by Estelle Ryan
“Genevieve!” It was the sheer shock in Phillip’s voice that caused me to drag my eyes away from the computer. I had just made yet another connection and was becoming increasingly excited.
I turned to Phillip, who was standing in the viewing room doorway, looking bewildered. “What?”
“My god, how long have you been here?” He moved away from the still open door and walked into the viewing room, looking around with not a small amount of concern. I inhaled sharply to tell him that it was none of his business, but reality rushed towards me like a runaway freight train.
“Since we last spoke.”
“Since Tuesday?” He shook his head as if he had received a hard blow to his skull. “You have been here for the last two days.”
The ten-year-old girl in me, being berated by her embarrassed mother, threatened to hang her head in shame. Fortunately, the more than two decades of discipline came to the fore. I straightened my shoulders and blinked slowly. “I lost track of time.”
“It seems a bit more than that.” He dragged a chair closer and sat down far enough from me to make me wonder if he was respecting my personal space or whether I smelled like I had locked myself in the same room for the last forty-eight hours. I looked at my usually immaculate workspace and could understand the concerned frown marring Phillip’s typically confident face.
The long desk was covered in over a dozen coffee mugs, chocolate wrappers and crumpled sheets of paper. I took a bracing breath before I could look down at my outfit. My flawlessly ironed white silk shirt now looked like it had been lying at the bottom of the laundry bin for a week. A few stray coffee drops had stained my light green skirt. I didn’t even want to think about the unattractive mascara rings that undoubtedly were lying under my eyes. Not once in my adult life had I allowed myself to reach this point. I pushed away the shame to make place for self-aimed anger.
“I need to clean up.” How did I fail myself twice in so many days? First the episode with the photo and now this. It was unacceptable.
“That can wait. Tell me what’s happening with you.”
“Do I have to?”
“Please.”
I really didn’t want to tell him. The sincere concern pulling at Phillip’s face was the only reason I even considered telling him. He had been the first person in my life who cared to understand me instead of trying to change me. I closed my eyes for a long moment until I found the courage to look at him. “I used to be like this all the time until I was about ten years old. I would get interested in something and completely lose touch with reality. It is called hyperfocus. I would just focus on my new favourite topic and nothing else existed. My nannies didn’t know what to do, and since it kept me quiet they didn’t try to get me out of this zone. It was only when my mother found out that there was hell to pay.” And boy, was there hell to pay. Every time.
“But it stopped when you were ten?”
“Yes. That was when I ... are you sure you want to hear this?” It was boring and irrelevant to all the interesting things I had discovered.
“Yes, please.”
“Fine. I was ten when my parents had another one of their diplomatic dinners. It was one of my better days and I was observing everyone. That was when I realised how everyone was acting falsely and lying with almost every word that left their mouths. I decided that if that was what it took to get my parents’ approval, I would learn to play-pretend just like everyone else. It wasn’t difficult to imitate everyone’s behaviour. It was also a game for me, something that I considered a challenge and fun. Soon my parents thought that I had grown out of whatever it was that had ailed me before. What they didn’t realise was that I was no longer myself. I was them, their friends, everyone else but me.”
Phillip shook his head in anger like he did the only other time that I had told him about my childhood. “And that is why you studied psychology, body language and all of that.”
“Yes. That helped me understand why people had such a need to pretend. Why people were so good at it.”
“And now you know how to behave like everyone else.”
“Oh, I mastered that skill long before I graduated. It simply makes people more comfortable. It’s simpler.” And I hated it.
“So why don’t you behave like that around me?”
I thought about it. “You don’t need me to be like you.”
My simple answer seemed to surprise Phillip, but he quickly recovered. “I do, however, need you to go home and rest.”
I barely refrained from uttering a self-berating grunt. “I will. But first I have to show you what I’ve discovered.”
“I assume that you’ve found something very interesting.”
“Why would you assume that?”
“If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t still be here.”
I gave him a quick smile for his rationale and turned to the monitors. “They are all one man.”
“Who are?”
“The poets.” I organised my discoveries to be displayed on the screens for easy show and tell.
