Lestrade went home. He would try to talk to Charlie O'Keefe tomorrow. There was little else he could do today short of go over his notes once more, though if he were being completely honest with himself he knew he would most likely end up pouring over the pages in his notebook yet again before the day was over.
His sister often said he had trouble setting his work aside at the end of the day, and he had to admit she was right. The murdered woman's battered face still haunted him over dinner-as it had since he had first started working this case. The information he had gathered refused to stay contained within his notebook; his mind insisted on reviewing the facts almost without his permission, each page in his notebook, each written statement echoing clearly in his mind. He almost didn't need to go through his notes anymore.
Or perhaps it was the number of times he had gone through it that was to blame. Searching through his own admittedly crude version of short-hand whenever he had a spare moment, as if he had missed something, and one more search would reveal the guilty party when it had failed to do so before, and then he could find the person responsible.
It was foolish, he knew, but he couldn't quite help it.
Lestrade looked up and realized Kristina had said something and was, for once, waiting for a reply.
She shook her head in an exasperation that was only partially put-on, but still held enough fondness in the action to take away most of the sting.
"Sorry," he said.
Kristina smiled and waved a hand dismissively. "I'm very quickly learning that you can't help it, Giles." There was no judgment in the statement this time, but Lestrade felt himself flush anyway.
"I said, maybe you need a hobby," she clarified. "Something to obsess over when you're at home that isn't work."
Lestrade did not argue with her choice of words, though he did snort at the suggestion itself. It was rude of him to do so, but in his mind hobbies had always been the privilege of the wealthy, and she knew that, if she knew him at all.
"It doesn't have to be an expensive hobby," she protested, proving that she did, in fact, know him fairly well. "Just something to get your mind off work while you're supposed to be resting."
Lestrade decided to humor her. "What sort of hobby?" he asked.
His sister huffed. "Something you enjoy. Or think you might enjoy. I don't know. Something other than just work and then coming home to eat and then work some more."
"Such as?" Lestrade was trying to be patient, but the conversation was putting him on edge. He wasn't sure he needed more than work and a place to come home to at the end of the day. Stability, he supposed, but work provided that, after a fashion. Certainly with his recent promotion they were doing better than they had been.
A safe place to come home to, food to eat, clothes to wear, and a place to sleep at night. Lestrade wasn't really sure he needed anything more. At least, he couldn't think of anything more, except possibly to figure out who had cut short the life of a certain single mother who had been living over on the east side of London.
He figured such an observation would only serve to prove his sister's point, at least as far as she was concerned, so he didn't bother saying any of it aloud.
Kristina shot him a look, as if she knew what he was thinking anyway. She apparently felt she had said enough on the matter, however, because she moved on to a different topic entirely.
"Don't forget Sunday."
Lestrade didn't think he had forgotten, but the abrupt change in conversation threw him. His mind scrambled frantically to catch up, but before it could she shook her head.
"We have company coming." There was just a hint of exasperation behind the words.
"I know. Joseph Walker and his sister. I didn't forget," he almost allowed himself to grumble, but the sudden relief in her eyes gives him pause.
"You'll be there? On time?"
"Yes." He didn't promise. He hadn't been an inspector long, but he already knew better than that. His sister did as well. She flashed a bright smile at him anyway, and once again Lestrade found himself wondering exactly what this dinner meant to her, because it clearly meant something.
It might just have that it's the first time she's actually had a friend over for dinner, at least with him there, which might in turn mean that she's finally starting to feel at home here, in this small set of rooms in the middle of London.
Lestrade wasn't sure. Truthfully, he still hasn't figured out what home is supposed to feel like.
Lestrade turned his thoughts back to his sister with effort, watching the way her cheeks reddened uncharacteristically, and how she was suddenly very busy with her plate, and admitted that there might be more to Sunday's dinner than Kristina having a friend and her chaperone over to visit.
The rest of the meal passed, for the most part, in silence, albeit not an uncomfortable one. Once finished, Kristina stood to clear the table, and Lestrade moved automatically to help her. This task complete, they started on dishes, Kristina washing and rinsing the dishes while her brother dried and put them away.
Once they had cleaned up, they found themselves back at the table, each with a needle in hand, a basket of mending between them. The evening passed in companionable quiet, for Lestrade never had been much of a talker, and Kristina always seemed to know without him having to say it when her brother was near his limit.
There was a brief moment of confusion for Lestrade when he reached into the basket and pulled out a shirt that was most certainly too small to be Kristina's. "What's this?" he asked.
His sister shook her head but didn't quite laugh. "I've been taking on some of the neighbors' mending. Mrs. Brown doesn't have the time to do her own, not with four little ones to manage, so I offered, and Mr. Andrews down the hall overheard and admitted to being hopeless with a needle. It's not much, but I've been able to put aside a little bit this month, just in case."
Lestrade simply nodded and started on the shirt.
Lestrade spent the next morning in his office, catching up on paperwork that never seemed to stay caught up in spite of his best efforts. Smith dropped in briefly around mid-morning with a report on how the Gardener children were doing under his wife's care, reminding Lestrade that he also needed to figure out what to do about them.
