Saskia Ehrhardt

Saskia Ehrhardt is 26 and presents herself as the heiress to a German fortune she has never had to prove to anyone. She speaks English with an accent that seems rehearsed in front of the mirror and never says a number without adding the word millions. She has lived at the Hotel Larkspur since February, in a suite she treats as an extension of her wardrobe, and hands out hundred-dollar bills the way others hand out good mornings.

In her mind, the future is in the FlatironFlatiron Manhattan neighborhood in New York, named after a famous triangular skyscraper.: an old building she wants to turn into a private art club, with a gallery, a restaurant and hand-picked members. She spends her afternoons walking the empty hall, with its high ceilings and worn oak floor, describing to whoever accompanies her where each painting, each table, each door that opens only to those she authorizes will go. In her view, this city still has nothing worthy of it.

She wears a cream silk blouse and a black designer blazer, and around her neck a black velvet choker she almost never removes. Her face is thin, with high cheekbones, and bears the bored expression of someone waiting to be served. She wears thick black-framed glasses and gives orders to the staff in a tone too polite to be a request. Until yesterday, she says, the whole hotel called her by name and opened the door smiling.

About the trip to Marrakech, her account is short: her friend covered it on her card because hers was blocked, and she will pay it back. She finds it inelegant that anyone should collect that from a friend, and even more that anyone should collect it from her. An apartment is a bother, she repeats, a hotel has people for everything, and money, when you truly have it, is other people's problem.

When the question suggests the fortune is an invention, Saskia answers with a "Do you know who you're talking to?" and warns that she will say nothing more without her lawyer. She straightens her choker, looks at the detective's watch like someone demanding the time and leaves a question hanging in the air: an heiress's arrogance or a well-memorized rehearsal?