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.