‘What do you want?’ he asked tonelessly.

‘Valerie Fischer,’ Norah said.

The effect of the name on Grimm was remarkable. His eyes widened, his lips parted—for a split second, he looked genuinely stunned. Then he recovered himself.

‘Who are you talking about?’ he asked coldly.

‘You know that as well as I do. It’s written all over your face.’

Grimm stared at her, then looked around the cafe, but nobody had noticed them. He shook his head and Norah could see a thought taking shape in him; something in his face shifted almost imperceptibly.

‘Listen,’ he said, suddenly and unconvincingly well-meaning. ‘I didn’t do anything to your little friend. And now please leave me in peace or I’ll call the police.’

Grimm rose, slapped a few euros on the table, took his coat and left the coffee house. Norah saw no point in running after him; he’d told her everything she needed to know.

The bang of the car door, the taxi driver’s greeting, the traffic, the rain that had just set in—Norah heard everything as if through cotton wool and her hands were trembling so much that she had to press her palms against her thighs to still them. Grimm’s words echoed in her head as if in an empty ballroom.

I didn’t do anything to your little friend.

All Norah had done was say Valerie’s name.

If he was innocent, why did he react the way he did?

If he was innocent, how did he know that Valerie was her friend? Or that anyone had done anything to her? Norah had told him nothing.

She had suspected it for some time, but knowing for sure was different; it did something to her. It was her call now.

She walked the last block to her flat. A few metres from her front door, she raised her eyes from the pavement and saw a poster pasted onto a wall—big black letters on a bright pink background.

THERE IS MORE THAN ONE DEATH.

THE ONE THAT CARRIES US OFF IS ONLY THE LAST.

Back in her flat, Norah looked about her, bewildered. She hadn’t been gone an hour, but everything looked different, as if someone had taken her world and shifted all the things in it by a millimetre or two.

She sat down at her desk, looked at her notes and resumed the train of thoughts that she had previously forbidden herself to follow through to the end.

She put her slips of paper in order and went through all the facts, one by one.

Grimm lived alone. She was sure of that now. He was alone. No wife, no children.

Norah noticed how quiet it was in her flat. Only the hum of the fridge and the occasional creaking floorboard. She, too, was alone. Nobody rang at her door, nobody called her, she had no one. The only person who had ever understood her had been taken away from her by Grimm. She had nothing to lose. The thought gave her sudden strength. Norah took a piece of paper and began to write.