Steiner had been most reluctant to admit that twenty-one-year-old Friedrich had a problem. For years he’d attributed his behaviour to adolescence, and then to the excesses of youth: girls seemed attracted to him, and he liked a drink, and Wolfgang Steiner couldn’t see what the problem was with that. If Friedrich did sometimes go a bit too far, Wolfgang blamed himself: his own low moods and frequent absences had probably been the cause of his wife’s alcoholism, which in turn had led to her death when Friedrich – their only child – was just fourteen.

But recently matters had become increasingly hard to ignore. The boy had sexually assaulted two maids at the Steiner family home in Alsergrund, the city’s smart 9th District. In the case of the second girl – a sweet young thing from Carinthia – Wolfgang had had to arrange an abortion and then pay a considerable sum to her family to keep matters quiet. Then there’d been an incident in a bar in the 4th District that resulted in Friedrich beating up a man; again Wolfgang had had to pay a large sum in compensation to avoid a criminal case. Inevitably the police had become involved, and the sympathetic senior officer who agreed to drop the case warned him that unless he did something about it, his son was bound to end up in prison.

Christian Gruber might have had a decidedly Austrian name, but as far as Wolfgang Steiner was concerned, the psychiatrist looked suspiciously Jewish, with his dark complexion, black hair with eyes to match, and a nose that while not classically Jewish could certainly not be described as typically Aryan either. He was also extremely perceptive, perhaps almost too much so. After two sessions with young Friedrich, he asked to see the boy’s father alone. It was with some reluctance that Wolfgang went to Dr Gruber’s consulting rooms on Burg Ring, with the Parliament building framed through its neat window.

‘You have heard of manic depression, Herr Steiner?’

He replied that he had, but wasn’t too sure of what it meant. Dr Gruber explained that manic depressives typically suffered from extremes of mood: excitable mania on the one hand – which could present as a form of psychosis – and periods of depression, sometimes very severe, on the other.

‘So are you saying Friedrich is a manic depressive?’

‘Actually, no – in fact I’m struggling to make an accurate diagnosis, to be frank with you, Herr Steiner. He certainly suffers from very elevated moods, which would explain the psychotic behaviour you describe – the attacks on women, for example, his temper. He told me about his mother.’

Wolfgang nodded but shifted uncomfortably. The more he saw of the man, the more he believed Dr Gruber could well have Jewish blood, and the last thing he wanted to do was discuss his family with a Jew. He made a mental note to have Dr Gruber’s background checked.

‘Friedrich described your moods and believes they may have contributed to his mother’s drinking. Is it true you suffer from low mood, depression perhaps?’