‘Hey,’ she said, as casually as she could, ‘has either of you ever noticed that strange beggar out there? Quite an old woman, quite tall, very sinister. Dark hair, piercing blue eyes. Kind of beautiful in a weird way.’

‘Here in Kärntner Strasse?’ Luisa asked. She took a sip of her smoothie and licked her lips. ‘Doesn’t ring any bells.’

‘Really? She’s pretty conspicuous. And very tall.’

‘What about her?’ Luisa asked. ‘Has she stolen something from you?’

‘God, no,’ said Norah quickly. ‘I’m just curious. She looks as if she has a few stories to tell.’

‘I think I know who you mean,’ said Tom, stubbing out his cigarette. ‘Stood there in the middle of the street with a begging bowl. Didn’t speak, didn’t have a sign or anything—just stood there like a statue. Seriously creepy.’

Norah felt a rush of adrenaline.

‘That’s the one. Have you seen her lately?’

Tom thought for a second, then shook his head slowly.

‘She wasn’t around for long. She was different from the others. Most of them have their patches, their fixed times—you get to know them, give them something now and then. But she moved on quite quickly.’

‘I’m surprised I didn’t notice her,’ Luisa said.

‘She was only around for a day or two,’ said Tom. ‘Maybe you were skiing. Yes, I think you were. It must have been round about when Norah started.’

Luisa finished her bottle and threw it in the bin.

‘Almost as if you’d brought her with you,’ Tom said to Norah with a grin, and he and Luisa sloped out of the kitchen.

Norah stared out of the window. The bright blue sky had clouded over. She poured the remains of her coffee down the drain; apart from anything else, she had heartburn. Then she went to the toilet. When she was drying her hands, she noticed that her skin was chapped from the cold and the overheated rooms. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and thought of the little boy on the underground.

You look like Death, he had said to her.

Back at her desk, Norah concentrated on making calls and writing emails, but after a while she couldn’t resist googling the name Arthur Grimm together with the word engineer. Then she added the address of the lovely old house where she’d been to the dentist that morning. The search yielded nothing. She ran her hand through her hair and closed the browser. She had some hard thinking to do.

When Norah saw her colleague Anita heading for the lift that evening, she grabbed her things, threw on her coat and hurried after her. She caught up with her in front of the lift. Anita was alone—perfect.

‘Hello,’ said Norah.

‘Hi.’

The lift arrived and the two of them got in. Norah pressed the button for the ground floor and for two or three seconds she did what people do when they’re in a lift with a near-stranger: she watched the descending numbers. Anita did the same. Then Norah rummaged in her bag, as if she were looking for her phone and said, so casually and naturally that she was surprised at herself, ‘By the way, Anita, who’s this Arthur Grimm you mentioned the other day?’