What Would You Say

Part Three

“I’m sorry, what?” Josh demands into his mobile, climbing out of his glossy red Mercedes-Benz.

“I’m tellin’ ya, boss, that a group of magicians robbed the national bank of Switzerland this evening,” Sandy, his lieutenant and also the chief of field officers insists into the receiver.

Josh rolls his eyes.  In his five years of detective work in Dublin, this has to be the most pretentious and blasphemous thing he has ever heard. “Magicians pull bunnies out of their hats, not go ‘round robbing banks.”

“But these ones did.  They called up some bloke from the audience, asked him about his bank and bam, transported him to Geneva and nicked the two million right under his nose.”

The detective scoffs. “That’s mental, mate.  Okay, I’m getting on the lift now.  Arrest those magicians so that we can interrogate them, then.”

“Already on it, boss.”

♠

“This doesn’t make any damn sense,” Josh mutters, replaying the taped performance of this group of magicians who are calling themselves One Direction.

“Shame, since I was hoping that you could tell us what to do.” Jon, his the second-in-command to Officer Beales jokes.

“The vent could not have connected Geneva to Dublin; that’s geographically impossible.  The money arrived within seconds,” Josh muses.

“Two million of ‘em,” Sandy quips.

“Two point six, actually,” a new voice corrects.

The three men turn to face the new voice.  The sharp feminine voice belongs to a pretty girl with dark hair pulled into a tight bun and icy blue-tinged green eyes.  It’s shadowed with a heavy southern France accent, giving her a falsified sweet tone at first.

“Agent Caron, from the Interpol,” she introduces herself. “The official reports say that Monsieur Leclerc has lost two point six million Euros after the magic show, not taking into account the money he had gambled away in the casino fifty miles away from the theatre.”

“That’s just brilliant.  And have you any lead to this? We should interview the victim.”

“Which would be useless,” Caron interjects.

“Dublin is my city; we do things my way.”

They make their way to the interview rooms.  The entire time, Caron wears a smug smile that Jon and Sandy wants to question but doesn’t for the sake of their arses.

“Monsieur Leclerc,” Josh greets. “I understand that you have been robbed by a group of magicians.”

The middle-aged man’s eyes are slightly dilated, cheeks flushed. “It was magique.  A real one!”

Caron smirks. “As you can see, our main witness is absolutely convinced that what has happened tonight is real magic.  He won’t be much a use seeing that he won’t state otherwise.  Shall we move on to the perpetrators?”