Gauguin Connection, The (16 page)

“Their accents and their teamwork made me wonder who they could be working for.”

“You said that two of them wore the exact same outfit?” Colin asked.

“Yes. I’m convinced it was a uniform of some kind. The other two had similar outfits, but not like the uniforms. The two with the uniforms had covered up the insignias on their sleeves with duct tape. When I was fighting with them, I managed to pull the tape from one of their sleeves. I got a good look at it.” Then, as if to myself, I said, “I will have to search on the internet for that logo. I have never seen anything like it before.”

“Could these idiots have been from Eurocorps?” Vinnie had eaten all his food and was looking around for more. He turned, shrugged at the baguette slice on the floor, picked it up and placed it on his plate after half-heartedly blowing at it. How uncivilised.

“I doubt it. Russia isn’t part of Eurocorps, so how could they be on the same team? Only the Spaniard and the German could be in Eurocorps. Hey.” Colin sat up with a sudden realisation. “Maybe their logo is one of Eurocorps’ units.”

“That is very possible, but I don’t know the units. I’ll have to ask Manny about this. There is also the question of why they were here.” I only managed half the portion of scrambled eggs on my plate and pushed it away. I reached for my coffee mug. “They said that they were looking for my computer, but I can’t believe that it was only that. Why would they tear up my entire apartment for a computer? What do they think is on it?”

“It’s an intimidation technique.” Vinnie sounded completely convinced about this. He looked longingly at my half-empty plate. “May I finish this?”

I felt unsure about this level of familiarity. Nobody had ever eaten off my plate. “Um. Sure.”

His eyes lit up and he pulled the plate closer. “Thanks, Jen-girl.”

“Why do you say it was an intimidation technique?” I asked him.

“I…” He coughed and tried again for neutral body language. “It has been done many times and is apparently very successful.”

“You’ve used it before.”

It looked like Vinnie was going to have some sort of facial seizure. I took pity on him. “Vinnie, I’m exceptionally good at reading people. There isn’t much that you can hide from me. If you prefer, I will keep all my observations to myself.”

Colin was quiet throughout this and I suddenly wondered why he never appeared uncomfortable with my intellect or observations. It was quiet around the table while Vinnie took a long sip of coffee, obviously weighing his options.

“This is very strange for me,” he admitted.

“Welcome to the last week of my life. I have a thief as a partner and a giant as a bodyguard.” I sounded as despondent as I felt. Why they thought it funny, I didn’t know, but both men chuckled.

“I suppose that makes us even then.” Vinnie smiled warmly at me. “I think this is going to be a lot of fun, Jen-girl. I’ll keep you safe and you can teach me a few things about reading people.”

“Does this mean that I can speak freely?”

Vinnie nodded, but Colin was the one who answered. “It’s settled then. Jenny, have you given any thought about how these men knew about you? Did they let on that they knew about me?”

“I thought about this and honestly have no idea how they knew about my involvement. Only a handful of people know that I’m working on this case. But then again, you tracked me down, so it couldn’t have been so difficult.” I really didn’t like that idea. As much as I loved the age of technology and information at one’s fingertips, it gave the bad guys too much to work with.

“Getting your address is easy enough. What concerns me is that they were asking about your computer. What do they think is on there?”

“I don’t know. I don’t like to speculate.”

“I would like to speculate,” Vinnie said and promptly continued. “I think that one of these crooks in the EDA or Eurocorps discovered that there was an investigation going on and wanted to find out what you’ve discovered so far.”

“The men who were here last night are most definitely not Manny’s insiders,” I declared. “With everything that we have uncovered so far, I have to agree with Manny that his insiders are in top positions. These guys were soldiers, not top management, not officers.”

“Which only means that they were sent here by the insiders to find out what you know.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” I really didn’t feel comfortable with this kind of wild speculation. I would rather stay with facts, observations and everything that I had so carefully memorised last night. A memory surfaced. “Oh my God! I totally forgot about this.”

“About what?” Colin sat up straighter and moved a bit closer to me.

“Last night while I was trying to remember the code to my safe, I overheard the Russians arguing. They said something that stuck with me. And later, just before the guys left, they repeated the same thing. They said someone was not going to be pleased with the lack of success they had had in my apartment. The name they used for this someone sounded like Peerosh.”

“Like what?” Vinnie’s whole face crinkled in concentration.

“Peerosh,” I repeated. “It stuck with me because I could hear the fear in their voices when they spoke about this man.”

“You’re sure it was a man?” Colin asked. The air was now tense around the table.

“Yes. The one Russian told the other that Peerosh was going to have one of his screaming fits when they told him what took place here. And when they left, I heard the Spaniard say that Peerosh would want an immediate report and asked the German what they were going to tell him. Both times they used masculine personal pronouns.”

