The Dark Frontier

by A. B. Decker

  After the original purpose of his journey to Cologne had been so rudely blanched by betrayal, the enjoyment of this discovery in his father’s study now imbued the journey with a certain colour. And punctuated his stay in this city with such pleasing neatness that he was now eager to return. The knowledge that Patricia would no longer be there when he got back slightly took the edge off his appetite. But he was nonetheless still sufficiently motivated by the uneasy feeling that he had a score to settle with Achim.

  What he was not prepared for was the reception that appeared to be waiting for him when he arrived at the railway station to start his journey back. The cloth cap and shabby attire stopped him in his tracks before he had even crossed the street to the station entrance. He recognised the figure at once as the man on the train who had shown such a keen interest in the suitcase of betrayal he abandoned when he got out at Mannheim. ‘What’s he doing here?’ Frank asked himself.

  From the concealment of an advertising pillar some distance from the station entrance, Frank watched the man for a good fifteen minutes. He appeared to be looking out for the arrival of someone, but gave the impression of having all the time in the world. If Frank did not move soon, he would miss his train. But he felt unable to risk being seen by this man, who remained an unexplained threat to his existence.

  Frank’s sense of caution told him that his journey south should be postponed for at least another few hours. Taking care to ensure that he was not followed, he took himself off to a cafe from where he could observe the comings and goings at the station.

  The permanence of the man’s presence convinced Frank all the more that he must be in the pay of the police. Anyone who lurked for so long in one place would inevitably draw suspicion upon himself and be quietly moved on – unless he enjoyed the benefits of some special kind of patronage. There could be no other explanation for the stubborn vigil of this shabby man who had watched his every move so keenly on the train up to Cologne.

  It seemed more than likely to Frank that, having found the incriminating evidence in the suitcase left behind in the carriage, the man would have felt compelled to keep a watch for him at the station. They would have established his destination with a quick phone call to the office where his passport and ticket had been so assiduously checked before he got on the train. How they could have known that he would be returning to Switzerland on this particular day remained a mystery to Frank. But he was confident enough of their intelligence to believe that it was distinctly possible.

  As he sat in the coffee house, his eye on the station traffic, the bitterness of the coffee on his tongue reminded him of the first time he had drunk coffee with Patricia. It recalled the growing sense of fear that he was going to lose her even before they had become close enough to have anything to lose. How he wanted her at this moment. How desperately he needed her company. And how far away she seemed.

  She had not confided in him precisely where it was she was disappearing to for so long. And he had been unwilling to drive a wedge between them by pressing too hard for information. But the coincidence of her departure with the appearance of the mysterious Léandre made him suspect at least a tenuous connection. Yet strangely his suspicions did not unduly disturb him. He did not feel the pangs of jealousy or disappointment. She had left him the freedom of her flat, after all. And he saw this as a commitment that bestowed a special kind of meaning on their ill-defined relationship.

  These thoughts further inflamed his eagerness to get back to the comfort of her flat as soon as he could. It was plain to him that he would not achieve this by sipping coffee and watching the departures and arrivals at Cologne railway station forever. And the imagination had long since talked him into believing beyond any doubt that the vigil across the road could only be intended for him.

  He considered the alternatives. The most attractive of these was not without its risks, but they were certainly less than the cloth-capped hazard that awaited him in front of the station. And it occurred to him that, if they were watching for him here, then they would doubtless be waiting at the other end of the line as well.

  Shielded by the traffic and crowds between him and the station, he slipped onto a tram that would eventually bring him to the harbour, where he was confident of finding a boat that would take him upstream. If not all the way to Switzerland, then at least some distance from Cologne, so that he could safely resume his journey by rail from a station that was not under such scrutiny.

  On the assumption that more heavily laden barges would be heading south than less heavily laden ones, he looked for a vessel that lay low in the water. Only two presented themselves as possible candidates. But he was optimistic that more would arrive as night drew in, so he resolved to resume his waiting game – this time from what seemed to him the more seductive comfort of a bargee’s pub near the river, where he could enjoy a beer or two. He was mistaken. The place was empty when he entered. Dark, uninviting and – for a stranger not wanting to draw attention to himself – conspicuously bare of custom.

  “Heil Hitler!”

  The landlord – large, rugged and churlish – merged with the gloom cast by the beams and rafters of the bar. And his greeting caught Frank momentarily off guard. Fortunately, he had the presence of mind to reciprocate before suspicion could take root. It was a necessity he had become accustomed to, but one he never observed without a deep, flinching reluctance. It had always struck him as a particularly juvenile automatism. He had had difficulty enough coming to terms with the infantile stupidities of gang behaviour at school. Now it was as if the world about him had become an extended third-form classroom with all the petty jealousies and herding ethos of adolescence. Only nastier by far.

  As Frank sat in the corner, slowly but uncomfortably sipping from his beer, he sensed the barman’s unerring gaze on his every move. It remained fixed on Frank even after he had finished the first glass and defiantly settled into another. Only when he was almost at the end of this second glass did the barman look away, at the motion of the opening door. Another customer walked in. And the landlord’s expression instantly changed, assuming a more affable tone.

