It was hard not to feel a little insulted, after the Doctor had taken away his powers of time travel. He was a Time Agent - he had earned the right to those powers. And yes, alright, he hadn't always used them responsibly. Con-man, thief, criminal - it was quite a CV. But he was changed now. Perhaps, if they had spent a little more time together, the Doctor would have seen that. Hell, he should have known it anyway. The Jack he had abandoned in the year 200100 had not been the same man he had picked up in 1941. And hadn't Jack shown him that he had more sense than to mess with the timelines? He had been to see Rose, but he hadn't spoken to her. He had lived throughout the twentieth century - ageless, immortal - and he hadn't changed anything. Hadn't got in the way when there were several other versions of himself, from several other points of his life, nearby. His Time Agent self; his con-man self; himself with the Doctor, visiting Cardiff - whilst he was living right under his own unknowing feet. But he hadn't interfered; not once. He knew time - hell he was Time - the Doctor had made that clear. 'A fixed point in time and space'; forever unchanging, forever undying. It was weird. It was just a little scary. On the other hand, it had enabled him to save the world on several occasions now; and that was pretty handy. Jack Harkness - defending the world. Emphatically not a liability. Well - not to the timelines, anyway. So it had hurt when the Doctor had taken his powers of time travel away, like some jealous guardian protecting his position as unique. He was a Time Lord. He was, in every sense that mattered to Jack, Jack's CO. Maybe that did give him the right. But it still hurt. On the other hand... he turned the vortex manipulator over in his hands, and smiled at it. At least he knew now that it could be fixed. And it wasn't as though he didn't have plenty of time to work out how.
"Hey Jack." It was Gwen, standing at his office door, jerking him back from his reverie. He glanced up, torn for a moment between past and present - always a jumble in his complicated life - and smiled at her.
"You're early." He slipped the manipulator back onto his wrist, and fastened the old and familiar strap. Some hundred and fifty years, he'd been wearing it. It had lasted well, the way good old 51st century workmanship should - but it wouldn't last forever. Not like him. He'd have to get a new strap for it eventually.
"And you're miles away. I said hello at least twice already." She perched on the edge of his desk. "You okay?"
"Yeah." He flashed her the Harkness grin, designated deadly weapon in six dozen star systems, and leaned back in his chair. "Just thinking. A little brooding is good for the mind."
"I thought you were the new improved Jack. No more moody staring into the middle distance. These last few weeks..."
"What, I make a few more jokes, and suddenly I'm not allowed my brooding anymore? Spoilsport." He jumped to his feet, steering her out of his office, and following her to the communal area where the other desks stood. "So why are you so early?"
"Rhys is away for a couple of days." She shrugged, sitting down at her desk. Ianto appeared as if by magic, with a tray of coffee mugs. "It's strange. I get lonely when he's away."
"And we all gravitate here when we have nowhere better to be." Ianto flashed her a cheerful smile that belied his apparently bitter words, and handed her a mug of coffee.
"Is that Welsh humour, or are you hinting something?" Jack took a mug from the tray, letting his hand linger near Ianto's own. The young Welshman smirked.
"Couldn't possibly say, sir. Anyway, it's just as well you're in, Gwen. Something interesting showed up on the computers overnight. Might bear checking."
"Overnight?" queried Gwen. She knew that Jack lived in the base. Was Ianto staying here too now? His expression was noncommittal.
"We have some good scanners. I have some of them rigged to alert me at home."
"And I already told you - this time it's nothing." Jack reached out for a piece of paper that Ianto had already placed on Gwen's desk. "Plain old pilfering. Let the local force handle it."
"Jack, ordinary pilferers don't take hi-tech electrical equipment like this." Ianto gestured at the paper. "This is specialist stuff. Precision tools, that sort of thing."
"So it was stolen to order." Jack scanned the list of stolen objects. "Call this hi-tech?"
"For most of us, yes." Ianto commandeered the piece of paper, and handed it to Gwen. "This used to be your area. Do you know any local thieves who'd take tools like this?"
"Thieves will take anything. I once got called to a factory break-in where two hundred packets of loo roll got taken." She leaned back in her seat, looking up at the pair of them. "That's life. If it's not nailed down, somebody will nick it."
Ianto raised an eyebrow. "Loo roll?"
"Dusky pink, quilted." She smiled. "It's a glamorous business, thieving."
"See." Jack took the paper back, screwed it into a ball, and tossed it into the nearest wastepaper basket. "Let the cops handle it. It's what you tax payers pay them for."
"I don't know, Jack. This is a high security place that they got taken from. It doesn't look like some opportunist job." Ianto sipped from his own coffee. "You always tell us to be on the alert for things that don't add up."
"And to tell the things that don't from the things that do." Jack sighed. "Look, go feed Myfanwy before the others get in. You know how Owen complains if she drops her food all over the place."
"If you're sure." Ianto glanced over at the waste basket in a fashion that suggested the matter wasn't closed, then set down the tray and headed off, mug in hand, for the food store. It wasn't easy keeping a pterodactyl well fed, and the food store was sizeable to say the least.
"And no sharing your coffee with her," called out Jack, as the younger man departed. "It gives her the jitters. I have to live with that thing."
"I know." Ianto hadn't turned around to speak, but somehow they had both seen him smile; heard it in the tight briskness of his voice. Jack rolled his eyes.
