casebooks, along with assorted editions of statutes and codes, stood in high columns along the bookshelves that ran the length of the far wall; two plaster casts of battered human skulls-evidence for upcoming court appearances-nestled between a stack of newspapers and two odd volumes of Brockhaus’s Konversations-Lexikon, for some reason Hoffner having taken a specific liking to the encyclopedia’s E and S installments; and, rounding it all out, a cup of something stale and cold-coffee was his best guess, but the color was wrong-sat at the center of his desk. Hoffner would have loved to have blamed his office on the revolution; he just couldn’t.

The one piece of perfect coherence in the room stretched the length of the wall across from his desk. It was a map of Berlin, clean, crisp, its few markings penned in a surprisingly neat hand. This was a custom with Hoffner: a new map for each new case. In that way he could allow the city to assert herself, fresh each time, her moods invariably the single most important clues to any crime. Each district had its own temper, a personality. It was simply his task to watch for the variations, find what did not belong, and allow those idiosyncrasies to guide him. Berlin called for deviation, not patterning. It was something so few in the Kripo understood. To his credit, young Hans Fichte was slowly not becoming one of them.

Hoffner stood in the doorway, as yet unable to see the incongruity in the four pins sticking out from the map: the Mnz Strasse roadwork, the sewer entrance at Oranienburger Strasse, the Prenzlauer underpass, and the grotto off Blowplatz. And now another in the Rosenthaler Platz station. There was something odd to that one-as he had known there would be-the feel of it forced as he drove the pin through the paper. He stared at it for nearly a minute before moving to the desk.

The place was still an icebox as he pulled his notebook from his pocket: someone had promised a delivery of coal by the end of the week, but Hoffner knew better. Picking up the cup on his desk, he sniffed at the contents and then took a sip: something to mask the brandy. With a wince, he swallowed and headed for the corridor.

The KD was behind his desk and on the phone when Hoffner pulled up and knocked at the open door. Kriminaldirektor Edmund Prager looked up and motioned Hoffner inside. Like his own appearance, Prager kept his large office sparse: a long wooden desk-phone, blotter, and lamp-with two filing cabinets at either end, and nothing more. More striking, though, was the absence of anything that might have indicated that a battle had been fought on these floors in the last week. Whatever remnants might still be in piles of debris around the rest of the offices, here there were none. Prager had insisted on it. If the revolution was over, it was over. He had no desire to be reminded of it.

Hoffner watched as Prager continued to nod into the receiver, an occasional “Yes, yes, of course,” or “Quite right,” poking its way into the conversation. Another half-minute and Prager again motioned to Hoffner. Not knowing what to do, Hoffner moved over to the window and gazed out, his eyes wandering across the wreckage in the square below.

Willingly or not, Hoffner now saw the Alex as if through a sheet of fine gauze, all of it familiar, real, yet profoundly not. In a single moment it had changed forever. Whether over hours, days, weeks, Hoffner had discovered that, in revolution, the passage of time is instantaneous, the reality of the sequence irrelevant and irrevocable: perspective made the sensation only more acute. He had felt something similar to this once before, the same distortion, the same jarring disbelief. Then, he had not thought himself capable of striking Martha-he wasn’t-and yet, in that one infinite moment, he had sent her to the ground, his oldest boy watching in horror, the reality of it now lost, only its shame lived over and over: one moment, all as it was, as it had been; the next, fine gauze, and with it a sense of helplessness so deep as to make it almost illusory.

“She has the same markings?” said Prager.

Hoffner turned. The KD was off the phone and was busy writing on a pad as he spoke. “Yes,” Hoffner answered. “Identical.”

A nod.

“You’ve heard the rumor, of course,” said Hoffner. “We’re due for another new chief, any day.” He moved toward the desk. “What does that make-four, five in the last month?”

Still preoccupied, Prager said, “And when were you planning on starting this rumor?”

Hoffner smiled quietly to himself. “As soon as all the bets were in.” He thought he saw the hint of a grin.

“So this makes five,” said Prager as he flipped through the papers.

“Yes.”

“And that makes your maniac rather special, doesn’t it?” Prager stacked the pages, then placed them in perfect alignment along the top right-hand corner of his desk.

“Yes.” Hoffner waited for Prager to look up. “This one looks to be his first. She might even have had a personal connection with our friend.”

“Personal?”

“He’s preserved her. My guess is at least six weeks. That makes her different.”

“Different is good. And how’s Fichte working out?”

“Fine. He’s with the body.”

“Yes, I know. Allowing someone else to take care of your evidence. How far we’ve come, Nikolai.”

“A brave new world, Herr Kriminaldirektor.”

Prager motioned to the chair by the desk. “I need you to finish this one up.”

Hoffner sat. “I don’t think he meant for us to find this woman,” he said, as if not having heard the request. “The others, yes. This one, no.” Hoffner pulled open his notebook and flipped to a dog-eared page. “Preliminary guess is that she was asphyxiated like the others, then-”

“How close are we, here?”

Hoffner looked up. That wasn’t a question one asked in cases like these. In cases like these, one had to let it play itself out, each one unique, like the men and women who committed the crimes: degree was never an issue, and Prager knew that. Hoffner did his best to let the question pass. “As I said, we might have someplace to go with this one-”

“I need this finished,” Prager cut in. He waited. “Do you understand what I’m saying, Nikolai?”

Hoffner remained silent. “No, Herr Kriminaldirektor, I do not.”

Prager began to chew on the inside of his cheek: it was the one lapse in composure he permitted himself. “Almost half a dozen mutilated women in just over a month and a half,” he said, his tone more direct. “I’m not sure how long we can keep this out of the press. The distractions of revolution are beginning to fade.”

“They’re also not going to be getting in the way of an investigation anymore. And,” Hoffner continued, “correct me if I’m wrong, Herr Kriminaldirektor, but we’ve always been very good at using the newspapers to our advantage.”

“As you said, Nikolai, a brave new world.”

For the first time today, Hoffner was genuinely confused. “You’re going to have to make that a little clearer, Herr Kriminaldirektor.”

Prager’s tone softened. “Once in a while, Nikolai, you need to consider the world outside of homicide. You need to consider the repercussions.”

Hoffner had no idea where Prager was going with this, when the KD suddenly stood, his gaze on the door. “Ah.” Prager moved out from behind his desk. “Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting you quite so-promptly.”

Hoffner turned to see a tall, angular man in an expensive suit stepping into the office: a chief inspector with a thin coating of meticulously combed jet-black hair atop a narrow head. Hoffner stood. He had never seen the man before.

Prager made the introductions. “Kriminal-Oberkommissar Gustav Braun, this is-”

“Kriminal-Kommissar Nikolai Hoffner,” said the man, a strangely inviting smile on his lips. “Yes, I know your work well, Inspector. A most impressive rsum.”

With a slight hesitation, Hoffner nodded his acknowledgment. “I wish I could say the same of you, Chief Inspector.” Hoffner then added, “I mean, that I know your work well. I don’t.”

Still coldly affable, Braun said, “No, no, of course not. We tend to keep ourselves to ourselves, upstairs.”

And there it was, thought Hoffner. “Upstairs.” Of course.

A step up from the Kriminalpolizei, both by floor and autonomy, were the detectives of Department IA, the political police. Hoffner had never figured out whether they had been created to combat or augment domestic espionage. Whichever it was, he had learned to keep his distance from the men on the fourth floor. Their influence, never lacking under the Kaisers, had grown by leaps and bounds during the last few months. It was simply a question of how far it would ultimately take them. Why they should be showing any interest in his case, however, was not at all clear. The first four bodies had been those of a sales clerk, two seamstresses, and a nurse, no connections among them-except perhaps that they had all lived solitary, isolated lives-but nothing to pique the curiosity of the Polpo: unless the boys upstairs knew something about number five that Hoffner had failed to see, which meant that Prager was obviously in on the secret.

“Yes, well,” said Prager, predictably less poised: seniority of rank never seemed to matter when IA was involved. “I can assure you that the Chief Inspector has an equally impressive record, Herr Detective Inspector. Although, of course, one never knows how much more has been left out of the file that would be even more impressive had it been in the file”-Hoffner enjoyed watching Prager flounder-“but, of course, it couldn’t be-coming from upstairs.” Prager nodded once, briskly, as if to say he had finished whatever he had been trying to say, and that, whatever he had been trying to say, it had been good. Very good.

Unnerved still further by the ensuing silence, Prager awkwardly motioned toward the door. “We’ll go down, then. At once.” Prager nodded to Braun, who headed out. He then turned to Hoffner and, with a strained smile, indicated for him to follow. No less confused-though rather enjoying it all-Hoffner moved out into the corridor.

The morgue at police headquarters-more of an examination room, and nowhere near as extensive as the real thing across town-sat in the sub-basement of the southwest corner of the building, in better days a quick jaunt across the large glass-covered courtyard, and then down two flights. For the trio of Prager, Hoffner, and Braun, however, it was more of a trek, the courtyard having taken the brunt of the recent fighting. Mortar fire had shattered several sections of the glass dome, allowing individual columns of rain to pour down at will, the echo, in spots, overpowering. Cobblestone, where it remained, was perilously slick; elsewhere, one was left to navigate through tiny rivulets of mud. Herr Department IA seemed little inclined to get his boots dirty.

“I could always carry you,” said Hoffner, under his breath.

“Pardon?” said Braun as he hopped gingerly from one spot to the next.

“What?” said Hoffner innocently.

“I thought you said something.”

“No, nothing, Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar.” Hoffner looked at Prager. “Did you say something, Herr Kriminaldirektor?”

Prager quickened his pace and, still a good ten meters from the door to the lower levels, stuck out his arm. “Ah, here we are,” he said. “That wasn’t so bad.”

Three minutes later, all three stepped into the morgue’s outer hallway, the air thick with the smell of formaldehyde. An officer sat at a desk. He nodded them on.

Visible through the glass on the far doors were six tables in a perpendicular row along the back wall. Sheeted bodies occupied the two tables at the far ends; the four inner ones remained empty. Along the other walls, bookcases displayed a wide array of instruments and bottles, the latter filled with various liquids and creams. Above, the old gas lamps had once again been called into service. Hans Fichte was by one of the shelves, holding an open bottle in his hands-sniffing at its contents-as the three men pushed through the doors and stepped into the room. Momentarily startled, Fichte tried to get the lid back on as quickly as possible. “Ah, Herr Kriminaldirektor,” said Fichte, “I didn’t expect-”

“You’ve been down here alone?” asked Prager.

“Yes, sir,” answered Fichte, still having trouble with the lid. “Except for the medic. But he left once the body. . 0A0; Yes, sir. As you directed. Alone.”

“Good.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Hoffner leaned into Fichte as he passed by him. “Hand in the cookie jar?” It was enough to stem any further fidgeting.

Prager led Hoffner and Braun toward the body on the far right table. He was about to pull back the sheet when Fichte interrupted. “No, no, Herr Kriminaldirektor.” All three looked over at him. For a moment Fichte seemed somewhat overwhelmed, as if he had forgotten why he had stopped them. Then, moving toward the table on the left-bottle still sheepishly in hand-he said more quietly, “Ours is this one here.”

