by Estelle Ryan
“Lastly, Leveaux got lucky with investments. He started small and built his portfolio by taking incredible risks on volatile markets. But it paid off and he’s a multi-millionaire. None of them are notorious criminals, but everyone knows they’re willing to push the line of legality when they want something.”
“Forgive my ignorance, but how much would a piece like this go for on the black market?” Pink tilted his smartphone to show a photo of the deer statue.
“Millions.” Colin’s depressor anguli oris muscles turned the corners of his mouth down. “It should never be for sale. It should be protected as a national treasure. It infuriates me that the Western appetite for antiquities feeds the looting of ancient sites. These people who pride themselves on their sophistication of taste and appreciation of cultural heritage are the ones who create the demand that leads to the pillage of ancient sites and the trade in black-market artefacts.”
“That’s...Wow. That’s just wrong.” Pink looked down at his phone and shook his head. “Wrong.”
It was quiet around the table. My mind was rushing through all the pieces of information we’d gathered so far.
“I’m here!” The elevator door opened and Caelan rushed out. “Greenland is the largest island in the world! Doctor Lenard! I solved the riddle! I solved the riddle!”
Phillip followed Caelan out of the lift and smiled when Caelan sat down next to Francine. Phillip walked over to the sofa and sat down. When Vinnie motioned towards his coffee mug, Phillip shook his head and settled deeper into the sofa.
I turned my attention back to Caelan. He was no longer tapping or scratching his thigh or compulsively squeezing his stress ball. The muscle tension in his body was much less than before and his eyes focused. He looked at my shoulder. “I’m here. I solved the riddle.” He paused and frowned deeply, still staring at my shoulder. “How much detail should I give you?”
I appreciated his question. Like many people on the spectrum, myself included, Caelan was prone to sharing information in the finest detail. “For now I think just the end result, not how you got to it.”
He nodded. “When I solved the riddle, I entered ‘Gaudi’ into the app and look!” He took his smartphone from his trouser pocket and showed me the screen. A digital clock filled the screen. “This is a countdown cache. As soon as I entered the answer, the countdown started. We have to wait twenty-four hours before we’ll get the GPS co-ordinates for the next cache.”
“We have to wait?” Manny looked as impatient as I felt.
“That’s how it works.” Caelan frowned at his shoulder. “Don’t you understand how a countdown works?”
“Bloody hell.” Manny turned away from Caelan, then turned back. “And what the hell is a Gawding?”
“You’re such a Philistine.” Colin shook his head. “Antoni Gaudi is only one of the most famous architects ever. His Catalan Modernism influence can be seen all over Barcelona. I can see you don’t care, Millard, so I’m going to stop wasting my precious breath on you.”
I thought about this cache and looked at Caelan. “Explain how one would create a cache on the app.”
“Huh. Yes.” Francine turned to face Caelan next to her. “I suppose this means that Jace indeed did create a cache.”
Caelan nodded. “His cache isn’t complete. If he’d entered all the answers to the riddl—”
“Whoa there for a sec, superman.” Vinnie scratched his forehead. “Explain very simply how a cache is created.”
Caelan stared at his shoulder. “First Jace would’ve registered a name for the cache, then he had to enter the steps. Each step needs an answer to a riddle to unlock the next co-ordinates. I don’t have access to Jace’s account, so I don’t know how many steps he completed or even the name of the cache.”
“But how is it that we can see it now? He didn’t register it.”
“It’s a glitch. The incompetent app designers haven’t been able to fix it. If anyone enters the correct answer to the app, it will automatically publish the cache hunt.”
“Yeah, I don’t really get that, but whatever.” Vinnie frowned at Daniel when the latter jerked at the sound of his phone’s notification.
Daniel looked at the screen, his eyes widening. “We have more intel on those crates. Pink’s CI at Easy Post did a bit more snooping around to see if there was anything else to be found on that shipment.”
“What do you have?” Manny narrowed his eyes at Daniel’s phone, then glanced at Francine as she lifted her tablet and swiped the screen.
“This won’t come as a surprise,” Daniel said. “The crates were shipped from Iran. They were supposed to be delivered to... hold on a sec. The recipients were changed online. The original recipient was completely deleted from the system. Gilles and Adèle are the only names the CI could find connected to this shipment.”
“Tell me more about this shipping company.”
“I’m checking them now.” Francine tapped her tablet screen. “Easy Post. It’s a third-party company that simply receives international orders and delivers them to customers. They make it easier for individuals to receive large orders through them. No customs fee, etc.”
“This is how the cigarettes from Belarus entered the country,” Daniel said. “Easy Post is a small international mailing service, but deals in large shipments and has agreements with a few government agencies to streamline incoming shipments from outside the EU.” He looked at his tablet screen again. “These crates cleared customs without any problems, went to Easy Post and were then taken to Self-Storage Solutions.”
“Where Jace found them.” Caelan’s words came out as a whisper.
Daniel gave Caelan a compassionate smile. “Indeed.”
