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

miss a beat. He had expected outright rejection. And was rewarded for his perseverance. But when eventually she agreed, she did so on condition that she fix the time and place where they would meet.

And it was this, the meeting place for their projected lunch date, which startled him above all. Eleven-thirty, she insisted, at the Holbein collection in the new Museum of Fine Arts.

“There are various restaurants nearby where we can eat,” she added. Then turned to take her leave of Frank. The sleekness of her raven hair taunted him with its sensuous motion as she dipped her head slightly to bundle the groceries under her arm. Then she disappeared through the doorway to her flat.

A good three hours remained for him to kill before they were due to meet. Although he partially resumed his original plan for the morning and bought a local newspaper, it was only a token gesture. He was completely unable to focus on his search for new lodgings. His thoughts were fully occupied by the significance of the proposed meeting place. Was it coincidence? Or was it some kind of signal? Did she have some connection with Silverstone, and by extension also with Achim?

The endless unanswered questions sharpened his appetite all the more for his lunch date. And ensured that he would be at the museum with time to spare – and with the gift that he had bought for her in Globus.

The waiting did nothing to help quell his impatience for answers to all those questions. As time dragged on, he recalled his fruitless lingering in the wine tavern some ten days earlier – the first time she had stood him up. Would this be the second? The thought occurred to him that it was after this first futile attempt at a date with Patricia Roche that he had experienced his paranoid trek through the streets, hounded by the conviction that he was being followed. Had she checked with Breitner about the fake date in the tavern, prompting him to put his bullies on Frank’s tail? And had Frank now fallen into the same trap again?

It was already a quarter to twelve, and these thoughts trailed endlessly through his mind. She would not be coming now. That was plain. It seemed to him that everything was managing to slip through his fingers or evaporate, as if none of it existed, as if he were dreaming his life away.

The idea both irritated and frightened him. He thought of Breitner, and it struck him that he should make certain this time that he was not being followed when he left. He took a last cautious stroll through the rooms of the Holbein collection, looking about him like a hunted animal. As he turned into the last room of portraits, his heart instantly skipped a beat. There she stood, studying a painting. Her head of silk-black hair slightly inclined. Her delicate frame captured against the gallery wall with the suggestive economy of a line drawing. Yet it was not this which made him catch his breath as much as the portrait she was examining – the very same one that had witnessed the meeting between Achim and Silverstone.

It seemed to Frank that coincidence was being pushed beyond the bounds of credibility. And the questions this begged ran furiously around his brainpan like balls of hot fat, when suddenly she turned and saw him. She smiled.

“I’d almost given you up,” she said, the smile still lingering tantalisingly on her lips. “I’ve been waiting here for ten minutes already.”

In dumb silence, he let her words wash over him with all the responsiveness of a lumpfish caught between ebb and flow. He did not even consider how it was that he had managed to miss her while he was waiting round the corner, and how or why it was that she had missed him. He was completely tongue-tied, his brain barely functional. It was not just that he was utterly taken aback to find her standing in front of this portrait – of all the paintings in the museum she could have chosen. It was as if she was baiting him in some way that his befuddled brain was incapable of processing. But there was more to his hopeless inertia than this.

Above all, he was disarmed once again by her strange beauty, by the strong but soft geometry of her cheekbones, the rich lustre of her raven hair toned with a warm hint of mahogany, the dark eyes that appeared paradoxically to sparkle with a perpetual melancholy, and the lips so perversely enticing in a clumsy imperfection that may have been moulded by grief. Once again, she gave him the impression of immense strength coupled with delicate vulnerability. It was a picture that intrigued him to the depths of his soul. For all his reluctance to admit of such feelings, he had to acknowledge that he was dangerously close to something called love. And yet, in spite of all his innocence and willing sacrifice to her charm, he was fully prepared to accept that she was not to be trusted.

“You’re probably wondering why I wanted to meet you here,” she said.

With great difficulty, he concealed his burning curiosity for fear of forfeiting some undefined advantage. So he said nothing.

“What do you think of it?” she asked, gesturing towards the man in the floppy hat.

“It’s a fascinating portrait. The expressiveness of the eyes, the mouth – the face as a whole – even though the rest of the picture is incomplete – he looks anxious, hunted, underneath that calm exterior.”

He could see that his affected response amused her. This was apparent from that smile of hers, which was rapidly becoming the cause of such sweet pain.

“I think perhaps you’re projecting a lot of yourself into the picture,” she observed, with a disturbingly accurate grasp of his condition. “Do you know who it’s supposed to be?”

Frank had to admit his ignorance.

“Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim,” she said with slow deliberation, showing a