The Flinck Connection (Book 4) (Genevieve Lenard) (3 page)

“Okay?”

“Yes.” I pointed to Minister Savreux’s bloody shirt. “Look at all the holes. I count at least fifteen.”

“Overkill,” Daniel said from next to the desk. He was opening and closing drawers. “That usually happens when it is a crime of passion, when the killer knows the victim well.”

“And wants to take out all his anger on the person.” Manny stood a few feet away from the body, studying it with one eyebrow raised. “Who did Savreux piss off? Did he have some dirty secret that his wife found out?”

“He doesn’t have a wife,” a new voice said from the door. The tall, muscular man was still wearing his ski mask and helmet, also part of their uniform, making him hard to identify, but his voice sounded familiar.

“What do you know about Savreux, Pink?” As soon as Daniel said the name, I remembered. A year ago, we had saved the president’s son, and Pink had been the IT and electronics specialist on Daniel’s team. I still didn’t know his real name, just his silly moniker.

Pink slung his rifle over his shoulder and removed his helmet and mask. “Hi, everyone.”

Manny grunted a greeting. “Is he divorced?”

“No, his wife died of cancer about sixteen years ago and he never remarried. There are rumours about him having lovers, more than one at a time. Sometimes even together.”

“Anything factual?” I hated tabloid-level gossip.

“If you consider photos as factual, then yes.” Pink nodded towards Savreux. “Until his wife died, he’d been quite an upstanding guy. Speculation is that she kept him on the straight and narrow. Once she was out of the picture, he did what he wanted. But he was always discreet. He never flaunted anything, not the money he inherited from his wife’s estate, not—”

“Wait.” I lifted my index finger. “Tell me more about the inheritance.”

“All straightforward. He earned well while they were married, so there was never any suggestion that he had married her for her money. They lived quite modestly for such super-rich people. And before you ask, she got her money from her father
who owned a huge clothing chain. She never worked a day in her life, but was always very involved in charities.” He stopped to think for a moment while looking at Savreux’s body. “That was something he continued even after her death. At every charity event, he mentioned her name and how he was doing this in her honour.”

“Is it just me, or does this guy sound too good to be true?” Colin asked. He had left my side and was walking around the room. He stopped at the mantelpiece, looking closely at every ornament.

“Being a politician, the chances are quite good that we will find skeletons in his closet,” Pink said. “None of them get to where they are without making enemies or stepping over the line a time or five.”

“Doc?” Manny didn’t have to finish his question.

“I understand the sentiment.” Since I was not naturally adept at catching nuances, figures of speech and hints at the truth, Manny and the rest of the team had respected that by saying exactly what they meant. In this case, the meanings were quite easy to construe.

“What do you think?”

“I think it is far too early to draw any conclusions. I would only dare having an opinion about this man once I have gathered sufficient information.”

“Oh, my God!” Pink’s smile was genuine. “Now I remember why I liked you so much.”

I didn’t know how to react to this and didn’t even bother with a social smile. I turned back to the body and pointed at Savreux’s forearms. He had rolled up his shirtsleeves to reveal tanned and muscular arms. “I can’t see any defensive wounds. He must have been caught by surprise, or he was subdued in some other way.”

“Or he could have been drugged.” Colin pointed to a whiskey glass on the coffee table in front of the sofa. Both Colin and I were intimately acquainted with being drugged. The mention of it brought uncomfortable tension to my throat and chest. I ignored it and continued to survey the body and its immediate surroundings.

For more than a minute, the only sound in the room was the ticking of an antique clock on the bookshelf. When I felt that I had seen enough, I walked over to where Colin was studying a large painting to the left of the fireplace. He was biting his bottom lip, his forehead was furrowed and his head tilted. He’d been scrutinising every centimetre of that painting for the last five minutes. “What are you looking at?”

“This is an original Jackson Pollock.” His tone lifted slightly as he stood back, his arms folded. “This is… this is unbelievable. There are few of his paintings ever on sale. How did this man get a Pollock?”

