The Flinck Connection (Book 4) (Genevieve Lenard) (16 page)

“What is it?” Colin took my hand in his.

“I feel left out.” I pulled my hand from his and exhaled angrily. “This is ridiculous. I’ve never had a need to belong anywhere. Why would I suddenly need to be part of an investigation that would only rob my time? It might be a meaningless hunt while I could much more efficiently use my time doing what I’m currently doing.”

“Hey, I think it’s cool that you want to be with us.”

“I think it is immature and shows a preposterous lack of rationality.”

He laughed softly and leaned forward until our lips almost touched. “I really love you, you know?”

“I know.” I swallowed. It still wasn’t easy to verbally express my vulnerability. “I love you too.”

He laughed again and kissed me before pulling back. “You don’t have to sound so spooked about it.”

“Go away.” I turned my chair, so I was facing the monitors again. “I need to work.”

He left, still laughing. I didn’t understand what humour he had seen in my words and actions, but I had seen the nonverbal cues communicating his affection and enjoyment. It was enough for me. It had been a hard lesson, but I had learned that I didn’t need to understand everything. Colin and the others had taught me to sometimes just accept.

Like flipping a light switch, I closed off all thoughts of my private life and started looking through the myriad video files, hoping to come across René Motte’s meeting with Savreux. Many different people were on these clips. Whenever an unknown person appeared on my monitor, I listened for a name. The names I got from the onscreen conversations, I immediately researched on the internet, familiarising myself not only with as much information on them as possible, but also with as many photos as I could find. I needed to know whom I was looking for in case one of these people became more than only a person of interest. I didn’t have to search far into the past videos to find the short, almost petite man. He had met with Minister Savreux two days before the mysterious man had paid the minister a visit.

I started the video and, like I did every time, looked for any changes in the room. It was the same. Minister Savreux was sitting at his desk when Motte entered. The minister got up, a social smile wide enough to show his white teeth. “René, come in, come in.”

He held out his hand to indicate the sofas. He led Motte to the sex sofa, a smirk closely resembling a social smile on his face when he turned to pour some drinks. “What can I get you?”

“Scotch would be good. On the rocks, thank you.” Motte’s voice didn’t match his frame—it was deep and authoritative.

Minister Savreux prepared the beverages and sat down in his usual chair. For the next ten minutes, I listened to them talk about their disgust at legalising brothels. Minister Savreux agreed with Motte’s outrage that prostitutes were even allowed to work in France. As far as he was concerned, these women, and men, should be sent to prison for violating the moral purity of society.

Again I was captivated by Claude Savreux’s nonverbal communication. Unless someone had exceptional observation skills, they would never have noticed his deception cues. He was uncanny in his sincerity and agreement that sexual activity should only ever take place in the sanctity of marriage. I wondered if his reason for leading Motte to the sex sofa was because he was internally mocking the smaller man.

“Is everything in place?” Motte lowered his chin, the expression in his eyes conveying a hidden meaning. “I’m leaving for the Caribbean the day after tomorrow and will not be reachable.”

“Not at all?”

Just as Motte was about to answer, a ringtone filled the room. Motte took his smartphone from his jacket pocket and glanced at the screen. “We’ll have to talk tomorrow. Contact me so we can arrange the where. I have to take this.”

Without waiting for Minister Savreux’s response, he got up and started whispering into his phone as he left the room. Minister Savreux didn’t get out of the chair, slowly relaxing while sipping his drink. After some time, he shook his head and muttered, “Sanctimonious midget.”

The video stopped and I sat back. How was it possible that these videos started and stopped at certain points without the help of a human at the controls? If the camera had been triggered by motion sensors, it would have started the moment someone crossed one of the sensors, not a few seconds before like on most of the videos. All of them also stopped a few seconds after an important meeting, never in the middle or an extended time later. Someone had edited these recordings into the clips that I had been watching.

The mysterious man with flu had exhibited such suspicious behaviour that I was considered it within reason to suspect he had been the one to either give the clock to Savreux as a gift, or place the camera in the clock. Before I watched the video featuring him again, I needed to make sure that I didn’t miss anything. Motte had told Savreux to meet with him the next day. It was most inconvenient that their meeting had been cut short. It might have supplied needed answers. I double-checked, but could find no footage of a meeting between the two of them, not the next day or any day thereafter.

