Gauguin Connection, The (15 page)

“How could you know that from my music, books and art?”

“That all showed me that you are someone who likes to get the whole picture. You don’t have just one genre of music, nor do you only have books on one religion. It was clear to me that you try to understand the whole picture and that was what I knew we needed.”

“But you don’t trust me. You planted a surveillance device,” I accused him.

“Of course I didn’t trust you at first. That is only one reason why I planted the bug. The other reason was that I wanted to know whatever you discovered and maybe talked about.” He held up his hands when I inhaled to argue. “I know, I know. It is a violation of your privacy and so forth. In my defence, I only planted devices in your living area and study. Not even I would go as low as listening in on your bedroom activity. But I am truly not sorry I did it.”

“You heard the men in my apartment.” I chose to ignore the humiliating thought of him listening to me singing Happy Birthday while I brushed my teeth.

“Yes. At first I was surprised that you got home so soon. I thought that you would’ve worked much later and then just accepted that you had come home earlier and were cleaning or something.”

“They were breaking things and throwing things around. How could you think I was cleaning?”

“People do all sorts of strange things in private.” He shrugged. “But it was when I heard you come in and speak that I realised something was very wrong.”

“And you phoned Vinnie.”

“When he got inside—”

“Did he break in?”

“He had to pick your front door locks. You can’t be angry about that. It was that noise that chased the guys away. So, when he got inside you were unconscious on the floor, but the bastards were gone. How many were there?”

“Four.” A shudder went through me and I looked longingly at the music sheets. “They hit me, Colin.”

“I know, Jenny. I’m very sorry about this.” He reached out and gently put his hand on mine. Never before had someone’s unsolicited touch not made me cringe. His touch was warm and light. I looked at his strong fingers covering both my hands where they were clutched on my lap. Having this thief in my space at this moment made me feel safer. Even though I was still incensed.

“Don’t think that I’m easily going to forgive you for planting a listening device in my living area.” I lifted my eyes to his and knew that there was not much annoyance expressed on my face. I was going to forgive the thief.

“I’ll remember that.” He smiled and removed his hand. “Why don’t you have a shower? When you’re done we can have breakfast and you can tell us exactly what happened.”

“Us?”

“I’ve told Vinnie everything, so don’t bother fighting about this.”

“Colin!” How many more horrors was he going to impart on me before breakfast? “You gave your word that you wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“Vinnie isn’t just anyone, Jenny. And this is really an exceptional situation.”

“I don’t care who he is to you. You shouldn’t have told him.”

Colin was unrepentant. “There are very few people in this world worth trusting, Jenny. Vinnie is one of those people. We’ve walked a very long road together and I trust him with my life.”

“Just because you trust him doesn’t mean that he should know anything about this case. You know the kind of sensitive information we’re working with.”

“And he will take that to his grave.” There was only implacable belief in Colin’s voice and face. “Please think about this in the shower. If you reason with yourself, I’m convinced that you will see the sense in having Vinnie around for protection.”

I shook my head and swung my legs off the bed. A shower was so far the only acceptable suggestion Colin had made today. Most of the dizziness and nausea was gone and I was convinced a shower would take care of the rest.

I ignored Colin’s pleas to consider everything he had said and walked slowly to the bathroom. As much as I hated to admit it, Colin did have a point. I locked the door behind me, then stepped out of my clothes and into the shower.

A week ago I had had enough sense to realise that I was going to need Colin’s help. I had asked for it and he had proved himself helpful. Until last week I had thought travelling alone to foreign countries had been an unequalled achievement for me. It had taken months of planning, self-motivation and Mozart before I could even buy a plane ticket. Every leg of the trip had been a panic-laced experience, the completion of each an incalculably proud moment.

But this? Yesterday I had been so proud of my open-mindedness to be co-operating with Colin. I had entered a new journey, one of travelling through a world of gray zones. The difference between this and my previous odysseys was that I hadn’t had time to plan. It constantly felt like I was catching up, not planning ahead. I was a planner.

