Death in Berlin (11 page)

‘Here we are: bundle out. I’m late. See you at lunch.’ He kissed Stella, released the brake and went on his way to the barracks which lay some half-dozen miles distant.

The house, though sparsely furnished, was comfortable and not without charm. A white painted staircase led up from a wide hall to a narrow landing that ran round three sides of the stairwell and gave access to four bedrooms. A large drawing-room and a smaller diningroom looked out on half an acre of garden that lay at the back of the house and consisted mainly of a lawn surrounded by a hedge and more lilac bushes and ending in a high reed fence. There were two pine trees in the garden, a few cherry trees and some sad, sandy-looking flowerbeds. A single almond tree provided a gay

splash of colour and the cherry trees were already in bloom.

A shallow alcove off the hall held a telephone, and to the right an archway and a short passage led to the kitchen quarters and the back staircase. There was a small study for Robert and a smaller cloakroom.

The cellars are about the largest part of the house,’ said Stella. ‘A ghastly waste of space, as there’s nothing down there but a boiler and piles of coke and coal. But thank heavens we have two bathrooms! This is your room, and Robert and I are in here and Lottie next door to you. Mademoiselle’s in there. There’s another bathroom and two servants’ rooms in the attic, but only the housemaid sleeps in; she seems a nice woman and mercifully can speak quite good English. My German is pretty rusty. When you’ve gone, I’ll turn your room into a schoolroom-cum-playroom for Lottie, but until then she’ll have to use that little room downstairs. Robert will never really use it.’

A woman wearing a starched white apron passed along the landing carrying a pile of clean linen, and Miranda caught at Stella’s arm:

‘Who’s that?’

That’s Friedel.’

‘Madam?’ The woman turned, thinking she had been addressed.

‘Es ist nichts, Friedel, ‘ Stella waved a hand in dismissal. ‘What is it, ‘Randa?’

‘I’ve seen that woman before. She was at the hostel yesterday.’

‘Was she? Probably collecting her papers or a reference or spmething. She used to work there once. Now I’m going to leave you to your unpacking while I go down to wrestle with the cook. What’s the Deutsch for “braised”?’

Stella ran down the stairs to the hall, but Miranda stood gazing into space. There was no reason why Stella’s explanation of the woman Friedel’s presence in the hostel should not be the right one. It seemed obvious enough. And yet standing there in a square of bright spring sunlight in Stella’s house, Miranda had a swift and fleeting impression that she was looking at part of a pattern.

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,t It was as though everything that had happened since she had left Liverpool Street station less than three days ago was all part of the same pattern, and that if she could only stand back from it, and see it from far enough away, she would be able to see a shape and a meaning. But she could not do so, because she herself was part of it. A small, coloured thread caught up in the machinery and woven in and out, willy-nilly, with other threads of other colours…

I’m being Aunt Hettyish again, thought Miranda ruefully. I’m worse than Aunt Hetty! At least when she had a feeling that there was a cat about, there always was, while I keep peopling the place with imaginary cats. I must need a dose or a tonic or something.

Towards twelve o’clock a Mrs Lawrence arrived to call, and Friedel produced coffee and cakes in the drawing-room.

Mrs Lawrence, the wife of Robert’s commanding officer, was a tall woman with auburn hair and an energetic personality. She was, Miranda surmised, more interested in the murder than in Stella’s possible domestic problems, for having accepted their assurances that they were in no immediate need of assistance, she turned to the more interesting subject of Brigadier Brindley’s death.

According to Mrs Lawrence, the B.B.C. had mentioned the murder in a news broadcast, a London daily had headlined it, and several German newspapers had already printed columns on the subject. But both Stella and Miranda had made their accounts as colourless as possible. Stella because she had slept throughout the entire proceedings, and Miranda because she had been too closely and unpleasantly involved to relish discussing the matter.

Mrs Lawrence was thrilled and sympathetic, but a little disappointed. She gave it as her opinion that the police would undoubtedly discover that the poor man had committed suicide after all, urged them once more to call upon her if they needed anything, mentioned that there was a Wives’ Meeting at her house on Monday at three o’clock which she hoped Stella would attend, refused the offer of a glass of sherry, and left.