“Was that all they said?”

I closed my eyes to recall those terrifying moments. My eyes shot open. “The German was angry at the two who were speaking Russian. He said that he would be the one to deal with Peerosh. Then the Spaniard said they should all just relax. Peerosh had big plans for the flower house.”

“The flower house?” Vinnie asked. “That’s just weird. I wonder what kind of plans they were talking about.”

“None of it made sense to me, but I am very certain of what I heard.”

“
Peerosh?” Colin whispered to himself. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He repeated the word a few times before he sat up and looked at Vinnie. “You remember when we were in Budapest a few years ago?”

“That time when we—”

“Yes, that time,” Colin interrupted him. “You loved the red pepper paste.”

“
Piros magyar etterem
.” Vinnie turned to me with a dreamy expression. “Oh, Jen-girl. It’s the most wonderful thing to cook with. Traditionally the Hungarians put it in soups or use it in preparing meat dishes. They even use it as a condiment. You have to try it.”

Colin waved Vinnie’s enthusiastic recommendations away. “
Piros
is the Hungarian word for red, written differently, but pronounced peerosh. Jenny, remember I told you about my friend being killed in Budapest in 2006? Maybe there is a connection. Maybe the insider’s nickname is Piros.”

“Those are a lot of maybes.” I didn’t like maybes.

“Check the EDA database for that word.” He spelled it for me. “Maybe something will come of it.”

“Another maybe.” A niggling feeling kept pulling at my subconscious. The moment Vinnie had started with his explanation something had registered. “Oh my! Red is Piros.”

“Yes?” Colin drew out the word, asking for elaboration.

“Red. Piros. Red.” How could they not see it? I wished I had my computers, especially my notepad. “Colin, do you remember the top page of my notepad?”

He frowned. “That’s the page with the Russian murderer’s rantings.”

“Yes. Nikolay
Chulkov shouted that the red will end all twenty-seven daffodils. No one will escape the red.” I was so excited, my face flushed. “What if he wasn’t saying ‘the red’, but Red. As in the name Red. Piros. This guy was Russian. There are no definite or indefinite articles in Russian. So when he translated it to French, he might have used articles when he shouldn’t have.”

“But who would be named Red?” Vinnie asked.

“Piros,” I corrected. “These thugs were speaking English, but they used a Hungarian word.”

“If that’s the correct word,” Colin interjected.

His logic stole some of my excitement. “True. But, if that’s the case, then we have a strong connection between the murder of Danielle, the other artists, the thugs who broke into my place and this Piros.”

“How are you going to verify it?” Colin asked.

“I don’t know yet.” I glanced at my watch and winced. “I have to go. It’s already past eight and I have a lot of work to do today.”

“What are you going to look into today?” Colin asked.

“Yesterday I couldn’t check the cruise ships properly, so I’ll do that today. And of course I’ll have a look at this Piros person.”

Vinnie got up and started clearing the table. “Let me just get this and we can go.”

“Oh. Yes, of course.” How could I have forgotten that I now had a driver and personal bodyguard?

“Jenny, please be careful.”

I turned to Colin to dismiss his worries, but stopped myself on the inhale. Concern was etched on his face. I didn’t know how to feel about this, nor was I equipped to deal with such sincere concern. When I spoke my voice sounded strained. “I will. You too.”

This case was the most exciting thing that I had ever faced. Apart from my innate dislike for change, the intellectual challenge was fast proving to outweigh all my fears.

I had been in my viewing room for the last three hours looking into cargo and cruise ships. My expanded search had rendered thirteen cargo ships and seven cruise ships owned by a shipping company with only one ship in its fleet. This pattern was outrageously suspicious. So engrossed was I in following the latest connection that I didn’t even hear Phillip enter the room until he spoke.

“Where’s your car?”

I started and turned to him, thinking of a lie. I couldn’t come up with anything but the truth. “I didn’t come in my car today.”

“Then how did you get here?” I should’ve expected Phillip to be suspicious of a change in my routine. He leaned in closer. I knew the exact moment that he noticed my injuries. “Good God! Genevieve, what happened?”

I closed my eyes. Typical blocking behaviour when someone did not want to face something unpleasant or was trying to create a distance from something. I definitely did not want to discuss this with Phillip.

“Genevieve.” He sounded calmer, but also angrier. “Look at me.”

I realised that I was sitting, like a cowardly child, with my eyes closed. I slowly opened one eye. My uninjured eye. Phillip was leaning in close enough for me to feel the puffs of his breathing on my face. I opened my other eye. The depth of the concern he exhibited was disconcerting. I steeled myself against it and leaned away from him. “I’m okay. I have a bad headache, but I’m okay.”

