Page 28 of Under Her Protection

"And?"

"The angle does not cover the face. Shoulder and a jacket. Dark hair, grey jacket. That is half the building."

"Height."

"One-sixty-five. Give or take."

Leo drummed two fingers against the edge of the table.

"Blanchet is six feet."

"Blanchet is six feet."

"Claudel is."

"One-seventy. We are not ruling him out."

"Renaud is."

"One-sixty-four."

"Clean match."

"Clean-ish match."

Leo let herself sit with it. Then she said, "Who is Renaud close to."

Avery smiled the small dry smile that meant she had been waiting for the question.

"Renaud reports to Claudel for communications input," she said. "But she has an older relationship with a man named Gaudin, who left Strauss Industrie in twenty-twenty-two and now works at a firm called YLV Advisory."

"YLV."

"Corporate intelligence."

Leo went still.

"Dr. Lara Kossek sits on YLV's advisory board," Avery said. "Not publicly. I had to pull it from a filing in the Caymans that got out last year and was reshelved. She is not operational there. But she is there."

"Kossek."

"Yes."

"Say the name again."

"Lara Kossek."

Leo leaned back in the chair.

"Who is she?” she said.

"Strategic advisor, corporate intelligence, fifty, London and Zurich. Low public profile. Very high private reputation. Clients who will not say they are her clients. The kind of woman who shows up in a filing because someone else was being careless, not because she was."

"Connection to Strauss."

"Here is where it gets interesting."

Avery pulled up a third window. It was a photograph. Two women at what looked like a gallery opening, twenty-five years younger than the subjects Leo had been briefed on. One of them was, unmistakably, Vivienne, dark hair down, laughing, her hand resting on the upper arm of the other woman. The other woman was tall, dark-blonde, looking at Vivienne with an expression Leo did not immediately name and which she did not particularly want to name.