Prager continued to stare at Fichte. “No,” said Prager, his tone almost apologetic. “It’s not, Herr Kriminal-Assistent.” He then turned to Hoffner. “The repercussions, Nikolai. Fished from the Landwehr Canal this morning.” Prager pulled back the sheet.

There, lying facedown on the table-with the all-too-familiar markings chiseled into her back-was the lifeless body of Rosa Luxemburg.

It was a good hour and a half before Fichte placed the bottle back on the shelf, and then wiped his hands on his pants. His nose had gone a nice pink from the chill in the room.

“You were holding it the whole time they were here,” said Hoffner, who was peering over Rosa’s body. He was in shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow, with thick rubber gloves extending halfway up his forearm.

Fichte sniffed at his fingers as he walked back to the examining table. “Well, I couldn’t have stepped away.”

“With the lid open.” Hoffner continued to trace the incisions on her back with what looked to be a thin steel pointer.

Fichte took a moment to answer. “Yes.”

Not looking up, Hoffner added, “Feeling a bit faint, are you?”

“No. Why?”

“You might want to read a label now and then, Hans. Sniffing isn’t actually a science.”

“I did read it.”

Hoffner bent over a particularly intricate patch. “Really?” He nodded to himself. “So you’re comfortable inhaling a solution of arsenious acid. Glad to hear it.”

Fichte was about to sniff at his fingers again; he thought the better of it.

“It’s actually illegal now,” Hoffner continued, his eyes fixed on the series of narrow grooves. “Even at that dilution. But, of course, you knew that.” Fichte said nothing as Hoffner dabbed at a bit of swelling. The skin had retained a surprising elasticity. “Used to be that arsenic was a wonderful thing for preserving a body. I suppose there were too many of those side effects, though. Bleeding mouth, sores, vomiting. Don’t know why it’s still on the shelf.”

Fichte’s face turned a shade paler. “. . Right.”

Hoffner stood upright. He wanted some confirmation. “There’s something different about these.” He used the pointer to draw a circle in the air above several of the slices. “You see what I mean?” Fichte was off in his own thoughts. Hoffner enjoyed the teasing, even if Fichte always took it too seriously, but Hoffner needed the boy to see the corpse, not the woman. Over the last two months, Luxemburg had been a mainstay on the front page of every newspaper in town. This morning they claimed that she had been dragged off by an angry mob. The markings on her back, however, said otherwise. “You’ll be fine, Hans. I promise. Now, put on some gloves.”

Fichte looked over and did as he was told. With a newfound caution, he leaned in over the body and cocked his head to the side so as to get a better angle.

Hoffner waited. “Well,” he said, trying not to sound impatient. “What do you make of them?”

After several false starts, Fichte finally looked up from across the body. “They’re. .” He chose his words carefully. “More jagged. On an angle.”

“Which?”

“Which cuts?”

“No”-a hint of frustration in his voice-“which is it, jagged or at an angle?”

Fichte stood upright. His eyes remained on the body as if he thought it might twitch one way or the other with the answer. “I think-both.”

Hoffner would have liked to have heard more conviction in the voice, especially when Fichte had gotten it right. Instead, he leaned in and scanned across the carvings: he could sense Fichte’s gaze following his own. Shifting his attention to the far table, Hoffner stood and moved over to victim number five, today’s discovery. A nice glob of the preserving grease, which still covered most of her upper body and thighs, sat in a jar at the edge of the table. Hoffner handed the jar to Fichte, then turned up the overhead lamp. He pulled back the sheet. “Make sure it’s properly labeled,” he said as he bent over to examine the back. “We’ll need someone to take a look at it tomorrow morning.”

Fichte handled the jar with great care as he placed it on a nearby shelf. He jotted a few words of detailed description on the label, then wiped his gloved hands on his pants.

Hoffner continued to scan along the grooves. “That’s a nice eye, Hans. This one’s smooth all the way across.” Hoffner shifted his perspective. “As it was with ladies one through four.” He stood and peered over at Rosa. “But not with our Frulein Luxemburg,” he said as if to himself. “Why?” It was not the only dissimilarity Hoffner had seen: Rosa had not been asphyxiated like the other victims, and there was a nice crack to the top of her skull. It might have been from a rifle butt, but Hoffner was only speculating there.

Fichte stared at Hoffner as Hoffner stared at Rosa. After several seconds, Fichte said, “She was pulled out of the canal. Maybe-”

“No,” said Hoffner, no less intent on her corpse. “The water’s not going to have made that kind of a difference.”

“A different knife, then?”

Again, Hoffner shook his head as he moved back to Rosa. This time he used his gloved little finger to highlight the most dominant marking on her back, a straight rut of perhaps eight or nine centimeters in length, a centimeter in width. All the other rivulets spoked out or crisscrossed this central line, which ran between her shoulder blades. Hoffner had come to call it the “diameter-cut.” “It’s got the same little bumps every two centimeters”-he pointed with his finger-“here, here, and here. The same flaw in the blade.” He shook his head. “No, it’s the same knife.”

Fichte moved to the other side of the table and both men stood peering down at Rosa’s back. “Maybe,” said Fichte hesitantly, “he realized who she was after he’d killed her. He panicked and rushed the artwork.” When Hoffner said nothing, Fichte added, “It does have that kind of forced look to it.”

The word “forced” struck Hoffner. He looked up with sudden interest. “Why do you say that?”

Fichte nearly beamed at the encouragement. “Well,” he said, tracing a section. “These bits here. Our boy’s usually much neater in this part. See how the line lightens up and runs off just at the end.”

Fichte was right. Up by the left shoulder blade, one of the incisions seemed to tail off to the right as it joined the diameter-cut: not in keeping with the strict precision of the other lines.

“Here, as well.” Fichte pointed to another section.

Hoffner had noticed it fifteen minutes ago while under the watchful gaze of Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar Braun. It was only now, though, hearing the word “forced,” that he began to see something else. His eyes moved along the ruts as he spoke: “Bring over a bottle of the blue dye and a thin brush,” he said distractedly as he leaned closer into the body. “And grab one of those short blades.”

Fichte quickly found the items and brought them back to the table. Hoffner dipped the brush into the dye and gently ran it along the areas Fichte had just traced. As he got to the tail-off point-where the dye brought out the detail of the lighter strokes-Hoffner’s eyes widened. For several seconds he held his hand out over the area, his palm facing up. He stared at his own hand.

With a sudden urgency, Hoffner stepped farther down the body and drew a wide circle of blue on Rosa’s untouched thigh. He held the knife out to Fichte. “All right, Hans,” he said. “I want you to hold it in your open palm, with the blade facing away from you, your thumb on the knife’s midpoint. And with the flat of the blade parallel to your palm. As if you were going to jab it at me.” He waited until Fichte held it correctly. “Good. Now, carve out a small rut inside the circle.” Hoffner pointed to two spots on the thigh. “Start here, end here. Carve up and away from yourself.”

Fichte stared at him incredulously. “You want me to disfigure the body?”

“She won’t mind,” said Hoffner, his eyes still on the thigh. “Trust me.” He made a sweeping movement with his hand. “Up and away. Keeping the flat of the knife against the skin. Anytime, Hans.” The discussion was over.

This was not the first time that Fichte had been handed his fate. With no other choice, he slowly placed his free hand just above the back of Rosa’s knee and, pulling the skin taut, began to carve out a rut. The sensation was strangely calming, the cold flesh giving way easily to the run of the knife. To Fichte’s surprise, the sliced skin held together like pencil shavings, curling upward, then spiraling down over the thigh before crumbling onto the table. Reaching the endpoint, he stood back and placed the knife next to the body. Hoffner was already leaning in, staring up along the newly made groove.

“Good,” said Hoffner. He stood upright, keeping his eyes on Rosa. “Excellent.”

Fichte was not sure what to answer. “. . Thank you.”

Hoffner looked over, not having been listening. “What?” Almost instantly, he added, “Oh, yes. Good. You’re welcome.” He looked back at Rosa. “Now, I want another rut,” he said, tracing a second line on her thigh, “right next to the first one-”

“What exactly are we doing?” said Fichte, his tone a bit more aggressive than either of them expected.

Hoffner stopped and looked at him. “Cutting out ruts,” he said calmly. “Is that all right with you?” After a moment’s hesitation, Fichte nodded. “Good,” said Hoffner; he waited until Fichte had the knife. “This time,” he continued, “hold it with the blade facing into you, with your thumb at the back, as if you were going to jab it into your own stomach. Again, with the flat of the blade parallel to your palm.” Fichte positioned the knife. “Now carve down and toward yourself, between the same points, the same length as before. Exact same length. You understand?” Hoffner waited for a nod and stepped back.

It was a bit tougher going this time, but Fichte eventually created a parallel line. Again, Hoffner leaned in to examine the results. When he stood, he was nodding to himself.

“What?” said Fichte.

Hoffner thought a moment longer, then turned to Fichte. “Clean it out, and see for yourself.”

Fichte took a cloth, dipped it into a jar of alcohol, and swabbed out the ruts. He then drew to within a few centimeters of the body. When he had finished examining his handiwork, Fichte pulled back and smiled, tracing the first line with his finger. “Smooth,” he said; he then traced the second. “Angled and jagged. How did you know?”

“I didn’t,” said Hoffner, “until I watched you.” He took the blade and held it just above the new markings. “Look.” Fichte bent in closer as Hoffner demonstrated. “That second time, when you were cutting downward, toward yourself, the natural inclination is to carve at a raised angle, which means that the stroke becomes clipped and slightly forced. You see? And, at the bottom, in order to intersect the point without going past it, the stroke shortens, making the wrist inadvertently twist inward, thus making the blade curl just a touch. Like this.” Hoffner exaggerated the movement. “Hence the lighter markings to the side, here and here.” Fichte nodded. Hoffner shifted the blade. “Cutting upward, the angle is flatter, less severe, the motion a continuous stroke, smooth. You see? That’s why there was no need to twist to keep it from going past the point at the top.” He extended the blade to Fichte, the lesson complete. “I couldn’t do it myself because I knew what I wanted to see. It would have altered my hand. Not so with you.”

Fichte waited, then took the knife. “So, when do I start seeing all of these things for myself?”

Hoffner picked up the can of dye and walked it back to the shelf. “I don’t know. When you start looking for them?”

“That’s encouraging.”

“Really,” said Hoffner. “It wasn’t meant to be.” He waited, then laughed quietly. “Don’t worry, Hans. It’ll come. The question is”-he moved back to the table-“does it help us? We now know how they’re different. We still don’t know why.”

“So maybe I was right. Maybe he panicked. He was in a rush.”

“And he decided to cut up his latest victim in a way he’s never done before? Does that make any sense to you?” Catching Fichte in mid-breath, Hoffner added, “Think before you answer, Hans.” Fichte waited, then shook his head slowly. “So, what’s the most obvious answer? Two different strokes, so-”

Fichte needed another few seconds. “Two different men?” he said, completely unsure of himself.

