The Sirani Connection

by Estelle Ryan

  “And Patrik had social media accounts.” Francine shook her head. “Shahab must have taken all their devices. This will make things more difficult. I was hoping to have a look-see into Doctor Jan’s personal emails. I only have his work emails and those were already personal. I was hoping to find some juicy things that could help us with the case.”

  “If Shahab took their devices, then that password could be for his phone or tablet or some encrypted data or files on his computer.” Colin frowned. “Or it could be for an online account or a cloud account. Damn. It could really be for anything.”

  “Let’s take one problem at a time,” Ivan said. “We know that Doctor Novotný left us a clue. Now we can move onto the next... er... challenge.”

  “Please tell me you found a magical way to deal with all Antonin’s papers?” Francine pressed her palms against the sides of her head. “There’s no way I would ever be able to get data from all those destroyed trees.”

  Ivan chuckled. “I have young officers scanning all the documents. Last year we got very lucky. We were given two large scanners. My team is telling me that it’s taking them about thirty minutes to scan all the pages in one of those ring binders we found in Antonin Korn’s office.”

  “Have they scanned his correspondence yet?” Francine leaned forward. “If they did, please send it to me.”

  “Yes. My apologies. I should’ve mentioned it earlier. That’s why we’ve found incriminating evidence already. Those letters are going to send a few people to prison.” Ivan blinked a few times. “You know what, I’ll just tell my team to email you the contents of each binder as soon as it’s scanned.”

  “Or even better.” Francine tapped on her phone. “Let them upload it to a shared cloud folder. I’m sending you the link now. It’s completely secure, so no worries about any data getting lost or into the wrong hands.”

  The more they talked, the tenser I became. It was extremely difficult for me to trust anyone with collecting data. How did I know they scanned every page and didn’t miss a page by accident? That overlooked page could hold key information that would help us catch Shahab and stop whatever he was planning.

  Yet I was realistic enough to know that we needed all the help we could get. If I wanted to scan those documents by myself, then analyse them, it would take weeks, if not months. So I forced my shoulders to relax and took three slow, deep breaths.

  “I have some information on Antonin.” Phillip put his empty tea cup on the coffee table next to the sofa. “I was on a call with Adam Lendl from the National Gallery Salm Palace when Vinnie brought Bree in. With all the excitement, I almost forgot about it. Adam is the curator at the National Gallery and an old friend of mine. He immediately recognised Antonin’s name when I asked about him.

  “Apparently, Antonin had become the go-to expert on Iranian art, especially Near Eastern antiquities. Adam said he had a feeling that Antonin had been in close contact with these artefacts. There was something in the way he talked about the works. Adam thought that Antonin had not only studied the era, but worked with and on some of these pieces.”

  “Does he have any idea where we can find Antonin?” Manny asked.

  “No. I asked, but he said that his relationship with Antonin has been that of a professional acquaintance. Nothing more.” Phillip’s depressor anguli oris muscles turned the corners of his mouth down in disappointment. “I’m sorry that this is not of more help.”

  An unfamiliar electronic notification sounded and Ivan lifted his phone. “Oh, good.” He tapped on the screen and looked at Francine. “Last night I asked for access to Antonin Korn’s bank accounts. I just got it. We have three bank accounts that we can work through. Do you want to do this or should I ask my team?”

  “I’ll do it.” I took a breath when I noticed the reaction to my abrupt response. “We’ll do it. Your team is already busy with scanning and working through the paper documents.”

  “Yeah, Genevieve and I just love digging through other people’s finances.” Even though Francine was presenting this in jest, I knew she was being completely truthful. Whereas I thrived on facts, data and statistics, she took alarming pleasure in knowing about people’s habits and more intimate activities.

  “Done.” Ivan got up. “Vinnie, thank you for this breakfast. I’m heading in to meet with my team and help them work through that mountain of paper.”

  “Rather you than me.” Francine picked up her tablet. “I prefer a paperless office.”

