Confronted with violent death in all its ghastly hues, contorted attitudes and porcine fleshiness, I had no more reaction than if I had been looking in the window of my local ‘German’ butcher’s shop, except that this one had more meat on display. Sometimes I was surprised at the totality of my own indifference to the sight of the stabbed, the drowned, the crushed, the shot, the burnt and the bludgeoned, although I knew well how that insensitivity had come about. Seeing so much death on the Turkish front and in my service with Kripo, I had almost ceased to regard a corpse as being in any way human. This acquaintance with death had persisted since my becoming a private investigator, when the trail of a missing person so often led to the morgue at St Gertrauden, Berlin’s largest hospital, or to a salvage-man’s hut near a levee on the Landwehr Canal.

I stood there for several minutes, staring at the gruesome scene in front of me, and puzzled as to what had produced the condition of the head and the differing one of the body, before eventually Dr Illmann glanced round and saw me.

‘Good God,’ he growled. ‘Bernhard Gunther. Are you still alive?’ I approached the table, and blew a breath of disgust.

‘Christ,’ I said. ‘The last time I came across body odour this bad, a horse was sitting on my face.’

‘He’s quite a picture, isn’t he?’

‘You’re telling me. What was he doing, frenching a polar bear? Or maybe Hitler kissed him.’

‘Unusual, isn’t it? Almost as if the head were burned.’

‘Acid?’

‘Yes.’ Illmann sounded pleased, like I was a clever pupil. ‘Very good. It’s difficult to say what kind, but most probably hydrochloric or sulphuric.’

‘Like someone didn’t want you to know who he was.’

‘Precisely so. Mind you, it doesn’t disguise the cause of death. He had a broken billiard cue forced up one of his nostrils. It pierced the brain, killing him instantly. Not a very common way of killing a man; indeed, in my experience it is unique. However, one learns not to be surprised at the various ways in which murderers choose to kill their victims. But I’m sure you’re not surprised. You always did have a good imagination for a bull, Bernie. To say nothing of your nerve. You know, you’ve got a hell of a nerve just walking in here like this. It’s only my sentimental nature that stops me from having you thrown out on your ear.’

‘I need to talk to you about the Pfarr case. You did the PM, didn’t you?’

‘You’re well informed,’ he said. ‘As a matter of fact the family reclaimed the bodies this morning.’

‘And your report?’

‘Look, I can’t talk here. I’ll be through with our friend on the slab in a while. Give me an hour.’

‘Where?’