Norah ran her hand over her face. She was still tired, that was all. She closed her eyes and looked again. Nothing.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she said softly.
What had she done with the thing? Norah knew that she’d been living in permanent chaos since moving to Vienna, but even she hadn’t yet managed to lose her toothbrush. Had she walked around the flat when she brushed her teeth last night, like Alex used to—a habit that had always amused Norah? No, she was being silly. Even if she had been drunk enough to wander around with her toothbrush, she’d have ended up coming back to the basin to spit out and rinse her mouth. Norah looked in all the rooms. The damned thing was nowhere to be found.
The pink pen she’d been looking for the other day still hadn’t turned up either. She really needed to be more organised. Norah cleaned her teeth with a spare toothbrush and went into the kitchen to get some breakfast. As she bent down to peer into the fridge her head began to throb even more. She groaned, then screwed up her nose when she saw what was in the fridge: a mango, yoghurt, butter and a green smoothie. There wasn’t even any coffee left.
Smoothies, fruit and muesli were the last things she felt like. She wanted coffee, bacon and eggs. A quick shower, then she’d go out. Once she’d got some caffeine and food in her, the world would look different.
She’d got as far as getting undressed when she caught sight of her phone next to the bed. Somewhere in the back of her muzzy brain, a vague memory stirred and came into focus.
Oh no.
She picked it up and checked her outgoing calls.
4:01 Alex
4:03 Alex
4:05 Alex
Oh dear. She’d made drunken calls to her ex in the middle of the night. Thank God he hadn’t picked up—who knew what rubbish she’d have spouted. Good thing he always put his phone on silent when he went to bed. He’d probably been fast asleep with Oskar snoring at his feet.
Just then, a text came in and Norah saw with dismay that it was from him. She was annoyed to see that her fingers trembled as she opened it.
No, fuck it. It’s not mine. (And couldn’t it have waited till tomorrow?) What had she written? Norah scrolled frantically up to the text she’d sent.
4:07 Found a little white cuddly bunny here. Did I pack it by mistake? Is it yours?
That’s right, she’d found that rabbit and been meaning to post it to Alex, but instead—
Norah frowned. It had taken her a moment to process the information The cuddly toy didn’t belong to Alex. Was that true? It must be. Why would Alex lie? Could she remember unpacking the rabbit? No, she couldn’t. It had just suddenly been there. In the same way that her pink pen and her toothbrush had suddenly disappeared. A thought flashed into her mind and she broke out in a cold sweat. Had somebody been in the flat?
Naked, but not caring about being seen through the windows, she hurried back to the kitchen. Her flat might be a complete tip, but she knew exactly where the book was. She hadn’t entrusted it to the removal men, but had kept it next to her on the passenger seat on her night drive through the woods to Vienna. And since she’d got here, it had been lying on the top shelf of one of the kitchen cupboards, waiting to be put somewhere safer, invisible to anyone who didn’t know what they were looking for.
Norah went up on tiptoes, reached into the cupboard and felt for it. Nothing. Frantically, she ran to the living room to fetch one of the new chairs. Put it in front of the cupboard. Climbed onto it.
There it was, of course. How could it have been anywhere else when nobody knew about it? A thief might take her laptop or her designer watch, but not a thing like that. Still. For a few minutes Norah stood there with tears in her eyes, her hand clapped to her mouth. Then she collected herself and put the book back in its place. She closed the cupboard door, staggered to the bathroom on trembling legs, got into the shower cubicle and turned the water on so hot that it burnt.
When she’d had a shower and got dressed, she felt a bit more clearheaded and rang Sandra. Surprisingly, Sandra picked up almost immediately.
‘Hi,’ she said.
‘Hello.’
Norah could hear Greta in the background.
‘Just a minute, darling, Mama’s on the phone.’
‘Is this a bad time to call?’ Norah asked.
‘It’s about as good as it gets,’ Sandra said, and Norah couldn’t work out whether she sounded amused, annoyed or resigned. ‘So what’s up?’
Something told Norah that Sandra didn’t have the patience for a long phone call and she decided to cut to the chase.
‘I have a feeling someone’s been in my flat,’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’ Sandra asked, her voice strained, as if she were lifting something heavy. A full shopping bag, a kicking toddler. ‘A burglar or what?’
‘Yes. No. I don’t really know.’
Norah could almost see Sandra frown.
‘I’m missing things. Stuff keeps disappearing from my flat.’
‘How do you know you haven’t just lost it?’
Sandra was right, of course. She’d shared a flat with Norah ten years ago and knew how disorganised she was.
‘This morning my toothbrush wasn’t there,’ said Norah. ‘Do you think I could lose my toothbrush?’
Sandra said nothing.
‘It’s more than that,’ Norah went on. ‘It’s not just that stuff vanishes. Things suddenly appear in my flat too. Things that don’t belong to me.’
‘Like what?’
‘The other day I found a little cuddly toy.’
‘Maybe things you packed by mistake when you moved out?’ Sandra asked.
‘That’s what I thought at first. But it’s not that.’