“Exactly. A second carver.” Hoffner took a cloth and began to wipe off the brush. “And suddenly our world is far less simple.”

Fichte started to say something but stopped. He looked puzzled. “I’m not sure I’d describe what we’ve been working with so far as ‘simple.’”

“Maybe,” said Hoffner as he finished with the brush and headed for the shelf. “But remember, simple isn’t always the most helpful of things. It’s plain, fixed, consistent.” Hoffner was at the tray, ordering the brushes by size. “Look at us. It’s been simple for the past six weeks, and we’re still finding bodies.”

Fichte was not convinced. “So going from one madman with four anonymous victims to multiple killers with a victim whom everybody knows-not to mention another one who’s been preserved for six weeks-makes our lives better?”

“Better, worse, that’s not the point.” Hoffner put the finishing touches on the brushes. “It gives us more to play with, highlights the deviation. And that”-he made his way back to the table-“is always to our advantage.” He pulled the sheet over Rosa and took off his gloves. “Something to think about. Yes?” Hoffner moved to the sink and began to rinse his hands. He had trouble remembering whether this was the third or fourth time he had tried impressing this point on Fichte. No matter. Someday it would stick. “And progress always deserves a drink.” He brought his hands to a full lather. “How about it, Hans? Have we spent enough time with the ladies for one day?”

Fichte was still mulling over the impromptu lesson. “Shouldn’t we bring the KD up to speed?” he said.

“Hans”-Hoffner rinsed off the last of the soap, trying not to sound too dismissive-“the Herr Kriminaldirektor has been home for the past hour, sitting in front of a nice fire with a far better brandy than you or I will ever drink. He knows these ladies will be here tomorrow. He knows we’ll be here tomorrow. His only concern is that we don’t find any more of them to play with.” Hoffner shook out his hands, turned off the tap, and took a towel. “Unless you want me to drink alone?”

Fichte hesitated. “Well, no,” he said. He moved to the far table and covered up victim number five. “It’s just”-he began to take off his gloves-“I was meeting someone, and-” Fichte struggled to finish the thought.

“Ah,” said Hoffner, saving him the trouble: the prospect of facing dinner at home without something of a distraction beforehand was far more deflating than Fichte’s awkward brush-off. “A different kind of deviation.” The joke was lost on Fichte. “Never mind,” said Hoffner. “Another time.” He pressed a small white button by the sink, and a bell rang beyond the doors to inform the orderlies that the bodies were ready for the ice room.

“No.” Fichte was suddenly more animated. “You should come. I’d like you to come.” Still more steam. “Yes, come. Lina’s even asked about you.”

“Lina,” said Hoffner.

“A friend. A girl.”

“Oh, a girl,” said Hoffner, stating the obvious. He tossed the towel onto the counter. “Then I should definitely not come.”

“No, no. It’s nothing like that,” said Fichte, even more insistent. “Well, I mean it is like that, but it’ll be for a drink. One drink. We can talk about working together. You know.”

“‘Working together,’” Hoffner echoed.

“As detectives.”

“Right,” said Hoffner, more skeptically. “I can tell her what a fine partner you are, the great work you’re doing.”

“Exactly,” said Fichte. “We’ll have some fun.” He continued to gain momentum. “She’s great, my Lina. No. You have to come now. She won’t forgive me if I show up without you.”

“I see.” Hoffner stepped aside. He sat against the counter, arms crossed at his chest, as Fichte started in at the sink. “How can I deprive your Lina of my remarkable company?”

“Yes. Exactly.”

Hoffner watched as Fichte sniffed at his lathered hands. There was something reassuring about this particular fixation of his. Fichte completed his inspection and, finding nothing, rinsed off.

“So,” asked Hoffner, “how long has she been selling flowers along Friedrichstrasse?”

“About three months,” said Fichte offhandedly. He then looked over at Hoffner in complete surprise. “How did you know that?”

Hoffner smiled. “I was also once a twenty-three-year-old Kriminal-Assistent, Hans. Mine was called Celia.”

Fichte shook his head as he turned off the tap and picked up the towel. “No, my Lina’s a nice girl.”

For several seconds, Hoffner stared down at the floor, trying to recall his Celia. He could almost see her, the long, slim frame, the wirelike fingers, the small breasts, all of it, except for the face. He tried to find it-bad skin, pretty-but no, only a vague outline: an endless array of thieves and murderers clear as day, but no Celia. “A nice girl,” he said, still distant. He looked at Fichte. “And what makes you think mine wasn’t?”

Fichte saw the change in Hoffner’s expression. He stopped drying his hands. “. . I didn’t mean-”

Instantly, Hoffner started to laugh. “Well, you’re right. She wasn’t.” When Fichte smiled sheepishly, Hoffner pushed himself up from the counter and said, “All right, one drink, Hans. But anything to impress your Lina will cost you extra.”

Ten minutes later, after having retrieved his coat and having jotted down a few notes, Hoffner joined Fichte out on the square. The rain was misting in tiny drops of water visible only as haloes around the street lamps.

Fichte was enjoying a cigarette; he offered Hoffner a drag, but the smell of the smoke was enough to put anyone off a tasting. Fichte had a girl: he needed to save his pfennigs. Hoffner had always reasoned that the cheaper the tobacco, the greater the capital required to grease the way. From the expression on Fichte’s face each time he inhaled, few came more chaste than little Lina.

There was no reason to ask where they were heading. If Fichte was playing it well-and from the tobacco, he clearly was-he would have progressed to old Josty’s in Leipziger Strasse by now, over in the west, a step up: the cafe was fancy enough so that the girl would feel Fichte was showing her the proper respect, lively enough to know that respect wasn’t really what he was after. Fichte had probably asked one of the boys at headquarters where to take her, someone reliable. Hoffner felt a bit tweaked that Fichte had gone elsewhere for the advice.

“She’s quite popular, is she?” said Fichte as they continued to walk. Hoffner had no idea what Fichte was saying. “Or at least she was.”

“Was what?” said Hoffner. “Who?”

“At the lab. Luxemburg. She was popular.”

“Ah, Luxemburg. I suppose that depends on who you are.” Hoffner pulled up the collar of his coat. “You fancy yourself a Red, then?”

Fichte laughed awkwardly. “Certainly not.”

“So you’re more for the oppression of the masses. The inscrutable certainty of capitalism.”

“The what?” said Fichte.

Hoffner smiled quietly. “Yes. She was popular, Hans.”

Fichte nodded and then said cautiously, “You’re. . 0A0; not a Red, are you, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar?”

Hoffner dug his hands deeper inside his coat pockets. “And what did you have in mind?”

“Well, you know. .” Fichte had been given the go-ahead. “Blowing up buildings, marching in the streets, chaos, that sort of thing.”

“‘That sort of thing,’” Hoffner echoed. “Sounds a bit more like anarchy, don’t you think?”

“Anarchy. Socialism. Same thing.”

“I’ll leave the distinctions to you, shall I?”

Fichte hesitated. “She was a Jew,” he said with surprising certainty.

Hoffner nodded to himself. “Well, then, there you have it. The complete picture.” They ducked in behind a cart and headed across the street. Hoffner said, “You know, your anarchist wasn’t always waving her fists from balconies, Hans, but then you’re probably too young to remember that.” Hoffner hopped up onto the curb.

“Really?” said Fichte, following.

“Really.”

They continued to walk in silence until Fichte managed, “How so?”

The boy was genuinely keen on the subject. Hoffner said, “It might do you to pick up a newspaper now and then, Hans.”

Fichte nodded. “It might, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar, but then I’ve always got you if I don’t.”

Hoffner had never heard Fichte’s playful side: the prospect of seeing his girl was evidently working wonders. “Fair enough,” said Hoffner. “It was before the war, around the time they hanged that Hennig fellow for the Treptow murders. You remember the case?” Fichte nodded. “Frulein Luxemburg printed an article in one of her papers, something about how the average soldier was being mistreated by his officers. Not that this was any great news to anyone, but she claimed that it had gotten out of hand. Lots of press after that. A Red coming to the aid of the army’s downtrodden. Powerful stuff.”

Fichte was skeptical. “Luxemburg did that. . 0A0; for the soldiers?”

“She wasn’t trying to scrap the whole business, Hans-she wasn’t angling for them to disband the army or hang the culprits-she just wanted a bit of fair play.”

“Oh,” Fichte conceded.

“Naturally, the General Staff didn’t like it. They said that she’d insulted the entire breed-from the lowest scrub all the way up to General von Falkenhayn himself-so they put her on trial. Wanted to teach her a lesson, show her how easily a little Red could be crushed by the might of the Imperial Army. Except the soldiers started showing up in droves to give testimony, and all of them saying that she’d gotten it right. Something of a humiliation for the boys on top.”

“I don’t remember hearing-”

“Reading, Hans. It required a bit of reading. Anyway, Rosa came out of it the most popular girl in town. First the workers, then the soldiers. She had a little army behind her, this little Jewess with the funny walk. That’s why they threw her in prison when the war broke out. And why those same boys she’d helped all those years before were so eager to hunt her down once the war was over. They were officers by then. Not terribly appreciative, were they?”

Fichte waited before answering with a grin, “You’re sure you’re no Red, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar?”

Hoffner smiled with him. “It’s not all wild Russians and unwashed masses, Hans. There was a bit of courage in what she did-even for a socialist-and you have to respect that.”

The two walked past the darkened shops of Konigsstrasse and up alongside the walls of the Royal Palace-recent victim of its own revolutionary clash, and now forced to play the role of impotent relic. This, thought Hoffner, was to be the home of the new government. Already it seemed to be screaming out “bureaucracy!” to the socialist upstarts champing at the bit-rococo and baroque ousted by the dull gray furnishings of reform. From a certain angle, the four-block behemoth actually looked like a massive legion of filing cabinets. Maybe the social democrats knew more than they were letting on?

Wilhelmine Berlin reemerged as they crossed the Platz and started down the always-vibrant Unter den Linden. Hoffner marveled that, even in the aftermath of revolution, the avenue maintained an almost pristine elegance: trams, buses, people, were all decorously in tune with each other. Not a single tree within the dual column at its center had fallen-to battle or to firewood-although a few limbs had snapped under the push of onlookers during those first wild forays in late December. Those not lucky enough to have merited access to the upper floors of the various stores and hotels-or who had simply been daring enough to venture outside-had been forced up into the bigger branches for their vantage points. Thus had the twin line succumbed to the weight of rebellion. Still, Hoffner had to concede that, socialist or not, Berliners had known themselves well enough to leave the avenue in one piece. It was, after all, far more than just another rendering of the grand European boulevard. It was-it would always be-the city’s conduit between east and west, between the grind of labor and the gate of privilege, between his own world and the world of nobility. Revolution or not, Hoffner knew that that line could never be broken. It had made a certainty of defeat even before the first shots had been fired.

