Out of the corner of her eye, Max saw Le Goff’s face twitch at this. She did her best wide-eyed-disbelief face. “I don’t believe that could possibly work,” she said. “It looks too real. I don’t believe that we could all have been fooled by some ordinary quartz. That’s just silly.”

“Well, it worked at Fort Vaults,” snapped her great-aunt, “so I think we can assume that people can be fooled. But really, Commandant, you ought to have learned the difference by now.”

Max beamed at her. “Thank you,” she said, “very much.”

Le Goff’s eyebrows had shot up, and he was murmuring to the translator, who murmured to the Turkish policeman in charge, who raised his eyebrows to match – and produced a pair of handcuffs. Great-Aunt Elodie’s stiff indignation stiffened even more. “But it’s qua—”

“Madame Morel,” said Le Goff, “I don’t believe you. And I am afraid I now have no choice but to believe your great-niece.” He did his especially-firm-jaw, and just for a moment, he looked like a commandant doing his job properly. “The details of how the heartbreak diamond was copied have not been released to the public. Nobody knew that the copy was made of quartz. Nobody besides the management at Fort, the police force – and the thieves themselves.”

“HA!” shouted Ester, from the back.

“Got them! Meddlers! Got them!” screeched the parrot. The nearest bird opened his eyes in surprise, and chirruped. The next bird heard him, and she stirred too. One by one, around the house, the jewelled birds heard the call, twitched their wings, and started to sing.

15. Istanbul (Properly)

The Turkish police offered Max and Marguerite a fancy hotel to stay in, but they went to stay with Salem instead, sleeping on cushions on the floor of his flat. That night, the three of them stayed up swapping stories. First, Max and Marguerite told Salem everything that had happened at the house, right up to the moment Suzanne Leroy and Great-Aunt Elodie had been handcuffed and taken away. Max remembered, but didn’t try to describe, how her great-aunt’s eyes had darted leftrightupdown as they took her to the police car, and how she had never dropped that small smile.

Then Salem told stories. He was a wonderful storyteller. He told them about the unlikely adventures that he had ended up on thanks to Sister Marguerite. He told them funny stories about his wife, Anne, and their young lives in Paris, and how scatty and kind she was. They had a zoo full of inconvenient pets that had needed looking after, and if Anne found anything injured, she would bring it home.

“Only Anne,” he laughed, “would bring a goose back to our tiny flat.” And some of the soft dough of his face folded into laughter lines, and some of it folded into sorrow, all at the same time.