The Flinck Connection (Book 4) (Genevieve Lenard) (2 page)

Nikki’s criminal father had tried to keep her away from his illegal activities once she’d entered her adolescence. I had hoped to prevent any of my work touching her life.

“See,” she said, pointing at my face. “I didn’t want you to look like that.”

“Like what?”

“Stressed.”

I looked at her young, open face, weighing my words. “You shouldn’t worry about me. Every day is stressful for many different reasons. I stress when Vinnie cooks dinner, hoping that he will remember to clean up after himself. I stress when it rains, knowing that I will have to polish the floors to remove muddy footprints. I stress when you put a cup on the coffee table, because you spilled a drop and it might stain the wood. But I’ve learned how to deal with my stress. The worst form of stress is when I have a lack of information. The more I know, the safer I feel. So please tell me everything you know about these messages.”

“Wow. That’s kinda screwed up.” She winced at her indelicacy. “Sorry. You are just sometimes really hard to understand.”

“I know. We can discuss this issue at a later, more opportune time. Now, I need to know about the messages.”

She took the phone, swiped the screen twice and handed it back. “That is the first DM. It only said,
‘Vermeer @ 89 Rue de Jonette’
. Nothing more. There are so many freaks hanging out on Twitter and Facebook, I didn’t pay attention to it when I received it a week ago.”

“Six days ago.” The date and time of the message was above the five words.

“Yeah. Well, I totally forgot about it until yesterday’s message.”

I looked up from the phone. “Next time I would like it if you told me.”

“Oh, God. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.” Her brows pulled together and her lips thinned in distress. She leaned forward and put her hand on the duvet, reaching out to me. “I trust you, Doc G. With my life. You are the best thing that could have happened to me. I just didn’t want to worry you.”

“I understand, Nikki.” I could see she wasn’t convinced. Inwardly I sighed. “I’m not offended or hurt. You made the best choice you thought available, even though your reasoning was greatly flawed.”

“Ouch, but you are right. Sorry, Doc G. Next time I’ll come straight to you.”

“Or Colin if I’m not here. Or Vinnie when Colin’s not available.” I thought about this. “I think it would be better to tell Manny before you tell Francine anything.”

Nikki smiled. “Why? Because she’ll immediately tell me it’s aliens or a government conspiracy?”

“Yes. Manny will be much more reasonable in his conclusions. And he has a gun.” My phone vibrated in my dressing gown pocket once before a loud song about not being able to read a poker face alerted me to a call. I took the phone out of my pocket and almost smiled despite my annoyance at the changed ringtone. “Hello, Manny.”

“Doc, what have you got for me?”

I told him what Nikki had told me and what I had read on her phone. “The person sending these emails doesn’t seem to be very intelligent.”

“Why, Doc?”

“Well, his math was insulting in its simplicity.”

“Do you think he meant that if we add up his clues we will come to the right conclusion?”

“That is conjecture, but tolerable. There is another reason I think he’s not very smart. Using ‘pervasive reach’ is redundant. Pervasive means to have a far reach.”

“Okay, now can you tell me what the bloody hell Frey is doing at Claude Savreux’s house?”

“I don’t know yet. Let me put you on speakerphone and you can ask Nikki.” I tapped the screen and looked at Nikki. She exhibited contrition again.

“Hi, Manny,” she said, looking at the phone.

“Hello, lass.” His tone softened considerably. Manny’s affection for Nikki was undisguised. “Now tell me why that you sent that thief to a politician’s house.”

“I didn’t send him there. And I didn’t know it was a politician’s house.” She took a deep breath and relaxed her shoulders. “When I told Colin about the two DM’s, he said that I was not to worry about it anymore and that he would look into it. He told me that I did the right thing to tell him and not Doc G. He also didn’t want to worry her.”

“Do you know anything about this Flinck person?” Manny asked.

“Yes.” There was no trace of uncertainty in her answer. Of all the options available to her, Nikki had chosen to study art. She was in her first year, and I had made sure she understood that she had complete freedom to choose any specialisation she preferred. Four months into her course, she loved every minute of it and studied harder than most students. “Three weeks ago we looked into Dutch artists. Govaert Flinck was part of the Dutch Golden Era. That was a time in Dutch history when some of the best Dutch artists, scientists and tradesmen lived. They were internationally known. Um, as well as anyone could be internationally known before the internet.”

“Doc, do you know anything about this Flinck? Anything more than being famous before the internet?”