Unbreakable, however, was not the way the avenue presented itself to him tonight. Where stone and light and trees sprouted, Hoffner saw only the rising shoulder blades of the Alex and the Brandenburg Gate, the crisscrossing carvings of the well-lamped Friedrich and Spandau and Charlotten Strassen; even the elfin spire of Hedwig Church seemed now like a jagged imperfection dug out by a flawed blade. Hoffner gazed at the passing bodies, trams, automobiles, all of them caught inside the impenetrable pattern of a madman’s imagination, their movements dictated by the sudden twists and turns, and all perfectly synchronous and smooth. Variations in speed, angle, and direction faded as the avenue breathed life into the design. And within it walked Nikolai Hoffner, a willing speck in its circulation. He had allowed himself to believe that the pattern would rise up, reveal its meaning, if only he could maintain the ruse, convince it that he, too, belonged on the diameter-cut.

A child darted away from its mother; a man dropped to his knee; a tram screeched to a stop. And the pattern dissolved.

The Brandenburg Gate-once again stone-loomed above, and Hoffner heard words. Fichte was saying something. Hoffner continued to walk: he decided to let Fichte’s droning die out on its own.

As it turned out, Fichte was merely pointing out a tram and, expecting no response, had raced off to hold the door. It took another moment for Hoffner to catch on before he put some life into his legs, ran up, and jumped on. He was greeted by several muted hrumphs from the seated passengers. A flash of his badge to the conductor quieted any further commentary.

Hoffner moved to the back of the car and gazed out at the receding avenue. He tried to find the pattern again, but it was gone. Another lost opportunity, he thought. He closed his eyes and let his body sway to the tram’s motion as Fichte checked his watch.

It was another fifteen minutes before Hoffner felt a tug on his sleeve. He opened his eyes to see Fichte moving to the door, the lighted sign of Cafe Jostin growing nearer and nearer through the tram’s window. They had arrived in Potsdamer Platz. Two uniformed Schutzis stood at either end of the square’s traffic circle, trying to impose order. Hoffner smiled at their ineptitude: even the buses seemed to be ignoring them. He moved toward the door where Fichte was waiting impatiently. The tram came to a stop and the two hopped off.

“I didn’t know the badge gets us a free ride,” said Fichte, quickening his pace as they crossed the square.

“Only mine,” said Hoffner, aware that Fichte was too far ahead to hear him.

Hoffner let Fichte lead the way as they approached the caf’s large front windows, several long panes of glass that stretched nearly half a block. The bodies inside were packed in tightly, standing and sitting, an amorphous mass on view for the curious passerby. Pieces of conversation spilled out onto the street with each opening and closing of the door, at this hour in constant flux from the young clerks and salesgirls recently unchained from their posts at Wertheim’s and the other stores along the avenue. A slightly rougher crew-those who had left carts and other street-front enterprises-milled about around the bar. By eight o’clock it would be a different crowd altogether, a touch more sophisticated and with a few extra marks in their pockets for the second page of the menu. Until then, however, beer, not wineglasses, sat atop the marble tables; paper napkins served in place of the cloth; and those immaculately bleached white coats remained on their hooks-the long, if slightly dingy, waiters’ aprons sufficient for the early clientele.

From the eagerness in his stride, Fichte was clearly hoping to escape the changing of the guard. By then, if all had gone well, Hoffner expected him to have little Lina on his arm for a walk in the Tiergarten, her coat too thin for the cold, a needed arm around her shoulder-better yet-around her waist. Hoffner saw the evening’s performance playing out in Fichte’s eyes as his young assistant stepped over to the door.

“You go on in,” said Hoffner, still lagging behind. “I’m going to have a quick smoke.” Before Fichte could answer, Hoffner had a cigarette in his hand. “Come on, Hans. She’ll want a minute or two alone with you. You have to give her that, don’t you?” Fichte’s confusion gave way to a look of reluctant appreciation. Maybe an old detective inspector had more to offer than Fichte realized, than any of the young guns back at headquarters realized? If not, at least Hoffner was feeling himself back in the game. Or vindicated. Or not.

Fichte shrugged with a nod, opened the door, and moved inside. Hoffner watched him go as he tongued the end of his cigarette, lit it, and stepped over to the window, just out of reach of the lights. Taking in a long draw, he peered in from the shadows.

He saw her almost at once, even before Fichte did, impossible to miss her by the side wall. She was seated alone, with a small glass of beer perched at the edge of her table. She could have been any number of girls-a younger version of this morning’s encounter, perhaps-but Hoffner knew better. This one had a long way to go before stepping up to those ranks, her reputation clearly still her own. Even so, it was a plain face that gazed out, small nose, full mouth, with a curling of brown-blond hair pulled back and parted at the side. Her shoulders, slouching forward just enough, gave her slight bosom some depth, and, with her coat draped over the back of her chair, her slender arms lay bare as they disappeared into her lap. She sat, neither charmed nor daunted by the affectation all around her. Fichte had chosen well: maybe he would be the one to save her? From the look of her, she might even save herself.

She took a sip of beer, licked her lower lip-the tongue lingering just an instant too long-and sat back. She caught sight of Fichte and raised an arm, and Hoffner realized that perhaps he had underestimated her. The face transformed with a smile. Her eyes, unremarkable to this moment, sparked at the sight of Fichte, not with an adolescent excitement, but with something far more self-possessed. It gave her entire face a brightness. It would have been difficult to call it beauty, but it was no less riveting. Hoffner watched as Fichte maneuvered his way through the tables, as he leaned down to kiss her cheek, and sat beside her. She offered him her beer. He looked around for a waiter. When none could be found, Fichte coyly accepted the glass and began to speak between sips.

There was something fascinating in the way she watched Fichte talk, something Hoffner had not expected: she was leaning back. There was no need to perch forward, no attempt to show her undying interest, no sudden laughter, no distractions to sate her vanity. That scene was playing itself out at too many of the other tables. Here, she was actually listening. When she finally spoke, it was with a genuine conviction that, to Hoffner, was as out of place as it was compelling. He found himself drawn in, watching her speak, her every word, closer and closer to the glass, until, with a start, he saw her staring back at him. He stood there, suddenly aware of the shadows no longer around him.

A piece of ash dropped from his cigarette: it glanced off his hand and he flicked it away. It was only then that he noticed Fichte signaling for him to join them. Hoffner wondered which of the two had spotted him first.

Hoffner took a last drag, then tossed the cigarette to the ground. It fizzed in the puddled pavement as he stepped over to the door and pushed his way through.

The din of chatter rose up at once as if personally welcoming him, an imagined “Nikolai!” drawing his attention to a swarm of bodies off to his right. Hoffner turned back and pointed his way past the matre d’ as he made his way over to the table and Fichte, who was standing. Hoffner waited for Fichte to present her, and then offered a short bow. “Frulein.” Before Lina could respond, Hoffner had lassoed a waiter and was ordering three glasses of Engelhardt’s. Fichte moved around to the other side of the table and allowed Hoffner to take his chair. The two men sat. “I’m sure your girl can do with a glass of her own,” said Hoffner. He placed his hat on the empty seat across from her.

Lina said, “You didn’t have to smoke outside, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar.” Her voice was low and inviting, and just as self-assured as Hoffner had imagined. “I wouldn’t have minded.”

“No,” said Hoffner, reaching in his pocket and retrieving the pack, “I don’t think you would have, Frulein.” He took a cigarette for himself, then offered one to Fichte. “The rain’s let up. I thought I’d take advantage of it.” He saw Fichte’s hesitation. “Come on, Hans. Better than that mll you’ve been smoking. Do us all some good.” Fichte looked at Lina, smiled sheepishly, and took the cigarette. “Can’t understand why he smokes them,” said Hoffner, striking a match and lighting Fichte’s. Not giving her time to answer, Hoffner said, “Must have some reason, eh, Frulein?” He lit his own and tossed the match into the ashtray.

Fichte cut in quickly. “I don’t usually smoke around Lina.”

“That’s a noble fellow,” said Hoffner. He picked at a piece of stray tobacco on his tongue.

“She says she doesn’t mind,” said Fichte. “Naturally, I can do what I like.”

“Well,” said Hoffner, “that’s very open-minded of you, Frulein.”

“Thank you, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar,” she said. “Hans tells me your case is getting more and more interesting. That must be exciting.”

The word “exciting” had never sounded so raw. Hoffner smiled. “Nikolai. Please. For such a close friend of Hans.”

Fichte perked up. “Thank you, Herr Krim. . 0A0; Hoff. . 0A0; Nikolai.”

“And you must call me Lina,” she said, her eyes fixed on him.

Hoffner felt her gaze as he tapped out a head of ash into the tray. “That’s very kind, Frulein Lina.”

“Not at all, Nikolai.”

Again, he peered at her. Hoffner wondered if Fichte knew what he was dealing with here.

The beers arrived. Fichte tossed back what remained of his first glass and handed the empty to the waiter. He then picked up his new glass and proposed a toast. “To. .” It was as much as he had prepared.

“To new friends,” said Lina.

“Yes,” said Fichte enthusiastically. “New friends.”

Hoffner raised his glass, then took a sip. He placed his glass back on the table and said, “So, you’ve never told me how the two of you met.”

It was all the prompting Fichte needed; with an occasional “Really, Hans-an ice-skating rink?” Hoffner had bought himself another few minutes to study Lina.

He now realized that the view from the window had not come close to doing the girl justice. Not that she was all that much more attractive. True, there were a pair of rather nice legs that had been lost under the table-her dress had risen to just above the knee and hinted at an even greater loveliness higher up the thigh-but it was nothing so mundane as a physical reappraisal that intrigued Hoffner. Lina had an energy, instantly perceptible, that told of a past and a future filled with daring and, above all, conquest, none of it garish or cheap, but intensely real, like the eyes that stared across at Hans and his stories of their recent present. The only mystery for Hoffner was why she had lighted upon his assistant, his well-meaning, young, very young, Hans as her escort.

“Hans exaggerates that part,” said Lina as she took his hand. “It was a little jump, and I almost fell.”

“She was magnificent, Nikolai,” said Fichte. “Truly.”

It was the first time Hoffner had heard Fichte sound comfortable using his name: remarkable thing, the touching of hands.

Hoffner took a long swig of beer. He stopped for breath, finished off the glass, and then placed it on the table. “It all sounds very romantic,” he said as he patted at his pockets for some coins. “Sadly. .”

“Oh, no,” said Fichte. “You’re not going yet. And you’re certainly not paying when you do.” It was clear Fichte was already feeling the effects of the alcohol. Before Hoffner could stop him, Fichte was on his feet. “We have to find you some company. We can’t share Lina, you know, if we’re going dancing.”

Fichte was lost to the melee of tables and waiters before Hoffner could put out a hand to stop him. Even so, Hoffner swatted at the air before sitting back.

“He knows you won’t stay,” said Lina. “But he wants to make the effort.”

Hoffner started looking for a waiter. “Another mouth to feed.”

“You don’t have to do that, Nikolai.”

The mention of his name stopped Hoffner. The sound of it now felt wrong, not that hearing it had ever stopped him in the past. A waiter appeared. “Four more glasses,” said Hoffner.

“Three,” said Lina.

