“Yes, well, it will never come to that, will it? I have seen your police force work; they will never catch me.” Violet put the safety deposit box key down on the table next to DCI Williams. “The problem is, I need access to this safety deposit box, and the owner is dead and has had her name on the front page of every newspaper in the country, so I cannot exactly pretend to be her and gain access that way. That is why I need the warrant.”
“You know this case has been given to MI5, do you not?”
“I do, Agent Tompkins has been practically ejaculating at the thought of being able to throw me in prison.”
“You really make friends everywhere you go, don’t you?”
“Are you going to get me the warrant, or not? You owe me, remember? I seem to remember someone getting a commendation for their work in the Elizabeth Dalton murder.”
DCI Williams sighed. “You realize blackmailing a police officer is an offence, right?”
“This is not blackmail,” Violet replied with a small smile. “It’s a request for a favor.”
“And how exactly do you expect me to convince a judge to give you a warrant for a crime I’m not investigating. A crime that my entire police department was removed from investigating?”
Violet shrugged. “I have given you a key with a number on it, and I can tell you it comes from the Lloyds branch at Cheapside. What you tell the judge to get into it is up to you. But I can tell you that if you tell the judge you believe the contents of the safe may be linked to the recent theft of Vermeer’s Milkmaid, you would not be lying to him, and you may find yourself getting some of the credit for solving the crime as well.”
DCI Williams’ mouth dropped open. “How do you know about that theft? It’s not hitting the papers until tonight.”
“I have my reasons.”
“Do you really think this murder is linked to The Milkmaid theft?” DCI Williams asked.
“I am almost certain of it.”
“But how on earth did a diplomat’s kid get involved?”
“That is an interesting story that involves smuggling and the Triads. I will tell you one day, perhaps. But for now, I need my warrant.”
DCI Williams sighed. “I’ll see what I can do. No guarantees.”
“Thank you, DCI Williams. I know you will find a way. You are the least useless of all the police in this station.”
“I’m not sure whether or not that was a compliment, but I’ll choose to take it as one. Now get out of here, I’ll call you when I have an update.”
* * *
Around eleven the next morning I got a text from Sophie. It turned out DCI Williams found a sympathetic judge, and we had our warrant. Violet hailed a cab and we met him at the Lloyds branch, where the manager, a tall, stick-thin man with white hair, met us at the front.
“We have a warrant to execute; we need to see the contents of a safety deposit box,” DCI Williams told the man.
“Of course, please follow me,” the man replied, leading us behind the teller stations and into the vault. DCI Williams pulled out the key that Violet had given him yesterday, and a minute later the long, thin box that had belonged to Jenny Lin was pulled out of the vault.
The manager led us with the box into a small privacy room to the side of the vault.
“I’ll be waiting outside for you whenever you’re ready,” he said, making a discreet exit. The three of us stared at the box as Violet leaned forward and opened it.
The safety deposit box was nearly empty inside. All there was were a few folded sheets of paper, and a birth certificate. Violet carefully pulled them out of the box.
However, when Violet pulled out the sheets of paper, we realized just how important this safety deposit box really was.
There were seven rows on the piece of paper, handwritten. There were names of paintings, artists, dates, and a monetary amount next to them. The ink on the last row was darker than the others; it was obviously fresh. Jenny Lin must have come in and added it just before her death.
The Milkmaid—Vermeer—May 7th—£200,000
It was by far the largest sum of money on the sheet; the first couple only netted her around twenty thousand pounds, but then the third and fifth paintings netted her fifty thousand, the fourth one hundred thousand and the sixth seventy thousand. If the dates represented when Jenny received the paintings, which seemed logical enough, it meant she had been smuggling for the Triads for a little over a year.
The other papers all had names and artists as well. There was one Picasso, and a Rafael, along with a few others by artists whose names I didn’t recognize.
“What are those?” DCI Williams asked, reading over Violet’s shoulder.
“They are a list of paintings that were stolen by the United Dragons gang of Triads and smuggled into Taiwan by Jenny Lin,” Violet replied.
“So you weren’t lying to me yesterday when you said she was involved in that?” DCI Williams asked.
“No, I was telling you the truth.”
“How does this help you find the painting, or the person who killed Jenny Lin, or whatever else it is you’re up to?”
“It is information. Information is always helpful. I do not know yet how this will help me find the murderer. But it cannot hurt.” Violet took her phone out and snapped a quick photo of the list. “This way, if Agent Tompkins ever manages to figure out this box exists, the contents will still be untouched,” she explained. “Just because I am better than MI5 does not mean I play dirty; I leave all the clues I can for him to find.”
Violet placed the list of paintings down on the table next to the box and unfolded the other sheet of paper. This one seemed to be a more detailed version of the last one. It seemed that Jenny Lin kept fairly detailed records of everything she smuggled. Unfortunately for us, they were all in code. The code referencing the last painting was obvious from the same recent, darker ink.
Received phone call from LW to pick up Ji. Changeover complete at GS, 7/May. LHR to TPE via HKG 8/Jun, meeting W at MO1629
Then, scribbled quickly underneath was another note. LW meeting at BS 10/May 22.
