Scotland Yard, 1867
Superintendent Hilton Beals sat at his desk, working his way through what felt like a never-ending mountain of paperwork. He did not look up as a knock sounded at his office door, nor did he pause his writing.
"Come." The door opened to admit a man dressed in a dark suit. "Leave it open," Beals added, when the recent arrival made as if to close the door behind him.
"Yes, sir." The prompt reply went unacknowledged as the man came to stand in front of his superior's desk.
Beals let him stand there.
It was an excellent way to get a man's measure. Time and time again the superintendent had learned nearly everything he needed to know about his police inspectors simply by making them wait after he called them to his office. Some men grew impatient and fidgeted, some grew angry, some grew anxious. The longer he made them wait the more a man's personality, failures and flaws included, came to the surface.
The man currently standing at his desk stood carefully at attention, as was appropriate for his lesser rank. He also remained silent. The superintendent knew he was there, and was clearly not yet ready to speak to him. This one, at least, seemed to understand how to act around his superiors.
Now Beals stopped writing. Carefully he set aside his pen, as well as the completed form. After a moment's consideration, he picked up a new sheet of paper and began reading. Through all this the man in front of him remained in place, never so much as shifting his balance as he waited to be acknowledged.
Beals let this go on for several more minutes, but the man standing before him did not seem inclined to fidget, or sigh, or even so much as look around the room while his superior ignored him. Finally, Beals set aside his paper.
"Lestrade, was it?" he asked, looking over his newest inspector.
They had not officially met. Not yet. Beals rarely bothered with rookies, not until they proved they could make through their first few months without getting themselves killed out of sheer stupidity. This one, if the reports were accurate, may have suffered more than his fair share of stupidity, but had at least demonstrated an ability not to get himself killed too quickly.
"Yes, sir." He was respectful, at least.
Lestrade wore a dark, three piece suit that was, even to Beals' inexperienced eye, both expensive and made to last. His shoes were equally well made. He was better dressed than any of the other inspectors at Scotland Yard-better dressed than Beals himself currently was. More impressive, he was also far cleaner than any man who had been out and about in the city that day had any right to be.
The inspector was short, the superintendent realized, and spent a moment eyeballing the man, not entirely convinced he was actually tall enough to meet the height requirement for the London police, before continuing his inspection.
Lestrade's height coupled with his slight build should have made him look like an easy target, a dangerous thing in a policeman, but something about the way he carried himself even now, while standing at attention in his pretty little suit, said otherwise. It was subtle, and at a first glance might have been easily missed, but there nonetheless. This dapper little man knew how to handle himself.
Lestrade still did not move-or speak-as the superintendent continued to look him over. Absently Beals wondered if the man would utter so much as a word without prompting. He took in the inspector's sallow and pinched complexion and wondered if he had been ill lately, or if he always looked like that.
Their eyes met; Lestrade did not look away. His dark, nearly black eyes seemed to take in everything about the man standing before him, and for a moment, Superintendent Beals felt as if he were the one being evaluated.
Whatever those eyes saw, the inspector's expression gave away none of it. Polite, bland-but not quite bored-Lestrade could have rivaled any servant or shop-keeper's professional demeanor. It would serve him well in dealing with his betters-both inside the Yard and out, except for one thing: when combined with eyes that seemed to see to much, he looked more secretive than trustworthy.
"You've been Inspector how long?" Beals broke the silence abruptly, but did not catch Lestrade off guard.
"Four months, sir."
"And how long have you been with the police in general?" He pressed.
"Six years, Superintendent."
"You were assigned to Inspector Johnson after your promotion?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you encouraged him to investigate the disappearances of six children, leading to the arrest of a gang of slave-traders and the loss of one of our own men, correct?"
Lestrade blinked. "Sir?"
Beals raised his eyebrows. "Inspector Matthew Flint was among the men arrested. Were you aware that one of the men you helped capture was a member of Scotland Yard?"
"Yes, sir." Lestrade's face remained carefully blank, but he shifted slightly on his feet as he answered.
"Explain yourself."
This time Lestrade's brows furrowed in confusion. "Sir?"
Beals leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers together as he watched the younger man. "I'd like an explanation for your involvement in the case. Why you thought it was a good idea to take on a case without your senior officer's knowledge, or permission. Why you pursued the matter, in spite of Johnson warning against it. Why you continued even when it appeared that one of your fellow inspectors might be involved."
Lestrade stared at the man for a moment, then gathered himself.
"Nobody else was willing to listen to the mother of the most recent victim," he said, his voice low but steady. "Her son was missing, and it's our job to help people-"
Beals raised an eyebrow. "Are you trying to tell me my job?" he asked, mainly to see what the younger man would do.
