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

not want his old friend to know. Nor was he prepared to disclose where the telephone call was taking him. He let Frank accompany him only as far as the square in front of the Central Station. Then insisted they part, saying he needed time to think. But either he had not reckoned on his friend’s curiosity or his preoccupations had blinded him to the possibility that his odd behaviour might make Frank suspicious.

The gut of the avenue leading away from the station was lined with bushes and trees. The shrubbery and the archway created by the dense, leafy boughs above formed a dark tunnel that gave Frank the cover he needed, allowing him to avoid any backward glances from Achim. And it occurred to Frank at that moment that there was something disturbingly ludicrous about this whole situation. He asked himself: ‘Are we both paranoid? Or does all the madness lie with me?’

When he saw that Achim was approaching an opening on the tree-lined avenue ahead that widened out onto a large square, he quickened his pace so as not to lose him. Until his old friend stopped beside a fountain that stood close to this opening. He looked about. Frank dodged behind a bush. From here he watched as Achim plunged his face and hands into the water as if to freshen up, then looked about again and carried on into the square ahead.

It seemed to Frank an odd thing to do in mid-winter. Was this a signal of some kind? Frank wondered. Or was there something special about the water?

But when he reached the fountain, it revealed nothing of significance – except for the black bronze crow that sat atop a pillar rising from the water basin. It glowered menacingly down on Frank as if feasting mentally on carrion below, pecking at it, drawing blood. He shivered in the sudden coldness of the avenue, turned his back on the bird and followed Achim out onto the square. But his old friend was gone.

It was only by chance that Frank regained sight of him when he tried crossing the square and was brusquely alerted by the bell of a tram approaching from the left. Frank pulled himself back smartly onto the pavement, glancing at the looming tram as he did so. It was then that he caught just a glimpse of Achim drifting off towards the centre of town. Frank promptly changed course, wondering whether Achim knew he was there and was trying to give him the slip. One thing was sure: wherever it was his old friend was heading, he was not taking the most direct route there.

They soon took another turn. This time to the right. And within a few minutes Frank was following him through the courtyard of the Museum of Fine Arts – a modern building of cool simplicity compared with the palatial, neoclassical monuments that passed for museums in other German-speaking cities.

Frank watched as his friend bought an entrance ticket with a fussiness that was unusual for him. When Achim eventually left the desk, ticket in hand, he disappeared into the cloakroom before emerging a short time later without his rucksack and then made his way up the staircase. Frank quickly bought a ticket for himself and followed on behind.

Journey’s end proved to be the Holbein collection. Here Achim’s stride shortened. He paced slowly along in front of the paintings. Yet it was a pace that was still too fast to absorb the fine detail in the portraits. And together with his frequent glances around the room, it betrayed a restless interest not so much in Holbein, but more in the other visitors to the museum – or perhaps to one particular visitor.

Frank’s curiosity by this time was razor sharp, but he had to take great care not to let himself be seen every time his old friend swung a glance in his direction. This inevitably meant that he was unable to observe his every move. So, when Achim left this gallery and moved to the next one, a sinking sense of disappointment told Frank that he had probably missed the crucial moment. But when he entered the next room and regained sight of Achim, his patience was rewarded: in front of a familiar portrait of a man in a large floppy hat stood his old friend. And beside him a man about fifty years old. A tall, slim figure in a light grey fedora and trench coat. The two were engaged in a conversation that clearly had little to do with the painting on the wall. The discussion lasted no more than two or three minutes before Achim handed the stranger what looked like a key, and they then parted company. The tall stranger left through the door at the far end of the room. Achim continued to pace slowly past the Holbein portraits. Then followed through the same doorway a minute or two later.

Frank trailed behind at a discreet distance while his old friend made his way back down the stairs to the entrance, turned right past the ticket office and into the cloakroom. With little cover to conceal himself in the museum foyer, Frank found a pillar in the courtyard just outside, from where he could keep an eye on the cloakroom entrance. Hardly was he in position than he saw Achim emerge and walk out into the courtyard straight past Frank. What struck him as he watched his friend disappear out onto the street was that Achim no longer had his rucksack with him.

He was on the brink of abandoning his cover behind the pillar to follow Achim, when he caught sight of the tall stranger in the trench coat some fifty metres ahead, carrying a large Gladstone bag. Frank abruptly changed the target of his pursuit and followed the stranger out onto the street. For reasons he was unable to explain, he needed to know who the man was. And what was in the bag – especially since