“Three,” said Hoffner, “and a dish of ice cream, vanilla, for the lady.” He turned to her. “Do you like nuts?”

“We have no nuts, mein Herr,” said the waiter.

Hoffner continued to stare at Lina. “Then we don’t want any.” Lina smiled. Hoffner tried not to enjoy it as much as he did.

The man seemed confused. “But we don’t-”

Hoffner turned back to the waiter. “Just the ice cream, then,” he said, relieving the man of any further mental anguish. When the waiter had gone, Hoffner turned again to Lina. “Ah,” he said, and shook his head. “I should have asked for chocolate sauce. You do like chocolate sauce?”

“Yes. They wouldn’t have had any.”

Hoffner retrieved his cigarette from the ashtray. “No,” he said as he watched the line of smoke peel upward. “I’m surprised they had the ice cream.” He took a long pull on the cigarette. “You’re nineteen. Give or take.”

“Give or take.”

“Funny, you don’t seem nineteen.”

“No. I don’t.” She waited, then brought her wrist up toward him. “Hans gave me this. For my birthday.”

Hoffner leaned over and admired the cheap little bracelet, a thin silver plate chain. He made sure to keep his eyes on the trinket. He could feel her eyes on him. “Very handsome.” He sat back, took another pull, then crushed out the remaining cigarette. “He’ll make a good detective,” said Hoffner, continuing to play with the stub. He had no idea why he had volunteered the information when he didn’t believe it himself.

“He’ll like to hear that,” said Lina.

“Then you mustn’t tell him.”

She laughed: there was nothing coy or timid about it. Hoffner wanted to laugh, as well. Instead, he released the cigarette and brushed off his hands. “And it seems you’re fascinated with police investigations.”

“I wouldn’t say fascinated.”

“Excited, then.”

“Not really. Hans wanted me to ask you.”

Hoffner nodded slowly. “I see.” She had given in too quickly. “Clever boy, our Hans.” He took a sip of beer. Lina did the same.

“He thinks a great deal of you, you know,” she said.

“Of course he does.” Hoffner placed the glass back on the table. “I’m his detective inspector.”

“No. I mean a great deal.”

“He’ll get over it.” Hoffner felt something fast approaching from behind him. His sense of relief was equally palpable. “Aha,” he said. “What’s she look like?”

Lina immediately peered past him. Her eyes widened as she gave in to a grin and spoke under her breath. “You don’t want to know.”

“Then I’m sorry for you. You’ll have a tough time getting rid of her once I’m gone.”

Lina’s eyes told him that Fichte was almost upon them. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll get rid of her.” Hoffner had no doubt of it.

“Look who I’ve found,” came Fichte’s too-loud voice from behind as he drew up.

Hoffner turned. A short redhead, dyed almost to the roots, had an arm around Fichte’s waist; her other was reaching out for Hoffner. She was, by conservative estimates, a good 120 kilos, something of a miracle given the food situation in Berlin. And she was clearly proud of her heft. Her age was anybody’s guess.

“Fat Gerda!” barked the woman as she managed to slap a paw onto Hoffner’s shoulder. “That’s who he’s found for you, you lucky boy!”

The smell of alcohol was equally aggressive, a bit much even for the pre-eight-o’clock crowd. “Just my type,” said Hoffner as he stood.

“I knew it,” said Fichte, a lilt to his voice that told them he had had another pop at the bar during his search. Hoffner recalled the first time he had gone out drinking with the boy, the night after he had introduced Fichte to the “cattle yard” and his first abandoned baby. The stench had been enough to lead them directly to the flat; they had both needed a drink after that. By the third beer, Fichte had been singing, a remarkably quick drunk for such a big man. Hoffner had pinned it on the lungs. Better to think that everything stemmed from that one defect than to consider the larger Fichte picture.

“I’ve seen your wife, Nikolai,” said Fichte. “This one’s perfect!” He laughed loudly and Gerda joined in. Lina did her best to enjoy them from a distance.

“Can’t argue with that, now can I?” said Hoffner as he retrieved his hat and stood. His own Martha may not have been as trim as little Lina, but she was still a few fighting classes removed from Gerda. “That’s inductive reasoning at its finest, Hans,” he said. “You’re really showing me something here, tonight. Very impressive.”

Fichte flopped down onto the chair across from Lina. He looked more than dazed. “Hello, Lina,” he said.

“Hello, Hans,” she answered.

“Mine’s old,” said Gerda. Hoffner was praying she was referring to him. She was trying to find a seat for herself but was having trouble squeezing in behind Fichte. “I don’t like this Lina person,” she said to no one in particular. Gerda suddenly burst out laughing and bumped Fichte into the table. Forcing her way through, she lowered herself onto the chair: seated, she virtually lunged across at Lina. “I didn’t mean it,” said Gerda, her words as undulating as the thick flesh on her arms. “You know I didn’t mean it. You’re such a sweet little pretty thing for your young man. Even if he came to find me.” She did her best to shake out her hair, her massive chest jiggling with the movement. It was an odd blend of the coy and the vulgar. “He’s yours, you know,” she added. “Not mine. Yours.” She peered up at Hoffner, then took a playful swipe at him across the table. “That’s mine.”

Lina smacked Gerda across the face, a lithe, swift movement. A nail scraped and Gerda’s cheek bled.

For several seconds, Gerda remained motionless. Only when she sat back did she bring her hand to her face. She looked at her fingers, saw the blood, and her disbelief turned to rage. Again she lunged.

Almost without effort, Hoffner caught her wrist, twisted, and pinned her to the table. It was remarkable to see that much size incapable of movement. “Don’t,” was all he said.

Through it all, Lina didn’t so much as flinch. Fichte tried to follow the proceedings, but it was too much for him. No one at the surrounding tables showed the least bit of interest. In a calm, quiet voice, Hoffner said, “You might want to move over by Hans, Frulein.” Lina got up and stepped to Fichte’s side.

Still manipulating the wrist, Hoffner got Gerda to her feet and moved her around to the other side of the table. He was standing between the two women when he released her. He handed Gerda a napkin. “It’s not so bad, is it?” he said. Gerda tried to look past him to Lina, but Hoffner shifted his weight so as to block her view. “Is it?” he said again. Gerda looked up at him. She shook her head slowly. “No, I didn’t think so,” he said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a few coins. “No reason for you to come back, is there?”

It took Gerda a moment before she pocketed the money. Again she shook her head. Then, stepping slowly away, she continued to peer around Hoffner. “That’s not right, you know,” she said. “That’s not right at all.” At a safe distance, she looked at Hoffner. “I know Pimm.” She continued to move away, a finger wagging back at him. “Pimm doesn’t stand for that sort of thing.”

Hoffner knew the name well, a top boy with one of the larger syndicates: fencing, pimping. Gerda needed a friend like that, although she should have been a bit better with her geography. Pimm’s terrain was back near the Landsberger Allee. East. This was more Sass brothers’ territory. Still, he appreciated the effort. Hoffner reached into his coat pocket and produced his badge. He placed it on the table. Gerda’s expression changed instantly. “You tell Pimm I’ll keep that in mind,” he said.

Gerda looked as if she might say something. Instead, she turned and quickly moved off. Hoffner waited until she was a few more tables on before turning back. He kept his profile to Lina. “Not much of a dancer,” he said.

“No,” said Lina quietly.

Hoffner knew there would be nothing more by way of explanation, not that he needed one. He placed his hat on his head and retrieved the badge from the table. He then peered down at Fichte. “Probably best to take your walk a little early tonight, Hans. You could use the air.”

Fichte looked up. His eyes were anything but focused. He did his best with a nod.

Finally, Hoffner looked at Lina. He knew he would see nothing in the girl’s eyes to hint at what had prompted the sudden entertainment. She was, at that moment, completely unknowable. Hoffner nodded once. “Frulein,” he said.

She swayed slightly to stop him from going “We should do this right, sometime,” she said. She then placed a hand on Fichte’s shoulder. “You, me, and Hans.”

Hoffner held her gaze. “Good night, Frulein.” He then slapped a hand at Fichte’s arm. “Tomorrow morning at eight, Hans. Wouldn’t want to disappoint the KD.”

The ice cream arrived; Hoffner was already off in the crowd.

By eight, he was back at the block of flats on Friesen Strasse, following the echo of his own steps across the vast and empty stone courtyard and into the entryway marked D. He still had to remind himself it was D: they had lived in F for almost twelve years, up until a year ago when the larger place had come available. Martha had insisted he use his position as a Kripo detective to make sure they got it. Who was he to argue? Two or three families on the floor still refused to talk to him, though Martha seemed to find a kind of vindication in their bitterness. He had preferred F. Nicer carpeting on the stairs up.

The long walk south to Kreuzberg had done little to make sense of the minor drama at Josty’s. Hoffner wondered how much of it he had provoked himself: he knew entirely, but his ego was allowing him a little leeway. Why shouldn’t she want to impress him? The problem was, why was he so desperate to be impressed? He had managed to keep himself in check since Victor’s death, a poor attempt at gallantry in the name of a fallen comrade, but even Hoffner was having trouble these days convincing himself that lethargy was particularly noble. As he passed the third floor, he realized the point was moot. Fichte was probably off somewhere staking his claim, right now. It had been that kind of an evening. Then again, Hoffner remembered the tobacco. She might just be putting up a good fight. He made his way up to the fourth floor and let himself in.

The smell of boiled cabbage and some distant relative of meat greeted him at the door. It would taste better than it smelled; it always did with Martha. His youngest, Georgi-Georg to his friends, now that he had reached the advanced age of seven-was waiting for him in the front hall, his slippered feet dangling above the carpet, his long nightshirt lapping at his shins. His head, drooped to his chest, sprang instantly to life as Hoffner stepped through the doorway. Georgi held a piece of paper in his hands. He raced over and hugged his father around the waist. Just as quickly, he held the paper up to Hoffner’s face. “It’s two weeks from Sunday,” he said. “And the tickets are very reasonable.”

Hoffner took the paper. Very reasonable, he thought. Evidently, Georgi had gotten to Martha first.

It was an advertisement for an air show out at Johannisthal, a political maneuver masquerading as a father-and-son afternoon outing. The profile of a handsome young sky pilot filled much of the page, with tiny aeroplanes and zeppelins swarming about his head and chest. One actually seemed to be flying up his nose. To his credit, the young pilot was standing firm.

The Ebert government was being clever, thought Hoffner, taking everyone back to the gentler days. Hoffner had gone several times with his older boy, Sascha, when Georgi had been too little. The shows had stopped, for obvious reasons, and Georgi had spent the last three years reminding anyone who would listen of his considerable deprivation. It had not helped that Sascha had kept several posters of the Deutscher Rundflug-the monthlong rally across Germany-plastered above his bed. “You’re sure you want to go?” said Hoffner with feigned surprise. “It looks like it’s just some old Albatros D-threes, maybe a few Halberstadt C-types. But if that’s all right with you-”

“Papi!” said Georgi with a look of total incomprehension. He grabbed the paper back and began to scan it with ratlike intensity. His tight dark curls bobbed as he read. Again, he thrust it at Hoffner. “Six-cylinder, liquid-cooled in-line engine! A Fokker D-seven!”

