2 The Dante Connection (27 page)

“Who do I compare to then?”

“Evil. Pure evil.” Spittle was gathering in the corners of his mouth, running down one side. “Why are only women so possessed with evil? They take away everything that is important to us. You think I’m crazy, but I’m not. I know why I am here. All those big policemen are looking for Tomasz. I know he does bad things, but at least he is an honourable man. He has standards and will not allow anyone to betray him.”

I felt the need to use one of Vinnie’s words to express my amazement at how easy this was. Already Professor Tremont was talking about Kubanov. It was equally astounding that he was calling the Russian by his first name.

“He told me that you betrayed him, Doctor Lenard. That is why I agreed to work with him. He told me that you are an evil woman and I agreed with him. You took my reputation, my strength away from me and you took his friends away from him. Oh, don’t look so shocked. He told me everything. How you had set him up to look like a criminal mastermind. How could you? He does so much good for his people. Not like you. No. You work with criminals and murderers. He showed me the photos of you and your friends. Such low class people you keep company with. Thieves and killers. You are evil!”

He was panting as if he had been exercising. It took some control to not react to what he had just said. This was another suspicion confirmed. It sounded as if Kubanov had indeed had me followed. Stalked might be a more appropriate word.

“Still saying nothing, huh? Well, I suppose Sharon fucking Stone wouldn’t want to admit not doing her research. If you had properly looked into Tomasz, you would have seen how many people he had helped. He is one of the few people who really understand my pain, my grieving. He has been such a great support. That is why I didn’t mind doing most of the practical organisation. He even helped me choose Luc. You’ve found Luc, haven’t you? He’s such a lost kid. I saw that the first day he came into my lecture, and again when he dropped out so soon after. I had to agree with Tomasz when he pointed out that Luc should get caught. That being in prison would save him from himself. You see how Tomasz has helped me when all you’ve done is destroy what I have been building?”

It wasn’t hard for me to not speak up. Clearly Kubanov had used Professor Tremont’s fractured emotional state to convince him that he was right to blame everyone else for life’s unfairness.

“You can’t even defend yourself, you witch. You are just like her. She also didn’t defend herself. She never even took the time to answer my letters.” His eyes lost their focus. He was retreating into memories. “She was never willing to accept responsibility for taking my Juliette away from me. It destroyed us. My wife was never the same, you know? Oh, what do you care? You only care about yourself and making sure everyone knows how clever you are.”

“But you can’t do anything to me, Claude.” I put disdain in my tone. It wasn’t easy. Observing this man’s psychological deterioration was affecting me. “You are in police custody and I will walk out of here.”

“Hah! That is what you think. I’m not done with you yet, you bitch. I don’t care that I’m here. Everything is planned and in place. Nothing you can do will stop me now. Half of me died with Juliette. The other half when my wife died. I’m nothing any more. The only thing I have to live for now is to see you go down. You and that other witch.”

I laughed dismissively. “How are you going to make me go down?”

“I will destroy you!” His face was red, veins standing out on his forehead and in his neck. I had successfully infuriated him. This was one deception I took no pride or satisfaction in. He leaned forward. “You will become a joke to the world. Oh, world-renowned Doctor Genevieve Lenard couldn’t even stop a bomb. Not even when she knew about it long before the time. The world will know that you can also be weak and incompetent. I will destroy your reputation. I will destroy you all!”

He leaned across the table and continued shouting over and over that he was going to destroy me. We had lost him. He had gone into a place in his head where there was no peace. Despite our history and his wildly misguided plans, I knew it all came from a place of unbearable pain. I looked at Colin and shook my head. A second later the door opened and Daniel and the other two men stepped in.

I left the room with much more knowledge than I had before, but it weighed heavily on me. In the corridor I leaned against the wall, for once not concerned about hygiene. With only the greatest control was I able to not hug myself and fold double in emotional discomfort.

