Norah reached for her phone before she could change her mind.
Only a few hours later she was sitting in Max and Paul’s beautiful apartment, the morning light pouring in at the windows, a smell of coffee and fried eggs in the air. Norah squirmed on her chair. Her head ached, but more than anything, she felt embarrassed. It suddenly seemed stupid to have ignored Max’s calls for so long. All right, so he hadn’t behaved as well as he might, but she was old enough and had known him long enough to be able to speak frankly to him about such things and sort them out. Instead she had sulked. And now she’d sprung this on him. And what had he and Paul done? They’d immediately freed up their morning to listen to her and offer what help they could.
She had just finished telling her story for the second time that morning. First, she’d told Sandra everything on the phone, and now Max and Paul, too, knew all there was to know—about the woman in the pedestrian precinct who had prophesied that she would kill a certain Arthur Grimm and had soon afterwards died herself. About the tarot card Norah had found in the Hotel Imperial and the smell of pipe smoke that seemed to follow her around the city. About the mysterious text messages, the dark figure beneath her window and the things that had gone missing from her flat. About Valerie. About Grimm. About her futile visit to the police. About her suspicion. About her phone call to Grimm’s ex. And finally, about the developments of the last few days: her boss’s announcement that she was to go to the Prater on the night of the eleventh—and the discovery of a loaded gun in her flat. The reaction was the same both times: appalled silence. Sandra had eventually asked a few factual questions and advised Norah to keep calm and avoid Grimm at all costs. She said she’d ask around among her lawyer friends to find out whether it was even possible that Valerie had been murdered. Norah had felt incredibly relieved. No more disbelief, no more hints that she was imagining things. As soon as there was a gun involved, everyone knew it was serious.
‘Wow,’ said Paul when Norah had finished. ‘That’s some story.’
‘Fucking spooky,’ Max said.
Norah nodded.
‘I know.’
‘Have I got this right?’ Max said. ‘You want us to help you convict Arthur Grimm of murder?’
‘No,’ said Norah. ‘I want you to stop me from killing him.’
After breakfast they decided to spend the day thinking over Norah’s problem separately, and then reconvene at Max and Paul’s in the evening to discuss what to do. Norah flew through her day on autopilot, unable to concentrate; it was only when she was back at Max and Paul’s with a glass of Malbec that she finally began to relax a little. She and Max were sitting on the sofa; Paul was barefoot in his favourite armchair. Sandra’s voice came over the loudspeaker on the telephone.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ve asked around a bit. It meant begging for a few favours, so I’m going to be spending the next few months taking people I can’t stand out to dinner—but hey, what don’t I do for my friends?’
‘We all have our little burdens to bear, sister,’ said Max with a grin.
‘A little less suspense, please,’ said Norah. ‘Finding a gun under my bed has strained my patience.’
‘Dorotea Lechner’s death was an accident,’ Sandra said. ‘Sure as can be. And your school friend committed suicide. There’s absolutely no doubt about that. There wasn’t the slightest sign of external influence or anything back then. Grimm is innocent.’
There was a moment of silence.
‘How sure are you?’ Norah asked.
‘Almost a hundred per cent,’ said Sandra.
‘Why only almost?’
‘Because nothing’s ever a hundred per cent certain. But there’s no reason to doubt it, Norah. No reason at all.’
Norah suddenly had a bitter taste in her mouth and tried to wash it down with a few mouthfuls of wine.
‘What if he forced her?’ she said. ‘To kill herself, I mean.’
‘Norah, I think you’re on the wrong track,’ Max said gently.
‘Why are you so intent on clinging to that theory?’ Sandra asked. ‘It’s almost like you want him to be guilty. I mean, be glad that a murderer hasn’t escaped unpunished. It would be pretty hard to pin anything on him now, after all these years.’
Norah heard her swallow.
‘Sweetie,’ Sandra said, ‘it’s good news.’
Norah could feel Paul and Max looking at her.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Okay, you’re right.’