“What poets?” Phillip sounded bemused. “I think you should start at the beginning and tell me as if I am not as intelligent as you.”
“But you aren’t.” The moment the uncensored words left my mouth, I knew it was a huge faux pas. I slowly turned to Phillip, only to see him clench his teeth so hard that his cheeks were bulging.
“Just tell me from the beginning.”
“Right. The beginning.” I really had to watch my mouth. “I decided to look more deeply into that piece of Gauguin that was discovered on the murdered girl. Our information says that it was stolen during the Second World War and had been on Interpol’s list of stolen artworks. It was discovered by a Mister Henry Vaughan in 2004. This Mister Vaughan is an art historian who helped a friend move into an old mansion that the friend had purchased. In the attic of that house they discovered this painting. It was very fortunate that Mister Vaughan was at hand to identify what it was and make sure that it went back to its rightful owners. And it did, but only after proving provenance and a vigorous authentication process. A year later it was sold at an auction to our client.”
“I know all of this. What did you find that was strange about it?” When it came to artwork that had been stolen during any war, Phillip was paranoid about its authenticity and rightful provenance.
“There is no such person as Henry Vaughan, the art historian.”
“Are you sure?”
I simply ignored his inane question. Of course I was sure. I had not only used my usual internet sources to check the existence of this man, I had also used an EDA database search, not that it did much good. All I got were people with this name not matching any other of the parameters. “There is also no trace of any work record for this man.”
“Interesting.”
“If you look at this article,” I pointed to one of the monitors and zoomed in on the text to make it easier to read, “you’ll see quite an impressive resume that he gave to the journalist. It no doubt gave him more credibility for this article and also for the find.”
“I remember reading this interview. He was extremely knowledgeable about the Cloisonnism and Primitivism eras in which Gauguin worked.”
I made a sound of disbelief. “What is interesting about his resume in this article is that there is no mention of any specific institution where he studied or worked. I spent a lot of time searching for anything else on him and found nothing. Not a published paper, not another interview, nothing. It was as if he only existed for this one occasion.”
“That sounds a bit far-fetched. Why would he appear in the public eye only once and then disappear?” His eyes widened with a realisation. “Maybe he died.”
“No, I also checked that. Lacking any other avenues I decided to see what other artefacts were discovered and returned to their owners and that was when things got interesting. Look at this.”
I used all ten monitors to display more than a dozen different newspaper clippings.
“These are artefacts that were stolen during some conflict in the last century or so. There were so many that it took me hours to sift through them to get to these particular ones. In these articles the artefacts were discovered by a man who claimed to be a museum curator, an amateur archaeologist, a gallery owner,” I pointed to all the different articles, “an art dealer and in this one, an art restorer.”
Phillip was staring intently at the monitors. “All very interesting. It is wonderful that these owners got their art back. I don’t see anything suspicious in this.”
“The museum curator’s name is Edward Taylor, the archaeologist is William Strode, the gallery owner Isaac Watts, the art dealer John Milton and the art restorer is Sydney Goddphin.” I finished on a triumphant note and looked expectantly at Phillip. He slowly turned to me with a blank expression in his eyes. My shoulders slumped. “You don’t know who they are.”
“No, Genevieve, I don’t.”
“Every single one of them was an English poet who lived in the seventeenth century.” I could barely sit still with the excitement bubbling in me. “Can’t you see? The probability of all of these men discovering stolen pieces having names of seventeenth century poets is incalculable. It simply would not happen.”
“And that led you to believe that this is the same person.”
“Yes,” I all but shouted and took a calming breath. “What I haven’t been able to figure out is his agenda.”
“It would seem clear to me. He reappropriates artworks that were illegally taken from the owners.”
“True. But who is he working for? I couldn’t find anyone fitting his description working for any agencies.”
Phillip narrowed his eyes at the screens. “I see only three photos in these articles.”
“Unfortunately there aren’t any more photos of this man, these men. Only the three photos here.”
“None of these photos really show his face.” A sly smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “Clever bastard.”
