The Gauguin Connection Read online

  “No, you have to tell him, Genevieve.” Phillip was resolute in his position. He had been waiting for me and the moment I had stepped into the office, he had guided me into his office. I was reporting on my progress and he didn’t seem all too pleased. His lips were drawn in thin lines and he was using his stern voice. “I can’t believe I condoned this. He’s a criminal, for the love of god.”

  “I know that, Phillip. It was because you suggested that I should work with him that I actually considered it.”

  “It was a careless comment.” He was exasperated. “I distinctly remember also telling you to phone the police or me, or preferably both. Why didn’t you do that?”

  “He wasn’t a threat. He isn’t a threat. As a matter of fact, he was the one who suggested that I look for any connections with the Russian murderer.” At least I had been able to impress Phillip with the connections I had made over the weekend. He was particularly interested in the three artworks that I had discovered on the shipping data.

  “Genevieve, we have to tell Manny.”

  “No, we don’t. He’ll want to arrest Colin and I think that he can really help us. He seems to be very driven to find out who’s responsible for this whole situation.” Why I defended the thief was beyond me. When he was with me, he annoyed me, tested my belief system and I desperately wanted to get rid of him. Now I was championing for him to work with me.

  “That is yet another reason to be concerned. Being that driven probably means that he is emotionally invested somewhere in this whole tangle. That is never a good thing. Oh, hell.” His expletive took me aback. Phillip wasn’t one for crass language. He was too cultured for that. “Last week we only had one murdered girl, one Russian murderer, a stolen artefact and stolen weapons. This week we have a full blown conspiracy.”

  I had shown him my notepad and it came as no surprise that he was aghast when he saw the page with all the boxes. The fact that the boxes and the lines were multiplying had brought deep furrows to his brow. His face exhibited all the classic cues of distress and it was getting worse the more we talked.

  “I think I should go and see if I can make any more progress with the owners of the shipping companies.”

  “Oh dear lord.” He shook his head. “You’d better put all this in a nice presentation before one o’clock.”

  “One o’clock?”

  “Manny will be here then.”

  I barely refrained from groaning out loud. I only nodded and left Phillip in his office to tend to matters he would find less stressful. From the first day I had stepped into his office, it was obvious that he loved the stress that came with his job. If there were not enough new clients, new works of art that needed authentication or the possibility of a fraudulent claim, he became listless. The smallest hint of a problem and he thrived.

  This case, however, did not have that effect on him, I mused as I entered my viewing room. While this case intrigued me and the many possibilities of connections were exciting, he seemed genuinely distressed by it all. He didn’t say it this morning, but I had read regret on his face and was wondering if he regretted agreeing to help Manny with this case or whether he regretted getting me involved. I set my computer bag on the long desk and took out both my work and the EDA computer. It was time to look for more connections.

  A few hours later Phillip’s assistant cautiously entered the viewing room. It was an extreme rarity that Angelique even spoke to me, so I was surprised to see her in the doorway. She was a formidable woman in her early fifties with a husband of thirty years and three adult children. Not once had I seen Angelique back down for even the brashest of executives, yet she always appeared uncomfortable when she had to speak to me.

  “I hope I’m not disturbing you.” She spoke as if she was addressing a caged tigress. Her non-threatening body language showed her intent to not startle me into some unpredictable behaviour. “Phillip asked me to call you to his office. He wants to speak to you before monsieur Millard comes.”

  “Thank you, Angelique. I will be there in five minutes.” I didn’t have the energy nor the desire to make the older lady feel more comfortable in my presence. During the last six years, we had been polite to each other, but never familiar. I preferred this.

  “I’ll tell him.” She left as quietly as she had entered. It gave me the chance to quickly print out my presentation. There was no way that Manny could disapprove of my progress today. The last few hours had been productive. Very productive.

  I switched off all the computers, made sure everything was straightened, put the printouts in my handbag and left the viewing room. Apparently waiting for me, Angelique jumped up from behind her large mahogany desk to open the door to Phillip’s office.

  “He’s waiting for you,” she said softly. “I put your coffee on his desk.”

  “Thank you very much, Angelique.” I realised that our conversations had always been limited to these exchanges. This prompted me to give Angelique a warm smile which only served to confound the older woman.

  “Come in, come in.” Phillip’s voice from behind his desk drew me into the room. He was looking at me with a mixture of expectation and dread. “So, did you find anything?”

  “Oh yes, I did.” Excitement brightened my voice. I quickly walked to one of the leather chairs facing his desk and sat down. “You will not believe this.”

