Ratka snorted, contempt on his face. An SS cadet scared of one dead old man! No wonder the war in the Urals was dragging on forever.

“Did you see anyone else, Jost?” March spoke in a kindly tone, like an uncle.

“Nobody, sir. There’s a telephone box in the picnic area, half a kilometre back. I called, then came here and waited until the police arrived. There wasn’t a soul on the road.”

March looked again at the body. It was very fat. Maybe 110 kilos.

“Let’s get him out of the water.” He turned towards the road. Time to raise our sleeping beauties.” Ratka, shifting from foot to foot in the downpour, grinned.

It was raining harder now, and the Kladow side of the lake had virtually disappeared. Water pattered on the leaves of the trees and drummed on the car roofs. There was a heavy rain-smell of corruption: rich earth and rotting vegetation. March’s hair was plastered to his scalp, water trickled down the back of his neck. He did not notice. For March, every case, however routine, held — at the start, at least — the promise of adventure.

He was forty-two years old — slim, with grey hair and cool grey eyes that matched the sky. During the war, the Propaganda Ministry had invented a nickname for the men of the U-boats — the “grey wolves” — and it would have been a good name for March, in one sense, for he was a determined detective. But he was not by nature a wolf, did not run with the pack, was more reliant on brain than muscle, so his colleagues called him “the fox” instead.

U-boat weather!

He flung open the door of the white Skoda, and was hit by a gust of hot, stale air from the car heater.

“Morning, Spiedel!” He shook the police photographer’s bony shoulder. Time to get wet.” Spiedel jerked awake. He gave March a glare.

The driver’s window of the other Skoda was already being wound down as March approached it. “All right, March. All right.” It was SS-Surgeon August Eisler, a Kripo pathologist, his voice a squeak of affronted dignity. “Save your barrack-room humour for those who appreciate it.”