I reached the clip of Savreux and the mysterious man and watched it another three times. The first time, my attention was solely on Savreux—his expressions, his words, his tone, everything. The second time, I focussed on the interaction—the length of time between questions and answers, the changes in both men’s tones as the conversation progressed. It was the third time that I found something very valuable.

Focussing my attention completely on the mystery man was not very informative. The angle provided me with very little
body language to read and not one single facial expression. I hated phone conversations for that reason. Without the context body language lent to tone and words, I more often than not misunderstood the true message.

That was why I was searching for the smallest nonverbal cue from the mystery man as he talked. I needed context. That came the moment he put his handkerchief back in his pocket and dropped his hand to his side. A second before he spoke, he touched the tip of his little finger to the tip of his thumb. He repeated this conscious action three more times before he left. For some reason he was using an anchor. This was most interesting and might help to build a better profile of this man. I couldn’t wait to share this with Colin and Manny.

I knew they were busy and didn’t want to interfere, especially now that Colin knew I wanted to be part of their investigation. These were new emotions that I was going to have to work through. The hardest part of friendship had been the constant sense of vulnerability. Colin had told me it would get better the more I trusted them. Thus far, it had not proven true.

To avoid any more pesky emotional thoughts, I continued my perusal of the video clips. On the notepad in front of my keyboard, I neatly wrote down the details of each clip. I had the names of around eighty percent of the visitors. Some I had recognised, others’ names had led me to their profiles. For those unidentified, I wrote a brief description and their purpose of visit. I loved making lists. There was something very calming in putting down one’s thoughts, chores, or in this case, suspects, in neat columns. It also helped me organise potential theories and ideas.

I lost myself in the process of analysing the nonverbal cues, listening for important information, noting down the details and fast-forwarding scenes I did not care for. Each filename was the date and time of the recording. That meant there were recordings as far back as five months ago. Even though I was curious to see the very first recording, I could not bring myself to disregard my compulsive need to follow the numbers. The thought of skipping to the first clip increased my heart rate and left my hands cold and sweaty. I took a deep breath and played the next clip in the cue. I had a lot of footage to get through if I wanted to reach the first one.

“Jenny?” Colin soft touch on my shoulder startled me and my fingers tingled from the minor surge of adrenaline.

I had been fully immersed in my viewing and resented being pulled out of it. I paused the video and turned to him, annoyed. “I had lunch two hours ago. It can’t possibly be time to eat or drink or sleep again.”

He smiled. “I have something better.”

“What can be better than leaving me alone to work?”

His expression lost its light-heartedness and he turned his head slightly to the right. I had learned that this sideways look came when I was being particularly rude. I considered this and sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m getting very close to the first clip recorded in Minister Savreux’s home office and I am very curious what can be learned from it.”

“Apology accepted.” He nodded to the door. “Come with me. What I have might just trump your first video.”

The excitement on his face caught my interest. Only a few things energised Colin this much. The top of the list was stolen art. I narrowed my eyes. “Did you steal something? Did you break into Motte’s preservation room and steal that Vermeer?”

He laughed as he grabbed my hand and pulled me from my chair. “No, I didn’t steal anything. Not this time, anyway. We got it the legal way.”

“What is it?” I had become trapped by Colin’s enthusiasm. I walked faster than usual, following him through the team room into the hallway, growing more curious by the second. “Where are we going?”

“The large conference room. We’ve got it set up there.”

A year ago, Phillip had extended one of the conference rooms to be large enough to host a small exhibition. Whatever Colin was currently excited about had to be large enough to require being displayed in that room.

At the door of the conference room, Colin stood aside to let me enter first. I walked in, only to stop after two steps. Vinnie and Manny bustled around the room, but it was the many paintings on the walls—more paintings than in some smaller galleries here in Strasbourg—that held my interest. The conference table covered with one of the expensive linen tablecloths Phillip had bought also caught my attention. Not much of the cream cloth was visible under all of the statues, clocks, Fabergé eggs, masks and other artworks carefully displayed there.

“Where did this come from?” I didn’t intend to whisper, but that was the result of being confounded by what I was looking at.

“Oh, Doc. You’re here.” Manny came from the other side of the long conference table and waved his hand around the room. “What do you think?”

I cleared my throat. “Where did this come from?”

Colin walked past me and lovingly touched a small marble sculpture that looked distinctly Renaissance in style. “All of this was in Savreux’s cellar.”

