Fuck you, Napoleon, she thought. This is too much to be mere chance.
The dentist was a nice man of about fifty with short, pepper-and-salt hair, elegant glasses and slender hands. Norah usually hated going to the dentist, but this time she was far too distracted to feel distressed. All she could think about as Dr Schlick replaced the filling was the person in the rooms above.
When she left the practice half an hour later, she ran up to the fourth floor. The door revealed nothing; there was no name anywhere, and if Norah hadn’t known better, she’d have thought she was standing outside a private flat. She rang the bell and waited. Nothing happened. She rang again, longer this time, then gave up, disappointed.
Strange—but maybe it was for the best. She didn’t know what she’d have said if someone had come to the door. Her thoughts were racing as she walked down the stairs. Back in the hall, she stopped again in front of the plaques.
There it was, in dark, elegant letters on a brass background:
First Floor—Huber Architects
Second Floor—Goldberg Solicitors
Third Floor—Dr Bernhard Schlick—Dentist
Fourth Floor—Dr Arthur Grimm—Engineering
10
Norah didn’t believe in fate or predestination; she believed people created their own luck, by their own efforts. She believed in chance, but not to this extent. Who was this Arthur fucking Grimm? Why was she confronted with his name at every turn? It was too much for her.
Norah emailed her old friend Werner, the best investigative journalist she knew, and asked him to dig up as much as he could on any Arthur Grimms living in Vienna. She, meanwhile, would try to catch Anita on her own sometime and see if she could get something out of her. She was determined to get to the bottom of all this—though it was important not to let anyone notice her unease. It seemed unlikely that anyone was playing a joke on her, trying to provoke her into reacting—but if they were, she was going to make them wait.
Norah spent the rest of the morning looking into the various forms of help for the homeless on offer in Vienna. When she went into the office kitchen for a glass of water, she found her colleague Luisa there with Tom, one of the freelance photographers who sometimes worked for the magazine. Norah immediately realised that she’d interrupted some kind of tryst; there was clearly something going on between them, although Luisa was married. Tom was standing at the window, fumbling cigarettes out of his pocket; Luisa was taking a smoothie out of the fridge, trying hard to act natural. Norah thought of healthy-living Alex who had weaned her off her diet of coffee, cigarettes and fast food—then felt a pang of guilt as she remembered the man she’d taken home last night. She helped herself to coffee (fuck the water) and went and stood at the window next to Tom. Thinking of Alex had left a lump in her throat and she took a big gulp of coffee to wash it down.
‘Hey,’ she said, as casually as she could, ‘has either of you ever noticed that strange beggar out there? Quite an old woman, quite tall, very sinister. Dark hair, piercing blue eyes. Kind of beautiful in a weird way.’
‘Here in Kärntner Strasse?’ Luisa asked. She took a sip of her smoothie and licked her lips. ‘Doesn’t ring any bells.’
‘Really? She’s pretty conspicuous. And very tall.’
‘What about her?’ Luisa asked. ‘Has she stolen something from you?’
‘God, no,’ said Norah quickly. ‘I’m just curious. She looks as if she has a few stories to tell.’
‘I think I know who you mean,’ said Tom, stubbing out his cigarette. ‘Stood there in the middle of the street with a begging bowl. Didn’t speak, didn’t have a sign or anything—just stood there like a statue. Seriously creepy.’
Norah felt a rush of adrenaline.
‘That’s the one. Have you seen her lately?’
Tom thought for a second, then shook his head slowly.
‘She wasn’t around for long. She was different from the others. Most of them have their patches, their fixed times—you get to know them, give them something now and then. But she moved on quite quickly.’
‘I’m surprised I didn’t notice her,’ Luisa said.
‘She was only around for a day or two,’ said Tom. ‘Maybe you were skiing. Yes, I think you were. It must have been round about when Norah started.’
Luisa finished her bottle and threw it in the bin.
‘Almost as if you’d brought her with you,’ Tom said to Norah with a grin, and he and Luisa sloped out of the kitchen.
Norah stared out of the window. The bright blue sky had clouded over. She poured the remains of her coffee down the drain; apart from anything else, she had heartburn. Then she went to the toilet. When she was drying her hands, she noticed that her skin was chapped from the cold and the overheated rooms. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and thought of the little boy on the underground.
You look like Death, he had said to her.
Back at her desk, Norah concentrated on making calls and writing emails, but after a while she couldn’t resist googling the name Arthur Grimm together with the word engineer. Then she added the address of the lovely old house where she’d been to the dentist that morning. The search yielded nothing. She ran her hand through her hair and closed the browser. She had some hard thinking to do.
When Norah saw her colleague Anita heading for the lift that evening, she grabbed her things, threw on her coat and hurried after her. She caught up with her in front of the lift. Anita was alone—perfect.
‘Hello,’ said Norah.
‘Hi.’
The lift arrived and the two of them got in. Norah pressed the button for the ground floor and for two or three seconds she did what people do when they’re in a lift with a near-stranger: she watched the descending numbers. Anita did the same. Then Norah rummaged in her bag, as if she were looking for her phone and said, so casually and naturally that she was surprised at herself, ‘By the way, Anita, who’s this Arthur Grimm you mentioned the other day?’
Anita frowned.
‘Arthur Grimm?’ she asked. ‘Who’s that? When was this?’
‘Yesterday or the day before, in the kitchen. You were talking to Mario and mentioned someone called Arthur Grimm.’
‘Hmm,’ said Anita. ‘I don’t know anyone called that. Maybe you misheard?’
Norah nodded thoughtfully.
‘Yes, probably,’ she said.
‘Why do you ask?’ Anita said.
Norah studied Anita’s face. Had she lied to her? There was a beep and the lift doors opened.
‘Just curious,’ Norah said and slipped through the doors.
11
It was a hectic morning. Norah had been up late the night before, researching Vienna’s homeless scene—life on the streets, winter shelters, the various charities that provided help. Then Werner had rung to say he was happy to investigate Arthur Grimm for her. Typically for him, he didn’t ask why she wanted the information. Norah smiled to herself. Werner was as thorough as a taxman and as tough as a pit bull; the Arthur Grimm matter couldn’t be in better hands. If there was anything worth finding out, Werner would find it. But by the time Norah got to bed, it was only a bare two hours until her alarm clock was due to go off.