The Dark Frontier by A. Decker (best books to read non fiction .txt) 📕

“Poor soul. His parents really didn’t like him, did they?”

“Better known,” she added, ignoring his attempt at wit, “as Paracelsus. A man who is said to have made a lot of enemies – and a dubious contribution to the advance of medicine. I can’t understand why people are still so interested in him here, of all places, where his ideas aroused such indignation. But that’s so typical of the people in this place, so petty bourgeois and resistant to change – until they perceive the opportunity for a little reflected glory.”

Her voice had changed, become more poignant in its expression, more accusing, but then softened slightly as she added: “So they’ve talked themselves into believing that this portrait by Holbein represents the great man.”

“And you think otherwise?” I asked.

“Let’s just say I’m still waiting to be convinced.” She paused and studiously contemplated the portrait.

“This is why I suggested meeting here. I wanted you to see the picture. Despite what the experts say, I doubt very much that it’s Paracelsus. And for good reason. So, every time I see it, it reminds me not to trust anyone or what anyone tells me until I’m convinced that it’s so, until I know for sure that the person or the information can be trusted. It’s the only way to survive these days.”

Without giving Frank so much as a glance, she then turned to leave the gallery.

“Now let’s go and have lunch,” she said.

Smart, single-minded and committed. To what he was not sure. But it was here that she derived her strength. And here that she cast her bewitching net over him.

Frank had always found grit and intelligence in a woman highly seductive. And yet, impressed as he was by her knowledge of the artworks on display, he doubted that this was the true reason she wanted to meet right here, exactly where he had witnessed the encounter between Achim and the mysterious Silverstone a few days earlier. It all seemed such a contrived arrangement, not to say a tad pretentious, just to make such a simple point. He was certain that she was conveying another message he was too stupid or too innocent to comprehend.

They exchanged few words as they walked together to the restaurant, Frank pondering the true significance of that moment. Yet right now, as he let Patricia Roche guide him to their appointed lunch, he was more intent on keeping both eyes firmly on what was going on around them and checking to make sure they were not being followed.

But the manner in which she also kept glancing back behind them told him that she was no less wary of stalkers than he was. She guided him around the cathedral towards the terrace overlooking the river that he had come to know so well. Before reaching the thick red sandstone walls of the terrace, however, she tugged Frank by the arm and pulled him around the outer wall of the chancel.

“We wait,” was all she said, as they stood pinned against the wall behind the furthermost column of the chancel. The last time Frank had walked this way, late at night, he had been hounded by a sense of shadows in pursuit.

‘Is it the church,’ he wondered, ‘that foments this sense of persecution?’

The answer was carved into the walls above: weird sandstone sculptures of exotic creatures, sciapods threatening to plant a huge foot on anyone who came too close to the walls of the chancel where they stood. They spoke of trouble and menace.

‘These buildings are made to intimidate,’ Frank mused, and felt the nudge of Patricia’s elbow in his side. He looked at her, and followed her gaze as it fixed on a shabbily dressed young man in a cloth cap. The man hurried to the edge of the terrace, peered over its thick sandstone walls, then turned and vanished down the steps to the promenade below.

“Who was that?” Frank asked, as Patricia walked over to the terrace walls and cast a glance down at the promenade.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “But I don’t like the look of him.”

They watched as he hurried along the promenade to the ferry. This was moving slowly towards him, carried by the slow winter current of the river. And in its wake a swan gently drifted and bobbed on the ripples created by the boat. It seemed oblivious to the world around it, as if floating in another dimension altogether.

Satisfied that they had shaken off the man in the cloth cap, Patricia tugged at the sleeve of Frank’s coat and led him back across the cathedral square, down the weaving side streets of the city and in through the back door of a tavern unknown to Frank. The blast of warm air as they entered spoke instantly of cosiness, a feeling that was reinforced by the interior design. Beneath the low-slung, low-wattage lamps, many of the tables were slotted in between high-backed bench seats that offered cosy séparées for dining. It was clear to him that Patricia had chosen this tavern precisely for its discretion. The kind of place to share secrets without fear of any wider disclosure.

They settled on the table in the farthest corner. She placed a pack of cigarettes and lighter on the table beside her, and Frank ordered half a litre of La Côte, while they studied the menu. But once the order was taken – a rösti special for each of them – and they gingerly immersed themselves in conversation, it seemed as if there were no secrets to reveal after all. The conversation rambled through the more anodyne corridors of their histories, as neither of them appeared ready to take off the safety chain. He insisted on guarding secrets that did not seem worth the engrams they were etched in, while she preserved confidences that looked too heavy to carry for much longer, but too important to let go.

And so their lunch became a game of hide