The Flinck Connection (Book 4) (Genevieve Lenard) (11 page)

“You were,” I corrected him. “You are quick to anger and quick to calm down. You’re mostly calm again.”

Manny’s lip curled and he leaned back in his chair. “Next time you have another cockamamie idea, tell me about it, Frey.”

“Sure.” Colin’s smile didn’t even lift the corners of his mouth. “I’ll tell you while we braid each other’s hair.”

Manny’s returning anger was interrupted when Vinnie uttered a loud expletive. Martin was examining his torso, pressing along his ribs. “
Dude, that hurt.”

“That makes three badly bruised ribs. Those are the ones I can feel. I’m not even a hundred percent sure they are only bruised. You might need to get x-rays done.”

“I’m fine. Tape me up. They’ll heal.”

Colin wasn’t listening to his best friend convincing the paramedic that three bruised ribs were nothing for him. All of Colin’s attention was on the clock as he carefully placed it on the cloth on the table. Not once did he touch it with his bare hands. He got up, went to the kitchen, and came back stretching a disposable latex glove over his left hand. His right hand was already gloved. No one spoke. Vinnie grunted a few more times as Martin examined his torso. There were many angry bruises already forming, but no discolouration indicating internal injuries. Colin sat down and gently felt around the clock with his fingertips.

“What are you looking for?” I asked after watching him for a minute. Colin didn’t answer me. I saw no indicators of anger. He was concentrating. A slight widening in his eyes told me he had found what he was looking for. With his fingernail, he pressed against the side of the clock until we heard a click. A panel at the back of the clock opened and Colin carefully pulled it wider, peering in.

“Careful, Frey. Having this bloody thing here is bad enough. I don’t want to explain why evidence was destroyed.”

“Put a sock in it, Millard.” Colin didn’t look up. He leaned closer and tilted his head, examining the inside of the clock. “Well, as I live and breathe.”

“What?” I was becoming impatient. The satisfaction and triumph on Colin’s face created suspense. I didn’t like it. “What did you find?”

Colin reached into the clock with his thumb and index finger, twisted something a few times before a genuine smile lifted his cheeks and caused wrinkles next to his eyes. He pulled out an electronic device and held it in the air. “A nanny cam.”

I’ve heard of these before. “Aren’t they usually found in teddy bears or children’s rooms?”

“That is not a nanny cam.” Daniel took a glove from Martin’s medical kit, put it on and held out his hand. “That is a pinhole surveillance camera with a wireless receiver. Top of the range in spy cameras.”

“How the hell did you know it was there, Frey?” Manny’s jaw was slack.

“A trained eye, Millard.” Colin laughed softly when Manny swore again. “Okay, I thought I saw a tiny lens in the clock on those crime scene photos, but I wasn’t sure.”

“So you tried to convince me to get it because it was
moved
?”

“Hey, it was a good argument. I still hold to it. You agreed that it was the only thing out of its usual place.”

“Hmph.” Manny looked away and mumbled, “Good work.”

“Say what?” Surprise was clear in Colin’s tone and on his face.

“Where are the recordings?” That was the only thing I was really interested in. I wasn’t interested in Manny and Colin starting an argument. Nor did I care about the little camera, an apparent technological marvel that had them making noises of wonderment. “Are they stored inside the clock?”

“No. See this?” Daniel pointed to what looked like a mini-antenna on the camera. “This transmits the footage to a nearby recording device.”

“Which would be somewhere in Savreux’s house,” Manny said.

“Manny is right,” Daniel said. “It will only be able to transmit up to a maximum of ninety metres. The good news is that it limits the radius to Savreux’s property.”

“The bad news?” Colin asked.

“The bad news is that nowadays it is common to wirelessly upload all the recordings to the user’s cloud account. It’s not like the old days when it was saved on a disk, a tape or a computer file. The convenience of this is that the cloud is controlled by the user. It can also be accessed by the user from absolutely anywhere.”

“You are saying cloud and I’m thinking weather.” Manny scratched his stubbled cheek, his brows drawn down. “Speak English.”

Daniel laughed. “A cloud is an internet storage system. There is a lot of debate around the security of these systems, but they’re becoming more and more popular. I’ll get my guy onto this.”

“I don’t think so.” Manny pointed to the device and then to the table. “Put that down. My gal will figure this out. You should not be here, you should not be involved at all.”

“Um. You phoned me, remember?”