“No.” I shook my head even though Manny couldn’t see. “In this case, Nikki knows more than I do.”

“Nikki, did Frey do anything specific when you told him about the message?”

“Um, yeah. His eyes widened in the way Doc G says shows surprise.”

“Hmm.”

There was a moment of silence and I wondered if Colin was safe. I leaned towards the phone. “Did you organise people you trusted to go to the house?”

“Yes, Doc. I’m on my way to the house now. Hopefully they will have the warrant by the time I get there. As soon as we’ve cleared it and I’m sure it’s safe, I’ll phone you to meet us there. Maybe you can be of some help.”

“I’ll meet you there.” I tapped the screen of my phone to end the call before Manny’s inevitable arguments. Almost immediately, the same poker face song filled Nikki’s bedroom again. I turned off the sound and stared at Nikki.

“What?” She shrank back against the headboard.

“I want you to go into my bedroom and lock that door until we come back.”

“You won’t let me come with you?”

“I want you to be safe. My bedroom has an enforced door with extra locks.” My fingers curled into fists. This was very difficult for me. I bit down hard and spoke through my teeth. “You can sleep in my bed until we come back. It’s important for me to know that you are protected.”

“Where’s Vinnie?”

“Not here.” I walked to her door, my phone vibrating in my hand. “Give me five minutes to get dressed.”

It took me four minutes to get dressed and one minute to calm my breathing. Rationally I knew that I only had to change the bedding after Nikki slept in my bed to make it mine again, but still I found this most perturbing. Colin was the only one I had ever allowed to sleep in my bed. For some irrational reason it was not only acceptable, but enjoyable to have him sleep next
to me. The thought of anyone else—even someone I cared for—sleeping in my bed caused me great anxiety.

I found it interesting that Nikki’s safety and my concern about Colin took precedence over my usual obsessions. Two years ago, my focus had been purely on maintaining my equilibrium and my routines. Now I was impatiently waiting for Nikki so I could make sure she locked herself in my bedroom while I went to this mystery address.

“Are you ever going to listen to me, missy?” Manny whispered through tight lips as soon as I got out of my car. “I said I will phone you when it is safe to come.”

“Why are you whispering?” I kept my tone down, but didn’t see the need to whisper. There was more than enough noise on the tree-lined, suburban street to wake the neighbours at this early hour. The officers in black uniforms couldn’t prevent their boots from crunching over the snow as they moved towards the house at the end of the street. I had parked next to Manny’s car, three houses from the address Nikki had received.

“We’re not hosting a bloody street party here. If Savreux is dead, the killer might still be in the house.” He shook his head and scowled at me. “You shouldn’t be here. And you should’ve answered your phone.”

“You were going to argue with me and waste time.” I shrugged. My phone had buzzed the whole way to this house. I had checked every time, and ignored it when I had seen it wasn’t Colin. “I didn’t see the point in an inane debate with you.”

His nostrils flared and he threw his hands in the air as he turned away from me.

“Hi, Doctor Lenard.”

I jumped at the deep voice speaking quietly behind me and spun around, my hand pressing hard against my sternum. A tall man stood next to my car, his posture typical of soldiers—on constant alert. He was in full uniform, which included a black facemask, but I recognised the friendly eyes. Daniel Cassel was a team leader for GIPN, a rapid response team similar to SWAT.

“Good evening, Daniel. I keep telling you to call me Genevieve.”

“Genevieve.” He smiled. “Manny said you were coming. Do you have any more intel?”

“I told Manny everything I…” My voice tapered down when Daniel’s body suddenly went still. It was the kind of stillness observed in animals when they became aware of a threat and stopped to analyse the sound. I was about to ask him what he had heard when boots crunched on the snow to our left. Daniel pushed me behind him and had his gun aimed at the sound before I could protest him touching me. To my right, Manny also had his gun aimed at the sound coming closer.

Manny’s eyes widened slightly in recognition, but he didn’t lower his weapon. “Please give me a reason to shoot you.”

I peeked around Daniel. Colin stood a few feet away from us, lifting his eyebrows at Manny’s handgun. Daniel’s posture relaxed and he holstered his weapon. “Monsieur Goddphin. Pleased to meet you again.”

Colin had introduced himself to Daniel a year ago, wearing a disguise and going by the name Sydney Goddphin, a seventeenth-century poet.

“Daniel.” Colin nodded, but didn’t take his eyes off Manny’s handgun. “You can holster that thing now, Millard.”