“Hey.” Colin stepped into my personal space and rested his hands on my shoulders. “You did great in there. You know this. You also know that none of this is your fault.”

Uncontrolled tears filled my eyes. “Rationally I know this. Why am I feeling so… so wretched?”

“It’s called empathy, Jenny. Something he said must have resonated with you, made you understand his craziness.”

I had never been accused of being empathetic. It was an aggravating misconception about people with autism. Just because I was non-neurotypical didn’t mean I didn’t feel. Didn’t empathise. It would appear that Colin wasn’t of the same opinion as the people of my childhood. They had called me cold, unfeeling.

It unnerved me that Colin understood me so well. That nobody ever understood me had become a cloak that I had worn almost all my life. Having that taken away from me was making me feel naked and vulnerable. It also made me feel light and connected. The cognitive dissonance Colin caused was not comfortable.

Often I considered people who needed reassurances weak. Why could they not use straightforward logic to reason themselves out of whatever self-doubt they were suffering from? I had to retract those beliefs. Colin’s reassurances, him telling me things about myself I knew to be true, lifted the weight from my emotions.

“Hey.” Colin squeezed my shoulders. “You are none of the things he accused you of and everything I believe in. You are kind, caring, loyal and want to help. Only sometimes you don’t know how to communicate those things.”

I awkwardly patted his hands on my shoulders. “Thank you. I needed to hear that.”

“Doc!” Manny stormed out of the observation room towards us. “You were brilliant. I think you have to–”

“Manny, please don’t finish that sentence. I don’t ever want to do this again.”

His face softened. “That bad, huh? I saw that the guy totally lost it.”

“What’s going to happen to him now?” I asked.

Manny considered his answer. “I’ll put in a request that he be transferred to an institution where he will receive the help he needs.”

“Thank you.” I swallowed hard at the emotions strangling me.

“Doc, he was out of reality long before you wrote your article or spoke to him here. You have to remember that the info you got us might be very helpful. You just need to interpret it now.”

I laughed weakly. “I need to sleep for at least four hours before I work on that. I need to create some emotional distance first. And I really need to rest.”

Manny looked at Colin. “Take her home and make sure she rests. And for the love of God, play some Mozart for her. I’ll get the guys here to start working on whatever they can.”

We left with minimal goodbyes. The drive home was done in blissful silence. Colin had removed his hipster hoodie. I could see his profile in the soft lights of the streetlamps.

“I was wrong,” I said into the silence. “About so many things.”

“Which things, Jenny?”

“There are a lot of good people, caring people in this world.”

“That is true.” He didn’t push for more.

“My experiences taught me that people don’t even try to understand other people. It is so much easier for everyone to make fun of that which they don’t understand. Mock it or declare it evil. It’s been a human reaction to anything atypical since the beginning.”

“And you believed this?”

“Believe. I still believe this.” I looked out of the side window at the street flashing by. “But it doesn’t apply to everyone.”

“No?”

“It doesn’t apply to Phillip, to Manny, to Vinnie, to Francine or to you.” I started counting off my fingers. “Phillip has known me for six years and not once belittled me for being non-neurotypical. He was the first person to treat me like a normal human being. He gave me a job, an opportunity to be completely independent. He gave me a life. Then the rest of you entered my life. Manny is gruff, but his gestures proves that he cares about me. Francine wants to be my friend and Vinnie is a brother I never had.”

“And me?”

“You understand me.” I grew quiet for a long while. When I spoke my voice was raw with emotion. “It scares me.”

We had reached our apartment building and Colin parked the car in the street. He turned to me. “I know it scares you, Jenny. A lot of this scares me too.”

“What? Working with Manny or understanding me?”

He laughed. “I think working with Manny scares me more. Understanding you? It’s not that hard. You’re not that difficult.”

Never in my life would I have thought to hear someone say those words. Not about me. And not when my entire life had been a fight to understand others and make myself accessible at least to some degree. Accessible enough to be part of society, even if only the fringes.