  Vinnie and Roxy got busy cleaning up after breakfast and I went to my room to collect my laptop. I loved working through data. It was a safe place for me and I was looking forward to working through Antonin Korn’s financial data. Hopefully Francine and I would find something that could take us a step closer to finding Shahab.

  Four hours later, we had not found anything yet. It had been a bit easier to trace transactions since Ivan’s team had sent us scans of his sales records. It had helped to connect each bank transfer or deposit to the sales he had meticulously recorded. Francine had eventually admitted that even though it was inconvenient, Antonin Korn’s paper records were so well kept that it made the task a simple one.

  Simple as it was, there had been no sign of any illegal activities. We’d looked at transactions of the last three years and I found it highly improbable that we had not come across any irregularities so far.

  I wondered if Colin had found any useful information. He’d been on his phone for hours, using different accents and different levels of charm. At the moment he was in our bedroom, speaking as Sean with an Irish accent. Daniel was sitting next to Manny on the sofa across from me, both of them busy on their tablets.

  I sat back on the sofa and closed my eyes. Mentally I pulled up an empty music sheet and slowly drew the F, then the G clefs. With great care, I wrote the first line of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.5 in D Major. And smiled.

  I opened my eyes and pulled my laptop closer.

  “Have you got something, girlfriend?” Francine leaned closer to look at my laptop’s screen. She’d insisted on sitting next to me on the sofa so we could work as ‘bestest besties’.

  I moved away and frowned when she giggled. It didn’t take me long to highlight the transactions that had eluded our attention. “This is what I have.”

  “Share with us all, Doc.” Manny looked up from his tablet.

  “I don’t know yet exactly what this is. Give me a moment.” I went into our case files that we had been working on the last year. Researching every movement Shahab had made in the last nine years had been a lengthy process and there were numerous periods in this time that we couldn’t account for, but my memory for dates was such that I was confident in what I was about to find. I opened the right file and sat back. “I was right.”

  “For the love of the saints, Doc.” Manny got up and sat down on my other side, then grunted angrily when I cringed. He moved closer to the arm of the sofa. “See? Bloody fifty centimetres or even more. Now talk.”

  I moved my laptop to rest on my knees. That way both Francine and Manny could see the screen. “Look at these transactions. They all went to the same account. The expense in Antonin’s record is listed as office equipment and the account name is for a company called Seppo-Tommi.”

  “I checked the company. It’s in Finland. It’s legit.” Francine held up one finger. “But I didn’t do a deep-deep check. I’ll do that now.”

  I highlighted one specific transaction. “See the date of this transfer?” I changed windows and pointed at the timeline we had built for Shahab’s movements. “He was in Finland at that time.”

  “Huh.” Manny nodded at my computer. “Are all the other transfers to that company at the same time Shahab was in Finland?”

  “No.” A small smile lifted the corners of my mouth. “Not all. Some of those dates he was in Norway, Denmark, Estonia or Sweden.”

  “All a hop, skip and a jump away from Finland.” Manny leaned forward to look at Francine. “What is that company?”
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  “Seppo-Tommi.” Her fingers were flying over her laptop’s keyboard. “What I have so far is that the owners of this company are a Seppo Vauramo and a Tommi Harlen. It seems like they are not the founders. Wait. Huh. I have to go back in the registration records to find out what’s what.”

  “Do it.” Manny lifted his smartphone and looked at me. “Do we want access to Sonny-Tammy bank accounts?”

  I thought about this. “Yes. And it’s Seppo-Tommi.”

  “I will need some time,” Francine said. “If there’s more to this company, it’s well hidden. I’ll have to dig more.”

  Manny got up and stiffened when there was a knock on the door. “Are we expecting anyone?”

  “Not me.” Francine didn’t look up from her laptop.

  “I’ll check.” Vinnie walked out of his room to the door, his weapon in his hand. Daniel also got up and joined Vinnie at the door.

