A sense of incomprehension and outrage fought with shock. Wrapping a handkerchief around his hand, Rowland called Luc Martigny, then—the noise was unbearable—opened the cabinet door and released the cat. It streaked past him, down the stairs. Rowland backed out of the room; these silent sprawled bodies were sending out signals to him, they were telling him a story, and it was not simply a murder story, the atrocities here were more complex. He fumbled his way back down the stairs and waited in the doorway below for the police. He tried to steady his own breathing; he tried to listen to the memories in his head, Chantal the day before, Mina that morning, both women in very different languages explaining to him that although Star had these angers, he posed no sexual threat. “Please,” Mina had said, “please, he’s not really bad. He didn’t hurt me. He didn’t do anything to hurt me—please understand.”

Rowland stared hard at the black outline of the St. Séverin church. A light rain had begun to fall; he heard the approaching sirens, was dimly aware that Martigny and fellow officers were entering the building. He listened to their footsteps on the stairs, the muffled exclamations that escaped even these professionals. He could feel a deepening premonition and fear, a growing alarm. Where was Gini? He watched the church gargoyles arch above his head.

Martigny remained only a few minutes in Chantal’s apartment—Rowland registered that. When he returned, he took Rowland by the arm and led him across to a police car.

“I’ll explain in the car,” he said. Rowland listened in silence as they raced through the crowded streets. The air flashed blue and white with alarm; the sirens were at once outside him and inside his head.

“It isn’t just those two women back there,” Martigny began in a terse voice. “It’s five dead. Lazare himself; that maid Madame Duval, and a security guard on the rear gates—”

“And?” Rowland said.

“And now we know where this Star is. The call came in about five minutes ago. He’s at Mathilde Duval’s apartment. And I’m afraid he’s not alone. Your colleague—Genevieve Hunter—is with him. No, wait, listen. At gunpoint, as a hostage. But she isn’t alone. There’s a photographer with her, a man you may know—Pascal Lamartine.” Martigny hesitated. Rowland did not speak.

“The presence of another man… that improves the situation, perhaps.” Martigny glanced at him. “Of course—it is serious. Obviously so. Five people dead. Those women back there…” He hesitated again; Rowland met his gaze.

“He’d raped them, hadn’t he?”

“Yes. I’m afraid he had. Maybe before death, maybe after…” Martigny’s expression became closed. “Meanwhile—we need your help.”

When they reached the rue de Rennes, a grim-faced Martigny disappeared. He returned to Rowland to revise his roll call of the dead.

“Not five, six,” he said. “They’ve just towed the Mercedes. Believe me, you don’t want to see what’s in its trunk.”

He lit a cigarette, drew on it deeply. He and Rowland stood side by side in the rain, looking along the boulevard. They were still evacuating buildings, still bringing in the matériel for a siege. Crime-scene tapes fluttered; police cars, black vans, clustered; the street rang to the sound of booted feet.