Sebastian woke to thin, grey sunlight just barely peeking through the windows and the gentle sound of someone tapping on a keyboard.
Jay was sat up in bed next to him, laptop balanced across his knees. “Morning,” he said, giving Sebastian a quick, affectionate glance before turning his attention back to the screen.
Sebastian had collapsed into Jay’s bed last night, asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. And Jay wasn’t usually up this early, which left one other explanation. “Were you up all night?”
Jay shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep.”
Sebastian pushed the covers back and sat up, peering over Jay’s shoulder at the laptop. He’d pulled up the Companies House registry on one side of the screen, with what looked to be property records on the other.
“Been looking into that tanning salon,” Jay explained. “Directorship is held by someone who’s on hundreds of other listings—professional seat-filler, basically. Finance trail leads to the Virgin Islands.”
“Dead end,” Sebastian observed; secrecy laws in the Virgin Islands made it difficult to identify the owners of any company founded there.
Jay nodded, then pulled up a street view of the salon’s address. It was one of several businesses along the same dilapidated row. “Look here,” he said, pointing to the screen; despite the salon’s shabby appearance, there was a high-end CCTV camera positioned above the salon’s front door. Two more were mounted under the eaves, angled to monitor the pavement from both directions.
“Awful lot of security,” Sebastian noted. Jay had “borrowed” one of his t-shirts and worn it to bed, the collar slipping down at the back to expose the ridge of his spine. Sebastian nosed along it, inhaling the scent of his skin.
“The boys didn’t mention an alarm,” Jay pointed out. “And the break-in wasn’t reported ’til morning—I assume when the opening shift came in and noticed their safe had been ripped out of the wall.”
“So we have a business owned by a shell company with more security than it’d normally need—but not enough to bring the police round without warning.”
“And basically no inventory,” Jay added. “Allows for some creative accounting.”
Sebastian bent to nuzzle into the crook of Jay’s neck, pressing a kiss there. “Seems like a front to me.”
Jay hummed agreement and twisted around, nipping along Sebastian’s jaw. “You know,” he said, muttering into Sebastian’s skin, “if they called 999 that morning, they probably called someone else first.”
“Sounds like you need to get a look at their call logs,” Sebastian concluded, a little breathlessly.
Jay dragged a licking kiss over Sebastian’s throat. “You doing anything today?”
“No.”
Jay pushed the laptop away and shoved Sebastian down into the bed, kissing him thoroughly.
Jay had acquired a car through the same car-sharing app he’d been using the entire time Sebastian had known him. The company behind it still hadn’t spotted the huge security holes in its booking system and had, in fact, laid off most of its quality control and engineering staff late last year.
Sebastian parked the car down a side street on the south end of East Ham, which gave them a direct line of sight to the front entrance of the tanning salon. Jay sat in the passenger seat, feet up on the dashboard as he fiddled on his tablet.
“I’m into the salon’s Wi-Fi,” he reported. “Looks like the cameras are all on the same network as everything else.”
As he worked, there was a ping from Sebastian’s phone. Anika Roy had just texted him; the tone was, for her, fairly typical:
Idiot director’s idiot friend needs a military consultant. You busy?
Jay glanced over. “You need to take care of that?”
“It can wait.” Sebastian tucked his phone back into his pocket. “Did we really have to come all the way out here just to get a look at their call history? I thought you had a backdoor into everyone’s phone.”
“Most everyone,” Jay corrected—then, more quietly, added, “They’re using a landline.”
Sebastian rubbed his mouth, hiding a smile behind his hand.
His amusement did not escape Jay’s notice. “I could tunnel into the phone company’s records,” he insisted, “but that would take time. This is faster.”
“I’m sure.”
Jay grumbled and turned his attention back to the tablet. He’d pulled up the salon’s shift schedule—likely stored on the manager’s computer.
“Looks like there’s just one working today,” Jay noted. “‘Eliza Pollard.’”
“One person running the whole salon?”
“Lean staffing,” Jay explained. “Most businesses run on as few part-time staff as they can get away with.” He pulled up the portal into Different Computing’s phone backup archive and punched in the keys he absolutely wasn’t supposed to have; moments later, he was sifting through the contents of Eliza’s mobile.
