"The city is swamped with immigrants. Romanian Gypsies are flooding in; women and children sit on every street corner, begging. The Poles are not desirable either. They fight like animals in the shops; they park their cars any old way, they steal, they urinate in the entrances to apartment buildings. This new Germany is in chaos. Eastern Europe is poverty stricken, and they come in droves! There are more illegal immigrants than we know what to do with! We have no time to wash down walls."
They drove on, past peeling buildings, collapsing sewer systems, electricity cables hanging from broken cages on street corners. The car went by acres of grimy nineteenth-century tenements that had withstood the bombing, their occupants staring now from filthy windows. Ruda was tense; she shifted her weight on the seat, crossing and uncrossing her legs. She took out her cigarettes and lit up, her hands shaking. She opened the window. She didn't care if she got soaked. She needed fresh air. She tossed the cigarette out, breathing in through her nose and exhaling, trying to stay calm.
Aware of her nervousness, Torsen began pointing out sights, a few new art galleries and the like. He tried to lighten the atmosphere. Now there was a gale blowing on his back: To add to his headache, no doubt, he'd have a crick in his neck the following morning.
They went past a gray stone hospital, to a low cement building, with parking places freshly painted in white. There were no other vehicles to be seen. The inspector pulled on the handbrake. "We are here, this is the city morgue."
Ruda and Grimaldi were led to a small empty waiting room and were asked to wait. Sergeant Rieckert remained with them, his eyes flicking over Grimaldi's jacket, his shoes, his Russian-style shirt with its high collar. He tried to imagine how he would look in that getup.
Inspector Torsen Heinz walked down a long, dismal corridor into the main refrigerated room. "Can you get Kellerman ready for viewing?" He shut the door again, returned to the waiting room, and gestured for Ruda to follow him down the corridor. Grimaldi asked if he should accompany them, and Torsen said it was entirely up to him.
The three walked in silence, their feet echoing on the tiled floor. They reached a door at the very end, which was opened by a man wearing green overalls. He stood to one side, removing his rubber gloves. They entered the cold room. Three bodies were lying on tables, covered in sheets, and Grimaldi tightened his grip on Ruda's elbow. Her heart was pounding, but she gave no other indication of what she was feeling. Grimaldi looked from one shrouded body to the other, then to the bank of freezers, with their old-fashioned heavy bolted drawers. He wondered how many bodies were kept on ice.
The inspector stood by a fourth table — shrouded like the others, this body seemed tiny in comparison. In a hushed voice he addressed Ruda:
"Be prepared, the dead man had extensive wounds to his face and head."
Grimaldi moved closer to Ruda, asked if she was all right. She withdrew her arm, nodding. Slowly the inspector lifted the sheet from the naked body, revealing just the head. Grimaldi stepped back aghast, but Ruda moved a fraction closer. She stared down at Kellerman's distorted face, or what was left of it.
"Is this Kellerman?"
Ruda felt icy cold, and continued to stare.
The inspector lifted the sheet from the side. "The tattoo was on his left wrist; as you can see, the skin was cut away. It would have been quite large."
Ruda stared at the small hand, the open cleaned wound, but said nothing. Torsen waited, watching her reaction, then saw her turn slowly to Grimaldi.
"Is this Kellerman, Mrs. Grimaldi?" he asked again.
Ruda gave a small, hardly detectable shrug of her shoulders. She showed no emotion. It was difficult for the inspector to guess what she was thinking or feeling. She seemed not to be repelled by the corpse, or disturbed by the grotesque injuries to the dead man's face.
Grimaldi stepped closer, peered down. He cocked his head to the right, then the left. "I think it's him."
Grimaldi returned to Ruda's side, leaned close and whispered something. She moved away from him, closer to the dead man. She looked at Torsen. "I can't be sure, I'm sorry. It has been so long since I saw him."
"It's him, Ruda. I'm sure even if you're not!" Grimaldi seemed impatient. Turning to the three shrouded bodies he asked if they too had been murdered. He received no reply.
Again Grimaldi whispered to Ruda, and this time he smiled. The inspector couldn't believe it, the man was making some kind of joke! Grimaldi caught the look of disapproval on Torsen's face, and gave a sheepish smile.
"The little fella was very well endowed, I suggested my wife perhaps could remember..." He shut up, realizing the joke was unsuitable and tasteless.
Ruda touched Kellerman's hair, a light pat with just her fingers to the thick curly gray-and-black hair. She spoke very softly. "He had a mole, on the left shoulder, shaped like a..."
The inspector pulled the sheet down, exposing the left shoulder and a dark brown mole. Ruda nodded her head. She whispered that the dead man was Kellerman, then she turned and strode out of the room — had to get out because she could hear Tommy's voice, hear him telling her not to switch out the light. He hated the dark, was always afraid of the dark and of confined spaces. She had teased him, calling him a baby, but she had always left the lights on. He didn't need them now.
Back in the waiting room Inspector Heinz thanked Ruda for her identification. Torsen opened his notebook and sat on the edge of the hard bench. He searched his pockets, took out a pencil and looked at Ruda. "We have been unable to find any of Kellerman's documents, how he entered Germany, and if there are relatives we should contact. Was he an American citizen?"
Ruda nodded, told the inspector that Kellerman obtained his American citizenship in the early sixties, that he had no relatives and there was no one to be contacted.
"Where did he come from originally, Mrs. Grimaldi?"
Ruda hesitated, touched the scar at her temple with her forefinger. "Poland I think, I can't recall..."
Grimaldi frowned, almost waiting for her to tell the inspector that she had met Kellerman in Berlin, but then she surprised him. She suddenly asked about Kellerman's burial, suggesting he be buried locally as there would be no relatives to claim the body. Ruda added that she would cover any costs, and asked that a rabbi be called. Although Kellerman had not been a practicing Jew, she felt that he would have wanted a rabbi present.
The inspector wrote down her instructions carefully, and looked up quickly as she said in a low sarcastic tone: "I presume there is a rabbi left in Germany who can perform the funeral rites. He must be buried before sunset."
Torsen said he would arrange it. He then asked if Kellerman was the deceased's real name. Ruda looked puzzled, said of course it was. He saw that at last she seemed disturbed.
Ruda lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply before she replied once more to his question, apologizing for her rudeness. As far as she knew it was his name, it was the name she had taken when she married him. Torsen snapped his notebook closed, and offered to have the couple driven back to West Berlin. They refused the offer and asked for a taxi.
Grimaldi asked if they had a suspect, and Torsen shook his head. "No one as yet. We have not found his suitcase, the hotel room was stripped."
"But didn't anyone see the killer? That was some beating the little guy took, I mean, someone must have hated his guts, and surely someone must have seen or heard something?"
The inspector shrugged. They had nothing to go on, but for a number of motives. Kellerman was not a well-liked man.
"Well-liked is one thing, but you don't beat a man's head in because you don't like him, it must be something else."
Torsen nodded. He said that until he went further into his investigation, there was no further information he could give. He excused himself and left his sergeant to arrange their transport.