"That boy is developing a rebellious streak."
"I rather think he's always had it." Gwen stood up, going over to the bin and retrieving the piece of paper. "You just inspire it to greater heights. And don't pretend you don't enjoy it."
He grinned - that ten billion gigawatt grin again, that always made her heart do things it shouldn't. "Why Gwen Cooper, I don't know what you mean. And what is it with my staff and that piece of paper this morning? He's hardly shut up about it since dawn, and now you're after it too. It's just a theft."
"And I'm a police officer." She shrugged. "Was a police officer. I have a different perspective to you lot. Especially you." She smoothed the paper out. "Did you ever find anything you did think was weird?"
"Touch?" He gestured vaguely at the paper. "But this isn't weird."
She raised an eyebrow at that. "You seem very sure. Did you steal this stuff, Jack?"
"Me?" He was feigning a fine degree of outrage, though anybody could have seen that it wasn't genuine - even somebody who didn't know that there were all kinds of things that he got up to on the quiet. And the not-so-quiet. He grinned. "Anyway, if I wanted hi-tech engineering tools, I wouldn't need to steal them. I'd just go into the basement. We have some little gizmos from Skaro that fell through the Rift about fifty years ago. Difficult to get the hang of when you've got fingers, but they're better than anything you'll find locally for a whole lot of years."
"That's just showing off." She finished smoothing out the piece of paper, and set it down on top of her 'to do' pile. "I'll ask a few questions. Can't hurt."
"I guess not." He raised his mug in a sort of salute, and took a quick sip. "I hear a cranky pterodactyl. I better go help with breakfast."
"I'll see you later." She couldn't help but laugh as he departed on his errand. Part of her still found the idea of a resident pterodactyl so bizarre, and yet a part of her had long ago accepted it. Settling back in her chair to enjoy her coffee, she let her mind drift. Somehow, it was always good to be here.
"Hey Ianto. You okay?" Setting down his mug on a convenient surface, Jack expertly caught the large joint of bacon that had suddenly become airborne. "Okay, death by bacon was not my favourite breakfast option."
"She's frisky today. And why wouldn't I be okay?" Ianto was struggling with the lid of the special 'sauce' that they used to help their out-of-time house guest identify her food. Jack laughed softly.
"When I came up it looked like you were about to lose your left arm. I know it's not necessarily as useful as the right one, but that's no reason to go feeding it to a pterodactyl." He took away the sauce, added some to the bacon joint, and let the large flying reptile take it from him. She flew up to a low perch with her prize, and sat there glaring at it. "You know, I'm pretty sure we shouldn't be feeding her bacon, anyway."
"You try doing the shopping." Ianto turned to leave, but Jack stopped him. "Jack, I have work to do. This place needs a lot more running than people realise."
"You think I don't know that?" Jack steered him over to the sink. "Raw bacon, Ianto. One of us isn't going to be looking too cheerful if he gets poisoned from storming off without washing his hands." He frowned. "Actually, I don't think either of us would be looking too cheerful. I'm next with the soap." Ianto smiled faintly, and Jack grinned. "Gotcha. Now what's up?"
"You know what's up." Ianto made a big show of washing his hands, and waved them in the air like a child showing its parent. "That theft last night. You know there's something weird about it, but you're just letting it go. Why all the secrets?"
"I don't know that there's anything weird about it. Burglaries happen. Cardiff might not exactly be New York, but it isn't the sticks either. You got criminals, just like everybody else; and they're not all aliens, and they're don't all concern us." Drying his hands, Jack retrieved his coffee mug, keeping one careful eye on the pterodactyl lurking nearby. She had a thing for coffee, though he had never quite worked out why. Whatever the reasons for her fetish, he had lost mugs to her in the past, and he didn't appreciate it. Didn't much appreciate the after-effects, either. Caffeine and sugar did strange things to pterodactyls.
"Secrets. It's always about secrets with you, isn't it." Ianto shook his head, looking distinctly annoyed. "I'm supposed to help you keep this place running, Jack. It's not easy doing that when you're not playing it straight."
"Ianto..."
"No. Look, I don't expect the others to appreciate what I do around here, but I do expect you to. Half of the time they're oblivious to everything but themselves and what they're working on; but you and me, Jack, we see everything in this place. All the day to day stuff they never think about; all the things that lurk beneath the surface. And it's not made any easier when you're not co-operating. I don't understand what makes you tick."
"I'm sorry, okay?" It was clearly not the time to try turning on the flirtation to ease the mood, so instead he tried the businesslike approach. That usually got good results from his young associate too. "Look, it's not about secrets. Sometimes I just have to make executive decisions. It's my job."
"I know your job, Jack. Better than you might think." Ianto had started to walk away, but he paused now, and looked back. "There's something about that robbery that you're not telling me, isn't there. You don't have to tell me what it is, I suppose, but if we honestly have any future running this place as a team - or doing anything else - answer me that much. Honesty. Just occasionally."
"Honesty's a complicated business." Jack could see from the glint in Ianto's eyes that that had not been a well-judged answer. The young man turned away again, beginning to walk back to the office area. Jack sighed, swearing softly but eloquently in a little-known Theorian dialect that he had picked up halfway across the universe. "Ianto, I am way too old to be running after younger men."
