The body sat to one side in the lift, huddled foetally like a daredevil ready to attempt Niagara Falls in a beer barrel. As I stared at it the head seemed to turn, and it took a moment for me to realize that it was covered with maggots, a glistening mask of worms feeding on the blackened face. I swallowed hard several times. Covering my nose and mouth once again, I stepped forward for a closer look, close enough so that I could hear the light rustling sound, like a gentle breeze through moist leaves, of hundreds of small mouth parts. From my small knowledge of forensics, I knew that soon after death, flies not only lay their eggs on a cadaver’s moist parts such as the eyes and mouth, but also on open wounds. By the number of maggots feeding on the upper part of the cranium and on the right temple, it looked more than probable that the victim had been beaten to death. From the clothes I could tell that the body was that of a man, and judging by the obvious quality of his shoes, quite a wealthy one. I put my hand into the right-hand jacket pocket, and turned it inside out. Some loose change and scraps of paper fell to the floor, but there was nothing that might have identified him. I felt around the area of the breast pocket, but it seemed to be empty, and I didn’t feel like squeezing my hand between his knee and the maggoty head to make sure. As I stepped back to the window to draw a decent breath, a thought occurred to me.

‘What are you doing, Bernie?’ Her voice seemed stronger now.

‘Just stay where you are,’ I told her. ‘I won’t be very long. I just want to see if I can find out who our friend is.’ I heard her take a deep breath, and the scrape of a match as she lit a cigarette. I found a pair of kitchen scissors and went back to the dumb-waiter, where I cut the arm of the jacket lengthways up the man’s forearm. Against the skin’s greenish, purplish hue and marbled veining, the tattoo was still clearly visible, clinging to his forearm like a large, black insect which, rather than feast on the head with the smaller flies and worms, had chosen to dine alone, on a bigger piece of carrion. I’ve never understood why men get themselves tattooed. You would have thought there were better things to do than deface your own body. Still, it makes identifying someone relatively straightforward, and it occurred to me that it wouldn’t be very long before every German citizen was the subject of compulsory tattooing. But right now, the imperial German eagle identified Gerhard Von Greis just as certainly as if I had been handed his Party card and passport.