“Vin, get the photos to us as soon as you guys can. I’ll handle things here.” Colin leaned forward and disconnected the streaming. Then he turned to Manny. “You need to get yourself together, Millard.”
Manny got up and walked away without a word. His shoulders were tight, his gait stilted. I knew this was not physical, but it truly felt like my heart was hurting when I watched him walk to the elevator.
“Give him time.” Francine walked into my viewing room and sat in the chair Manny had vacated. “He’ll come around.”
“He’s pushing all Vin’s buttons, Francine.” Colin shook his head. “I’ve never seen him like this.”
Francine rubbed her hands as if she had just put on hand lotion. Self-soothing. “Thank you for not asking what this is all about.”
“I reckon Millard will tell us when he’s ready.” Colin sighed. “But it better be before Vin decides to punch his lights out.”
Francine snorted. “Or before I punch his lights out.”
Since there was nothing I could do to ease Manny’s turmoil, I turned back to my monitors. I didn’t know how long I was going to have to wait for the photos of the labels, so I decided to make use of the time. I opened the folder with the photos of Adèle’s basement. I’d been through these photos so many times, I immediately chose the ones I knew gave me the best view of the chart she’d hidden. I used all fifteen monitors to display the photos.
“What are we looking at, girlfriend?”
I frowned in annoyance. “Photos of Adèle’s basement.”
She giggled. “Sorry. Yes, I know we’re looking at those photos. What I meant was, why are we looking at it again?”
“Because something is wrong.”
“What’s wrong, Doc?” Manny was standing in the doorway, his nonverbal cues more composed. He nodded at Colin, then leaned against the door where Vinnie usually stood.
I frowned at the monitors. “I don’t know what’s wrong.”
“What’s your gut telling you?”
I sighed. I found it vexing when neurotypical people diminished years of experience, expert knowledge and finely tuned intuition and called it a ‘gut feeling’. I looked at all the photos from top left to bottom right. “There is something not quite right about this business model.”
Manny grunted and breathed loudly through his nose. “Okay, why don’t you explain to me what you see, Doc?”
“This is without a doubt the organisational chart for a company. See this central square?” I pointed at the monitor in front of me, the photo focused on the large green square. “This is the nucleus of the business. Everything else revolves around this. We assumed the FF stands for Freedom Fragrances—the name of Adèle’s company.” I continued pointing. “Here you can see the business branching in two distinct directions. To the left are the squares showing what I assume to be her distribution plan.”
“Have you managed to decode her descriptions?”
“No.” That was most frustrating. “I’ve come to the conclusion that she used phrases and words that were known only to her.” Again I pointed at a monitor. “See this square? She wrote ‘round cheeks in rainbow village’.”
“What the hell?”
“Yeah.” Colin shifted in his chair. “I also had a look at this and all of it is like this. She used descriptions that will help her remember. But we have no idea what the name of this rainbow village is.”
“It could be a small area in the city known for gay clubs.” Francine shrugged. “Or it could be one of those quaint pedestrian streets with colourful umbrellas over the entire street.”
“Speculating would be a waste of time.” I’d determined that very early. “We have no idea what Adèle’s frame of reference was.”
“Hmm.” Manny scratched his chin. “You said the business branches in two directions. Explain more about the first.”
“The distribution.” I didn’t like all this speculation. “I’m working on a supposition here since all of these squares refer to a person and a place. They are also not connected to each other, but all have their separate connections to the green square.”
“And the second branch?”
“I’m not a hundred percent sure what that is.” Even though I’d spent countless hours looking at the photos and mentally writing Mozart to help me.
“Just tell me what you think, Doc.”
“This might be her supplier.” I pointed at the three photos of the man. “And I think he is very important to her business model.”
“Ah, so he’s the guy with the birthmark.” Manny stepped into the room and stopped behind Francine. He leaned a bit forward to look at the monitors with the photos. “Can’t see his face on any of these.”
“I don’t know if Adèle did this on purpose.” I had thought about this a lot. “If she had been following him and taking these surveillance photos, surely she would’ve had an opportunity to take a better photo.”
“She had photos of this man and of the men who’d bought the Iranian artefacts.” Manny pushed his hands into his trouser pockets. “Why would she have photos of these people and only descriptions of the other people?”
“I don’t know.”
“I know you don’t know, Doc. It’s rhetorical.”
“Oh. There’s also no clear indication who she used as a courier.” I’d spent an entire hour searching the photos with only that in mind.
“We have nothing.” Manny rubbed his hands over his face. “We have so much, yet we have nothing.”
“We have the wine bottles.”
“And just what do you think you’re going to find on those labels, Doc?”
“I’m not sure.” Yet there was a niggling in the back of my head. Usually this meant that my subconscious had made some connection that had not yet filtered through to my thinking brain. “But I need to study all the labels. I think it will give us valuable information.”
“It bloody better.” He walked back to the door and leaned against it. “I’ve been trying to track down the vineyard that sent those bottles. The Iranians have not been helpful at all.”
“See!” Francine threw both her hands in the air. “I told you how hard it is to find out anything about Iranian companies.”
Manny raised his eyes to the ceiling and sighed heavily. “At least I wasn’t trying to hack anything. I went through legal and also diplomatic channels to establish whether this company, this vineyard even exists. But everywhere I turn, I’m being stonewalled.” He glared down at me. “I’m being blocked from finding out anything or pushing for any information.”
A notification sound came from Francine’s tablet. “Ooh! The first photos are coming through.”
I straightened in my chair and opened my inbox. There were already three emails from Pink with attachments. I downloaded all the photos and replaced Adèle’s chart with labels of the wine bottles. I ignored Manny’s insistent questions whether I was seeing something helpful. Instead I started mentally playing Mozart’s Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, leaned back in my chair and studied the photos.
Two hours later, I was still looking at the photos. Pink had taken a photo of each of the ninety-six bottles and sent them all to me. The last one had come through seven minutes ago. It had taken them a long time to have the premises cleared by the bomb squad as well as the hazardous materials team. Even though I’d been impatient, I appreciated the importance of keeping everyone safe.
“Do you people know what the time is?” Phillip walked into my viewing room and looked at me, then at Colin and back at me.
I nodded. “It’s twelve minutes to eight.”
“And?” His expression was familiar.
“I’m in danger of hyper-focusing.”
His smile was warm. “Vinnie phoned me. He knew you would be captivated by the photos they’d sent, so he asked me to get you to go home.”
“Has he made dinner?” Colin asked.