"Then don't," came back the answer, with just enough sharpness to spur Jack into action. He caught up with the other man in a second, spinning him around with only the slightest of effort. Ianto was not a small man, but he didn't have Jack's build, or certainly, at this moment, his ready force. For a second he blinked uncertainly into the surprising intensity of Jack's blue eyes; then there was a hand at the back of his head, the eyes were suddenly far, far closer, and he was being kissed, annoyingly well. Annoyingly nicely. When he was free again, could breathe again, he straightened his shoulders into what felt like a suitably haughty posture, and checked that his tie was still neatly aligned.
"Forget about the theft, Ianto," Jack told him. Ianto almost flared up in anger again, but Jack's hand gently touched his own. "I'll tell you all about it. Just not yet, okay?"
"Perhaps." For a second they stood there; the immaculately-suited, resolutely proper young Welshman, and the magnetic, semi-uniformed enigma that had changed the course of his life. Ianto almost wanted to refuse; to make a scene; to demand more than this promise of future gratification - but that simply wasn't his style. Nor was it any way to handle Jack Harkness. Well aware that there was a time for confrontation and a time to back down, Ianto nodded slowly. For a moment his hand moved to tighten around Jack's; then with a taut, cool smile, he turned and walked away.
It was a large house, a little way off the beaten track, with wide, arched windows, and a long, winding drive. Jack climbed over the wrought iron gate, his long coat swinging around him like a cloak when he jumped to the ground on the other side. Centuries-old stone stared down at him as he walked up the path that led to the house; but he turned aside before he reached the main building, and headed off to the left instead. A large garage awaited him, with a 1920s Roadster parked just outside. Jack gave her faded black body a friendly pat as he walked past, then pulled open the doors of the garage and went inside. No cars stood inside; instead a chunky purple and silver spaceship more or less filled the interior. Jack ducked under a stubby wing, and followed the sounds of busy hammering around to the back.
"Hey." He sat down on an upturned beer crate, that looked almost as old as the Roadster parked by the door. After a second the hammering ceased.
"That you, Jack?" A voice, accented in well-spoken English, came faintly from somewhere just inside an engine nacelle. Jack had to smile.
"Expecting anybody else?"
"I rather hope not. It's supposed to be just the two of us who can see past the psi-field." There was the sound of scuffling, before a tall, wiry figure emerged from within the spaceship. "I don't suppose you brought lunch?"
"It's ten o'clock in the morning." Jack leaned back against the wall, arms folded. "What time zone are you on?"
"I don't know. Feels like way past lunchtime." The other man threw down the tool that he was holding, and wandered over to sprawl on a crate next to Jack. "Space lag. It's hell."
"You should try time travel. That can really throw out your body clock." Jack drew in a sharp breath. "Steven--"
"Lecture time, I suppose." With an exaggerated sigh, the other man - Steven - folded his arms. "Go on, then. Get it over with."
"This isn't a joke. I told you I can get you any tools you want; you just need to ask. I've probably got the manufacturers' recommended brand for this thing. Breaking into that warehouse was stupid."
"I'm a 21st century boy, Jack. I do things the 21st century way." Steven glanced over at the purple and silver spaceship, and shrugged. "Well, aside from the spaceship, obviously. I don't like all that futuristic stuff, and the alien stuff that you've always messed about with. It was bad enough having to take all those experimental new tools last night."
"I told you not to steal anything. I look after this town, Steven. It's my responsibility to take care of it. Having you waltz in here and start stealing stuff doesn't help."
"Jack..." Steven reached out, taking one of his companion's hands in his own. "This might be difficult news for you to hear... but I'm a thief. I steal things. It's what I do."
"I know you're a thief." Jack couldn't stop a lazy smile from spreading across his face, as Steven's fingers wrapped themselves around his. "And I don't care about that. What I care about is you stealing things here - especially when you're fool enough to teleport in and out of the place you're stealing things from. I warned you that my team have equipment to check for that kind of energy signature. I'm trying to keep them off this case, but they're not stupid. They're already starting to work things out."
"So let them." Steven idly kissed the fingers that he was holding imprisoned in his own. "What does it matter?"
"You mean aside from them handing you over to the local police, before your ship's ready to fly again? Or them coming here and finding your ship? Or the police finding the ship, which would really take some explaining." Jack eyed his hand, and with a look of faint irritation, rescued it from Steven's lips. "Cut that out. I'm supposed to be angry with you."
"You're not, though." Deprived of Jack's hand, Steven snaked an arm around his guest's shoulders instead. "I'll take the tools back, as soon as I've finished with them. I'll offer to pay for them, if it'll stop you acting like the head man at a killjoy convention."
"You could have bought them anyway," Jack leant in a bit closer, enjoying the casual embrace. "You're loaded."
"Correction - the family estate is worth a bundle, certainly. Several bundles in fact. But I've never touched that, and I don't intend to start now. Besides, it's bound to be all tied up in knots since my father died."
"Oh yeah." Jack offered his companion a gentle smile. "Sorry about that."
"I'm not especially. He wasn't much of a father - and if he knew what we were doing in the master bedroom yesterday evening, he'd do his damnedest to come back to life just to disinherit me. I won't miss him." Steven shrugged. "I know he named me as his heir - oldest son and all that - but with me having been out of the picture all this time, I don't know where the money will be at the moment." He sighed. "Listen to me. Talking about money - and my own, too. Other people's is so much more fun."
"Not in this town. You obey the law here."
"Or?"