“That was before I knew you were following Frey and digging yourself deeper into this case. This is going to hell in a handbasket.” Manny sighed. “We need to limit your involvement. Let my team handle the cloudy thingie and you watch your back.”

My apartment grew quiet for a few minutes, everyone busy with their own thoughts. My mind was returning to the narrow street, the violence I had been part of and the dirt on my clothes. I pulled my pyjama pants away from my legs, concentrating on not giving voice to the keening I felt in the back of my throat. Colin’s hand closed over mine in a firm grip. His touch anchored me.

“If I may?” Martin’s quiet question gave me something to fix my mind on. “Who’s the kid?”

“What kid?” Had I missed an important bit of information?

“The one who made us coffee.”

“She’s not a kid.” I frowned at Manny and Colin’s immediate disapproval of my statement. “She’s not. Three months ago, she turned eighteen and is legally an adult.”

“And still a kid, Doc.”

“She’s a kid, Jenny.”

I strongly disagreed with them. Despite Nikki’s seemingly blithe approach to life, she had grown up in the shadow of a criminal father. Her father had sent her to America for her high-school education, which had led to her feeling socially and emotionally detached. Her father’s death had finalised her discontentment with her sense of displacement. She had insisted on returning to France and for unknown reasons had pleaded to stay with us. At first, her attachment to me had been disconcerting, to say the least.

Her interest in art had built an immediate rapport with Colin and he had grown very fond of her. Part of her petition to move in with me until she came of age had been her promise to disrupt my privacy, routines and life as little as possible. I had thought it impossible and had told her so. She had been taking great pleasure in proving me wrong and reminding me about it whenever I expressed my surprise to find her quietly sitting in my viewing room or my living room, not intruding at all.

It was her quiet strength and her determination to move out from under her late father’s notorious reputation that had won my respect and trust. Lately, we had spent a few afternoons discussing her past and how she was dealing with being the daughter of a legendary European arms dealer. Her pragmatism and maturity had not only impressed me, but had also assuaged my concerns. This was the main reason for my refusal to call her a child. She had shown wisdom, insight and self-awareness far beyond her biological age.

“Seriously?” Surprise raised the pitch in Martin’s voice and it caught my attention. My mind had drifted off and I had missed part of the conversation. “She doesn’t even look like him.”

“She’s his kid and she’s nothing like him.” Manny’s nonverbal cues communicated his protective attitude. “She’s young, but she’s smart. When she was small, Hawk used to let her sit in on all his deals. She’s used to keeping secrets.”

“You really trust her?” Martin exhibited every indicator of disbelief.

“More than I trust you.” Manny’s expression didn’t change when Martin and Daniel laughed.

“Touché.”

Vinnie shifted in his chair and groaned. His pallor was an unhealthy grey, bringing his attack back to overwhelm my thoughts. I needed to be alone. I needed Mozart. “If there is nothing more to discuss, you should leave.”

Everyone looked at me in surprise. After a moment, Daniel and Manny got up with a nod. Martin’s expression told me that he didn’t know how to interpret my harsh demand.

“Get some sleep, Doc. We’ll take this up at nine.” Manny glanced at his watch. “At least we’ll get another three hours or so of rest.”

Martin followed their lead and soon only Vinnie, Colin and I were in my apartment. I double-checked the locks on the front door, walked back to the table and stood in front of Vinnie. My whole body felt stiff, but I had to reassure myself about him first. He started to sigh under my scrutiny, but grunted and held his hand to his ribs. “Son of a whore.”

“Look at me.”

“Yes, Jen-girl.” He looked up and allowed me to study his badly beaten face. There was a lot of swelling and that one long cut on his temple, but nothing looked grave.

“I can’t read your expression, so please be honest with me. Do you need to go to the hospital?”

“Nah. My cousins once beat me up worse than this. Then it took me three weeks to recover. I bet the swelling will be down by tomorrow evening and I’ll look like my old handsome self by Sunday.” His nonchalant statement brought only marginal relief.

I straightened. “I want your word that you will get medical help the moment you notice something is wrong.”

“You have it, Jen-girl.”

I nodded and walked rigidly to my bedroom. The need to scrub my skin and hair clean was becoming harder to resist. I knew it was my imagination, but it felt like my skin was burning in all the places where Vinnie had touched me, where his blood might have made contact—even if it was only with my pyjamas. I needed to dispose of these pieces of clothing, but first I had to change the bedding. I would never be able to sleep knowing that Nikki had slept on the same sheets.