He was no closer to figuring that out than he had been the day he brought him to the Yard with him. He was well aware of his options, aware of how awful they were, and still did not have an answer. Probably he needed to just make a decision and get on with it, but something held him back, though he had absolutely no idea what.
It certainly wasn't some misguided hope that the murdered girl's parents would change their minds. Lestrade wasn't foolish enough to expect that. He knew full well that there would be no reconciliation between the children and their grandparents, and some small part of him wondered if it were better that way.
Still, it would have been better than any of their other options.
Smith, mercifully, didn't ask if Lestrade had made any progress in finding a place for the children. He simply reported that his wife had the children well in hand, offered a sympathetic smile Lestrade didn't know what to do with, and assured the younger inspector that they were in no hurry to be free of the little ones before excusing himself.
Lestrade let out a breath he didn't know he was holding when the man left and turned his attention back to the papers on his desk.
Lestrade found Charlie O'Keefe in the first taxi cab he came across, waiting across the street from the entrance to Hyde Park. The man was reluctant to talk to him at first, especially when Lestrade mentioned Ratcliffe Highway.
"Look, Inspector, I haven't done nothing that's against the law, and that's a fact," the man insisted. "I just take people where they want to go, and mind my own business when it comes to why. Nothing illegal abut that."
Lestrade resisted the urge to sigh. "I'm not looking to cause trouble for you," he said bluntly. "A girl was murdered. I'm looking for the one responsible. The landlady said there was a man who would stay the night, and I'm trying to track him down. Maybe he did it, maybe not. But either way, it's not likely he'll be going back that way again."
O'Keefe glared at him for a moment, then his shoulders slumped. "I suppose you're right," he admitted. "If she's dead there's no reason for him to go back. What is it you want to know?"
"Tell me about your overnight fare. The one you dropped off in the evening and came back for the next morning."
O'Keefe looked at Lestrade for a moment, startled, then shook his head. "All right, so a couple of months ago, a man comes up to me here at the park, says he's looking for someone discrete. Tells me he's in love, that he's met a girl and he's going to marry her, he's just got to talk his mother around. That in the meantime, he just has to see her. Then he tells me where she lives."
Lestrade, notebook out and pencil already moving, nodded for the other man to continue. After a moment, he did.
"I was hesitant at first, I'll admit. But he was insistent, and asked what I thought was fair-then he offered to double it, if I'd pick him up here in the evening, at sunset, and drop him off. Said he'd pay me the same again to pick him up at dawn the next morning, and bring it back. I agreed-it was more money than I make in a week, to be honest, Inspector, and it's not like we couldn't use it. Next week he comes back, offers me the same deal. Turned into a weekly thing, and it's sure been a help to me and my wife."
"And this went on for how long?" Lestrade asked. "Two, three months?"
"Two months and a week." O'Keefe confirmed. "I picked him up here at the same time every week, dropped him off, and picked him up at the same time the morning after."
"And did he give you his name?" It would make Lestrade's life that much easier if he had, but if he was worried about the cab driver being discrete, it was highly likely he had not.
The other man shook his head. "Sorry, Inspector."
"Can you describe him for me?"
O'Keefe looked off across the street, thinking. "Might be able to do that much," he admitted. "Let's see. He was fair-haired. Tall. Well-dressed-upper middle class I'd say. Had a mustache and carried a cane, but didn't really use it. Handsome fellow, really. Could have done better than some wretch over on the East End, but that's none of my affair."
Lestrade paused in his writing and looked up. "Was he usually waiting for you? Or did he arrive after you?"
"After," the man admitted.
"And did you notice how he got here?"
"Usually came walking up the street from that direction." O'Keefe gestured. "Never looked particularly out of breath, so he couldn't have been walking far, I'd guess. His clothes were always neat too, never out of place."
"This side of the street?"
"Yes."
"Anything else you can remember about the man?" Lestrade asked, looking up from his notebook.
O'Keefe shook his head. "Nothing comes to mind, Inspector."
"It's more than I had before," Lestrade admitted, closing his notebook and tucking it into his jacket pocket. "Thank you for your time.
Lestrade left the cabbie and started down the street in the direction the man had pointed, eyes on each building as he passed, looking for anything that might suggest the man he was looking for had stopped by.
By the time Lestrade made it back to Scotland Yard, he had a list of possible places a middle-class young man might have stopped by on his way to meet O'Keefe, but nothing certain. It did seem highly unlikely that the man had walked to Hyde Park from home, though that still left plently of possibilities. He could have simply taken a different cab and asked to have been dropped off a few blocks up the street from Hyde Park.
He also could have stopped at one of the businesses along the street and spent the few hours there before meeting the cab driver that evening. There were more than a couple places he could easily have spent the afternoon.
Lestrade shook his head. It was all guesswork, and guessing would get him nowhere. What he needed was solid information, and some way to identify the man who had been at Alice Gardner's the night she died.
He figured he might as well stop by each business along the street and ask if anyone recognized the man he was looking for based on the description the cabbie had given him. It wasn't much to go on, and he was willing to admit as much to himself at least, but it was all he had.
He would return first thing tomorrow.