"Or I confiscate your ship. I mean it, Steven. My town. My rules. You wanna steal some tools, go some place else."
"Yes sir, captain." For a second they glared at each other, before Steven relaxed at last into a smile. "I can't get used to this. You being on the right side of the law."
"The local police might not agree with you on that. They don't know what to make of me." Jack reached over with one hand, and wiped a smudge of oil from Steven's cheek with his thumb. "It's not about law, anyway. It's about looking after the city. Looking after the planet. Anything alien is my responsibility, and you're here, using alien technology."
"But not to hurt anybody," pointed out Steven. Jack looked disparaging.
"Somebody might see something. What if a security guard sees you on one of your robberies, zapping yourself about the place? It makes my job far easier if the local police aren't stepping on my toes, and I'd rather limit what they know, at least for now." He fixed his companion with a particularly intense stare. "And besides - stealing is wrong."
"Says the guy who stole the Tellurian sun diamond."
Jack shrugged. "I gave it back."
"You sold it back. To the king's daughter. That's not exactly honest."
"Fun, though." Jack's grin burst back into life, growing wider by the second. "I sold it to her for a kiss."
"Seriously? That's not how the story about it goes. The biggest known diamond in the whole of the Medes Galaxy, and you sold it for a kiss?!"
"Well, rather more than a kiss, as it turned out. But that was the original price, yeah." Jack laughed softly. "Hell, I didn't need the money that week. And she was beautiful. And so enjoyably out of bounds..."
"Only Jack Harkness would steal one of the most famous diamonds in the universe, and then sell it to a princess for a kiss." Steven sighed. "And then tell me off for stealing some tools in Cardiff."
"I'm serious about that. You need anything else, you can get it from me. I've got everything you need, and more besides."
"Are we still talking about tools?"
"And people call me incorrigible." Jack's light giggle was more than Steven could resist. He leaned over, kissing the other man hard, then pulled back.
"If we're on opposite sides now, are we still allowed to make out?"
"Are you kidding?" Jack settled into a more comfortable position. "Enemies are much more fun to seduce." They kissed for a moment longer, before he broke off again to add: "Anyway, we're not on opposite sides. Yet."
"But I'm a dastardly thief, and you're... what are you?"
"Insatiable." Jack moved closer for another kiss, but Steven pulled back.
"Seriously. What are you?"
"Oh, I don't know. What do you fancy? Protector of humanity? Defender of the Earth? Or maybe not the last one, 'cause I think that's a cartoon."
"We could dye your hair blond." Steven stifled a giggle. "You'd make a great Flash Gordon."
"You talk too much." They started to kiss again, but it was Jack's turn to pull back this time. "Hang on. Blond?"
"Yeah. And with a bright red lycra suit." Steven began to laugh in earnest this time. "This is hopeless. Stop making me laugh, or we're not going to get anywhere."
"Not sure we're going to get anywhere balanced on a beer crate anyway." Jack shifted his position, less comfortable now that he was taking much of Steven's weight as well as his own. "I'm good, but even I might have limits."
"I do have a bed in the spaceship, you know."
"I know. I remember." Allowing himself to be pulled to his feet, Jack followed his companion towards the hatch that led inside the alien vessel. "Something else I remember, though. Didn't I come here to be angry with you?"
"Yes." Steven closed the hatch, sealing them both inside his little ship. "But I think we both agreed to put that on hold. Didn't we?"
"Probably." Following the other man down the short length of corridor that led to the ship's small cabin, Jack reached out to encircle him in an embrace. "I should forget things more often."
"Uh huh." Steven leaned back against him, and tried to stop his legs from turning completely to jelly when Jack kissed him again. "I'll definitely go along with that."
"Where's Jack?" Striding into the Hub, leather jacket slung over one shoulder, Owen looked about rather irritably for their errant leader. Tosh didn't look away from her computer screens.
"Not in," she said. Owen made a face.
"He's never in lately. I've been in the library half the bloody day reading those articles he wanted summarised. So where is he? I thought he wanted my report."
"I think he's got other things on his mind." Gwen too was staring at a computer screen. Owen scowled.
"Well don't take any bloody notice of me, then." He slouched over to his chair, collapsed into it, then got up again straight away, and went over to Gwen's desk. "What are you doing, anyway?"
"Nothing." She tried to close down her screen, but was too late to prevent him from seeing it.
"That's the floor-plan of the place those tools were stolen from the other night." He laughed, not unpleasantly. "I thought Jack told you to let that drop?"
"He did." She shrugged. "But I'm a police officer, sort of. And it looked interesting."
"Yeah?" He had seen nothing interesting in the tale himself. Stolen tools were not the sort of thing to grab the attention of Doctor Owen Harper. He had nothing better to do just now, though, and anything was more interesting than nothing. "So go on, then. Enlighten me."
"Nobody could work out how he did it - the thief, I mean. The police were totally baffled." Gwen called up some reports on her screen, but they didn't mean much to Owen. "So then Tosh had an idea, and--"
"Tosh?" He looked up, grinning. "You're in on this too? You rebel."
"Funny." She shot him a disparaging look, and he laughed.
"So what was this great idea?"
"A teleport." She said it as though it were obvious - which, he supposed, it was. It was the perfect way to commit a robbery, when you thought about it.
"Nice one," he conceded. She flushed slightly, as she always did when he complimented her.
