Murder in Berlin by Christina Koning

Author:Christina Koning
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2023-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Since there was nothing to be done in the way of furthering the investigation that day – it being a Sunday – Rowlands and his sister decided to go for a walk. ‘Because with all that’s been going on, you’ve hardly seen anything of Berlin,’ she said. ‘Unless you count the inside of the police station.’ Despite the unrest of the night before – there had been gunshots in the street and shop windows smashed – the city was quiet by the time their little party ventured forth. At the last moment Dorothy had decided that little Victor should accompany them. ‘He’s been cooped up in that flat all week. It’ll be good for him to have a walk.’ And so the three of them caught the tram to Alexanderplatz and, leaving that busy intersection behind, began making their way towards Unter den Linden. Their goal was the Tiergarten: its tree-lined gravel walks offering a pleasant excursion even on a raw February day.

But, as it transpired, they were destined to get no further than a quarter of the way. Because the violence which had infected the streets of this, and many another German cities in the preceding days, was here given a different kind of expression. The first indication of this, for Rowlands, was the sound of a drum beating: a steady pulse, echoed and amplified by the rhythmic tread of marching feet. Thousands of them. ‘Oh, no!’ murmured Dorothy. ‘I should have realised …’ But it was too late to turn back. Before they knew it, Rowlands and his companions were caught up in the crowd that was flowing along Kaiser Wilhelmstrasse towards the cathedral. Outside the great baroque building, the crowds were massed even more thickly so that to get across the bridge that lay on the far side of the Lustgarten would have been impossible.

And so they were forced to remain, trapped on the narrow island that lay between the two forks of the river, until the crowds of brown-shirted men had ceased pouring into the square in front of the Dom, and the watching crowd, amongst which they found themselves, had also come to a standstill.

‘What’s it all in aid of?’ asked Rowlands. His answer came a moment later, with the emergence from the cathedral of a funeral cortège, followed by another. There came the sound of horses’ hooves, loud on the cobblestones as two hearses drew up in front.

‘It’s the funeral of those two Nazis who were shot on Monday night,’ whispered Dorothy. ‘I should have remembered it was today.’

‘It sounds like a big crowd.’

‘Tens of thousands, I’d say.’ Dorothy gave a bitter little laugh. ‘They believe in doing these things properly, you know.’

With the departure of the hearses, the crowd surged forwards so that Rowlands and his sister, with the child between them, were able to worm their way towards the front, and the eventual possibility of escape. Before they could go any further, however, they had to wait for the square to

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