Tariq’s glare over his shoulder was withering. “That happens to be my birthday.” He turned back to the window. “Claudia told me that she was feeling much better, but she said she would not be able to see me for a while. She said that she had realized that she fell into old patterns easily. There was some tedious axiom she repeated, something about old friends, old habits. One of those mantras they employ to brainwash people in need.”

“You’re sure it was Claudia who called you?” I asked.

“Beyond the shadow of a doubt. I respected her wishes and kept my distance. I was in Pakistan most of the time, in any case. At the end of October I came back to New York and rang her. A woman answered and took a message, but Claudia did not return my call. I understood that she needed to do things her way, but I thought she could at least have a brief word with me. When I came back to New York again in December, I went by Claudia’s flat. That was on the twenty-first. A woman answered the door. She told me that Claudia could not see me, that Claudia did not want any contact with her old life.”

“What did the woman look like?”

“Dark hair, hazel eyes, fit. Too much makeup. About Claudia’s height, and a size four.” Tariq probably knew the woman’s bra size, too, though he relished the part of the gentleman too thoroughly to say such a thing. “She bore a passing resemblance to Claudia, the way that a lesser painter might copy a Gainsborough. None of the brilliance of the original, none of its charm, just a dull, flat imitation.”

“She looked kind of like Claudia, though?” I thought of the woman I’d seen in the morgue. Her rosebud mouth was like Claudia’s, only less plush. Her freckled skin didn’t have my sister’s porcelain perfection, but makeup could have evened up the differences. Claudia lived hard, but something in her bone structure or bearing or both made her stand out in any crowd. The woman I’d seen laid out on the slab was unremarkable, even though she must have been attractive in life.

“A transitory glimpse, shall we say,” Tariq answered. “She claimed to be Claudia’s sobriety companion.”

“What the hell’s a sobriety companion?” Jesse interjected. “Didn’t that seem strange to you?”

“I believe that some Hollywood celebrity had one, and now it is all the rage,” said Tariq. “It is a bodyguard one hires to guard against one’s own worst impulses. That was one of the reasons Claudia couldn’t see me anymore–her nanny would not allow it. That was why I didn’t find it strange. Not at the time.”

“But later…” I prompted.