‘Oh my God, how awful,’ Theresa said gravely.
Norah had expected her to ask hundreds of questions, but she didn’t. Silence spread. Only Katinka minced nervously back and forth.
‘Have I ever told you about my theory of attraction?’ Norah asked. Theresa shook her head.
‘Okay then,’ Norah said, putting a piece of chocolate in her mouth. ‘Have you ever wondered why some people attract good luck and others bad?’
Theresa frowned, as if to say: not really.
‘We all know someone who seems to have all the luck,’ Norah said. ‘And we all know some poor person who seems to attract accidents and disasters. I would say there are also people who attract love or loneliness or money or envy or sickness or pity or adventure or danger or bizarre situations.’
Theresa listened attentively; only her glazed eyes betrayed that she had consumed a certain amount of alcohol and THC.
‘In my kindergarten,’ Norah went on, ‘there was a boy called Eddy, a little red-headed bruiser. Every year, on Shrove Tuesday, we had doughnuts—always jam doughnuts, except for one, which was filled with mustard. It was supposed to be lucky to get that one, and although we kids were scared of biting into the mustard, we all hoped we’d be the lucky one. Especially as whoever bit into the mustard doughnut was always given one of the ordinary ones too. Eddy got that doughnut three years in a row. He didn’t examine them or anything; he hadn’t found a way of working out which was which. He was just the kind of person that sort of thing happened to. A few years later—we were in primary school by then—there was a nasty accident in the area. A huge tanker skidded on a bridge, broke through the crash barrier and plunged into the valley. Eddy saw the truck fall. He lived within sight of the bridge and his mum had sent him out into the garden to pick a lettuce for dinner. Eddy saw a flaming tanker fall from the sky.’
‘Wow,’ said Theresa. Norah nodded.
‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘A few years later, when we were in year five or six, the circus came to town and one of their monkeys escaped. Guess who found it?’
‘Sounds like a great guy, this Eddy,’ Theresa said.
Norah shrugged.
‘Actually he was just normal. But he attracted unusual situations.’ Theresa looked pensive.
‘I’m sure we’re all magnets for something,’ Norah said. ‘What I want to know is: can we change? Can we reverse our polarity? Can someone who has always been plagued by bad luck learn to attract good luck?’
‘What do you attract?’ Theresa asked.
‘Not sure. It’s easier to see patterns in other people. For a long time I thought I attracted nutcases. Nutcases and cats. Where we lived there was a black tom called Professor Snape. I don’t know where he got the name. He was so timid, he wouldn’t let anyone stroke him—most of the kids couldn’t get him to go anywhere near them. Whereas me, I wasn’t really interested in him, but he followed me everywhere. It’s the same today. If there’s a cat in the house, it’ll find me. I don’t know why. Same with nutcases.’
Theresa smiled.
‘Like me,’ she said.
Norah laughed.
‘No, seriously,’ she said, ‘if I’m on a train and some psycho gets on, you can be sure he’ll come and sit next to me, even if the carriage is half empty. In Berlin I was once followed for I don’t know how long by a young woman who thought I was the High Priestess of Evil.’
‘Christ,’ Theresa said.
‘No kidding,’ said Norah. ‘Those were her words: You are the High Priestess of Evil. She followed me everywhere, shouting at me. The scary thing was, she looked completely normal. Jeans, Converse, designer top, messy hair in a bun, hipster glasses. Pushed her bike along next to me and yelled at me.’
‘Creepy,’ said Theresa, stubbing out her joint.
Norah nodded.
‘I felt sorry for her,’ she said.
Theresa was silent for a moment.
‘And what do you think now?’ she asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You said that for a long time you thought you attracted nutcases. It sounded as if you didn’t think that anymore. So what do you think now? What do you attract?’
Women I can do nothing to save, Norah thought.
Leonie, the girl I found on the bathroom floor at that party. Coco. Dorotea Lechner. And…
‘No idea,’ Norah said with a laugh, hoping it sounded natural. ‘I’m just rambling on.’
‘You’re lying,’ Theresa said gravely. ‘Something’s bugging you and you don’t want to tell me about it.’
Norah said nothing.
‘Do you know what I do when something’s bugging me or scaring me?’
‘No,’ said Norah. ‘What?’
‘I confront it head-on—straight away, before I can think better of it.’
Silence.
‘What’s the latest with this Anton Grimm, by the way?’ Theresa suddenly said.
‘Arthur Grimm,’ said Norah. ‘What made you think of him?’
‘No idea,’ Theresa said, starting to roll another joint. ‘But the old fortune teller mentions him to you and a few days later she’s dead. I call that freaky.’
Yes, thought Norah, so do I.
The red wine hadn’t done its job; Norah’s mind was still buzzing when she got back to her flat. If she went straight to bed, she’d toss and turn for hours. So she sat at her desk and did what she always did when she wanted to put her thoughts in order: she wrote. Dorotea Lechner was dead. Arthur Grimm kept popping up in her life unexpectedly and seemed in some creepy way to be getting closer to her. She didn’t think she knew anyone by that name, but she couldn’t get him out of her head; it was like a snatch of tune that kept eluding her. And for some reason—though she couldn’t have said what—she associated him with Valerie.
