Breaking and Entering 101 (The Case Files of Henri Davenforth Book 4)

by Honor Raconteur

  “You know what makes no sense to me whatsoever? Is that you went for a second score.” Jamie’s hands rifled through the folder again, pulling out the missing totals reported by the gold and train companies. “Three-hundred-eleven thousand crowns is a crap ton of money, man. Even divided up, surely that’s enough to buy a modest house somewhere on the coast and retire. You could probably live twenty years on that and not have to work. Why go again? Why take the risk?”

  Innis impossibly hunched in even further, and he was sweating in earnest now.

  “Walk me through this, eh? What was the money for?”

  Silence.

  Jamie pursed her lips and shot me a look. It was a common tactic from suspects to say absolutely nothing. If they were silent, they couldn’t incriminate themselves, after all. Innis was the type of man who could not afford an attorney—well, he could, assuming he had the ability to lay hands on his portion of the money. With the gold marked and so famous at the moment, it would be very hard to move it. They likely would have to sit on it a while and wait for a future payout.

  I decided to step in. “If you won’t tell us anything, we’ll need to question your family next.”

  “You can’t bring my family into this!” he burst out, panicked and half-lurching out of his chair.

  Ho. Now we had a reaction. I pushed him. “Innis, we must have answers. If you won’t supply them, then we’ll talk to every relative and acquaintance you have until we find them.”

  “My wife—” Innis choked, struggling to breathe. “My wife’s already miscarried three of our children. She’s bedridden right now with our fourth. You can’t stress her. Please, you can’t talk to her, she’ll lose the baby—”

  The light dawned. I possessed no idea what might be the motivation for everyone on the crew, but Innis’s seemed clear enough. “We won’t say a word to her, Innis, but you must talk to us. The second heist—was it because there wasn’t enough money to go around for everyone?”

  Innis’s jaw flexed and his eyes dropped back on the table. He gave a shallow nod. Swallowing audibly, he whispered, “In part. In part because we hadn’t been caught. When the Kingsmen came in it was clear they had no clue how we’d managed it. They were lost entirely. Even the cops didn’t seem to know who to suspect—” Innis jerked a chin toward Jamie. “Not until she came in, anyway.”

  “So, you thought if it was that successful the first time, why not do it again once more.”

  “Yeah. And we were short, a little. At first, it seemed such a big score, y’know? So much money. But split up four ways like that, it’s not really as much.”

  I carefully concealed a hiss of victory. The number of people in the crew was now confirmed. “Your cut of the first heist would have still bought you a respectable house somewhere and set you up financially for years.”

  Innis looked up. The fight slowly drained out of him, leaving him the scared and nervous man again. “It sounded good. We’d get out of that apartment, my wife and I. But I wanted enough that we could just live off of. So I wouldn’t have to work so much anymore.”

  In a sense, I understood his stance. How often do we lament that we don’t have enough time to spend with our loved ones? Especially for him, with his wife struggling, it was only natural for a husband to wish he could spend more time with her. In his shoes, I no doubt would wish the same. It wasn’t often I felt sympathy for a criminal.

  “A hundred and thirty-seven thousand crowns is how much you earned from both heists,” Jamie noted, tone idle. “That’s a pretty hefty sum. That would have been enough to set you up nicely for years, alright. If you worked part-time with the station, you could have lived on that for the rest of your life. Assuming you’re good at staying inside of a budget. Or were you going to do one more, just to make sure you never had to work again?”

  Innis grimaced. “They planned to. I told them after the last one I was out. It would draw too much suspicion if I quit altogether. I could use the excuse of looking after my wife to take fewer hours, no one would think oddly of that. We could buy a house, something good for her and the baby, and we’d be fine. But they weren’t satisfied. They needed one more, they said. They kept trying to talk me into it. I threw the bag away, all our tools, to make my point.”

  “But you were too worried about your wife to agree?”

  “We’d already gotten by with it twice. Three was pushing our luck.” Innis let loose a laugh that sounded mad and despairing. “Only we hadn’t gotten by with it at all. You just hadn’t caught up with us yet. I could tell from the way Kingsman Gibson asked me questions he suspected me. I couldn’t figure out what I’d done wrong. I made sure people saw me on the second heist so you wouldn’t place me in the baggage car. What made you suspect me, anyway?”

