The Roubaud Connection Read online

  Halfway to the door, Amin turned around and looked at Colin. “You might want to tell your president that this will definitely become an unfriendly incident if we find out you have our artefacts and are not returning them to us.”

  Vinnie pretended to take a step forward and smiled when Daniel put his hand out to stop him. He winked at Amin, his smile widening when the other man turned around and walked to the door. We watched in silence until the door closed behind them.

  “Should we put a shadow on them?” Pink asked as he walked towards us.

  “My first answer is ‘yes’.” Daniel thought about this for a second. “No. I don’t think that’s a good idea. If they make us, it might get very ugly. I’m glad Colin stopped the interview. Politically, this is too sensitive. We need to get the brass involved.”

  “What the bleeding hell is wrong with you?” Manny stormed towards us, shaking his finger at Vinnie. “Have you completely lost your frigging marbles?”

  “There’s a—”

  “I don’t want to hear it!” Manny walked away, then turned around and came back. His face was turning red, his anger unlike I’d seen in a long time. “If this becomes a diplomatic incident between Iran and France, it will all fall on you.”

  Not giving anyone the opportunity to respond, Manny turned around and left the café. I glanced at the others to see that I was not the only one shocked by Manny’s uncharacteristic behaviour.

  Vinnie shrugged, then smiled. “That asswipe is going to eat crow.” His smile widened. “And then I’m going to kill him.”

  I knew he didn’t mean this literally, but it was still disturbing to hear these words leave his mouth. Vinnie winked at me, then announced that he’d see us in the team room. He fist-bumped all the GIPN team members on the way out.

  Colin pulled his chair closer to mine and sat down, but looked at Daniel. “Where’s Caelan? Is he okay?”

  “He’s not okay, no. I got one of my guys to take him to Phillip.”

  Colin took both my hands in his and studied my face. “Are you okay?”

  “No.” I got up, but didn’t pull my hands from his. “I want to go to my viewing room.”

  I needed the safety of that space and the familiarity of my work. I also needed to lose myself in work for a while. This had been a very disconcerting experience. I wanted to find out what that connection was that kept evading me.

  Chapter SIXTEEN

  BACK AT OUR TEAM ROOM, Daniel took the elevator ahead of us. I seldom entered the small space with more than one person if there was no rush. I appreciated that Vinnie and Daniel had chosen the size of the elevator for security reasons, but being in too close physical proximity to other people caused most distressing anxiety.

  Colin was lost in his own thoughts and we didn’t speak. The elevator returned and I was prioritising the list of things I wanted to research as we entered. I wanted to get back to the photos of the wine labels. And Adèle’s chart.

  The elevator doors opened to the team room and I gasped at the scene that greeted us.

  Vinnie and Manny were standing toe to toe, their bodies nearly touching. Manny was shouting at Vinnie about Hassan, Iran, Amin and terrorists. None of it made sense. Daniel was standing to the side, his muscle tension indicating he was ready to intervene at any moment. Francine was next to her desk, both her hands over her mouth, her orbicularis oculi muscles contracted in sadness.

  “Good God.” Colin let go of my hand and walked to Vinnie and Manny. “Less than ten minutes and we walk into this? What the hell, Millard?”

  “Stay out of this, Frey!” Manny pushed his index finger into Vinnie’s chest. “This is between me and this criminal.”

  It felt like the darkness that always came before a shutdown was pushing against the back of my eyes. I blinked a few times, but the pressure was still there. Manny’s nonverbal cues were such as I’d never seen before. He was aggressive and seemed to wish for a physical altercation with Vinnie.

  My large friend was angry. The long scar running down the side of his face was white against the colour flushing his cheeks. He looked down at Manny and I wondered if the latter even saw the sadness that juxtaposed Vinnie’s anger.

  I knew the feeling was not real, but it felt like someone was sucking the air out of my lungs. My chest felt hollow with despondency and it felt like my heart was bruised. “Pain never heals pain.”

  “Huh?” Vinnie glanced at me when my words came out hoarse.

  I cleared my throat and looked at Manny and Vinnie. I couldn’t speak again. The sadness of what they were doing overwhelmed me. Neurotypicals caused each other so much unnecessary hurt. Intentionally.

  I shook my head and was jarred to feel the warmth of a tear running down my cheek. With a final look at them, I walked into my room and closed the door. It was the first time in very long that I’d done this to exclude them—not because I needed to focus, but because I didn’t want them near me. I sat on my chair and glanced back into the room.

  Vinnie was at the kitchen, his back towards me. Tension caused his movements to be stilted, his shoulders slightly raised. Manny hadn’t moved. He was looking at me, his aggression replaced with regret. And shame. And he was letting me see it.

  My head hurt. As did my heart. I didn’t want to see those micro-expressions on his face. I didn’t want the very people who had been my security, my stability for years causing me to feel so lost.

  So I turned away from them, opened the folder with the photos of Adèle’s chart and blocked everything outside my viewing room from my mind.

  “Genevieve?” Phillip’s deep voice pulled me out of the hyper-focused state I was in. I glanced at the clock on my computer and was disappointed that only an hour had passed. Irrationally, I’d hoped to hide longer so Vinnie and Manny had more time to sort things out.