I stripped the bed with trembling hands, holding tightly onto my control. I heard Colin helping Vinnie to his room as I put fresh linen on the bed and walked to the bathroom. In automated movements, I undressed, put everything I wore in a plastic bag and turned on the shower. I didn’t allow myself to think or feel, or to even look at the water swirling down the drain.

The water didn’t feel hot enough and I turned up the heat. My skin was turning red from the vigorous scrubbing and the scorching water. Yet I didn’t feel clean. I continued rubbing my soaped sponge over my skin with increasing desperation.

At first I thought it was water running down my cheeks, but the salty taste shocked me. I never cried. I had shut downs and very infrequently melt downs, but not tears. Impatiently, I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hands. It didn’t help. A loud sob escaped from my chest and I slapped my hand over my mouth.

Colin putting his life in danger by going back to the house where someone had been killed and Vinnie’s attack came bearing down on me with a force I could not fight. It felt like someone punched me in my stomach and I folded double, struggling to breathe. When Colin found me, I was sitting on the shower floor, clutching my knees to my chest and keening loudly. I couldn’t stop to tell him how much his actions had affected me.

“Shh.” He turned off the water and put a large towel around my shoulders. “I’m here, Jenny.
Vin’s going to be okay. We’re okay.”

I shook my head. I wasn’t okay. I didn’t feel okay. I wanted to stop feeling like this, so I slowly sank into Mozart’s Piano Sonata no. 16 in B flat Major. I knew Colin would take care of me. Being naked on the shower floor, not going through my usual pre-sleep routine was much less important than the warm safety I felt while the music flushed out the horror of the last two hours. I trusted the man who was picking me up from the floor to take care of my body while I tried to put my mind back in order.

The irritation in Manny’s voice drew my attention away from Francine’s computer monitor for the third time. I had woken up completely rested, but had to spend a total of eleven minutes convincing Colin that I was no longer distressed. The extreme concern I had observed in his nonverbal cues had revealed the depth of his emotional investment in me. Once he had been placated, we had come into the office.

My first priority had been to find the cloud where Savreux stored the recordings from his home office. Francine was the best person for this particular task, and I was sitting next to her at her desk. We had been trying to locate that cloud when Manny had received a phone call. It had taken only two sentences to determine that it was Henri Fabron on the other side of the call.

“Of course we are making progress on finding those paintings.” Manny’s lie sounded convincing, but also conveyed his irritation. His grip on his phone was so tight, I wondered if a man could crush a phone with his bare hands. “I will send you a written report by the end of the day.”

“Maybe we should work in my room,” I said to Francine.

The mostly one-sided conversation had been going on for more than fifteen minutes now and I was finding it very distracting. The first ten minutes Manny had handled the call with indifference. But then Henri must have said something that had breached Manny’s professional control. His voice had since raised a few decibels and his face was a deep red.

“Why don’t you go to your room?” Francine said. “I’m used to his blustering. I promise you will be the first one to know the moment I find the footage.”

I went to my viewing room and was immensely grateful when the glass doors sealed to close off Manny’s arguments. I sat down and stared at the ten monitors in front of me, displaying different parts of this case. I needed to organise my thoughts regarding the various elements in this case.

Clockwise the monitors showed the Boston heist of 1990, Flinck’s Landscape with an Obelisk, Nikki’s three direct messages, the crime scene photos at Savreux’s house, the heist of two days ago and Motte’s Wikipedia page. I tilted my head, thought about it some more and moved Motte’s page between the Flinck painting and Nikki’s direct messages. Had there not been so many seemingly coincidental links between these different elements, I would easily have dismissed this as fanciful imagination.

I wanted to show Colin the monitors and ask for his input, but he wasn’t here. He had excused himself after receiving a text message almost an hour ago and I had not seen him since. I folded my legs under me, leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. I needed to find the one link that connected all of the pieces.

I emptied my mind and called up a clear music sheet. The lines bundled in sets of five were a work of art that never failed to calm me. Mentally, I drew the G-clef in one movement, enjoying the beauty of the curls and lines. Only the C-clef came close to the elegance of the G-clef. On another inhale, I drew the set of sharps, preparing the staff for a Mozart concerto.

My eyes shot open after the second page. I glanced at the clock on my computer and relaxed when I saw only thirty minutes had passed. I needed to confirm the suspicions that had blasted into my thinking brain when I had drawn the staccato sign.