  “Oh dear.” He did not sound excited at all. As a matter of fact, he sounded downright apprehensive. He glanced at his gold wristwatch. “We have at most twenty minutes before Manny comes. The more I know, the better I can present it to Manny.”

  As I reached into my handbag for the presentation, a happy tune started playing somewhere in the office. I looked up from my handbag and gave Phillip an annoyed glance. “What is that?”

  “A cell phone.” It was the tone he used when he thought I was being brilliantly daft. “And it’s coming from your handbag.”

  “Nobody ever phones me.” I put my hand back into the bag and came out with my smartphone. It was indeed where the irritating tune came from. I carefully put my handbag on the floor and held the phone as if it were a live hand grenade.

  “I didn’t know you had a phone.” Phillip was clearly surprised. “Aren’t you going to answer it?”

  I looked at the screen and nearly threw the phone against the wall. I swiped the screen to answer. “You put your photo on my phone?”

  “Hello, Jenny.” Colin’s charming voice answered my outrage.

  “Don’t hello me. How did you get my number? And when did you put your number on my phone? With a photo!”

  “How did you like the ring tone? It’s Lady Gaga.”

  “I know of no such lady.” I managed to modulate my tone to a cold whisper. Phillip looked very concerned and stood up to move around his desk towards me. I shook my head to stop him. “I’m blocking this number and resealing my windows. With industrial glue.”

  “Wait!” he called as I started to move the instrument away from my ear. “I know who the dead girl is.”

  I slapped the smartphone back against my ear. “What? Who? How?”

  “Come downstairs and I’ll show you.”

  “I’m not in my apartment.”

  “I know that.” He chuckled. “Come on down. I’m waiting for you in front of the building.”

  Before I could pepper him with more questions, he disconnected and I was standing with a silent smartphone in my hand. I brought the instrument down slowly and glared at it. “I’m going to kill that ... that common criminal.”

  Phillip stormed around his desk and reached for my phone, but I snatched it out of his reach. “Genevieve, what did he say? What did he want?”

  The better question was how he had known where I was. I was most definitely going to confront him with that as soon as I laid eyes on him. The thought of that annoying, overconfident thief waiting outside for me was, however, infinitely more appealing that meeting with Manny. Why that was, I was not about to explain to myself with my Freud
ian background. Instead, I picked my handbag off the floor and put the smartphone in its designated pocket. “I have to go.”

  “What? You can’t go now. Manny is going to be here in ten minutes.” He reached for my arm, but I sidestepped him with a frown on my face. Phillip knew I hated to be touched. He was uncharacteristically concerned. “Genevieve, please. Where are you going?”

  I stopped at the entrance to his office and turned around. “Please don’t tell Manny anything, Phillip. Not a thing.”

  “How can you expect me to do that when you won’t even tell me where you are going or what Colin said to you?”

  “He found the identity of the murdered girl. I’m going to meet him now.” I thought for a moment. “Tell Manny that I’m following up on a lead and will be able to give him an exhaustive report tomorrow. Phillip, I’m sure that this girl’s identity will open a whole new line of connections for us.”

  “God help us all,” was Phillip’s response. I gave him a quick smile and turned to leave. As I walked past Angelique’s large desk, I heard Phillip’s voice loudly following me. “I want your number, Genevieve.”

  I shot Angelique a guilty smile and hurried to the elevators. Even though the elevator doors opened less than a minute later, it felt like an eternity. The trip down four floors took equally long and it was with great impatience that I walked past the security desk to the front door. Hitching my handbag over my shoulder I pushed open the heavy wooden door of the historic building and stepped into a bright sunny day. The weather in Strasbourg often pushed the mercury past tolerable and today was one of those days. I reached into my handbag for my sunglasses. Once my eyes were protected from the bright sunlight, I started looking around for Colin.

  A full minute later I had scoured the street in front of the building and still couldn’t see Colin anywhere. Rousseau & Rousseau’s offices were on a relatively quiet street with buildings housing corporations that didn’t require foot traffic. There were therefore never many people passing the buildings, not even in tourist season. Today was no exception.

  Across the street, a young mother was pushing her infant in a stroller and to my left was an elderly couple slowly making their way towards the shopping district. The only other person I could see was a distinguished looking gentleman, leaning heavily on his cane. His gray hair was mussed as if he’d pushed his hands through it numerous times. Despite the high temperature, he was wearing a three-piece suit that dated from a few decades ago, but still looked very sharp. Every step he took towards me looked like it caused him great discomfort.

  “We’d better go. I just saw Millard driving around the block looking for parking.”

  I gaped at the old man with Colin’s voice. It could not be. As I had done with the three photos of the poets, I only recognised him once I focussed on his mouth. “You’re good. Really good.”