Lestrade shook his head. "No, sir. But you asked what I was thinking. I couldn't turn her away, not when we're supposed to help. I didn't intend to get caught up in a kidnapping ring, Superintendent, but when we found the missing child at the morgue, the doctor there mentioned that there had been other children found, matching the same description. Inspector Johnson realized it had to be slave-traders."
"And he wanted to hunt them down, naturally." Beals suggested, the words fairly dripping with sarcasm.
"No, sir," Lestrade looked surprised. "He warned against it, but-" here Lestrade hesitated. "Even if were dangerous, Superintendent, it was still our responsibility to try to find the people responsible-wasn't it? Isn't it?"
For the first time, emotion leaked through Lestrade's carefully constructed mask, though only his eyes gave him away. Fear shone in those dark eyes. Fear and just a hint of desperation, as if Lestrade had suddenly realized that Flint might not have been the only corrupt policeman in the world, and that his superior might not agree with his assessment of the situation.
Beals was a practical man. He was not particularly dishonest himself, or so he believed, but he was well aware of the rampant corruption that had taken root in Scotland Yard since even before his time, and he knew that fighting that corruption could get a man killed.
So he had kept his head down and minded his own business. When it became necessary, he acted. After years of walking a very fine line, he had somehow managed to stay clean enough (without causing trouble for his fellow, somewhat less morally upstanding inspectors) to be considered for promotion. He had taken it, telling himself that he could at least do damage control even if he couldn't really fix anything, and in the past ten years had done little more than sit in his office and pretend to turn a blind eye to the doings of his fellow policemen.
Beals considered the man standing before him for a long moment. "Your desire to do what's right is admirable, Lestrade," he said, not unkindly. "But you need to understand that what is right and what is reality are not always the same thing. Just because something should be a certain way, doesn't mean it will be. The real world doesn't often work like that, unfortunately."
Lestrade did not look away, and because he did not the other man saw quite clearly the betrayal that flashed in his eyes for an instant before they, like the rest of his expression, blanked.
"Yes, sir," Lestrade said, but he did not sound as if he meant it.
Beals let the matter rest. Sometimes a man needed time to digest the advice of older, more experienced men, especially when they did not like it. "Your first solo case was a murder?"
"Yes, sir." Lestrade could not quite banish the resentment from his voice. "The woman was murdered by her husband in front of several witnesses. He confessed when we questioned him."
"Good work," Beals told him. "That is the kind of police work we like to see. Straightforward. Clear. No muddling about with conspiracies, no shadows cast on the reputations of any of our own people. "These are the kind of cases that will prove your worth as an inspector and help you go far in your chosen profession."
"Yes, sir." A beat. "Thank you, sir."
Beals smiled at the man. "Keep up the good work, Lestrade." It was meant more as a warning than as encouragement. He picked up his pen to see if Lestrade would take the gesture as a dismissal, but the inspector never moved.
"Dismissed, Lestrade," he said, thinking to himself. He's obedient in all the wrong ways, and willful in all the worst.
"Yes, sir." Lestrade left, closing the door carefully behind him.
Beals stared at the empty space in which the man had recently stood absently, the pen forgotten in his hand, his paperwork all but abandoned, his mind going over what he had just learned about Scotland Yard's newest inspector.
Lestrade worried him.
"Still alive, I see." Inspector Smith joked as Lestrade reached the hall where his office was located. The man was of average height and build, which meant Lestrade had to look up to meet his eyes even as the other man leaned on the wall next to an open office door, waiting for the younger man to return. Light eyes met dark good-naturedly; Smith genuinely liked the strange little inspector standing before him, even if he did not always understand him.
"Sir?" Smith was, by now, almost completely certain that in spite of the question Lestrade did, in fact, get the joke. Whether or not the feigned ignorance was simply a matter of reflex he was less sure. It was possible the inspector still felt wary of his colleagues, but Smith would have hoped that by this point the man had loosened up just a little.
Smith shrugged. Rather than explain, he asked, "So how did it go? Superintendent chew you to bits?"
There was a split second of delay while Lestrade debated how to answer, and his fellow inspector felt vindicated when he answered instead of offering further prevarication.
"He asked about the case with Flint," the younger man replied. "He wanted an explanation for my actions," Lestrade did not offer details. "He also explained what kind of cases he expects me to work in the future, if I want to do well here." Lestrade's voice was carefully neutral, but Smith knew better by now than to think the other inspector was unbothered by the conversation.
"I remember being told what kind of work the superintendent expects of me," Smith said comfortably from his place against the wall. "I wouldn't worry too much about it."
