The policeman leaned down and put his smooth face in her peripheral view. “Dr. Palmer, I don’t know who your husband is. I don’t know what he’s trying to accomplish. But I fear if it continues, he will end up like the man we’re looking at—or worse.”

Christine didn’t reply right away. As she stared at Bloch she felt her chin quiver, felt her eyes began to water. But then she was revived by something else. Trust. David had never let her down, and she had to trust him now more than ever. Buoyed by that, she looked Sjoberg firmly in the eye.

“No,” she said, “I will not tell you where he’s gone.”

Chapter 44

FORTY-FOUR

“I’m going to kill someone, I tell you!”

The Beau Rivage desk manager looked up most uncomfortably. “I beg your pardon, sir?”

Slaton kept to Continental-hued English, an accent that might have sourced him from any of a dozen of the upper countries. “That idiot at L’Ambassadeur. I booked his five best rooms for the second weekend in November, and now he tells me he has plumbing issues that must be addressed. He says he can give me no more than two rooms, and that the bridal suite is unavailable.”

“Quel désastre, monsieur! How can I be of service?”

The desk manager in front of Slaton was not the man who’d been on duty yesterday, the one he’d seen guiding the Iranians. A nametag presented this man as Henri. He was small and round and impeccably dressed, a confectioner’s bonbon suited in dove gray silk and a red tie.

“My sister is marrying the Viscount de Vesci that Sunday. The wedding is booked for the Basilica Notre-Dame, and I have been cursed with the thankless job of finding lodging. I would need your best available suite—you have a balcony on the top floor that overlooks the lake, yes?”

“Our finest.”

“And four more rooms for the rest of her party. Can you save me?”

“L’Ambassadeur,” the hotelier said, adding a tsk-ing noise as if to say, It is only to be expected. “Let me see what can be done.” He toyed with a computer for a short time before saying, “Yes, yes. The Bertrand Suite is available that weekend. And the other rooms—I can do something.”

“You are a miracle worker,” Slaton said. “But I must see the room before I can commit.”

“Ah—regrettably, monsieur, that room is occupied by a guest this weekend. Perhaps if you came back—”