Instead she had spent every free moment ringing round, trying to find someone to change the lock on her front door—not tomorrow or sometime in the next few days, but right away. She was still spooked out by the way things had gone missing from her flat lately, or appeared out of the blue. Who had a key to her flat? The landlord? The previous tenant?

As soon as she’d found a locksmith, she sped home in a taxi and waited as he replaced the lock. Then she went back to Kärntner Strasse and looked for Walcher’s Bar, the place mentioned by the man who’d said he could get hold of Dorotea’s address for her. He grinned when he saw her. She thrust thirty euros at him and he took the money without a word, noting down in exchange the name Dorotea Lechner and an address. She would have liked to set off immediately, but it would have to wait; she had work to do. Back at the office, she put the finishing touches to her interview with Michael, ignoring repeated calls from Max. Why was he bothering? He’d clearly been so keen to avoid having her at the dinner that he’d lied so as not to have to invite her. Luckily, Norah had no time to get upset; Berger had asked her to cover for Luisa who was off sick, so she had to leave for the private viewing as soon as she was done with the interview. She ran all the way to the first district in high heels so as not to miss her appointment with the gallerist.

The original plan had been to talk to the artist before looking at the exhibition, but the artist had let Norah know in no uncertain terms that she saw no point in furnishing her with explanations of her work. The gallerist was more amenable—a tall, slim woman with unnaturally firm waxen skin, almost colourless hair, bright-red lipstick and two realistic-looking snakes twisted into a heavy chain around her neck. Her cool manner gave her a Nordic air, but she spoke with a delicious Viennese accent and turned out to be something of a pro, with a good stock of anecdotes that made the artist’s work instantly intriguing. A bare fifteen-minute interview gave Norah all the material she needed and at last she could turn her attention to the exhibition.

The drawings were followed by oil paintings and Norah was surprised to see that the artist worked even more brilliantly in oils than in pen and wash. She stopped at a painting alongside a couple in their mid-sixties, drinking champagne: he in jeans and a jacket, with a full head of white hair; she blonde and heavily made-up, wearing low-denier black tights under a turquoise dress.

It was a hyperrealistic painting of the ocean at night. The waves—so dark and viscous that they resembled oil more than water—looked as if they might slosh out of the picture at any moment.