Gauguin Connection, The (34 page)

“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 for 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 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 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 sent 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.

“Kubanov 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 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 Brun and the security companies sent money to. If possible she should find out who the bloody hell this Simon Brun is.”