My thoughts were rudely interrupted by the buzzing of my smartphone.

I took the phone from its pocket in my handbag and swiped the screen. “Oh God. I have another package.”

Chapter TWENTY-FOUR

“
Vinnie is already
on his way there, so you can stop arguing now, Jenny.” Colin was speaking softer and slower. He was getting angry.

“We could’ve gone. It’s a quick drive there and we are in the car.”

“Still.” He shook his head. “I’m getting out and going up. Coming?”

We had been arguing for the last ten minutes about collecting the package from the mailing service. In that time I had thought Colin was being rude by playing with his phone. Little did I know he was texting Vinnie about the package. I got out of the SUV and followed Colin into the building.

“I hate it when you disregard my opinions and make decisions without me.”

We got in the elevator and Colin turned to me. “I apologise. But you know why I do this, right?”

We reached my floor and Colin gestured for me to leave the elevator ahead of him. A gentleman. He had keys ready and started unlocking the door to my apartment. I walked past him when he opened the door wide. “I know you do this to protect me.”

“You don’t have to sound so disgusted by that,” he laughed.

Completely out of character, I threw my handbag on the dining room table. I walked to the kitchen to start the coffee machine. As soon as the coffee started filling the cup, I went back to the dining room table to carefully hang my handbag on the back of its usual chair. I smiled at the feeling of rightness and returned to the kitchen for the coffee. There was not going to be any sleeping tonight.

Colin disappeared to his room for a few minutes. By the time he came out, I was sitting in front of my computers with two cups of coffee. He joined me.

“I know you mean well,” I said without looking away from the laptop monitor. When he didn’t respond, I looked up. He was smiling.

“You’re not alone anymore, Jenny. You don’t have to carry your whole life all on your own. There are people who will help you.”

“You mean overbearing men who just want to protect me?” There was no anger in my tone. Just a bit of sadness. “What if I get used to it and you disappear again?”

He flinched. “That was a mistake. Going to Russia and not telling you when we came back. It was all a mistake. I, we, are here to stay.”

The rational part of me was fighting the illogical desperation to believe that. I looked back at the computer monitor. Work was safer. Made more sense.

“What are you looking at?” Colin asked.

“The thefts. I’ve been wondering why the thieves were told to steal those specific works of art. Maybe someone realised this and didn’t say, but how did Kubanov know to get Jonas to tell Luc which specific works to look for in the security companies’ systems?”

“Good question.” Colin leaned back in his chair and sipped his coffee. “I would dare say that Kubanov already had Jonas hack those systems to have a look-see.”

“That is such a silly phrase. You look at a system. Not look-see. It’s redundant. Silly.” I tilted my head. “Francine thought the same. I don’t like that you’re speculating like that, but it is a viable explanation.”

“Hah. We’ll make a gut-following guesser out of you yet.”

I looked at him in horror. “Never.”

“I promise to keep on trying, Jenny.” He smiled and straightened. “Okay, let’s see what these thieves stole.”

We went through the police files of the five thefts, including the young thief’s interrupted theft and Francine’s great-uncle. It gave us seven works of art.

“What do an Alberto Giacometti bronze sculpture, a rare American coin, a Jackson Pollock painting, a Pablo Picasso painting, a Damien H
irst sculpture, a Francis Bacon triptych and an Amedeo Modigliani sculpture have in common?” I asked. Since Colin was an infamous art thief, I considered him the authority on this subject.

“Nothing. Not all seven of them. They are vastly different in era and medium, not even the artists have anything in common. Five of the artists originated from different countries. Nope, there is nothing that ties them.”

I leaned my head back, closed my eyes and mentally started writing Mozart’s Violin Sonata No. 21 in E minor. There was such complex logic in Mozart’s compositions. It soothed over my frayed nerves and tiredness and brought clarity. My eyes flew open and I looked at the clock on my laptop. Two hours had passed.