“He had stored all of this in that wine cellar he rented? Oh, my.”

“Millard came through with a search warrant and this is what we found.”

“Genevieve.” Phillip walked into the room, his cheeks flushed. He was a self-possessed man, always in control of his emotions. The pleasure of having these artworks in his company’s conference room was clearly overpowering his
usual composure. “Isn’t this wonderful? Look at all of these works. We are busy inventorying it, but so far we are looking at hundreds of millions of euro’s worth of artwork here.”

“Plenty of these pieces are on different stolen art registries, including the FBI and Interpol’s registries.” Colin picked up a fragile-looking bottle with a lid. “This is a glass water bottle from the Ottoman period. It was stolen in Turkey a few months ago. Look at these gilded motifs. Such incredible fine work.” He walked deeper into the room, pointing out various paintings and other works. “See this watercolour? It’s a nineteenth-century Pissarro, the Rue a Macon. This oil painting is a Paul Grim. A Paul Grim! See how he catches the light on the side of the mountains? That’s why he called it the Sunkissed Slopes. God, this really upsets me.”

I didn’t know how to respond to this, so I merely nodded. How did this fit into all the previous information I had learned about Minister Savreux and the rest of this case? I stopped in front of a painting of the cubist artist, Juan Gris, and quickly turned away. It brought back unpleasant memories of our last case.

“It makes sense that Minister Savreux wouldn’t want these paintings on display in his home,” I said. “In the videos I have been watching, Minister Savreux didn’t just use his office as a brothel, he had a number of professional meetings with other politicians and economists there. From the conversations and body language, these visitors had no illegal connection to the Minister.”

“There is also the possibility that one of these gentlemen would’ve asked questions about the works if they were hanging on his walls,” Phillip said.

“Someone did ask him about the Flinck above the mantelpiece. He told the gentleman that it was a reproduction he had made. Savreux was a more than adequate liar.”

“And that is why I would never call a politician a gentleman, but that’s just me.” Manny was standing next to the table, leaning towards a small wooden chest. His arm closest to the chest was slightly away from his body, his fingers uncharacteristically fidgety.

“What is in the chest?” From his body language, I knew Manny considered it valuable.

“The secrets to the universe.” His expression was filled with expectation as if he had delivered the punch line of a joke. When I didn’t react, he grunted and opened the lid. “Loads of files on different people and different cases. Some of these almost read like biographies or non-fiction books.”

“Have you read them?” How long had they been looking at these artworks and other findings?

“No, I skimmed through it. There are also a few computer things, which might tell us a few secrets as well. Supermodel is already checking those out.” He tilted his head to where Francine was sitting with her laptop on her lap before he lifted a handful of CD’s from the chest. “These are neatly marked videos. They have dates and names on them.”

“But that’s not all.” Vinnie’s dramatic delivery of the sentence brought smiles to everyone’s faces. He lifted a large gym bag, his arm muscles bulging from the weight of the content. “Here we have about a million dollars in dollar bills, pounds, euros, Australian dollars, Canadian dollars and even yen. In the old man’s treasure chest there on the table are passports for these countries for different names, but Savreux’s photo is in each one of them.”

“There isn’t a Japanese passport though.” Manny lifted a few passports from the chest and shook them. “It would be too suspicious to have a European face with a Japanese passport.”

“Why would he need aliases?” I asked Colin. I had met him when I had uncovered the numerous aliases he had been using. He was the best qualified to answer this question.

“Never for a legal reason, Doc.”

Colin nodded his agreement. “The photos in the passports are definitely him, but with subtle changes. He might have wanted to travel incognito or he didn’t want his trip, his flight to be public record. If a crime was committed in a few countries and he was present in all those countries at those times, it would lead to the obvious conclusion that he was somehow involved. There are many other reasons, but like Millard said, none of them could be honest.”

“At a glance, none of these passports has been used in the last two years.” Manny threw the passports back in the chest. “What happened two years ago that got this man to become so careful?”

It was a question I had been asking myself, but was yet to find an answer. I looked around the room. “And the art? Do you think he stole it?”

“Not all these pieces are reported stolen.” Phillip looked up from the tablet in his hand. He was inputting information on it, most likely completing the list of everything in the room.

“The big news here is that we have all five of the Degas drawings from the Boston heist. Look.” Colin pointed at the wall to Francine’s right. Five drawings were next to each other.

“Is there any damage?” I asked.