  “The schedule.” Jamie drew yet another paper out and flipped it with a flick of her fingers to rest in front of him. “You’re one of the few people working the evening train during both hits. And yes, people saw you, but only at the beginning and end of the trip. It was too much of a time gap. You had to be part of it somehow.”

  “Thrice-cursed schedule.” Innis slouched in his chair, like a marionette with its strings cut. He was just an exhausted, resigned man now. “I was always afraid of that. But I couldn’t work out any other way to do it.”

  “Yeah, I bet. Everyone knew you were anxious to get home to your wife every day. They’d think it odd if you rode as a passenger to Bristol.” Jamie canted her head to the side. “How did you get recruited? Was it Jodan Nichols or Simon Biggs who first approached you?”

  My partner was fishing. It was a good lure, though. I held my breath, waiting to see if he took it.

  Innis rubbed both hands wearily over his face. “So, you’ve caught them too, huh? It was Biggs. Biggs approached all of us. He was the one to figure it out first.”

  I channeled my excitement into my fists, clenching them, although it was all I could do not to jump up and down.

  Belatedly, Innis realized his mistake and looked sharply up at Jamie. “Why do you not know that?”

  “Oh, we know they’re involved,” Jamie told the white lie with a pleasant smile. “But they haven’t divulged every detail. Biggs figured it out when he had to re-order the keys, right? He was in charge of that, and he realized he could easily order another set of keys and no one would be the wiser. But he screwed up the order, you were a key short.”

  Again, fishing. It made sense, though. It was the only way it made sense—why would they need the Raskovnik the first time to get through that last lock? Because someone had made an error and not gathered all the appropriate keys. If Biggs hadn’t ordered all the correct keys, then of course it would leave them in that predicament.

  Innis grimaced. “Stupid idiot got all nervous when placing the order and accidentally ordered two of the padlock key. Like I needed two of those. He was able to fix the order later, get the right one in, but it meant missing that first shipment if we’d waited. I saw the Raskovnik come through six days before and grabbed it, just in case. It was tight—the stuff barely worked to spring the lock—but we managed.”

  He was chatty now, and I wished to capitalize on that before we lost this amiability. “I’m bemused on a few points, Innis. Why switch to a cleaning charm the second time? Was it a matter of weight?”

  “Yeah, basically. We already had to carry so much in, and anything we could leave behind or switch out was for the better. I should have thought of it the first time, really. Biggs couldn’t carry much in—he’s too small a man to disguise an extra fifty pounds of weight well—and of course Marianna—” Innis clamped his mouth shut immediately.

  “Marianna Rutherford was already a suspect, don’t worry,” I soothed him. “Keep going. Marianna couldn’t carry much either?”

  Innis’s tongue darted out to wet chapped lips. “I really didn’t give her away?”

  The man was loyal, at least. Misguided and desperate, but loyal. “She was already on our suspect list, I promise you. T
he schedule gave her away too.”

  That relieved him, and he didn’t question the way I’d worded the reassurance. “Oh. Oh, I see. Yeah, you probably found Jodan the same way, huh. Schedules were the death of us, I knew they would be. But Jodan and Biggs weren’t working both nights.”

  “No, they were passengers sometimes,” Jamie agreed, nodding. “We did check passenger lists too.”

  Another half-mad chuckle escaped Innis. “Of course you did. Of course you did. But yeah, Marianna can carry quite a bit of weight. She was under a tighter schedule though. She had to get back to the house before her husband suspected anything, and she had to stash the money first.”

  “You did dry runs of that, to get the timing down.”

  “More than a few.” Innis’s head lolled on his shoulder listlessly as he looked out the single small window in the room. From this angle, all he could see was a narrow patch of blue sky. “I’m going to jail. For a long time, aren’t I?”

  He was no doubt thinking of his wife and unborn child. I was again stirred to pity but in truth, the man had dug his own grave with such a poor life decision.