‘You still don’t sound satisfied.’
‘No,’ said Norah. ‘Because now all the goings-on in my flat make even less sense than before. If my theory was correct, it would all add up, at least. If not, it’s just completely preposterous.’
‘I don’t think the weird goings-on are all that preposterous,’ Max said. ‘When did you last get a good night’s sleep? When did you last eat properly? How many packs have you smoked this week? What if this has nothing to do with Grimm and Valerie?’
‘I know what Max means,’ Sandra said, ‘and I agree. This isn’t about Valerie. It’s about you. Someone’s trying to confuse you, unnerve you, tyrannise you. No one wants justice for your friend or any of that rubbish. You have a particularly nasty stalker, that’s all.’
Norah paused to let this sink in.
‘Someone put a loaded gun in my flat,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ said Sandra. ‘And you’ll take it to the police first thing tomorrow.’
‘I will not.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Where would that get me? I haven’t had any valuables stolen. No one can prove that I didn’t get hold of the gun myself. I’m not going to the police until I have some kind of proof.’
She thought for a second.
‘I still can’t believe Grimm reported me,’ she added, recalling her embarrassing encounter with the policewoman.
She hadn’t heard from her again, but the shock was deep-seated.
‘It was clever of him,’ Sandra said. ‘But don’t worry about it. Let me know as soon as the police get in touch with you and I’ll take care of everything.’
‘Thank you, Sandra.’
Norah lit a cigarette and offered one to Max who refused. Paul got up and opened the window.
‘Sorry,’ Norah said, ‘I should have asked.’
‘It’s okay,’ Paul said. ‘Just this once.’
‘A nasty stalker,’ Norah said, after a few drags. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Don’t you trust my judgment?’ Sandra asked.
‘Yes, I do,’ Norah said, and it was true.
‘So what’s wrong? What’s bugging you?’
Norah thought about it. Max topped up their glasses, as if she’d just dropped in for a drink and a chat.
‘Something’s not right,’ Norah said. ‘When I confronted Grimm with Valerie’s name, he reacted so strangely.’
‘Hang on,’ Sandra said. ‘You confronted Grimm?’
Norah bit her tongue. She’d deliberately left out that part of the story because she could imagine her friends’ reactions.
‘Jesus, Norah,’ Sandra said, and Norah heard her clap her hands to her face.
Max and Paul looked at Norah in horror.
‘Have I got this right,’ Max said. ‘You went up to this guy you think is a murderer—a man who probably has a great deal to lose—and confronted him straight-out?’
Norah was silent.
‘Sometimes I have my doubts about your intelligence,’ said Max.
‘Me too,’ Norah said with a shrug.
‘And me,’ Sandra said. ‘But that’s not the point right now. What did Grimm say?’
‘When I said Valerie’s name, he started off pretending he’d never heard of her. But then he said—and I quote—I didn’t do anything to your little friend.’
Max and Paul gaped at Norah. Norah couldn’t see Sandra’s expression, but guessed that she, too, was surprised.
‘Can you explain that to me?’ Norah said. ‘Why would he say t
hat if he had no idea what I was talking about?’
For a while nobody spoke.
‘It doesn’t add up,’ Max said. ‘It makes no sense at all. It must be some kind of joke. Probably cooked up by whoever’s sending you the texts.’
‘But shockingly malicious and dangerous,’ said Paul. ‘A costly, elaborate, totally depraved kind of joke.’
‘Psycho terror,’ said Max.
‘Terror art,’ Paul added.
Norah drained her glass.
‘You don’t look convinced,’ Max said.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Who’d go to such great lengths just to wear me down?’
‘No idea,’ Sandra cried. ‘You tell us!’
‘We do know one thing about the person who’s done all this,’ said Max.
‘Do we?’ Norah asked. ‘What?’
‘You know him,’ he replied.
Or her, Norah thought, nodding thoughtfully.
‘It started when I moved to Vienna,’ she said.
