“Oh, then they’ve released that much…” Lindsay said.

“I imagine they had no choice. Some French journalist will have been handing out hundred-franc bills to the ambulance crew within half an hour of her death’s being rumored, let alone announced. There were paparazzi crawling all over that hospital—that was on the news too.”

Rowland bent over the desk. He angled the light. Gini, who had not looked up once during this exchange, still kept her eyes on the map. Rowland began to trace streets with his right hand; he rested his left on the back of Gini’s chair, then removed it.

“You’re right,” he said. “It is very close…”

Their hands were now, Lindsay saw, lying side by side on the map, about four inches apart. Gini remarked in a low voice that it was an expensive area of Paris, not an area where you would expect retired maids to live. Rowland agreed that this was so. He glanced at his watch and drew back. A series of utterly unremarkable movements: Lindsay rose, intent only on disguising her shock and distress.

Had her evening with Markov been less strange, she thought, had she not had that conversation with him about love and sex, she might even have been deceived by those unremarkable movements and accepted them as such. As it was, she could sense the electricity and tension they were designed to disguise; she could sense that it was Rowland and Gini’s united wish that she leave—and that she do so at once.

Meanwhile, she had to pretend that Rowland’s urgent desire to take Gini in his arms was not as nakedly visible to her as if the act had been performed. Luckily, neither was paying her much attention, and she could dissemble, when required, well enough. She rose, stretched, and said she must get some sleep, that there were two shows tomorrow—Chanel and Gaultier as well as the Cazarès press conference.

Gini nodded and gave her a dazed look.

Rowland, who also looked half blind, escorted her to the door. He said he would certainly try to be at that press conference; Gini said she would too, if she had time, though it was unlikely to be useful.

“Party-line stuff,” she said. “Still, if Lazare himself is going to speak… I’ll try and come with you, Rowland.”

“Good night, Lindsay,” Rowland said, opening the door, and closing it behind her at once. Lindsay stood for a second in the corridor; she was shaking; she pressed her hands against her face. This couldn’t be true, she thought. Rowland, perhaps—but not Gini, surely not Gini?

She heard Rowland engage the lock and chain before she was two feet away. She returned to her room, paced, found herself unable to sleep. She tried very hard not to imagine what might have been said behind that locked door after she left.

Very little, in fact, was said. As the door closed, Gini bent again to the map; she did not dare to look up. She heard the lock engage; she heard Rowland approach, then stop.