Chapter 21

“At a guess, they are fetching heavy items; probably crankshafts, so we’ll wait for your men be ore we open the door.”

“You believe you know what they are aiming to filch?”

“It is a guess by me, but based on past information, probably on target. We’ll see if I am right.”

“They won’t run away with their stolen items, then?”

“Too heavy to even walk fast with the goods, if I am right. If they try to get away, they will just run for it, as they are on foot. They should have brought a cart to load their loot on! Just bring them down, any way you can.”

I could just about make out his grin as he thought about tackling them. He commented, “Most of our work is boring, so grabbing them could be fun!”

As he spoke we heard the soft purring of a quiet diesel, and his standby squad pulled up beside us; no normal headlights at all. He quickly briefed them, and looked back at me.

“Okay to go in now, Mr Hargreaves?”

“Sure. I’ll stay at the door to watch for any attempted escape. Go ahead!”

The men flung open the damaged door and rushed inside. They switched on what turned out to be several large floodlight torches, casting bright light in every direction.

“Stop what you are doing and come forward!” their leader called out. “You cannot escape, and we are prepared to use force if you don’t come quietly!”

There was a sudden hush as they and the intruders halted to think about this. I could imagine them casting about for another exit, but there wasn’t one other than the main hangar doors, and they had no control over them; the power wasn’t on, I thought. I stepped over to the power board and made certain the power to the main doors was off. It was.

After a long pause, our lead man announced again, “This door is the only way out, and we have it well covered. The cops are also arriving in a couple of minutes, so if you don’t want to face their guns, giving yourselves up now will make it easier for you. Attempted robbery is much less of an offense than resisting arrest.”

There was an anxious muttering in the background, and then a querulous voice called out, “You won’t shoot at us?”

“We won’t harm you at all, if you just walk out to us with your hands open, so we can see you don’t have a weapon.”

He was careful to say nothing about our men not having guns; a wise move.

After another pause, one man slowly came forward, hands towards the roof. Our leader, hand in his pocket as if holding a gun, demanded, “There are three of you. Where’s the rest?”

“I came to check that you will act as you said. If I am unharmed, they will follow me.”

“Good judgment, then. My colleague will pat you down first, to make sure you are not packing.”

This done, the man was urged to call in his fellows, and he did so, “Come on in, they appear to be genuine about not harming us.”

The other two cautiously shuffled forward to join him, and I looked at them curiously. None looked like anything special, so I asked them, “Where you sent to find anything in particular?”

They looked embarrassed, “Yeah,” said their leader sheepishly. “A crankshaft, of all things! All that we could find of a particular model.”

Our own security boss shot a quick look at me before replying, “Yeah, we thought that was what you were after. Damn heavy, if you ask me.”

“You’re telling me! We managed to get them down to floor level, and were wondering how we could move them to the door, when you folk arrived heavy-handed. How did you know what we came for?”

I was left to answer.

“Someone was looking for this particular model, and queried our database online, but did nothing more. We knew a criminal had an interest in this item, so we were on the lookout for an attempt to steal it. There are three of them in there, as you have found. You’d have a real problem shifting all three from here to wherever you left your transport, for you were on foot when you climbed the perimeter fence. How you expected to get these crankshafts over the fence beats me. You should have carried a cart or something, even if you had to lift it over the fence. You see, you guys were tracked the whole way here, then when you forced the door, that was the trigger to move in on you. You never had a chance.”

As I spoke, we were illuminated by bright headlights from the police cruisers closing in on us. Our security leader declared, “Here come the cops, all lights blazing, once the excitement is over!”

The cops did what cops did: appeared with drawn guns, and demanded statements from all of us to clarify the situation; and so rather than standing outside or moving to a police house miles away, I invited the cops to do their interviews inside the hangar, or rather, Warehouse One.

“If we move inside, gentlemen, we can have the lights on, be out of the wind and have a bit of comfort for your chat with our intruders. They may be willing to tell their story without any strong persuasion, officers. They seemed to have been suckered into this job, themselves.”

My prediction proved accurate, and the police interviews proceeded apace. I fetched several chairs so all the participants could sit. Two cops questioned the culprits, while another took statements from those of us who were on-the-spot witnesses. I admitted to representing the owners, and being resident about half a mile from the hangar.

I thought about how long this could take, and offered to bring coffee from my house for everyone. I had given my statement, so this offer was accepted, so I drove back home and roused Sharl.

