Julian Hofman’s home on the outskirts of Lyon was pretty much what Ryker expected of a rich executive. Large, detached, with sprawling gardens surrounding it. Big wooden gates, dense hedges, and tall trees closed off the view of the house from the road.
Not massively secure, though.
Having easily scaled the wall that ran a few yards on either side of the gates, Ryker took his time to sneak closer to the house, being careful not to be seen by anyone at the windows.
In the intervening hours since meeting Hofman at his offices, Ryker had carried out further research on the man and his family, gathering as much information as he could before he made this next move. Hofman lived with his wife, Anya, and sixteen-year-old son, Jean. As far as Ryker could tell, Anya didn’t work, so he had to expect that one or both of Hofman’s family members could be home.
Hired help too? Possibly. Though he’d spotted no cars by the grand double garage.
Ryker pulled up against the back wall of the house. At the front he’d seen no signs of life, no noticeable lights on despite the fading daylight. The back was a different story. Right by him, through the windows of the kitchen, lights were on, though no one was inside. But he could hear music. Not from the kitchen. More distant.
Ryker ducked and moved under the kitchen windows and further along the back wall to a set of patio doors for the dining area adjacent to the kitchen. He tried the handle. Locked. He could pick the lock, but he was sure the music was coming from somewhere nearby. He looked up. Plenty of windows up there. At the far side of the back of the house stood an elegant extension with arched timber windows, a flat roof, and two big skylights sticking upward. Windows up there too, for the top floor. Closed, but…
He moved quickly that way and used a drainpipe to scramble to the top of the extension. Two wooden sash windows in front of him. He stared beyond the glass. A landing, several doorways off it. Light spilled out of one of the rooms, though the music he’d heard before had faded – just as he’d thought, whoever was home was downstairs.
Ryker moved to the other window which served a little-used guest bedroom, he presumed, given the relatively small size and the spotless appearance. Certainly not the master, or a room belonging to a teenager.
He took out his pocket multitool and selected the penknife and wedged the blade under the window. No. It was clasped shut, so he couldn’t prize it easily, at least not without making noise. The fixture wasn’t exactly old and was in good condition, but timber-built windows, even modern ones, were generally a straightforward construction. Ryker used the knife and quickly but carefully prized the wooden beading from the corners of the inner frame, exposing the edges of the double-glazed glass unit for the bottom of the sash. He cut all around the edge, breaking the glue bonding, then used the knife as a lever to snap the glass out of the frame. He carefully put the glass down on the flat roof.
Job done. He climbed inside and moved to the door and peered onto the landing. No one in sight. As he stepped out, he pulled the door closed to hide the deconstructed window from view.
Keeping his steps light, Ryker silently headed across the landing. Master bedroom, empty. Office, empty. But that was the room Ryker wanted to be in, so his gamble of entering on the top rather than the ground floor had paid off. Still, he kept on going, to the room with the light on and pulled up outside the open door. Quiet in there, but even the glimpse he could see of the room from his hiding spot – dark-blue walls, the edge of a poster, underwear, and other clothes on the carpet – gave away that it was Jean’s room.
Most likely it was the teenager downstairs too, listening to the raucous rock music on his dad’s no doubt fancy stereo.
Satisfied that he could get to work, Ryker crept back to the office, pushed the door to then sat down on the comfy leather swivel chair. So Hofman hadn’t rushed home after the incident in the office. Had he called the police? Certainly, there was no indication at his home that he’d sent out an alert to his family members. Had he not taken Ryker’s threat seriously? Perhaps he felt he couldn’t raise the alarm with the police because doing so might expose what he’d done.
Now Ryker just needed to find out what that was.
He looked over the space in front of him. A few drawers. Desktop computer. He powered it on. The screen came to life. Password needed. Not to worry. Ryker worked around the system’s security, going into the core programming to create a new admin account for himself. Within a few minutes, he was inside. Time to copy. He inserted the USB thumb drive that’d take a full copy of the desktop’s hard drive.
