“Missing? I wish it were so. She will always turn up, just at the wrong time, like a black penny.” Tatiana shook her head with obvious frustration. “Tariq would marry me if not for her. She is black magic.” She turned her head towards the girl, who was surveying the room with obvious despair. “You must clean this up. I will call Dr. Khan. Tariq is not to hear of this, understand?”

“Yes, Tati,” said the girl. I felt sorry for her, and my estimation of Tariq dropped further. It was bad enough that he was stashing a cheap replica of my sister in his apartment, but worse that he had imported an underage girl from Pakistan as a servant. Slave was probably more like it.

“I told you not to call me that! It is bad enough Tariq does it.” Tati narrowed her eyes at me. “Your sister gives me this awful nickname, and now it is all Tariq will call me. That is her power over him.”

“Where is Tariq?” I asked.

“In Pakistan,” Tatiana said dismissively. She got to her feet and hobbled towards a doorway. I had an impulse to throw something at her, but there was no point. Tati hated my sister, but she was afraid of Claudia and of her hold over Tariq. She had no idea where my sister was.

“Sorry,” said the girl. She knelt and picked up some of the larger shards of crystal and porcelain from the table I’d knocked over. “Could I bring you some tea, perhaps?”

“No, thank you.” I braced myself to stand.

“You look like Claudia, much more than Tati does,” the girl observed. “Are you really Claudia’s sister?” I nodded, and the girl looked at me as if she recognized me for the first time. “You’re Lily. Oh, my. I am very glad to meet you. My name is Padma. I have heard about you.”

“Really? What have you heard?”

She smiled shyly and bowed her head. Nothing good, that was what I’d thought. I stood and collected my coat from the sofa. The knee that had taken the brunt of my fall ached. “Claudia was here at the beginning of September,” Padma said.

“Pardon?”

“You wished to know the date that Claudia was last here,” she said, her head bowed. “I believe it was September twelve, but I should check the date. It was certainly that weekend.”

“Why do you remember that? That’s almost four months ago.”

“It was just before Tariq left for Pakistan,” said Padma. “I remember that.”

“You saw Claudia?”

The girl nodded, glancing at the doorway that Tati had exited through. “Claudia hadn’t been by all summer. Tariq was often away as well, but he missed her. They are very close.”

“Did something happen with Tati that day?”