Free Death in Berlin by M. M. Kaye Page A

were informed that they could now remove their luggage, with the exception of the torches and the lighters which would be returned as soon as possible. There were cars outside to take them to their several destinations.
    A middle-aged man wearing a dark blue uniform with the crown and star of a lieutenantcolonel apologized charmingly for any inconvenience they might have suffered and thanked them for their patience and co-operation. Mrs Wilkin was led away to
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    collect her offspring, and Mademoiselle hurried off in search of Charlotte, clutching a piece of luggage in each black-gloved hand and refusing all offers of assistance. Only Miranda was still luggageless.
    ‘When do I get my things?’ she inquired of the affable gentleman in the blue uniform. ‘I was told to leave everything in my carriage and I’ve left two suitcases and a hatbox in there.’
    >Well - er It’s Miss Brand isn’t it? I am sure your luggage
    will be along soon. If you would not mind waiting ‘ The
    affable gentleman looked suddenly less affable, and Simon Lang abandoned the contemplation of his shoes and spoke for the first time.
    Til send them along to the hostel. There’s no need to wait for them. I expect you could all do with some breakfast.’
    He looked directly at Miranda, but voice and look were as blankly impersonal as though he were addressing someone he had never seen before.
    Til wait,’ said Miranda flatly. She was both annoyed and frightened. Why had they kept all her hand luggage? Why was Simon Lang behaving as though she were some complete stranger?
    ‘I wouldn’t advise it,’ said Simon Lang softly. ‘We are a little busy just now and it might mean waiting an hour or so. You shall have them as soon as possible.’
    Miranda wanted to cry out to him: ‘You mean when you have looked for bloodstains! But you know there are bloodstains-you saw them last night! I showed them to you myself. Why do you have to look again?’ She choked back the words with an effort that made her hands tremble, and turning blindly away, caught at Robert’s arm, and clinging to it, walked quickly out of the room.
    Stella, following, said: ‘Darling, don’t look so upset! I’m sure they’ll let you have your stuff soon, and if there’s anything you need in the meantime I can probably lend it to you.’
    ‘He’s a suspicious, soft-spoken, officious little man!’ said Miranda furiously; unaccountably near to tears.
    Robert said: ‘Who? Lang? I think he’s rather a decent type. He
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    went quite a bit out of his way to be helpful this morning. Why have you got your knife into him, Miranda?’
    ‘I haven’t. I mean … is this the car?’
    ‘Yes. Get in. This is a Volkswagen. The Families’ Hostel, please, Corporal.’
    Stella said: ‘What about Lottie and Mademoiselle? We can’t all
    fit into that.’
    ‘I’ve sent ‘em on ahead with the Leslies. Colonel Leslie very decently offered to drop them at the hostel. The Pages are going there too, so Andy will keep an eye on them.’
    Robert bundled them into a small khaki-green beetle of a car driven by a corporal in battledress, and they drove away from Charlottenburg station in the thin, drizzling rain.
    Looking back on it, Miranda could never remember much of her first sight of Berlin. She had stared out with unseeing eyes at grey buildings and grey rain. At blocks of shops and houses, interspersed with open spaces where only a rubble of bricks and stone and blackened, twisted steel remained to show where other houses had once stood. At unfamiliar notices that said Fleischerei, Friseur, Bdckerei, Eisengeschaft…
    Robert, who had been in Berlin for several months before he had returned to fetch Stella and Charlotte, pointed out various places of interest as they passed.
    That’s the Rundfunk, Stella; the Soviet-controlled wireless station, the one the Russians still keep in our zone. It’s a bit of a mystery still. Looks as dead as a morgue, doesn’t it? You never seem to