Just as I had caught up and accepted the reality of travelling through gray zones, I was thrown into another gray area. One that required me to entrust a giant of a criminal with my physical well-being. I tilted my head back to let the stream of water flow over my face and wash away the last grogginess of the drugs.

Did I trust Colin? The answer came to me almost instantaneously. Yes.

Did I trust him enough to take his word that Vinnie was trustworthy?

I shampooed my hair while sorting through every bit of physical, intellectual and psychological information to reach clarity in my mind. I had reached a turning point and I needed to decide in which direction to go. I wanted to make the right decision, but I wanted to make it before I went out to face the two men waiting for me.

I walked into the living area with strong strides. I knew what I wanted to do and I had decided what needed to be said. All those carefully thought-out demands deserted me the moment I looked around.

“You cleaned.” The shock was clear in my voice.

In the kitchen both men whirled around with surprise on their faces. I walked to the tall bookshelves to confirm what I found hard to believe. I distinctly remembered my books lying scattered on the floor. Said books were back on the shelves, not in the exact order that they had been in, but very close. They were almost perfectly aligned, but I would rearrange them. The effort, though, did not go unappreciated.

Further inspection showed me that everything that had carelessly been thrown on the floor had been picked up and placed in a logical place. Even the broken African bowl shards had been cleaned off the floor. I was grateful for that, but knew that hours of cleaning and rearranging were ahead of me.

“I didn’t hear you.” Vinnie spoke from the kitchen and I turned to them. The giant was wearing an apron and didn’t look happy. “Why didn’t I hear you? I always hear everybody.”

“Are you feeling better?” Colin picked up two plates piled high with food. He left the kitchen and put the plates on the dining room table. I frowned at the table, then saw the placemats protecting the polished surface. I had been ready to battle the two of them, but the thoughtfulness the two criminals had shown me robbed me of my fight. I was touched.

“I’m feeling much better, thank you.”

Colin moved around the table and stopped in front of me. He leaned a bit forward to inspect my face closely. “You look better. Better colour and your eyes are not so glassy any more.”

Feeling uncomfortable under such scrutiny, I moved away and gave a look towards the kitchen. The time had come for me to face the horror of having strangers work in my kitchen.

I looked again. “Oh my God. It’s clean.”

Vinnie smiled at me from the stove where he was making more scrambled eggs. “My auntie Helen was a neat freak. When I was seven, I stayed with her for two years. A lovely woman, but by gad, she had a thing about a clean kitchen. I suppose that stayed with me.”

I walked into my open-plan kitchen with lifted eyebrows. Last night those thugs had spilled most of the contents of my fridge on the kitchen counters, on the floor and against the tiled walls. There was no evidence of that now. I had never had any knick-knacks on my kitchen counters to start with, and they were now as uncluttered and clean as when I had left my apartment the day before. Except for the kettle. The angle wasn’t quite right. I quickly remedied that and when I turned, both men were watching me.

“I, um, thank you.”

“Aw, Jen-girl,” Vinnie crooned, “don’t look so sad. It was my pleasure to help such a pretty lady as you. Now, let me just take these plates to the table and we can eat. Colin, bring the coffee, dude.”

We settled at the table and I smiled. If anyone had told me a week ago that I was going to have breakfast with two criminals, I would have taken great exception to that. Yet here I was, sitting at my table, feeling strangely comfortable in the presence of these two rather intimidating men.

I gave them a few minutes to start their breakfast before I spoke. “I’ve made a decision.”

Both men looked up from their plates. Vinnie had curiosity written on his face, but Colin looked wary. Maybe he thought my declaration might not be good news.

