Our feet crunch on broken glass. My throat is raw and my eyes sting. Shouts to the left. Two men, roughly dressed, drag an elderly man in a suit from his shop door, out into the street, right in front of us.

‘Fuck you! Fuck you all!’ yells the old man, resisting. He pulls an arm free and with lightning speed throws a fist into the face of one of his captors.

‘Stupid bastard!’ shouts the punched man and they start to beat the older man. Blow after blow. The man is screaming, high-pitched; desperate. A raw animal sound which penetrates me, deep inside. The man is down, twisting and turning on the pavement. They kick him, vicious and hard.

‘Look away.’ Tomas’s voice in my ear, but I can’t.

His yells are reduced to whimpers.

They are battering the life from his body.

‘Stop,’ I say, ‘STOP! Do something!’ I turn to Tomas, but he stands and does nothing. ‘Jesus Christ, they’re killing him,’ I yell. Everything goes black around me, except a red-tinged vision of the old man and the two men kicking him, in the centre, as if I’m seeing it through a camera lens. I lurch towards them.

Strong arms hold me back. I struggle against them, crying out. The men don’t stop, they continue beating him until he whimpers no more.

‘Leave it, Hetty, come away,’ Tomas is saying in my ear, gripping my arms so hard it hurts.

The men stop. Chests heaving, they look at me.

‘Get her out of here,’ they tell Tomas. ‘She’s a liability. This is no place for a girl.’ And they walk away, leaving an inert body, twisted and bloody, in amongst the dirt, the glass, the shit on the road.

Tomas drags me firmly by the shoulders, manoeuvring me past the dead man, propelling me away from hell.

We wait at the tram stop. Everything looks the same. The wooden shelter. The single street lamp throwing out its paltry glow. Away from the horror unfolding in the Brühl, it’s eerily quiet. I wish I could forget what I just witnessed, but I know, with absolute certainty, that I never will. The brutal violence. The way those men wanted to kill another human being. His desperate cries for help as he writhed in agony in the dirt. It replays and replays, blinding me from my surroundings.

I did nothing. I stood and watched the life drain from him. I didn’t even offer comfort in his death throes. What sort of person does that make me? Complicit?

And Walter? What if it’s Walter’s body kicked and battered, lying in a gutter somewhere? A noise escapes from deep within. I’ve not found Walter.

Tomas peers down at me. ‘Are you going to be okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ I lie, clenching my teeth to stop them chattering.

I’ve lost track of time and check my watch. I’m surprised only an hour has gone by. I can still get home and Bertha will be happy.