There were a lot of photos of her kid—a son, maybe six or seven years old. Jay scrolled through her emails, then grabbed his phone, pulling up a call spoofing utility and dialling her number.
The phone gave a few rings before it picked up. From next to Jay, Sebastian could just hear a faint, confused, “Hello?”
“Ms. Pollard,” Jay said. “I’m calling from Romford Primary School. There’s been an incident involving your son—we need to see you right away.”
Sebastian couldn’t pick out the exact words of Eliza’s response, but it was rapid and concerned.
“We’ll explain everything in person,” Jay assured her. “Please come as soon as possible.”
He hung up; less than a minute later, there was movement through the salon’s front windows as a young woman hurried to the front door. She slipped outside, taped up a hastily-written sign, then locked up and strode away down the street.
Jay, meanwhile, was back to tapping away at his tablet. “I’ve killed the cameras,” he reported. “You’re all set.”
Sebastian stepped out of the car, casually making his way across the street as he slipped his lockpicks from his pocket. The lock was old and quite flimsy; he only had to set two pins before it clicked open.
The interior of the salon consisted of a small reception area and a corridor that led toward the back of the shop, lined on both sides with small cubicles for the tanning beds. At the far end was a door marked “Staff Only”; beyond it lay the break room and the manager’s office.
The office was small and cramped, containing a battered old desk and a few equally-battered filing cabinets. There was also, quite notably, a hole in the wall; a few chunks of plaster and brick still lay on the floor beneath it.
A cordless touch-tone phone sat on the desk; Sebastian plucked it from its cradle and pulled up the call history. It showed a 999 call just after eight o’clock, the morning following the burglary—and a call to another number, a few minutes before that.
Sebastian took out his own phone and texted the number to Jay before he made his way outside, relocking the door behind him. As he climbed back into the car, his phone pinged with another text:
He’s chasing me so I’m chasing you. Do you want the job or not?
Jay glanced at the phone again. “Everything all right?”
“Yeah,” Sebastian assured him. “Just work.”
His thumb hovered over the screen. If things continued as they had with his corporate and government contacts, Sebastian would need to double down on the media jobs to make up the difference. He quickly typed out a reply:
Yeah, give him my number
Will do
A new housing development was going up on the site of an old auto plant in Dagenham. The whole area was fenced off, but the access gate was chained loosely; it was easy enough for Paul to squeeze through on foot.
He navigated carefully over rough, broken ground toward the half-constructed housing block—four squat towers surrounding a sizeable courtyard. They loomed over him as he strode through the entry arch.
There was no one else in sight, but Paul knew better than to assume he was alone. More likely, he was being checked out from a distance.
After a few minutes, there was movement from across the courtyard as two men approached. The posture of the first was loud and bragging—he was mid-thirties, intimidatingly broad, with his receding hair buzzed down into a crew cut. He regarded Paul with frank disdain and said, “You have something of ours.”
Paul recognised the voice; it was the one that’d answered when he called the number Moriarty had given him. The man was just as terse as he’d been when Paul set up the meet, although marginally less furious.
Unslinging the holdall from his shoulder, Paul tossed it to the ground in front of him. “It’s all there,” he assured the pair. “This was a misunderstanding.”
The other man stepped forward. He looked to be about the same age as his companion, although he wasn’t nearly as big—athletic rather than bulky. As Paul moved back from the bag, the second man knelt and unzipped it. He sorted through the stacks of cash with a quiet, thoughtful air.
“It’s all there?” the big man asked.
“Looks like,” replied his colleague.
The man looked Paul over, jaw tight. “You stole this?”
“Some associates of mine did,” Paul explained. “Thought they were knocking over a little local shop. This was a nasty surprise.”
“Your ‘associates.’” The man’s eyes narrowed, intent on getting an answer. “Who are they?”
Paul’s instincts didn’t like the turn this conversation was taking. “Does it matter?”
The man’s eyes flashed with irritation; his hand darted beneath his jacket and emerged with a gun. The other followed suit, both of them setting their sights on Paul.
Paul slowly raised his hands and didn’t move.