“Since both of you so ungraciously pushed yourselves into my apartment and into my life, you have forfeited any right you even think you might have to tell me what to do. In the last week I’ve had my fill of arrogant men and their opinions about me. I’m not helpless nor am I mentally incapacitated. No, let me finish.” I held up my hand firmly when Colin looked like he wanted to go on the defence. I really needed to say what I had planned. “I have high-functioning autistic spectrum disorder that sometimes gets the best of me. The last week has been very trying and has caused some of my control to slip. It won’t happen again.”

“But it might?” Colin interrupted me quietly.

“Yes, it might, but let’s work on the assumption that it won’t happen again.” I really was not planning to rewrite every single one of Mozart’s compositions. Or having another episode. “Here is what I decided. You are here. You cannot unlearn what you know about this case. We cannot turn back time, so we’ll have to find a way to work this thing out together. But, and this is a big but, you will not tell me what to do. You will not treat me like a delicate little blossom. You will not take over my life. Colin, you are right. It makes sense for Vinnie to be my bodyguard. Vinnie, if it is acceptable to you, you can move in, but you will adhere to my house rules.”

“Yes, ma’am.” If I wasn’t so determined to make them see how serious I was, I might have appreciated Vinnie’s expression more. The large man looked like a ten-year-old getting a tongue-lashing from his mother.

“You can stay in the spare bedroom. For the duration of your stay, you will keep the door closed at all times, so that I can’t see into the room. You will clean up after yourself. You will speak normal English to me so that I can understand you. You can drive me to and from work, but you will not go in with me. You will not go anywhere with us when Colin is with me. One of you at a time is enough. When I am in my study or bedroom and the door is closed, you are not to disturb me. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Vinnie swallowed. “If there is an emergency—”

“You’re more than welcome to disturb me, but only in a true emergency.” I wavered. “Maybe we should define what a true emergency is. I don’t want you to disturb me for something inane.”

Colin looked thoroughly amused. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary. Vinnie here will only disturb you with life-and-death emergencies. Right, big guy?”

“Right.”

This felt surreal. I had made my decisions based on the facts as I had them. Colin had trusted me with not one, but all of his home addresses. I knew that he knew that I would not think twice about handing that information over to the authorities if he betrayed me. Or if Vinnie betrayed me. With that much power in my hand, I could not convince myself that he would have brought Vinnie into my life and into this case if he didn’t have full confidence in his friend.

I did not have that kind of confidence in either of them, but I had unshakable confidence in my ability to read people. It was this ability that had helped me make this decision. Not that it was an easy decision. I trusted Colin and decided to trust his judgement concerning his friend.

“Colin.” I turned my gaze on the thief. His amusement disappeared. Apprehension was written all over his face now. I felt immensely empowered by intimidating two criminals. “You will stop treating me like I’m going to fracture into tiny little pieces. You will not, under any circumstances, tell anyone else about this case or bring anyone else into it.”

“It might happen that we’ll need more help, Jenny.”

“No one else, Colin. Take it or leave it.”

His lips thinned while we glared at each other. I knew the exact moment I had won the stare-down. He blinked and exhaled angrily. “I’ll take it. For now.”

I was going to argue the point further, but decided against it. “Since Vinnie will be with me, there is no more need for any listening devices. You will remove them from my apartment. All of them.”

“Agreed. Anything else?”

“Yes. If you placed those devices, does that mean that you know how to find others? Ones that aren’t yours?”

“I’ve already checked your apartment for other bugs,” Vinnie said past a mouthful of toast.

“We did that right after we determined that you would be okay,” Colin explained. “The way those guys disappeared made me think that they were professionals, so we searched your apartment.”

“Did you find anything?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?” The thought had come to me in the shower and it really disturbed me that people meaning me harm could be listening in on my life. Colin listening in on my life was an unacceptable invasion of my privacy, but somehow I didn’t mind it as much. What had my life come to that I was actually asking about surveillance devices in my apartment?

“As sure as death and taxes.”

I stared at Vinnie.

“I meant that I’m one hundred percent sure.”

