‘I suppose it’s too early to ascertain a cause of death?’ Scholz grinned. It was difficult to see the features of the figure on the floor. One side of the face gaped open where the meat cleaver had sliced cleanly through skin, muscle, sinew and bone. Similarly, a straight-edged flap of flesh had separated from the upper arm, just below the cuff of his T-shirt. The cleaver’s sharp edge had made the wounds unnaturally rectilinear. Scholz reckoned there were at least a dozen slashes on the body. ‘But I’m guessing it wasn’t a gunshot.’ Scholz laughed at his witticism. Simone Schilling didn’t. She stood up.

‘You’ll get a full report from the pathologist. Herr Dr Lüdeke will be carrying out the autopsy.’

‘He’s got his work cut out for him …’ said Scholz and laughed, alone, at his joke.

Simone Schilling cast her eyes around the floor, where her team had tent-flagged various bloody smears. ‘His attackers certainly didn’t care about leaving evidence. We’ve got half a dozen bootprints in the blood. Clear patterns.’ She looked at Scholz with disdain. ‘Mind you, half of them are probably yours by now.’

Scholz looked at the body again. Four or five of the slashes on the forearms. Palm split open, exposing bone. Defensive wounds.

‘Do we have a name?’ He called to the two detectives by the door.

‘Slavko Dmytruk,’ said Kris. ‘Or that’s the name the restaurant have for him. The owners reckon he’s about twenty-three or -four.’

‘Are you okay?’ asked Scholz.

‘Never been good with this side of the job …’

‘What’s not to be good with?’ Scholz nodded to the corpse. ‘That’s not a person any more. It’s nothing but meat. Whoever Slavko Dmytruk was, whatever made him who he was, has got nothing to do with what’s left here. You’ve got to get past that. If you don’t, you’ll walk into a murder scene and find some little kiddie dead and you’ll go to pieces. It’ll be your last day on the job.’

Kris was looking at the partially dismembered corpse and did not look at all convinced.

‘Have you had anything to eat?’ asked Scholz. ‘It’s always worse if you’ve got an empty stomach.’ He turned and dipped a ladle into the still-warm soup. He held it out to the young detective. ‘Try some of this … it’s really good. Split pea …’

Kris turned suddenly and bolted out into the restaurant, in the direction of the toilets. Tansu Bakrac scowled disapprovingly at her boss. When Scholz turned back to Simone Schilling, she was staring at him in disbelief.

‘What?’ he said defensively, the ladle still extended. ‘I was trying to help him feel better …’

‘Not everyone is as insensitive to human suffering as you, Herr Scholz.’

‘Call me Benni.’