As she groggily asked what was up, I told her, “Throw on some clothes and make coffee for about a dozen men. We have thirsty guys over at Warehouse One: burglers, security, and cops.”

As she started to get dressed, I filled the percolator full with water, tossed sufficient ground coffee into the machine, and switched it on. Sharl appeared moments later and fished mugs out of the cabinet where they were kept and shoved them in a large plastic carrier.

“There are fifteen mugs in there; that should do you,” she said. “I need to get dressed, so you can take them over to the warehouse.”

She thanked me for starting the machine into operation, saying, “Do you need more, so that second helpings can be available?”

“Good idea. Let’s do that,” so she started our second percolator while the first was brewing. When the first was fully brewed, I poured it into two vacuum flasks and said I would drive back to the warehouse with the bag of mugs.

Sharl told me, “Do that right away. As soon as the second lot is ready, I’ll bring it over in the other auto. I think we have a couple more flasks in storage. Remember to take a carton of milk with you, Jimmy, and a few spoons for stirring. Do any take sugar?”

“Don’t know,” I admitted.

“Grab the sugar pot and take it as well. Off you go now.”

I retreated to my vehicle and drove back to the warehouse. When I got there, I dragooned a couple of the security team to carry in the flasks of coffee, the milk and the sugar, while I carried in the mugs, and we could make a start on dispensing the drinks.

The cops expressed their thanks for the hot drinks, so I told them, “My wife is coming with a refill when ready, if anyone wants more. Oh, and by the way, the john is over there,” I said, pointing in the relevant direction. I knew that when the interior lighting was on, so was the sign above the door to the restroom.

By now the initial statements had been taken, and the cops were writing it down formally for the miscreants to sign. The boss cop asked me, “It seems you knew their target items. That is unusual, sir.”

I indicated that was so, and explained.

“When we got all our most recent stock purchases back here, we surmised that a thief had disguised some of his loot as a crankshaft. We had bought everything that was on the storage shelves when we cleared that business of shelving. We had found what appeared to be loot disguised as a crankshaft, we were not certain of all this, but could not identify in any way the perpetrator or original owner so could not take it further, and accepted it as one of the benefits of business deals. We guessed the possible thief might try to recover his loot sometime, if that is what it was, so that was why I guessed at their target tonight. I was lucky, that is all.”

“And what about the loot?” the cop persisted.

“Only presumed loot, for we had no evidence of where it came from originally. It became the property of our Group, as we legally purchased all the stock there. There was no way of identifying it as belonging to anyone, so no means of handing it back. We suspected it was a result of embezzlement, so even less identifiable; not provable loot and so no provable crime, officer.”

“You never thought of getting us to look into it?”

“No point: no available suspect, not identifiable as loot, no identifiable person who might have lost it; no nothing in fact, so we saw no point in wasting the time of the local cops where it came from.”

“It was not local to here?”

“Nope; a goodly distance from your area of operations. We buy all over the place; wherever we can can find a good deal.”

“Oh. That’s all right, then,” he reluctantly came out with. “So you wouldn’t recognise the name of the guy who sent them here?”

“Not in the slightest;the proverbial John Doe to us. He might or might not be the original thief, but I wouldn’t know him to see or by name. The criminal was probably an employee of the bust company we bought the stuff from, but I don’t even know if the staff records were kept after the business closed. All you can accuse him of is masterminding this attempted burglary.”

“Not just attempted, sir. The forced entry was enough to categorise this as a burglary in this state. These guys are facing at least a year in prison, but might get a lesser sentence for giving us their boss who got ‘em to break in.”

“Oh. I’m no lawyer so I wouldn’t know. Ah, here is my wife with the extra coffee.”

Sharl drew up in the car used by the girls, and stepped out gingerly to hand me the second vacuum flask. “Here you are, Jimmy. What was going on here?”

“A break-in, Sharl, but the perpetrators were apprehended thanks to our alert security team. Care to offer seconds to those that want it?”

She went around, offering more coffee, and a good few took up her offer, including the culprits who realised they were heading for prison. Their eyes all admired her lovely blossoming body as they thanked her for the hot drinks.

One of the cops eyed Sharl keenly and asked, “Expecting a child, ma’am?”

“I am. Jimmy and I are looking forward to becoming parents.”

She got a few more words of congratulation after that exchange, then I took a close look at the damaged warehouse door. The security boss watching me suggested, “We have a regular repair man on call who fixes doors damaged like this. Want me to call him in? We can secure it temporarily, and he’ll be along in the morning to see what needs doing.”

