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

Gasping at the sweetness of the night air, he made his way back to the bridge. From the parapet of a small watchtower halfway across, he sucked in the cool refreshment that blew down over the water. The swirls and eddies of the current below appeared to mirror his own confusion – yet the river displayed a purpose and determination in its chaos that plainly had the edge over his own behaviour.

Lulled into a new composure by this movement of the water, his thoughts returned to Lutz. Why should he offer his unsolicited advice and set himself so clearly at odds with his sadistic employer? So, was his advice even to be trusted? Or was it some devious trick set up by Breitner himself? Every question begged a host of other doubts, and his head was not equal to the task of finding any sensible answers. Nor was he feeling in the mood for empty-headed displays of valour. So he opted against going to Patricia’s flat that night and decided to head for the Kolping house a little further upstream in the hope of finding cheap lodgings there.

His head was still throbbing as he checked in at reception, and the elderly woman on the desk promised to send some aspirin up to his room. He had imagined that, in the privacy of his room, he would have a chance to relax. He was mistaken. He threw his coat on the bed, laid the book he had carried with him all the way from his father’s study on the bedside table and flopped into an easy chair that stood beside the window. Relentlessly the pain returned. What felt like a deep fissure seemed to open in his skull. Once again, like that day on the castle ruins, watching a scythe of black cloud sweep over Germany and waiting for his old friend to arrive, he sensed an unquiet presence, a peculiar otherness over his shoulder that seemed undefinably a part of him. More than sensed it. Became it. And watched his own discomfort with a strange detachment, as the fissure widened to accommodate the tumescent folds of brain tissue that appeared to feed off the hot, dry air of the room, like bread dough rising in the oven. For an instant, this swelling flesh of his brain appeared to magnify before his eyes, as if it had been slipped under the eye of a powerful microscope to reveal a complex tangle of neurons: dendrites hooking up like the tentacles of an octopus to bewildered tissue; astrocytes like starfish swimming in their element. In panic, he got to his feet in a desperate effort to shake off the vision. But it clung like a stubborn leech.

In a pitiless sweat and stifled by the unrelenting grip of chaos, he flung open the window and willed the traffic noise and coldness of the evening river air to come to his aid. The blue light of an ambulance flashed over what was little more than the blurred screen of his consciousness. He watched the vehicle silently and, almost in slow motion, circle Wettsteinplatz and disappear around the corner to the sleazier end of town. ‘No doubt come to pick up another overdose victim,’ he told himself, confusing his mind with the speculation – until a banging on the door stirred him from this emotional farrago. His head instantly cleared.

He spun round to face the door. Seconds that may have been minutes passed before he drove himself to open it. By the time he did so, the doorway was empty.

It was not until he was closing the door again that he saw a piece of paper lying at his feet. Crumpled and folded in half, the note was not even given the dignity of an envelope.

‘You have not chosen well. Be that as it may, stay in your room now until you receive word from me. The streets are not safe for you.’ It was signed ‘Your friend’, which he took to mean Lutz. What was he playing at? And how does he know I’m here? Frank asked himself.

His head was still sore, and this new bafflement did nothing to help. As he flopped back into the chair with the note in his hand and a horde of questions pressed on his bruised mind, there came a second knock. Lighter this time. But it jolted him into action more quickly than the first. He opened up almost before the knocking had stopped. He expected to see Lutz. It was the elderly woman from the reception desk.

“Your aspirin, sir,” she said. He found another piece of folded paper being pushed into his hand with grudging force, this one containing what felt to be half a dozen tablets.

He was still too washed out to express his gratitude verbally, but managed what must have appeared a very thin and sickly smile. She waited. Was it the slowness of an ageing mind or the weight bearing down on her arthritic knees which kept her at his door? Probably neither. He dug his hands into his pockets and gave her a handful of coins. She looked at the coins, shrugged and shuffled uneasily away down the corridor, her progress muffled by her slippers on the carpet.

Eight tablets she had given him. The first two brought almost instant relief, helping him to banish the reminder of his earlier torment and to focus on trying to fathom the motives of Lutz. What was he playing at? Why suddenly change direction and put himself at such risk? He knows what Breitner is capable of. And he gives the impression of being anything but a spunky lionheart. So why should he want to help? Frank asked himself. He doesn’t even know me. These questions occupied his mind for the rest of the evening, and kept him awake for most of the night.

Whatever Lutz’s game, Frank resolved the following morning to ignore the advice at all costs. But perhaps it was not so