The Dark Frontier A. Decker (i like reading TXT) 📖

and he enjoyed every inch of the authority this simple instrument suddenly invested in him. A curious expression found a place in Silverstone’s eyes. His top lip curled to show the crude untidiness of his large teeth as he stepped back towards the cubicle door. It was the first time Frank had seen him looking so unsure of himself. He was getting a taste for this new power.

“Bert.” Frank spoke with growing self-assurance. He sensed his agitation lifting. “Keep your hat on, go join your friend, and get undressed.”

Meek as a lamb, the cloth cap complied, only the slightest trace of a snarl where his smile had been.

“And you, Silverstone. Clothes off. Lay your coats on the floor and throw everything on top. Everything,” Frank repeated, moving back to the door and wedging his foot against it to discourage any visitors following the call of nature. The sight of them finally removing their underpants made him almost feel sorry for them in the shrivelled despair of their manhood, their bodies pale, flabby and slightly deformed. The pigeon chest of Silverstone especially surprised him: the American had always looked so burly in his coat.

“What exactly do you do at your Nazi-friendly bank?” Frank asked. He was savouring the thought of what his colleagues at work would make of him now. “Okay. Now tie them up with the arms of the coat to make a bundle, then step back into the cubicle and lock the door.”

As soon as the lock clicked into place, Frank moved over to the two bundles of clothes and was just picking them up when the door to the street swung open. A tall man in a trench coat and hat filled the doorway, concern written in his eyes. He guided in a little boy with the desperate, inconsolable face of someone who was having the greatest difficulty adopting anything remotely like a normal walk. Frank smiled sympathetically at what he assumed to be the father of this poor little wretch and heaved the two bundles out through the door with as much discretion as he could muster.

To see those two bundles floating downstream from the bridge brought him a malicious kind of pleasure he had not known since the time he watched Heinz Wassermann being carried off to hospital, his face lacerated and bleeding from Volker’s revenge.

But the enjoyment of the moment could not smooth away the questions that still gnawed at his newfound confidence. The cloth cap and Silverstone made an unlikely alliance and cast a further layer of mystery over the role of the American. Frank kicked himself for being so ready to cut and run without grilling them when he had the chance. All at once, he pictured Silverstone as an associate of Breitner’s, maybe even the chief architect behind the betrayal of Achim and the carnage of his family. These thoughts chipped away at his conscience all the way back to Patricia’s flat.

The signs of intrusion initially escaped him when he opened the door. It was not until he had washed, shaved and rinsed away the last vestiges of the urinal that he noticed it. The shelf where the weighty tomes on the history of art had stood was now empty. And no amount of searching brought them to light. They had evidently been removed. A warm thrill coursed through his body at the thought that she might have already returned – but he had overlooked the piece of paper which lay under the table, presumably swept onto the floor as he blustered into the room still heady with the acrid reek of ammonia on his coat.

“You are most unwise to ignore my advice. But perhaps you will listen to Mademoiselle Roche. She wishes to see you.”

These words leapt off the page at Frank. Set his heart racing with a frenzy that had him overlook the disquieting fact that Lutz appeared to know his every move. Although unsigned, it was plainly his hand behind the note, which continued with fussily detailed instructions to explain where Frank should be at ten o’clock the following morning. Since Lutz was for once the bearer of good tidings, Frank told himself the murkier side of his involvement could be happily ignored. And for the rest of the day, he warmed himself on the glow of knowing she was back and wanted to see him.

It was already five to ten when he stepped off the tram at the end of the line in a village on the outskirts of town. But rather than draw attention to himself by racing too fast, he walked slowly in the direction instructed. He was halfway up the hill leading out of the village, when the black, low-slung chassis of a black Citroen pulled up beside him. The sight of Lutz behind the wheel took him by surprise. He had not imagined Lutz as a driver. To see him now in charge of a fashionable new 7S Traction Avant gave a new dimension to the man. Lutz leaned over and opened the door.

“Good morning, Mr Eigenmann,” he said, instantly dispelling any sense of this new quality with his familiar, unctuous smarm. “Please get in.”

Frank hesitated, but Lutz did not let his greasy smile weaken for a moment. He was supremely confident. He knew that Patricia was too much of an inducement to resist. Was this what Breitner was counting on? Frank kept his fingers crossed and clambered in.

“I hope you remembered to bring your passport,” Lutz said, as he settled uneasily into the leather upholstery. Frank nodded.

“Please,” Lutz said, opening an outstretched hand towards his passenger.

Frank pulled out his passport and placed it in the outstretched hand, nervously recalling stories about the recent abduction of the journalist Jacob as he did so. Am I now to be the protagonist in a rerun of that scene and become a diplomatic incident? Frank asked himself. But no, no one would give a damn – and why should they? He was a German citizen of good