  Gibson cleared his throat behind us. I turned and arched an eyebrow at him. He silently indicated he wanted to step in and I waved him forward. I had no idea what possessed him to do so, but trusted he had adequate reason.

  Taking two steps forward, Gibson joined us at the table. “Mr. Innis, I’m authorized to speak with the Queen’s Voice in matters such as this. Would you like to shorten your sentence?”

  Innis’s head snapped back around so quickly I heard vertebrae pop. “Yes. Can I?”

  “You have that option, here and now, yes. No one else has told us where the money is.”

  For the simple matter we hadn’t asked. But I wasn’t about to interrupt him. Gibson’s ploy looked viable for success.

  “Tell us where you stashed it all,” Gibson encouraged. “I can cut your sentence in half. Wouldn’t you rather be home to your wife in two years instead of four?”

  Innis’s head bobbed in agreement, much like a puppet’s when pulled on a string. Still, he hesitated a long moment before he spoke, as if weighing all his options first. In the end, desperation won out. “I’ll tell you precisely where it is. But I only know Marianna’s and Simons’ locations. Jodan had to change where he put everything. He said it was in danger of discovery, and he wouldn’t tell us precisely where it was. Just an approximation.”

  I suspected Jodan was attempting a double cross, but we’d properly get to the bottom of that later.

  “Tell us everything you know,” Gibson encouraged in a gentle tone. “In fact, walk us there. As we collect the gold, it’ll prove good faith to Her Majesty. After she hears your story, she’ll be more inclined to sympathy. I promise you I’ll stand at your trial and speak for you.”

  Relief washed over Innis, mitigated as it was by the disappointment of failure. “There’s that, at least. Thank you, Kingsman, for the offer. I’ll accept it. Take me out. I’ll show you were all the gold is.”

  With Innis’s confession on who all was involved, I was able to get warrants drawn up and authorized for the other three. Because they were working different train lines, we had to send the notification to other police precincts to grab them, then arrange for transportation back to our precinct. It was a bit of a logistical headache, but all was made easier because our fellow officers were happy to help. I think part of it was that they wanted to be part of the greatest gold heist in history, but I wasn’t about to question their willing attitude.

  It sounded simple to list out, but that took me five solid hours to orchestrate. While I did that, Henri slipped off to the lab to get caught up on fingerprints for this case, further solidifying our evidence of Innis’s involvement. Gibson and Foster had the fun job of taking Innis to collect the gold.

  With all that in motion, I stood from my desk and stretched. It felt good to get the blood moving again, a few joints popping. This had been such an interesting case, but good gravy, the legwork on this one. Geez.

  From across the bullpen, the officer at the front desk belted out, “EDWARDS!”

  Now what? Sighing, I headed that direction. I’d intended to go and help Henri with the fingerprints, but looked like that had to wait.

  A tall, well-dressed dwarf stood just inside the front door. Well, tall for a dwarf—he probably hit chest height on me. He was impeccable in a three-piece grey suit, his red beard braided along the edges with small gold beads entwined. It took me a moment to place him, as we’d never spoken directly, but this was the owner of Gold Limited, the first company robbed. What was his name…?

  Lawson, bless him, did the introductions for us. “Edwards, this is Mr. Elwood of Gold Limited. Said it’s his gold we found. Mr. Elwood, Detective Jamie Edwards. She’ll be the one to talk to, as it’s her case.”

  Elwood held out a hand. “Pleasure, Detective.”

  I took it, felt the calluses, and was surprised by them. The man had his hands on something on a regular basis to give him such a rough surface on his palms. “Mr. Elwood. Come in, come take a seat at my desk. I assume you got our notification about the gold?”

  “Yes, quite. I came here directly. You’ve really found it?”

  “We believe so. Right now, we want verification to make sure there isn’t any mix-up later.” I escorted him back to my desk, gesturing him into the single chair that sat right next to it. Hardly tosh, but he didn’t even blink, just hopped right into it. I settled into my chair and leaned across the surface to speak in a more confidential tone. “Here’s the facts as we have them now. We have a confession from one of the thieves. The other three are being rounded up as we speak. The thief who confessed agreed to lead us to the gold in order to get a reduction in sentence. But he doesn’t know where all of it was stashed. One of the partners changed where he hid it.”