A snort from inside the open door beside Smith revealed the two were not alone. Lestrade turned to find Inspector Adams seated at his desk, shaking his head at his fellow policeman's assertion.
"I would hope you remember. That conversation happened yesterday when he called you into his office over that mugging you stumbled across." To Lestrade he said, "Beals is a lot of talk and very little action. He's not crooked himself, exactly, but he's not going to risk his position-or his life-to try to clean house. It's just not worth it."
Though thinner than Smith, Adams too was of average height, with brown eyes and a far more serious outlook on life. He wasn't sure he liked Lestrade, but he did at least know he could trust the man. Lestrade had proved that much within the first month of his arrival at Scotland Yard.
Inspector Johnson, sitting across the desk from Adams, shook his head. Tall and lean with dark hair and gray eyes, Johnson was the oldest of the bunch, and the man Lestrade had been partnered with after his promotion to Inspector. Even now, four months later, Johnson tended to keep an eye out for the younger man, offering advice when he felt it was needed and worrying every time Lestrade looked like he might clash with one of the inspectors outside of their small group.
Johnson, Smith, and Adams had all been heavily involved in the slave-trading case the superintendent had asked Lestrade about. Out of all the policemen at Scotland Yard, they had been the only ones willing to get involved, and the only ones Lestrade had been able to trust.
They were still the only men he willingly talked to, though that was admittedly only when one of them initiated a conversation; Lestrade himself did had never been much of a talker. He had by now met most of the inspectors at Scotland Yard; they had introduced themselves one by one as they decided he had been around long enough to take notice of, but beyond that they had taken little interest in him, and Lestrade preferred to keep it that way.
He could have made enemies after the slave-trading case; Matthew Flint had been well liked by most of his colleagues. Lestrade had been fortunate that even the more questionable of the policemen at the Yard seemed to take issue with kidnapping and child-murder.
"Just do your job," Johnson advised Lestrade. "And be careful. Don't take any unnecessary risks. Beals will leave you alone as long as you don't do anything that could potentially jeopardize his position as superintendent."
Adams looked skeptical. "And how long, exactly, do you think that will take?" he wanted to know. "All that has to happen is for Lestrade to stumble across a few more inspectors doing things they shouldn't and insisting on bringing them to justice. Or him causing problems for some rich, upper class gentleman who thinks the police are there to do his bidding, or-"
"I see your point," Johnson cut him off, paling slightly. Shooting a hasty glance at Lestrade, he said, "I suppose it's too much to ask for you to try to keep your head down."
Lestrade shrugged. "I don't go looking for trouble," he reminded the other man.
"It finds you easily enough," Johnson snapped back.
Lestrade did not answer. The accusation was simply not one he could deny.
He left the three men and returned to his office. He had case notes to organize, and several reports that needed filling out. A stack of cases sat on one corner of his desk waiting to be properly filed.
It was mid-afternoon when Inspector Craddock poked his head into Lestrade's office without knocking. Smirking at the youngest and newest member of their ranks, he stepped inside as if it were his office rather than Lestrade's.
Craddock was a tall and muscular man with a thick neck, thin brown hair, and bright eyes. His face was entirely unpleasant to look at, partially due to a number of scars that were likely the result of some childhood illness, but mostly due to the way he seemed to look down on every single person that came across his path. Lestrade, younger than most of the inspectors and only recently promoted, was no exception.
The man looked around the room, making a face as if he had judged Lestrade's office and found it lacking. The shorter inspector ignored the reaction, waiting instead for Craddock to reveal whatever it was that had brought him here. After a long moment, the older man turned his attention to Lestrade himself.
"There's been a murder down Ratcliffe Highway," he said. "No one else wants it, which means it falls to the rookie."
Lestrade thought for a moment. "That's on the East End, isn't it?" he asked. Craddock snorted.
"That's why nobody wants it. Off you get."
Lestrade knew a dismissal when he heard one. He also knew better than to argue. Nothing to gain by refusing, and he had no reason to refuse anyway. He had nothing against going; his only issue was with the man currently standing in his office. Craddock clearly did not care what happened to the woman who had been murdered on Ratcliffe Highway, or he would not be sending Lestrade to deal with it.
The younger inspector grabbed his coat as he left, pausing in the hallway and resisting the urge to sigh as he waited for the other man to step outside so he could close the door. After a moment, Craddock followed, grinning as if he had won a victory against Lestrade.
If he had, Lestrade had no idea what battle he had just lost. Shrugging the thought off, he left Scotland Yard and headed toward London's East End, shoving his hands in his pockets and ignoring the wind that seemed to have picked up right as he reached the street.