The Courbet Connection (Book 5) (Genevieve Lenard) (34 page)

“Jenny?” The concern in Colin’s voice was justified. But I’d promised Nikki honesty.

She sat down slowly in the chair closest to me, her eyes searching my face. “Is Michael dead?”

“No.” I swallowed the ‘not yet’. “I think both Michael and Steve might be up for auction.”

Nikki’s eyes were wide in her pale face. “Find them, Doc G. Please find them.”

“Go to Rebecca. The fewer distractions I have, the sooner we can hope to find them.”

She stared at me intensely for another three seconds before nodding and leaving the room. I dropped my face in my hands and focussed on my breathing. It was quiet in the team room and when I looked up, everyone’s expressions were grave. From nowhere, anger filled me. Anger at the feeling of
hopelessness, at Gasquet, at Dukwicz, at the human psyche allowing for such illnesses to enter and thrive in our beings.

I stood up, pushing with my hands on the table. “We have another fifty minutes before this auction commences. Let’s use it.”

“I’m still looking for more on Gasquet,” Francine said. “Someone has scrubbed his internet history. This person has to be very good to leave only enough to create a digital footprint, but nothing revealing.”

“It could be André Breton.” It fitted perfectly. “He was well-respected in the cyber-crimes division before he joined Hugo and Boucher. He could’ve changed all their digital data.”

“Maybe.” Francine shrugged.

“Where’s the criminal?” Manny asked.

“He joined Daniel,” Francine said. “He couldn’t sit around doing nothing. He wanted to be in on the action when we take these guys down.”

I hoped Vinnie’s faith would not be misplaced.

Colin’s phone rang, breaking into the fragile atmosphere. His eyes widened briefly when he looked at the screen. He answered the call and listened in silence for a few minutes, only making encouraging noises. Everyone in the team room was watching his face, me included. From the brief appearance of sadness followed by anger, I was wondering if the call was about Maurice’s autopsy. When he ended the call, his anger was clearly visible.

“They hunted him. The bastards hunted Maurice.” His jaw was tight, his nostrils flared.

“Was that the morgue?” Manny asked. “What did they say?”

“Maurice died from injuries sustained by the car hitting him. They had CCTV footage of the man dumping him in the backstreet and have already arrested him. Apparently, Maurice had just run out into the road, asking for help, but this idiot saw
him too late and ran him over. It could’ve been vehicular manslaughter, but now that guy is up on all kinds of murder charges. He didn’t want his wife to know he wasn’t at work like he’d told her and that was why he didn’t report it and why he dumped Maurice’s body.”

“Why did you say Maurice was hunted?” I put my hand on the armrest of Colin’s chair. He grabbed and held onto my hand with both of his.

“They found peri-mortem injuries that were positively identified as coming from high-impact projectiles like rubber bullets.” Colin’s hands tightened even more around mine. “He’d outrun them. They had chased him through that forest and he’d outrun them.”

“Most likely because of his triathlon training,” I said.

“Every time we met, he told me about the latest race he’d finished. He was good at it, too. His favourite was cross-country running.” Colin shook his head. “Then he got killed by a fucking speeding car.”

“Do the police know on which road this guy hit Maurice?” Francine asked. “That could help us narrow possible locations.”

Colin’s laugh had a broken quality to it. “He’s too scared of his wife to say. If he reveals where he was, she’ll know who he was with and it would cost him a lot of money in divorce settlements.”

“Has he lawyered up?” Manny asked.

“Yup. Now he doesn’t have to say anything to anyone.”

“Bastard.”

“I looked at Maurice’s phone.” Francine’s change of topic caught me off guard. It took a moment to recall that Colin had retrieved a cell phone from a secret safe in Maurice’s apartment.

“Did you find something, supermodel?”

“Phone calls to an untraceable burner phone. Neither of those two phones has been switched on in days. I’m sorry, Colin.”