During the afternoon two members of the Public Safety Branch

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called at the house, and once more Stella, Miranda and Mademoiselle were interviewed in turn. The two men were friendly and pleasant and managed to give their visit the atmosphere of an informal call rather than that of a police inquiry, so that even Mademoiselle thawed and remarked after their departure that they were ‘trčs gentils, trčs comme il faut’I

The remainder of the day passed quietly enough except for one small, disturbing incident that occurred in the late afternoon. Stella, who was lining her dressingtable drawers with paper, looked up from the task to ask Miranda if she would telephone Robert and remind him to bring back ration cards for them. There was a telephone extension on the bedside table, and Miranda, who had been lying on Stella’s bed reading a new copy of Vogue, reached out and idly lifted the receiver.

Someone was talking on the other end of the line: a quick, low voice speaking in German. The girl at the exchange, thought Miranda, turning a page of the magazine and waiting for the voice to ask what number she wanted.

The voice changed suddenly to a mixture of German and English.

‘Speak then in English! Es ware mir sehr angenetun? I must meet with you this night. If you come not I come myself upstairs to your house, and that will make trouble for you!… Nein, danke!… wie du willst… By the third house then, where the light is not… Das istgut!…’

Miranda broke firmly into the conversation: ‘Exchange?’

There was an indescribable gasp at the other end of the line, followed by a sudden click as a receiver was replaced. And then silence.

‘Exchange!’ repeated Miranda impatiently.

Stella looked up from cutting lengths of paper and said: ‘Don’t be silly, darling. It’s a dial phone.’

‘But someone was speaking in German.’

I expect you got a crossed line or something. Robert’s number is at the top of that pad.’ ^- Ť;/% sr;-

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,-f Miranda reached out, and turning the telephone to face rny, dialled a number; but with no result.

‘It’s not working. I can’t get a sound out of it.’

‘What an idiot I am!’ said Stella, dropping the scissors and standing up. ‘This is only an extension of course, and it won’t work unless you switch it up here from the hall. Don’t bother. I’ll run down and put in a call from the one downstairs.’

She left the room and Miranda sat looking thoughtfully at the telephone…

The downstairs telephone. Of course, that was it. She had been listening to the conversation of some person in the house. And that person could only be the woman Friedel, for the cook spoke no English.

Who had Friedel been talking to in that half-whispered, threatening voice?

Robert returned about six o’clock bringing Major Marson with him. The Marsons lived in the same road, their house being separated from the Melvilles’ by that of Colonel and Mrs Leslie, who were next door.

Robert mixed gin and vermouth and he and Harry became immersed in regimental shop.

Harry Marson’s usually high spirits seemed to have temporarily deserted him. He looked tired and morose, and his comments appeared to be mainly confined to criticism of the Army. Presently Stella smothered a yawn with nicely calculated effect, and the conversation became more general.

Harry, who before the war had spent three weeks’ leave in Berlin with an uncle in the British Embassy and knew the city reasonably well, described it in the days of its Nazi glory when the flags had flown and panzer divisions and steel-helmeted, goose-stepping ranks had paraded down the great stretch of the Kaiserdamm.

The house that Brigadier Brindley had talked of, from which Herr Ridder and his wife had disappeared, was, said Harry, less than half a mile away. It was only a burnt-out shell now, but the

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unfinished garage still stood. He had driven past it only that day and had stopped out of curiosity to look through the rusted iron gateway. Tell you what - I’ll take you round on Sunday,’ offered Harry. That is, if you’re interested.’

He, too, it appeared, had been interrogated by the S.I.B. on the subject of the murder, as had Eisa, Colonel and Mrs Leslie, the Pages and Mrs Wilkin. Eisa Marson had apparently not taken the inquiries in good part. She had wept and been what Harry described as ‘a bit upset’. In other words, had behaved on the same lines as Mademoiselle, thought Miranda. Stella caught her eye and pantomimed/ore/gnerj/ and Miranda’s attempt to turn a fit of the giggles into a cough was not entirely successful.