  Vinnie lifted the intercom phone and the camera engaged, but I couldn’t see the small screen. I relaxed when Vinnie’s posture lost its readiness to act. He put his handgun in the holster behind his back and opened the door.

  “Hi! Did you miss me?” Bree walked into the room, her smile warm and genuine. “I missed you guys.” She lifted a pink confectionary box. “I brought cupcakes.”

  Chapter ELEVEN

  “OOH! CUPCAKES.” FRANCINE’S smile widened when Bree opened the box and offered it to her. She took one with chocolate icing. “We are so going to be friends.”

  Bree’s laughter was genuine and loud. She turned to me, but stopped when I shook my head. I didn’t want a cupcake. She put the box on the low table in the centre of the sofas and sat down on the only empty sofa, glancing around.

  “Phillip is in his room.” Manny glowered at the box, then at her. “What are you doing here?”

  “Your warm hospitality must be such a boon when you’re building rapport with people.” Her sardonic expression alerted me to her sarcasm. I made a note to reconsider all her statements before I took them literally. She seemed to be prone to overuse irony. “You’ll be pleased to know that I come bearing tides of joy.”

  The door to Phillip’s room opened and Bree’s eyes immediately widened in recognition, her dilated pupils an indication of her pleasure to see Phillip again.

  Phillip’s reaction mirrored hers. His step faltered, then he walked towards her. “I’m glad to see you again, Bree.”

  She smiled and nodded at the box. “I brought cupcakes.”

  Phillip sat down next to her. “I heard you saying that you have good news for us.”

  “Indeed.” She glanced at Vinnie and Daniel still standing by the door, their postures more relaxed. Her eyes rested on Daniel. “Hi! I’m Bree. Who are you?”

  “Daniel Cassel.” His smile was small, but genuine. “I’m Strasbourg police.”

  “Aha. Okay. Want a cupcake?” She pointed at the box, then shrugged when Daniel shook his head. She leaned forward, took a pink cupcake and looked at Manny. “I had a breakthrough with a source. Right now I’m waiting for a call from him to give me a time and place for a meeting. I thought you might like to join me.” She took a large bite from the sweet cake.

  “What meeting?” I hated it when people gave incomplete information, whether it was to be cryptic or merely negligent. “With whom? About what?”

  Bree smiled at me, not offended at my inpatient tone. She inhaled to speak, but waited when Colin came in from our bedroom.

  Colin blinked when he saw her. “Bree. How are you?”

  She looked at Vinnie, then at the kitchenette, then back at Colin. “Parched. Dying of thirst. Desert-dry.”

  “Bloody hell.” Manny pointed his finger at Vinnie when the latter turned to the kitchenette. “Don’t you dare. She needs to speak.”

  Bree put her cupcake down, grabbed her throat and uttered a dramatic and fake cough. “Water. Water.”

  Vinnie tried unsuccessfully to hide his smile as he walked to the kitchenette. “Why don’t I make us all some coffee?”

  Bree smiled warmly at Vinnie, picked up her cupcake and turned to look at me, glancing at Colin sitting down next to her. Her expression sobered. “I arranged a meeting with Karel Maslák.”

  Colin froze for a second, then frowned. “Karel retired more than seven years ago.”

  “Yes, but the relationships he’d built over the last five and a half decades have not disappeared.” She shifted on the sofa to fully look at Colin as she took another bite. After a few seconds of evaluation while she chewed, she nodded as if to herself. “You might know that he keeps in touch with his most trusted business acquaintances.”

  “Who the bloody hell is this Carl?” Manny demanded. “And how do you know anything about him?”

  Bree turned back in her seat to look at Manny. “Part of my job as an investigative journalist has always been to do in-depth research. If I want to write an article about art being used as currency in the crime, especially the drug-world, I need to know all the players. That includes people who are working in the light.”

  Colin nodded. “Karel is a legend in the art industry. You might not get art thieves or fences to talk to you, but he loves to share his amazing stories.”

  Her fleeting pout caught my attention. “He didn’t want to share with you?”

