‘She didn’t leave a letter?’ Norah’s mother asked.

Nobody said anything.

‘Oh, God, her poor parents.’ Norah’s mother clapped her hand to her mouth, smudging her lipstick—apparently without noticing.

Norah’s heart was pounding so loudly that she thought everyone in the room must be able to hear it. Didn’t it strike them as strange that bookish Valerie, with her dreams of being an author and her constant scribbling, hadn’t left a note? Norah wanted to say something, but her mouth was too dry, her tongue too heavy; it felt as if someone had rammed a cobblestone into her mouth. The younger policeman threw his colleague a glance of annoyance.

‘Even if there was a note,’ he said, ‘it wouldn’t make a difference. All the evidence points to Valerie choosing to depart this life.’

Norah wondered how much thought he’d given his choice of words. Had he deliberately avoided saying killing herself, taking her life, putting an end to it all, committing suicide, and decided on choosing to depart this life? Her mind began to freewheel through increasingly absurd expressions for this act she couldn’t get her head round, no matter what anyone called it. Did herself in. Did away with herself. Ended it all. Topped herself. Committed felo de se. And that night, when she lay in bed under the sky of glow-in-the-dark stars that had watched over her sleep all through her childhood, her mind drifted on—there was no stopping it—on and on, into the bleaker territory of fairytale. Norah tossed and turned. Got up, sat down, got up again, paced up and down her room, went into the kitchen, had a drink of water, sat at her desk, got up, went to the window, looked out, turned away, sat on her bed, lay down, closed her eyes, opened them, started over again. It wasn’t the thought of Valerie’s dead body that was so unbearable—though it was. Nor was it the thought of death. What drove her mad was imagining the moments before she did it. The pain, the fear, the loneliness.

Norah returned to the present and took a gulp of wine. Whoever was writing her these late-night texts wanted her to remember. And Norah remembered; it all came back to her. Those old-fashioned village policemen and their half-hearted investigations. And her teenage self—the victim’s best friend—blithely confirming their conjecture.

When Norah fell asleep that night, she dreamt she saw a stag beetle creeping over Valerie’s lifeless arm.

38

The next morning Norah woke shivering, worn out by the night, her bare legs cold and aching from desolate dreams. The noise was back. It had changed, from a whispering buzz, a gathering hum, to something deeper, more erratic. To a creaking and groaning, a bursting. It must sound like that in the Arctic, Norah thought, when a crack opened up in the ice.

Loneliness filled the rooms as if there were suddenly an iceberg in her Vienna flat, bluey white and hard as granite. She drank her coffee and left for work without washing up the cup, knowing she’d be annoyed at her own slovenliness when she got back in the evening. On her way past the bistro on the corner, she saw the three old ladies smoking at their usual table, and a small smile stole over her face. Some things, at least, didn’t change. She went in and ordered an espresso and applied herself to the newspaper that someone had left on the table.