“Here’s one theory.” Colin looked down from where he’d been staring at the ceiling. “The drug suppliers send the wine bottles to their distributor here in France. Somehow Adèle knows about this and intercepts the shipment by changing the recipients. The distributor finds out about her when he goes to Easy Post to collect his crates and goes looking for her. He finds her at the house and tortures her to get the location of his missing crates. I’m assuming she dies after she tells him about her lockers at Self-Storage Solutions.”
“He rushes over there.” Vinnie leaned forward, nodded at Colin. “When he gets there, he finds the locker empty. Maybe he goes through the limited outside security footage and sees Jace taking away the crates. He finds Jace and tortures him to force him to reveal where he hid the crates.”
“But Jace can’t tell him because Jace doesn’t talk.” Caelan swallowed and scratched his leg.
“We need to find the crates that Jace took.” I didn’t know how correct their hypothesis was, but it fitted the information we had so far. “That will bring us closer to finding the killer.”
“Who most likely is the distributor.” Daniel looked at Manny. “We find him and we might stop the influx of drugs from the East.”
Manny nodded. “We need to be careful. Politically, this is a minefield.”
“Could this minefield wait until tomorrow?” Phillip moved to the edge of the sofa and studied us. “You are all tired. It’s quarter to seven and I’m sure you haven’t had dinner yet.”
I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow. I wanted to continue studying the chart we got from Adèle’s house. I was sure there was information that could help us find the killer. But from experience, I knew that Phillip was right. My desire to find an answer usually turned into a state of hyperfocus that didn’t allow me to eat or sleep.
It took Francine’s outrageous flirting to convince Caelan that it would be prudent to continue investigating this with a rested and fresh mind. Twenty minutes later, I was sitting next to Colin in his SUV, looking out of the window as we made our way to our flat. I wondered if Nikki had already bathed Eric and whether she had remembered to use the sponge alphabet letters to teach him while playing.
I felt conflicted. On the one hand, I was looking forward to sitting on the sofa and having tha
t little body snuggle up to me after dinner. On the other hand, my mind kept returning to the chart, the mystery of Adèle’s business and the person who had tortured and killed her and Jace.
Chapter EIGHT
“FABIEN SAYS THEY’RE ready.” Daniel walked into my viewing room and stopped behind my chair. Colin was sitting at his desk behind me and looked up when Manny, Vinnie and Francine followed Daniel into my room. Daniel continued reading the message on his phone. “He says Claire is not coping well, but she wants to help.”
I felt rested after an evening and morning that allowed me to go through my routines. I had come to accept that as much solace as I found in every day being exactly the same, life simply didn’t afford me that luxury. Yet it was still extremely hard for me to overcome the discombobulation when my routine was interrupted. When I had mornings like this one though, my mind was at ease and I felt better equipped to deal with investigating Jace and Adèle’s deaths. I also felt less disturbed by the people interrupting me.
I closed the images of Adèle’s business chart on the monitor in the centre of the fifteen monitors in front of me and clicked on the video conferencing link. Francine had discovered that Adèle’s twin sister lived in Paris. It was noteworthy how well hidden that connection was. Daniel had wasted no time contacting Fabien Leveaux, his counterpart in Paris.
It had taken the Paris GIPN team less than an hour to find Claire Pichet, but Fabien had then needed another two hours to calm her down after they’d given her the news that her sister had died. I entered the contact information and was about to put the call through when Daniel cleared his throat. “Hold on a sec. I think it’s best if only you and I are visible on the camera. I don’t know how Claire will react to facing a room full of people interrogating her.”
“I agree.” I would never presume to know how a neurotypical person processed such intense grief, but an interrogation such as this would certainly not be easy.
“Okey-dokey.” Francine stopped next to me, turned around and joined Vinnie at the door. Colin got up and stood next to Manny by the wall opposite the door. Manny hadn’t said much when he’d entered my room. He was leaning against the wall, his hands in his trouser pockets and his expression a clear warning not to engage.
Daniel sat down next to me. “Please make sure the camera is only focused on us, then put the call through.”
I adjusted the camera and clicked on the call button. We connected immediately. On the monitor in front of us were three people. I assumed the man in the uniform was Fabien and the woman sitting next to him Claire. A man was standing behind her, both his hands resting on her shoulders.
Claire and Adèle had obviously not been identical twins. Claire’s nose was slightly broader and her cheekbones not as high and pronounced as her sister’s. Her brown hair was much longer than Adèle’s and was currently in a ponytail. Either she never wore makeup or all the makeup she’d put on this morning had been cried off. Her eyes were red-rimmed and the tissue she clutched in her hand confirmed her deep sadness.
“Daniel, this is Claire Pichet.” Fabien’s French had the hints of some areas in the south of France where the endings of words were often dropped. He turned to the man standing behind Claire. “This is her husband, Arnaud.”
“I’m so sorry that we’re meeting under these circumstances.” When Daniel spoke French, his voice dropped a tone, his pronunciation softer. He sounded even more empathetic than when he spoke English. “Please accept my most sincere condolences.”
“Thank you.” Claire’s chin quivered and she swallowed.
“This is Doctor Genevieve Lenard.” Daniel turned to me. “She’s helping us find out what happened to your sister.”
She nodded. “I don’t know how I can help, but I’ll do anything I can. I’ll tell you everything I know.”