“The tenth of May, that was the night that Jenny and Kevin Lin were killed, right?” I asked.
“Yes,” Violet said quietly. “It seems as though Jenny Lin had a meeting with someone with the initials ‘LW’ the night she was killed.”
We looked at each other. I knew we both instantly knew who had those initials.
Chapter 16
“Those initials obviously stand for Lin Wei, don’t they?” I asked Violet when we were back in her apartment. She went to her computer in the corner of the study and uploaded the pictures she had taken of Jenny Lin’s papers to print them out. Instead of immediately agreeing with me as I expected though, she shrugged.
“It is possible. But there are other possibilities as well.”
“Fine. Would you say it’s likely that Lin Wei went to meet Jenny the night that she died?”
“Likely? Yes, I think I would say it was likely.”
“How are we going to figure out what the rest of the code says, though?” I asked.
“Well, I already have much of it figured out.”
“Really? Damn, all I could figure out was that she was meeting with someone named LW the night she was killed.”
“Not only the night she was killed, but more specifically, at ten o’clock at night. The twenty-two after the date I am certain represents the time. In Europe, we still use twenty-four hour time regularly, because we are not savages.”
Ignoring the jab at America, I asked another question. “What about the line above it? What can you make of that?”
“Jenny received a phone call from someone to pick up… Ji. I do not know what that part is, but I can assume it was the painting. If you read the lines above, you will see that LW always calls her to pick up a painting. They complete the changeover somewhere, GS. I do not know where that is either. There is a Goodge Street underground station in Camden, and Great Portland Street i
n Westminster, but I am not certain that is correct. I believe Jenny has put everything in code. Regardless, I believe Jenny received the painting on May 7th, three days before she was killed. The plan was, as Lin Wei told us, for them to wait a few weeks for the furor over the theft to die down, and then to smuggle the painting out of the country. In this case, it seems Jenny had planned to visit Taiwan, via Hong Kong, in June. LHR, TPE and HKG are airport codes.”
“And the last part?” I asked, very impressed with what Violet had managed to glean from what mainly just seemed to be random letters to me.
“I expect that the plan is for her to meet a man whom she has coded ‘M’ someplace—I do not know what MO1629 means, although I suspect 1629 would be a hotel room number, and MO perhaps ‘Mandarin Oriental’, one of the biggest luxury hotels in Taipei. That would be where she would have gone to drop the painting off with the Triads, and from there Jenny Lin’s involvement was ended.”
I looked at the list of coded information Jenny had left. “It seems like this last time was the only time she ever had another meeting with LW, apart from when he did the changeover.”
“Yes,” Violet said. “While I am not certain, I imagine this LW is in fact, the murderer. I also would not be surprised if he has the painting; if Jenny Lin had not kept it at her home, she would have left it either in her storage locker or her safety deposit box.”
“So if we find the murderer, we also find the missing painting?” I asked.
“I suspect that may be the case. Or at the very least, we find the murderer and we find who has the painting. It may still be difficult to find where they have put it, if they have not already sold it on.”
“What are we going to do now?” I asked.
“Now, we are going to speak to the one person who has the information we need. In fact, I believe this might be him now; I texted him to come by here earlier.”
The doorbell rang suddenly, and Violet got up and made her way to the door. When she came back, she was joined by Lin Wei.
“Ah, Cassie. It is nice to get to see you again,” Lin Wei said to me, bowing slightly.
“And you as well,” I replied, although I didn’t mean it. I was fairly sure he didn’t mean his words, either.
Violet excused herself and Lin Wei and I sat in silence. I had no idea what to say to the man; I couldn’t believe the leader of a major Triad gang was sitting right in front of me. A moment later Violet thankfully returned, with a tray of tea, which she carefully poured for Lin Wei, and then poured a cup for me as well.
“So, Violet, what is it that has happened that requires me to come to your home? It is a lovely home, of course, and I am honored to be here, but I thought I had told you everything you needed to know when you came to visit me at my place of work.”
“Oh, trust me, Lin Wei, you absolutely want to hear what I have to tell you. You are about to become the prime suspect in Jenny Lin’s murder.”
If Lin Wei was surprised by Violet’s statement, he didn’t show it. However, her brown eyes bored into him; I knew she was taking in every detail of his reaction.
“Well, in that case, someone is about to make a mistake.”
“I do not necessarily think you are lying. That is why I have invited you here. I need to know more details about the process behind the art thefts. If you help me, there is a good chance that you will not be prosecuted. If you do not, you will be arrested. They will try you, and believe me, they will likely win. Jenny Lin was keeping notes on all of the paintings that you had got her to smuggle for you, did you know that?”
This time Lin Wei did raise an eyebrow slightly. “I did not know, no.”
“And her notes also specified a lot of information regarding the transaction. In fact, her notes mention a meeting with someone with the initials LW on the night of her death.”
This time Lin Wei’s eyes widened; he was noticeably shocked.
“I am telling you, Violet. I am a man of my word. I did not kill Jenny Lin. I do not know who LW could be, but I swear to you, it was not me. I was nowhere near her that night.”
