The Gauguin Connection Read online

  Forgotten were all personal agendas. Insight into Vinnie’s origins would have to wait. Manny straightened in his chair and by the time I opened the email, Colin was sitting next to me, and Vinnie was standing behind me. Everyone leaned in to read the email with me. My breathing shallowed. After the last ten minutes, this was too much for me.

  “Move away from me.” I lifted my hands wanting to push them away. “I’ll read the email to you. Just move away.”

  The men must have heard the strain in my voice. They responded immediately by giving me the space I needed. Vinnie walked around the table and sat down across from me. I didn’t complain when Manny scraped his chair on my wooden floors. He was moving away from me and that mattered more. Colin remained where he was, only leaning back in his chair. I could breathe again.

  “Thank you. I’ll read first what she said before I open the attachments.” I had the urge to clear my throat. I didn’t. “Francine listed everything so neatly. By number. Why does she ask at the end if it is English enough?”

  “I asked her to not use tech talk when she sent you emails. It’s worse than euphemisms and slang,” Colin said. “What did she say?”

  “Well, in number one she states that P&S is owned by two companies. One owns ninety nine percent, the other owns one percent. In number two she says that she’s still searching, but couldn’t find the names of the owners or founders of the companies anywhere. Oh my, she is quite rude here. She says that she’ll find the motherfuckers. And that I should not worry. Why would I worry?”

  “It’s just an expression. She’s obviously pissed off. It is not often that Francine can’t find something or someone.” Colin smiled.

  “Oh. Okay. Number three states that she found out who was behind the scholarships for those unlucky students.” I confronted Colin. “How did she know about these students having scholarships?”

  He waved his smartphone at me. “I sent her a text message. She works really fast.”

  I frowned my displeasure before I returned to Francine’s email. I read a few sentences in silence. My eyes widened, followed by rapid blinking for a few moments. I looked at Manny. “Guess who paid for their tuition?”

  “The Michaelangelo fund?” Manny sounded hoarse.

  I read from the email. “This Michaelangelo education fund is rather enigmatic. I didn’t find much publicity for it. Once or twice it came up in a search, but the mention of it was too vague to catch it in a general search. I checked all thirty-seven students listed on the flash drive. So far I’ve found fourteen who were on scholarships from this fund. What is this? Why didn’t you tell me these artists were dead? My search created a pattern and I found more students with financial support from this trust fund. I will do more checking and send you a complete list. What is going on here? Genevieve? Colin?”

  Manny frowned deeply, the corners of his mouth turning down. “Frey, what did you tell this woman?”

  “I didn’t tell her anything. I only gave her search parameters.”

  I was also frowning. “What is her IQ?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Colin folded his arms and frowned back at us.

  “From the little that I’ve seen of her work,” I glanced at the computer screen, “she has an above average IQ. It wouldn’t be difficult to take the information from the flash drives, combine it with the other things she’s found for us and reach a conclusion.”

  “Who is this woman?” Manny wanted to investigate her as well. It was in his voice, his body language, his eyes. Vinnie’s relaxed posture changed. Clearly he had not forgotten Manny’s propensity of digging into people’s lives.

  “She can be trusted,” Colin answered. “That’s all you need to know.”

  I was trying to think of the best way to retain our focus on the email when an uncanny realisation dawned on me. “Do you guys realise we are a team? I’ve never worked in a team before.”

  Three different postures, one of defiance, one of offence and one of fury all changed in an instant. To horror.

  “What? Why are you looking so disturbed by this thought?”

  “Jenny, look at your team members,” Colin reminded me gently. Once I had made up my mind to trust Vinnie and Colin, I grew further and further away from the knowledge of their skill-sets. It shocked me that in the last few days I had stopped thinking of them as what they were. Criminals.

  “Oh no,” I whispered.

  “And now you’ve scared us all.” Colin’s smile didn’t look scared. “Don’t worry about me. I’m sure my reputation will survive.”

  “It’s not only my reputation I’m worried about.” Manny muttered something unintelligible under his breath. “A whole lifetime of service and this is who I’m working with?”

