‘But you told me yesterday how it happened.’

‘That was how they described it in the papers.’

‘Was he in great pain?’

‘He was dead. I looked right down from my window here and I saw his face. I know when a man is dead. You see, it is, in a way, my business. I am the head clerk at the mortuary.’

‘But the others say that he did not die at once.’

‘Perhaps they don’t know death as well as I do.’

‘He was dead, of course, when the doctor arrived. He told me that.’

‘He was dead at once. You can take the word of a man who knows.’

‘I think, Herr Koch, that you should have given evidence.’

‘One must look after oneself, Herr Martins. I was not the only one who should have been there.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘There were three people who helped to carry your friend to the house.’

‘I know – two men and the driver.’

‘The driver stayed where he was. He was very much shaken, poor man.’

‘Three men …’ It was as though suddenly, fingering that bare wall, his fingers had encountered, not so much a crack perhaps, but at least a roughness that had not been smoothed away by the careful builders.

‘Can you describe the men?’

But Herr Koch was not trained to observe the living: only the man with the toupée had attracted his eyes – the other two were just men, neither tall nor short, thick nor thin. He had seen them from far above, foreshortened, bent over their burden; they had not looked up, and he had quickly looked away and closed the window, realizing at once the wisdom of not being seen himself.

‘There was no evidence I could really give, Herr Martins.’

No evidence, Martins thought, no evidence! He no longer doubted that murder had been done. Why else had they lied about the moment of death? They wanted to quieten with their gifts of money and their plane ticket the only two friends Harry had in Vienna. And the third man? Who was he?

He said, ‘Did you see Herr Lime go out?’

‘No.’

‘Did you hear a scream?’

‘Only the brakes, Herr Martins.’

It occurred to Martins that there was nothing – except the word of Kurtz and Cooler and the driver – to prove that in fact Harry had been killed at that precise moment. There was the medical evidence, but that could not prove more than that he had died, say, within a half-hour, and in any case the medical evidence was only as strong as Dr Winkler’s word: that clean controlled man creaking among his crucifixes.

‘Herr Martins, it just occurs to me – you are staying in Vienna?’

‘Yes.’

‘If you need accommodation and spoke to the authorities quickly, you might secure Herr Lime’s flat. It is a requisitioned property.’

‘Who has the keys?’

‘I have them.’

‘Could I see the flat?’

‘Ilse, the keys.’