“Give me a few moments more. I’m enjoying this.”

Neither one of them wanted to talk about the reason for the recent hostility towards each other, but this was reaching ridiculous levels. I stepped out from behind Daniel to stand in Manny’s line of sight. Colin smiled when Manny swore and holstered his weapon, but then frowned at me. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“One of the few things we agree on, Frey.”

“I suppose you are the reason for this nightly excitement, Goddphin?” Daniel lifted his chin towards the house at the end of the street.

Colin’s eyes narrowed for a second as he made a decision. He nodded as if to himself and held out his hand to Daniel. “Colin Frey. You might as well use my real name.”

“Colin Frey, huh? Well, well.” Daniel shook Colin’s hand, one corner of his mouth lifting. He had recognised the name, most likely from a criminal context. “Things are making more sense now. I take it you were inside the house?”

“Yes.” Colin looked at me. “Did Nikki tell you about the DM’s?”

“She did and I told Manny everything.”

“Which he told me,” Daniel said. “My guys are in place to go into the house, but I need to know if you have anything else to add.”

Colin and Daniel started talking about the layout of the house, the best places to enter, and exits to keep an eye on in case the killer was still in the house and was flushed out. Manny was listening with interest to the conversation. Despite the fluctuating levels of animosity between Manny and Colin, they reluctantly respected each other’s expertise, even if they would never acknowledge it in public.

Once Daniel was satisfied that he had a better overview of the house, he left to coordinate with his team. He seemed even more vigilant than the last time I had seen him. It might be because five months ago he had declared a house cleared of people and explosives when it hadn’t been. We had entered that house only to be held at gunpoint, an experience that still hovered in the back of my mind. It had taken months before I had stopped obsessing about what could have happened, and only recently had I been able to limit checking the locks to my apartment to only three times throughout the night.

“It’s going to take them a while to clear the house.” Manny turned away from the street where he had been following Daniel’s progress to the house, his focus now entirely on Colin. “What do you know about Claude Savreux?”

“Not much.” Colin’s shoulders lifted. “He’s been on the news lately talking about the decision to send even more troops to CAR. That was pretty much when I stopped paying attention. Other than that I don’t even know what kind of politician he is.”

“He’s the Minister of Defence and Veteran Affairs,” I said. “Lately, he’s brought a lot of attention to PTSD and that not only soldiers who have been in combat suffer from it. He’s been on quite a few political talk shows, saying that the government needs to do more to look after their soldiers as well as other people suffering from PTSD.”

“What else do you know, Doc?”

“I don’t know much about his professional and personal life. He appears to be a civic-minded politician. But these bits of information I’ve learned from the news, not that the news is ever a believable representation of the truth.”

Manny’s eyebrows lifted. “You sound like Francine.”

“No, no. This is not a conspiracy theory. This is a truth that has been proven often enough. Francine believes that governments feed the media whatever fodder they consider appropriate in order to keep the masses ignorant and controlled.” Our IT expert Francine was prone to fanciful hypotheses. She was also my only female friend. I frowned. “This is of absolutely no relevance to this conversation. What do you know about Savreux?”

“The same as you,” Manny said. “I didn’t even know he lived in Strasbourg. I thought all these bigwigs lived in Paris. Okay, so we don’t know much about Savreux. Frey, what do you know about this Flinck?”

“He lived in the seventeenth century in Holland and was one of the artists in the Dutch Golden Era. He was reputed to be one of Rembrandt’s best students. Surely you know who Rembrandt is.”

Manny looked towards the end of the street, ignoring Colin’s baiting. “So? Was there a Flinck Golden Era painting in the house?”

Colin shook his head. “I went through most of the rooms in the house and didn’t see any of Flinck’s work anywhere.”

“What the hell does that message to Nikki mean?” Manny didn’t look at us as he asked this and I wondered if he expected an answer.

Before I could voice my confusion, a soft whistle caught our attention. Daniel was standing outside the house on the corner, waving at us to come closer.

I turned to follow Manny, but Colin stopped me with his gloved hand on my arm. He stepped in front of me, waiting until he had my full attention. “There is a dead man inside that house, Jenny. He’s lying on a carpet that is now stained with his blood. Are you sure you want to go in there?”

When I had accepted the job as an insurance investigator at Rousseau & Rousseau, I had never imagined that I would see so many dead bodies. At times it had been traumatic, but my ability to compartmentalise had stood me in good stead. Despite this skill, I still gave Colin’s question considerable thought before I nodded. “I’m sure. As long as Daniel and his team are there to keep us safe, I’ll go in.”