“Did that criminal do this to you?” His eyes were locked on the cut above my eyebrow. We had decided this morning that the cut didn’t need professional attention and I had put two butterfly plasters on it to pull the skin together.

“Colin?” My voice was two pitches higher. What a ridiculous accusation. Colin might have been many things, but violent he was not. “He would never do this. As a matter of fact, he’s the one who stopped it.”

Phillip dragged a chair closer and sat down heavily opposite me. “Genevieve, you can’t continue like this. I won’t allow it.”

“I’m on this case because you, as my boss, ordered me to do it.”

“I know.” He dragged his hand over his face and took a deep breath. “Tell me what happened.”

“I would prefer not to.”

“As your boss”—he looked me straight in the eye—“and as your friend I’d prefer that you do.”

“I’m not going to tell you everything, not yet.”

His gaze focussed on my lifted chin. He called it my obstinate look. “Tell me what you can.”

I sighed with relief. I didn’t know if I wanted Phillip to know of Vinnie’s involvement. How long I could keep this from the man I always told everything was yet to be determined. So I told him about the previous evening, carefully censoring out Vinnie’s involvement.

“And Colin found you drugged in your apartment and didn’t phone an ambulance?” He was outraged.

My head was throbbing and I didn’t have the energy to placate him.

“It wasn’t necessary and I don’t want to fight about this.”

“Oh, Genevieve.” Phillip sounded tired. “You are going to be the death of me yet.”

“I don’t plan to kill you, Phillip.” My logical comment made him laugh. I wasn’t trying to be funny.

“Your co-operation in this case and with Colin might.” He waved the topic away with a weak gesture. “Don’t even think about convincing me otherwise. We are telling Manny about the attack.”

“I agree. I would also like to ask him about the insignia that I saw on the one man’s sleeve.”

“Is this all you can tell me?”

“The most important parts, yes.”

“How did Colin know something was wrong?”

“I would rather not discuss anything else, Phillip.” Knowing Phillip, he might just phone the police, the military and Interpol if he knew that Colin had placed a listening device in my apartment. Fortunately, Phillip accepted my answer. Had he pushed, I would’ve told him. I was glad he didn’t push.

“I will phone Manny and find out when we can meet. He is out of town today, so hopefully it will be tomorrow.” He sat back in his chair. “Where did you disappear to yesterday?”

“Oh, yes.” So much had happened since my rude exit from Phillip’s office, I had almost forgotten. I told him everything about Danielle, her boyfriend and the cruise they had met on. I put the presentation that I had prepared for yesterday’s meeting on the screens. Most of it he already knew.

“Did you find anything on the ship manifests that Manny sent you?”

“Yes. Three of the recovered artworks were on cargo ships owned by companies that only own one ship.”

“That is more than just a coincidence.”

“There is no such thing as coincidence.” I told him the rest of what I had discovered about the ships. “Now I’m looking into the cruise ship connection. I started to cross-check all my lists with the cruise ships. Maybe there is a connection with the dead artists, the private investigators, the miraculously rediscovered artworks and the other shipping companies. I will let you know when I find any more connections.”

“Your report so far will most definitely please Manny. This is much more than I expected. If you find a connection with the cruise ships… well, that would just add another complication to an already complicated case.”

I agreed with him. This was a case with so many different elements it made me think of a pendulum clock. All these separate gears, springs and weights were somehow connected. Then there was the power source, either a weight on a cord that turned the pulley or a mainspring. Without that power source, none of the parts would be of any use. They wouldn’t move, wouldn’t make the clock work. What, or who, the power source was in this case, I had no idea. I also didn’t know whether it was just one source. This bothered me greatly.

I had to have been quiet for a long time, because Phillip looked concerned and asked, “What?”

“I’m missing something, Phillip. A vital part. The part that moves, that manipulates all the others.”

“Explain?”

I gave him my pendulum clock analogy and felt very proud of using it. “All these elements are separate. There must be a central element that connects all these artists, artworks, ships and so forth. The power source that makes it all connect and work. This is eluding me.”

“And frustrating you.” Phillip knew me well.

“Greatly. That is why I keep digging to find more connections. Somewhere these connections will have to cross paths and that will lead me to the person holding this all together.”

“The person controlling all this.”

“Assuming it is one person,” I said. We were quiet again for a short while, lost in our own thoughts. I broke the silence, following the direction my thoughts were going in. “Is there something happening between Russia and the EDA or Eurocorps at the moment that we know about?”

Phillip took his time to think about this. “Manny is the best person to ask, but I would say that the most obvious contention between Europe and Russia in the last decade or so has been natural gas. There are also the ongoing disagreements about the construction of the highways being built. The North-South and East-West highways.”