  “Apparently, he doesn’t like being interviewed for articles. He told my assistant he was misquoted in an article in 1976 and since then he refused to speak to journalists.” She made a sound of derision. “Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater.” She pushed the last of the cupcake in her mouth.

  I ignored her last statement. “If he refuses to speak to journalists, how did you get him to agree to meet with you?”

  “Oh, bloody hell.” Manny slumped deeper into the sofa. “What have you done?”

  “What any respectable journalist would do.” She raised one shoulder and put the empty cupcake paper on the coffee table. “I told him I was doing research for my master’s thesis about the art industry and wanted to interview a legend.”

  “How did you know it would work?” Vinnie put a tray of coffee mugs on the coffee table.

  “Research.” She thanked Vinnie for saving her from dying of thirst and took a mug. “One of the art gallery owners talked about what an amazing fountain of information Karel would be and that he loved talking about the historic deals he’d been part of. I got the impression he has quite an ego.”

  Colin nodded. “Oh, he definitely loves telling stories. I’ve only met him three times and each time he thrived on people listening to his anecdotes. I must add though that in all three of those occasions he blew me away with his incredible insight. Someone told me that Karel is considered an encyclopaedia for art deals in Western Europe. Those three meetings made me agree.”

  “Then you should go with Gabriella.” Manny’s lips twitched when Bree groaned. “It is your name, right?”

  “Only when I’ve done something bad.” She laughed when Manny just stared at her. “I was hoping I could take your art expert.”

  “You were hoping to take Phillip.” It had been clear in her quick glance towards Phillip and regret when she looked at Colin.

  She turned to me. “Can I ever lie to you?”

  “Yes, you can.”

  She laughed. “Okay, but can I do this and you won’t see it?”

  “It’s possible, but not probable.”

  “Well then.” She looked at Phillip. “Would you consider coming?”

  Phillip shook his head. “This is not my expertise. Colin is far more qualified than me to go to that meeting.”

  “And he already has a previous relationship with Karel.” I thought about what she’d told us. “But Karel is expecting a student to interview him.”

  “Yeah, I was kind of planning an ambush.” She didn’t look contrite, even though her tone implied it. “I’ve done a few of those in the past and the honest reactions might have been hostile, but it always got me what I needed and often more.”
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  I didn’t like this confrontational approach to glean information from someone. I knew it was a style that worked, but I preferred something more professional.

  “Would you mind horribly if I take the lead on this?” Colin’s question was phrased in a way different to his usual manner of speech. “I might have an idea that would make Karel more amenable to sharing with us.”

  “Sure.” Her answer was immediate. “I’m not one of those who always need to take the lead. I need to get the job done—which means getting as much information as quickly as possible.”

  “Then it’s done.” Manny looked at me. “You’re also going, Doc.”

  “Colin is more than competent.” I stopped when he raised his palm to stop me.

  “I know, Doc. But I want you to see the things us mere mortals can’t. And don’t even think about arguing with me right now. I still have a headache from yesterday’s débacle.”

  Bree’s phone rang and I swallowed my response to Manny’s statements. She swiped her phone’s screen. “Hello? Yes, sir... That would be my pleasure... In half an hour?” She looked at us and Colin nodded. “Not a problem at all. Sir, I wonder if it would be okay if I can bring my professor and her husband to meet you as well. They were curious when I told them I would meet you... No? Fantastic. We’ll see you soon.”

  “I’m not your professor.” Horror filled me. “I cannot pretend to be someone I’m not.”

  “Oh.” Her eyes widened, then she tilted her head. “You are a doctor, right?”

  “Yes. Not a professor.”

  “Then I’ll say I consider you my mentor.” She leaned towards me, her face open for me to read. “Which, in all honesty, I would be so honoured. But we can say that I mentioned to you that I was going to speak to Karel and your husband overheard. He’s the one insisting on coming with, because he’d met Karel before.” She looked at Colin. “I have a feeling you will be okay with that deception?”