"I wasn't sure at first," she said, and clicked a few times at her mouse, bringing up a complex series of graphs and readings that he was obviously supposed to admire. He nodded, not really understanding what at.
"Very nice."
"Put him out of his misery, Tosh." Gwen was laughing, and he offered her an eloquent glare.
"I suppose you understand all that stuff?" he asked her. She shook her head.
"Difference is, though, I don't pretend to."
"It's very simple really." Tosh didn't quite understand their lack of comprehension. "Basically it shows certain energy readings. There's always background energy anyway, you know that. Radiation, the local electrical supply, heat from nearby people - all that kind of thing. Well, there were certain spikes, which I isolated, and then set the computer to scan for, in case they were repeated."
"And I take it that they were?" he prompted, when she fell silent. She nodded.
"Last night. At a plant on the outskirts of town."
"And at a plant on the outskirts of town last night..." Gwen's fingers tapped at her keyboard, as she went through a few more police files. "There, you see. A generator was stolen. A big, heavy generator. And there's absolutely no suggestion of how. Nobody saw anything, there's no scuff marks, no sign of a vehicle having been used. You couldn't just walk off with one of those things."
"Teleport, then." Owen nodded, convinced. "Bingo. And what, are we assuming that Jack knows who's responsible?"
"Well, he certainly didn't want us investigating it." Tosh looked troubled. "Not going to have been committing these thefts himself, is he. He'd have no need."
"But if he knows who is doing it, what are his reasons for not wanting us to find out about it?" Gwen leaned back in her chair, wondering for a moment how a fresh mug of coffee had suddenly come to be perched on the edge of her desk. She started, like a guilty child. "Ianto!"
"Busy, are we?" He was eyeing her with a typically unreadable expression. She started to speak, but he shook his head.
"Do you really think I don't know what you've been up to? I know everything that happens in this Hub."
"He's playing teacher's pet again," jeered Owen. Ianto raised an eyebrow.
"You know, I'm remembering the last time we didn't trust Jack. Seems to me that that little escapade ended in us killing him, and then nearly destroying the world. Don't be so bloody flippant, Owen."
"Yeah, alright." Chastened, Owen gestured at the computer screens - at Gwen's police reports, and Tosh's unfathomable streams of data. "But that's nothing like this. This is some thief with alien technology. That's our department, surely."
"I'd have thought so," agreed Gwen. Ianto shook his head.
"Jack must have his reasons for wanting us out of it. He told me he'd explain it all eventually."
"Yeah - when his thief friend has stripped Cardiff bare, and then buggered off back to whatever planet he came from." Owen caught a sharp look from Ianto, and made a face in return. "And don't go looking at me like that. It doesn't exactly look good when our boss is consorting with alien thieves, does it."
"I suppose I can understand him wanting to keep it to himself." Tosh looked a little disconcerted when they all turned to look at her at once. "Well, think about it - we wouldn't be able to turn them over to the police, would we. How would we tell them that the crimes had been committed? Human or alien, it'd probably be a retcon job. And how would you feel if that was a friend of yours? Maybe Jack is just trying to handle this without having to resort to that."
"Makes sense." Owen sat down on the corner of Tosh's desk, as ever either unaware of or unconcerned by the effect that he had on her. "But what are we going to do about it?"
"Nothing," said Ianto firmly. Gwen looked away from him, at the mug of coffee he had left on her desk.
"But what if he's in trouble?" she asked. "After all, whoever is behind these robberies has just stolen a powerful generator. What's he going to do with it? I don't think there's anything wrong with just keeping an eye on the situation, is there? I trust Jack. I trust his judgement. But nobody's infallible, and he hired us all for a reason. It's our job to back him up. Right?"
"True," admitted Ianto. He set down the tray of coffee mugs that he had been carrying, and folded his arms. "Well, go on then. You've obviously discovered something else."
"What makes you say that?" asked Tosh, her turn now to feel like a guilty child.
"Because Ianto knows all," said Owen dryly. "And because we all know that there's no way you identified that teleport energy signature without tracking it to its source."
"Possibly teleport," she corrected him, fetching them both some coffee from Ianto's tray. "We don't know for sure that that's what it is."
"Seems pretty bloody obvious to me." Owen took a long drink of coffee, winced when he realised that it was hotter than he had expected, and swore under his breath. Tosh eyed him disapprovingly.
"Your vocabulary gets worse every day," she told him, and then tried to tell herself that the grin he shot her in answer didn't melt her heart. "Yes, alright. It does seem likely that it's a teleport. I've had the computer working on the problem, and it's not long finished. I was just trying to pull up some records when you came in."
"Records?" asked Gwen. Tosh nodded, warming to her subject.
"The teleport, as I suppose we might as well assume that it is, seems to have originated from a house. Quite an old place, owned by a local family. They're old money, well-to-do types." She tapped at her keyboard, and soon her findings were displayed upon Gwen's screen as well. "They're not a big family now. There's not many of them left. At one time they seem to have been virtually landed gentry."
"Alexander Hope," read Gwen from her screen. "I know that name."
"Not very Welsh," commented Owen. Tosh shrugged.
"Not everybody in Wales is," she pointed out, with a pointed look at his very un-Welsh self. "He married into an old Welsh family, by the look of it. Old money, like I said. He died fairly recently though."