While he waited, he went to the desk drawers. Not locked. Ryker quickly searched through. Bills. A clutter of stationery. A couple of old phones. Ryker pocketed those for later research, in case Hofman hadn’t already erased the contents. He found some bank statements. Interesting. Ryker scanned through. A joint account with his wife. Probably not the place to find any criminal activity, though Ryker took pictures of each of the statements going back six months, which covered the period before and after the attack in St Ricard.
Nothing else of interest, so he went back to the computer. He clicked on the email icon. It opened Hofman’s personal Gmail account rather than his work account. Perhaps more useful anyway, as he was hardly likely to use a business account for nefarious activity.
Ryker performed a search. Aziz Doukha. Nothing. Just Aziz. Nothing. He tried Lenglet and Touba too. Still nothing. Thibaud. Nothing. Villeneuve. A lot.
He took a few minutes to scan the emails in turn, noting the senders, anyone else copied in, the contents too. The same four email addresses came up again and again, though the handles were anonymized and the emails never had full names in the sign-offs, only initials at most.
Ryker performed a further search for all activity with those four email addresses. Nearly a hundred results. He paused on one of the email chains. The subject read LVH LLC – the latter three letters likely being the common designation used by companies in numerous different countries. But what did LVH stand for? The original email, from Hofman to the other four, was short and sweet.
LVH is up and running. When is completion expected?
Several responses came after that.
Problems on the ground. Funds delayed until resolved.
We’ve come too far for problems on the ground. TK, you need to sort.
I have a solution in progress. I’ll let you know.
That was the end of the chain, a little over four months ago, but not the end of the communications. Ryker found a later email chain, started by ‘TK’.
I need more time.
The responses to that weren’t kind. Indirect threats. Reminders of ‘who we’re dealing with’. Questions over ‘compensation’ if the original deal wasn’t upheld. Everyone quite non-specific about what the problems were, which was only natural if the five of them were up to no good.
Ryker’s thought?
Most likely Hofman had been truthful about his company’s early involvement in the dam project. Hofman Rheinhard had taken a commission for the land purchase. But he hadn’t been truthful about that being his only involvement. There was dirty money involved somewhere, or perhaps just a fraud of some sort – skimming? Hence the need for the secretive exchanges. Perhaps Hofman and others were due kickbacks, contingent on the success of the project, or some other factor. But clearly, there’d been issues in getting that money.
Problems that had caused Hofman, or his associates, to organize the multiple-murder of the Thibaud family?
Ryker looked up from the screen with a jolt when he heard a creak out on the landing.
He didn’t move as the door edged open and a startled teenage boy stared over at him.
‘Jean?’ Ryker said, standing up from the chair.
‘What are you doing in my house?’ he asked in French, his fear obvious.
‘I’m from your dad’s office,’ Ryker said, taking hold of the security card dangling from the lanyard around his neck. The card that stated Ryker was a visitor, rather than employee, if anyone looked closely enough, and the color of the lanyard further gave away Ryker’s status, but would the sixteen-year-old Jean have any clue how security at his dad’s office worked?
‘I’m from the IT team.’
Jean said nothing.
‘There was a security issue at the office earlier. Your dad asked me to check the home computer, to make sure nothing’s wrong here. You haven’t noticed anything weird? Slow processing times, anything like that?’
Jean frowned, as though thinking, but his wariness and suspicion remained.
‘No… I don’t think so, but… How did you get in here?’
Ryker smiled and laughed. ‘Your dad let me in.’ He wiped away the smile, as though surprised by Jean’s concern. ‘He was here with me, only a few minutes ago. You didn’t see him?’
‘I didn’t see him. Or hear him.’
‘Not with that loud music.’
He still didn’t look convinced.
‘He got an urgent call. He had to rush off. You really didn’t know we’d come in?’
Nothing from the boy. Ryker’s own look of concern deepened. He held his hands up.
‘Jean, call your dad. Check with him. I don’t want to worry you.’
A pause, then, ‘No point, is there? He probably won’t answer anyway.’
‘Probably not,’ Ryker said, his face brightening a little. He looked down at the thumb drive, the green light indicating the copying was complete. ‘You know what, I’m done here now anyway.’
‘I’ll show you out,’ Jean said.
Ryker pulled the thumb drive out and closed the email window.
‘Yeah, sure. Thank you.’