The lid was open, revealing the beautiful inside. Two music books rested on the stand, the one in front open to a Chopin étude. I looked at the copper name stamped on the piano. Adèle might have had a minimalistic sense of style, but she’d had expensive taste. This piano was priced at eighty thousand euros.
I looked back at the living area. The only splash of colour came from a large painting against the wall. Colin was already in front of it, inspecting the vibrant work of art.
A nest-like appearance was created by thick amounts of brown and yellow paint drizzled on top of a rectangular board. I wasn’t an art expert, but I felt quite confident that I knew who had painted this.
“This is a Pollock.” Colin leaned closer, his muscles tense. “Shit. This is his Number 5.”
“Authentic?” I asked.
“No.” He straightened. “There has been ongoing speculation that this painting was sold in 2006 for a hundred and forty million dollars, but that deal has never been confirmed.” He looked back at the painting. “This is a brilliant forgery. Since it’s nigh-on impossible to forge Pollock’s dribbles, I reckon this is a 3D print.”
Previously, we’d investigated a case that had introduced me to quality forgeries created by 3D printers. The technology had since developed and I was certain so had the excellence of the forgeries.
“Check all the other paintings in the house, Frey.” Manny walked into the room and frowned at the artwork. “If there is any connection between this victim and Caelan’s friend, there might also be a connection between the reproduced Roubaud in Caelan’s flat and the forged art here.”
I didn’t know how Manny could’ve reached that conclusion, but decided to ignore it. I walked to the kitchen where Adèle had been killed. Every surface in the kitchen had a layer of fingerprint dust on it, making the area look unkempt. But apart from that, it was as minimalistic as the living area. There was no clutter on the counters, no containers holding tea or coffee and no ornaments. Only a coffee machine and a kettle.
To my right was a sliding door that led to a patio now covered in snow. In summer, it would make a beautiful place to enjoy breakfast while overlooking the garden. A round table next to me most likely served as the breakfast nook in the colder months. Usually there would be four chairs around a table like this, but one was missing, the empty space obvious.
“She was found over there.” Daniel pointed to the centre of the kitchen area.
I closed my eyes for a second and took a calming breath when I noticed the rust-coloured stains on the cream tiles. Adèle’s blood. There wasn’t as much blood here as in Jace’s flat. I supposed the killer hadn’t had enough time to cause injuries that bled before Adèle’s heart could no longer take the stress of being tortured.
“Down here!” Vinnie’s muffled voice came from the staircase leading to the top floor and presumably the bedrooms.
I followed Colin and Daniel to the stairs. To the left of the staircase was a door that looked like it would open to a cupboard utilising the space under the stairs. The door opened and Vinnie leaned out. “You gotta see what I found down here, Jen-girl. I hit the jackpot here.”
“This leads to a basement?” Manny asked.
“Yup. I thought it was a cupboard, but look...” Vinnie came out and closed the door. He held up his index finger and pointed to the door when a quiet click sounded behind the door. He opened it to reveal shelves filled with linen and a few pillows. “Now look what happens when I press this button.” He reached inside and pushed a round button hidden underneath a neat stack of towels. The shelves slid sideways into the wall and revealed the stairs going down. “I found this totally by accident. I was searching under the towels when I pressed this and voilà!”
“It’s clear?” Daniel rested his hand on his holstered handgun.
“Yup.” Vinnie looked down the stairs. “Nobody down there. Just lots to learn.”
“She sure as hell didn’t want just any visitor to find their way down there.” Manny waved Vinnie impatiently out of the way. “Move your big arse.”
Vinnie lifted his middle finger at Manny, turned around and walked down the stairs. Manny followed him, grumbling.
Daniel looked at me. “Why don’t you and Colin go check it out? Pink and I will take photos of everything up here, then we’ll join you. If there’s enough space.”
“There’s more than enough space down here, dude!” Vinnie called from below. “It’s the size of a double garage and then some.”
“You guys go.” Daniel smiled. “We’ll be there soon.”
Vinnie’s reassurance about the space made it an easy decision. I went down the brightly lit staircase and entered the windowless basement. A gray industrial carpet covered the floor and two of the walls were lined with built-in cupboards. An L-shaped desk faced the stairs, a laptop and notebook the only things on the surface.
“Hellfire.” Manny was standing in front of one of the cupboards. Three of the four sliding doors were pushed to the side, a large organisational chart surrounded by photos. “Doc, get over here and tell me what I’m looking at.”
There were no shelves in this cupboard. The doors appeared to have been put in place to cover this wall. I walked closer and looked at the chart. Colin didn’t crowd me, but stood close enough to see most of the chart.
This was an impressive and seemingly comprehensive chart. In the centre of a large pinboard was a green cardboard square with the letters ‘FF’. Pink twine was pinned to photos and different-coloured squares surrounding the green one. All the squares had a few words written on them, but none of it made sense. It had to be a code of some sort.
“It looks like this was her business model.” Colin was looking at the green square. “That ‘FF’ must stand for Freedom Fragrances. Adèle’s business.”
I looked at the many photos on the board. Some were connected with twine to only one square, others to more than one square. One of the photos linked to the blue square caught my attention. I pointed at it, careful not to touch anything. “This photo is of the self-storage warehouse.”
“So it is.” Colin tilted his head. “The ‘SSS’ on the blue square must stand for Self-Storage Solutions.”
“The place where Jace found the crates.” Vinnie was opening every drawer he could find, rifling through it.
“Frey.” Manny was shaking his index finger at one of the photos. “Look at this. What is that?”
“Artefacts.” Colin pushed in front of Manny and gasped when he inspected the photo. “No way.”
“What?” Manny leaned in and I took a step to the side. I would ask Pink to take photos so I could study all of this in depth in the spacious safety and isolation of my viewing room.
“This photo has—seven, eight, nine—nine artefacts that were stolen from a private collection in Iran.” Colin’s eyes were wide as he turned to Manny. “These are all Persian artefacts.”
“Authentic?” Manny asked.
“I can’t tell just from the photo, but seeing as these pieces were stolen from Iran and taking into consideration where we are, I wouldn’t be surprised if they are.” Colin pointed at the next two photos. “These works are Near Eastern antiquities. The market demand is insanely high for ancient artefacts that have been discovered in the area between the Nile Valley, now Egypt, and Mesopotamia, which is now Iraq.”
“An area that includes Iran,” I said.
“Indeed.” Colin looked at the ceiling for a few seconds. “Iran has a history drenched in amazing cultures and obviously their art spans several millennia. There are almost twenty cultural heritage sites in Iran protected by UNESCO and another forty-nine sites on a tentative list.”
“So what?” Manny shrugged. “Other countries also have amazing history.”
“Yes, but not many countries have been looted by terrorist organisations who then sell these artefacts on the black market to the value of tens of millions of euros to fund their ideologies.”