“It was worth trying.” He glared at the screen. “Those kids are students. Most likely all of them are nerdy. They’re not athletes. They’re not going to outrun Dukwicz and whichever sick fuck is hunting them. Come on, Jenny. Let’s see if we can get anything else from Dukwicz’s financials.”

He didn’t let go of my hand as he got up and pulled me to follow him. We went into my viewing room and followed up every transaction paid into Dukwicz’s account. When ten o’clock arrived, we still had nothing concrete, nothing that could lead us to the location of the auctions.

“They’re on.” Francine’s whisper carried enough emotion to catch our attention. Colin and I joined her and Manny, all four of us staring at the screen. The divided screen with the coded medical information of the four victims was replaced by a young man standing in the same room I’d seen on all the videos. He was also dressed only in tracksuit pants. His back was turned to the camera, his spine and bony shoulder blades visible.

As if on order, he slowly turned around, exhibiting the same intoxication as the others. The moment his features were turned to the camera, blackness rushed at me. An involuntary keen escaped me and I pushed both fists against my mouth. On the screen, Michael continued to turn towards the camera until he came to a swaying stop. He slowly blinked and swallowed a few times.

This young man had been in my home, found my idiosyncrasies amusing and made Nikki laugh. I could not allow panic to overwhelm me and prevent me from finding him. I forced Mozart’s
beautiful Violin Concerto No. 1 in B flat major into my mind and returned my attention to my surroundings. Manny was on the phone ordering someone to ‘keep the girls in the conference room’.

“Doc, you’re with us?”

“Of course. I’m here.” My answer brought a micro-expression of relief to his face.

“Good. Now tell me what you think.” He moved to the side to take my focus away from the screen. Away from Michael. “Should we watch this and see if we can learn anything new? Or should we be doing something else?”

I considered this. “I see no reason why this auction would be any different from the other auctions they’ve done. Apart from the identities of the victims, we’ve learned nothing from those auctions. I suggest we keep an eye on the auction, but continue to search for a way to find out where they are.”

“And stop them before the second auction.” Francine typed hard on her keyboard and clicked a few times with the mouse. The screen split in two, the auction a smaller window in the top right-hand corner. “Let’s work with what we’ve got.”

“Financials,” I said. “What did you find on Breton and Hugo?”

“Oh, I found dirt, girlfriend.” She rubbed her hands together. “Both have overseas accounts registered under dummy corporations. These accounts are each a few million strong. I bet they didn’t get that from being good Interpol agents.”

“A few million what?” Manny asked.

“Dollars. Both have around two and a half million dollars stashed away there. Unfortunately, I didn’t find anything that connects them to Gasquet’s financials.”

“How far back did you look?”

“Two years. It seems like our timeline starts around nineteen months ago when Monsieur Rimbaud first approached Maurice and then Colin got involved.”

“Could you compare any major transactions into or out of Breton and Hugo’s accounts? We might find payments from the same person or place.”

For a minute, the only sound in the team room was Francine’s typing and clicking. A few final clicks and three side-to-side documents filled the screen. “There’s nothing else. Just this payment they received from GDD Security Industries eighteen months ago. It is listed as a bonus payout to shareholders.”

“GDD Security Industries?” Manny sat down. “Where have I heard that before?”

Another connection clicked. “It’s the company responsible for the DWD survey.”

“Holy bloody hell!” Manny jumped up. “The bleeding survey that interviewed all the auctioned kids?”

“How many payments from GDD?” I asked.

“It was only that once.”

“What other information do you have on them?”

Francine’s brow pulled in and down. “Shit, I forgot to get more on them. Give me a minute.”

“Doc, tell me if you agree with my theory. ZD is Gasquet. He became mates with Breton and Hugo when he helped them with a case in a consultant capacity. This had to be before Monsieur Rimbaud died.”

“Their first official case together was three years ago.” I had read their Interpol files. “But their paths had crossed before while Gasquet was still with Interpol.”