‘Do you have anything valuable in the flat?’ Sandra asked. ‘Are you missing anything expensive?’
‘No,’ said Norah. ‘Nothing. And there’s no trace of burglars. But…’
‘But you’re worried.’ Sandra finished her sentence for her.
‘You know me. Do you think I’m the paranoid type?’
‘I don’t actually, no,’ Sandra replied pensively. ‘Tell me, do you know your landlord?’
‘I met him once, briefly. Elderly man, early sixties maybe.’
‘Does he have a key to your flat?’
‘That’s the stupid thing,’ Norah said. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t managed to get hold of any of the property managers. Is he allowed in my flat if I’m not there and haven’t given my permission?’
‘God, no,’ Sandra said. ‘Of course not. But I don’t quite know how I can help you when I’m so far away.’
‘You’ve helped me already,’ said Norah, and in a way it was true.
‘But there’s something else,’ said Sandra, ‘isn’t there?’
Norah hesitated.
She decided it was almost certainly a very bad idea to tell someone as cool-headed and down-to-earth as Sandra about the events of the last few days—and then told her everything. Sandra asked her a question now and then in the course of the story—she was a lawyer, after all—but when Norah had finished, she was silent. Greta had gone quiet too; Sandra must have escaped to another room to talk to Norah in peace.
‘And you think there’s some connection between these things?’ she asked eventually.
Norah said nothing.
‘Yes,’ she said after a while. ‘I have a funny feeling there is.’
Sandra made a strange little noise, sympathetic and condescending at the same time.
‘The woman who spoke this…’ Sandra hesitated, ‘…this prophecy. You say she was begging.’
Norah nodded, though she knew quite well that Sandra couldn’t see her.
‘That was a trick, Norah,’ Sandra said. ‘People will come up with anything to get money off you, you know. Seriously. Fortune telling’s the oldest trick there is. I shouldn’t have to explain that to someone like you.’
‘Someone like me?’
‘A journalist. Come on, Norah. You know ho
w these things work.’
‘And the other stuff? Things vanishing from my flat? The smell of pipe smoke? A colleague of mine randomly mentioning Arthur Grimm? His office happening to be one floor up from my dentist?’
‘Selective perception,’ Sandra replied. ‘You see everything through a filter and think that perfectly normal, chance occurrences are tied in with your story.’
Norah could feel an angry knot forming in her belly.
‘You think I’m completely bonkers, don’t you?’
There was a short pause.
‘You really are worried, aren’t you?’ Sandra said eventually.
She sounded pensive again.
‘On February 11 you’ll kill a man called Arthur Grimm,’ said Sandra. ‘It’s a trick to make you scared. The first prophecy’s free, after that you pay through the nose. That’s how it works.’
‘I know it sounds silly, but it didn’t seem to me like a trick. I haven’t seen the woman since. And she didn’t want money either—she just vanished.’
‘I think you should forget the whole thing,’ said Sandra. ‘She was just trying it on. Don’t worry about it.’
‘And the tarot card? In the hotel? Can you explain that?’ Norah asked.
‘You’re getting upset because someone dropped a tarot card?’
Norah didn’t reply. The line went quiet; she could hear Sandra thinking.
‘I’m going to ask you something,’ Sandra said after what felt like forever. ‘Promise me you won’t be angry.’
‘Promise. And now get on with it.’
‘Are you back on drugs?’ Sandra asked.
For a moment Norah sat there, open-mouthed.
Then she hung up.
22
Anthracite and asphalt greys and an icy rain as fine as needle points—only a couple of degrees colder and it would have been snow. The pale houses rising skywards on either side of Norah were the colour of dirty polar bear fur.
Returning home from a long day at the office, she didn’t even try to fight the shivering. She’d have a proper meal and an early night tonight. Her reflection in the shop windows showed a slim figure, hurrying along in a dark coat. She decided to walk home rather than take the train; the cold air would do her good.
When she looked up, she saw that dusk had given way to night. The entire city was surging home from work. Norah studied the people coming towards her, but couldn’t catch their eyes; they were wrapped up in their own thoughts, intent on their cigarettes and phones—waking somnambulists, homing in on an invisible goal.
She turned into a street where there was a small theatre, and was about to cross the road when the pedestrian lights turned red. Norah watched a jogger who had set off as the lights were changing and just made it to the other side before the dense rush-hour traffic started up again. It was a long wait; more and more people gathered next to her, their impatience almost palpable. Tired, hungry, thirsty. Get me out of this cold! Get me home!
She watched the people on the other side of the road, also waiting to go on their way. A mum in a pink bobble hat pushing a twin buggy. A cyclist so well wrapped-up you could barely see his face. A couple of about fifty, dressed for the opera. A good-looking man in a suit who made eyes at her over the tops of the cars, which she pointedly ignored. A small group of business people, talking animatedly, all wearing the same dark coats and black shoes and carrying the same leather bags.
The traffic stopped, the lights changed, the throng spilled out onto the road. Norah had almost reached the other side when she saw her.
Appearing behind one of the business people just as the lights turned red again, she hurried past Norah without so much as a glance and was soon on the other side.