“But that’s not this Flinck artist we are looking for.” Manny’s voice and expressions no longer held the earlier animosity against Colin. “If that painting is not here, Frey, why don’t you go through the house to make sure that it isn’t hidden somewhere?”

Colin gave a single nod and looked at me. “Coming?”

“Yes.” I wanted to see the rest of the house to get a better impression of Claude Savreux, the man. Even if a person’s house were decorated by a designer, there would be areas showing the influence of the inhabitant. Already his home office revealed a man for whom portraying the image of old money was important. The decor told me that he had wanted to impress with the wealth of his collections, but not to overwhelm.

The rest of the house was not much different. On the walls were paintings that caused Colin’s eyes to widen and a few
times his pupils dilated, informing me of how much Colin loved looking at that specific work. Our pupils dilated when we wanted to visually absorb as much as possible from whatever was giving us pleasure. Pink followed us from room to room, dividing his attention between monitoring the environment, inspecting the rooms and checking his tablet. That last habit reminded me of Francine.

In the master bedroom, he shook the tablet. “Aha! I’ve got some more info on Savreux.”

Colin turned away from a landscape painting that could have been a Monet or a Renoir. He had been standing close, his nose millimetres away from the canvas. “Scandals or boring biographical info?”

“Mostly the boring stuff.” Pink’s nose wrinkled, expressing tedium.

“It is in details others dismiss as banal or boring that one can often find important clues,” I said. “Tell me what you have.”

“Well”—
Pink looked at his tablet screen—“when Savreux wasn’t busy with his charity work, he was arguing with the president.”

“The president of France?” The person we were working for?

“The one and only. According to these articles, Savreux and a few others have opposed more than one legislation supported by President Godard.”

“What legislations?”

“One of those… well, it looks like the president was pushing for privacy reform. This is most likely a backlash from all the spying scandals recently revealed. You know, with those leaked documents showing how the US government has been spying on everyone and his dog.”

“Why would any government spy on someone’s dog?” This was most peculiar.

“It’s an expression, Jenny.” Colin chuckled. “You really should read that book Vinnie gave you for Christmas.”

A few months ago, I had experienced my first true Christmas courtesy of my friends. The decorations Francine had put up in my apartment had caused me numerous panic attacks. Vinnie had spent even more time than usual in the kitchen, involving Nikki in all his cooking. Christmas Eve dinner had been extravagant to a point that I had considered planning a journey for next Christmas. As much as I hated travelling and all the panic surrounding a trip, it was much preferred to another Christmas Eve dinner. The excessive food, bits of tinsel under my furniture, tinsel finding its way to my bedroom had pushed very hard at my obsessive-compulsive borders.

The gift-giving had been pleasant though. There had been a pile of colourfully wrapped gifts under the tree—a tree Colin had thoughtfully insisted had to be artificial since the pine needles would’ve driven me into a daily cleaning frenzy. Of all the gifts, Vinnie’s book with the top one thousand metaphors and expressions had given everyone the most pleasure. It was still unread on the coffee table.

“Jenny?” Colin touched my arm to bring me back to the present. “Are you listening?”

“I am now.”

Pink smiled. “I was saying that Savreux provoked quite a public attack on President Godard for the new legislation he wants to pass. President Godard’s No Secrets law.”

“Oh yes, I know about that.” It had been in the news for a long time. I remembered the president using transparency of officials across the board as his key election campaign issue more than two years ago. “He wants all elected officials to open their finances for the public to see, personal and official finances.”

“He also wants to limit the immunity from prosecution members of parliament and the ministers enjoy.” Pink’s smile was light and genuine. “There are a few very vocal guys unhappy about that. Minister Savreux was one of them.”

“I’ll have to read about this.” I couldn’t wait to get to my computers. “It might give us more insight into this murder.”

“Especially since it is so close to next week.”

“What’s happening next week?”

“That’s when President Godard is speaking to Parliament. He has been building his case for a long time and has gained a surprising support in the Senate and National Assembly for this kind of transparency.” Pink was swiping the screen of his tablet as he was talking. “Hmm, the president’s wife is also involved in this. She was on a talk show this week sharing her personal financial situation. She even had her bank statements there. Brave woman.”