“Ah, yes. The eternal struggle for power. If humans aren’t fighting for power over territory, it is for resources, accessibility or some other reason. But in the end it all leads to a desire for power.” As much as we like to think we have evolved, we haven’t. These struggles are as old as time. A question was burning in me. “I know that you trust Manny, but I just need to know. Are you very sure that he didn’t by accident tell someone about my involvement?”

“One hundred percent.” His answer came without any doubt. “It must be from someone else who has access. That is why we need to tell Manny about this attack.”

“I’m not arguing about this. I also think that he needs to know that the people he thinks he can trust might not be trustworthy.”

“What has the world come to?”

“The world has always been like this. It’s human nature.”

“That is a very bleak look on life, Genevieve.”

“I don’t think it is. It’s just realistic. There has always been war. Whether the reasons were economic, religious, territorial or racial, it’s been there. And will be there. The same way with people’s desire for power. It has always led and will always lead to espionage, betrayal and other forms of treason. Usually, it is the people who are at the bottom level of the pyramid who are the most sincere, the kindest and the closest to goodness we can find.”

“Can’t argue with you there.” He sighed. “You’re going to have to apologise to Manny.”

“Why?” Immediately I was on defence. I had done nothing wrong. Or had I?

“For walking out on the meeting yesterday.”

“Oh yes, that.”

“He was very unhappy.”

“More than usual?” My question elicited a bark of laughter from Phillip.

“Much more. As a matter of fact, he was furious. He felt that you were dismissing him and this case as something of lesser interest. I didn’t tell him about Colin, but he knows that I’m hiding something. Don’t underestimate Manny’s insight and intellect, Genevieve. He looks disorganised and scatter-brained, but he has a sharper mind than most people I know.”

“I knew that the first time we met.”

Phillip looked very serious. “You know that at some point you will have to tell Manny about Colin.”

“I know.”

“Why don’t you want to?” he asked gently.

“I don’t want Manny to take him away from me.”

“This is the second time you’ve said this. Do you realise that you sound like a little girl who found a puppy and wants to keep it?”

“I would prefer a comparison to a scientist who discovered a new species of butterfly.” Phillip was right. Colin was not a puppy or a butterfly that I could keep. My throat was dry and my voice scratchy. “It’s just that he makes me feel.”

“Feel what?” Phillip asked carefully.

“Much more than ever before.” I looked down at my hands and admitted softly, “I’ve not once flinched when he touched me.”

“He touches you?”

“Twice he got my attention by touching my arm.” It took me a moment to realise why Phillip looked relieved. I was indignant. “You think I’m a virgin? I’ll have you know that when I put my mind to it, I find a man’s touch quite pleasurable.”

“Stop right there. Please.” This was the first time in six years that I had managed to make Phillip uncomfortable.

“Too much information? I’m sorry. My comfort around Colin is quite disconcerting for me. I suppose it’s made me defensive.” I had so many new emotions to analyse.

“Why do you feel so comfortable with him?”

“I trust him.” My statement came out as a whisper. Phillip drew in a sharp breath, but I stopped him with a lifted hand. “I know. It even surprised me. But it is the way it is. I don’t want to fight with you about Colin. As a matter of fact, I would really appreciate your support.”

“Oh, Genevieve, you’ve always had my support.”

“And your worry.” I got a wry smile from him.

“And my trust. I know that you would never in a million years associate with someone you didn’t feel safe with. I have always trusted your judgement and will do so in this case as well. But only as far as Colin’s character goes. I need you to trust me as well.”

“I do.”

“Then trust me to handle Manny. Trust me to tell him that you went against his and my wishes and got outside help involved. I will convince him that you would never do anything to jeopardise the case. That you acted in the interest of solving this as quickly, accurately and cleanly as possible.”

“You think you could convince him of all that?” Disbelief weighed heavily on my voice. “I read him, Phillip, and I saw that he is extremely cynical.”

“We’ve been friends for longer than you’ve been alive. I’ll bring him around.”

Phillip was a top-class negotiator and could make people see his point in an effortless few sentences. Yet it took a conscious effort from me to nod my head in agreement. Immediately Phillip’s demeanour lifted and he awarded me a relaxed smile.

“Fantastic. If you could email me this report”—he pointed to the monitors where the report was still on display—“I will forward it to Manny. He can read through it and I’ll try to set up a meeting for tomorrow.”

I was not looking forward to meeting with Manny. Even though he was an interesting subject to read, I found the thought of being the focus of his displeasure hugely unappetising.

The last few minutes with Phillip brought to my mind once again why I so much enjoyed his presence. Never had he discounted my opinions and he had always been open to discussing, debating, negotiating and settling issues with me. It was that trust in me that helped me make an instant decision. “I have a bodyguard.”

“You have a what?” It must have been his cultured upbringing that prevented him from shouting at me.

“A bodyguard and driver, to be precise. He’s a friend of Colin’s and will keep me safe.”