Free Hitler's Angel by Kris Rusch Page B

him to double doors made of cheap stained brown wood. The brown had faded near the knobs where pressure of hands had rubbed the stain away.After Father Pant pushed the doors open, he reached for the light switch to the right.
    Immediately a string of uncovered electric bulbs lit, banishing the dark. Fritz understood why Father Pant went for the light first. The room was the size of three normal rooms, with lockers standing against the far wall. There was a basin sink near the lockers, and counters ran along the remaining walls. Wooden tables filled the rest of the room, all stained dark, but even the colour could not hide the black blotches that irregularly marked each surface.
    The body of an elderly woman, covered with a pale blue cloth, lay on a table closest to the lockers. Her silver hair draped across the side of the table, and the uneven ends brushed against the floor. Her eyes were open and sunken into her face, her mouth a silent ‘O’ of pain. Even the odour of formaldehyde could not hide the stench of rot.
    Father Pant said nothing. Obviously he had been in the room before. He pointed to an unpainted wooden coffin beside one of the counters.
    ‘That should be Geli,’ he said.
    ‘Have you seen her recently?’ Fritz asked. ‘Would you be able to recognise her?’
    Father Pant nodded, but didn’t move toward the coffin.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ Fritz said.
    Father Pant shook his head and sighed. ‘Sometimes I think God has cursed me, asking me to do his work during the last twenty years. The things I have seen…’ His voice trailed away. Then he turned to Fritz, eyes dark with sorrow. ‘Geli Raubal was an energetic girl, lighthearted, given to easylaughter. I cannot picture her dying by her own hand. I cannot picture her dying.’
    The priest’s words echoed in the large room. Fritz hadn’t realised until then how much the other man’s voice carried.
    Fritz walked over to the coffin. It was cheap, obviously hastily put together for transport. The men who had taken the body had not had a coffin with them – or had they? Frau Winter had been unable to answer his question about the way the men transported the body. He should have asked Frau Reichert, but he hadn’t thought of it. He would ask her, or the others, when he returned. He couldn’t imagine even the most grief-stricken being willing to put a blood-soaked corpse flat across the back seat.
    Someone had taped a piece of paper to the top of the coffin. It read ‘Angela Marie Raubal’, and had the address of the Central Cemetery in Vienna. Across the top was a stamp, marking the transportation paid. He took a photograph of the coffin’s lid, then set the camera on the counter next to a pile of tools.
    Fritz grabbed a hammer from the pile and prised the lid off the coffin. It took him a moment – the coffin had been sealed with a number of nails. Father Pant came up beside him and watched. The squeals of the wood and metal were the only sounds in the room.
    The odour seeping from the coffin made Fritz’s eyes water. Father Pant crouched beside him and helped him pull the lid off. The smell was overwhelming. Fritz put a hand over his nose and mouth, but too late. The stench had already coated his tongue and the back of his throat. Hewouldn’t have expected this kind of odour on someone who had been dead a little less than 24 hours.
    ‘Merciful God,’ Father Pant said. He was staring into the coffin.
    Fritz stared as well. Geli had been a tall woman. She filled the coffin. Her blue nightgown had been pulled down over her thighs. A small round hole surrounded by powder burns was beneath her left breast. Fritz had expected that much.
    He had not expected her face.
    The area around her open eyes and her nose was black and blue. Her nose was flat, the skin swollen but not, it appeared, from the after effects of death. A bit of blood had dried beneath her nostrils. Her lips were cut, and she had another bruise beneath her left ear.
    He had seen a woman