—Look, it happened fast—all right? Sure, I was shocked. I’m not an animal…

—No, but you are a coward. It makes me sick, listening to this…

—All right, all right—cool it, okay? I don’t want any trouble. Christ, Gini, what is it with this guy? I’m trying to help…

—He’s angry, that’s all. He gets like that…

—Well, tell him to fucking well back off. He lays one finger on me, and I’m back in that police station, making a complaint. A formal complaint…

—You think so? Listen, Mitchell, by the time I’d finished with you, you wouldn’t be able to walk across to the station, let alone talk when you got there. You smile once more, and I’ll knock your teeth down your throat…

—Okay, okay—I’m nervous, that’s all. I smile when I get nervous. I told you—I’m not feeling so good. I’m thinking. I’m trying to remember. She was a pretty girl. She’d known him some time, I think. What was her name? Something beginning with ‘C’? Cecile? Claire? No—I’ve got it. Chantal, that was it. Brown hair. Brown eyes. About eighteen. That’s it…

The anger in Rowland’s voice had been perfectly genuine, Gini thought. He had exaggerated the threat, yes, and had produced the required effect; they had both slipped into the good cop/bad cop routine with ease, without prior discussion, and it had worked. But Rowland’s loathing for Mitchell, his banked anger, had been almost palpable. She had felt it radiating in the bar as Mitchell talked; she had watched it darken his face, and she could hear it again now. Indeed impetuous, not as controlled as he liked to pretend, she thought—and his anger had obtained a vital name, Chantal.

She felt a quick dart of excitement, rose, and turned back to Anneke’s address book. She riffled quickly through the pages, found the entry for Chantal again, and there, staring her in the face, but faint, right on the edge of the page so it was easy to miss, was the sign she had been looking for.

Her telephone was ringing. Gini half rose, turned back, stared at the entry. There, next to the address for Chantal, an address that was typed, was a tiny asterisk: an asterisk or a star, she thought with a sense of triumph. The telephone was still ringing. She crossed and picked it up.

It was Rowland McGuire, though he did not pause to identify himself. His voice was icy with anger.

“How many bars and cafés did you try before the Antica?” he said. “How many did you try after it? You’d like to put up a billboard, advertise on TV, perhaps? Maybe you’d be good enough to explain what in hell you thought you were doing? You gave me your word on this.”

He continued to speak. Gini stared at the wall as Rowland McGuire, gifted at invective, proceeded to take her apart stitch by stitch. She felt confused, then humiliated—and furious with herself. She knew there was no point in even trying to interrupt at this stage, and she was thinking hard.