Pink continued talking about the No Secrets law, but I had stopped listening. I didn’t believe in coincidences. In the average citizen’s life, there were incidences of happenstance that I was willing to concede to. However, in the lives of politicians, events seldom occurred without being connected to either their own strategy or that of somebody planning to use them. I worked daily with the data of clients for whom every meeting was calculated, every person they were introduced to a possible ally in achieving their goals. These people’s lives were filled with events or people so carefully introduced as to appear coincidental.

With this in mind, I refused to believe that the direct messages Nikki had been receiving, the art implicated in both, Savreux’s death, and his connection to the president and his wife were happenstance. This intrigued me and I shifted impatiently. I wanted to get to my computers.

Chapter THREE

The quiet whoosh of the door to my viewing room took my attention away from the ten monitors I was looking at. My viewing room was one of the few places in the world I felt completely safe. When Phillip Rousseau had hired me to work at Rousseau & Rousseau, he had converted a room to my exact needs. The room was spacious, completely soundproof and had ten computer monitors mounted in a curve to give me all the viewing space I needed. The desk in front of the monitors was long and clear of any clutter—the way I liked it.

Phillip walked into the room, looking fresh and as elegant as always. His dark grey bespoke suit was complemented by a deep red silk tie and shoes that I knew he had specially made in Italy. He had been the first person in my life to treat me with acceptance and respect. Over the last seven years, our relationship had evolved to become much more personal. I now viewed him as the wise and honourable father figure I had longed for as a child.

“Good morning, Genevieve.” He stopped next to my chair, staring down at me. He knew I didn’t see the sense in lying or pretending, and therefore seldom looked at me as he was currently doing. As if trying to ascertain my state of mind.

“Good morning, Phillip. Why are you worried about me?”

“What time did you get in?” Answering my question with a question confirmed that he was concerned.

“I was here at thirteen minutes past four.”

He waited for more, but I didn’t have anything to add. After a few seconds, he sighed. “And you don’t think it strange to be at your desk at such an hour in the morning?”

“I had work to do.” I shrugged. “Colin broke into Minister Claude Savreux’s house last night and found him murdered in his home office. I found the lack of knowledge I had about this man most disconcerting and wanted to learn more about him.”

Phillip looked away, took a deep breath and turned back to me. “If Manny had not briefed me on the situation, your careless announcement would’ve been very worrying.”

“What careless announcement?” I quietened when I noticed Phillip’s expression. He wore that expression when I was not paying attention to my words or the implications thereof. I took a moment to think and nodded. “I can see how that sentence could be a cause of concern. I apologise.”

He pulled a chair closer and sat down. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“I’ve been through most of his personal history that’s available online. I was just about to start with his professional history.”

“Why don’t you take a small break and join us for breakfast?”

I leaned back. “You are not offering a suggestion. What is happening?”

His quick glance towards the glass doors connecting my viewing room to the team room had me turning around to look into the next room. When the president had asked Manny to head our team for special investigations, Phillip had generously offered to convert another room to the exact needs of the team. At first, I had resisted the idea of connecting my room to the team room with the sliding glass doors, but logic had prevailed. It granted me and the others easier access. It also gave
them ample opportunities to interrupt my work, insisting I take breaks and eat. Their intentions were appreciated. The interruptions not so much.

The team room had a complex computer station to Francine’s specifications. She was after all considered to be one of the world’s best hackers. Manny had a desk that was always overflowing with files and little scraps of paper. I had a clear view of most of the room, especially the round table in the far corner where we usually had meetings. At the moment, most of the team were assembled around the table, looking expectantly at me. Colin wasn’t at the table and I didn’t know where he was.

“Vinnie brought breakfast. It’s only croissants, muffins and other pastries, but it is enough to feed us for three days.” Phillip stood up. “Tim is making coffee and should bring it in any moment now.”

He walked to the glass doors, entered the code into the keypad and waited at the open doors for me. I glanced longingly at my monitors and my shoulders dropped as I got up. “I’m not eating any of those jam doughnuts Vinnie likes so much.”

