Chapter 10

After a few minutes of furiously typing away on the computer, Jack poked his head up from behind the monitor. "I've got something," he announced.

"What's that?" Emily asked. "It appears that only two of the men from those messages work for the company," he answered. "Who are they?" she asked in reply. "Killian O'Doherty and Douglas MacClellan. The other three have no relation to the company at all. Gordon Thorburn does have a record for fraud and theft. He was supposed to do sixteen years for both but got out after eight on good behavior. He's still on probation, but if he isn't the one physically robbing the homes, he'll think we have nothing on him," he explained.

"But if he isn't actually robbing the homes, how can we charge him?" Charlie interjected. "If he has the artwork in his possession, then we have proof that he was in charge of the whole affair and that he was orchestrating it from behind closed doors. We also have the messages between the two and I'm sure if we pulled text message transcripts, we can prove it too. Not to mention, I'm sure with the technology they have nowadays they are recording our phone calls by now," Jack remarked sarcastically.

"What do you mean they record our phone calls? Is that like all of our phone calls? I don't need them hearing what I talk about with other people," Charlie interrogated him, panicked. "Relax, Evans, I'm just jokin' with ya," Jack laughed.

Charlie, who was now the same shade of red as Amelia's sweater, gave a sigh of relief. "Phew, I thought you were serious there for a second. Don't need the government hearin' what I talk about," Charlie laughed, slightly embarrassed.

"Well, what kind of phone conversations are you having," Sophie laughed. Charlie smiled nervously and shrugged as he told her, "I don't know. Maybe I just don't want the government hearing what I tell my mum or my sister."

Sophie gave him a look and replied, "Sure," in a sarcastic tone. Everyone laughed and then turned back to Jack. "So how do the other two fit into the mix?" Emily asked.

"Cunningham and Fitzgerald both have records for petty theft, but nothing this big. Thorburn must've recruited them both as he did the others to help them break into the homes with the systems. By recruiting the two that work for the company he knew he'd have people who knew what they were dealing with. And, by working on the systems on service calls they were able to not only put the devices into the systems, but also see what they were dealing with when it came to the actual break-in," Jack explained.

"And both O'Doherty and MacClellan worked for different offices?" Emily inquired. "Yes, O'Doherty in the Dublin office and MacClellan in the Edinburgh office. However, they both just transferred to the Birmingham office about a month ago," he read from the screen in front of him.

"Good work. Do we have addresses on any of them?" Emily replied. "I'm looking now, but it looks like since they transferred here they must be paying cash for wherever they're staying now. I believe Thorburn is still staying at his listed address because he's on probation still and if he isn't then there's another thing we can stick to him," Jack responded.

"Great. Where is his address? Is it here in England or elsewhere?" she asked. "He's living in Scotland at the moment. I'll call over to local authorities there and have them pick him up and have them see what they can get out of him," he answered. Emily gave a nod of approval and Jack picked up the phone, dialed a number, and put the phone to his ear.

While Jack made the phone calls, Emily gave assignments to the rest of the team. "George and Charlie, I want you two to head down to Fetch Security's Birmingham office and see what information you can get on O'Doherty and MacClellan. Sophie, you talk to Chief Clark and get their photos out there so we can see if anyone knows where they're staying or if they know more information than we know. Amelia, I'm going to get some photos from Jack of all of these men and we're going to head over to the Campbell's and the Moore's to see if these were the men that came to their homes on the day the security company came or if any of them look familiar at all," Emily ordered.

The team took what they needed and headed out on their assignments, while Jack stayed at the office to complete the things he was tasked with doing.

Sophie walked out of the conference room and headed for Chief Clark's office. She walked down the long hallway took a right and headed down a shorter hallway. Once she reached the office door that was marked with the Chief's name, she politely knocked.

"Come in," she heard from the other side of the door. "Hi, Sir. I have some photos of the men we believe are the intruders. Emily asked if you could put them out on the news and such so that the public knows who we're looking for and we might have some better clues as to where they may be or where they may be staying," she explained.

"Oh, good. Let me see those," he replied as he motioned to the pictures in her hands. She handed him the photos and he took a good look at all five of them. "That last one, Gordon Thorburn, might not be in England at all. Jack is calling over to the Edinburgh police to see if they can pick him up. We think he's the leader of the group. These two, O'Doherty and MacClellan, are employees for the security company. O'Doherty was working in the Dublin office and MacClellan in the Edinburgh office but they both transferred within the last month to the Birmingham office. The other two, Fitzgerald and Cunningham, aren't associated with the company at all. They both have been arrested before for petty theft," she told him.

"And how do you know they're all connected?" he asked her. "There are private messages on a fan website for John D. Batten between all of them. It doesn't get into any kind of detail about actually committing the theft itself, but they do mention something along the lines of a 'super collection' which we're assuming is all the artwork from this one collection," she answered.

"Uh huh," he replied as he flipped through the photos another time. "I'll get these to my contact and they'll be all over the next newscast today," he added as he headed back for his desk. "Thank you, Sir," she said before walking out of the room.

Sophie headed back for the conference room to wait for the others to return and to see what else she could help Jack with in the meantime. "Any luck with Thorburn?" she asked Jack as she walked back into the room.

"They said they're going to head by his place and see what they can do," he told her. "Is there anything I can help you with? I already talked to the chief and he's going to do what he can with the photos," she asked.

Jack thought for a minute, thinking of what he could have her help him do. "I have to sift through these text messages, which is quite boring, but if you're up for it, it'd be a big help," he replied. "Sure, I'd rather be helpful than just sitting around," she answered as she rolled a chair over to his desk. Jack handed her a stack of paper which contained printouts of text messages between all five of the suspects.

"I've narrowed down their messages to anything that had to do with artwork or anything that could be used as a code for it. The software only does so much when it comes to this, so we just have to look them over and see if there's any crystal-clear evidence that ties them to the theft," he explained.

Sophie nodded, picked up some of the paper and began skimming the messages. The two sat in silence for over an hour, reading message after message to see what could tie them to the thefts and what messages were irrelevant. After some time, Sophie spoke up. "I think I got something," she declared.

"What's that?" Jack asked. "It says 'deliver the package to the drop off at 1800 three days from today. I will retrieve it and keep it in storage until the time comes.' I'm assuming the package has to do with some of the artwork and the storage, well I'm not sure where he'd be storing them. If he's avoiding getting caught, I'm sure he's not going to store it in his own home, so he must have some secondary location somewhere else," she reported.

Jack took the paper with the message on it from her, highlighted that particular message and put it into a folder separate from the other meaningless papers. The two turned back to their piles and sifted through the rest of the messages, hoping to find more evidence within them.