  In all honesty, I had never given Manny’s predicament any thought. It was disturbing enough for me to work with two criminals. I could not imagine how Manny had to be feeling co-operating with the very people he had spent his life keeping off the streets. Deep regret for voicing my observation settled on my shoulders. If I hadn’t said anything, maybe no one around the table would be looking as agitated as they did. I had exacerbated an already volatile situation.

  Never before had I missed Phillip’s presence as much as at this very moment. He would have known exactly what to say or do. The perfect mediator. This situation was far beyond my purview. Yet I tried. “Manny, Colin told me something about Francine. Enough for me to feel comfortable to let her be part of this team.”

  “Have you met her?” Manny asked.

  “No,” I said. “I hold Colin responsible for her.”

  “Hey,” Colin complained.

  “No,” Manny interrupted. “It’s a good idea. You’re the one who brought her in, Frey. You will be the one paying for any misstep on her part.”

  Colin relaxed. “That won’t happen.”

  “You better pray it doesn’t. I still want to know who she is.”

  “You can ask her if you ever meet her.” From Vinnie’s vindictive smile I surmised that Francine didn’t introduce herself to too many people.

  Manny stifled a yawn and nodded at my computer. “What else does she say?”

  “That the third and fourth flash drives were easier to decode, now that she has cracked the first two.” I looked at Colin. “I presume she didn’t physically break them.”

  He smiled and just shook his head.

  I returned to the email. “She says that the third flash drive holds details about all auction and private sales. The fourth drive has financial data. It also has a long list of other numbers that she says are all weapon identification numbers. Oh. Oh my, she’s really, really rude here.” I leaned closer to check Francine’s spelling of a number of creative swearwords.

  “Oh, she knows,” Vinnie said proudly. “She’s figured it out.”

  Manny looked down at his hands, not saying a word. His eye muscles moving. Indicators of internal dialogue. Another yawn brought him out of his contemplation. He dug the heels of his hands in his eyes and rubbed hard.

  “The old man is tired,” Vinnie whispered meaningfully out of the corner of his mouth.

  “What’s the time?” I asked as I looked at the bottom of the computer screen. “It’s past eleven already.”

  “Time flies when you’re having fun.” Nothing on Colin’s face indicated the muttered sentence held any truth.

  “Okay.” The resolve in Manny’s voice led me to conclude that he had come to a decision. “Doc, email me those numbers. But email them from your private email to my private email. I’ll give them to Leon to cross-reference with their weapons inventory. How many numbers are there?”

  I opened the appropriate file and flinched. “There are two sets of numbers. Together they add up to seventeen hundred and eighty six numbers. That is more than double the quantity of stolen weapons Leon knows about.”

  “Not good, not good at all,” Manny said.

  “Should I email this to Leon?” I asked.


  “No. Email it to my private email and I’ll forward it to Leon’s private email. It’s better that everything stays off official places.” He pushed himself up with a groan. “I’m going home.”

  My bottom jaw slackened and my eyes stretched. “You cannot be serious.”

  “Like a heart attack.” No heart condition could be pertinent to the case, so I assumed Manny was using a euphemism. He had to be exhausted to regress from the proper English he had been speaking. “Look, it’s late and I’m tired. We’re not going to crack this nut wide open within the next few hours, so I suggest we all get a good night’s rest. Then we can do this again tomorrow, just a bit fresher. Doc, do you think you’ll be able to hold off going through those flash drives for the night?”

  I stared at him. How could anyone expect that of me? It was said that every morning, Mozart’s mother used to play a scale up to the seventh note. Mozart’s compulsion to finish the octave is what got him out of bed. He simply had to press the last, the finishing note. What Manny was asking me was worse than Mrs. Mozart’s methods.

  “You’re serious.” I could see no deception cues.

  “Like a heart attack,” he repeated.

  It took a mere millisecond and then I understood. I giggled. “It’s not funny, but it’s actually funny.”

  “Glad to be of some entertainment value here.” Manny walked to the front door. “I’ll be here early in the morning to check out those drives. Try to get some sleep.”

  He didn’t wait for any response, just walked to the door with slumped shoulders. I stared at my front door as it closed. “I can’t do it.”

  “Of course you can, Jenny.” Colin took my personal computer away from me and started shutting down all running programmes.