  “Why, thank you, young lady.” The smile that lit up his face took decades off his artificially aged image and he looked much more like the thief that consistently annoyed me. He reached me and put his free arm through mine. What was it with men touching me today? I tried to pull away from this unexpected physical contact, but he held on tighter. “It will look more natural if you aid me when we rush to my car. We don’t have much time before Millard will drive down here again.”

  I pushed down my intense dislike for physical contact and started walking. “Where is your car?”

  “It’s the red Toyota down there.” He lifted his hand from my arm to point to a car about fifty meters ahead before he rested his hand lightly on my arm. The heat from his hand burned on my skin. I swallowed hard against the discomfort tightening its fingers around my throat and started imagining Mozart’s Symphony No. 9 in C major. In my mind I drew the accolade, the clefs and first notes on a clear music score sheet. A few steps later I felt my breathing deepen and the tension leaving my body.

  “You have to teach me to do that thing.”

  “What thing?”

  “The thing you just did. I could actually feel you calm down and relax.” We reached the car and Colin pulled his arm from mine. He reached into his retro pants pocket and came out with a remote control for the car. A soft pop

  sounded and the doors were unlocked. He opened the passenger door and waited for me to get in before he slowly walked around to the driver’s side. I watched with a mixture of admiration and annoyance as he stayed in character even when there was no one else on the street. He settled in next to me and put his cane on the back seat. “I’m serious about you teaching me your relaxation technique.”

  “If I am going to teach you anything, Mister Frey, it will be to not break into my home, my life, my handbag and my cell phone.”

  “Oh, that.” He pulled out of the parking space and drove down the one-way street. “I suppose you want me to explain.”

  I didn’t consider it necessary to answer him and just glared at him. He turned into a main street before he quickly glanced at me and winced.

  “You’re pissed. Okay, it was the first time we met. You were busy writing your music and I had nothing else to do.”

  “So you went through my handbag?” My cell phone very seldom left its designated pocket in my handbag.

  “Yes. I thought it would be a good thing for me to get to know you better. When I saw your phone I realised how important it would be for us to be able to contact each other since we were going to be working together.”

  “How could you have made such an assumption? I hadn’t even agreed to work with you then.”

  “I knew you would.”

  “You have an inflated sense of confidence.”

  “Thank you, young lady,” he said with the same charming smile as earlier.

  I didn’t understand why he would think of my observation as a compliment. I took a few deep breaths and mentally wrote a few more bars of Mozart. He was not going to get me to lose my hard won control.

  “You don’t have any contacts on your phone.” Colin glanced at me quickly before he swiftly changed lanes and accelerated to catch the green traffic light.

  “Please slow down.” I pulled at the seatbelt to ensure that it was tight against my body. “I’m sure there is no reason for us to be rushing there.”

  “I wasn’t rushing.” He sounded surprised, but did slow down a fraction. “Why aren’t there other contacts on your phone?”

  “Because I don’t phone anyone with it. Please don’t tailgate.”

  Colin’s laughter filled the car. “You are a backseat driver. Who would’ve thought.”

  “I’m not driving nor am I in the backseat.” I was too concerned with Colin’s abandoned manner of driving to pay attention to idioms and nuances. He must’ve sensed my genuine discomfort, because he slowed down enough to allow some distance between us and the white station wagon in front of us. I relaxed a fraction against the seat.

  “Did you find any more connections?”

  I was glad for a topic to take my attention away from his driving. “Yes. I found something very odd.”

  “And?” he prompted when I didn’t elaborate.

  “While I was looking for connections between the three ships that shipped those artefacts and other cargo ships, I noticed a most peculiar pattern. They’re all singularly owned.” My triumphant pronouncement was met with bland silence. I closed my eyes briefly. Why did I continue to forget that I had to explain things more clearly? “Most shipping companies own more than one ship. As a matter of fact, some of them have quite an impressive number of vessels registered.”

  Colin was driving too fast again. He glanced at me when I stopped talking. He must have noticed the tension around my mouth because he slowed down. “At this speed, it’ll take us hours to get there.”

  I dismissed his complaint. “I first looked at the owner of the ship with the Klimt, then the owner of the ship with the Degas. Something didn’t fit, so I searched some more. I found another four shipping companies like these two. All six companies own only one ship.”


  “Are you telling me that there are six shipping companies, each owning only one ship?”

  “Why are you repeating what I just told you?” I waved away this redundant line of thought. “The Degas, Klimt and Modigliani were each on these kind of ships.”

  “All three?”