“Aw, come on, Jen-girl. There is nothing like a jelly doughnut to give you more energy.” Vinnie’s voice boomed in the team room. At almost two meters tall, and with the body of a wrestler, Vinnie had the personality and voice to match. “But if you really don’t want this, I brought you some of those special pastries you like so much.”

I sat down in my usual chair at the round table, and took in the three plates of baked goods in the centre of the table. On a separate plate were three pastries without the flaky crust everyone else preferred. I hated the flakes that stuck to my lips and fingers, creating a mess around my plate. These little pastries were neat. Only a few crumbs ever landed on my plate.

“Thank you, Vinnie.” I turned to Nikki, who was seated on my left. “I didn’t know you would be here.”

“Vinnie insisted.” Nikki communicated so many different emotions through her tone that it had taken me a few weeks to decipher those. Her expressions were easier to understand. Her lips were in thin lines, the top lip slightly curled. “He thinks I’m in danger. Again.”

“Rather safe than sorry, punk.” Vinnie loaded his plate with three muffins and two croissants, and licked his fingers. I shuddered. “Until we figure out what is happening and who is sending you those tweety emails, you’re stuck with me.”

“No!” Nikki turned to me, her face pleading. “Please, Doc G. I don’t want a bodyguard. Vinnie scares off anyone and everyone who wants to talk to me.”

“It was only once, punk. That dude had more jewellery on his body than my auntie Helen at Christmas dinner.”

“I think the criminal is right, Nikki.” As usual, Manny’s expression conveyed affection when he looked at Nikki. “We don’t know what any of this means, so I would rather err on the side of caution.”

“Seriously?” She threw her napkin on the table. “Can I still go to my classes?”

“Can’t you afford to take a week off?” Francine asked from behind her computer. She got up and brought her tablet to the table. “It’s only a week, girl. Give us the chance to figure this out and keep you safe at the same time.”

“How do you even know that my life is in danger?” Nikki folded her arms, her eyebrows raised.

“These direct messages were sent to you, Nikki.” I said. “To an account that doesn’t have your name associated with it. Take a moment to think clearly about this. Don’t let your underdeveloped cerebral cortex influence your logic.”

I didn’t understand why there were chuckles around the table. It was common knowledge that the thinking part of the human brain only developed fully by the age of twenty-six. Most decisions made before then were not carefully considered, and actions taken were most often impulsive and regretted later on.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Observe, assess, analyse and act. You’ve told me that a million times.”

“Impossible. I don’t recall the exact number of times I have…” I sighed when the
zygomaticus
muscles around Nikki’s mouth relaxed into a smile. “You were being hyperbolic. Again. Well then, if you do as I advise, you will see the wisdom in taking a few days off while we observe, assess, analyse and act.”

She picked up her napkin and forcefully placed it on her lap. “Fine. But I’m doing this with great discontent, unhappiness and rebellion in my heart.”

“So noted.” I ignored her redundant use of language. Even though she was annoyed, her micro-expressions exhibited none of the exaggerated emotions she had laid claim to.

Our discussion was interrupted when Tim came into the team room, carrying a tray with a large thermos and coffee mugs. Timothée Renaud had started working as Phillip’s assistant six weeks ago. It had taken Phillip two months to recover when his previous assistant had betrayed his trust by giving away confidential client data to a man we had been investigating. Another month had been spent finding the right person for the position. I had given my vote of confidence when the twenty-nine-year-old man had stood up to Manny during one of the many interviews.

His nonverbal cues had been consistent throughout all six interviews, conducted separately with Phillip, Manny, Colin and even Vinnie. It was the latter’s size that had had the most intimidating effect on Tim. The others’ verbal manipulations had not affected him as strongly. I had watched the footage of the interviews seven times each. None of us wanted to repeat the loathsome experience of a close associate’s disloyalty. Thus far, Tim had lived up to the expectations placed on him.

“Well, aren’t you just having the little party here?” Tim rolled his eyes at the plates on the table and shook his head at Vinnie. “You got these pastries at that other shop? I’ve told you before, just walk twenty metres on and you’ll find better quality goodies. Mind you, they might have a dress code.”