“A D-seven, you say?” said Hoffner. “Well, then we really have no choice, do we?” He handed back the sheet and set off down the hall. Georgi seemed to dance his way behind.

The living and dining rooms were dark as father and son passed them along their way to the kitchen, twenty years of accrued furnishings-an amassed life-erased by the shadows, leaving only soulless outlines. Martha preferred it that way.

She was at the sink, cleaning up the last of the boys’ dinner, her own small plate of potatoes and meat just off to the side, when Hoffner stepped into the kitchen. Her hair was pulled up in a bun, a few stray wisps tickling at her neck. It was still a fine neck, white and soft, in strict contrast to the hands that ran through the steaming water: the one sign of her age-not in the face, not in the full, strong shape of her figure-only in the hands. They had become oddly rough.

A bowl of brown soup and a loaf of bread awaited him on the table. Hoffner tossed his coat onto an empty chair and sat. Georgi was right behind him.

“I thought I told you to get into bed,” said Martha without turning around.

Hoffner thought of something clever to say; instead he picked up his spoon and started in on the soup. It was already cold.

“Papi said we can go,” said Georgi, sidling up to her.

Martha shook out a plate and placed it on the rack. “I told you he would. You weren’t supposed to wait up for him.”

Georgi looked back at his father for help. Hoffner nodded sympathetically, but said nothing. It seemed to take the air out of the little man. Georgi’s shoulders slunk forward and he started slowly for the door. “I just wanted to tell you, that’s all,” he said with exaggerated dejection.

“Good night, Georgi,” said Martha.

“Good night,” he said. Just as he was at the door, he raced over to his father and hugged him tightly. He whispered in his ear. “I knew you would, Papi. I just wanted to show it to you, that’s all.”

Hoffner squeezed the little body into his own. The boy’s back was wonderfully bony. Hoffner wondered how many more of these embraces he would be allowed. He kissed Georgi on the neck then whispered back, “I’m glad you waited for me, too.”

Georgi was gone by the time Martha joined him at the table. Hoffner concentrated on his soup. “Where’s Sascha?” he asked.

“Was she worth the struggle?” said Martha, calmly focusing on peeling back the skin of one of her potatoes.

Hoffner looked up, mildly perplexed.

“Your hand, Nicki,” she said, still with the potato. “Glad to see you didn’t feel it.”

Hoffner looked at the back of his hand. Two thin scratch marks ran across the veins, undeniably a woman’s nails. They had begun to scab. He laughed quietly. “Fichte’s got a girl,” he said as he dabbed at them with a bit of saliva. “We went for a drink. He wanted to get a friend for me.” Hoffner went back to the soup. “I wasn’t inclined-this time.” Over the bowl, he saw the hint of a smile in her eyes.

“Pretty?” said Martha.

“Not the one with the nails.” When he saw the full smile, he added, “She’s all right. Too thin.”

“Do you want them for dinner sometime?”

“Not if we can help it.” He continued with the soup. “Where’s Sascha?”

Martha looked up from her food and peered over at the door.

Hoffner turned to see his older boy standing there. Sascha was in his school uniform-short pants and tie-his jet-black hair combed crisply, his expression quietly defiant. Had he been wearing the jacket, Hoffner might have mistaken him for an adolescent Kriminal-Oberkommissar Braun-a slightly rounder face, but an equally dismissive stare. As for the jacket, it had already been hung up in the bathroom. Martha was convinced that the steam-pipe air was keeping it somehow fresher. It had become a nightly ritual.

“Hello, Father.” The boy addressed him as if he were one of his school instructors. Probably Herr Zessner, thought Hoffner. He taught physics. Sascha hated physics.

“Hello there, Sascha.” Hoffner had given up trying to diffuse these first few moments, terrifying as they were. He turned back to his near-empty bowl and did his best to find a last few drops with his spoon. “We’re off to Johannisthal two weeks from Sunday,” he said. “You’re welcome to join us, if you like.” When Sascha failed to answer, Hoffner pulled off a wedge of the bread. The boy continued to stand in silence.

“You know he doesn’t like that anymore,” said Martha, her voice with the hint of a reprimand. Hoffner knew it was for Sascha’s benefit.

“Doesn’t like what?” said Hoffner, knowing exactly what she was referring to. “Air shows?”

It had been a slow process, this, the losing of a son. Hoffner would have loved to point to the most obvious moment for its origin-Martha on the ground, Sascha staring at him in disbelief-but, if he was being honest, he knew he needed to go back further than that. The choice to remain faithful to his wife had sapped Hoffner of something vital. Rather than simply narrowing the focus, it had eliminated the beam entirely: he had shut it all down. In an odd way, that moment of infinite regret had been the final dousing of the flame. Sascha had even forgiven him for it, but by then Hoffner had become unreachable. He might have convinced himself that it was to keep the temptations at bay. He did, for a while, but even Hoffner knew better than that. It had only been a matter of time before the boy had given up trying. Recent events had simply taken Sascha over the edge.

“He wants to be called Alexander,” said Martha. “He’s asked you several times.”

“That’s right,” said Hoffner, nodding as if he only now remembered. “I must be losing track with all these name changes around here. Georg, Alexander.” He turned to Sascha. “But yours has nothing to do with age. You’re simply ashamed of your Russian past.”

The boy held his ground. “I’m surprised you’re not, Father.” His voice sounded more like his mother’s than he had wanted; the sharpness in his tone, however, more than made up for the pitch.

Hoffner almost let himself get drawn in. Instead he turned back, took the wedge of bread, and dunked it in the tiny puddle of soup. “No, that’s true. We Bolsheviks do like to stay together.” He took a bite.

“Don’t make fun of him, Nikolai,” said Martha. “You don’t have to go to that school every day.”

Hoffner looked across at her, the first hint of frustration in his eyes. He swallowed. He could sense that Sascha, too, was unhappy that his mother had come to his defense. “Yes,” said Hoffner, his tone now more pointed as he mopped up the last of the soup, “I suppose giving in to them is the best choice.”

Sascha had reached the limits of his self-control. His cheeks flushed; his large eyes grew larger still. “You think you know, but you don’t,” he said with as much restraint as he could. “You think you can laugh about it, like you laugh about everything else. Well, I’m glad they killed them. I’m glad they killed those Reds. I’m a German. A German. I’m not like them. I’ll never be like them.”

Sascha saw his mother start toward him; with a look, he stopped her. He waited for his father to turn. When Hoffner continued to stare into his bowl, Sascha bolted from the room. Martha stood to go after him, but Hoffner quickly reached out and held her back. She turned to him. She said nothing.

The ring of the telephone startled them both.

It was a recent addition. Headquarters had been insisting for years that Hoffner have one installed: a detective inspector needed to be reached. Hoffner saw it otherwise: the one at the porter’s gate was sufficient; nothing could be that pressing. Prager, however, was not to be denied. So, with the new flat had come the new device. To Hoffner’s way of thinking, they might just as well have removed the building’s walls: anyone could break through now, so what difference did it make?

In the year they had had it, the telephone had rung twice: the first at a prearranged minute so that Hoffner could sing to Georgi on his birthday; the second for a misconnection. Neither time had the ring occurred later than four in the afternoon.

Hoffner let go of Martha’s arm, jarred if not slightly relieved. The look on her face had turned to panic. He gave her a reassuring shake of the head, stood, and headed out into the hall, she behind him, stopping at the living room door as he found a light and moved across the room to the telephone. She waited in the hall. Georgi was already at her side as Sascha appeared from behind the two of them.

Hoffner said, “Go back to your room, boys.” It was a tone of voice he rarely used. Georgi and Sascha quickly moved back down the hall and Hoffner picked up the receiver. “Hello?” It was Fichte. He sounded frantic. “Yes, it’s me,” said Hoffner.

“She’s missing,” came the rasped voice over the line.

“Calm down, Hans,” said Hoffner. “Who’s missing? Where are you?”

There was a pause. Fichte tried to control himself. “At headquarters. The morgue. No one’s here.”

It took Hoffner a moment to digest the information. “Headquarters? What are you doing at the morgue? Calm down.”

Another pause. “Lina wanted to see.”

“You took the girl-” He stopped himself. Again, he needed a moment. Then, in a strong, controlled voice, he said, “This is a police matter. Anyone on the line, please disengage.” The sound of the operator’s click brought him back to Fichte. Again, Hoffner spoke very deliberately. “You need to explain to me, Hans, why you took Lina to the morgue, and then you need to tell me who is missing.”

“We’d come before,” said Fichte, his panic mounting. “It was nothing. The guard let us look around.”

Hoffner had trouble believing what he was hearing. With a practiced calm, he said, “All right. And who is missing?”

There was a long pause on the line. Finally Fichte said, “No one’s here. No guard. And the body-”

“Which body, Hans?” Hoffner cut in. He could hear Lina in the background. “Not a name, Hans, just left or right.”

Another silence. It was clear Fichte was trying to orient himself. “Right,” he said. “Right is missing.”

“All right,” said Hoffner. “Send the girl home. She’s to say nothing. You understand?” A muted “Yes” crackled on the line. “Stay there. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He paused. “You’re not to do a thing.”

Hoffner placed the receiver in its cradle. He stood there staring at it for several seconds. Missing. What was Fichte-the thought turned his stomach. Hoffner looked at Martha. She was already holding his coat.

The first cabs began to appear up by the Hallesches Gate: at this hour, the great marble Peace Column at its center-a nod to a way of life the German people had yet to grasp-stood as the outermost edge of the city’s nightlife. The few cabs that did venture this far south raced around the bright-lit obelisk at speeds of almost forty-five kilometers an hour, all too eager to get back north and the possibility of a fare out to the rarefied air of Charlottenburg. Hoffner had no choice but to stand out in the middle of the roundabout, his badge held windshield high, before he finally flagged one down.

At the Alex, a trio of seasoned Soldaten had replaced the boy-soldiers from this afternoon; the night shift around headquarters evidently required a sterner face. Hoffner produced his badge, then his papers-a necessity in the city these days-and impatiently waited while they slowly pored over them. “New evidence, just in,” he said. “A murder case.” At once, all three looked up at him.

Hoffner always found this strangely amusing, if not slightly disturbing: hardened men, who in the last five years had witnessed more death than he had seen in his twenty with the Kripo, never failed to flinch at the mention of murder. Until a few weeks ago, he had seen it as a kind of vanity, the nobility of their own art-the defense of a nation’s honor-sneering down at the dirty business of pure killing. He wondered, however, how far the revolution had gone to shake that certitude.

“Good,” said the oldest of the three as he slapped the papers into Hoffner’s chest. “All is in order here. You may go in.”

The entrance atrium was empty, a cavernous corridor that ran the length of the building. An older sergeant-Fliegmann or Fliegland, Hoffner could never remember which-sat behind the now superfluous security desk at its center, the dim gaslight overhead just enough to give the newspaper in his hands the pretense of focus; no doubt Fichte and Lina had snuck by without too much of an effort.

