The vault was modest by the standard of an Egyptian pharaoh. But with its four matching sphinxes—one on each corner—I was sure a whole litter of Ptolemies would have felt perfectly at home in its three-for-the-price-of-one interior. And when I emerged from inside, having paid my formal respects to Eric’s mother, I half expected the sexton to frisk me for gold scarabs and shards of lapis lazuli. As it was, I had so many strange looks and suspicious, even hostile stares you would have thought I was Mozart looking for his unmarked grave. Even the priest conducting the burial service—who, in his purple cape, resembled a French cake in Demel’s window—gave me the evil eye.

I had hoped that by remaining at a distance from the other mourners and wearing a pair of dark glasses—it was a very cold but bright sunny day—I would remain relatively anonymous. Dr. Bekemeier knew who he thought I was and, in the circumstances, this was all that really mattered. But I hadn’t bargained on a hostile reception from one of Elizabeth Gruen’s servants, who let me know what she thought of Eric Gruen being there at all.

She was a red-faced, bony, ill-dressed creature, like a rib of beef in a sack, and when she spoke her plate shifted on her upper jaw as if the result of a small earthquake in her head. “You’ve got a nerve, showing your face here like this,” said the crone, with evident distaste. “After all these years. After what you did. Your mother was ashamed of you, that’s what she was. Ashamed and disgusted that a Gruen should behave in such a way. Disgrace. That’s what you brought to your family name. Disgrace. Your father would have horsewhipped you.”

I murmured some bromide about this all being a very long time ago and then walked swiftly back to the main gate where I had left the American with the car. Despite the icy weather, the cemetery was busy. Other funerals were in progress and there were several people heading the same way as me. I paid them little or no regard. Not even to the IP Jeep that was parked a short way away from the Cadillac. I jumped in and the American driver took off at speed, like a wanted criminal.

“What the hell’s going on?” I shouted once I had picked myself off the floor. “I’ve been attending a funeral not robbing a bank.”

The driver, who wasn’t much more than a kid, with hedgehog hair and ears like two trophy handles, nodded at his rearview mirror. “International Patrol,” he said, in reasonable German.

I turned to look through the rear window. Sure enough the Jeep was on our tail. “What do they want?” I yelled as, gunning the engine loudly, he veered the car off Simmeringer and down a narrow side street.