Dinard stared at the open catalogue in his hand. “You haven’t told me how you obtained these jade pieces.”
So he thought she had them. She’d never said that. Had she implied it? No, she was sure she had not. Yet he seemed to know the pieces had been stolen by someone. And he thought it was her.
“Plundering destroys archeological sites,” Professor Dinard said, sadly. “Whatever value looted objects possess diminishes to almost nothing without a provenance, a documented history attached. A terrible shame, of course.”
Did he think she was here to unload the jade? “Professor, I need your expertise.”
Professor Dinard opened his drawer and pulled out something, a small crocodile-leather glasses case. He took off his glasses and put them inside.
Before he could speak, a woman’s voice came over the intercom, “Your appointment’s arrived.”
“You’re in the art world, Professor. Don’t you have any idea as to who might have put the jade figures up for auction?”
“I’m a museum director,” he said. “Show me the pieces and I can give you my opinion. Otherwise there’s no way I can help you.”
“Do you think I want to sell them?” she said. “You don’t seem to understand—”
“I’ll see you out,” he said, motioning her to the door.
Confront the RG again? No reason for Pleyet to know her investigations had brought her here.
She scanned the room. Only the window. “Please, isn’t there another way out?”
“Why Mademoiselle? Please use the door.”
Didn’t these old hôtels particuliers have water closets cleverly concealed in panels flush with the wood?
Something behind his glasses had changed. Compassion or—
The office door opened. “Your appointment’s here, Professor.”
She had to find a way to leave without Pleyet seeing her. Maybe Dinard would make a deal.
“Bon, Professor, I’ll show you,” she said, playing for time. “I only carried this piece with me.” She put the small jade disk in his hand.
For a moment he held it, his eyes half-closed, and rubbed it. It was almost like a caress. Then holding it between his thumb and forefinger, he lifted it to the light. A luminescent river-green hued orb held their gazes. Amazingly it seemed to change, the color varying each time she looked at it.
Exquisite.
“Mademoiselle, the tiny dragon etched in the jade is a motif. . . . It is part of a larger pattern. Some of the images common to the period would be clouds, or a phoenix. But unless you have all the pieces together, you cannot see the pattern. This is part of a set, but only a part. The whole. . . .”
Now she’d hooked him.
“Do we have a deal, Professor?”
He nodded and pressed a button under a window ledge. A door opened. “This leads to the old kitchen. And the back stairs.”
She put her hand out for the disk, sensed his reluctance to give it up, but he handed it over. She slid into the passage and the door clicked shut behind her. Darkness, dust, and the odor of old wood. She heard voices, indistinct, absorbed by the carpet, and what she took for a cell phone conversation near the door about the chauffeur’s return instructions. Her phone vibrated, and she answered, moving away from the panel so she couldn’t be heard.
“Mademoiselle, Monsieur Verlet wonders when you can discuss the project,” said the secretary from Olf.
She looked down at her jeans. She had to change.
“Say two p.m., would that work for him?” she asked.
“See you then,” the secretary said.
Once outside on boulevard Malesherbes she caught a taxi to Leduc Detective.
Inside the office, René’s desk sat undisturbed since last night. She opened the armoire, pushed aside a streetcleaner’s jumpsuit, Agent Provocateur silk underwear, Italian jeans, and retro boots. In the back she found the black suit, vintage Dior, discovered in a dépôt-vente consignment shop without a tear or slipped seam in it. A classic even to the skirt’s knee-length hem.
She stepped into black sling back heels threaded with bubblegum pink ribbon. Clattering down the stairs, she wondered where René was.
She’d try him later. She ran for the bus.
In the Olf foyer, she signed in at the security post and caught her breath.
Upstairs, Aimée smiled at the secretary, a middle-aged woman with a swollen cheek.
“Root canal,” the secretary explained. “Monsieur Verlet’s in conference but can spare a brief word.”
Or at least that’s what Aimée thought she said.
“But we had an appointment.”
“Some bigwigs appeared—you know how that goes!” she said. “Please, go into the conference room.”
A word? The man was vociferous. He hailed from Perigord and liked to talk.
“Monsieur Verlet . . .” she said, peeking in to the room. “Your secretary said to come in.”
Several men, sitting around a long walnut table, looked up.
“Aaah, Mademoiselle Leduc, glad you dropped by,” he said.
Dropped by? They had an appointment, she wanted to get his signature on a revised contract. And a check.
“Let me introduce you to the board, Mademoiselle Leduc.”
Thank God she’d worn the Dior.
Talk about a power enclave. Most of the men wore the uniform: pinstriped suits, blue shirts, red ties. They emitted a Grandes Ecoles air. Government and corporate types. Graphs and charts lined the wall and someone was giving a presentation. She looked closer: Holdings of PetroVietnam.
PetroVietnam? Might that connect to the Cao Dai?
“Tell us about your work,” Verlet said, “if you don’t mind. Just a quick summary of how your computer security could work for us. I was impressed with your new ideas for the project.”
Why hadn’t he prepared her?
“Mademoiselle Leduc, we’re ready when you are.”
She hesitated, wishing she could have planned a presentation in advance.
“I don’t mind telling you,” Verlet said, grinning, “I had to nudge our board’s thinking toward this new security project but as I told the gentlemen, safeguards and state-of-the art security are demanded today.”
He needed her to dazzle them. Sell them. Convince them they’d make a good choice picking Leduc Detective on his recommendation. When she’d spoken with him last week, he’d been cordial and reasonable. Maybe this had happened too fast for Verlet to warn her.
“Of course, Monsieur Verlet, delighted.” She smiled, figuring she’d throw technical jargon at them, get Verlet’s signature and then beg off on the ground of another appointment. “We’re always thrilled when clients want to understand how our system enhances and builds on their own security.”
She pulled out the proposal, noted the key points. She began, “Gentleman, the web offers unique advantages and security challenges—”
“Would you be so kind as to cut to the heart of why we need your firm, Mademoiselle?” said a white-haired man looking up through reading glasses perched on his nose. “Specifically regarding computer hackers who could explore our data and create a channel to download it?”
Great. One of the elite with a computer attitude, and a bit of knowledge. The type who took a course and knew it all.
“How technical do you want it, Monsieur . . .”
“Monsieur le Ministre Langan,” he said. “When our eyes glaze over might be a good place to stop.”
Nice. Couldn’t Verlet have warned her?
“You posed an excellent question, Monsieur, but if I may backtrack and give some historical perspective, you might understand more of why we do what we do and its impact.”