“Thank you.” Maybe I should buy a slang dictionary. But I didn’t think it would be a sufficient aid, not with Vinnie’s language. We continued eating in silence for a few minutes. “Could you now please tell me why you didn’t phone an ambulance? How were you able to ascertain that I was going to be okay?”

Neither man had the decency to look guilty. Colin spoke. “I overheard the men talk when they were leaving. They seemed to have an argument about the injection they had given you. They were arguing about your weight and that the dosage might have been too much. That is when the Spaniard said that Midazolam was not lethal in that dosage. You might just sleep an extra two hours. They were, however, hoping that it would affect your memory. I know about the drug and knew that they had no reason to be lying, so you were going to be okay. How’s your memory?”

I narrowed my eyes and focussed on my recollection of the previous night’s events. “It seems to be fine. I remember everything, I just feel groggy. What is Midazolam?”

“It’s a fast-acting drug, potent in its sedation. It’s quite common, but should have worked out of your system much sooner than it has. It could be the muscle-relaxing qualities that made you sleep so soundly.”

It had been an extremely restful sleep, despite the slight headache. I didn’t want to know how Colin came to know so much about Midazolam.

We were not done with the previous topic though. “What was the other reason?”

“For not phoning an ambulance? Surely you can guess. If the emergency services were in your apartment and had seen the way it looked, the police would’ve gotten involved.”

“And how were you and Vinnie going to explain your presence here? Right?”

“Right.” There was a long silence while it seemed they were waiting for me to respond.

“Well, you made a very logical decision.” I couldn’t fault them for those reasons.

“Tell us what happened,” Colin said.

“How much detail do you want?” I often bored people with the detail in my observations. Knowing how much was expected, I could censor myself.

“Everything,” Vinnie said before he put an impossibly heaped fork of scrambled eggs in his mouth.

I told them in the finest detail everything from my suspicions that Colin was making a mess to opening the door and later being shoved by the German. “He was the leader of the group. They were deferring to him the whole time. The two Russians had very aggressive body language, even more so than the other two.”

“Wait,” Vinnie interrupted. “How do you know all these things? You can tell that the German was the leader by his body language?”

“No, by the way the others were positioning their bodies and waiting on him for their cues.”

“But how do you know all this?”

“I read people.”

“What does that mean?” Vinnie leaned forward.

“It means that our faces, our bodies, give away all our secrets. I know what every muscle movement in your body is saying. These are limbic responses.” I saw the blank look in Vinnie’s eyes. “It is the most basic part of our brains, and it controls the most basic of our responses.”

Without any indication what I was about to do, I picked up the basket with baguette slices and threw it at Vinnie. His reaction was as expected. First, his eyebrows lifted and his eyes enlarged with shock a millisecond before he reached out and caught the basket. One slice hopped out of the basket and rolled away from the table. For the purpose of this illustration, I didn’t mind the breadcrumbs or the bread on the floor. I was going to clean my entire apartment tonight in any case.

“Hey! What was that for?”

“To show you a limbic response. We have no control over these responses. Even someone like me with expert knowledge can’t control it. Sure, there are certain responses that I can attempt to control, but if you were to throw that basket at me without me reading any cues of what was about to happen, I would most likely have done the same. No, actually I think I might have ducked.”

“You’re an expert in this?”

“I’m rated as the third most proficient in this field.” I noticed the surprise in his eyes. “Third in the world.”

“I told you she was smart.” The pride in Colin’s voice didn’t make sense to me. Why would he be proud of me? I was nobody to him.

“So you can read me? And Colin?” Vinnie’s whole demeanour screamed of his unease and he shifted in his seat. I smiled at his attempt to reach a neutral position. His stiff arms placed on the table only served to confirm his discomfort.

“Yes, but let’s get back to the topic.” I didn’t want all that focus on me. I told them the rest. “I read these men and learned quite a lot. Like I said, the German was the leader. The shorter Russian was a very aggressive man and the taller one didn’t speak much. The Spaniard was the one who injected me.”

“Bastard.” Vinnie spat the word out.