Nobody said anything.
‘I’ll send a text suggesting we meet up.’
‘No way!’ Sandra cried. ‘You’ll do nothing of the sort. It would be better if you went somewhere else for a few days.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it. How would we ever find out who I’m up against if I went away?’
‘We wouldn’t. You need to keep your distance from this psycho. Don’t react to any more messages or calls—not in any way. Keep clear of Arthur Grimm, and if anything seems strange to you, you must call the police at once.’
Norah’s eyes fell on Max’s British bulldog Lolita who was asleep on the rug, oblivious to the excited buzz of voices filling her territory.
‘You’re worried,’ Norah said.
‘Of course I’m worried,’ Sandra replied. ‘Whoever’s behind this story is clearly crazy.’
‘Okay,’ said Norah, ‘I’ll take your advice and lie low. But I don’t think he or she is going to stop.’
She noticed that she was fiddling with her cigarettes again. She opened the packet and took one out.
‘I have this feeling that something’s going to happen on February 11. And it’s only three days off.’
‘Now listen to me,’ Sandra said firmly. ‘You’re not going anywhere on February 11 and certainly not to the Prater.’
‘What about my interview?’ Norah asked.
‘You’ll cancel it, of course. Call in sick. If your boss is angry, you’ll just have to put up with it.’
‘And the gun? I need to get rid of the gun.’
‘As a lawyer I have to advise you to do the right thing and hand it in at a police station.’
‘And as a friend?’ Norah asked.
‘Have you touched it?’
Norah shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Then, as your friend who knows that you haven’t had the best of experiences with the police, I would understand if you went and dropped it in a deep stretch of the Danube,’ Sandra said drily. ‘Provided you wear gloves,’ she added. ‘But since I’m a lawyer I do of course have to advise you against such a course of action.’
‘I see.’
‘If you like, I’ll come and keep an eye on you,’ Sandra said. ‘I could jump on the next plane.’
Norah smiled. Sandra was tough—not someone to worry herself for no reason.
‘That’s sweet of you, but not necessary,’ she said. ‘But thanks.’
‘All right,’ Sandra said. ‘This is the plan: you keep calm and take care of yourself. Especially on the eleventh. And I’ll have a think about how best to deal with all this. And especially what we tell the police. Because there’s no question that sooner or later we’re going to have to take this to the police, okay?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘It’s not funny.’ Sandra sounded severe.
‘I know.’
‘I’ll come up with something,’ Sandra said more mildly.
‘And we’ll hunker down together on the eleventh,’ Max said, ‘at least in the evening.’
‘Okay,’ said Norah. ‘On one condition. You bring a bottle of this amazing red wine with you.’
‘No way,’ said Paul.
He grinned.
‘We’ll bring two.’
47
Norah would have liked to spend the night at Max and Paul’s instead of returning to her lonely, empty flat, where she hadn’t felt properly safe even before the gun had turned up under her bed. But she gritted her teeth and caught a cab back to Rilkeplatz. Up in the flat, she put the black case in her handbag. Then she headed straight out again, found a lonely spot on the Danube Canal and dropped the gun in the water.
Now, in the semi-darkness of the living room, she was sitting on the sofa in only a sweatshirt, her bare legs pulled up to her chest. The television was on mute; there was something soothing about the moving images. Norah tore a page out of her notebook, picked up a biro, then stopped, the pen hovering over the paper. She didn’t hesitate because she couldn’t think of any potential ill-wishers—she could come up with a few. But she found it hard to gauge them. How could you tell if someone was vindictive or given to cruel pranks? Could you tell? Norah began to doodle.
There had been that stalker, years ago, before she moved to Berlin. He’d inundated her with emails and texts, bombarded her with calls, lain in wait for her—but all that was deep in the past. Who else? Alex was out of the question; he was the least malicious person she knew. And the men before him? None of them had lasted long or been particularly serious—and they were all ancient history. No. None of those men would dream of following her and breaking into her flat just to scare her. Not even crazy Igor, the dancer she’d gone out with before Alex; he was working in Russia at the moment anyway and Norah was sure he had no idea she’d moved to Vienna. No, he may have been crazy, but it wasn’t him.