“Okay.” He held out his hand and I placed mine in his. I was still wearing my driving gloves and therefore didn’t feel the contact at all, yet it gave me the level of comfort that I had come to expect whenever Colin touched me. As we walked the ninety metres to where Manny and Daniel were talking, I thought about how powerful the mind was at searching for and finding safety and comfort when it was the thing we needed most.

“You guys know the drill,” Daniel said when we stopped next to them. “Don’t touch anything, don’t move anything and if you see something suspicious, call me or one of my team.”

He waited until we all agreed, stepped away from the front door and gestured us in. Manny walked in first, his posture slightly changed. Most of the times he was hunched over, creating the image of someone not paying attention to anything around him. It was an illusion. He was one of the most astute observers I had come across.

Colin didn’t let go of my hand as we entered behind Manny. I had learned to appreciate their concern for not only my physical safety, but also my mental well-being. Yet I simultaneously found it irritating. There were moments it felt as if they considered me incapable of looking after myself—something I had done since the age of seventeen. I dismissed these musings and paid attention to the house.

It was a home befitting a politician. It had clearly been decorated by a professional designer, the furniture and finishing touches of the highest quality. Persian carpets covered dark wooden floors and the walls hosted paintings of old masters and more modern works. Working daily with insuring high-end possessions, I knew that just the frame on the painting above the eighteenth-century table was worth five hundred euro. We slowly made our way through the entrance and past what appeared to be a formal reception area to our right. Manny looked into the room and immediately the tension in his body increased.

“This where it happened?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Yes.” Daniel walked past me to stand next to Manny. “The crime scene unit is going to have our heads for walking in here without any protective gear, but I wanted you to see the scene as it is before they get here with all their equipment.”

Manny nodded and looked at me. “You up for this, Doc?”

“If you are asking whether I am ready to see a dead body, my answer is no. But I will go in nonetheless.”

“Well then, shall we?” He didn’t wait for an answer, and walked through the doorway. Colin and I followed.

The room was a textbook example of understated elegance. It was clearly a man’s home office. A large, dark wooden desk dominated the left side of the room. There were no ornaments on the desk itself, but the coffee tables and mantelpiece held a few noteworthy works of art. To the right, in front of the fireplace, two deep leather chairs faced a leather sofa, the arrangement separated by a low, solid wood coffee table. I took in all the details, trying to memorise as much as possible. Later we would have photos of the scene, but the first impression was the most important to me. This impression included the ambience, smells, sounds and anything that felt out of place.

A few things registered in my mind. The lack of a fire was the first. It was mid-winter, yet that fireplace had not been used today. It was pristine, as if thoroughly cleaned a few hours ago. The second thing I noticed was the smell. It was disconcerting that I was familiar with that coppery smell. I looked towards the heavy beige curtains across from the doorway. On the carpet close to the curtains only two legs were visible, the rest of the body hidden by the desk.

I took a fortifying breath and slowly walked deeper into the room.

Bit by bit the body of a middle-aged man was revealed. A few times I had seen him on television, which made it easier to recognise his face. There were a few theories about facial expressions upon death. Some said that your face would be frozen in that very last emotion that went through you as you
breathed your last breath. I held no such beliefs, but if I did, the last emotion Savreux had felt had been outrage. There was not a single indicator of fear, regret, sadness or even resignation visible on his face. Interesting.

I realised that I was focussing on his face in order to avoid looking lower. I had noticed his presumed cause of death, but hadn’t wanted to study it too closely. Knowing that I could miss some important clue, I lowered my eyes to his throat and the dark purple line around it, and the deep scratches where Minister Savreux had tried to get to the garrotte.

Strangling someone was a rather personal method of murder. It required being close to the victim. More importantly, it necessitated physical strength to hold the garrotte tight enough around the victim’s neck until he or she expired. It was physically demanding but effective. That led me to question the presence of the blood on his shirt. I stepped even closer, staring at what had once been a white shirt.

Dark panic started to creep up on me, the periphery of my vision turning black. It was hard to stay unaffected when facing such brutality. I sucked in a deep breath, closed my eyes and imagined Mozart’s Violin Concerto in E Flat Major playing in my mind. This piece I usually used when I wanted my mindset to be one of rational work.

A few minutes later, the panic receded. When I opened my eyes, everyone was in a different place in the room, except Colin. He was still next to me, holding my hand.