“That will be fine, my friend. Go ahead please. I’ll have to report the break-in to my own boss in the morning for him to report it to our insurers, so it is time I got back to bed and caught up with my sleep.”

I thanked the cops for coming out here so speedily and dealing with the resulting paperwork; then I thanked our own security men for their efficient efforts tonight.

“I’ll be off home now and get caught up with my beauty sleep,” I announced to the security team. “Leave the mugs, vacuum flasks and all the rest here by the door, gents. One of our family will collect them in the morning.”

Sharl and I drove home and parked outside our front door. After securing the autos, we unlocked the door and made our way back to our beds; each of us was alone this night, thankfully. I kissed her with some passion as I thanked her for her help.

“Can I leave you to sort out picking up of all the bits and pieces from the warehouse, darling?”

“I’ll deal with that, Jimmy. Sleeping time, now. You’ve been up much longer than me.”

I crashed as soon as I got undressed and into bed, and never noticed the girl beside me. She shrugged, turned over and settled herself when I simply dropped off to oblivious sleep.

I was still unconscious when Marjory came to wake me, as I had failed to hear my alarm. She walked in, saying, “Jimmy, why are you not up yet?”

“Uhhh ... what?” I said groggily.

“What’s up with you, Jimmy? Have you been fucking half the night?”

Her voice woke my sleeping companion whom I had not noticed yet, and she stuck her head out from under the bedclothes. Marjory gaped.

“Isabella? Was it you? Have you been keeping Jimmy awake during the night?”

Isabella scowled, “I should be so lucky! I sneaked in while he was out of his room, and when he finally got back, he collapsed and fell asleep without even noticing I was here. I am unfortunately still a virgin, Marjory.”

“What a shame, Isabella. That doesn’t explain Jimmy’s condition. Jimmy?”

“Sorry, girls. I was called out by security in the middle of the night when they spotted intruders breaking in to the base. We finally apprehended them at Warehouse One, and then the cops arrived, and they needed evidence statements from all of us. Sharl kept us supplied with coffee throughout the interrogations, but when I got home I just wanted to sleep. I didn’t notice anyone else was in my bed. Sorry about that, Isabella.”

Marjory was all business.

“In that case, you had better phone the office and say we’ll be late in today, and tell them about the overnight disturbance at the warehouse. I can get one of the girls to run me in and just be a little late, but you are going to take some time to wake up properly and get a decent breakfast inside you, my man.”

Isabella offered, “I can go and get Mom’s phone, and you can use that, Jimmy.”

She got out of bed and rushed out of the room, still naked; but that didn’t matter in this house. She was back in a couple of minutes and thrust the mobile phone into my hands.

“Thanks, Isabella. Please sit beside me while I call.”

She settled her lovely body next to my naked self, and I slung my left arm round her and tugged her close enough to hold her left tit, while I used my right hand to phone. I got Marjory to dial for me, then spoke to whoever replied.

“This is Mr Hargreaves. Please tell Mr Emerson that I will be late in today, due to a breakin at our Warehouse One during the night. I will give him a full report when I finally get there.”

The man’s voice promised to make a note of that, and I realised this was the night security man at the Group offices. He never normally left until the first of the day staff arrived. I thanked him and told him that Madge the Head Receptionist would be slightly delayed as I could not transport her into the city and someone else would give her a ride to work.

Isabella had tilted her head to lean against my shoulder as I held her, and as I finished the call she turned her face to me, lips pouted for a kiss. I took up the invitation and kissed her tenderly. Marjory sighed, “Young love strikes again,” she murmured appreciatively. “You want him in you, girl?”

Isabella turned to face Marjory as she responded softly.

“Yes, please. I decided last night, so this is my best chance before I fluff it.”

“You will never regret it, Isabella; I didn’t.”

“Will you tell Mom for me, Marjory?”

“Ah, yes, of course; best that way. I’ll just say that you have agreed to be wife to Jimmy. Yes, I’ll do that for you. I’ll also speak to Sharl about you getting Jimmy first tonight as a honeymoon treat.”

She moved off on that errand, while I devoted the rest of my time in bed to showing Isabella slowly and gently that she was loved physically and emotionally. I would be much later getting to work than I thought, but my excuses had been already prepared.

After making gentle and tender love to Isabella, then having breakfast, I at last got dressed for work and drove into town. Sharl had already visited the warehouse and collected the coffee things from last night. When she got back to the house she phoned to tell me that the warehouse staff were jealous, and wondered if they could get that sort of service in future.