The cat, forgetting its initial caution, pushed its head against the back of Norah’s hand, arched its back and began to purr.

‘Katinka?’ said a voice from the next floor up. The cat raised its head, clearly uncertain whether to respond to the call, or stay and be stroked a little longer by its new friend. It didn’t hesitate for long; when Norah stood up, it began to rub itself coquettishly against her legs.

‘Hello,’ Norah called up the stairs. ‘If you’re looking for your cat, it’s here.’

There was a laugh, then footsteps. The voice said, ‘Well, Katinka? Pestering the neighbours again?’ And then to Norah, ‘Sorry, she must have given me the slip. I’m Theresa, by the way. From the third floor.’

Norah froze for a moment, staring at the almost almond-shaped eyes, the blonde lashes, the small curved mouth that looked as if it had been painted with a single flourish, the freckles…

‘Are you okay?’ asked the young woman, but Norah barely heard her.

So similar…

‘Don’t you feel well?’ the woman said.

At last Norah managed a smile.

‘I must have been dreaming,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

She took the hand that was held out to her.

‘Norah,’ she added, ‘from the second floor.’

‘Cool,’ said the woman. ‘Nice to meet you.’ She glanced over her shoulder. ‘I’d better try and catch the little devil.’

Norah stepped slowly down the stairs to the ground floor.

Don’t you feel well? the woman had asked. Well? How were you supposed to feel well, when you’d seen a ghost?

3

Vienna was giving Norah the cold shoulder. When she’d visited with Alex in the summer, she’d been enchanted; it had seemed to her a city with a mind of its own, unlike anywhere she’d been before. That felt like light years ago.

Everything seemed so bleak—a Munchian vision of a city; a dark, urban forest, warped and menacing. The gloom pervaded Norah’s empty flat and the dingy streets. Passers-by stared grimly at their phones; melancholy coated everything like a film of grease. And it was fucking freezing.

Norah bought an Austrian paper, a German paper and a packet of cigarettes in the newsagent’s across the road, and sat down with them in the corner bistro. By the time she took her first sip of coffee, the shock of memory aroused in her by Theresa had subsided a little, and she could turn her mind to the day ahead.

Although Norah’s job wouldn’t officially begin for two weeks, her new boss had asked her to go and meet him that morning. They’d talked at length on the phone, but this would be their first real meeting, and Norah was looking forward to it; she couldn’t wait to get back to work, even if she was a little nervous. She knew she was a good journalist; she’d won prizes for some of her features, and there had even been attempts to headhunt her. But all that had been before what she secretly thought of as the disaster. Coming after that, the job offer from Vienna had seemed too good to be true; she was almost afraid it would turn out to be a cruel joke.