“And what? I have to wear those skinny pants, that girly tailored shirt, and those shiny shoes to buy doughnuts?” Vinnie pushed a whole doughnut in his mouth and talked around it. “No, thank you.”

“At least I don’t cause old ladies to scamper away from me.” Tim’s effeminate pronunciation and mannerisms had convinced the others he was homosexual, but I had my doubts. His sexual orientation was of no concern to me and I’d rather pay attention to how he stood up to Vinnie.

“That was only once.” Vinnie slammed one hand on the table. “What is it with you guys piling on me? Is it an ‘I hate Vinnie’ day today?”

“I still love you, big guy.” Francine patted him on his cheek and smiled when he uttered a disgruntled noise.

“I’ll leave you lovelies to it then.” Tim turned to Phillip. “I’ll be at my desk if you need anything, boss.”

Phillip nodded. “Thank you, Tim.”

Vinnie poured coffee for us, serving Manny last. Francine had grabbed the first mug of coffee, not even taking her eyes off her tablet. I held her skills in the highest regard. Before I had met Francine, I had considered myself quite adept at finding information on the internet. She superseded my skills to such an extent that the only research I now did was superficial. There was no sense in wasting time when Francine could uncover important and concise information in a fraction of the time it took me.

“If no one is going to talk, I’ll tell you what I have so far,” she said after taking a long sip of coffee.

“Did you find out who’s been sending me the DM’s?” Nikki asked.

“I’ve been working on it. So far I’ve been able to track that specific Twitter account through five different countries, ending in Georgia—the country, not the US state.” She looked up from her tablet, blinking slowly at Manny. “Wanna hear how I did this, handsome?”

“Don’t start with me, supermodel. Just tell us what you got.”

“Sadly, this was all I got.” Her hand fleetingly touched the back of her neck. People were inclined to do this when they were hiding something. “I have a few more ideas on how to track this guy. Just give me time. I’ll get him.”

“Bloody hell. You are hacking Twitter or doing something equally illegal, aren’t you?” Manny must have also noticed Francine’s deception cue.

“Me? Hacking? Why, my dear handsome agent, I would never do such a thing.” She blew him a kiss and started swiping and tapping on her tablet’s screen again.

I was about to share with them the new information I had gathered on Minister Savreux when Colin walked into the team room. One look at his face and I spoke before I thought. “You found something exciting.”

Colin closed his eyes briefly, a blocking gesture our limbic brain employed when we wanted to avoid something. He looked at the pastries on the table and smiled. “Breakfast. Great. I’m really hungry. Vin, can I have some coffee, please?”

“Frey.” Manny’s voice was low with warning. “Where have you been and what did you learn?”

Colin took his time placing a blueberry muffin and a croissant on a plate and accepting a mug of coffee from Vinnie before he settled in the chair to my right. He looked at me and sighed. “If only you didn’t see so much and speak so fast.”

“I’m not sorry, but I feel like I should apologise.”

“
It’s okay, Jenny.” He glared at Manny. “I was going to share my discovery in any case.”

“Well, then. Don’t make us wait any longer.” Manny moved his hand in a rolling gesture to hasten Colin.

“When Nikki showed me the DM about the Flinck, she also showed me the first DM about the Vermeer. Since we knew what happened in Savreux’s place, I thought it might be a good idea to check out the first address as well.”

“You broke into another house?” The
supratrochlear
artery on Manny’s forehead was becoming prominent. “What kind of cockamamie thing is that to do? If you are arrested for illegally entering a house, there is nothing I can do for you, Frey.”

“Oh, keep your hair on.” Colin tilted his head and smiled. It wasn’t a sincere smile. “Oh, wait. You don’t have much hair.”

“Colin.” Whenever Phillip used this tone, clients always calmed down. So did Colin. “Tell us what you found in this new place that is so significant.”

Colin took a sip of coffee and immediately put the mug down, his lips drawn sideways into a sneer. He was, by his own admission, a coffee snob. “I must be honest that there are very few things in life that can manage to shock me these days. But I surely was not prepared to find Vermeer’s The Concert in that house. Nor was I ready for the revelation of whose house it is.”