Next morning Robert had rung up from the office to say that he could get three seats for a bus tour of Berlin on the following day, and would they like to go? It would, he said, take the best part of four hours, as the buses toured the British, American and Russian sectors of the city. Shortly afterwards, Mrs Leslie made an unexpected appearance and offered - somewhat surprisingly in view of her attitude during the journey from England - to take Miranda to see the shops. An offer that Miranda accepted with alacrity, since Stella, who was far more interested in overseeing the hanging of her newly unpacked curtains, plainly did not need her help.

Norah Leslie drove up the Herr Strasse, circled the Reichskanzler Platz and proceeded by way of Masuren Allée and Kant Strasse, to the Kurfiirstendamm, the luxury shopping street of Berlin.

She parked the car not far from the fantastic ruin of the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church, and Miranda stood in the clear spring sunlight and looked up at the broken towers and the vivid colours of the mosaics that could be glimpsed through the shattered walls, and marvelled that a ruin could look so beautiful. Before war and bombs had blasted it, it could not have been a particularly impressive building, but now, lifting against the pale sky out of a surge of shops, cinemas, hotels, apartments and the clatter of trams and

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traffic, there was something strangely ancient and oriental about its shattered silhouette; as though it were some beautiful, lost ruin from Angkor Wat - instead of the wreckage of a late-nineteenthcentury Christian church.

Mrs Leslie touched her arm, and Miranda turned away and followed her through a maze of traffic and hurrying pedestrians, across the busy street. But it soon began to dawn on her that there had been an ulterior motive in Mrs Leslie’s offer to take her to see the shops, although she certainly fulfilled the letter of her promise. Together they gazed at china shops and antique shops, admired hats, dresses, shoes and glass, and wandered through the crowded aisles of the KaDeWe, a hive-like multiple store. But this windowshopping was only a background and an opportunity for talk, and the talk was almost entirely on the subject of the Melvilles …

Mrs Leslie, it seemed, had known Robert for many years. They had played together as children, and the families had only lost touch when Robert’s father had sold his house on his wife’s death

in 1935. Norah had been in India then, newly married. But it was obvious that she did not wish to talk of herself : it was the Melvilles

who interested her, and Miranda was as yet too young and inexperienced to be able to parry her questions with much skill. Besides, the questions themselves appeared to be harmless enough, and no more than one might have expected from someone who had once known the family well and took an interest in their affairs. Yet Miranda felt vaguely uncomfortable. There was something behind Mrs Leslie’s questions. A hint of animosity? An undertone of spite? Miranda could not quite place it, but she gained the impression that Norah Leslie would not have been displeased to hear that Robert and Stella were unhappy, and their marriage a failure.

She was especially curious about Stella: her character, her interests, her clothes. She had heard of Stella, but had never met her until Robert had introduced them at Liverpool Street station. ‘She’s very pretty,’ said Mrs Leslie in a brittle voice. ‘You would hardly know that she was older than Robert. Somehow I had not

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expected her to look so - soft. I had imagined something harder. But appearances are very deceptive, aren’t they? Of course women have a sort of instinct about these things, but men only go by appearances.’

She stopped to look at a window containing an exquisite display of modern porcelain, and added in a bright, conversational voice: ‘She killed Johnnie, of course.’

What?’ Miranda checked, unable to believe that she had heard aright, and a stout German hausfrau, hurrying along the pavement behind her, cannoned into her and muttered crossly under her breath before continuing on her way. But Miranda had not even noticed. She was looking at Mrs Leslie with eyes that were bright with anger, and she said the first thing that came into her head. ‘So you knew him well enough to call him by his Christian name, did you? Then why did you pretend that you had never met him before?’

Mrs Leslie turned to stare at her. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Brigadier Brindley. You’ve just accused Stella of killing him.’

‘Brigadier Brindley? You must be mad! I said she’d killed Johnnie Radley, her first husband. And it’s quite true.’

‘I don’t think you know what you’re talking about,’ said Miranda icily. ‘Stella’s first husband was killed in Libya in 1941. He got a posthumous V.C. I’ve read the citation. I think it is you who must be mad!’

Mrs Leslie gave a short mirthless laugh.