Montgomery Steel wasn’t surprised by the verdict, or the sentence. As he watched Jack shuffle from the dock he saw him turn to someone in the crowd. By the tangle of emotions on his face Steel knew it would be Jack’s wife. She was the reason he’d done it. There was no doubt of Jack’s guilt, or that of the other five offenders. Each of them had played an active part in the robbery and their sentencing had been based on their involvement in the crime.
Rachel was given the heftiest sentence: ten years. That’s what you get for threatening people with guns, even if they were fake. The jury couldn’t see what Rachel had done, on account of the paint all over the camera lens, but the security cameras’ sound recording still worked fine. And there was no mistaking her voice threatening the bank staff. So even with the most expensive legal team, there was nothing they could do to save her.
The trial was incredibly brief; ample evidence did that.
A pretty blonde woman in the row in front of Steel turned to him. When she smiled he knew what was coming.
“Would you like to comment on the missing money, Superintendent Steel?”
“Bugger off.” Steel smiled back at her. His life and career had been in turmoil since the robbery and he was sick of the never-ending accusations from the media about the missing funds. The smile fell from her face and she turned back to the front of the courtroom.
He felt Eden’s glare and turned to him.
“That was a bit rough.” Eden’s lip twitched as he attempted a stern look at Steel.
“Need to be. These damn reporters are like leeches. Give them even a whiff of blood and they latch on.” Steel said it loud enough for the woman to hear.
“Still a bit rough.” Steel felt like he was being admonished by his mother.
Internal Affairs were like leeches, too. They’d been all over his arse about the way he handled the operation. Especially as he was the only member of the squad who couldn’t prove his whereabouts from the moment he left the police station until he met Eden at the front of the boatshed before the bust. Eden had been the only one who solidly backed him up.
Even Thomas seemed to be doubting him. And that was a hell of a thing, given their history together. Steel was grateful that Eden had stood by his side. He just hoped this wretched case didn’t put a blight on his unblemished career.
To him it was blatantly obvious who had taken the money: Tiffany Black. They now knew it wasn’t her real name. In fact, there was very little he did know about her. The woman was an enigma. Her driver’s licence had turned out to be stolen. The real Tiffany Black was such a fruit loop she had no idea it was even missing. So the part of the story about living next to the robbers was a lie. And for the life of him, Steel couldn’t make the pieces fit together.
It was still hard to believe they had all fallen for the story. But then again, most of it had turned out to be true. A bank had been robbed during the Melbourne Cup. The crew had returned to the boatshed as expected. But the rest was the stuff only gangster movies were made of. Not in a million years could they have predicted what went down.
The six offenders about to spend their first night in jail as convicted felons had nothing to show for the robbery. And none of them seemed to have any idea who the real mastermind was. They all blamed each other.
Steel might never find out where the fake Tiffany Black came from.
But he had every intention of figuring out where she’d gone.