In Vienna, the safest thing to be is nobody. November, 1961. Lotte Wendeler translates dull letters for the British Legation, and for eleven years has carried small tins for a tobacconist who never explained why. Then the old man steps onto the number 46 tram, says "excuse me" to a stranger, and is dead before the next stop. The police call it a heart attack. The Legation wants it quiet. Lotte is the only person who knows what he was carrying, and someone already knows she knows. A chess-playing neighbour with a secret of her own, a twelve-year-old with a pipe she should not have, and a deputy who is far too eager to help: in a city of coffee houses and closed doors, every kindness has a price. The quiet season has begun.