Colin was also smiling. I didn’t understand the joke. And I didn’t care.
Manny’s lips thinned and colour moved from his collar into his face. He inhaled deeply, but stopped when Francine turned to him, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes evidence of her genuine smile. “I found quite a lot of intel for you, handsome.”
“Don’t make me ask again.” Manny took the mug of milky tea he had made for himself this morning.
Francine picked her tablet up from the table. “Easy Post was established nine years ago. There are only two branches—one in Paris and one here in Strasbourg. First impressions are that it is a small business and the info on their website confirms it. Their website also claims that they act as couriers for a high-end clientele and ensure full confidentiality and complete safety of each and every parcel entrusted to them. But guess what?”
Manny just glared at her.
“Spoilsport. I found out who established Easy Post and has been the sole owner ever since.” She pointed dramatically at me. When I didn’t respond, she shook her hand even more.
I sighed. “Gilles Mahout founded Easy Post.”
“Gilles Mahout?” Manny sat up. “The manager from Adèle’s self-storage place?”
“The one and only. I have no idea why he managed Self-Storage Solutions when he owned Easy Post.” Francine leaned back in her chair as if she’d completed her briefing.
There was more. “Francine and I looked at his phone records. He made a lot of calls to a number that wasn’t registered to any account.”
“Of course we couldn’t get a name from a burner phone.” Francine smiled. “But then I worked my cell phone tower kung fu. Almost all those calls bounced off a tower three hundred and seventy metres from Adèle’s house.”
“How many phone calls?” Manny asked.
“Two or three a week.”
“They were in this together. Hellfire.” Manny turned to Daniel who joined our meeting this morning at Vinnie’s request. “Have you found that little weasel yet?”
“No.” Daniel reached into his top pocket and took out his phone. “I’ll send Pink word that finding Gilles is now a priority.”
“Top priority.” Manny turned back to Francine. “Has he been using Easy Post for smuggling all along?”
“I can’t say for sure.” She winked at me. I had helped her for an hour and a half this morning finding information on Easy Post. I had also refused to allow her to speculate on anything we couldn’t confirm. She pointed at her tablet. “Everything Genevieve and I found seemed to be on the up and up. All their business dealings. I had a look at their finances and that also looked clean.” She paused. “Just like Adèle’s.”
“What are you saying?” Manny frowned.
Francine touched her sculpted eyebrow and once again I noticed the fatigue pulling at the muscles around her eyes. She might have mastered the art of using make-up to its fullest advantage, but she couldn’t hide the micro-expressions revealing that she hadn’t slept much last night. If she’d slept at all. She flicked her hair over her shoulder and smiled. “Yup, just like Adèle. According to Easy Post’s finances and their tax records, they are the most profitable courier since the first caveman ran to the neighbouring tribe with a gift for a girl.”
I frowned at the irrelevance of her analogy. “If we work on the assumption that Gilles used Easy Post to smuggle drugs and art, he was smart to keep his business dealings subtle.”
“Oh, the man was low-key, all right.” Francine winked at me. “He only had the two outlets—the one in Paris and the one here in Strasbourg—and never lived it up. He didn’t buy sporty cars or crazy houses. I still have to get into his finances and I’m really curious about it. I would love to know what he did with all his money.”
“Most likely put it somewhere abroad where it’s not traceable and is waiting for the perfect moment to retire.” Vinnie grunted. “Huh. Now is the perfect time for him to go to some island and access his offshore accounts.”
“We’ve had all airports on full alert the moment we discovered he went missing,” Daniel said.
“Oh, my dear law-abiding Danny.” Francine fluttered her eyes at him. “All he has to do is drive across one of France’s many borders, get to a small airport and start his onward journey from there. Or get to a port and take a nice cruise to a Caribbean island with friendly bankers.”
She was right. I had considered these possibilities the moment we’d discovered Gilles had been deeply entrenched in Adèle’s drug-dealing business. His business accounts had revealed thousands of parcels, packages and letters being shipped between Paris and Strasbourg, but seldom outside of Europe. A lot of shipments were received from abroad at both outlets, but we couldn’t find much detail on the content of the shipments. I had posited that since Gilles had been in the shipping business—presumably the illegal shipping business as well—for over a decade, he would have expert knowledge on how to enter and exit a country unnoticed.
“I want Gilles.” Manny was looking at Daniel, his eyebrows drawn low.
Daniel nodded, but paused when my phone started ringing. I stared at it where it was lying on the table in front of me. I very seldom received phone calls. Only the people in this room called me and occasionally the president’s wife. I lifted the phone. It wasn’t Isabelle.
I swiped the screen. “Caelan, why are you phoning me?”
“Mongolia is the least densely populated country on Earth! Over eight hundred and twenty languages are spoken in Papua New Guinea!” His voice had reached a keening tone and I moved the phone away from my ear. I thought about it and then put him on speakerphone.
I was about to respond by telling him to calm down, but then thought about Caelan’s coping mechanisms. “Which country produces more of the world’s oxygen than any other?”
“Russia.” He inhaled and exhaled loudly. “Siberia is home to approximately twenty-five percent of the world’s forests.”
“What is the densest substance on Earth?”
“Osmium.” He sounded more in control, his voice not quivering as much. We listened to him breathe three times.
“Caelan, bud.” Colin leaned closer to my phone. “Where are you?”
“Chanceux Café. The cops following me are drinking coffee by the window. They think I’m crazy. I’m sitting at my own table. Alone. The others are sitting at the back table. The Atlantic Ocean is the saltiest of them all.”
Colin glanced at me. “Do you want us to come to you?”
“Yes. Every part of the yew tree is poisonous, except its berries.”
“Bloody hell.” Manny leaned away from my phone and shook his head.
Vinnie gave Manny an extremely hostile glance before moving closer to my phone. “Okay, superman. We’ll be there in seven minutes.”
“Lightning strikes the earth over eight point six million times per day.” Caelan gave another three facts before Colin swiped the screen on my phone to end the call.
“What on earth set him off?” Francine’s concern made her look even more tired.
I didn’t answer. Depending on the day, it could be the smallest change in a routine or even just a thought that could trigger a shutdown. I knew. I fought this daily.
Four minutes later, I was in the passenger seat of Vinnie’s SUV, Vinnie in the backseat. Colin had organised for his SUV to be repaired and Vinnie had happily given Colin his keys. We had barely left the parking space when Vinnie leaned in between the two front seats. I moved closer to the door.
“I’m gonna kill the old man.” Even though his expression confirmed his anger, I knew his words were not to be taken literally. He was frustrated with Manny’s behaviour.
“He’s hurting, Vin.” Colin glanced at me, then winced. He knew I’d seen his micro-expressions. He knew the reason for Manny’s emotional pain. “Like I said last night, it’s not my place to say anything, love.”