  “Yes,” I said with exaggerated patience. “I haven’t had enough time to find out who owns these shipping companies. Maybe they are also connected.”

  “Well, you can draw another line now.”

  “Oh. Yes, of course. Between the ships and the art.” We sat in silence for a few moments. I wondered how much information I could get on each shipping company from the EDA files. My thoughts wandered to the murdered artists. “Tell me about the girl.”

  “Only if you tell me why you have a smartphone, but never use it to phone people with. Why you have no contact numbers on it.” The professional make-up had aged him a few decades. The added wrinkles around his eyes and mouth made him a very handsome older man, but also made it difficult to read micro-expressions. Without that, I had mostly his tone of voice and his words to guide me. I decided that he was not going to give me anything unless I gave something first. Working with this man was infuriating and stimulating at the same time. Most definitely it was not dull.

  “It is an extremely useful tool. People are so enamoured with their phones nowadays that it doesn’t look strange when I’m sitting in a café working on my phone. Most people would be checking their emails, updating those social networking things or playing some silly games.”

  “So what is it that you do with your smartphone when you are in a café?” Colin sounded suspicious.

  “I record people.” I ignored the surprised sound he made and stared resolutely through the windscreen. He had asked and I was going to answer, but he’d better not judge me. “I downloaded this wonderful application that immediately sends the footage to my computer so that I can analyse it later.”

  “Why would you want to analyse it?”

  “The more I study people, the better I become. When people interact in a public environment like a café, it is rather disconcerting to observe how intimate their behaviour can be. But that gives me hours of great footage. By analysing it, I hone my skills.”

  There was a long moment of silence. “You’re a fascinating woman, Jenny.”

  I had no response to that. I moved on. “Tell me about the girl.”

  We slowed down and turned into the street leading to the university. “She was an art student. Her name was Danielle Rioux. She studied here and we are going to speak to her roommate.”

  I balked at that. “I don’t speak to people.”

  “You’re speaking to me,” he said unruffled while parking the car in one of the few available spaces on the street. “If you prefer, I’ll do the talking and you can just observe.”

  “I think that would be prudent.” We got out of the car and I started walking towards the university, but stopped when I realised Colin wasn’t next to me.

  “We’re going to her apartment first. It’s this way.” He was again leaning heavily on his cane and put his hand out for my assistance. I stared at his hand for a long moment. With a sigh I walked towards him and allowed him to put his arm through mine.

  “How did you find her?” I ignored the feel of his hand on my arm, focussing instead on the case.

  “Um,” he adjusted his bodyweight so he was leaning more on the cane, “I know someone.”

  “Someone?”

  “A computer someone.” We walked a few steps in silence. “She can find anyone anywhere.”

  I gave myself the luxury to groan out loud. “Did you break the law finding this girl?”

  “Isn’t it more important that we actually did find her and not how we found her?” He stopped in front of an old building. On the scuffed wooden door was a plaque announcing that this student house was under video surveillance. Colin turned to me. “She lived here on the third floor. Her roommate is expecting us.”

  A group of loud students exploded out of the door, cutting off any more objections I had. I really didn’t like this gray area of life that I had stumbled into. My life had been clear cut until five days ago; things were black and white. There were right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable categories for situations and people. Criminals were an entity that never ventured into any positive category and most definitely did not allow for any association. Now I was about to enter a student house with a well-disguised thief.

  The last student passed us with a loud whoop and Colin used his cane to stop the door from slamming shut. With difficulty appropriate to his faked age, he opened the door. “After you, young lady.”

  I considered him for a moment and then, exasperated, squeezed past him into the bright entrance hall. He followed me in. I moved away from him when he reached for my arm. He acknowledged my gesture with a small smile and a nod. “We can take the elevator. I’m too old for the stairs.”

  We waited for the elevator car to arrive. “Are you sure that Danielle was her real name?”

  “A very good question.” He thought about it for a while. “I’m pretty sure it was her real name. Francine would’ve found other identities if there had been any.”

  “Is Francine your computer someone?”

  Colin looked at me in surprise. Before he could respond, the elevator arrived and the doors unlocked. I opened the antiquated doors and entered the car first, thinking about Colin’s reaction. It appeared to me he was surprised that he had told me this computer person’s name. My expertise told me that it could only be interpreted as trust and that I should feel honoured to be trusted by someone as cautious as this cunning thief. I did feel something, but it was relief rather than honour. I placed that interesting insight in the back of my mind to take out later and dissect. We arrived on the third floor and I switched on my non-verbal reading skills. I was about to learn more about the girl in the photo.

 

  Chapter EIGHT