"Yes of course. That's it." Gwen nodded, suddenly remembering. "Back when I was still on the force, just before I met you lot, I was called to a sudden death. Alexander Hope. Heart attack. Rich bloke, lovely old house. His son was there. Charles, I think his name was. Seemed a bit too eager to get his hands on the family money for my liking."
"That's right. Charles Hope." Tosh read on from her screen. "Alexander had twin sons, Charles and Steven. Steven's the older one, but according to this he's been missing for years. Charles has just had him declared dead."
"So he gets to inherit the lot." Owen raised his eyebrows. "Says here that Hope Imports is worth a packet. I bet Charles is pretty anxious to get his hands on that."
"Doesn't sound like something that Jack would be involved with," pointed out Ianto. "And how would stealing a generator help some bloke contest a will?"
"Good question." Tosh leaned back in her chair to concentrate on her coffee, and Owen continued looking through the data on the Hope family that her computer had dragged up. "Maybe we're completely on the wrong track?"
"Could be. It seemed so neat, though." Gwen also turned her attention to her coffee. "Unless with old Alexander dead, somebody else is using the house? Squatters, maybe."
"Squatters with a teleport." Ianto raised an eyebrow. "Different, I suppose."
"Or maybe we were on the right track all the time." Owen tapped the screen in front of him. "Look at this. Steven Hope, heir to the Hope business empire."
"He was nice," said Tosh, in obvious approval. At her own screen, Gwen was nodding.
"I won't argue with that. Very like his brother, but..." She gestured at the photograph. "Well, nice certainly covers it." The picture before her was of a man probably in his thirties, with dark hair and pale blue eyes. He had an angular face with a light dusting of stubble, and his clothes were neat and expensive; a brown suit, the tie loosed, though not enough to look untidy. He was pictured in front of a shelf brimming with books; and at least one of them, Gwen saw, was on electrical engineering.
"Now, I don't claim to be an expert on these things," said Owen, reaching for his coffee with the self-satisfied air of a man who had just made a major breakthrough, "but he certainly looks like he'd grab our good captain's interest. Him being alive and all."
"Not according to his brother," pointed out Tosh, smiling slightly at the man pictured on her screen. It wasn't hard to smile at him. He wasn't as classically good-looking as her boss, perhaps; but it was a face that it was certainly enjoyable to watch. Owen gestured at the screen with his mug.
"He's alive. The bloke's an electrical engineer. Degree from Oxford, according to the file there. Says it all, doesn't it."
"He's right." Gwen scanned the information, more than on familiar ground now. She liked reports like this. They were her lifeblood. "Steven Hope, born October 1965. Educated at Eton and Oxford. Masters degree in electrical engineering. And according to his brother, he disappeared in 2001. Nobody's seen him since."
"And you think he's our thief?" Ianto eyed the screen thoughtfully. "Some of it adds up, I suppose. The stuff about electrical engineering. But what about the brother? And where's he been since 2001?"
"Who cares?" asked Owen. Gwen glared at him.
"I do. And maybe we should find out."
"Ask the brother, you mean?" asked Tosh. Gwen nodded.
"Why not? This is my area. I think I can find us some answers. You coming?"
"Yes. Why not." The other woman rose to her feet, looking quite excited. "If we can find out more about the circumstances of his disappearance, we might be able to find out more about the man himself."
"Or you could just follow the teleport signal to its origin." Owen pointed vaguely at the computer screens, some of which were still showing her indecipherable numbers. "Go to the Hope house. Ask Steven himself."
"No." Ianto shook his head. "Jack might be there. If you're all right about this, Jack could be there with this Steven bloke, and I don't want him knowing that we've been checking up on them. Not yet."
"And besides, it could be dangerous." Tosh pulled on her jacket. "Well, we don't really know anything about him. And if Jack is trying to cover up his crimes, it might not be by choice. It's best to keep things low key for now."
"I guess." Suddenly left with nothing to do, Owen drank his coffee rather disconsolately as the two women headed for the door. "Be careful."
"We will." Gwen slipped a notebook into her pocket, and checked that her warrant card was still in its place. "If Jack comes back..."
"I'll think of something," Ianto told her. She nodded.
"Thanks." A moment later, she and Tosh had gone. Owen heaved a heavy sigh.
"Just you and me, then, Ianto," he muttered to the younger man, but the expected answer didn't come. He turned around. As quiet and as smooth as always, Ianto had disappeared.
Jack headed back towards the Hub in good spirits, his mind on pleasurable things. He had work to do, sure enough - some reports to finish, some phone calls to make, some equipment to overhaul - but nothing desperately urgent. A mug of coffee and some chocolate biscuits would help make the costing report easier to complete; and then with luck he'd be able to read some more of the scrolls that been amongst the latest debris to come through the Rift. A fisherman had found them, advertising them on the internet in an attempt to discover what they were; and Jack had been happy to pay him well for his discovery. The scrolls were a history - in a style similar to the epic poems of Earth's past. The fisherman had had an idea that he had made some great archaeological discovery, and as far as Jack was concerned, he had. It was one that nobody else on Earth would be able to appreciate, perhaps - but then like as not there was nobody else on Earth who could read Astruvian. So far the scrolls were making very good reading, and it was always good to polish up an old skill. Some of Jack's more esoteric intergalactic languages were getting a little rusty.