  “Hansruedi, where’ve you been keeping yourself?” he asked. Haven’t seen you in here for months.”

  The two shook hands, and the large barrel of a man addressed as Hansruedi ordered a beer. He wore a reefer jacket and navy peaked cap that told Frank he was probably once used to plying the waterways around Hamburg. But he was plainly not a native of that city. His origins were inescapably betrayed by his accent and his name. This man was Swiss.

  The landlord pulled himself a beer, and the two of them sank into a muffled exchange depriving Frank of any further information that might have been of value. Frustrated, but hopeful that he had as much detail as he needed, Frank supped the last dregs from his beer glass and got up to leave.

  “Heil Hitler.”

  Again the landlord baited him. And again Frank acquiesced in the dumb stupidity of his words, as he walked out into the early evening air. It was already dark, and he felt the stringent freshness of raindrops on his face. As he was beginning to wonder how he might identify Hansruedi’s barge, his attention was caught by a sight that made this question redundant. Moored just a stone’s throw downstream from the bar was a magnificent vessel that could only belong to a bargeman as imposing as Hansruedi: a twin-funnelled steamboat with two barges in tow that was clearly built to cope with every possible challenge thrown at it by old Father Rhine. And to confirm its provenance, a tell-tale red flag with its white cross fluttered from the stern of each boat. This was the vessel for him.

  What especially caught his eye were the two small lifeboats suspended one on each side of the vessel between the bow and the paddlebox amidships. Here was the perfect cover for his unseen passage back to Patricia.

  Although it was far from clear to him how he would gain access to one of these lifeboats, he knew he needed to act quickly. The black looks of the landlord and his absurd, yet menacing valediction still
hung heavily on his shoulders, successfully chipping away the veneer on his fragile sense of security. So he took rash comfort in the quiet, unmanned appearance of the ship and stole on board, trying at once to be both inconspicuous and at the same time suggestive of having business there. It was an impossible act to carry off, but luck proved to be with him as he made his way past the cabins over the paddle-box to one of the lifeboats. He had little difficulty loosening the ropes sufficiently to work his way under the canvas and into the hollow, cold asylum of the boat’s shell. Rough and hard, no comforts, but it offered shelter. And he leaned back into the relief and safety of knowing he could not be seen. The prospect of being cooped up in the small boat, cold and hungry, for the next few days gave him little cheer. But it seemed to him an eminently worthwhile hardship when he considered the likely alternative that awaited him at the railway station.

  He settled back as best he could into his unsprung sanctum, waiting for that precious moment when the ship’s engines would start up and the paddles would begin to turn. But his exhausted body denied him the pleasure of that moment. Despite the discomfort of his bedding, he dropped almost instantly into a deep sleep. And when eventually he was roused from this welcome recess, his mind had no time to pay any heed to the boat’s engines, the paddles or the direction of his journey. He found himself face to bewildered face with the vaguely familiar features of Hansruedi holding back the canvas over his shelter. The bargeman peered in with a quietly severe expression in his eyes.

  “Raus aus dem Boot!” were his only words. Frank’s heart sank. As he was dragged out of the lifeboat, he felt the thud of Achim’s hip flask in his coat pocket. It knocked against the oarlock, reminding him instantly of his old friend and that suitcase of betrayal. But above all he thought of Patricia. Would he ever see her again, he wondered. And cursed every inch of his stupidity.

  Chapter 14

  “Ever since I started thinking out loud about Frank, raking over the last few months in search of clues, I’ve begun to wonder whether I ever really knew him,” Ellen said as she placed her empty tea cup on the table. “You probably think I’m daft. But when I think about it now, he often startled me in one way or another. Something he did or something he said, which seemed so out of character. And when I add them all up now, I begin to ask myself whether I ever knew who he really was. You see, I’m even talking of him in the past tense now, as if he was just a passing stranger I once knew.”

  As Marthe poured another cup of tea, a smile fixed itself on her face. It unsettled Ellen. She was aware that Marthe had a little background in psychology. And she could not help sensing that, as Marthe poured the tea, she was listening to Ellen with the ears not of a woman, but of an examiner drilled to look at every conversation as a cryptogram. Until now, speaking with her had been a completely different experience from conversations with Dr Zellweger. It was woman to woman, and it gave her confidence. Even the way she had gone to such lengths to make Ellen feel at home by getting Darjeeling from the special tea shop in town, and made sure she found some ginger biscuits to go with it, showed such consideration. But this afternoon, Marthe succeeded in making her feel distinctly uncomfortable.

  “You think I’m silly, don’t you?”

  “No, of course not.” Marthe put the teapot down. Ellen’s remark made her appear self-conscious. But she was not about to be side-tracked.

  “What sort of things did you feel were out of character?” she asked.

  For the first time since Ellen had been here, she started to wonder whether Marthe’s primary purpose was to report back on their conversations to her husband.

  “Marthe, I’ve been here for almost three weeks. And while my employer is becoming slowly intolerant of my long absence, you and your husband have been very kind and hospitable. And very patient. I really am very grateful to you for that. I’ve no doubt it’s mainly professional curiosity on your husband’s part. But I’m still very grateful.”

