The March Fallen

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The dead man was propped against a steel pillar in the shadow of the elevated railway line, his chin sunk on his breast as if he were taking a nap. You could be forgiven for thinking he was sleeping it off, huddled as he was in an old, patched soldier’s overcoat, dressed in puttees and holey gloves, a thick woollen hat pulled low over his forehead.

Detective Chief Inspector Wilhelm Böhm clutched his bowler hat to prevent the wind sweeping it off his head. They were directly under the elevated railway at Nollendorfplatz, barely a stone’s throw from the stairway, but no one had noticed the dead man, or, at least, no one who thought it necessary to notify the police. The deceased looked like a tramp, one of the many living rough on Berlin’s streets, whose number swelled with each passing year. Even in this bitter cold, he stank like someone who had been sleeping out for years: stale sweat, urine, alcohol.

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