She opened her laptop and found the email from Werner containing all the information about this mysterious man. On the first page, right at the top, was his private address. Norah called a taxi. It was time to get a closer look at Arthur Grimm.
27
Rilkeplatz was deserted—no trams, no passers-by. The taxi hadn’t arrived yet. While she waited for it at the front door, Norah took her phone out of her coat pocket and peeled off her leather gloves to enter Grimm’s address in Google Maps, cursing herself for not having done it earlier.
The cold knew no mercy; her fingertips immediately began to ache. Norah waited impatiently for the website to load, then almost jumped when she saw the location. Arthur Grimm lived very close indeed.
Hearing the taxi approach, she looked up and raised her arm to get the driver’s attention. He stopped and she got in.
‘Good evening.’
The driver, a walrus-like man in his late fifties with a droopy moustache and a leather jacket, didn’t return her greeting and Norah almost smiled. Unfriendly taxi drivers always reminded her of Berlin. She gave him the address, adding that she didn’t want to get out there, but one street further on.
‘You do know it’s basically round the corner,’ the driver said in a thick Viennese accent.
Norah didn’t bother to reply and waited for him to drive off. She looked out the window, thinking she might see Theresa at the brightly lit window of her living room, but the flat lay in darkness. And the taxi driver showed no sign of going anywhere. He seemed to be waiting for an answer.
‘Is anything wrong?’ Norah asked.
‘All you need to do,’ he said, ‘is walk to the end of the road and take two lefts. I’m not driving you three fucking metres.’
‘You’re not serious,’ Norah said.
The man muttered something incomprehensible.
‘Arsehole,’ Norah mumbled, getting out of the cab.
‘What did you say?’ he asked.
‘I said: Have a nice one,’ said Norah, slamming the door.
She’d just have to walk. There were still a few cars on the road and the occasional cyclist, hooded and swaddled as if for urban combat
, but no one else on foot. It was too cold. When she got to the street where Grimm lived, she stopped. That would be it—the big building with the lovely pale facade and the crane towering behind. And the chances were, she was being silly; Arthur Grimm was probably a perfectly ordinary man, a harmless and respectable engineer who lived a peaceful life, got up in the mornings, went to bed at night, and in between times worked and ate and drank, met friends and minded his own business. But, call it a journalist’s hunch or call it paranoia—Norah had to see him; she had to know. Slowly and calmly, she walked towards number eighteen, the building where Dr Arthur Grimm lived.
Not far from the cream stucco house, she stopped and lit a cigarette without taking her eyes off the street in front of her or the door of number eighteen. As soon as the smoke reached her lungs, she began to relax. A car drove past. Norah watched it go—only another taxi.
Maybe the passing car distracted her for a split second, or maybe the soothing feeling produced by the nicotine in her bloodstream caused her attention to slacken for a moment. Either way, she didn’t realise there was anything wrong until it was too late.
Behind you.
Norah turned and froze. Backed away. Because of course she recognised him instantly, the man standing before her, staring at her out of the darkness.
Arthur Grimm didn’t have the kind of face you forgot in a hurry.
28
He stood directly in front of her on the dark pavement, only his posture betraying his tension. Norah’s head was suddenly clear. They’d never met. He couldn’t know she was here because of him. She would simply carry on walking, a mere passer-by.
She stepped aside to pass him, but he stood in her way.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.
He spoke softly, but with a distinctly aggressive undertone.
Norah was taken aback. The man couldn’t know that she’d found out about him, got hold of his address and come here to have a good look at him. Did he think she was someone else?
She set her chin and slipped her left hand into her coat pocket where she kept her phone.
‘Do I know you?’ she asked.
The man didn’t reply.
‘Let me past, please,’ Norah said, ‘or I’ll call the police.’
His eyes narrowed.
She took her phone from her pocket. She only had to press the
Home button twice and the Emergency Call option would appear in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen…
‘Piss off,’ the man said and let her past.
Norah kept going until there were a few metres between them. Just go home, she thought. He’s not right in the head. Keep walking and don’t look back.
‘I don’t want to see you here again,’ Arthur Grimm called out to her. ‘That’s a warning.’
Norah paused mid-step and turned to face him—she couldn’t stop herself.
‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’ she said. ‘This is a public street. As far as I’m aware, there’s no law against walking down the road. So either tell me what your problem is or I would suggest you leave me in peace.’
The man said nothing—only stared at her with his deep-set eyes. He had a strange face; Norah had noticed when she saw his photo on the internet that there was something funny about it. But she couldn’t work out what.
Arthur Grimm looked at her as if he were weighing things up.
He’s going to attack me, Norah thought. He’s going to drag me between the parked cars, wrestle me to the ground and bash my head against the road till I stop breathing.
No, that was irrational; he wouldn’t dare—not here in public, in full view of a whole street of lighted windows. Norah fought the impulse to back away from him. Whatever she did, she mustn’t show him she was scared. He was still staring at her. Then a jolt went through his body.