"Captain Harkness." The voice called out to him just as he neared the Plass, and he felt his senses tingle. There was no threat in the voice; no challenge. Just a note of authority and officialdom. Quite honestly, he would have preferred a threat. He turned around.
"Yeah?"
"We'd like a word, if we may, sir." There were two of them, burly and on the verge of middle-age, their blue uniforms showing signs of wear. Jack had come to know several of the local police officers, especially since becoming friendly with Gwen Cooper, but he didn't know either of these two men. They looked bored and distinctly unimpressed, as though just about anything else would have been preferable to them than being here, now, and with him. He grinned.
"Just the one word, boys? I'm not usually that brief."
"If you'll just come with us, sir." There was a note of strain in the policeman's voice. Jack knew it well. The local police didn't like Torchwood - they didn't understand them, they didn't know what they did. They knew only that they turned up sometimes at crime scenes, took over investigations, and never explained things afterwards. They were loud and flash and most definitely not by the book, and the police didn't know whether to hate them or envy them. Generally they went with both.
"Usually I'm more than happy to accept an invitation from a man in uniform." Pulling off his sunglasses, Jack let his eyes drift up and down the nearest of the two officers, and then raised his brows suggestively. Neither man really appealed just now, but maybe if one of them cracked a smile, he'd be encouraged to reassess his opinion. Neither man's mouth even twitched. He sighed, and put the sunglasses back on.
"You wouldn't rather go for a coffee?" he asked, in one last attempt to make either of them look less stiff. "Tea?" One of them put a large, heavy hand on his shoulder, and began to steer him towards a waiting patrol car. "Hot chocolate?"
"Just get in the car, sir." The second policeman looked even less likely to smile than the first, and Jack could see that now was not the time for more jokes. Either one of the pair looked about ready to reach for their handcuffs, and that sort of thing was definitely no fun. Not under these circumstances, anyway. Obediently, and without further comment, he climbed inside the car.
It was a short drive, followed by a brief wait in a tatty-looking reception room, and a journey up several flights of stairs. One or two hostile stares followed, along with several incredulous ones. He beamed contentedly at the attention. The Jack Harkness grin could have an entertaining effect on police officers - he had learnt that long ago. Those who didn't warm to it tended to steam at the ears and turn interesting shades of puce.
"Well well well. I was half-expecting you to refuse to come here." A female voice, familiar, amused - with just a hint of something like contempt. They had reached the top of the stairs now, and a door stood open off to the right. A woman was in the doorway, arms folded, dark brown eyes fixed solely on the approaching figure of Jack Harkness. Genuinely pleased, he offered her one of his biggest and breeziest smiles.
"Kathy! Suddenly this little detour is looking up. You didn't need to send the bulldogs, though. If I'd known I was on my way to see you, I'd have come over here like a shot."
"Really." She turned around, heading through the doorway. "Come on, then, 'captain'. This way."
"My pleasure." He followed her with a jaunty stride into an open plan office, where several detectives worked at a collection of desks. Hers was off to one side, her name - Det. Katherine Swanson - prominently displayed on a little plate. She seated herself behind the desk, and looked up at her annoyingly nonchalant guest, and at the two uniforms still lingering at his shoulder.
"You need us anymore, Kath?" asked one of them. Jack glanced back over his shoulder.
"Depends what you're offering," he said jauntily. The officer took several seconds to process that, and before he could respond, Jack had turned his back, apparently shutting the pair out completely. The policeman stared for a moment, as though contemplating saying something; then turned around and walked away, his companion at his heels. Jack dropped into the nearest chair.
"Do you like winding up policemen?" asked Swanson. Jack shook his head.
"Not especially. I'm rather fond of guys in uniform, as it happens. And women in uniform. And... anything else that happens to have a uniform. Especially blue ones."
"Really." It was always hard work talking to Jack Harkness. She remembered that all too well. He grinned, he made jokes, he flirted as often as he breathed... She wasn't entirely sure whether he was a pain in the backside, a total idiot, a combination of the two... or something else entirely. She also wasn't sure if she really wanted to find out. He was watching her now, blue eyes sparkling, lazy grin illuminating the face that he knew damn well was attractive. She kept her own expression as level as possible.
"You wanted to see me?" he asked. She raised an eyebrow.
"Not really. But needs must."
"You could ring me up, you know. It's a little more convenient than grabbing me off the street."
"But less entertaining for me." She steepled her fingers, staring at him intently. Heavens above he was weird - and, yet, somehow the weirdness was right. There he was, sprawled in a chair, long, dated RAF coat spread around him like a cloak - and somehow every fold of it, every inch of the material, had contrived to arrange itself to aesthetic perfection. It was almost as if he had it trained. As for the rest - designer sunglasses dangling from one finger, like a movie star posing for the cameras - and a waistcoat and gleaming watch-chain that made him look like he had inadvertently swapped clothes with a nineteenth century professor. Somehow it suited him. More than suited him. Her eyes narrowed.
"Do you always wear fancy dress?"
"Only if the offer's right." His smile remained steady, assured. "Is that why you had me brought in? To discuss fashion tips?"
"No." Her expression hardened. "It's about some recent thefts."
"Not usually my area." He straightened slightly in his chair, though his air of infuriating insouciance remained. She glared.
"You know damn well I don't know what your 'area' really is. For all I know it could be bloody well anything."
"It could." He folded up the sunglasses, and slipped them into a pocket. "Go on."