  Elwood was a mixed bag of happy and peeved. “So we can’t recover absolutely everything?”

  “That’s why I called you in. It wasn’t just your gold stolen—we have no way of knowing which gold will show back up here. My colleagues are collecting it, and I expect them in the next half-hour or so. When they arrive, can you verify what is yours and what belongs to the other company? The markings of the gold ingots are so similar I don’t want any mistakes on that.”

  “Yes, it’s a point that has peeved us for quite some time. I think, after this especially, we’ll change our seal.” Elwood gave me a firm nod, his beard bobbing on his chest. “I’ll be pleased to assist. It does irritate me one of the thieves will not receive a full sentence for this, but I do understand why you made the offer.”

  I splayed my hands in a shrug. “It was either that or tear the city apart. Or trust some honest citizen to find it and turn it in. I don’t give either of those good odds.”

  “Quite.” His blue eyes became very penetrating. “I understand you are a Kingsman consultant. They were struggling with this case before they brought you in.”

  “Theft is a little outside their comfort zone. In truth, the combined efforts of several people helped crack this case open.” My pad beeped and I lifted it immediately to see the message. “Ah. My colleagues are at the back door. If you’ll wait here a moment? We’ll bring the gold into the lab and have you go through it for us.”

  “Of course.”

  I went back toward Henri’s lab and found Gerring shuffling under the weight of a box of gold. He puffed and huffed, like the Little Engine That Could, but still managed a smile at me. “We’ve found most of it. Innis did his part.”

  “Good show! Put it in with Henri. The Gold Limited boss is here to double check inventory for us.”

  “That’s awfully nice of him.”

  “Isn’t it, though?” I went sideways in the hallway to give him room to pass before going through the doors, intending to help unload whatever else they’d found.

  I barely got my feet out into the yard when a prisoner transport van pulled in next to Gibson, blocking my v
iew of them. The officer popped his head out of the open door and called out, “You Edwards?”

  “That’s me! Who’ve you got?”

  “Two for you: Marianna Rutherford and Simon Biggs.”

  I hissed in a breath of victory. That meant we had three of the four. Only Jodan Nichols was left abroad. Well, they might have caught him and I just didn’t know it yet. I hoped that was the case. Nichols would run for sure if he learned we’d caught the rest of the team. Which would be a rotten shame—he was the only one who knew where the rest of that gold was.

  With some help, I got the two processed to wait in the cells. Marianna Rutherford was a large woman, and she used her weight to pull at people, her attitude belligerent. I had to step in and manhandle her into the cell, which she didn’t appreciate. For that matter, neither did I. Biggs went so quietly I mistook him for a zombie. The man just shuffled along, skin grey, expression petrified.

  That was three down, but where was Jodan Nichols?

  I stepped back to my desk and made a phone call to Bristol Station. “This is Detective Edwards. I requested a suspect be detained and shipped to me.”

  The other side was crackly and scratchy but audible enough. “Jamie, it’s Charlie.”

  “Charlie, hey. What are you up to?”

  “Currently trying to wrangle an answer from your suspect, actually. I just stepped away from my desk to answer the call. You’ve got good timing. Turns out, Jodan hid the gold here in Bristol, but that’s about all he’ll confess to.”

  I groaned. It made logistical sense. Of course hiding it in Bristol was easier than carting it back to Kingston. “Yeah, we have confirmation that not all the gold was stashed in the same place. We’ve recovered the section hidden in Kingston.”

  “So, he’s not yanking my chain.”

  “Nope.”

  “Well don’t that beat all. Alright, how do you want to play this?”

  “I’ve got the CEO of Gold Limited up here double-checking things…” I trailed off, thinking of the logistics. “Let me get someone to babysit him. I’ll grab Henri and we’ll head down on the next train. It’ll be faster than driving down.” Mostly because a curvy highway led down to Bristol and Henri would insist I drive at a snail’s pace.