  “Don’t do that!” My demand came out louder than intended. It didn’t slow Colin down though.

  “You need your beauty sleep. Tomorrow is the big event and you need to be fresh and alert for it. God only knows what will happen there.” He was still distressed about me going to the charity function. It was clearly depicted on his face, his body language, his voice.

  Not to my recollection had I ever had the desire to please people. Too early in my life I had learned that no matter what I did, people, more specifically my parents, were never pleased with my actions. I adjusted my behaviour to avoid conflict, but never to make people more comfortable. The concern burning lines on Colin and Vinnie’s faces was changing that. I did the unthinkable.

  “Fine. I’ll wait until the morning.”

  “And you’ll sleep.” An order.

  I sighed. “I’ll sleep. But I’ll be up early to work on this. It is your choice whether you want to be here for it.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Vinnie said as he got up.

  “Same goes for me.” Colin smiled when I winced. “Until you are out of danger, you’re stuck with us, Jenny.”

  I decided not to reply. I only gave them the most condescending look I could muster. “Make sure everything is where it should be. Including the computers.”

  Colin frowned at where he had placed my personal computer. Obviously he couldn’t see that it was at least two centimetres to the left. It was with greater constraint than I knew I possessed that I got up and walked to my bedroom. A few quiet moments alone and I realised how tired I was. It had been two and a half weeks of emotional, informational and tactile overload. I needed to sleep, but would not be able to. There was only one thing that could prevent insomnia. I sneaked back to the dining room table, aligned the computers and the chairs, and returned to my bedroom smiling. Relieved.

  Surprisingly, I slept well and woke up Saturday morning feeling refreshed. But that eighth, final note of the scale needed to be played. The increasing discomfort of not having looked at the flash drives sent me through my morning routine much faster than usual. So much so that I made it to the kitchen before Vinnie. I smiled while preparing the coffee. He was going to be unhappy about this.

  “You’re too fast.” Vinnie stormed into the kitchen, pulling a T-shirt over his head. I was afforded a glimpse of his muscular torso. Long, ugly scars zigzagged across his left side from his collarbone to below his pants. The soft T-shirt flowed down and covered it up too quickly. I knew so little about this giant man. There was not only the question of his origins and his name, but also these scars that I wanted to ask him about. But the expression on his face did not invite any questions. He stomped towards me and pointed to the dining room.

  “Morning, Vinnie.” I smiled at him.

  He grunted a greeting and shook his pointed finger. “Go do your thing on your computers. I’ll bring your coffee.”

  Since it had been my impatience for the new information that had driven me into the kitchen so early, I didn’t argue. I sat down in front of the computers and switched them all on. In the two minutes it took all three machines to whirr to life, I glanced at my notepad. The page with all the connected parts was mocking me.

  I frowned at Piros’ name in the box with extra angry lines surrounding it. His connection to this case was tenuous. As competent as Kubanóv was at being a covert philanthropist, it was still easy enough to find him. Piros, on the other hand, was exceptionally adept at remaining an enigma. Even as Simon Brun he was an unknown entity.

  I pulled my mind away from the riddle of Piros’ identity and opened my email. My stomach tightened in anticipation. I loved this part. The new information. The possibility that this might be the key. Francine had attached two zip files, one for each flash drive. I opened the first one.

  “Jenny.” Colin spoke rather loudly. And he was touching me.

  I glared at the long fingers curled around my wrist and looked up. There was more sunlight in the room. I glanced at the bottom right corner of my computer. It was just past eight. I had sat down at half past five. Colin was sitting next to me, Manny at the head of the table nursing a mug of coffee and Vinnie across from me. It surprised me to see Leon sitting between Vinnie and Manny. Next to my right hand was a mug of steaming coffee. I sighed on a shrug. “Good morning.”

  “Morning, Doc. What have you got for us?” Manny looked better after a night’s rest.

  “A lot. Oh my, have I got a lot.” I reached for the coffee and smiled my thanks to Vinnie. A quick look at Leon and I was simply too curious. “You also have something. What is it?”

