‘I don’t know how you can tell that after a train just ran over him,’ said Lehnhoff.

‘Because these cuts are much too thin to have been inflicted by the train. And just look where they are. Along the flesh of the inside of the fingers and on the hand between the thumb and the forefinger. That’s a textbook defensive injury if I ever saw one, Gottfried.’

‘All right,’ Lehnhoff said, almost grudgingly. ‘I suppose you are the expert. On murder.’

‘Perhaps. Only of late I’ve had a lot of competition. There are plenty of cops out east, young cops, who know a lot more about murder than I do.’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Lehnhoff.

‘Take my word for it. There’s a whole new generation of police experts out there.’ I let this remark settle for a moment before adding, very carefully, for appearance’s sake, ‘I find that very reassuring, sometimes. That there are so many good men to take my place. Eh, Sergeant Stumm?’

‘Yes sir.’ But I could hear the doubt in the uniformed sergeant’s voice.

‘Walk with us,’ I said, warming to him. In a country where ill-temper and petulance were the order of the day – Hitler and Goebbels were forever ranting angrily about something – the sergeant’s imperturbability was heartening. ‘Come back to the bridge. Another pair of eyes might be useful.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘What are we looking for now?’ There was a weary sigh in Lehnhoff’s voice, as if he could hardly see the point of investigating this case any further.

‘An elephant.’

‘What?’

‘Something. Evidence. You’ll certainly know it when you see it,’ I said.

Back up the track we found some blood spots on a railway sleeper and then some more on the edge of the platform outside the echoing glasshouse that was the station at Jannowitz Bridge.

Below, someone aboard a river barge that was quietly chugging through one of the many red-brick arches in the bridge shouted at us to extinguish our lights. This was Lehnhoff’s cue to start throwing his weight around. It was almost as if he’d been waiting to get tough with someone, and it didn’t matter who.