Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
“Thank you, sir,” Jonny said to the retreating customer. He looked down, finalizing the notes to ensure all the details were correct.
“Jon?”
He lifted his head, ready to help one of the delivery men who had called his name, his jaw tightening when he saw why the man had called him.
“You have company,” the delivery man finished, a worried look on his face as Inspector Finch and another policeman entered the office behind him.
Jonny sighed, lifting his cap and running his hand through his hair. He’d had a feeling they were coming for him. He just hadn’t expected it to be so soon.
“It’s all right, Fred,” he said to the man. “Can you do me a favor? Find Fawkes and tell him that I had an emergency and had to leave.”
“Should I tell him…” his eyes flicked over to Finch, who had nearly reached them.
“Up to you, Fred,” he said, not wanting to ask the man to lie. Fred’s lips tightened, but he nodded his head with a measure of respect.
“Inspector Finch,” Jonny said, rounding his desk to greet the officer. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“We need you to come down to the station,” Inspector Finch said, his expression nearly apologetic.
“Care to tell me why?”
“We’ve found evidence to tie you to the theft of Lady Harcourt’s jewels.”
“Of course you did,” Jonny said with a tight smile. “Let’s go, then.”
The other officer extended his handcuffs, and Jonny stared him down before turning to Finch.
“Those aren’t necessary, are they?” he said, lifting a brow. “I’ll be no trouble.”
Finch paused a moment before he nodded. “Put them away, Knightly,” he instructed the other officer, who looked conflicted but did as he was told.
Jonny walked out of the shipping office with the police officers on either side of him as though they were walking him down the aisle of his wedding.
He inwardly cursed. All he had worked toward, everything he had done to build a respectable life, to leave the stain of his past behind, was being erased with one walk to the police wagon.
As they rode to the station, he tried to think of how he could possibly explain his way out of this. Of course, Sharpe and Will had set him up. But how could he prove it? Finch knew his history, and he’d always be a suspect.
In the station Jonny had come to know so well from when he had prepared to rob it, Finch led him into a small room, bare but for a table with a chair on each side.
Finch let him wait a few minutes, likely to make him sweat, until he finally entered, sitting heavily in the wooden seat across from Jonny, concern — or suspicion — etched into the lines of his weathered face.
Jonny’s jaw clenched as Finch sat there, staring him down, the injustice eating away at him. All he had done to overcome his past, and none of it mattered anymore.
The flimsy wooden chair creaked beneath Jonny’s weight as he shifted.
At least he didn’t have manacles biting into his wrists.
Still, he was fighting every urge to push out of the chair and flee from this room, this station.
He hadn't felt this trapped or powerless, since his days working the docks under Blackwood's fist.
"You were seen leaving the card room shortly before Lady Harcourt discovered her jewels missing," Finch finally said, his tone deceptively mild. "Care to explain yourself?"
Jonny met the inspector's gaze steadily. "I had to meet someone. You can ask my friends. They will tell you that I was watching the time.”
“That’s good,” Finch said, actually looking relieved. “Tell us who it is, and we can verify where you were.”
“I cannot tell you,” Jonny said calmly, staring at Finch.
“Just why not?”
“I was with a woman. I can’t share her name. If word got out, it would destroy much of her life.”
“I see,” Finch said, glancing down at his notes. “Wouldn’t be Miss Jones, would it?”
“I never said that,” Jonny countered, his gaze hardening.
“No, you didn’t, but it seems fairly convenient to me, considering the eight of you banded together against Blackwood last year.”
“You will not question Miss Jones because of me,” Jonny said firmly, his nostrils flaring, hot anger burning in his chest.
Ada had become one thing in his life that actually meant something, even if he would never admit it to anyone, most especially her.
And now Finch, because of Sharpe and Will, was ruining that for him, twisting it into something wicked.
“I believe I can question who I want, Mr. Tate,” Finch said mildly.
“I am telling you the truth," Jonny ground out. "I had nothing to do with this robbery."
"Then how do you explain this?" Finch reached into a folder and withdrew a monogrammed handkerchief – the initials J.T. embroidered on the corner. His mother had given it to him. "Found in Lady Harcourt's bedchamber. Yours, is it not?"
Jonny stared at the damning scrap of fabric. It was his, but it was old, hardly ever used. He did, however, have an idea how it ended up there. He had predicted this. He was being set up.
Will's face with his knowing smirk flashed through his thoughts. He would never have thought that Will would stoop so low, especially against him. How far they had fallen from who they had been as boys.
"I'm being set up," Jonny said tightly. "I've made enemies trying to leave my old life behind." He shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not sure what else to tell you.”
Finch leaned back, eyebrows raised. "Those are bold accusations, Mr. Tate. I hope you have more than conjecture to back them up."