“I’ll ask you one more time,” said the big man. “Who else knows about the money?”
A sharp crack echoed through the courtyard; there was a spray of dirt as a bullet struck the ground between Paul and the others. Both of them jumped and scrambled back, guns raised high as they frantically scanned the rows of empty windows behind him.
He wondered, briefly, if they could see the glint of the rifle scope up there.
Another gunshot rang out, and another, laying down cover fire to keep the men pinned in place as Paul turned and bolted from the courtyard. He circled the outer perimeter of the towers, using them for cover as he manoeuvred back toward the construction site’s access gate.
A shadow moved in Paul’s peripheral vision, and his heart jumped for a moment before he recognised Moran, slipping out of the nearest tower with a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder.
They reached the gate together; Paul squeezed through first, Moran close behind. Idling at the kerb ahead was a nondescript ride-share car. Paul threw the front passenger door open and jumped in; Moran dove into the back seat, and the car took off down the street.
“So,” Moriarty said from the driver’s seat, “it was a definite ‘yes’ on them trying to kill you.”
“Might’ve been more disappointing if they hadn’t.” Moran hefted the rifle and gave Paul an annoyed look. “This is a piece of shit.”
“Best I could get on short notice,” Paul replied, apologetic. “We’ll need to dump that, now.”
“I’ll take us over a bridge.” Moriarty turned the car west at the next intersection.
Paul exhaled loudly, the adrenaline wearing off; he slumped into his seat, running over the past few minutes in his head. There was something familiar about the frank contempt with which the two men had regarded him.
He craned around to peer into the back seat. “You saw the guns they were using?”
Moran nodded. “Glock 17.”
Jay glanced briefly over his shoulder before turning his eyes back to the road. “That’s significant?”
“I’d say so,” Moran said dryly. “It’s police standard issue.”
Paul had not arrived at Aaron and Hunter’s door with good news.
“Police?” Aaron blurted out. “The fuck you mean? We stole from the feds?”
Moriarty had, again, turned up with his mysterious partner in tow; out the corner of his eye, Aaron saw the man turn and mouth “feds?” to Moriarty, who was sitting in one of the armchairs. Moriarty replied with a roll of his eyes and a dismissive gesture.
“It’s okay though, yeah?” Hunter asked, uneasy. “We gave it all back and everything.”
Paul shook his head. “They didn’t just want the money back. He wanted you two—and anyone else who knew about it.”
“But why, though?”
Moriarty’s fingers were tapping rapidly against the back of his other hand. “Because it’s evidence,” he said, abruptly.
Aaron exchanged a glance with Hunter, who was just as baffled. “Of what?”
“That’s what we need to find out.”
The firearms training centre for the Metropolitan Police Service was a complex of low, beige buildings along a barely-paved country road in Gravesend.
Sebastian had rented a motorcycle; tailing someone out here on foot would be nearly impossible, and he needed more manoeuvrability than a car would give him. He’d parked the bike on the shoulder of the road, under the scant cover provided by a row of trees; so far, none of the few cars passing by had questioned his presence there.
Police in London weren’t allowed to just carry guns whenever they liked. They were only permitted firearms in specific scenarios, and there were procedures that had to take place before anyone could even lay hands on a weapon—procedures that the pair from last night almost certainly hadn’t followed.
Therefore, they had to have acquired the guns some other way.
These days, the Met’s personnel data was handled by a private contractor. Said contractor’s user portal featured a password recovery system that Jay had found disappointingly easy to brute-force; he’d put together a list of everyone in the service who had firearms access, then begun poking through their lives using the Different backup archive.
Preston Bradshaw, an instructor at the training centre, had a booking receipt in his emails for a two-week holiday at a pricey resort in Mallorca.
“Have you beat the bushes yet?” Sebastian asked aloud.
“I’ve been sending him texts all morning,” Jay replied, through Sebastian’s earpiece. “Let’s see what that gets us.”
As noon rolled around, there was movement at the facility’s front gates. The training centre had its own canteen, but some of the staff and trainees evidently found it unsatisfactory; a few cars exited the car park, making their way up the road toward Gravesend proper.