“But these three photos are enough for me to believe that this is the same man.”
“I don’t know, Genevieve.” He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes for a closer study of the three photos. “The men in those articles look mighty different from each other.”
“Look at their noses and their mouths.” I reached for a laser pointer and aimed it at the perfectly shaped male lips in each photo. “This is the same man. We can puff out our cheeks and try to draw attention away from our eyes with glasses and contact lenses, but we can’t change the shape of our lips. Or our noses. At least not without the help of a professional make-up artist.”
We spent a full minute in silence studying the photos accompanying the articles. I was reliving the burst of excitement that had cannoned through me when I had made this specific discovery. Almost as if to myself I said, “These articles date back five years. I’m sure that there are many more discoveries and poets if I looked.”
“But why would you look? What is this man’s connection to the case apart from being the one who identified the artefact?”
“Talking about the artefact, did you find out why your client didn’t report the artefact stolen?”
“I haven’t been able to get it touch with him,” grunted Phillip. “He tends to go off the grid for weeks on end and then it’s impossible to reach him.”
“Which means we don’t know if or when the painting was stolen.”
“Correct.”
“Hmm, that might be a problem.”
“It is obvious to me that it would be a problem, but why do you think it’s a problem?”
“So far I’ve found six different poets who discovered another thirteen artefacts. See these three cases?” I pointed to three different screens. “Here the poet declared the stolen artefact a forgery. In each case it caused huge controversies since all three of these pieces were authenticated.”
“By whom?”
“By different and very reputable entities. One of the artefacts alone was authenticated by a museum, a university and an independent archaeologist.”
“This is not good. Not good at all.”
“No, it’s not. It leads me to believe that the poet-man not only recovers artefacts, he also has some ability to identify fakes. After his very public declaration that they were forgeries, they were once again tested and were found to be extremely good replicas of the originals.”
“Okay,” he said very slowly, “and how is all this connected?”
“I don’t know yet. But I know it is connected. I’ve found more art murders.”
Phillips blinked at my quick change of topic. “Art murders?”
“Well, murders involving artists.”
“And what does this have to do with our current case?” Phillip looked like he was having a hard time keeping up with me, so I slowed down a bit. I had after all had forty-eight hours to connect all the dots in my mind.
“The girl in the photo is most likely an artist.”
“What makes you think that?”
“While I was looking for more discoveries by poets, I was looking through a lot of newspapers online. In one of the newspapers I noticed a small report about a murder, which made me think again of the girl.” An involuntary shudder rippled through me. “Manny said that she was killed with a Eurocorps weapon, one typically used by agents. Also one on the list of the stolen weapons. So I phoned Jacques.”
“I’m afraid to ask. Who’s Jacques?”
“The detective we worked with last year on the arson case.”
“Please tell me you didn’t give him any of this information. Manny couldn’t emphasise enough how important confidentiality was.” Phillip sounded like someone was strangling him. Strong distress caused his throat muscles to constrict like that.
“I only asked him if he could find out if there were any open cases in France and the rest of Europe with a SIG 226 nine millimetre as the murder weapon.”
“And he didn’t ask you why you wanted to know?”
“Of course he did.”
“And?”
“I lied to him.” I was so proud about this achievement that my voice lifted with this admission. “I told him that I’m working on the side for a private investigator and that he asked me to do some research into this.”
“And he believed you?”
“After some time.” I had to use all my learned skills of deception to convince Jacques, but it didn’t take too long. Not only did people lie easily, they just as quickly believed a lie.
“Oh dear. I don’t really want to know the details. Just tell me what you found out.”
“Well, he phoned me back and told me that there are two unsolved murders in France, one in Italy and two in Greece where this type of weapon was used. The cases happened four to seven years ago and there’s been no reason to connect them whatsoever. I told Jacques that I was wrong and there obviously was no connection. I even managed to sound very disappointed.”
“Genevieve, lying is not something to be so proud of.”
“It is. It’s only the second time this year that I’ve lied, so I’m very proud that I was so believable.”
