The old woman she had seen begging earlier was standing right in front of her, so tall that Norah had to look up at her. She reached into her bag and pulled out her wallet to put a few euros in her dish.

‘You bring death,’ the woman said, her husky voice calm.

Norah frowned. ‘What did you say?’

The woman seemed not to hear.

‘Flowers wither,’ she said. ‘Clocks stop. Birds fall dead from the sky.’

Her grave stare was still fixed on Norah. Her hair was darker, her eyes brighter and her wrinkles deeper than Norah had realised. The pale turquoise of her irises was flecked with specks of red, like the tiny particles of blood in the yolk of an egg.

It suddenly occurred to Norah that the woman was mentally ill.

‘On February 11 you will kill a man called Arthur Grimm in the Prater,’ the woman continued. ‘With good reason. And of your own free will.’

Norah didn’t know what to say. She had just opened her mouth to speak when someone or something rammed into her from behind, making her stumble and drop the papers she was carrying. A few loose sheets slipped to the ground and she stooped to pick them up.

By the time she had straightened back up, the woman had vanished. Norah looked about her in bewilderment. A group of Chinese tourists shoved past her, then a young couple with a pram. Where had she gone? Desperately scanning the street, Norah pushed her way between two football fans in Rapid Vienna scarves. The woman was so tall she ought to have stood out above the crowd, but she was nowhere to be seen; it was as if the earth had swallowed her up. Shame, thought Norah, she looked like a woman with a tale to tell.

But it had been slightly unnerving.

4

A supermarket, a bookshop, a university building, a drugstore, restaurants, antique shops, a dolls’ hospital, a shop selling guns. On a house wall, a row of posters, each printed with a single huge letter, spelt out the words: ARE YOU SURE? Norah tried to fix everything in her memory. This was her neighbourhood now—this was home. But it would be a while before she stopped feeling like a tourist.

She looked up. The tram wires cut through the blue of the sky, making beautiful geometric patterns, like shattered glass. The houses were grand and imposing, just like all over the city. What was going on up there, behind those windows? Were people arguing? Watching TV? Cooking? Watering their flowers, committing adultery, committing murder?

As a child, she had often wished for x-ray eyes so that she could see through walls and find out what was happening on the other side—what kind of people lived there and what they got up to. These days she was sometimes glad not to have to know the distressing details—to see only the gleaming facades.

Her new flat was big and empty. No Alex, no dog—only echoes and shadows and bare walls. She’d tried to call Alex back, but hadn’t got through. Part of her was glad. She clapped shut her laptop, unable to concentrate on the notes she’d been trying to make. An old, dark thought had been stirring in her all day, and now there was no ignoring it.