I pulled up a few more files and soon lost myself in the data. It was Colin’s angry tone that drew my attention away from the monitors. I turned towards the glass doors and immediately regretted the move. Pain shot up through my hips, my back muscles and even my shoulders.

“I can’t believe they left you like this, Jenny.” Colin rushed into the room and sat in the chair next to me. “Are you okay?”

“My legs are numb. Why are you angry?”

Colin helped me lower my legs to the floor. I winced at the aching in my joints and muscles, and his frown deepened. “Tim said you came in here this morning and you haven’t been out.”

“This morning? How long have I been here?” Surely I hadn’t been looking at these files for more than a couple of hours.

“It’s just after five, love. Have you eaten anything?”

“Hmm? No.” I had been sitting in the same position for seven hours. My physical discomfort now made sense. The blood was beginning to circulate through my lower extremities again, making the pins and needles not just unpleasant, but painful. “Where have you been?”

“I’ll tell you later. First, you need to eat something.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You are. You just don’t know it yet.” This was always his argument when he didn’t like my answers. He squeezed my hand and got up. “I’ll get you some water and something to eat from the kitchen. Don’t leave again.”

I knew he didn’t mean that I wasn’t to leave the room. When I became hyper-focussed, I lost all interest in the world outside of my mind. Colin said I left and went into my head. I had given him literature on this particular behaviour feature of autism. He had read it and told me that even though he understood it, he wasn’t comfortable with me disappearing like that for long
periods. We had reached a compromise that I would not fight him when he enforced breaks every two hours. It had not been easy. He made sure to remind me every time of my promise while he insisted that I drank and ate something.

I turned back to the monitors, looking at the new links I had formed when I noticed an inaccuracy. I reached for my keyboard, but my hands froze mid-air as Colin said, “Don’t touch that. It will be another hour before I get you to eat something.”

My fingers curled in to form fists before I pulled my arms back. He put a tray with two bottles of water, a glass of fresh juice and a rye sandwich next to my keyboard. “Eat.”

I stared at the tray for a few seconds before I looked at him. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” He opened a bottle of water and took a long sip. “And don’t go overanalysing this again. I’ve told you before I don’t mind looking out for you. Drink your water and eat something while I tell you what I’ve been up to.”

“Does it have something to do with that large canvas bag in front of your desk?” I opened the bottle of water and drank half before I took a breath. Having insight into my behaviour did not necessarily help managing it. I had spent many years learning to control my autistic behavioural patterns, but sometimes my control slipped and I would work on a project for sixty nearly uninterrupted hours. At least today it had been only seven hours.

Colin waited until I finished the rest of the water. He handed me the juice with a smile of approval. “It definitely has something to do with that bag.”

“What bag?” Manny walked into my room. “Where have you been, Frey?”

“I can ask you the same question, Millard. Tim says you left this morning and have been out all day.”

“I’ve been calming little Henri Fabron down. This heist is causing all kinds of political flack.”

“What political flack?” I asked.

Manny looked at me and narrowed his eyes. “Have you been here all day?”

“Yes.” I didn’t want to elaborate.

“Sitting in that chair? The whole time? Where’s supermodel?”

I closed my eyes, trying to remember. “She left at eleven. I wasn’t listening to her, but I think she said something about looking for the source.”

Manny grunted. “That sounds like she’s looking for some alien spaceship. I hope she’s not wasting time on one of her fairy tales. I have just lost a day of my life listening to people who think they’re important go on and on and on and on.”

“Then I will make you a happy man, Millard.” Colin stood up.

“What? You’re going to handcuff yourself?” Manny chuckled at himself. “That was the second best day of my life.”

“What was the first?” I was sure I knew, but didn’t like assuming anything.

“The day
I
arrested Frey.” Manny had never said anything about it, but Colin had told me about the day he and Vinnie had broken into a museum to steal back an artwork. A security guard had made an unscheduled check and upon seeing Vinnie had gotten such a large fright he’d had a heart attack. Colin had sent Vinnie away, phoned Manny and tried to keep the man alive with CPR. He had died and Manny had arrested Colin. A few hours later, Interpol had recruited Colin in a top-level secret position, and Manny had lost his arrest. That had been a long time ago.