One of them had a number plate matching the one Jay had found on file, registered to Preston Bradshaw.
“Bradshaw’s on his way out,” Sebastian said. He fired up the bike and followed the car at a discreet distance.
Bradshaw wasn’t going far; barely a minute later, the car turned into the neighbouring dockyard. There was a pub near the river—a big building with several extensions tacked on over the years, whitewash flaking off the walls and rust stains under the gutters. Bradshaw parked his car outside and made his way in.
Sebastian waited about a minute or so, for discretion’s sake, then dismounted the bike and followed Bradshaw inside. The pub didn’t look to have been significantly redecorated in the past thirty years; the thin, faded carpet was still stained with cigarette smoke, and everything else was either chipped stucco or over-varnished hardwood. Through the pub’s front windows, Sebastian could see a patio looking out over the riverbank; Bradshaw was out there, sitting across from a familiar face.
“Bradshaw is meeting with one of the coppers from last night,” Sebastian reported quietly. It was the one who’d inspected the bag; Sebastian had only seen him through the rifle’s scope, and he probably hadn’t been seen in turn, but still … “Can’t get too close.”
“Try to stay within ten metres.”
Sebastian settled into a seat by the window—putting his back to it, just in case. As he perused the pub’s creased, laminated menu, the sound of typing rattled in his ear.
“I’m picking up three other phones in range,” Jay finally said. “Two of them look like police issue. Is there anyone else in there with you?”
The pub was more or less empty this early into the lunch hour; the barman was about a hundred years old, and Sebastian risked a guess that he wasn’t in the habit of carrying a smartphone. “It’s just me and them.”
“Someone’s got a second phone, then.” More typing came down the line.
The barman had started giving Sebastian the occasional expectant glance; Sebastian pulled out his phone and checked his texts, projecting the air of someone whose lunch date was running late. “What are you doing?” he asked under his breath.
“Convincing the third phone that your phone is actually a shiny new Bluetooth keyboard.” Jay made a wordless noise of triumph. “There we are. Let me just patch the audio through—”
“—saying they knew about the guns,” said a new voice in Sebastian’s ear. He risked a glance over his shoulder; it was Bradshaw.
“Just texts?” said a second voice—the other man at the table. “No phone calls? Nobody coming to see you in person?”
“Just texts, yeah, but—”
“Let me see.” There was a pause, and then the other man said, “You recognise this number?”
“No. You can track it, right?”
“I’ll look into it.”
“That’s it? What about—?”
“If they actually had anything, they’d have sent someone to question you,” the other man interrupted. “They wouldn’t be sending texts. It’s just a prank.”
There was a moment or two of contemplative quiet, and then Bradshaw said, soft and worried, “I heard on the radio there were shots fired up in Dagenham.”
“That’s nothing you need to worry about.”
“Come off it, Jones,” Bradshaw snapped. “You told me you just needed those guns to be safe. You said you weren’t going to shoot anybody.”
“So,” Sebastian wondered aloud, “how many men in the Met do you reckon are named ‘Jones’?”
There was a brief clatter of typing from Jay’s end of the call, followed by a noise of utter frustrated disgust.
Meanwhile, the man—Jones—was saying, “Nobody was shot, Bradshaw. Things just got out of hand.”
“If you dropped a body, and anyone finds out I gave you the guns—”
“The only way they’d find out is if you told them.” After a breath, Jones added, “Or we did.”
There was a long, meaningful silence.
“All right,” Bradshaw finally said, in a cowed voice. “Just—be careful, all right?”
“Always.”
A shuffling noise prompted Sebastian to risk another glance at the window. Jones was on his way out; Sebastian kept his head down as the man passed, only looking up once the door closed behind him.
Through the audio feed came the sound of a car door opening, then closing again—followed by the rumble of an engine starting.
“Which one just left?” Jay asked.
“Jones.”
Jay made a pleased noise. “I’ll keep listening in. You on your way back?”
Sebastian set the menu aside with no small amount of relief. “Yeah.”
Chapter 3 of “The Safecrackers’ Take” will be published on November 2! To get it delivered directly to your inbox, subscribe here:
… And if that’s too long to wait, you can also get the completed story as an ebook.
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