Movement drew my attention to the reading area. Colin was pacing, his body screaming distress. He was speaking on his smartphone. The surge of adrenaline from my mental discovery turned into a heaviness in my stomach that made me feel slightly nauseous.

“You do everything they say, Vin. Don’t fuck around with this. Don’t be a hero.” Colin’s voice was tight, his grip on the smartphone even tighter. “Okay, I’ll tell her. We’ll see you soon.”

He ended the call and turned to me. I knew my eyes were wide, my face an expression of worry. “What happened?”

“Vinnie is okay.” He walked to the table and sat down facing me. “The same as the last time, he took all his toys to check out your package. One of his toys is a handheld biosensor.”

I had never heard of or seen a biosensor, but the implications were clear. My heart rate increased and my breathing became shallow. “No. Please don’t tell me this. No.”

Colin took my hands in his. “Vinnie is fine. That is why I started this conversation with that sentence, so you don’t have to worry. He’s being decontaminated by the Hazmat team, but they’re sure he’s fine. I got him to agree to go to Paul to double-check in any case. Wait, I just have to phone Paul quickly.”

While Colin arranged with Paul to make sure that Vinnie was one hundred percent free of any disease, I took the time to calm my breathing. Colin ended his call with a smile.

“Paul says that we’re going to make him rich with all our visits this week.”

My mind had never even covered those grounds. “Exactly who is paying for all these illegal treatments?”

“As long as no major surgery is involved, Paul appreciates my art greatly.”

“You paint forgeries for him?”

“Yes, and he knows they’re forgeries, so everything is above board. Okay, maybe not everything.” He narrowed his eyes. “Calmer?”

“Yes. Tell me what happened with Vinnie.”

“It was a large envelope in your mailbox. He scanned for all kinds of things with his not-even-on-the-market gadgets. The first thing he did was check for explosives or a bomb. There were also no electronics. Then he brought out this nifty biosensor that some nanotechnology firm is testing for release early next year. This thing lit up like a Christmas tree.”

I smiled. That was a fun and apt analogy. “What was it?”

“Anthrax.”

“Oh, no. Did Vinnie inhale this? Are you sure he’s okay?”

“Vinnie only handled the envelope, he didn’t open it. His exposure to it was minimal.” His smile was wide and genuine. “Sometimes Francine’s paranoia really pays off. She had indoctrinated him so much in the last few days with all her wild theories that he not only wore his usual gloves, but also a specialised mask when he checked your mail. The Hazmat guys thought he was a genius for doing that. He, on the other hand, is pissed off because he’ll have to listen to Francine say ‘Told you so’ for the next few years.”

“It’s rather disconcerting how often she is right.”

“True. Anyway, when Vinnie’s biosensor went off, he phoned Manny and soon the Hazmat team was there. Their equipment is better than the handheld gadget, so they were able to determine that the amount of anthrax Vinnie was exposed to was minimal. Together with the gloves and mask, there is almost no threat.”

“But he’s going to Paul?” I no longer cared that there was any kind of illegality involved.

“He promised me, yes. So, the Hazmat team opened the envelope in those containment thingies or something. I didn’t get all of that. The important part is that there was a lot of anthrax, but it was put in between the pages of a magazine.”

I couldn’t swallow. My throat was dry. “The academic journal my article was published in?”

“That specific issue, yes. Most of the anthrax spores were on the pages of your article.”

I rested my crossed forearms on the table and dropped my head in the protective frame of my arms. It was surreal to think that someone wanted to kill me. In such an extreme manner, no less.

The sounds of my front door being unlocked made me lift my head. It was Francine. She was balancing her open laptop on her arm while closing the door. The excessive energy in her walk and the brightness of her eyes indicated good news.

“Was I right or was I right?” she asked.

“Your question doesn’t make sense,” I said. “It doesn’t offer options.”

“I was right. Vinnie was wrong. He’s so going to eat crow. He is okay because I was right. It is a beautiful moment.” She smiled and fell into a chair across from us. “You’re going to love me.”