Frustration burned like acid in Jonny's throat. He was a fool to think the police would actually listen to him. In their eyes, he'd always be guilty. He did have evidence, but unlike his brother, he would never stoop so low as to blame him, to bring the police into the business that should have remained between the two of them. This wasn’t how he dealt with things. Besides, he had discovered the hard way that the police couldn’t be trusted. Best to manage things his own way.
The door swung open, and Knightley poked his head in. "Sir, there's a young lady here demanding to speak with you. Says it's urgent, about the Harcourt case."
Finch sighed heavily. "Very well. We're not finished, Tate, but I’ll release you for today. Don’t go anywhere outside of Manchester.”
“I do play football,” Jonny said. They weren’t scheduled to play away for a few weeks — and only if they won their next game — but it could still prove to be a problem.
Finch shrugged. “You’d better hope we figure this out soon, then."
Jonny nodded, following Knightly out the back door of the station, his thoughts spiralling as he stepped outside, taking a huge inhale of the fresh air that greeted him. The sky had darkened, and his pocket watch confirmed his fears — practice was nearly over. He had missed it. Again.
He sprinted down the street toward the field, lungs burning, praying that he could still salvage something of the day.
He wasn’t sure he would have a job after today. He couldn’t have football taken away from him, too.
But the moment he arrived, disheveled and out of breath, his teammates' glares cut like knives. Rhys stepped forward, frustration radiating off him.
"Where the hell have you been, Tate?" he growled. "You missed the whole damn practice."
Jonny swallowed hard, shame and frustration welling in his throat. He wanted to tell them what had happened, that the police had come, but how could he do so without revealing his entire sordid past, including his ties to Blackwood, Sharpe, and Will?
He didn’t want to involve his teammates with all he had been through. Even men who claimed to be like family wouldn’t understand.
“Something came up. Something I couldn’t get out of, no matter how I tried."
"Best save it," Colin cut in with a sigh, shaking his head, softening his words by patting Jonny’s shoulder. "We've heard it before, Jon. Thought you'd changed, but maybe we were wrong."
The gentle accusation stung worse than any blow. They still didn't trust him, even after everything. Would he ever outrun his past?
“Rhys, wait up,” Tommy said, looking back at Jonny as he ran after the captain, pleading Jonny’s case.
Jonny appreciated it, but he could also tell when he was no longer wanted, and he saw himself off the field, done with the team.
What were all those words Rhys had said worth if they didn’t back him when times got tough, if they refused to believe in him?
Despair settled like a stone in his gut as he trudged home, the future he'd fought for slipping through his fingers. He had just settled in when a knock sounded on the door, one he almost missed while lost in the fog of his own bleak thoughts.
"Mr. Tate?" a timid voice called. Jonny wrenched open the door to find Knightley, the young constable shifting nervously on his doorstep.
"What now?" Jonny snapped, in no mood for more harassment.
"Inspector Finch sent me, sir. To tell you... Well, seems a Miss Jones came to the station. Told the Inspector you were with her. At the time of the theft."
Jonny blinked, stunned. Ada had... vouched for him? Put her own reputation on the line, for him? His heart warmed for a moment that someone he cared for — even if he had never shared that with her — had done something for him, despite what that might mean for her own life.
"She also mentioned a Mr. Sharpe and a Will Tate being involved somehow. Finch wanted you to know he’s looking into it, and if you have any more information, to come see him.”
The warmth that had flickered to life quickly surged into hot anger.
Ada had tried to help him, yes, but at what expense?
He had told her not to say anything, and now she was providing the police with information he had no wish to share.
If he had wanted Finch to know about his brother and his ties to Sharpe, he would have told him. He didn’t need Ada to do that.
Rationally, somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that she was only trying to help him, that any anger directed toward her was misplaced.
But at the moment, there was nothing he could do to stop it.
“I have nothing more to say to Sharpe,” he said, before taking a step back and slamming the door on the young constable, who was just doing his job, but was representing all of what Jonny currently wanted as far from him as possible.
He retreated to the far side of his small quarters, finding his boxing gloves as he considered the only way to get this anger out was to go and take someone on for a couple of rounds. He was stuffing them into a bag when there was another knock.
He wrenched the door open again, already telling the constable what he thought. “I told you, I’m done—” he snapped, his words stopping when he saw who was on the other side.
“What are you doing here?” he bit out.
“I need to talk to you,” Ada said, her eyes wide as she took him in, obviously sensing something was wrong. “It’s about Finch and the robbery and—”
“Oh, I know,” he said sharply. “I heard all about what you told Finch.”
“Good,” she said, the concerned look dropping from her face. “Then you know I told him the truth. You cannot be accused of this. I thought about it all night, tossing and turning, and then when Emmaline told me you weren’t at practice again, somehow, I just knew that you had been blamed. So I—”
He stood there, listening. She had taken matters into her own hands, hadn’t considered what he had wanted.
It was all too much.
Too afraid of saying something he would later regret, he did the only thing he could think of.
He shut the door in her face.