Criminal Intent: Murder, Mayhem and... Battenberg?

Six

The facility was still busy, alive with the flicker of lights and hum of tired machinery. Some workers sat at their desks still, with half a dozen empty coffee cups littering their work surfaces. Many worked on laptops, but some of the others prefered PC's with the monitors and actual computers. Supervisors trailed up and down the rows, stalking around with grim expressions, peering over shoulders and occasionally dealing out slaps around the back of heads to workers who weren't really working. One of these supervisors was Aleksander Czepiel, who at the moment, was in charge of the master plan. The master plan. Still, this criminal life was so strange to him, even though he'd been at it for at leat half a decade.

The young adult wandered down the next row, his sharp features drawn into a confused look. He squinted his eyes at the screen, leaning over the man's shoulder. At realising what it was, he patted the man on the shoulder.

"Busty Asian Beauties? Might want to close that tab, mate." He gave a half smile, before straightening up and continuing his patrol. Again, he let his thoughts drift. This Beaumont girl... The girl they were receiving. Her sisters had been so eager to hand her over, Mr Sterrett didn't even have to threaten their brother, leaving his presence here unknown to them. Aleksander couldn't help but wonder what she did to deserve such hatred, such neglect from her siblings. It was something he knew he would have to find out.

That was Aleksander's problem. He needed to know. If someone tried to keep a secret from him, he would subconsciously go out of his way to discover the truth. No matter how big the secret, how hard the puzzle - Alek finds out. He always does.

Just as he finished the patrol down his row, Cassie walked over, a cup in each hand. She stepped lightly, as if she were still being careful, even though she was in an environment for her to relax.

"Tea, right? Assam leaves or whatever..." She handed his one cup and he arched an eyebrow.

"You haven't poisoned it again have you?" He questioned, reminiscing about the week before, when he'd been stuck with an extremely high voice for 48 hours.

Cassie bit her lip in an attempt to hide her laugh. She failed, and erupted, her laughter resonating and echoing in the large room. Alek just sighed, covered his face with one hand.

When he pulled it away he was smirking a little too.

"What was it this time?"

"Would have given you constipation for a week." She beamed. He dropped it in the bin immediately.

"Suit yourself." She shrugged, taking a sip of her coffee, green eyes stalking him, observing his every movement, all the time she was still smiling.

Cassie offered her arm, and Alek glanced at it, confused.

"What?" Obviously he had not been taught how to be a gentleman.

"Screw it..." She mumbled, grabbing his hand and dragging him over to the seating area, or what she insisted on calling the common room. Personally, Alek thought it had been named after the Harry Potter books. In all fairness, it did have that gothic style to it; Cassie had designed it herself, but when asked, denied any relation to the Hogwarts common rooms.

She changed it around every so often, almost as often as her personality, she mutters, when she thinks no one's listening. Alek never questions it. Just last week, the common room had a modern theme to it, with a dark colour theme, but now it was full of antique furniture, all reds with yellow highlights and a raging fireplace.

Still, Cassie insisted no relevance to the Gryffindor common room.

She plopped herself down, positively glowing. She had spent the last eight hours researching the Beaumont/Thorne girl - well, she called her girl, yet Cassie was younger than her - finding out everything she could. Born in the West Midlands, youngest of four, parents died in a fire when she was fourteen, two older sisters, one older brother. Apparently, the Beaumont family runs a whole army of criminals. At the moment, it was the oldest brother, William Beaumont, who was running it, and he was doing a good job. Many of the biggest crimes this year had been comitted by an elite team of selected criminals, under the Beaumont name, all gathered together and usually brought together by the second eldest child, Emelyn Beaumont. According to what Cassie had managed to dig up, her skills lay more in the technology section.

Great. Because we haven't got enough nerds around here.

A part of her jeered, whilst the rest scolded her for that thought.

Aleksander sat down next to her, not looking even half as excited, but instead, perched on the single chair with a half-hearted sigh. He glanced up at her, eyebrow lifted.

"You did call me here for a reason right? You should know, I'm not the type for casual chats."

"It's the Beaumont girl."

"We need a better name for her than the "Beaumont Girl"."

"Well, you know how we've never seen a picture of her?"

The piqued Aleks attention. "You've got one?"

"Better. I've got nine pictures. One of the Nerds owed me."

Cassie placed the file down on the table in between them, turning the file around to face the male. Her eyes sparkled with mischief, which Alek decided to ignore, and instead glanced down, opening the file.

The pictures all depicted a woman, a little on the short side, with pale blue eyes and dark brown hair, wrapped in tight ringlets around her head. Her face was certainly not the slimmest, but not the chubbiest, with no distinct cheekbones, yet she was quite attractive. Cassie noticed how captivated he was by the girl.

"You like her."

Alek looked startled, cheeks coloured a scarlet red.

"What? No! I do-"

"Don't lie." Cassie said, smirking. Before adding,

"I ship you guys."