By the time he returned to Munich, it was late. He had timed the drive again, and again it had come out to two hours, subtracting the time he spent in Ebenhausen. The traffic police did have a record of the ticket given to Hitler’s Mercedes, but no one in the office remembered the man driving, or if he had a passenger.
Fritz drove by the coroner’s office, and swung the car through the narrow alley between the buildings. The alley had once been a road, but it was barely big enough for an automobile, so it had became an alley in recent years. Zehrt used it for his coroner’s wagon, and often kept the road blocked. It was not blocked tonight.
Fritz stopped his car near the rear door. A single light burned in the offices, in the examining room. Through the unshaded window, Zehrt worked over a corpse, alone.
The Schupo had spoken to Zehrt about his unwillingness to cover the windows, saying it was both a breach of security and a danger for the coroner himself. But Zehrt had merely laughed. He claimed that only those with the strongest stomachs could watch him cut open a corpse, and he also maintained that it took an even stronger man to break into a place with a dead body already on the table.
The years had proven him correct.
Fritz, however, had watched many an autopsy. His stomach was not as strong as Zehrt’s, but it was close.
Fritz got out of the car, and walked to the window. His feet crunched on the small parking space. Grass had grown over cobblestones so brittle that they had broken into tiny rocks. Still Zehrt did not look up. He was intent on the corpse in front of him, a beefy, balding man with a tattoo on his right forearm. Zehrt was examining the tattoo when Fritz rapped on the window.
Zehrt looked up slowly, as if people knocked on his window every night. He shook his head when he saw Fritz, but Fritz knocked again. Finally Zehrt set his tools down, pulled off his gloves, and came to the window. He yanked it open. The odours of formaldehyde and death surrounded him.
‘I am in the middle of work,’ he snapped.
‘I have a few questions. It will only take a moment.’
‘I don’t have a moment,’ Zehrt said.
‘Looks like you have a Communist on the table.’
‘I don’t know what he is. He was knifed in the English Garden, but the wounds seem superficial. I am beginning to wonder if his heart went with the fear and shock.’
Fritz shrugged. ‘If anyone could tell it would be you.’
Zehrt stared at him. ‘You aren’t going to go away, are you?’
Fritz shook his head.
‘All right, then. Come in.’ He closed the window so quickly that Fritz had to step away from it. Fritz went to the wide wooden door in the back. The bolts clicked as Zehrt unlocked the door, and pulled Fritz inside. Then he slammed the door shut.
‘I didn’t want to be seen talking to you,’ Zehrt said. The odour of formaldehyde was so strong it almost made Fritz sneeze.
‘Do you work for the NSDAP now?’
‘No,’ Zehrt said. The light from the examining room filtered into this small hallway. Tables and cabinets lined the walls. Zehrt had not turned on any other lights.
‘Then they have something on you. Tell me, Gerhart. I will get them away from you.’
Zehrt shook his head. ‘It is not worth the Kripo’s time. Just ask your question and get out.’
‘Two questions,’ Fritz said. He was not willing to let the blackmail go, but it could wait until a later time. ‘First, when did you see Geli Raubal’s body?’
Zehrt let out a small breath of air. The girl’s name seemed to diminish him. ‘I am not supposed to talk about the girl.’
‘Police reasons or NSDAP?’
‘Please, Fritz –’
‘Gerhart, I am only going to ask questions that should have been in your report, had there been one.’
‘I already told you to see the body for yourself.’
‘And I did. I don’t want to know how she died. That’s obvious. I need to know when they brought the body to you.’
Zehrt rubbed his hands together. ‘Saturday morning, just like I told you. You were only a few hours behind them.’
Fritz nodded. He expected that Zehrt wouldn’t have been in the office if he hadn’t had a body to tend to. ‘I want to know time of death.’
‘You know I can’t pinpoint that with any kind of accuracy. And it was a cursory exam –’
‘Time of death, Gerhart. You can give me that within a few hours just by looking at a body.’
Zehrt put his hand on Fritz’s arm. Zehrt was trembling. ‘Please, my friend, go. You are angering people you shouldn’t anger.’
‘And what can they do to me? They aren’t even the party in power.’
‘They will be, though. They are second in the country right now. Please, Fritz. You don’t know these men. I do.’
Fritz shook Zehrt’s hand off him, and crossed his arms. ‘I won’t leave unless you answer my very simple question.’
Zehrt ran his hands over his bloodstained smock. He glanced at the window, then at the body on the table. ‘Friday afternoon,’ he said. ‘She died Friday afternoon.’