‘Hallo. Muttilein says I must come to see you. She says I have to show you the village.’

Who’s Muttilein? What a strange name. Maybe she’s got the wrong room by mistake. Then she knocks again – so loudly, I think she’s going to break the door or hurt herself. I jump up off the bed, and open the door.

She looks me up and down, a curious smile on her face.

‘Hallo,’ she says. ‘You are Arnold. I am Lotti. Lotti Rolf. My parents own the hotel. They say you are to come out and look at the village with me.’

It’s not a question. It’s like an order. I look at my watch again, just to check I haven’t made a mistake. It’s still only one o’clock, as it was a few seconds ago. Two and a half hours before I have to meet with Mother and Father for ‘the walk’.

‘Just a moment. I’ve got to get my shoes and pullover on.’ I sit on the bed, expecting her to wait outside, but she comes into the room and leans on the small washbasin, looking at me.

‘What?’ I ask.

‘You are quite handsome,’ she says.

I feel my face burning, and don’t know how to reply. I’ve never met anyone so forward. Instead, I stare downwards, concentrating on lacing my shoes.

Then I grab my jumper. When, finally, I look up at her, she’s smirking at me.

Chapter 4

4

Dresden

February 1982

The autopsy on Concrete Man was being held in the Carl Gustaf Carus Medical Academy in Johannstadt, to the east of the centre of the Altstadt and what had once been its most iconic landmark, the ruined Frauenkirche. Müller and her small team travelled there in the pool Wartburg. It was a Tourist, or estate version, unmarked, but with plenty of space in the rear for forensic officer Jonas Schmidt’s cameras and equipment – not that he’d need them here. His role at the post-mortem would be simply that of an observer.

‘Stalinist architecture,’ said Tilsner, as they drew up to the building and he parked the car. ‘It looks a bit like something out of Eisenhüttenstadt.’

Müller nodded. She knew the comment was made in appreciation, not deprecation. It made a change from the other buildings in the neighbourhood – monotonous blocks of Plattenbauten – the favoured building method nowadays. They were prevalent here, and where the body had been discovered, in Gorbitz. Müller wondered how much actual demolition had been needed to clear the way for the new blocks. Perhaps it had all been done for the builders by the bombers in 1945? The identikit apartments were much sought-after by citizens, but this building was more of a statement piece: its façade almost neoclassical, like the grand apartment blocks where Müller used to live in Karl-Marx-Allee, a privilege since withdrawn.