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

She was working in Richmond at the time. In a boring secretarial job with the local council, typing letters and minutes of meaningless meetings. There was little work left to do that afternoon, and just as she was about to cook up a story about feeling unwell so she could leave work early and beat the rush hour, Frank phoned. He said he had to leave on an assignment early next morning. That was at 4.30. By quarter to five she was already on the train to Putney.

Putney station was quieter than usual for a Friday afternoon that February. Most of the noise at the entrance to the ticket hall came from the newspaper hoardings that cried out their standard tales of gloom: ‘Rolls Royce collapse’, ‘Government takes on unions’ and so on. A nation in a permanent state of decline. But no one was bothered enough to pay much attention. Least of all Ellen as she strode through the ticket hall and out into Putney High Street. She had other news on her mind: the call from Frank; the hurried nature of his words; a certain breathlessness in his voice, similar to the shortness of breath she had heard when he called three weeks earlier to say that his mother had died. But this was different. It was not the Frank she knew.

When she asked him what it was all about, what kind of assignment, he just added a quick “I’ll tell you all about it when you get home.” Then hung up.

And it was these words that preyed on her mind, reverberated endlessly around her head for the whole journey on the train and pursued her along the street down to the river. By the time she reached Putney Bridge, the early evening mist had already announced its impending arrival in gentle wisps that gathered on the water. Ellen watched as they wrapped spirals around the boats tied up at the water’s edge, promising to blanket the Thames in the hours to come. They spelled concealment and mystery. Apprehensive of what awaited her at home, she stopped and contemplated the river and the wisps of early fog.

For a good ten minutes, she pondered the magic they weaved on the water. Eerie shapes and patterns moving along the banks of the river, over the ripples of the Thames – like novice monks assembling in a silent ritual, privy to some arcane knowledge. Seagulls mewing and wailing as they dived and wheeled around the boats and drew erratic circles in the air, resembling cryptic messages that evaporated in the slipstream of their flight.

She normally enjoyed the walk across the bridge – the bustle of the Thames, the endless flow of water beneath her feet, the sound of the gulls. She often liked to stop here and watch the gulls. She found it one of the happiest places on Earth. It was this spot, on this bridge, that marked the start of a new life for Ellen. For it was here that Frank had asked her to marry him.

But every movement on the river now whispered puzzlement. She kept dwelling on Frank’s words. For no reason that she could fathom, they troubled her. Gave her a sense of foreboding. Why so enigmatic, she asked herself, and reached into her bag for the comfort of a cigarette – then it dawned on her that she had kicked the habit weeks ago. Her hand hit instead upon the cold metal of the front-door key, reminding her that she was almost home, and she moved on across the bridge.

It was too mild for a February, but as early evening began to draw in, the cold air started to bite. And Ellen felt it now on her cheeks. She pulled up the collar of her coat, tucked her long strawberry-blonde hair into the snug warmth inside and did up the top button as she headed on over the bridge towards Fulham. A flutter of trepidation throbbed in her chest. She caught her breath as she turned into Hurlingham Road and took the key out of her bag. Daylight was already fading as she slid the key into the lock and opened the door into the dark hallway of the old Victorian terraced house where they lived. She switched on the light and made her way upstairs. Their bedsit was on the second floor.

The moment she unlocked the door to the room, she sensed the emptiness. She called out. But there was no response. And there was nowhere to hide in this one room with its forlorn pretensions to be more than it was by virtue only of a niche in the far corner which served as a kitchen. On the coffee table in the middle of the room lay Frank’s portable typewriter. Beside it his notebook and a folder with the words ‘Bank of England 1920–1944’ written on the cover in Frank’s spidery hand. Inside she found copies of press cuttings: ‘Controlling the masses by Montagu Norman’, ‘Die Geheimnisse des Mr Norman’ from the Frankfurter Zeitung and countless other articles about the governor of the bank. They were the only evidence that Frank existed. That he was not here at this time of day was neither unusual nor unexpected in itself. But that early evening there was an ominous feel to his absence which made her uneasy. Then she heard a voice.

“Ellen?”

It was Frank. She instantly relaxed. And when he appeared in the door of the bedsit carrying a bunch of documents, Ellen ran over and threw her arms around him. The documents tumbled to the floor.

“Whoa, slow down,” he said, brushing his hand affectionately over her left cheek. “What’s got into you?”

“Sorry, I’ve just been so worried since you phoned.”

Ellen disentangled herself from Frank and stooped to gather up the documents scattered over the floor.

“What’s all this stuff? Where have you been?” she asked.

“Just before I phoned you, I had a call and had to dash up to town. Look, why