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the chief’s grin widened. ‘And she seems to like you,’ he said. Gabriel felt the heat rise to his face and fidgeted in his chair; the older man gently laughed. ‘You’re spending far too much time with your head stuck in those journals of yours, Gabriel,’ he said, teasingly.
    Gabriel smiled shyly, and then lowered his eyes and drank some of his coffee. For some time now the chief had been encouraging Gabriel to ‘develop his social skills’, by which Gabriel understood him to mean ‘find a bride’.
    â€˜And how is Dorothea?’ the chief asked, almost as if he could read Gabriel’s mind. Dorothea was the unmarried daughter of Georg Roth, who owned a munitions factory on the outskirts of Vienna. Gabriel was carrying out part of his research in Roth’s factory, and it was here that he had first met the wealthy businessman’s attractive daughter.
    â€˜Well—’ Gabriel had begun to say, when at that moment a sudden explosion from outside made the café window rattle: a gasp of surprise came from one of the women sitting at the other occupied table. Gabriel had also been startled at the sound, and in the short silence that followed the detonation, he heard the rapid fluttering of wings as pigeons roosting on the roof of the café flew away. A moment later a second bang was heard, and then a third, and suddenly Gabriel realised what was happening. A startled-looking Moritz had already hurried over to the window to see what was going on, but the chief calmly pulled out his pocket watch, nodding his head as the explosions continued.
    â€˜It’s alright, Moritz,’ the chief said. ‘It’s not an anarchist attack, but the start, precisely on time, of the twenty-four-gun royal salute, from the cannons on the fortress.’
    â€˜Ach, what a fright,’ Moritz replied, his hands on his hips as he looked down at Gabriel. ‘It would have been nice if they had warned us they were going to fire the artillery. And on a Sunday morning as well.’
    Gabriel gently laughed at the look of indignant relief on Moritz’s face while the chief continued to concentrate on the cannonade. ‘Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four,’ the older man counted aloud, and then the echoes faded away to silence. ‘There you go, Moritz,’ he said. ‘Twenty-four royal accolades for the Archduke. That will have scared the pigeons away for a bit—’
    But now another explosion – sharper, louder, than the others – split the air, and the café windows rattled more violently than before. Gabriel sat up straight, realising immediately that something was wrong.
    â€˜Forgotten our maths, have we, chief?’ Moritz teased. But Gabriel could hear shouts and screams from outside, and the smile on Moritz’s face vanished as he and the chief stood and hurried past him towards the door and stepped outside. On the opposite side of the embankment, near the bridge, the two gendarmes Gabriel had seen earlier were struggling to wrestle a man to the ground. A smell of cordite and burning oil hung in the air, and fifty yards west along the embankment a stationary red-and-black open-top car was slewed diagonally across the road, greasy black smoke coming from underneath the bonnet. As Gabriel stepped out into the road and began to run towards the vehicle, he heard a sudden roar of a motor engine and then saw another car drive past the burning vehicle and speed towards him. He stepped back onto the pavement as a dark green open-top convertible accelerated past him: General Potiorek was sitting next to the driver and in the rear of the vehicle – wearing his distinct, green-feather-plumed ceremonial helmet – was the visibly unharmed figure of the Archduke; the duchess next to him was also uninjured. Gabriel watched the vehicle disappear east towards City Hall; then he stepped back into the road and sprinted towards the burning car. As