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

detail, such as a sore throat and aching limbs. “Would you mind just the two of you going on your own? I’m sure he’ll look after you.”

The way she pampered Frank and tucked him comfortably up in his bed made him feel shoddy and mean in his deceit. But this failed to prevent the ludicrous pangs of jealousy that tugged at him when she accepted his suggestion with an enthusiasm that went far beyond the gestures of self-sacrifice he had anticipated. It seemed an absurd idea, but he wondered whether there might be more to the attraction than his appeal as a father substitute. But these wild thoughts were too thin and tenuous to get the better of his vanity. And they faded into oblivion under the sweet commitment of the kiss she left with him when she departed. An indelible keepsake of his deepest wishes sealed into place.

But he could not afford to linger too long in the delicious realms of this sentiment, since there was a risk it might carry him off into the sleep that he had sorely missed. There was time enough for him to recuperate on the train, he told himself.

However, he was not prepared to leave sentiment entirely on the side lines. So he contacted room service and arranged for dinner to be served in their room at nine o’clock that evening – fillet of beef in Madeira sauce with a bottle of Chateau Haut-Brion, which he had noticed on their wine list. The vintage was tantalisingly wrong – a 1931, not a ’13 – and his superstitious nature talked him into regarding this as a good omen. Of course, he would have some explaining to do when he got back, and a candlelight dinner in their room seemed a better framework for confessions than most. As long as the railway service did not let him down. He had checked the departure times, and a nine o’clock return appeared just about feasible.

Chapter 23

The early afternoon sun was making a half-hearted effort to break through the clouds when Frank walked out onto the central square outside the railway station, scene of his rendezvous with Patricia on their flight to the mountains. He found it hard to believe it was already three weeks ago that they had met here. So much water had passed under the bridge since then. Yet it seemed like only yesterday. Time seemed indefinably confused. A sensation that was reinforced by the babel of tongues which filled the air outside the station – the same sounds he had heard the day they left. Seemingly so carefree and open to the world. Were they the same young migrant children at play? Frank wondered. The same unsuspecting fugitives in permanent transit? Their faces all looked vaguely familiar. Yet he could not be certain that he had seen any one of them before. What struck him above all was their joyful laughter, the sparkle of their play, the ease of their every move competing defiantly with the sadness in their eyes, the truth of their exile. In this, they reminded him of Patricia.

The paradox of their captive freedom stayed with him and fed his thoughts of Patricia in the tram that carried him close to the border with Germany. To the smart suburban streets where Breitner’s villa violated the quiet reserve of the streets with an aggressiveness that matched the style of its owner. The sight of the place prompted a painful re-enactment in his mind of the only other visit he had ever made here. The familiar Maybach stood in the driveway. But the house itself appeared deathly still. Frank’s hand rested on the gun in his pocket, as it had done during most of the journey from St Moritz.

He was surprised by the calmness of his step as he walked up the driveway. Only a vague thrill undulating through the wall of his chest betrayed a hint of anything that might approach anxiety or tension. Nerves of steel tempered on an anvil of ice. His thoughts turned to the colonel, and he sensed them bring a faint trace of amusement to his expression as he lifted the heavy black knocker on the front door. It had the same feel, the same shape and the same dull thud of the knocker on the door to his mother’s house in Cologne. He half-expected to be greeted by the sour-faced vulture, or even his mother herself.

His hand gripped tightly round the gun in readiness, as he heard the busy shuffling and fidgeting of an elaborate unfastening ritual. Slowly the door opened, just far enough for a face to peer through the crack. He had not anticipated that Breitner himself would answer his knock. On the other hand, nor had it occurred to him that he might find Lutz here. So he was uncomfortably taken aback when he met the gaze of the man’s unpleasant, bulbous eyes gaping at him through the narrow doorway.

“Mr Eigenmann,” he said. “Really, this is most unwise.”

There was a consternation in his expression. Lutz hovered, plainly at a loss to know what he should do. “Does Mademoiselle Roche know you are here?”

“Are you going to announce me to Breitner? Or shall I do it myself?” Frank asked with gruff impatience. Perhaps too much impatience. But he wanted to get it over with. Lutz hesitated. His eyes scanned the street outside. Was he looking out for danger? Or searching for support?

“Come in.”

With these uncertain words, Lutz stepped back. And Frank entered the lair. A gloom hung over the hallway that deepened even further when Lutz closed the door behind him. A hallway that had stamped itself so vividly on his memory. The staircase steep and vicious. The deep red carpet that concealed his blood stains. And that image of Breitner’s brightly polished shoes laughing in his face before he was turfed out into the street.

“Where is he?”

“Mr Breitner is at a meeting today,” Lutz said. “He won’t be back until later this evening.”

“On