Star did not answer the first two of those questions for several days. He answered the third there and then.

“They’re famous,” he said. “Very famous. World famous.” To Mina’s horror, his face suddenly convulsed; she thought for one horrible moment that he was about to hit her.

“The woman is Maria Cazarès,” he said. “And the man with her is known as Jean Lazare.”

Maria Cazarès cared about cars. In Paris, Lazare kept four on permanent call. Telephoning from the villa outside Fez that morning, he had instructed them to send the car he had purchased for Maria’s birthday two years before. It had been hand-built for a member of the Krupp family in 1937. They possessed later Rolls-Royces, but Maria found their detailing less stringent—she preferred a prewar Rolls.

To travel in the back of this vehicle was to be cocooned from the world. Glass panels protected them from their driver; tinted glass screened them from the gaze of passersby. Lazare leaned back against the thick leather seats, upholstered in the finest hand-stitched Connolly hide. The only sound was the faint and reassuring whisper of the car’s wheels. The air smelled of Maria’s scent, of jonquils and narcissus, of the most delicate spring flowers. It was the first, and still the most celebrated of the Cazarès perfumes, L’Aurore. Lazare closed his eyes briefly. He had not slept the previous night. He was no longer young; recently, he had been discovering just what it did to a man to sleep only fitfully, and to wake always tired.

He felt Maria stir beside him and opened his eyes. She was pressing her face to the window glass, staring out at the passing streets. Her small, gloved hands clenched and unclenched in her lap. She suddenly swung around.

“Jean, tell him to turn off. I want to see Mathilde. It’s days since I saw her. I want to see her now.”

“Darling, no.” Lazare reached across and took her hand. “You called her four times from Morocco. It’s Sunday. It’s still early. You’ll wear her out, darling. You forget—she’s not young anymore.”

“I miss her. I wish she lived with us still. You shouldn’t have sent her away, Jean.”

“Darling, I didn’t.” He sighed. “She retired. I bought her that nice apartment, she has her own maid…”

“She was my maid. She was like a mother to me. She understands me. And now you’ve banished her.”

“Banished? Darling, you know that’s foolish.” Lazare, who had indeed never liked Mathilde Duval, a severe, hard-faced peasant woman from Provence, controlled his temper. Mathilde had looked after Maria for more than twenty years; she was possessive, secretive, a man-hater who worshiped at Maria’s shrine—but he had not banished her. Encouraged her retirement at most—but then, Mathilde had been worn out by the stress of the last five years.

“Listen,” he went on. “You can see her tomorrow, darling. When you feel stronger. When you’ve had time to rest.” He paused, trying to think of some means of distraction. “Forget Mathilde for the moment, darling—why don’t you show me the things you bought?”