  I rolled my shoulders, then moved my head from side to side to relieve the stiffness that resulted from sitting in one position for too long. Finally, I turned to look at Phillip. He was sitting next to me, his body language relaxed, but his facial expression revealing his concern. “Are you well?”

  I looked past him into the team room. My door was open.

  Vinnie was nowhere to be seen; Manny was sitting at his desk, glaring at his computer, and Francine was at her desk looking at me. The moment my attention turned to her, she smiled at me. It was a small and sad smile, her usual boisterousness not evident.

  I turned back to Phillip. “Physically, I’m fine. But the antagonism between them is distracting.”

  “And it’s hurting you.” Phillip sighed. “Caelan was in a bad state when the officers brought him here. We both decided he would be best off at home. Now I think it was a very good decision. The atmosphere here will trigger yet another shutdown. At least it seems like things have calmed down for now. I don’t know where Daniel is, but Colin’s taken Vinnie to go buy pastries or something. They should be back soon.”

  “Pastries won’t solve the problem.”

  Phillip smiled. “No, but it might smooth things over a bit.”

  I doubted that. Manny’s reaction to his own pain had changed the dynamics in our team. I didn’t know what it would take to restore things to how it had been.

  I blinked and leaned back in my chair. Maybe things would never return to how they had been. That was one of the many things in life I found extremely difficult to come to terms with. Events changed us. Whether for good or bad, it caused a change that aided in our development if we allowed it to.

  I wondered how the event that was causing Manny such distress would change him. If it would be permanent. And whether the effect of his behaviour would be the cause for any permanent change in our team. That thought brought the tension back to my muscles. I didn’t like change.

  “Genevieve.” Phillip’s tone indicated that he’d called me a few times. I looked at him and leaned a bit back in surprise. He had lost colour in his face. “Who is that?”

  He was pointing at one of the photos that had surrou
nded Adèle’s chart. It was one of the three photos of the man with the birthmark on his hand. In this photo, it was clearly visible as he held his phone to his ear. “I don’t know who he is. All three photos we have of him obscure his face, so Francine wasn’t able to run it through the facial recognition software.”

  “Don’t bother.” He pulled at his collar. “His name is François Dumaux.”

  It was the fact that he knew this man that disconcerted me as much as the emotions revealed when he spoke the name. “Who is he?”

  “A ghost from the past.” He closed his eyes, shook his head, then looked at me. “He’s not literally a ghost. This is someone I knew a very long time ago.”

  “Tell us everything you know.” Manny walked into my room and leaned against one of the filing cabinets in the back. “We could really do with a break in this case.”

  Phillip swivelled his chair to better face me and Manny at the same time. “He worked for me many years ago. Let me think... yes, he started with me when he left university in 1997.”

  “More than twenty years ago.” Francine walked in and sat in the chair Colin usually used. She was swiping and tapping on her tablet screen. “Which university did he graduate from?”

  “University of the Arts Utrecht.”

  “Holland?” Manny asked.

  “The Netherlands.” It annoyed me that so many people got this wrong. “The official name of the country is the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Holland is not the name of the country. There are two provinces named Noord-Holland and Zuid-Holland, but they’re only part of the country. When people say Holland they mean the Netherlands.”

  “Holland?” Manny asked Phillip again, ignoring me.

  His reaction brought me immediate comfort. This was the kind of rudeness I’d become accustomed to. Not the aggression and hostility from the last two days.

  Phillip nodded. “Yes, he graduated—with honours, I might add—from the academy of arts. He specialised in art history and had the perfect character traits for working in this business. I hired him immediately after our first interview. He was such a bright and rising star.”

  “What happened?”

  “Ooh.” Francine’s eyes were wide as she stared at her tablet. “François was a naughty, naughty boy.”

  “He’d been with me for three years when things went bad.” The sadness of that memory deepened the lines around Phillip’s mouth. “François came from a scandal-ridden family. They had a lot of old money, but his mother’s gambling habits used it all up. They were left with nothing. There were also a lot of rumours about fraud, extortion, child abuse and a range of sexual scandals.

  “François never talked about his family at all. In the three years I knew him, he never mentioned them once. He just pretended to be superior to everyone else, always with subtle references to places, events, brands and people only the upper class would carry knowledge of. There was always some form of duality to him.”

  “What does that mean?” Manny asked.

  Phillip thought for a moment. “With others he was calculated, pretentious, even cruel at times. But for some reason, he was real with me. Honest. That had been the reason I’d hired him. His other side only surfaced after a few months with us.

  “But he was good at his job. I had chosen well when I’d hired him. In those three years, he absorbed everything I taught him like a sponge. It was inspiring to watch him became better, sharper, more efficient every single day. He was hungry for more information, hungry to be the best insurance investigator in the art industry and hungry for more money.”

  “Let me guess.” Manny raised one eyebrow. “He stole art or forged it or helped some criminal traffic it.”

  “The latter. And he used his exceptional computer skills to make it happen. Internet transactions were still in their infancy, with many ways to circumvent legal avenues. It was quite easy for him.”

