She shrugged. “We did a good routine. Not original, but tried and true. And we were lucky with the timing. I just wish he could have told us more. This Star’s real name, for example.” She gave a half-smile. “An address. That might have helped. Something concrete.”

“I can follow up on the Dutch girl. Anneke. Her father’s a diamond merchant. I got the details from the police just now.” Rowland’s tone was flat. He was staring through the windshield at the parking lot.

“What else?” Gini glanced at him. “There’s something more.”

“They completed the postmortem. An hour ago. Cassandra’s death was drug-related. They won’t know exactly what she took until they complete the toxicology reports.”

“How long?”

“They say three days minimum. It could be much more.”

He released the brake and let in the gears without further comment. They reversed out of the parking lot and into a complicated maze of streets. The shops were closing, and the traffic was heavy. Neither spoke; finally, they cleared the outskirts of the city and turned off on quieter country roads. For a while Rowland concentrated on their route, with which he was not familiar; these winding roads had to be taken with some caution in the dark. Before him, the tarmac dipped and curved. They had entered a section of beech woods; trees arched overhead, creating a tunnel. Rowland slowed. When they reached a straighter, more open section, he glanced once more toward Gini, who—unusually for a woman, he thought—had remained silent all this while.

Her face was obscured from him by darkness. The Land Rover was drafty, and it was cold. She was sitting huddled in her coat, her bare hands clasped in her lap; around her throat was a shamrock-green woolen scarf. Above it Rowland could just glimpse the pale curve of the nape of her neck. Her hair, longer at the front and the sides, was cropped very short at the back. It was an odd, ragged haircut, like that of a very young boy, and for some reason it touched him. It gave her an air of vulnerability he had not noticed before; it looked as if she had cut it herself—and with a pair of blunt scissors too.

Rowland wondered if that was the case, and if so, why. He wondered if she had indeed broken up with the celebrated Pascal Lamartine, as Max had suggested. He wondered if her silence meant that she was retreating again, like the princess in his story, behind that glass wall.

He decided it was time to speak, to make some kind of overture.

“Anyway,” he said. “We did get some hard information—or you did. The police ought to be able to locate Mina now. It’s a distinctive car. They’re distinctive people. A man that good-looking, dressed in that way. A very young girl, with red hair… If they’re still together, of course.”

“Oh, I think they’re together,” she replied. “I’m sure they are.”

“Any particular reason?” He glanced toward her curiously. There was no sign of any glassy resistance, he noted. She had spoken in a normal way, with an odd air of certitude.