“I don’t know,” Violet told him. “After all, what if Jenny called the meeting? What if she wanted to get out of the smuggling game, but you would not let her? What if you killed her so that she would not tell the police what she had been doing for your organization?”
Lin Wei shook his head forcefully. “No, no, that did not happen.”
“I am not saying that I believe you. But I need to ask more questions. I need details about the transfer of the paintings, and who is involved.”
“If I tell you, it ruins my whole operation,” Lin Wei said, holding his arms out. “You will be able to tear it to bits.”
“Your entire operation is already torn to bits. Your smugglers are dead. And if you do not tell me, you will almost certainly spend the rest of your life in jail,” Violet said. Her voice was hard; she was completely serious.
The two of them stared at each other for a couple of minutes, then Lin Wei broke. With a sigh, he dropped his head to his chin and closed his eyes.
“Fine. You are correct, of course. I would rather give up a small slice of my business than my freedom.”
“I knew you were not a stupid man. You have made the correct choice.”
Lin Wei took a moment to think about what he was going to say, and then began to explain the operation to us.
“We have a contact who tells us about paintings that are of various difficulties to steal. This contact is not Triad; however he is a man that I worked with in Hong Kong for a number of years.”
“English?”
“Yes, he lived in Hong Kong back when it was still owned by England. He was the most skilled white man I have ever seen in the art of Kung Fu. A skill that came in handy for me a few times, I must say. After the handover he moved back to England, but he still had his fingers in a few pies, as the English say. I reached out to him when I moved here ten years ago, and he has been supplying me with that information ever since. I pay him fairly.”
“The Milkmaid is worth enough that paying someone fairly is not always enough,” Violet murmured. “But pray, continue.”
“Our thief himself is Triad. I will not tell you who it is, obviously, but let it be known that I trust him implicitly.”
“It is your son, Zhang Wei,” Violet said.
“You cannot know that,” Lin Wei hissed.
“About a year ago,” Violet started, “I happened upon your son in a small gallery in London. His movements might have been too subtle for the gallery owner to notice, but they were not subtle enough to fool me,” she said, her eyes glimmering. “I knew then your son was an art thief.”
Lin Wei’s face blanched slightly. “Why did you not turn him in to the police?”
Violet shrugged. “I was working a far more important case at the time. And besides, there was no crime. It was simply the way he looked at the gallery, I recognized the signs of a man who steals art.”
“I thank you for your discretion,” Lin Wei muttered. “I shall not confirm your theory. But I do trust our thief completely.”
I wondered briefly if Zhang Wei might have wanted to take his father’s spot in the Triads. Framing him for murder would certainly be one way to get his father out of the way. Lin Wei continued his explanation just then, however, and I turned my focus back to that.
“Our thief would then take the painting in a tote bag, and hand it off to Jenny Lin at Charing Cross station. He would enter one of the photo booths and leave. Jenny Lin was to come past five minutes later and retrieve the package. I always had two men watching to ensure both that Jenny Lin did not arrive early to see the thief, and to make sure that the thief did not linger to see who the smuggler was. They were also to ensure that no one else used the photo machine. The two men are my most trusted; the only two I would give such an assignment to.”
“So your thief and Jenny Lin never saw each other?”
“No,” Lin Wei said, shaking his head.
“Which means the only people who knew that Jenny would be in possession of the painting were you, and the two men that you trust implicitly.”
“I not only trust them implicitly, I was with them when Jenny and Kevin Lin were killed. They could not have done it.”
Violet frowned to herself. “The thief had to have figured out who had the painting somehow,” she muttered to herself.
“I honestly cannot tell you how it was figured out,” Lin Wei said, shaking his head slowly. “Our organization was designed so that as few people as possible knew about each other.”
“If I have more questions, I will text your prepaid mobile. Are you still using the eight-three-nine number?”
“I am,” Lin Wei replied, getting up. “Thank you for the wonderful cup of tea, and the conversation. I will see within my ranks if I can dig up any information for you. The loss of Jenny and Kevin, it was… profound, to my organization. We want justice as much as you do.”
“I would appreciate you letting me know as soon as possible if you find anything,” Violet said, and the two of us stood up.
“Miss Cassie, it was nice to see you again,” Lin Wei said to me, bowing slightly, and I replied in kind as Violet took him to the front door. When she came back, she was deep in thought.
“This is turning out to be much more interesting a challenge than even I had expected,” she said. That certainly didn’t sound good.
Chapter 17
I decided to spend most of the day with Violet, doing my little part in trying to solve the puzzle. I brought Biscuit over, who decided he very much enjoyed sitting on the top of Violet’s bookcase and looking down on Violet and I as we each did our own thing. Violet texted so many people it was a wonder she didn’t suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome. Every few minutes or so I heard her the familiar bing of her phone indicating she had received another message.
For myself, I spent most of my time sorting through every single credit card purchase Jenny Lin had made over the past year. If I could find something out of the ordinary, maybe that could get us on the right track. But unfortunately for me, there were only purchases from luxury boutiques, a bit of online shopping, and a whole bunch of money spent at clubs, and cafés near the London School of Economics. She also spent way more money than I could have possibly imagined at JustEat, a local London food delivery service.
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