Phillip shook his head with a half smile, but quickly sobered. “Tell me more about these murders.”
“Well, once I had this information, it was really easy to find out the rest. All five victims were artists. And not just any kind of artist. They were highly regarded in their fields.”
“What fields?”
“This is another interesting anomaly. If there was a serial killer in Europe, he might have chosen something more fitting to a type. The only thing these people have in common is that they were artists. Their age, gender, social status, everything differs so greatly that it is difficult to imagine that this could be the work of a serial killer. Not one of the artists specialised in the same field. One was fantastic at the restoration of Renaissance art, the other was a sculptor, the other specialised in bronzes and the other one was a graphi
c designer. I think the last one was skilled in watercolours from the Romantic era, especially Turner’s works. They came from different countries, so why a serial killer would or could find them doesn’t make sense at all.”
“A serial killer with a Eurocorps weapon.”
“That is another reason that makes me think it’s not a serial killer. These murders were all committed with the same type of weapon, but not the same weapon. I’m sure if Manny requested the ballistic reports of these cases, he would be able to match it to the stolen Eurocorps weapons.”
“I’ll be sure to tell him about this.”
“You can also ask him why it is that the other cases didn’t register that they were Eurocorps weapons.”
“Maybe because the data was only entered in a local data base. Or maybe these weapons weren’t Eurocorps’.”
“Oh, they were. Of that I’m convinced.”
“Genevieve, how can you be so convinced of your theory when most of it is conjecture?”
“It is not conjecture.” How dare he insult me like that? “I would never form a theory without the relevant information.”
“That’s just it. You don’t have enough information to make this a viable theory.”
“How can you not see it?” The censure in my voice caused Phillip to lift his eyebrows in a warning. Even though he was the only person totally accepting who I was, I still couldn’t expect him to accept my intolerance of being challenged by those of lesser intellect. I took a deep breath and modulated my tone. “How can I explain this to you? I’ve gathered all these pieces of a puzzle. Putting it together can do no other than form this specific picture.”
“A picture that includes numerous murders on the continent with Eurocorps weapons. Manny will be so pleased.”
“Why would he be pleased? I would think he would be rather outraged at this.” It only took a look at Phillip’s face for realisation to dawn. “Oh, you were being sarcastic. I’m sure that Manny will not be pleased with this information either, but he did ask us to look into this.”
“Actually he asked us to find the connection between the girl and the painting.”
“And the connection between that, the Russian murderer and the EDA weapons.” I could recall every conversation verbatim, to most people’s utter frustration.
“Let’s assume that the girl is an artist. How does that connect her to the Gauguin painting?”
“I don’t know that yet.”
“And let’s assume the girl and the artefact are connected. How does that connect her to the poets?”
“Apart from the fact that it was the poet who discovered this artwork?” I gave it a moment’s thought to remember which connection I had not explained yet. “I didn’t mention the fact that there were poets and discoveries in the same areas as where three of the five unsolved murders took place, did I?”
Phillip only looked at me, waiting for me to continue.
“Going through all those local newspapers’ archives proved to be very enlightening. I discovered all sorts of interesting things. Did you know that in 2005 a hundred and twenty-one people died in a plane crash in Greece?”
“Does this have anything to do with the case?”
“No, it doesn’t.” I sighed at my own digression before going on with the determination to stay on point. “A month before the second Greek murder, William Strode, the archaeologist, discovered a long lost Van Gogh.” I took a moment to locate the specific article on one of the monitors and zoomed in on it. “This is one of the cases where he declared it to be a forgery. In one of the French cases, another poet declared the artwork to be a forgery and it was soon followed by a murder. I couldn’t find any connection with him and the three other unsolved murders. What I do know is that this poet-man is somehow involved. To say that he’s involved in the murders would indeed be conjecture, but the fact that he’s the one discovering these pieces and then exposing the forgeries makes me wonder how he fits into all of this. There are simply too many threads connecting him to call it any kind of coincidence.”