“Good evening, Sergeant,” said Hoffner, momentarily startling the man.

FliegFlieg’s recovery was instantaneous. “Good evening, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar,” he said, laying the paper on the desk. “I wasn’t told you’d been called back in.”

“Lots of activity tonight?” said Hoffner as he signed the sheet. He noticed Fichte’s name was nowhere on the page.

The question seemed to confuse Der Flieger. “No, Herr Inspector. Quiet enough. I suppose those boys outside have something to do with that.” He waited, then took the offensive. “Is there someone you want me to contact for you?” He reached for the phone.

“A scarf, Sergeant,” said Hoffner as he started past the desk and toward the courtyard doors. “I’ll be sleeping on the floor tonight if I come home without it.”

FliegFlieg let go of the receiver with a nod. “Can’t have our detective inspectors sleeping on the floor, now can we?”

The sound of tobacco-laced laughter followed Hoffner out into the courtyard, which was now dotted in tiny pools of reflected moonlight; they gave the impression of countless cats’ eyes peering up at him as he made his way across the cobblestones. He quickly reached the door to the sub-basement, and was pulling it open, when the ring of the phone back at the sergeant’s desk stopped him: instinctively, Hoffner tried to make out what the man was saying, but it was too far off, the echo too thick under the dome. Hoffner let it pass and stepped through to the stairs. At once he found himself in near pitch blackness.

Odd, he thought as the door clicked shut behind him. Fichte would have left the lights on. Or maybe the boy had just been overly cautious? Better yet, maybe he had been setting a mood, although what kind of mood Fichte had learned to fashion in a morgue was anybody’s guess. Hoffner considered the unsettling, if mildly titillating, image as he traced his hands along the wall in search of the lights: the touch of cold steel, he thought. The smell of formaldehyde. Why not? Hoffner located the knob for the lamps and headed down.

Two floors on, he again found himself in virtual darkness. Luckily the light from the stairwell was spilling out just enough to give a sheen to the blackened glass of the morgue’s windows at the far end of the hall; the desk sat empty and there was no sign of Fichte. Hoffner moved down the corridor, his hand along the wall to guide him. To his surprise, he discovered that the doors were locked. He did his best to peer in through the windows, but could see nothing.

Hoffner never felt uneasy in moments like these; he never let the dark create what wasn’t there. Instead he focused on what was out of place, and that was the locked doors. Fichte had been here alone, or at least alone with Lina. He had clearly been inside the ice room to see that a body had gone missing, which meant that he had been beyond these doors. Yet Fichte had no keys for the morgue, no way to lock them. Hoffner again peered in through the glass. “Hans,” he said in an unconvincing whisper.

The sound instantly dissolved into the void beyond. The silence grew more acute and made the sudden ring of the telephone on the desk like a kick to the ribs. It snapped Hoffner’s head to the side as he waited for a second, then a third ring. He stepped over and slowly placed his hand on the receiver-the feel of the vibration in his palm-before picking up. Hoffner listened through the silence.

“Yes?” he finally said; it was more a question than an invitation.

“Kriminal-Kommissar Hoffner?”

Hoffner did not recognize the voice. “Yes,” he repeated with greater conviction.

“Would you be so kind as to join us on the fourth floor. Zimmer vier-eins-sechs.”

“Who is this?” said Hoffner.

“Room four-one-six,” the voice repeated. “Kriminal-Assistent Fichte is with us.” The line disengaged.

For the second time in the last hour, Hoffner found himself staring at a silent receiver. The fourth floor, he thought. The Polpo. Hoffner placed the phone back in its cradle and began to tap at it in the dark. Wonderful.

Locked doors and shadows notwithstanding, his current situation was now crystal clear. Even so, Hoffner felt a first twinge in his gut: this wasn’t what he needed. The deviations he sought-those fine quirks that he had come to recognize-populated a world that, for him, respected the inviolability of truth and falsehood. Naturally, the span between them was where most everything played itself out, but the boundaries themselves remained fixed, and thus tangible: deviation made sense only if there was something genuine to deviate from. That, however, had never been the case with the men of the Polpo: they saw no edges, no discernible absolutes. Even the way they had summoned him-“Zimmer vier-eins-sechs. . 0A0; Kriminal-Assistent Fichte is with us”-reeked of obfuscation and the dramatique. Hoffner pictured a group of university toffs in robes and cowls teaching each other solemn oaths and hand signs, secret societies for the adoration of bad beer and oak tables and girls they knew they would never have. He had seen such groups firsthand in his days at Heidelberg, their trips to the Schwarzwald in the dead of winter so as to run naked through the trees while proclaiming their own divinity, the none-too-subtle markings on their arms or chests or wherever they had chosen to burn the insignia into their flesh, all of it to make certain that their associations, though wrapped in mystery, were at least well enough on display to provoke envy. Hoffner had always felt little more than mild amusement when in their company. He had even been asked to join one of the more exclusive Geheimkreisen in his second year. When he had politely declined, he had been presented with looks of mild shock. He doubted a refusal to join the boys on the fourth floor would elicit a similar response.

Hoffner stood catching his breath on the final landing, the extra flights on either end of his usual three-floor climb having taxed him to his limits. He knew he was in poor condition; he just preferred not to be reminded of it. He mopped a handkerchief across the back of his neck and waited for his heart to dislodge from the base of his throat. No wonder the boys up here were always in such a foul mood.

There was little to distinguish the corridor from its counterpart on the third floor: the intervals between offices were identical; the wood creaked with equal regularity; and the smell of lavatory disinfectant and stale cigarettes lingered in the air. It was all too familiar, except for the little 4s that appeared on each of the office doors. A trivial detail, thought Hoffner, yet monumental: their stark angularity was so contemptuous as compared to the soft curves of the 3s below. In his twenty years with the Kripo, Hoffner had ventured up-or rather, had been summoned up-half a dozen times, always to the same office, always to the same clerk for the mundane exchange of files, yet even the clerk, in his role as bland bureaucrat, had maintained an air of impenetrability, as if he, too, drew strength from those dismissive 4s. There was no such thing as “mild amusement” on the fourth floor.

Room 416 looked to be like any other on the hall. Hoffner heard voices through the door: he knocked once, the din stopped, and a moment later the door opened to reveal Kriminal-Oberkommissar Braun.

“Good evening, Herr Inspector,” said Braun, still immaculately combed and pressed. In a strange twist, he, too, had lost his jacket; Hoffner wondered if there might be a steam pipe somewhere in the vicinity.

“Kriminal-Oberkommissar,” said Hoffner. Braun nodded once and ushered him in.

Two other men stood to the left by a long desk; a third was seated behind. The gaslight was keeping the office as bright as possible. Hans Fichte was by himself in a chair at the far end of the room, bits and pieces of him lost to the shadows. He sat up eagerly as Hoffner entered.

“Kriminal-Assistent,” said Hoffner with a look to keep Fichte where he was.

Fichte seemed slightly disappointed; he settled back into his chair. “Herr Kriminal-Kommissar,” he replied quietly.

“Ah, here we are, Nikolai,” said the man from behind the desk. “Nice to see you again.”

Polpo Kriminaldirektor Gerhard Weigland stood and offered his hand. He had aged considerably since Hoffner last saw him: the hair was virtually gone except for a neat ring of curly white at the temples; the beard had grown long and full, stained a mucinous yellow around the chin and moustache from decades of cigarettes; and the face had thickened, pressing the eyes deep into the twin cavities above the gray-red cheeks. Never tall, Weigland seemed squatter still from the added weight. His hand, though, remained powerful. The knuckles drove up through the flesh as if the fingers intended to squeeze the life out of anything they touched.

Hoffner peered at the two other men, then stepped over and took the PKD’s hand. “Herr Kriminaldirektor,” said Hoffner.

“It’s been a long time, Nikolai,” said Weigland; he released and sat. “Only a floor above and-well, a long time.”

“Yes, Herr Kriminaldirektor,” said Hoffner, who remained standing at the edge of the desk.

“It seems your man was in the midst of giving a little tour,” said Weigland through a half-smile.

Hoffner said, “Hans is very enthusiastic, Herr Kriminaldirektor.”

“As we discovered,” said Weigland with a laugh. The other men laughed, as well.

Hoffner waited. “I’m sure that’s not why we’re here, Herr Kriminaldirektor. After all, we were all Assistenten once.”

Weigland stared up with a smile that claimed to know Hoffner better than it did: everything about Weigland claimed to know more than it did. “Always right to it,” he said. “A lesson for us all, eh, Herr Oberkommissar?”

Braun, who was now at Weigland’s side, seemed to grow tauter still. “Indeed, Herr Direktor.”

“We needed a bit more time with the Luxemburg body,” said Weigland in an equally casual tone. “You understand.”

“We?” said Hoffner, peering again at the two other men.

Weigland followed Hoffner’s gaze. “You know Kommissaren Tamshik and Hermannsohn?”

“No, Herr Kriminaldirektor.”

“Ah,” said Weigland. “My mistake.” He made the introductions. “They’ve been brought in, now that it’s a political case.”

Ernst Tamshik had the look of the military about him, the way he kept his hands clasped tightly behind his back, the way his broad shoulders hitched high so as to keep his back ramrod straight. There might even have been something protective to him had it not been for the expression on his face: he was a bully, and a particularly brutal one, judging from the child’s sneer in his eyes, an ex-sergeant major, Hoffner guessed, who had reveled in the terrorizing of his young recruits. But, like all bullies, he had learned to play the innocent while under his mother’s watchful gaze. Hoffner had yet to figure out which of the two, Weigland or Braun, had assumed that role.

Walther Hermannsohn was far less graspable. He was slighter, though just as tall, and had no need for Tamshik’s stifled violence or Braun’s clipped affectation. He projected nothing and, for Hoffner, that made him the most dangerous man in the room.

“A political case?” said Hoffner. “That seems a bit premature, don’t you think, Herr Kriminaldirektor?”

Weigland was momentarily confused. “Premature? Why do you say that?”

Hoffner explained, “Luxemburg has the same markings as the other homicides. Why assume that it wasn’t simply bad luck for her and poor timing for us-or, rather, for you, Herr Kriminaldirektor?”

Weigland tried another unconvincing smile. He shifted slightly in his chair. “It’s just Direktor now, Nikolai. Direktor,Kommissar,Oberkommissar. We’ve dispensed with the Kriminal up here.”

Hoffner waited before answering. “That’s convenient.” Weigland showed no reaction. “Then, my mistake, Herr Direktor.”

Weigland’s smile broadened. “No mistake, Nikolai. Just a bit of new information.”

Hoffner nodded once. “Is it also new Polpo policy to take Kripo bodies from the morgue in the middle of the night?”

Weigland was unprepared for the question. Tamshik, however, was not so reticent. He spoke with a clumsy arrogance. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

The look from Braun told Hoffner where the teat lay.

“If,” Braun said calmly, “this is a political case-as the Direktor has just said-then your confusion, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar, seems unwarranted.”