  “Morning, Doctor Lenard.” Leon shifted in his chair. “I took all the data that you had on the murders of the artists and did a lot of legwork. Quite a few of the police departments under whose jurisdiction the murders fell, do not have adequate equipment or manpower. That means that the crime scenes and evidence were not processed as well as they should have been. Upon my request, they sent the evidence and we used our resources to rush it through a few tests.”

  “The point?” I asked. This was taking too long. People and their annoying need for a long run-up.

  Leon frowned. “The point is that we were able to find ballistic evidence that seven murders were committed with stolen Eurocorps weapons. The other bullets were too damaged to test their striae.”

  “Is there a direct link to Crenshaw and these weapons?” Colin asked.

  “There is. Manny sent me all those numbers.” The corners of his mouth turned down. “All thousand seven hundred and eighty seven numbers are a match to Eurocorps weapons. This goes back nine years, all within the time that Crenshaw worked for Eurocorps. My guys are digging deeper and with this information I’m convinced they will find evidence linking Crenshaw to the thefts.”

  I wondered if Leon had worked through the night. I had come upon my new findings this morning. “I ran a comparison with those numbers and the ones that Hawk had given Vinnie. They’re an exact match of the second set of numbers on the flash drive. From what we know so far, I would postulate that the second set of numbers are the weapons that Crenshaw took for personal gain. The first set of numbers would be much more of an uninformed hypothesis.”

  “Just tell us what you�
��re thinking, Jenny.” Colin shifted in his chair.

  “I would dare hypothesise that Crenshaw had a close connection to Piros and that he procured those weapons for Piros and his private army.” I swallowed and pushed out the words. “The Russian Ninja Turtles.”

  “And I would dare agree with you,” Manny said softly.

  “Okay, great.” Colin bit off the words. His breathing was harsh as he pushed his fists into his thighs. “We have all these theories, but artists are still in danger. How does this help us stop the killing?”

  “I suppose it doesn’t.” Leon’s face showed indicators of his own frustration.

  “I have something that might help.” Pride raised Manny’s voice. He placed folded sheets of paper on the table. “The guest list.”

  Colin, Vinnie and I lunged for the list. Vinnie got to it first, almost knocking Leon off his chair. Once he had it, he handed it to me. “Do your thing, Jen-girl.”

  I glanced at the names and a thrill rushed through me. I handed the two typed sheets to Colin. “Read the names to me.”

  As he read, I put the names on the computer. It took ten minutes before I could run a comparison to all the other lists I had accumulated in the last three weeks.

  “This will take about fifteen minutes. Let me tell you now about the information on the flash drives.” As one, the four men leaned towards me. I leaned away. “The one drive consists solely of details of all the auctions and private sales. All the dates, the artworks, who bought what, where it was shipped. Very detailed.”

  “And of little to no help with the murders.” Sneering dimples formed on Colin’s cheeks. “Unless you found something in that?”

  “No, I didn’t. There was some duplication of the other lists, but nothing new.”

  Leon put both hands on the table. “Surely this could be enough evidence to present to a prosecutor.”

  “Of course,” Manny answered. “They can go after these stupid rich people buying forged artworks. I don’t really care about them. I want to stop the killing.”

  “The fourth flash drive might help us get closer,” I said. “It’s all the financial details of the Foundation.”

  “But we already have the financials of the Foundation,” Manny said.

  “The official version.” Vinnie rolled his eyes.

  “I compared it to the official version and it actually is perfectly consistent. This version only gives more information.”

  “Like what?” Leon asked.

  “In the official version, payments to consultants are shown. These consultants look legitimate at first glance. On the flash drives these consultants are specified. For example, payments were made to customs officials. Each official’s name, his position, the date, everything is here. There is a lot of payment information like this.”

  “Interpol, Europol and a few other guys are going to love this.” Manny smiled as if he had won an award. “Something tells me there’s more, Doc.”

  “There is,” I said. “What interested me most were the payments to so-called security firms. A few searches on the internet and on the EDA computer did not give me one hit on these firms. As far as I could find, they don’t exist.”

  “Not even registered in Volosovo, thirty-three percent owned by P&S, Simon Brun and a private dick?” Vinnie asked. I silently congratulated myself on recognising his sarcasm.

