‘God, no,’ Sandra said. ‘Of course not. But I don’t quite know how I can help you when I’m so far away.’

‘You’ve helped me already,’ said Norah, and in a way it was true.

‘But there’s something else,’ said Sandra, ‘isn’t there?’

Norah hesitated.

She decided it was almost certainly a very bad idea to tell someone as cool-headed and down-to-earth as Sandra about the events of the last few days—and then told her everything. Sandra asked her a question now and then in the course of the story—she was a lawyer, after all—but when Norah had finished, she was silent. Greta had gone quiet too; Sandra must have escaped to another room to talk to Norah in peace.

‘And you think there’s some connection between these things?’ she asked eventually.

Norah said nothing.

‘Yes,’ she said after a while. ‘I have a funny feeling there is.’

Sandra made a strange little noise, sympathetic and condescending at the same time.

‘The woman who spoke this…’ Sandra hesitated, ‘…this prophecy. You say she was begging.’

Norah nodded, though she knew quite well that Sandra couldn’t see her.

‘That was a trick, Norah,’ Sandra said. ‘People will come up with anything to get money off you, you know. Seriously. Fortune telling’s the oldest trick there is. I shouldn’t have to explain that to someone like you.’

‘Someone like me?’

‘A journalist. Come on, Norah. You know how these things work.’

‘And the other stuff? Things vanishing from my flat? The smell of pipe smoke? A colleague of mine randomly mentioning Arthur Grimm? His office happening to be one floor up from my dentist?’

‘Selective perception,’ Sandra replied. ‘You see everything through a filter and think that perfectly normal, chance occurrences are tied in with your story.’

Norah could feel an angry knot forming in her belly.

‘You think I’m completely bonkers, don’t you?’

There was a short pause.

‘You really are worried, aren’t you?’ Sandra said eventually.

She sounded pensive again.

‘On February 11 you’ll kill a man called Arthur Grimm,’ said Sandra. ‘It’s a trick to make you scared. The first prophecy’s free, after that you pay through the nose. That’s how it works.’

‘I know it sounds silly, but it didn’t seem to me like a trick. I haven’t seen the woman since. And she didn’t want money either—she just vanished.’

‘I think you should forget the whole thing,’ said Sandra. ‘She was just trying it on. Don’t worry about it.’

‘And the tarot card? In the hotel? Can you explain that?’ Norah asked.

‘You’re getting upset because someone dropped a tarot card?’

Norah didn’t reply. The line went quiet; she could hear Sandra thinking.

‘I’m going to ask you something,’ Sandra said after what felt like forever. ‘Promise me you won’t be angry.’

‘Promise. And now get on with it.’

‘Are you back on drugs?’ Sandra asked.

For a moment Norah sat there, open-mouthed.

Then she hung up.

22

Anthracite and asphalt greys and an icy rain as fine as needle points—only a couple of degrees colder and it would have been snow. The pale houses rising skywards on either side of Norah were the colour of dirty polar bear fur.