“Yes. That does happen. On big stories. Occasionally.”

“Oh, this will be a very big story.” He sighed. “When this story breaks, I’m going to be famous. A celebrity. People will know my name, here, right across Europe, in America. You’re going to help make me a star.”

Gini was beginning to understand. She could see where he was taking her now, in every sense. They were now just off the rue du Faubourg St. Honoré; she could see the famous hôtel particulier that was the Cazarès headquarters. She could see the building immediately adjacent to its courtyard, where the collection would be shown. She could see the satellite dishes, the TV crews, the crowd of fashionably dressed people waiting for admittance, milling back and forth on the sidewalk. She hesitated, then said quietly, “A star? Star is one of the names you use, isn’t it? Sometimes you call yourself Star?”

“That’s right. You can call me that if you like—you know, when we’re just talking, when you interview me. But when you write the story up, you have to use my real name, the name on my birth certificate: Christophe Rivière. Slow—slow down. Make a right. Stop in front of those mews gates.”

Gini did as he commanded. She looked at the tall iron gates with the name Cazarès on a brass plaque attached to them. Beyond the gates was a narrow courtyard, and a line of twenty garages that once would have been stables and carriage houses for the great house behind which they were set. Star lifted a small electronic device, and the gates opened. He told her to drive to the end garage, where, with the same device, he opened a steel plate door. She drove in, stopped, and switched off the engine.

The lockup was small. There was just room for Star to help Madame Duval out. He drew the old woman to one side of the entrance and instantly returned.

Gini was sitting very still, staring in front of her. She knew what he was going to do. He was going to lock the doors. He was going to close and lock the doors and leave her here with a dead man in the trunk.

“Please,” she began in a low voice as he returned to her open window. “Please don’t lock me in here.”

“It won’t be for long,” he said in reassuring tones. “I’ll come back for you. Give me the car keys. Right, now, listen. There’s no car phone—I ripped it out. You can’t move the car. The doors are two-inch steel plate—high spec. No one’s going to hear you if you shout or hammer on the doors, because the other Cazarès cars are all out, lined up in the rue St. Honoré, waiting to collect the big names when the show is over. So no one’s coming back here for an hour and a half, at least—except me, of course. I won’t be long. Just wait until I do what I have to do. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, something I’ve been planning for a long time. Over a year now. Ever since I realized…”