"Some electrical equipment has disappeared. I don't like to use words like 'inexplicable', but right now I can't think of any others that apply. Especially since this morning."
"Yeah?" This morning had been good. He'd enjoyed this morning. Up early, long before the others were due to arrive for work; off for a run before the streets got too full of people. A leisurely breakfast with only Myfanwy for company, then out to talk to one of his regular contacts; a half-mad old radio ham, who had been listening to alien broadcasts for the last forty years. Jack liked him. He had never once commented on the fact that Jack hadn't aged in all the time that they had known each other; and some of the broadcasts that he had heard had been of great use in the past. Plus he made the best home-made lemonade on the planet. A very good morning, all told. Come to that, it had been a very good day. He really didn't want it being ruined now.
"This morning we got hold of a tape of security camera footage from a recent robbery. It's an old tape, and an old camera, but it shows a man. He seems to appear and disappear out of nowhere. Now I'll grant you that there are frames missing, and I wouldn't want to go showing it to my boss as proof of anything, but it struck me as a little bit weird."
"People disappearing into thin air would be pretty weird, yeah." He smiled on. "Not got much to do with me, though."
"In my experience, most weird things involve Torchwood. At least to some degree." She picked something up off her desk, and looked at it. "It wasn't easy, but we managed to get a picture of him. There's quite a bit of noise on the tape, and he wasn't helpful enough to look straight at the camera, but our people managed to get a headshot anyway." She showed him what she was looking at. It was grainy, and not entirely in focus, but it was clearly a picture of Steven Hope. He showed not so much as a flicker of recognition.
"And?"
"And it's interesting. You see, we did think that this was a local businessman named Charles Hope, but I have a colleague who never forgets a face. Handy talent in this job. And he swears that this is Charles's twin brother, Steven. But you know what's really interesting?"
"Probably not." He was fairly sure she was going to tell him, whatever it was. He wasn't wrong.
"Turns out that this Steven Hope is dead. Has been for years, according to his brother. I think that's interesting, don't you?
"Not really." Steven had looked pretty damned lively when Jack had left him about an hour before, but he saw no reason to mention that. "Dead? Well, I guess that explains how he managed to disappear into thin air, huh. Must be a ghost."
"Not funny." She certainly didn't look amused. "Anyway, that's not all. Because it seems that last night a restaurant reported the attempted use of a cancelled credit card belonging to Steven Hope. And guess who paid the bill when the card was refused?"
"Shirley Bassey," suggested Jack. Kathy smiled.
"Why don't we start again. You want to tell me what's going on, 'Captain' Jack? A series of robberies, and the most likely culprit is a man who hasn't been seen since 2001. A man whose brother has just had him declared legally dead. Why does a man let himself be declared dead, when there's a fortune waiting if he shows up alive? Why does a man with a family fortune need to steal? And why engineering equipment?" She looked almost triumphant. "And what was he doing having dinner yesterday evening with you?"
"I have no idea what the brother is up to - though I'd guess the father's will is a part of it, wouldn't you? And a lot of people have seen Steven since 2001. He just hasn't been around much locally. No great conspiracy there." He smirked. "As for what he was doing with me... there was some very good food, a little dancing, and... well. I'll leave it there. Use your imagination to fill in the rest."
"You and he...?" she asked. He grinned.
"Sleeping with a dead man. Actually that is a crime, come to think of it, isn't it. You got me, Kathy. I'll come quietly."
"I..." She shook her head. "Stop trying to complicate the issue. Where is he stashing all of this stuff? A couple of uniforms checked out the old Hope house earlier, but it was abandoned, they said. Couldn't find any sign of life. Where's he staying? We need to talk to him."
"I have no idea where he is." It wasn't a lie. He certainly had no idea where Steven was at that precise moment.
"And I suppose you have no idea about these thefts, either?"
"I'm not on the robbery squad." He stood up, coat immediately swirling around his ankles, stance effortlessly dramatic. She drew back slightly, with no idea what to expect, watching as he approached. All that he did was to pick up the top file on her desk; and with a brief smile, flip through it. The theft of the tools was listed, now joined by that of a heavy generator. Inwardly he scowled. Confound those light fingers. Clever, pleasurable, extremely dextrous fingers - but confound them anyway.
"Well?" asked Swanson. He stared at the file a moment longer, then dropped it back onto her desk.
"It'll all be returned," he said firmly, and with a sweep of his coat tails that made her feel oddly envious, he strode away across the room.
"Wait!" She was on her feet too now, staring at him across the cluttered office. Her colleagues were looking up, but she ignored them. "You can't just walk off like that."
"Am I under arrest, Kathy?" He toyed with his sunglasses, somehow back in his hand, his voice at once both amused and firm. She hesitated a moment, and then shook her head.
"No. But I want to speak to Steven Hope. You might be good enough to tell him that. It'd look a lot better if he came here willingly."
"I'm sure it would." He flashed her a brief, dazzling grin. "Be seeing you."
"Harkness! Damn it..." But he was gone, faster than she would have thought possible, though his movements had never lost that languid, easy grace. She wasn't going to run after him. Not him. And not in front of so many witnesses. Instead she went over to the window, staring down into the street, watching out for the telltale flash of blue that would be him and his damned showy coat leaving the building. She waited for a long time; far longer that should have been necessary; but she didn't see him. It was though he had simply disappeared.
