Description

You're walking hurriedly down the platform, veering around the crowds of well-wishers, anxiously looking over your shoulder for the men pursuing you. Are they behind you? You can't see them in the crowd. Your perfectly coiffed hair brushes your perfectly tailored suit-clad shoulders as you glance up at the number next to the door of the train car next to you. This is the one listed on your ticket - the one that will take you to Vienna and away from this place that has brought you nothing but trouble since the day you arrived.

The whistle sounds its final warning and the train hisses and rumbles. If they've followed you, they'll be able to see you as you step up out of the safety of the crowd and onto the train and you hesitate. You must hurry, and you place one suede pump up onto the step, and allow the train porter to take your hand. You glance once more down the platform, and your heart skips a beat as you see two familiar figures - one tall and pale and wearing a black hat and the other short with a thick mustache and fat fingers. Do they see you? You can't be sure, but now the train is moving and you walk towards your first-class quarters, where your luggage is waiting.

All except one bag, that is. In your hand is your green and red leather bound travelling case carrying your grandmother's brooch, your hairbrush, your favourite tube of red lipstick, a small silver flask, and sewn inside its striped satin lining, a key to a safety deposit box in Vienna.

Updated Nov 25, 2006