“We already love you, honey,” Colin said.

“You’re going to love me more. Genevieve is going to love me. She’s going to say she loves me. The two of us are going to have us a little moment. She’s going to buy a constellation and name it after me.” She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. When she opened her eyes, she looked marginally calmer. And slightly embarrassed. “My mouth runs away with me sometimes when I had a super-cool breakthrough.”

“Only gullible people buy stars within certain constellations, Francine. You can’t own a star. I would never buy you a constellation. I would rather buy you another computer.” The more I spoke, the more I realised that yet again I had most likely misunderstood. I was fully prepared to be smiled at, teased or humoured. I did not expect to see tears in Francine’s eyes.

“You’re the best friend anyone could ask for, Genevieve.” She sniffed inelegantly and looked at her computer. “I know everything about Kubanov’s baby brother, Pavel.”

Her statement grabbed my attention. “Yes?”

“Well, he’s dead. He died fifteen years ago.”

“That’s the same time his mother, their mother, died,” Colin said.

“Fifteen years? Hmm. That’s how many red daffodils Kubanov sent me.” I nodded. “Yes, that would be the symbolism he wanted to connect to the flowers.”

“How messed up can one individual be?” Francine pulled her laptop closer. “But there is more to the brother’s story. Much more. When he was sixteen, he came to France on a holiday visa. He was here to work on a farm during the summer holidays. He might have inherited his father’s abusive nature or his brother’s sicko character, but he got into a heated argument with the farmer. The next day the farmer and his wife were found brutally murdered in their home. Naturally, Pavel was taken into custody as a suspect.”

“Oh dear God.” My hand covered my mouth and I stared at Francine.

“Yup, you got it, girl. At that time Kubanov was in the military, working his way up the ranks. He had enough pull and money to hire really good legal representation for his baby brother. He hired the law firm Raymond Godard was working for. The police had slipped up with some evidence and legal procedures. Godard could easily have had that case dismissed, but he never addressed the mishandling of evidence. Pavel was going to be tried as an adult and was sent to jail awaiting trial. There he was killed by inmates with some connection to Russia. Rumour had it that it was revenge on Kubanov. I think that Kubanov blames himself for the death of his brother.”

“And the death of his mother,” Colin said. “She must have committed suicide around the time that Pavel died.”

“No, he doesn’t blame himself.” So much about Kubanov now made sense to me. “He would blame everyone, anyone, but would never accept such responsibility. Typical of a psychopath, he is narcissistic and a megalomaniac. He has delusional beliefs of greatness, of power, of importance. He also is pathologically egocentric. There is no real capacity in a man like him for attachment.

“His anger, bitterness and grudge would come from the blot that was left on his image because of the role he had played in the death of his brother. His image of greatness and power is something that he would protect at all costs. Kubanov would find someone to aim all the blame at and make that person his target. President Godard being the main perpetrator. I’m just a bonus.”

“Holy hell, Doc.” Manny stood in the front door and looked at me in horror. “Now it’s the president as well?”

He looked haggard. I didn’t know if I looked any better. It had been a tough night. Manny locked the door and joined us at the table. He lowered himself slowly in the chair.

“How’s Vinnie?” I asked.

“The arsehole is fine. If I heard you correctly a second ago, we don’t need to worry about him right now. We need to worry about the president. Speak to me.”

I told him everything we had discovered and pieced together.

“Oh yes,” I said. “I also found a connection between the thefts and President Godard. We know that Jonas aka DeathRabbit867 had ordered Luc Alain to search the security companies for specific works of art. Francine and Colin posited that Kubanov had already had Jonas search for it.”

“Then why would he get Luc to search for it again?” Manny asked.

“To use Genevieve’s fancy word, I posit that Jonas went in and out undetected,” Francine said. “He knew how amateurish Luc is and knew that he would leave some sort of trace that would lead us to him.”