“So they’ve known each other a long time. Then Monsieur Rimbaud gets sick, but doesn’t want to tell Gasquet. He tries to sell a painting, but dies from a heart attack when it brings Interpol to his door. Somehow Gasquet finds out about the role Maurice and Edward Taylor played in the death of this man
who’d cared for him and decides to take revenge. Hmm… where do SSS and the auctions fit in?”

“According to Caelan the first Courbet painting was put up on Silk Road after Monsieur Rimbaud’s death,” Colin said. “What’s the bet Gasquet didn’t know the value of any of those paintings until he found out about the event that had triggered Monsieur Rimbaud’s heart attack? A man like Gasquet could never have enough power. I think he gets off on the illegal aspect of all of this.”

“It doesn’t completely fit the profile of a narcissist.” I was still bothered by a few conflicting facts. “A narcissist wants to be the centre of attention and wants people to acknowledge how powerful he is. ZD’s online behaviour does not support that. I know that we have very strong evidence suggesting that Gasquet is ZD, but at the moment it is still circumstantial.”

“What are you saying, Doc?”

“We don’t have the complete picture yet.” I liked Nikki’s analogy. “We’re missing some pieces.”

“Here’s another piece for you.” Francine nodded towards the screen. “Laurence Gasquet is one of the major shareholders of GDD Security Industries.”

“That connects him to Breton and Hugo, and connects the three of them to the kidnappings.” Manny slammed his fist into his other palm. “Getting closer. We’re getting them.”

“Where are all those students?” It was a question that had been in the back of my mind. “No bodies have been recovered. I looked for reports of bodies missing organs, but I haven’t found one single such case. Not within the parameters we are working.”

“Let’s shelve that question for now, Doc.” Manny looked at the top right-hand corner of the screen. “Right now we need to find out where Michael, Steve and the other two are.”

“They can’t be far from Strasbourg,” Colin said. “Before the guy who killed Maurice called his lawyer, he said that it was a quick visit. He always went home to his wife, even if it was in the early-morning hours.”

“That eliminates Breton’s and Hugo’s homes in Lyon. That’s a four-hour drive from here. What other properties do they have?”

“None,” Francine and I said together. She waved her hand at me to continue.

“If they own any other property, it is not registered in their names and has not been declared. Gasquet has his house here in Strasbourg and the apartment in Bristol.”

“I’ll get Daniel to check out his house.” Manny took his smartphone from his pocket.

“It doesn’t make sense to have the students in the city,” Colin said. “It would attract attention to move them so many times. Firstly, when they’re kidnapped and then to take them to some remote location to be hunted. I think they’re being held outside the city, but not too far away.”

“We need more information.” Despite my deep dislike for repetition, I couldn’t say this enough times. “The more data we have, the easier it would be to find them.”

“I might be able to help with that,” a familiar voice said from the door. Judith Jooste was standing next to Tim, a suitcase on wheels next to her.

“You made good time.” Manny looked at his watch. “We expected you this afternoon.”

“I got a lift with a buddy of mine who owns a helicopter service.” She tilted the suitcase and rolled it into the room. “Much faster and less stressful than driving four hours there and four back. It also gave me more time to get as much paperwork as possible.”

Manny lifted both eyebrows, looking at the large suitcase. “That’s a lot of paperwork.”

“Um… If all is well here?” Tim took a step back, into the hallway.

Manny nodded once.

“Thank you for escorting me.” Judith gave Tim a warm smile.

“No problem. I was only following orders.” On his last two words, he glared at the back of Manny’s head before winking at Judith. “I’ll make fresh coffee.”

Despite the exhaustion from not having slept in the last twenty-nine hours, I didn’t think coffee would be a good idea. Not for me. Adrenaline was causing me to feel queasy. Although, thinking about it, I didn’t know whether the queasiness was the adrenaline from rushing to find these students or the knowledge that Michael would be auctioned as hunting prey in another four hours.