‘I don’t know why I’m even talking to you.’
And he turned and walked slowly away.
Norah watched him go, uncertain what to think. He blurred and merged into the darkness and it was only when he reached the light of his doorway that she saw him more clearly again. He turned to face her once more and there was no mistaking the menace in the look he gave her.
I don’t want to see you here again. That’s a warning.
Norah stood there for a moment, astonished by the turn her little evening walk had taken. Then she set off. Her heart didn’t begin to steady until she’d rounded the corner.
Back in the flat, Norah collapsed on a kitchen chair and as she sat there, warming up, she tried to put her thoughts in order. Thanks to the cold air and the shock, she was feeling surprisingly clear-headed, but she couldn’t get her head round what had just happened. What was the man’s problem? Who did he think he was?
A beep from her phone announced a new text and she made a little noise of surprise when she saw that it was from the same unknown number the other texts had come from. Was all that starting up again after days of radio silence? Bewildered, she opened her inbox.
That was stupid of you. Dangerous too.
For a moment, she could only stare at her phone. The blood rushed in her ears and she felt her fingers tremble and had to put her phone on the table. When she’d calmed down a little, she read the text again—not that there was much to read. It was like a slap in the face; there could be little doubt that the text referred to her meeting with Grimm. Norah closed her eyes. Had somebody followed her? She went through the last hour in her head. The taxi driver who had turned her away. The short walk to Grimm’s house. Had she seen anyone on the way there? Or outside his house? She couldn’t say for certain. She’d been far too wrapped up in herself—and in Grimm.
Norah opened her eyes again. Reply or ignore? She made a spur-of-the-moment decision and picked up her phone.
Are you following me? she wrote.
The reply came so quickly that she wondered whether her virtual contact had been expecting the question.
I’m protecting you.
Who the hell could it be?
What do you know about Arthur Grimm? she asked, but received no reply.
She put the phone back on the table. It was impossible to find out who the number belonged to. Even Werner, the best investigative journalist she knew, hadn’t managed.
But Werner knew a great deal about Grimm. The printout with the file he had put together for Norah was still on her desk. Was there anything she’d overlooked?
Arthur Grimm had been born in Frankfurt in 1974. He’d studied mechanical engineering in Aachen, then switched course. Werner had tracked down all the firms where Grimm had worked as an intern during and immediately after his studies. Norah skimmed the almost endless list and saw that Grimm had been living in Austria for some time. He’d started off in Salzburg—evidently moving there to join his then-wife—and ended up in Vienna where he had been living for the last four years, alone.
Norah compared the main points of her own life with those of Grimm. When she was born, he was eight years old and attending primary school in Hanover. By the time she started school, he’d moved on to secondary school. When she started secondary school, he was taking his final exams. The year of Valerie’s suicide, he was studying engineering and working on his dissertation. At around the time Norah took her final exams—passing by the skin of her teeth, which was, everyone agreed, only natural, when you thought of what she’d been through—he graduated and moved to Munich. And so it went on. Norah leant back resignedly. No overlap in their biographies; they hadn’t ever lived in the same place or known the same people or done the same things.
She heard his voice.
What are you doing here?
Piss off.
I don’t want to see you here again.
That’s a warning.
Who did Arthur Grimm think he was? Where had he seen her face before? How could he know that she was after him? She didn’t know him and had assumed that when they met he would take her for a simple passer-by. Norah shook her head, perplex
ed. Even if Werner had been careless in his research—which Norah knew he never was—how could Grimm have made the connection to her? It was impossible. Norah closed the file, put it in her bag and folded her arms behind her head.
Grimm might know her. But she had never met him until this evening.
29
When Norah returned home the following evening after a hectic day at the office, her thoughts were still focused on Arthur Grimm. It was time to get to the bottom of things; she needed clarity. She had his number from Werner and wasn’t going to think too hard about whether it was a good idea to make use of it. She prepared for the phone call as if it were an important interview, going through various openings, questions and even possible answers in her head. Then she switched off caller ID on her phone. Just because she had Grimm’s number, it didn’t mean he had to have hers. Norah entered the digits. She heard the dialling tone. It rang once, twice. Pick up, she thought. Please. Three times, four times. Then there was a ring at the door.
‘Shit,’ she muttered. She was tempted to go and see who it was, but stayed put. She had to sort this out now. If she couldn’t reach Grimm this evening, she wouldn’t be able to sleep all night. She had to get to the bottom of this without delay. Whoever it was at the door could come back another time. But the doorbell rang again. And again. Fuck. Norah crept to the door as quietly as she could and was about to look through the spyhole when she heard a voice.
‘I know you’re there.’
Theresa.
Norah shut her eyes for a second, not sure whether to be amused or annoyed, and opened the door.
‘Yo,’ said Theresa, holding out her fist to Norah.
Norah bumped fists with her. Theresa grinned.
‘Is it a bad time? I’m going out for a drink with some friends and thought you might like to join us.’
‘I’d love to. But I have to work. I’m sorry.’
The Shadow Page 11