“You might want to let that one go, Millard.” Colin picked up the large square bag from where it was leaning against his desk.
“This will not only be the best of your career, but you’ll get to throw this in Henri Fabron’s face.”

“You didn’t!” Manny looked from the bag to Colin and back to the bag. Genuine happiness crinkled the corners of his eyes. “You bastard.”

“Happy birthday, Millard.” Colin handed Manny the bag. “They’re all there.”

Manny took it and aimed for my desk.

“Not here. Take it to the team room.” I didn’t even tolerate it when Colin left a stray pen on my desk. I was not about to accept the unknown contents of that bag littering my uncluttered desk.

Without as much as a frown or sigh, Manny walked to the team room. I got to my feet and stood for a few seconds to ensure my legs were going to hold me up.

“Okay?” Colin asked me, but was looking into the team room. He seemed to be enjoying Manny’s reaction.

I nodded and followed Colin into the next room. I was intrigued by the contents of the bag. With his right hand covered in his winter glove, Manny was unpacking the bag, leaning paintings on the chairs around the table. I recognised the Renoir as one of the paintings stolen from the Jean Monnet Museum two days ago.

“Sue gave you these paintings?” I had thought such an action highly improbable. “Why would she give away millions of euro’s worth of artwork?”

“She didn’t want these pieces. At first she considered selling them, but changed her mind.”

Manny put the last painting on a chair. “Are these the six original paintings, Frey? Not some brilliantly forged copies to replace the real ones and fool idiots like me?”

“Those are the real McCoy, Millard. Untouched, undamaged, not sold on the black market.”

“Help me understand. You had some tea, a little natter and this Sue gave you six paintings worth thirteen million euro?” Manny stood back from the table, still staring at the paintings. “I have a hard time believing this, Frey. Why would she change her mind about selling these pieces?”

I agreed with Manny. It was most unusual.

“Where’s your friend, Frey? We need to bring her in and question her.”

Colin was shaking his head before Manny finished. “There is no way she’s coming in. Something is seriously off and she won’t set a foot here.”

“Did you ask her to come in?”

Colin snorted. “I tried, but she didn’t even let me finish my question.”

“Is that what I think it is?” Phillip stepped into the room, his eyes wide. His micro-expressions communicated reverence and the kind of joy seen on people’s faces when they looked at their new-born child for the first time. Phillip took his time slowly walking around the table, leaning in to study each painting.

“I’m waiting, Frey.”

“And I told you she’s not coming in. She gave the paintings to me and asked me to never connect her to this heist.” This was one of the few times Colin was not baiting Manny or being insolent. He sat down in Francine’s chair. “You want more? Okay, this is what happened. I made contact with Sue a few hours after the theft. The situation was still too hot for her to meet with me, so we agreed to meet today. I’ve known her to be careful, but never as neurotic as today. She made me jump through a million hoops to eventually get to the meeting place. It was like going on a treasure hunt, something she obviously did to make sure I wasn’t followed.”

“Were you?”

“No. Not even Daniel would’ve recognised me.” Colin was a master in disguising himself. “It took me three hours to get to her. Something scared her into being this paranoid.”

“Did she tell you what?”

“No, but I actually think it isn’t a what that scared her, but rather a who. Sue has never been caught. Outside of a small community, very few people know she exists. She has a day job, a family, drives a Ford sedan. She lives an ordinary life.”

“And then she goes and steals art worth millions. Yes, very ordinary life, Frey.”

“That is how she maintains her cover.” Colin crossed one leg over the other, resting his left hand on his right thigh. Strong blocking behaviour. “She didn’t tell me how she got to do this job. Jenny, you should’ve been there. I’m sure you would’ve seen a lot more than I did, but the fear in her eyes was clear as day. She’s terrified. I thought I was going to have to deal or negotiate with her, but as soon as I said I would like to take the paintings, she handed them over.”

“Just like that.” Manny’s tone and expression implied disbelief.

“Just like that.” The
corrugator supercilii
muscle drew Colin’s brow down and medially, producing vertical lines between his eyebrows. “She said she never wanted to take the job, but she wasn’t given an option. Whoever had ordered her to steal the works told her to make sure she got maximum worth, but was in and out of the museum in minimum time. She had scoped out the place earlier and knew what to take and where to take it. She chose these six paintings because of their worth, but also because of their size. Put together in that bag, she didn’t have any problems moving around with it. And she left with an extremely valuable loot. She treated this like any other job, with the difference of not receiving any payment.”