“Not that you would ever call anything coincidence.” Phillip sat back in the chair, pinching his chin. I gave him time to process all the information I had bombarded him with. I had a lot of respect for how his mind worked. When it came to business and people, he far outranked me in natural skill. I could see patterns and make connections like the ones I had just made. Phillip would add the human element that I, even with my extensive training, sometimes missed. The silence stretched on. Just when I once again became aware of my embarrassing dishevelled state, Phillip spoke. “Manny told me about the things the killer shouted. Have you come up with any theories?”
“No. To be honest, I haven’t given the twenty-seven daffodils and the all powerful red much thought.”
“Maybe you should. I’ve looked at it every which way and it still sounds like rubbish.” He glanced at the monitors. “I have quite a lot to tell Manny. I’ll meet with him today while you go home and rest.”
“Yes, I need to go home.” I needed to stand in the shower for an hour and wash away this zone I had been in. “While you speak to Manny, tell him to work harder at finding the girl’s identity.”
“I’m sure he and the local police have worked really hard in identifying the girl, Genevieve.” He lowered his head and gave me a warning look. “While you’re at home, do whatever you need to do to tune back into your social skills. Manny is not one to take too kindly to your special brand of honesty.”
I disagreed with him on that point, but kept my own councel. The way I had read Manny, I strongly believed that he would prefer my total honesty, even if he did not always find it, or me for that matter, agreeable or likeable. After another two warnings that I was to go home and rest, Phillip left me alone in the viewing room to face the mess I found myself in.
With a heavy sigh I gathered the coffee mugs to take them to the kitchen. It took another hour to tidy my viewing room enough to allow the cleaning crew to come in later and clean it to my exact specifications. All the while I berated myself for allowing this case to get the better of all the years of discipline.
Once I got into my little city car, I decided that I had had enough of the self-flagellation. As with most other experiences, I would consciously look at this as a lesson on how to, or in this case how not to, handle certain situations life threw at me. I had worked extremely hard in the six years that I had been with Rousseau & Rousseau to establish stability and control in my life. It should not have come as a surprise to me that I could not always be in control. I should have been prepared to handle such an unexpected situation better. The predictable stability in my life had made me lazy and unprepared. That would have to change.
I turned my car into the parking space under my apartment building and got out with a sigh of relief. The soothing spray of my shower would help me plot out how I would handle such a situation differently, were one to come up again. Hopefully the unexpected photo that triggered my almost blackout and then the zoning out were the last of these unwanted behaviours. Waiting for the elevator to whisk me up to my apartment, I was determined to regain every ounce of control.
It had been almost a novelty for me, after so many years, to once again feel the darkness closing in on me. I had forgotten what it was like to feel the whole world recede and just lose myself in that dark space, not aware of any of my actions. Fortunately I had been able to keep myself from complete surrender to that darkness. Even still, it was certainly not something that I wanted to repeat any time soon. I opened the door to my large loft apartment, relief to be in my safe haven washing over me. This was the place where I was totally in control.
I locked the five locks on my heavy front door and turned to the kitchen. My usual homecoming ritual of a cup of herbal tea before I took a shower would go a long way in helping me regain total control. My loft apartment had been a find that I still relished in. The spacious airy rooms with windows on both sides, large enough to bathe all the wooden finishing
in natural light, always made me feel at peace. That and the fact that there was no one in this space to move anything out of place or to leave their grimy fingerprints on the impeccable surfaces.
I walked through the long open-space living area, single-minded in my focus to make tea. The front half of my apartment was divided into four quarters. Directly to the left of the front door were two comfortable sofas facing a good-sized balcony on one side and a wall-length bookshelf on the other. Next to that was the dining area. The wall separating my bedroom and the dining area was the only wall in the living area covered in paintings and masks. All the other walls were covered in books.
The kitchen was directly opposite the dining area. I stepped into the immaculate space without as much as a glance at the reading area behind me. All I wanted was to switch the cold kettle on to boil the water for my tea. Why was it then that a thin wisp of steam was coming out of the kettle? And why was there an aroma of camomile tea in my apartment? A cold hand of awareness clamped around my heart.
“Hello, Genevieve.”
Chapter FOUR