What about women? There must be one or two who held a grudge against her. What about the wife of that doctor she’d dated for a while—Gustav, the one who picked her up in a bar in Kreuzberg and told her he was single? His wife had left a few nasty messages on Norah’s phone when she found out—fair enough, Norah had thought and seen no reason to hold it against her. She’d called things off with Gustav and hadn’t heard from the woman since. It seemed unlikely that she should suddenly emerge from the shadows.
And work connections? Norah had been working as a journalist for a good fifteen years, mainly freelance at first and then—in Berlin, for example, or here in Vienna—as part of an editorial team. She wasn’t an investigative journalist; she didn’t uncover criminal activity or political scandals, but worked mainly in culture, interviewing people, writing reviews and the occasional column—sometimes a travel report or a feature. Nothing very controversial, though there could be no doubt that she’d offended the odd person over the years; she’d more than once received nasty letters at the office. On one occasion a theatre director had even turned up at her flat after she’d panned a play of his and told her that a cunt like her, who didn’t know the first thing about dramaturgy, would do best to avoid the subject. Norah had taken her revenge by sketching the incident in a column. She hadn’t named the director, but it was hardly necessary; anyone with any knowledge of the Berlin cultural scene would have known who she was talking about. Norah hadn’t heard from him since. Was he, perhaps, rearing his head again after all these years? Unlikely. As far as she knew, he was still in Berlin, stuck in the same old rut—starting early on the whisky and getting his kicks out of humiliating his lead actresses.
Norah picked up her phone and reread the texts from the unknown number. She remembered feeling troubled when one of her friends had talked of him wanting to do her in, and now she knew why. Without really thinking about it, she had simply assumed that she was dealing with a woman. Yes, it was a woman. She could feel it.
‘Who are you?’ Norah whispered, biting her lower lip, but her mind was a blank.
She put her phone down and ran through the names in her head agai
n, then discarded the pen and tore the paper into shreds. Yes, she’d rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way and caused a lot of trouble. An awful lot. But it was no good rummaging around in the past; all this had started when she moved to Vienna. It had all begun in this beautiful, morbid city. That couldn’t be a coincidence.
48
The next morning, the normality of office life seemed almost unreal to Norah. How could two such different worlds exist in parallel? One of them ordered and subject to clearly defined routines—emails and coffee breaks, editorial meetings and deadlines—the other as chaotic as a work of abstract expressionism. Norah buried her face in her hands, ignoring pitying glances from Aylin who, as usual, looked as fresh as a daisy and probably assumed that Norah had boozed her way through the night again.
The day after tomorrow. February 11 was only the day after tomorrow. Maybe the others were right—maybe if Norah lay low, it would all be over after that. But could she lie low? Could she face the prospect of never getting to the bottom of this story? Of course she couldn’t. Stories were her life. Or what was left of it. There was no way she could sit around waiting; she had to do something.
There was one more thing she could try. One last-ditch hope. Norah grabbed her phone and wrote:
We have to talk. 10 p.m. tonight in Cafe Jonathan. I’ll come alone. Promise.
Norah still hadn’t received a reply when she set off through the dark streets that evening, but since that meant no rejection as well as no acceptance, she decided to keep the appointment, just in case. Aren’t the days supposed to be getting longer? she thought. It didn’t feel like it. She had the impression it was always night.
She walked without hurrying in an effort to calm her nerves and slow her racing pulse. She’d be there in five minutes anyway; she was ridiculously early. But she wanted to be the first to arrive; she wanted a table from which she could see everyone who came into the cafe. She wasn’t at all sure this was a good idea. It was probably an appalling idea. But she couldn’t sit at home and wait. Her friends should have known that.
The Shadow Page 18
