The woman was taller than Frend and ascetically thin, as befitted one who subsisted on coffee and cigarettes. Her silver hair was cut too short for his liking, although his liking, Frend knew, was of no concern to her. The frames of her large spectacles were clear, lending them a protective aspect, so that Frend felt her regard as a laboratory specimen might, the sharpness of her attention like a scalpel ready to cut. She was wearing a beige coat that flared slightly from the waist and ended just below her knees, her legs concealed by high leather boots of a reddish brown, like blood and mud mixed. She was, she claimed, a distant descendant of the painter Angelica Kauffmann, although this might have been a lie, for Hannah Kauffmann was adept at creating falsehoods.

‘Hannah,’ said Frend. ‘You look well, as always.’

Kauffmann flicked at the flattery with a fingertip, the movement causing a pillar of ash to tumble from her cigarette to the plot by her feet.

‘If you came out here to exchange compliments,’ she said, ‘your journey will have been wasted, because you, Anton, do not look well. Are you sure you’re getting enough rest?’

‘Not lately, but you may be able to assist with a solution.’

‘I can offer you pills. I have no shortage of them.’

‘I was hoping for something more long-term.’

She waved at the graves with her right hand.

‘Then you’re in the right place,’ she said.

Frend smiled without humor. He had not chosen this venue for their meeting. He would have preferred somewhere closer to the city, and less depressing, but Hannah Kauffmann had always indulged a taste for the dramatic. It might have been a consequence of her love of opera. She was a benefactor of the Vienna State Opera, which meant that she donated at least €10,000 per season. Frend could think of many better ways Kauffmann could have spent €10,000, among them getting her teeth fixed. She was an otherwise attractive woman, but her mouth was a ruin, the enamel stained from decades of caffeine and nicotine, with gaps in the upper row where she had lost molars to decay. Her grin reminded him of the skulls in the crypt of the Stephansdom.

‘I was going to ask why we were here,’ said Frend, ‘and not in more convivial surroundings.’

‘You don’t like cemeteries?’

‘Not particularly, but this one seems more cheerless than most.’