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

hints and trying to persuade him to get it for me. We were always teasing each other about it, because he wasn’t so keen.”

“Did you need his permission? Could you not buy it yourself?”

“We have an agreement that we never buy things for ourselves, but only for each other,” Ellen explained.

“But from what you tell me about those impulse buys, he doesn’t always keep to that agreement, does he?”

“In his own mind, I think he does.”

“But he never bought ‘Lola’ for you?” Marthe asked, as she poured the boiling water into the teapot.

“No. He never did.”

These words cast Ellen’s thoughts adrift. She sank back into a deep pause for reflection. Caught in a tangle of memories.

“I suggest we take a walk in the snow this morning,” Marthe said at last, placing a cup of tea on the table for Ellen. “And work up an appetite for lunch. I’ve already phoned and booked a table.”

For all her attention to detail, Marthe was not the most efficient of women. The morning was already half over by the time they had dressed for the snow and found themselves on a trail that skirted alongside the forest with only the occasional squirrel to distract them. Perhaps it was the raw chill of the morning air that reduced their conversation to pleasantries and idle chat. But Ellen was not so sure.

Her doubts were vindicated when they eventually arrived at the hotel restaurant for lunch at noon. Their entrance was accompanied by the sound of a piano playing in some unseen corner of the lobby. There was a luxury to the place that Ellen had never experienced before – elegantly upholstered furniture, plush carpets and strategically placed aspidistras. It gave her a sense of disquiet, a feeling she was out of place here, until Marthe led her into the restaurant, where they were guided to a table with a stunning view over the snow-covered valley. It took Ellen’s breath away. And in the cosiness of the restaurant with Marthe, she instantly felt at peace.

“I’m going to miss you,” Marthe said once the waitress had taken their orders and disappeared with the menus. She stretched both hands around the vase of flowers on the table between them and rested them on Ellen’s hands as she spoke.

“I will be back, you know.” Ellen gave Marthe’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “I really appreciate your friendship. At the moment, though, I need to get back to work and return to some semblance of a normal life while the search for Frank continues. Being here, so close to the whole story, is just beginning to make me question everything. My own sanity. Who Frank is. Or even who I am.”

“Believe me, there’s nothing wrong with your sanity or who you are.”

“So you agree that there’s still a huge question mark over who Frank is?”

“We’ll find an answer to that question eventually,” Marthe insisted. “Urs is also not convinced by the idea that he is involved in drugs. He believes Frank is suffering a schizoaffective psychosis.”

“Is he a good psychiatrist?” Ellen asked, bringing a smile to Marthe’s lips.

“Oh yes. Perhaps not very imaginative and too quick to accept conventional thinking. But he’s very caring. The thought and care he showed when he supported me in the referendum are very typical.”

She paused and contemplated the vase of flowers for a moment, before adding: “Which makes it strange that he’s not so good at personal relationships.”

“How do you mean?”

“He has a problem showing his emotions. It’s probably something to do with his background. He’s from the most eastern part of the country. Very conservative. And I’m originally from the French-speaking part in the west. That’s a big difference. They call it the Rösti Curtain where I come from. It’s not quite the Iron Curtain, but it defines the cultural divide between the German and French speakers. That’s why I like it in Basel: although it’s a German-speaking city, the Rösti Curtain is so frayed at the edges that it’s more like the French-speaking part. They show their emotions more. Even vote the same way very often. In the referendum to give women the vote, more than eighty percent of men voted yes. Just like in Lausanne or Geneva. Thank goodness! Because there were some German-speaking areas where most men voted no!”

“I didn’t realise there was a problem between you and Urs,” Ellen said, unwilling to dwell on the referendum as it reminded her too much of Frank’s mission here. “You always seem to get on so well.”

“Oh, it’s not a problem. We do get on well. And I’m proud to say he was one of the eighty percent,” Marthe reassured her with a smile. “But we have our differences. And I think I’ve become more aware of them since you’ve been here.”

Ellen felt the colour rising in her cheeks.

“Oh gosh, don’t look now,” Marthe said, and unwittingly helped to spare Ellen’s blushes. “The man who has just walked in and taken the table behind you is the most perfect example of that difference I was talking about.”

Ellen discreetly turned her head to witness the fuss being made of the man who took the table behind her. He glanced up as she looked. He had a rather doughy and slightly chinless, but inconspicuous face, wore horn-rimmed glasses and boasted a supremely confident parting in his brilliantined hair.

“He’s a member of parliament,” Marthe explained in a whisper that succeeded in expressing extreme revulsion despite the hushed tone of her words. “From Zurich.”

“He looks harmless enough,” Ellen said.

“That type often does. I’ve been told he’s distantly related to Bismarck. But he’s a completely heartless beast. A throwback to darker times, when he belonged to the National Front in the Thirties. He was especially good at organising violent demonstrations to intimidate political cabarets that were critical of Nazi Germany and forcing them out of business. I can imagine what his position was on the Jews and other refugees fleeing to Switzerland at that time. Now he sits in