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

to watch the wheeling gulls or the passing of an occasional ‘boat beneath a sunny sky’. And think of Frank.

Marthe kept in touch and, true to her promise, invited Ellen to join her for a week or two in the mountains and visit the Segantini hut. But Ellen declined. She preferred to get on with her life and wait until Marthe had tangible news of Frank before returning to Switzerland.

It was not until around twelve months later, in 1972, that Ellen eventually accepted an invitation from Marthe. The call did not come with any news of Frank. Nor was Ellen initially inclined to accept, despite Marthe’s attempts to sell the local carnival as a unique event in the city’s calendar that no one should miss. What clinched it for Ellen was the second call that came some days later. No longer was it framed as an invitation. It now took the form of an urgent dispatch. Frank had been found.

Ellen took the Night Ferry from Victoria that same day, changing in Paris for the early morning train to Basel.

The perfume of Marthe’s warm embrace when she stepped onto the platform in the early afternoon reminded Ellen just how much she had missed her companionship over the past year. Her husband on the other hand offered Ellen the kind of cordial handshake and welcoming words she had long since come to expect of him. Courteous and correct to the last. But there was an air of ministration about the way he took Ellen’s suitcase and guided her out to the waiting car. It suggested to her he was there more as psychiatric support than anything else.

“Where is he?” Ellen wanted to know. “Where did they find him?”

“Let’s get you home first,” Dr Zellweger said. “We can explain everything there before we see the Kommissar.”

“The Kommissar?” Ellen asked.

“He has news of Frank,” Marthe added, placing a reassuring hand on her arm as they climbed into the car.

“News? I thought they’d found him.”

“A man answering his description has been seen,” Marthe explained. “The Kommissar will tell you more when we see him tomorrow.”

The disappointment on Ellen’s face was plain even to Dr Zellweger in his rear-view mirror.

“The Kommissar wanted to see you this afternoon, then phoned to say that he had been called away on an important case,” Dr Zellweger explained. “But he will be there for you in the morning.”

Marthe had initially invited Ellen over to experience the Fasnacht. But this idea was abandoned the instant they heard news of Frank’s appearance. Now that Ellen was forced to wait yet again for any kind of explanation, and Marthe pointed out that the carnival celebrations would already start at four in the morning, she suggested they could at least kill time by seeing some of the parade before their appointment at the police presidium. So they were both already wide awake when the phone rang, getting ready to join the carnival crowds.

“Normally, I would take the tram,” Marthe explained. “But no trams will be travelling through the centre during Fasnacht. Of course, it will be impossible to park in the Storchen. It would already be full by four in the morning.”

“That’s where they found Frank sleeping, isn’t it?” Ellen asked.

“Yes. There used to be a smart hotel there many years ago. But they pulled it down in the Fifties to build the car park.”

“It’s strange to think Frank chose to sleep there, isn’t it?” Ellen remarked. “Almost as if he knew that it was once a hotel.”

Marthe looked across at Ellen with a curious expression in her eyes that slightly unnerved her.

“Of course,” Marthe said, as she brought the car to a halt around the corner from the large grey featureless building that Ellen had come to know so well, “one big advantage to be invited to the police presidium, is that we can drive almost to the door without any problem. So it doesn’t matter if the Storchen is full.”

In this respect at least, Marthe was proved wrong. She needed all her charm to persuade an exceptionally humourless traffic policeman that they had an appointment at the police station which entitled them to leave their vehicle there. He wanted to know who they were going to see, why and for how long. Even took their names and registration number to check on the story. It was an officiousness that was completely in keeping with the dull leaden greyness of their uniforms and the building from which they took their inspiration and their orders. It was something Ellen had grown used to on her first trip here. She had met too many grey officials and had to wait too often and too long only to be rewarded with the anti-climax of no news and no progress. Perhaps for this reason, Ellen was not unduly surprised or upset, but simply frustrated, when they were led into an empty side-office on their arrival and told to wait.

“The Kommissar has been called on an urgent case suddenly. He comes back as soon as possible,” the fresh-faced young assistant said as he ushered them inside. No clue as to why they had been called. And no apology for making them wait.

“That’s something you’re probably used to here already,” Marthe said. “They never tell you anything unless you ask the right questions. But you can never know what the right questions are.”

“Oh, and they never say sorry. Especially to a woman,” she added with her index finger raised as if to punctuate this afterthought with an exclamation mark.

It was plain to Ellen from the sour look the man gave Marthe as he turned to leave that he had understood every word. And to underline their displeasure before he disappeared into the corridor, Ellen gave vent to her own frustration.

“I thought from the phone call it was urgent. I mean, if it was important enough to drag us out at seven in the morning, then the least you could do is give us a clue what it’s all about.”

The