“Tell us about your relationship with your sister.” Daniel’s tone was gentle as he asked a question that would not have been my first. I’d observed her micro-expressions and wanted to know what it was she knew and seemed eager to tell us. But experience had taught me that Daniel’s way of starting with less invasive questioning would be more effective in getting the most information.
“We were close.” Her voice broke on the last word and she took a few seconds to regain control over her emotions. “You know we are twins, right?”
“Fraternal twins.” Daniel smiled. “Who was the oldest?”
“Adèle. She was born six minutes before me.” She grabbed her husband’s hand on her shoulder and held onto it as if it was a lifeline. “We talked every day, sometimes three times a day. Even though I live in Paris and she lives... lived in Strasbourg, we didn’t feel the distance.”
“We didn’t find a lot to connect you guys online.”
She nodded. “It was on purpose. Adèle insisted on it. She knew her life could put me in danger, so we never posted anything online to connect us. Only my closest friends know about Adèle. She told me that she made sure no one knew about me, not from her side anyway.”
“What about school friends?”
“We went to school in Paulhan. Most of those people are still in town, working in the local shops.”
“Ah, the beautiful south of France. Picturesque villages and countryside.” Daniel’s smile was reassuring. “But you and Adèle escaped to the big city.”
She paused and narrowed her eyes. “You’re trying to be polite.” She took a shaky breath. “I know Adèle was dealing drugs. I will tell you exactly how it happened. But I don’t know the details you will want.”
“Okay.” Daniel sat back in his chair. “I’m listening.”
Her expression grew hard, the corners of her mouth turned down. “You know the kind of people who have bad luck following them everywhere? Well, those are my parents. Everything that could possibly go wrong in their lives has gone wrong. At the moment, they’re living on my uncle’s farm in a small cottage. My dad is helping my uncle on the farm and my mom is cleaning a few people’s houses to get by. Adèle and I stopped helping them a long time ago.”
“Why?”
“Because even with help, they managed to screw everything up. When we were kids, we learned to look after ourselves at a young age. My dad would be off working on a new opportunity and my mom would be in a new job that she was bound to lose within a month or two. By the time we were going to middle school, Adèle and I were the only ones in the house cooking meals. My mom was and still is a cleaner. The house was always spotless, even when things were falling apart. And when I say falling apart, I mean it literally.
“When we were fifteen and in high school, we realised that if we wanted a better life, we’d had to make it happen ourselves. We were talking about getting scholarships to study, but we soon realised that we wouldn’t get that. That’s when Adèle devised a new plan. It was one of the few times she didn’t share her ideas with me. Not until she had the plan already working. It took her a year and by that time, she’d made up her mind.”
“About what?” Daniel asked.
“That I was the one to go to university and she would make sure that we both had money to escape our parents’ lives. Once I graduated and was settled, she would start her studies. We argued about this for days.” She swallowed. “I was so angry. Adèle was the genius of the two of us. Sure, I did well at school, a bit higher than average, but she was way above that. She was the one who should’ve gone to university first. But she refused. When she told me about her plan, she’d already saved over five thousand euros.”
“Drug money?” Fabien asked.
She nodded. “She was smart. She registered a small business, selling perfumes online. At first, she was selling cheap knock-offs until she could afford the more expensive brands. She also started with small amounts of drugs, but she didn’t start with softer drugs. She started with heroin and that was her main trade.”
“Do you know how she operated her business?” Daniel asked.
“I figured it out and she reluctantly told me I
was right. Her perfumes were a front for the drugs. She sold the high-end perfumes at prices five to ten times more than anywhere else on the internet. The buyers would buy a bottle online and she would ship the heroin to them, neatly packaged in the original perfume boxes. She’d found a way to empty the perfume bottles and fill them with heroin without damaging the bottles.”
This certainly explained the numerous empty perfume bottles Vinnie had found in the cupboard in Adèle’s basement.
“She used a courier?” Daniel waited until Claire nodded. “That’s how there was never any suspicion about the packages. Especially if she sold only in France.”
“She sold in other EU states as well, but most of her business was here.” Claire sighed. “She told me once that she felt conflicted. On the one hand she was proud that her business had built up such a good reputation for a superior-quality product. And on the other hand she was ashamed that she was proud about selling drugs.”
“You feel guilty.” I could see that emotion clearly on her face.
“Of course I do.” She waved her hand in the air. “Adèle did all of this so I could study and make a better life for myself. She was so stupidly selfless. You know, she never used any of that money to go on vacation or buy herself nice things. Everything she bought was for the business.” She paused, her eyes filling with fresh tears. “Now that I think about it, she never went on holiday.”
“Did Adèle deal only in drugs?” Daniel asked.
“Yes. Why?” She inhaled sharply. “Oh, God. Did you find something else? You must have. I wonder... You know, about six months ago, Adèle told me that she’d procured some valuable things for someone who was her ticket out. And of course, she refused to tell me what these valuable things were.
“I also don’t know if it were these valuables, but she said this was going to change everything. She was working on one huge deal and then she was getting out.” Her expression softened. “She was going to study music. She started taking piano lessons six years ago and was really good.