“Nothing. They’re pristine.” Colin’s voice shook with emotion. “Do you know what this means, Jenny?”

“Minister Savreux was somehow involved in the 1990 theft from the Gardner museum in Boston.”

“He might have been the one who orchestrated it,” Colin said.

“Are you sure those works are authentic?”

“I’m convinced these are the Degas drawings from the Gardner, but there is always a margin of error.”

“One of my trusted colleagues will come today to look at these,” Phillip said. “He is one of the top art experts who does authentication, and is also a friend. I know I can trust him with this.”

“You better be sure about him, Phillip.” Stress lines framed Manny’s mouth. “Until we know what all of this means, we cannot let any of this reach the public.”

“It won’t.” Phillip’s tone was confident.

I pulled out a chair and sat down. “How can we find out what role Minister Savreux played in the Boston heist?”

“Ooh, I found something!” Francine bounced in her chair, but didn’t look away from her laptop screen. “I don’t know what I found, but it looks delicious.”

“What do you mean delicious, supermodel?” Manny walked around the table towards Francine.

“Numbers, lots and lots of numbers. Big numbers. The kind of big numbers you get in big scandals.”

“Francine, you’re not making sense.” I often wished she would forego the dramatics and just say what was needed.

“Let me show you.” She stood up, frowned and looked around the room. “Hmm. Give me a moment to get the projector connected.”

It took her more than two minutes to wirelessly connect her computer to the projector hanging from the ceiling, and to lower the white screen hanging a few centimetres from the far wall. The first image that filled the screen wasn’t clear because of the lighting in the room. Phillip was closest to the door and turned the lights down.

“See? Loads of numbers?” Francine was right. On the screen were two pages, side by side, filled with strings of numbers. Even though all the numbers were neatly separated into columns, there was nothing indicating what any of the numbers represented.

“What do you think, Doc?” Manny looked at the screen for a few seconds, but showed cues of boredom. “Is this important?”

“If Savreux had this secretly locked away in a room filled with stolen artwork, he must have considered it of value.” I got up and walked closer to the screen. “This looks like it could fit on a spreadsheet.”

“I think so too,” Francine said. “Why on earth it is in a Word document, I really don’t know. Who on earth does their finances in Word?”

“I do mine in Word. Something wrong with that?”

Francine stared at Manny, her jaw slack. “Seriously, handsome? You could not be more of a Luddite if you tried. You’ve just lost a few brownie points with me.”

“Oh, how devastating.” Manny’s expression didn’t look like he was devastated.

I turned back to the numbers. “There aren’t any dates to show when the transactions took place. That is assuming that these are transactions.”

“Do you think that the last column might be a date, but coded?” Francine highlighted the last column. In each row were twelve numbers, too many to indicate day, month and year. The usual numbers were either six or eight digits for dates.

“I think it’s possible. These numbers are following each other in chronological order. We’ll have to decode it, but you might be right.”

“I think this is from many years ago.” Francine sounded so sure that I turned around to look at her.

“Why do you think that?”

“For starters, the whole Word thing. Seriously. Secondly, the date the document was saved on this disk is easy to find.”

“When was this document saved on that CD?” I asked.

“In 1996. It doesn’t mean that was when the document was created, but it was when this disk was burned.”

“Interesting.” I wondered what happened in 1996 that Savreux had felt compelled to save this information. “I would offer to help you decoding this file, but I know that you are quite capable of doing this yourself.”

“Why, thank you, girlfriend.”

“I will take those.” I pointed to the recordings in the chest. “As soon as I’m finished with Savreux’s videos, I will go through those.”

“We’ve left you with those videos the whole day. Have you found something useful, Doc?”

“Why are you looking so apologetic?” It was most unlike Manny to display cues of contrition.

“I…um…I’m not apologetic. I just think watching videos is boring and you’ve been doing this the whole day.”

“I’ve been doing this for the last three days, Manny. It’s not boring. As a matter of fact, I have found a few useful bits of information. I have a list of Savreux’s visitors and their activities. Not all of them went there to live out their sexual fantasies.” The expression on Manny’s face gave me pause. “You were feeling guilty that I had to watch all those sex tapes.”

“Oh, Doc. Don’t call it that.”

“It’s exactly what it is, Millard.” Colin smiled. “Who knew you were such a prude.”

“Not a prude, Frey. Just not into that kind of weird stuff.”