  “No. They simply don’t exist. This list only has the names, the amounts and the banks that the payments were made to. Unfortunately no account numbers. There are five security companies on this expenses list and they all used the same bank, same branch.”

  “We need to get that information,” Manny said.

  “On it.” Colin held his smartphone against his ear. He winked at me before his attention was drawn to the phone. “Hi, doll. Yes, we’re looking at it now. Great job. Yes? No, I can’t. They’re here. Listen, I’m sending you five company names and the bank they use. Could you please get their account numbers and anything else on them? You are?” Colin’s eyes widened. “Interesting. I’ll tell them. Thanks, doll.” He ended the call and turned to me. “Could you please email Francine that info? She’ll check it for us.”

  “Who’s Francine?” Leon asked. I was growing bored of that discussion, so I ignored it and send Francine an email. Leon, Vinnie and Manny were in a loud disagreement when I turned to Colin.

  “What did she say that you found so interesting?”

  Colin smiled. “She wasn’t surprised that I wanted more information on bank related stuff. She’s working on the last flash drive and she says that it seems to be loads of numbers. In her opinion, they’re all bank account numbers and she’ll send us the names of the account holders. For her finding the five companies’ bank details won’t be much of a challenge.”

  “This is so illegal.” Manny dropped his face in his hands. I knew he was right. We were circumventing legal protocol put in place to protect people’s rights, their privacy.

  “Let’s not focus on that now,” I said. “I found something else that was very interesting about the payments made to the security firms. The dates of these payments coincided every time within days of the murder of an artist.”

  “Blood money.” Vinnie swallowed and stared out the window. I wondered about his chequered past. Was I under the wrong impression that he had been an assassin? The Vinnie I had come to know was not the kind of person to fit that profile. Yet another layer to this man.

  “Jenny?” Colin brought me back to the present. “What does your computer say about the guest list?”

  “Oh yes.” I turned to my computer and worked through the results. “There are a lot of important people here. The Head of the EDA will be there, as will your Chief.”

  “I’m not surprised Chief Dutoit will be there. He loves these high profile events,” Manny said.

  “Kubanóv will be there, but that is to be expected. It is after all his charity organisation. Wait a moment.” Something had caught my eye. I spent a few minutes doing a cross reference and smiled. “Francine emailed me a list this morning with thirty-four students who are currently at universities on scholarships from the Michaelangelo fund.”

  “Alive?” Colin asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “And all thirty-four are on this guest list. There are sixty-seven artists on the guest list. I don’t know who the other thirty-three are.”

  “Around six hundred people were invited. Of these,” Manny pointed at the list, “four hundred and eighty-two have confirmed their attendance.”

  A cold shiver went down my spine. My parents’ parties were never that big and I always felt an onset of panic with the sensory overload. Dread for tonight’s event sent my heart racing. “That’s a lot of people. It must be an enormous place to accommodate such a large crowd.”

  “It’s only called the Russian House, Doc. It’s more like a hotel,” Manny said.

  “You mean a mansion?” Colin lifted his lip in obvious disdain at Manny’s lack of sophistication.

  “No, I mean it is more like a hotel, you arrogant arse. The ballroom doubles as a conference room and can easily host seven hundred people. Put in a few works of art, tables for everyone and there is still room for a dance floor. There are twenty-four guest rooms, each with its own bathroom. There is even an underground parking area for guests. A hotel.” Manny narrowed his eyes at Colin.

  “A mansion,” Colin said, lifting his eyebrow. “You need to get out more, Manfred.”

  “Mansion or hotel, we still have to talk about safety tonight.” Vinnie’s grave statement brought stillness to the table. He looked at Leon. “Is Jen-girl going to be safe?”

  “Everyone is in place for tonight,” Leon said. “GIPN is getting into place already. They are completely covert and will surround the perimeter. Not one street is uncovered. Apart from Manny and myself, we’ve managed to get four of our best guys inside. Manny and I will keep an eye on you, Genevieve, and four GIPN guys will be at hand to protect the artists or apprehend Piros,
whichever comes first.”

  “Tell them about the bus,” Manny said.

