“To kill. Like he killed Rigalle and his family and the Houdin family. He would have succeeded if we hadn’t been out to dinner.” Nazari’s eyes were wide and rimmed in dark circles. She was losing it.

I said, “Not he, they. One person couldn’t have done that to the Rigalle family and the Houdins. Not alone. There were at least three perpetrators.” She was looking away, distracted. I said, “Look at me now.” She looked at me. I came closer and put my hand on her shoulders, “They won’t succeed because I’m between them and you. I won’t let that happen.”

“How can you take on three killers?”

“I can take three guys.”

She looked at me for a long moment. “I didn’t call the police station.”

“Why not?”

She reached in her pocket and withdrew a folded slip of paper. “I found this in my locker. It’s from Alain. I found it just now, at the station. He must have put it in there today, while I was with you.” She handed the folded sheet of office paper to me. I unfolded it.

The sheet was regular office printer paper. In the middle of the page was a rectangular wide-angle photograph of Nazari, taken by one of those tiny cameras built into computers. She was looking into the computer monitor. Beneath the rectangular photo was a scribbled note in ball-point pen, ‘This is dangerous. We need to talk. Face to face, no phones, no computers. Come to the house. Don’t speak to anyone about it. - Alain’

I looked at her for an explanation. She said, “When I told you that I checked the blue Opel registration, it wasn’t that simple. I’m not an investigator yet, so I don’t have my own computer. This morning I went by the station. I knew that Alain wouldn’t be at work and I used the computer in his office to do the registration look-up.” She looked up at me. “And now he’s dead, and they’ve broken into my place as well.”

“In that case, you did the right thing not calling the station. No phones no computers, that means the lines of communication are compromised.” I handed the note back to her and she started folding it.

Nazari nodded, as if she already knew that, which she probably did. She said, “You never said why you wanted me to look up that plate registration.”

“I did. I thought I was being followed the other night. Two guys in a blue Opel Corsa.”

“So maybe you were being followed.”

“Yeah, maybe I was.”