  “Well, give me a hammer and call me Thor.” Francine’s mouth was slightly agape. “I think you guys need to see this.” She swiped her tablet screen twice, then looked at the monitor next to the one displaying the photo of François talking on his phone. “This is the ID photo of François Dumaux.”

  “Holy bloody hell!” Manny walked closer and pointed at the monitor. “That’s Pierre.”

  He was right. The Dutch identity card Francine had put full screen on the monitor showed the man we’d interviewed in the Robertsau forest.

  “Who’s Pierre?” Phillip asked.

  “That man”—I nodded towards the monitor—“was at the Robertsau forest where Camille Vastine and Martin Gayot were dumped. We spoke to him. He was wearing gloves, so I never got to see his hand or the birthmark. He was quite helpful when we interviewed him. He’d been the first one to find the bodies. The three tourists walked past him as he was looking at the bodies.”

  “He must have been the one to dump them there.” Francine shivered. “Did he also kill them? Torture them?”

  Nobody answered her. We were quiet for a few seconds.

  “You cleared him, right?” Manny asked.

  “I did.” Francine frowned. “I checked all the witnesses. All the info the three woman gave checked out. Because Genevieve thought Pierre was off, I made double sure he checked out. He did. He’s registered at the hotel he said he was staying at as well as the conference he was supposed to attend. Even his rental car is registered in the IT company’s name.”

  “Did you check the IT company?” I asked.

  Her lips thinned. “No.”

  “Dammit.” Manny took his phone from his trouser pocket. “He played us. I was about to call off the team tailing him. Now I’m getting them to bring him in.”

  “You had him followed?” Phillip narrowed his eyes. “What made you suspect him?”

  I thought back to our conversation with François AKA Pierre. “His nonverbal cues were inconsistent. At times his answers and gestures were calculated.”

  Phillip’s smile was sad. “Those times, his answer came a millisecond slower than the other times, right?” He sighed when I nodded. “He did that often with his co-workers and with clients. If it hadn’t been for the first interview and the private moments when he was real with me, I wouldn’t have picked up on it.”

  “Well, Doc picked up on it.” Manny’s eyes widened slightly, indicating that Daniel had just answered his call. He grunted and left the viewing room, briefing Daniel on our discovery.

  “Do you think François is capable of killing these young people?” Francine asked Phillip.

  “I haven’t seen François in fifteen years. After I discovered what he was doing and testified against him, he disappeared from my life.”

  Francine looked at her tablet. “He was sentenced to five years in prison. Not a long time for these allegations.”

  “He co-operated with the authorities so they could finally arrest the mafia boss who’d hired François to obtain the stolen artworks.” His smile wasn’t kind. “I don’t know what he is like now, but the François I knew was highly intelligent, cunning and always looking for an easier way to do things and make money—which could have been a great asset if he’d used it in a legal manner.”

  “You didn’t answer her question.” I was curious if Phillip considered François to be capable of torture and murder.

  He looked at me and shook his head. “The François I knew was also a coward. He had an insatiable appetite for money and power, but no appetite for violence. The moment the police threatened to put him in a prison with violent convicts, he became an instant encyclopaedia of criminal activity. I was really shocked at how much he knew then.”

  I thought about this. It was not often that people changed. Not their core characteristics. And the way Phillip was describing François led me to believe that it was very probable that he’d continued his life of crime even after his incarceration. I could think of no other logical reason for him to have given us a false name and nationality when we’d spoken to him.

  “Daniel’s team
is bringing François in.” Manny walked back into my office. “They’re quite close and Daniel reckons they should be here in less than twenty minutes.”

  Phillip got up and pulled at the cuffs of his suit jacket. “You can interview him in one of our conference rooms.”

  Manny looked at me. For a moment, I had a glimpse at the vulnerability he experienced before his usual scowl pulled his brow down. “What do you think, Doc? Should you and Phillip be the ones to interview François? He might give away all his secrets without having to be threatened.”

  I considered this. “If he still has the same characteristics as when Phillip knew him, it would be best to have a law enforcement officer in there looking intimidating.”

  “Daniel can join us.” Phillip tried, but wasn’t successful in hiding his understanding of what Manny was doing.

  It made me sad that Manny didn’t feel confident in his abilities at present. Yet my respect grew for him. Most people allowed their pride to interfere, most often resulting in them doing more damage than good. Manny knew his strengths and weaknesses. At this moment, we were his strength.

  I also got up. “Daniel would be a good choice. He’s good at reading people and would know when to be subtle and when to push harder for answers.”

  “I’ll brief Daniel on everything we know so far.” Manny looked at Francine. “Anything else you find, send it to everyone’s devices. There might be something that can help Daniel when they interview him.”

  “Will do.” Francine’s smile was soft. She also knew that Manny was willingly standing back because of his emotional state. I was proud of my best friend. Despite her many frivolous interests and ridiculous theories, she understood the importance of allowing Manny to work through his problem in his own way and time. But I could see the toll it was taking on her. Not only was she exhausted, she was also deeply worried about the man she loved.

  Manny left my viewing room, already talking to Daniel on the phone. Phillip and I took the elevator down to the foyer and the other elevator to his office.