  “Oh yes. Our sources were able to find out that La Maison Russie rented a bus for tonight,” Leon said.

  “The bus that is supposed to take the artists to the Alps?” I asked.

  “Yes. We took control of the bus arrangements. Our own driver will be taking the artists to a place of safety as soon as they leave the premises.”

  “And do what with them?” Colin asked softly.

  “We’re not going to arrest them for forgery, Frey.” Manny said. “That is for another time. Their safety trumps arresting them for painting pretty pictures.”

  I couldn’t help but smile when Colin gasped. “Colin, Manny is baiting you. Look at his orbicularis oculi muscles.”

  Colin bit down hard on his jaw before he looked at me. “I don’t even know what those muscles are.”

  “They’re the muscles around our eyes.” The frown drawing Colin’s brows together stopped my explanation. I didn’t understand why Colin and Manny needed to irritate each other so much. “Never mind.”

  Leon explained in excruciating detail the security detail for the evening. Vinnie challenged all the plans with conspiracy theories of underground tunnels, secret allies and helicopters. It bored me. I turned to my computer and left the men to annoy each other.

  I opened my email in the hopes that Francine might have sent me something. I was not disappointed. Her style was most satisfactory. She didn’t waste time on the silly social niceties most people required. The email was concise and very interesting.

  “Jenny?” Colin’s gentle touch made me aware of the silence around the table. All eyes were on me.

  “Yes?”

  “What are you looking at?”

  “Simon Brun, who we are pretty sure is Piros, started and funded the Michaelangelo trust fund.”

  “Doc, back up.” Manny sat up in his chair. “Give it to us slowly.”

  I was tempted to repeat my previous sentence much slower, but didn’t want to add to Manny’s stress levels. “Francine sent an email. She discovered that P&S, Simon Brun and those five security companies all used that same bank, the same branch.”

  “Which bank?” Colin asked.

  I looked at the email. “The DBS bank in Singapore. I think Francine might have broken a few laws here. She hacked into those accounts.”

  Leon and Manny groaned; Vinnie and Colin smiled. I was looking at the black and white of law enforcement and I didn’t know anymore where I fit in. I ignored the disconcerting cognitive dissonance. “There are a lot of transfers between Simon Brun and the five security companies’ accounts. Most of the transactions are transfers to Brun’s account. The security companies have similar transaction histories, transfers to Brun and three companies in Hungary.”

  “Hungary?” Manny lifted his eyebrows and turned to Leon. “What do you think?”

  Leon was quiet for some time. “I think we need to ask this Francine to get us the names of all the account holders that Brun and the security companies sent money to. If possible she should find out who the bloody hell this Simon Brun is.”

  Manny’s lips disappeared completely. All the muscles in his body tightened until I thought he might get up and hit someone. Instead he looked at me with angry resentment. “Email that Francine woman and tell her to do this. Holy Mother, I can’t believe I’ve come to this.”

  “Manny, we don’t have to do it like this. Surely there is another way,” I said.

  “With court orders and a long list of legal procedures that will take days to go through. No Doc, this is for the best. I’ll just take the punches as they come.”

  I studied Manny, looking for any sign of doubt. It was trying enough for me to feel so fractured between what I thought to have been right and wrong. I did not wish for this upright man to regret his decision. I was taken aback by the unfamiliar empathic consideration evident in my thinking. In Manny’s demeanour there was no sign of uncertainty though, only anger. I turned to my computer and composed an email to Francine. Only my typing broke the heavy silence in my apartment. We had all crossed a line from where there would be no return.

  Francine replied immediately, promising to have something before the event. I didn’t even bother to question how she knew about tonight’s event. Things had rolled out of my control to include so many gray areas that I felt I was slowly drowning. The knowledge of having to be around hundreds of pretentious people tonight did nothing to help my disposition.

  A heaviness had settled between us. There wasn’t anything else to discuss, so Manny and Leon took their leave. They wanted to double-check the security and other things that didn’t really interest me. Vinnie left for the kitchen to prepare a late lunch for us and I stayed in my chair, staring at the computers. As much as I tried, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about the throng of bodies, the demand of social politeness and the probable danger tonight would bring.

  Chapter TWENTY-SEVEN