‘Do you think I’m overreacting?’

‘Oh, please—your supposedly best friend lied to you! I wouldn’t want to talk to him either if I were you.’

‘Maybe he wants to apologise.’

Theresa gave a derisive snort.

‘Do you really want to know what I think?’

‘Go on.’

‘I think you can do without friends like that.’

Norah felt gloom descend on her and drowned it in another glass of the red wine she’d brought with her. She knew she’d have to have it out with Max sometime. But right now she was still too hurt.

The bastard, as Theresa had taken to calling her ex, hadn’t reappeared. Theresa was sitting on the sofa next to Norah, barefoot in jeans and a woolly jumper, prattling on about her seminars, her dishy professor, a novel she was reading, a hip new bar that had opened in Margareten. Norah’s mind wandered.

After finding Dorotea Lechner’s body in the canal, she had thrown herself into her work more than ever, but the strain of the last few days was making itself felt. The police officers in charge of the case were still convinced that the woman’s death was an accident and Norah accepted that. But what about the man who had appeared outside her house that evening and stared up at her flat? And who had written those strange texts? There was something else, too. Somewhere at the back of Norah’s mind, some dark, murky knowledge was stirring, struggling to reach the surface and connect with the recent goings-on. A shred of memory? A hunch? Norah was plagued by the feeling that she’d seen something important, but ignored it or misread the signs. It was like having an eyelash in her eye that refused to be dislodged.

‘Crocodile tears, schadenfreude, whitewash, iceberg,’ Theresa was saying and Norah resurfaced from her thoughts.

‘Sorry, what?’ she said, halfway between confusion and amusement.

‘Oh, nothing,’ Theresa replied. ‘You didn’t seem to be listening to me, that’s all.’

Norah laughed.

‘I’m sorry.’

Theresa grinned, then grew serious again.

‘What’s up with you?’

‘Do you remember the weird fortune teller I told you about the other day?’

‘Of course.’

‘She’s dead.’

Theresa, who had just sucked on her joint again, choked on the smoke.

‘My God! What happened?’

‘Accident,’ said Norah.

That was what they’d told her at the police station anyway: a tragic accident.

She thought about the results of her internet research on Dorotea Lechner. Born in 1948 to a Serbian mother and an Austrian father, she’d been an actor and had lots of parts in small theatres, even landing a few film roles in the eighties. As she grew older, though, it had become harder to find work, and at some point she must have fallen on hard times. Google had yielded nothing, of course, but Norah could imagine.

‘Oh my God, how awful,’ Theresa said gravely.

Norah had expected her to ask hundreds of questions, but she didn’t. Silence spread. Only Katinka minced nervously back and forth.