Hoffner continued to look at Weigland. “And the body would simply have found its way back to the morgue by tomorrow morning? Or would my confusion have begun then?”

Braun answered with no hint of condescension: “There are things here you can’t fully understand, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar. Luxemburg’s been our case since she got back to Berlin in early November. A Kripo officer happens to find her body in mid-January and you think she’s no longer ours? You must see what little sense that makes.”

“Yes,” said Hoffner. “I’m beginning to see the lack of sense. Did you have a man waiting for her outside the prison gates, Herr Oberkommissar, or does the Polpo leave the distant edges of the empire to someone else?”

Braun said, “Frau Luxemburg was a threat no matter where she was, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar. Breslau, Berlin, it makes no difference. That’s why she spent the war inside a cell. The last few months should have made that obvious, even to you.”

“I see.” Hoffner saw how pleased Braun was with his answer. “Funny,” said Hoffner, “but I thought the last few months were all about how the generals and politicians were divvying up what the Kaiser had left behind when he ran off to Holland. I wasn’t aware that one little crippled woman had played so important a role. Unless the game was charades.”

Braun’s jaw tightened. “And I wasn’t aware that officers in the Kripo had sympathies for such extremists.”

“Just for pawns, Herr Oberkommissar,” said Hoffner. Braun said nothing. “May I see the body?”

Braun said, “And what would be the reason for that?”

Hoffner waited. Braun’s expression told him nothing. Hoffner turned to Weigland. “I assume the body will not be coming back to us tomorrow.”

“No,” said Braun.

Hoffner continued to speak to Weigland: “I didn’t know the fourth floor had storage and examination facilities, Herr Direktor.”

“A recent addition,” said Braun.

Hoffner kept his gaze on Weigland. “Can I assume the markings on the back will go untouched?”

Braun said, “Again, I’m afraid we can’t promise that, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar. But we’ll do our best. For your case, of course.”

Hoffner finally turned to Braun. “Of course,” said Hoffner. The room became silent as the two men stared at each other.

“Why not simply take her this afternoon?” The voice came from behind them. Hoffner turned. It was Fichte from the corner; he showed no fear at all. “I mean, if it was your case, Herr Oberkommissar,” Fichte continued. “Why not take the body then?”

Hoffner stared at his young Assistent. It was the first time he had felt pride in him.

Braun had also redirected his attention. “A courtesy, Herr Kriminal-Assistent,” he said coolly. “We do, after all, work in the same building.”

“I see,” said Hoffner, retaking the reins. “A courtesy that runs out at, what, seven-thirty, eight o’clock? Is that about the time Frau Luxemburg made her way up to the fourth floor? And, forgive my confusion, Herr Oberkommissar, but how did you know Herr Kriminal-Assistent Fichte was down in the morgue if you already had the body?”

For the first time, Braun hesitated. “There were tools we needed-”

“Tools?” Hoffner countered. “I see. And what exactly were you planning to do with our body, Herr Oberkommissar?”

“I find it strange,” said Braun, “that you should have such an interest in this one body when you have yet to make sense of the other five. Surely the pattern should be clear enough, by now?”

“Clear as day,” said Hoffner, “if we could be certain that those bodies wouldn’t go missing in the middle of the night, Herr Oberkommissar. Will our ice room be empty in the next week, in the next two weeks? I’m just asking so as to minimize any confusion.”

Weigland suddenly thumped his hand on the desk. “Let’s have a walk, Nikolai,” he said amiably. “You and I.” He stood and stepped out from behind the desk. “A walk would be good, yes?”

The suggestion was as inappropriate as it was unexpected. Hoffner felt like the class idiot about to be ushered from the room. Tamshik seemed to be enjoying the moment immensely.

Hoffner said in a quiet tone, “If that’s what you’d like, Herr Direktor.”

“Absolutely,” said Weigland as he put a hand on Hoffner’s shoulder and started to move him toward the door. “There should be a pot of coffee at the end of the hall. A coffee would be nice, don’t you think?” Tamshik had the door open. “See if Herr Assistent Fichte would like something, as well,” said Weigland as he passed Tamshik.

Hoffner found himself out in the corridor, the door closed behind him. Weigland kept his hand on Hoffner’s shoulder: it helped to maintain the surreal quality to the little jaunt. “Your boys are what, six and ten now, Nikolai?” said Weigland as they slowly made their way down the hall.

“Seven and fifteen, Herr Direktor.”

“That’s right. Seven and fifteen. Very nice.” Weigland continued to walk. “I lost a grandson in the war, you know. Not much older.”

“Yes. I was sorry to hear, Herr Direktor.”

“Yes.” They walked a bit more before Weigland released Hoffner’s shoulder. “This business with Luxemburg,” he said. “Best to let it work itself out, don’t you think? She’s not crucial to your case, and I’m sure whatever Herr Braun feels is of such vital importance is. .” Weigland seemed to lose the thought.

“Of such vital importance?” said Hoffner.

Weigland laughed to himself. He patted another knowing hand on Hoffner’s shoulder. “It’s that mouth of yours that kept you out of the Polpo, you know.”

“It might have been that I never filed an application, Herr Direktor.”

Weigland nodded as if having been caught out. “I suppose that might have had something to do with it, yes.”

They reached the end of the corridor and stepped into a kitchen, of sorts: table, icebox, sink. A kettle of coffee sat on a small iron stove. Weigland found two cups and placed them on the table. The two sat and Weigland poured. “Your father would have made an excellent Polpo officer,” he said as he set the kettle on the table.

Hoffner was unsure where Weigland was going with this. He answered, nonetheless. “He always thought so, Herr Direktor.”

“But then there was all that business with your mother, which made it impossible.” Weigland took a sip. He kept his eyes on the cup as he placed it on the table. “Jewish converts weren’t exactly popular at the time.”

Hoffner watched Weigland for a moment; the man was so obvious in his baiting. Hoffner brought the cup to his lips; he said nothing. This was not a topic he discussed.

Weigland looked up. “You never had any trouble with that, did you? The Jewish issue, I mean. Even if you are technically one of them.”

Hoffner placed his cup on the table. “I was raised a Christian, Herr Direktor.”

“Lutheran?”

“No idea.”

Again, Weigland laughed. “That sounds like your father.” Hoffner nodded. “It was your mother’s idea, I think?” said Weigland. “For his career.”

“I imagine it was.”

Again, Weigland focused on his cup. “We came up at the same time, you know, your father and I.” He continued to stare at the cup until, with a little snap of his head, he looked up at Hoffner. “I had no idea, of course. None of us did. Not until it came out.”

Hoffner took another sip. He had no interest in Weigland’s excuses. Hoffner placed his cup back on the table and said, “So, you want me to let this one go.”

Weigland nudged a bowl of sugar cubes Hoffner’s way. “Go on. Take one. They’re real.” Weigland clawed out three and dropped them into his cup. “We pulled them out of a shipment Pimm was smuggling in from Denmark. He would’ve made a fortune on the black market.”

Hoffner picked out a cube and slipped it into his cup. “I didn’t know the syndicates were Polpo jurisdiction.”

“Neither did Pimm.” Weigland took a fourth cube and popped it in his mouth. “Look, Nikolai,” he said, “you’re making a good name for yourself in the Kripo. You solve this one and the papers will turn you into a nice little celebrity. You’d probably make chief inspector.”

“This one, but without Luxemburg.”

Weigland sucked for a moment on the cube. “Why would you want to drag yourself into all of that?” He shook his head. “Honestly, I have no idea why she had, as you say, the bad luck to run into your maniac. But for you, she’s just one more body. To the rest of Germany, she’s Red Rosa, the little Jewess who tried to bring Lenin’s revolution to Berlin. Your case will get lost in all of that. Braun’s right. You don’t know how these things work. You’re a very capable detective, Nikolai. So why not do what you do well, and leave this other piece to us.”

Hoffner reached over and took two more cubes; he slipped them into his pocket for Georgi. “And if Herr Braun needs another body from the morgue?”

“I’m sure he thought he was doing all of us a favor. Think about it. If your man doesn’t come back in tonight, no one’s the wiser.”

“You really think I wouldn’t have noticed?”

“Fine,” Weigland conceded, “I’m sure you’re just that good.” He waited, then said more emphatically, “This is a touchy business, Nikolai. Ebert’s still not on firm ground. You don’t want to make the same kind of mistake your father did.”

And, like a slap to the face, Hoffner understood. It required every ounce of restraint to answer calmly. “And what mistake was that, Herr Direktor?”

There was nothing comforting in Weigland’s tone: “Understand the situation, Nikolai. Luxemburg, a Jew. Your mother, a Jew. And a Russian, to boot. Times haven’t changed all that much.”

Hoffner nodded slowly. He thought to correct Weigland: Luxemburg had been a Pole. Instead, he pushed his cup across the table and stood. “Thank you for the coffee, Herr Direktor.”

Weigland reached out and grabbed Hoffner’s forearm; the grip was as impressive as Hoffner had imagined it would be. “People make mistakes, Nikolai, and the rest of their lives are filled searching for penance.” Weigland continued to squeeze Hoffner’s arm. “Understand that, and do what I’m asking you to do.”

Hoffner felt the blood pulsing in his hand. He twisted his arm slightly and Weigland released it. “Technically, Herr Direktor, I’m not sure I’m in a position to give or receive absolution.” Not waiting for a response, Hoffner turned and walked back down the hall. He opened the door to the office and poked his head in. “We’re done here, Hans.” He turned to the rest of the room. “Gentlemen.” None of the three said a word.

Unsure for a moment, Fichte stood and moved across to the door. He then turned back with a little bow. “Oberkommissar,Kommissare.”

Hoffner pulled the door shut behind him, and the two headed back down the stairs. They walked in silence until they reached the courtyard, where Fichte finally managed to get something out. “I’m-sorry for all that, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar.”

“You’ve nothing to be sorry about,” said Hoffner.

“I shouldn’t have been trying to impress Lina.”

“No. That was stupid. Don’t do that again.” Hoffner began to button his coat. “As for the rest, you were fine, Hans. You handled yourself very well.”

Fichte’s concern gave way to genuine appreciation. “Thank you, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar.”

They passed through the door to the atrium. FliegFlieg was dozing; Hoffner didn’t bother to sign out. Out in the drizzle, the soldiers barely gave them a second glance.

When they had moved out of earshot, Hoffner said, “You didn’t mention anything about today’s discovery, did you?” They continued to walk. “Nothing about the woman in the Rosenthaler station?”

“No, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar.” Fichte was doing his best to keep up. “Absolutely not. Nothing.”

“Good.” They reached the middle of the square. Hoffner stopped and turned to Fichte. “Go home, Hans. Take a cold bath. We start in at eight tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar.” Fichte was about to head off when he said, “The PKD, Herr Kriminal-Kommissar. You know him well, don’t you?”

Hoffner stared at his young Assistent. “Good night, Hans.”

Five minutes later, Hoffner watched as the Peace Column flew past his window, the cab racing him south to Kreuzberg.

The scarf, he thought. I forgot the damn scarf.