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the specific things. Between times you will not tell anyone of this conversation.”
    Webster smiled. “I’m afraid we don’t work like that.”
    Senechal shifted forward in his chair and leaned his elbows carefully on the table.
    “This matter is sensitive. Very sensitive. If we do not like the way you work, my client must have protection.”
    “Everything you say in this room is confidential. As is the fact that you’re here. But I’m afraid I won’t sign anything until I know who you work for.”
    Senechal’s eyes registered a moment’s confusion, as if he found something illogical. “This is a lucrative project. For a significant client.”
    “I won’t make commitments to a man I don’t know.”
    Senechal breathed in sharply, rubbed his chin, made to say something and after some internal calculation thought better of it. Fixing his gaze on Webster and letting him know by it what a foolish decision he had just made, he stood up. “Very well. We can go elsewhere. Thank you for your time.”
    Webster nodded and at that moment realized what had been troubling him: Senechal’s eyes did not belong in his face. Somewhere deep inside them, behind the gray irises, there was a fervor, all too alive, that his pallid body struggled to contain.
    He saw his peculiar visitor to the elevators, thanked him, and without anxiety filed him among Ikertu’s discarded clients, a motley group of suspicious husbands, miserly bankers and sinister fantasists whose cases were too slippery or too preposterous to take. The client who was too grand to be identified was a rare subclass that would usually have piqued his interest, but some strong instinct told him that he had been right not to compromise—that whatever conflicting forces drove this odd, unpalatable man they were not worth closer acquaintance.
    Senechal, though, was too ghostly not to haunt him, and he wasn’t surprised when he returned. Two days later an envelope had arrived at Ikertu’s offices, of the finest cream paper, addressed to Webster in looping black ink. It had been delivered by hand. The lettering was bold, just short of elaborate, and on the flap was embossed a capital Q. Inside was an invitation to Mehr’s memorial service and a note, in the same hand, on a small sheet of paper with another Q at its head:
    Dear Mr. Webster,
    I would be honored if you and Mr. Hammer would join me at this important service. We will have time to talk afterward. I may need to call upon your assistance.
    Yours sincerely,
    Darius Qazai
    Looking back, Webster thought that this had been a fitting introduction—grand, proper, apparently frank but in the end thoroughly calculated—but at the beginning he was intrigued, as anyone would be. Qazai had never been a target, nor a client, but if the rich lists were to be believed, it was only a matter of time before he became one or the other. And if this was Senechal’s master, he might become both.

3.
    A FTER THE SERVICE SENECHAL’S DRIVER took them west across town through Knightsbridge and Kensington, the sun now low ahead of them and London, all red brick and cream stucco, lit up with spring light. The trees of Hyde Park were newly in leaf. Hammer talked, as he always did, quizzing Senechal about his business, his acquaintances in Paris, his views on colonial corruption, Camus, football. Senechal’s replies were courteous, brief and unsatisfying. Webster watched the city glide past and listened to Hammer show off his range.
    The car eventually stopped outside a restaurant on an otherwise residential street in Olympia.
Lavash
, it was called:
Iranian cuisine, Berian our specialty
. It was early still, and they were the first people in the place. Senechal was clearly known here, and the manager ushered them through the cramped restaurant to a private room that gave onto a courtyard at the back of the building. The simple decoration did its best to conjure Iran. Two of the walls were hung with a gold fabric, a third with a dozen