  “You know that you’re welcome to stay for as long as you wish. And not for reasons of professional curiosity as you say.”

  She continued to pour the tea. For some reason she looked slightly less ill at ease now as she passed the cup of tea to Ellen. Ellen wondered what was going through her mind, why she seemed so strange that afternoon.

  “You haven’t answered my question,” Marthe insisted. “Tell me about the things which were out of character.”

  “There are so many. Mostly little things. It’s hard to remember any one thing in particular,” she said, not feeling entirely comfortable with this lie. “It’s funny because, most of the time, Frank was so predictable. In every way. It was all a part of what I liked about him. He was so dependable. Not that he was boring. On the contrary. He introduced me to some fascinating things – poetry readings by weird and wonderful people I’d never heard of before, strange music that was completely new to me. And he’d often take me mudlarking along the banks of the Thames when the tide was out.”

  A look of blank bewilderment crossed Marthe’s face, before Ellen added how much “Frank loved the thrill of digging up what he called ‘little pieces of the past’ – and just being by the waterside, amid the occasional swans on the water and ‘the boats laid out like rats in ritual style by the cat tide’ he used to say.”

  The memory brought a smile to Ellen’s face.

  “He could get quite lyrical at times,” she continued, recalling “one day in particular when he pulled an old camera from the mud. He picked it up, wiped it clean and – as he held it staring back up at him in his hands – let out an excited cry of ‘Exakta!’

  “I had no idea what he was talking about. But apparently it was one of the first single-lens reflex cameras. Made in Germany in the 1930s and 40s. ‘Just imagine who might have thrown it in the Thames. And why,’ he said. He was almost breathless with the speculation, and his eyes flashed with the innocent wonder of a child as he panned the camera along the river bank until he hit on a solitary bedraggled swan that floated past him in the water. I remember his words quite clearly even now, as he said ‘a swan no longer spotless white passes like the times, where the headline reads of chaos and confusion’. And he began to sing that Marc Bolan song to himself. ‘Ride a White Swan’. Do you know it?

  Marthe shook her head, lifted her tea cup from the table and took a sip.

  “He had a strange way with words,” Ellen added. “But that’s what fascinated me about him from the first moment we met.”

  “Where did you meet?” Marthe asked.

  “At a music festival in a little place you will never have heard of called Shepton Mallet. Quite small, but lots of big names. Like Led Zeppelin, Colosseum, Pink Floyd.”

  “I’ve heard of Pink Floyd,” Marthe said with a spark of recognition in her eyes as she took another sip of her tea.

  “Oh, they were fantastic!” Ellen’s eyes sparked with the memory. “The whole event was great, of course. Not just the music. I was there with some friends. And out of nowhere this gorgeous man with dark, gentle eyes framed by a mop of dark-brown curly hair rode up on his Triumph motorbike. I was hooked. That was just last summer. It was a whirlwind romance. Within a few months we married, and he moved down to London. He even ditched his motorbike for me.

  “That was a big sacrifice,” Ellen continued, mulling over the words as she spoke. “He loved his Triumph bike. German engineering at its best, he used to say. Which I found strange, until he explained to me that the company was founded by immigrants from Germany. I didn’t know that.

  “But actually I don’t think he regretted giving up the bike. It didn’t really fit. It was almost like a mask he felt he had to wear. He seemed more than happy to throw it off and settle into what was quite a humdrum life in some ways. We were both happy with it, and I was just looking forward to the day when we would hear the pitter-patter of tiny feet in the house.

  “Then he started to do these funny things. Mostly little things, as I said. Like the day he came home with an LP of Bartok, a
ll nicely giftwrapped for me. But he knows that’s not my sort of music. Nor his.

  “Or the time we were walking along this street together in London. We were passing a second-hand bookshop, and he suddenly stopped, transfixed by a drab, dusty old window display. Not that this was unusual in itself: he often browses through second-hand books. If it’s not poetry, then it’s something to do with the Third Reich.”

  “An intriguing combination of interests,” Marthe said in the manner of someone taking notes. Ellen could almost picture her mentally putting pencil to paper.

  “He’s become fascinated by that period since he started researching for an article about the Bank of England and its links to Nazi Germany before the war,” Ellen explained.

  “So anyway, when he disappeared inside this shop, I automatically assumed it must be for one of the few books he hadn’t read on the subject. But when he eventually emerged from the place, he came out proudly carrying a dusty copy of Collins Handguide to the Birds of the Indian Sub-Continent. It was probably quite interesting in its way, and the illustrations were beautiful. But it was just not the sort of thing that would normally have interested Frank.

  “‘I saw it and thought that’s just the thing,’ was all he said. And he carried on up the street as if it was the most natural thing in the world. It was the first time I had ever known him buy anything on impulse like that. Then a few weeks later came the Bartok LP. ‘Heard it on the radio the other night,’ he said. ‘I thought that’s just the thing for pet’.

  “And that’s another thing,” Ellen added. “The way he started calling me pet. It wasn’t his kind of word. It’s a Geordie word. From the north-east. Not something Frank would use. When I think of it now, it’s almost as if he was living a lie.”