There.
Norah could see her only from behind, moving swiftly away from the crossing, but there was no doubt in her mind. The tall physique, the dark hair, the upright posture, the gait. It was her—the mysterious fortune teller. Norah was about to run after her when the traffic started up again. She cast frantic glances left and right—the cars weren’t moving fast, but they were practically bumper to bumper and none of them wanted to be the one who didn’t make it across in time. Norah cursed as the dark figure turned a corner and disappeared from sight and, raising her left arm, she stepped determinedly onto the road. A woman in an old red BMW who was forced to stop threw her a look of disgust and leant on the horn. Norah paused in the middle of the road, then went on her way, holding up another, smaller car, whose driver clearly took her for some kind of lunatic. Once on the other side, Norah set off at a run and didn’t stop until she came to the corner where the woman had disappeared.
She looked left. No sign of her. She looked down the street. Teeming masses. But it was only football or ice-hockey fans on their way to a match. The woman had less than a minute’s head start; she couldn’t simply have vanished. Had she disappeared into one of the houses in the alleyway on her left? Or was the crowd hiding her from view?
Fifty-fifty. Norah plunged into the crowd, fought her way through, dodged and elbowed, stood on tiptoes, wheeled round—nobody there. If she’d gone this way, Norah would have found her by now. She turned on her heel and headed back to the little alleyway, moving faster now that she was going with the flow. She saw a cyclist, a young couple walking hand in hand, an empty taxi with its hazard lights on. That was all. Norah looked left and right, hoping for a clue, but found nothing.
She ran a desperate hand over her face, then pulled herself together, got out her phone, took a photo of the alleyway and another of the street sign—just in case—and headed home.
Back in the flat, Norah found an email from Werner in her inbox headed Arthur Grimm. She opened it and skimmed through the information Werner had tracked down, but there was nothing that leapt out at her. He sounded like a perfectly normal guy. Her mind was on other things anyway. She thanked Werner and clapped shut her laptop.
Later, in bed, staring at the ceiling and waiting for her thoughts to come to rest, Norah replayed the moment at the crossing in her mind and realised there was something strange about it. Something surprising and disconcerting—and not just the shock of seeing the woman again. She closed her eyes, trying to conjure a precise picture.
She had only seen her very briefly and in the middle of a crowd of people, but something about her appearance had bothered Norah.
And suddenly she knew what. Her clothes. She hadn’t been dressed as a beggar.
23
It seemed to Norah that she had only to reach out a hand to feel the rough, porous surface of the meteorites; the pen-and-wash drawings were so lifelike that she was awed. Another series showed a starry sky and there was a third of woods at night whose almost abstract shapes began to reveal face-like images if you stared at them for long enough. Norah tore herself away from the mesmerising images and sauntered on, weaving her way between the other private-view guests who were making small talk over champagne and canapés. The gallery was agreeably crowded with middle-aged couples, hip twenty-somethings and well-dressed thirty-somethings who all looked as if they were shopping for the perfect painting for the lobby of their creative agencies. Since Norah’s review wasn’t due for a few days, she had no reason not to linger a little.
She’d had a hectic day, which was a good thing, because it had given her less time to think about the painful question she had been trying to push to the back of her mind for days: why had Max and Paul lied to her? Max had rung twice since, but Norah had ignored his calls.
Instead she had spent every free moment ringing round, trying to find someone to change the lock on her front door—not tomorrow or sometime in the next few days, but right away. She was still spooked out by the way things had gone missing from her flat lately, or appeared out of the blue. Who had a key to her flat? The landlord? The previous tenant?
As soon as she’d found a locksmith, she sped home in a taxi and waited as he replaced the lock. Then she went back to Kärntner Strasse and looked for Walcher’s Bar, th
e place mentioned by the man who’d said he could get hold of Dorotea’s address for her. He grinned when he saw her. She thrust thirty euros at him and he took the money without a word, noting down in exchange the name Dorotea Lechner and an address. She would have liked to set off immediately, but it would have to wait; she had work to do. Back at the office, she put the finishing touches to her interview with Michael, ignoring repeated calls from Max. Why was he bothering? He’d clearly been so keen to avoid having her at the dinner that he’d lied so as not to have to invite her. Luckily, Norah had no time to get upset; Berger had asked her to cover for Luisa who was off sick, so she had to leave for the private viewing as soon as she was done with the interview. She ran all the way to the first district in high heels so as not to miss her appointment with the gallerist.
The original plan had been to talk to the artist before looking at the exhibition, but the artist had let Norah know in no uncertain terms that she saw no point in furnishing her with explanations of her work. The gallerist was more amenable—a tall, slim woman with unnaturally firm waxen skin, almost colourless hair, bright-red lipstick and two realistic-looking snakes twisted into a heavy chain around her neck. Her cool manner gave her a Nordic air, but she spoke with a delicious Viennese accent and turned out to be something of a pro, with a good stock of anecdotes that made the artist’s work instantly intriguing. A bare fifteen-minute interview gave Norah all the material she needed and at last she could turn her attention to the exhibition.
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