A bit of a walk would do her good, help her to unwind. For days she’d been able to think of nothing but Grimm. When she’d heard that he had made it to the police station before her, she’d been desperate; even Sandra couldn’t calm her down.

I’ll finish you off. I mean it.

Arthur Grimm was not the kind of man to play games, Norah was sure of that. He was deadly serious. The only question was why? Why was he so aggressive towards her? What did he think he knew about her? And what about Dorotea Lechner? Had she and Grimm known each other? Had he maybe…? No, Norah told herself sharply. Lechner’s death was an accident. The police had said so. It was a fact. And Norah was a journalist, not a conspiracy theorist. She stuck to facts.

Perhaps none of it had anything to do with her. Perhaps Grimm was mentally disturbed, paranoid. But she didn’t believe it. She was sure he had some reason for behaving towards her the way he had. What really got to her, though, was the feeling that she was staring at the solution without seeing it—unable to see the wood for the trees.

To her left was the first roller coaster, its red rails bright against the blue winter sky. To her right was the ghost train. Norah smiled—she’d always loved ghost trains as a child. Next to a sign saying Tickets was a picture of the grim reaper and Norah was reminded of the tarot card she had found in the Imperial. She went on her way.

Shooting gallery, bumper cars, swings. Postcards with your photo.

Norah turned around. So this was the Prater. She headed slowly for the exit. Back on the street, she hailed a taxi. The Prater, with its big wheel and all the booths and ghosts and shadows disappeared behind her, but she didn’t look back.

Twenty minutes later, she was home.

Norah unlocked the front door and set off up the stairs. Halfway up, though, she stopped and turned back—she’d forgotten to check the post.

In her letterbox was a photo of Valerie.

34

She woke knowing it was the middle of the night; some primitive instinct told her that she was at the darkest point in the day’s cycle.

She didn’t open her eyes, didn’t move. Pretending was something she had learnt at an early age. If you held yourself in the right way and acted confident, you really did feel better in the end. If you were caring and friendly towards someone, you sooner or later felt genuinely fond of them. And if you pretended to sleep—lay calm and relaxed, and concentrated on breathing slowly—you often really did fall asleep.

Norah lay there, thinking of Valerie. She tried not to think of anything, but the events of the last few days pushed their way to the surface, and scenes and faces flashed into her mind—a series of rapidly cut shots, like footage of a fairground ride spinning faster and faster, slinging its passengers out of its orbit, their arms and legs flying.