She shared her Vienna office with Aylin, a taciturn, wiry woman in her mid-forties who had positive slogans and photos of palm beaches pinned above her desk and took herself off to yoga in her lunch breaks. She was the anti-Werner.

Norah desperately needed caffeine, or nicotine, or both. She had persuaded Berger to let her write a series of features on Vienna’s homeless scene, and was wondering what tack to take. As usual, she decided to follow her gut instinct and focus on her own interests—though without stretching the remit of the magazine. Thanks to an old press contact in Berlin, she had another job lined up, too: in a few days she would be interviewing a film star. Berger had been thrilled—little sold as well as a real live Hollywood star—and Norah herself was looking forward to the interview, though she knew she would have to be well prepared; the actor had a reputation as a tough nut. Norah was an excellent interviewer. She had a sixth sense for knowing how to make people open up to her—whether to provoke or flatter or take the offensive. Most importantly, though, she had understood very early in her career that an interview, like everything in life, was based on reciprocity. If she wanted to get something out of her interviewees, she knew she had first to offer them something, and so she never interviewed anyone without revealing some small secret about herself. She had amused an American pop star in the Kempinski Hotel by showing him the unsuccessful tattoo on her hip. She had softened a neurotic French film director by telling him about one of her recurring nightmares. And she knew exactly how she would get this actor to identify with her and trust her. She was smiling to herself as she entered the office kitchen.

Mario and Anita turned round when they heard her. Anita, a boyish woman from southern Austria with short bleached hair, whom Norah had immediately taken to, was complaining to Mario (who reminded Norah vaguely of her friend Sandra’s brother) that just because she happened to be friends with the niece of the new Burg Theatre director, the boss had charged her with getting an exclusive interview with him. As if it made any difference; everyone knew the man refused to give interviews. Norah just nodded to her colleagues, not wanting to intrude, and returned to her own thoughts as she busied herself with the espresso machine. It was a shame she hadn’t been able to get hold of Sandra, when she was such a fan of this actor she was interviewing. But she knew what she’d say to win him over. It was easy. Everyone knew he’d been pursued by a stalker for years, so if she could manage to work it into the conversation, she’d tell him about her own stalker, a man who’d followed her everywhere until she’d managed to shake him off by moving to Berlin. That was good common ground. Norah would start the conversation with innocent questions about his latest film which he’d come to Europe to promote, and then gradually—