Smith found Lestrade on his way to his office the next morning.
"Got a minute?" he asked, his voice low. Lestrade turned and looked at him for a moment before nodding. Smith led the man into his own office.
"It's about Rosie-the girl?" He paused, and Lestrade braced himself as if for bad news. Smith wondered idly if the other man realized he was doing it, but didn't bother asking. A question like that would only make Lestrade more wary around him. "She's been upset the last day or two. Crying. Something about a comb. She keeps saying you promised you'd give it back, but..." Smith trailed off as Lestrade reached in his pocket and offered the man something wrapped in a plain, white handkerchief.
He unwrapped it, and let out a low whistle. Silver, unless he was mistaken, and worth a pretty penny. "This is hers?" he asks.
"It was her mother's," Lestrade explains. "Family heirloom. Hers now, I guess."
"And she just let you have it? She hasn't shown herself to be a particularly trusting little thing so far."
To his surprise, Lestrade chuckled and shook his head. "You asked if I knew she had my pocket-watch," he said. "A trade, of sorts."
"I see." Smith eyed the comb. "I'll make sure she gets this," he said, wondering if the other man trusted him to do just that. "And that you get your watch back, of course."
He had seen the watch, a plain, ordinary looking timepiece, exactly what what one might expect of the man standing before him, with the possible exception of the G. Lestrade inscribed on the inside in an elegant script that he doubted the man would have chosen for himself. He had noticed, too, that it had been well-cared for.
That watch meant something to Lestrade.
The younger inspector only nodded, however, and excused himself, leaving Smith standing alone in his office.
Lestrade returned to his own office, closing the door behind him. Going to his desk, he took a quick inventory of everything on it-mostly neat stacks of paperwork, some yet to be completed, some needing one last going over for errors in spelling or grammar, and some waiting to be turned in. A dictionary took up the top right-hand corner of the desk. A couple of carefully sharpened pencils rested beside the well-worn book.
Lestrade sat down and reached for a sheet of paper, then for a pencil. Pushing the case of the murdered woman to the back of his mind, at least as much as he was able, he got to work.
He spent the next couple of hours working, filling out forms with painstaking care and consulting the worn dictionary on his desk when needed. There was plenty to do even without trying to find the person responsible for the death of Alice Gardner-relatively new to the job or not, no one was taking it easy on the 'new' inspector when it came to handing out assignments. If anything, Lestrade tended to catch the cases that no one else wanted to deal with. Even Johnson had been guilty of passing a few undesirable assignments Lestrade's way, though nothing overly dangerous, and certainly nothing that he thought had even a remote chance of getting Lestrade in trouble with any of the other inspectors-no, anything Johnson passed on tended to be mildly annoying at best, stuff the older inspector didn't have time to deal with-or, if Lestrade were being honest with himself, simply didn't want to.
Lestrade couldn't say that he minded being sent out for what most of the other inspectors considered not worth their time. At least, he didn't mind dealing with the cases himself. It was all part of the job, even if it wasn't particularly exciting.
Not that Lestrade had become a policeman because he'd thought it would be exciting. If anything, he preferred the smaller, less violent cases, where no one had been hurt, no one had been murdered, and no one had been kidnapped.
No, what bothered Lestrade about the whole affair-or would have, if he let it-was the way the other inspectors dismissed the smaller cases as not worth their time. A drunk disturbing the peace. An argument between two former friends. A young woman with a missing child. A single mother of two murdered in the wrong part of town. The attitude that only certain crimes-certain people-deserved their attention, that bothered Lestrade.
Not that there was much he could do to change their minds. Lestrade couldn't change the way his fellow inspectors thought any more than he could change the way the general public viewed the police force.
That Lestrade could understand. Especially when it came to the poor, and the so-called undesirables of the city. Why should they care what the police have to say, why should they trust anyone from Scotland Yard, when the best they could hope for was to be ignored?
Lestrade didn't have an answer, any more than he had a solution.
Lestrade had not forgotten that his sister was having company over for dinner; however, the remembering did nothing to save him from the uncomfortable reality of two complete strangers talking and laughing with her in the kitchen when he got home. For a moment he hesitated in the other room, the childish urge to hide hitting him, but the knowledge that Kristina would not only never forgive him, but also in all likelihood come after him, kept him in place.
He took a deep breath and made himself enter the room.
His sister looked up almost immediately, her eyes sparkling in a way that he hadn't seen since they were both very young. She was still laughing as she waved in his direction, a wordless order to not only come in and be civil, but to join in on the conversation-by now Lestrade could tell the difference, at least with her.
With no other option available, Lestrade left the safety of the doorway and came to stand next to his sister by the stove. Taking pity on him, the woman offered him the spoon she was using to stir a pot full of some sort of thick stew. Lestrade accepted it with relief and turned his attention to the soup. A gentle nudge against his free arm warned him that he was not going to be able to get out of socializing with her friends.
"This is my brother Giles," Kristina offered, introducing him to their guests. "Giles, this is Violet and her brother John-Walker."
Lestrade didn't miss the slight pause before Kristina offered the man's last name, but since he didn't know what to do with the knowledge he simply refused to acknowledge it. Instead he nodded to both Violet Walker and her brother and went back to stirring the soup.
"Miss Lestrade tells me you're a policeman." Lestrade looked up at that, but Mr. Walker's expression gave away no indication as to how he felt about the statement. Whether he, like a majority of London, found it distasteful, Lestrade could not tell.
"Detective Inspector," Lestrade clarified, flicking a glance towards his sister in case she knew. He got nothing. Kristina was looking at her friend instead of him, and Lestrade couldn't see her face.
"You were involved in that case with the slave traders?" the other man asked. His sister cleared her throat and shot him a meaningful glance, and he backtracked. "Not exactly polite conversation for the table," he amended with a smile that was just a fraction too wide for Lestrade's comfort. "Or for the womenfolk," he added, receiving a sharp look from both women for his trouble.
Lestrade found it safer not to comment.
"John's a gardener," Kristina said, changing the subject. "You should see his roses, Giles. So many different colors! I didn't know there were so many different kinds."
Mr. Walker smiled and shrugged. "I've always loved plants. We used to live in the country, when we were little. Our parents moved with us into the city-I must have been what, nine years old? I hated it."
"He missed being able to wander the countryside all day," Miss Walker put in, her voice soft as she stared somewhere halfway between Lestrade and his sister. "He'd be up and out the door before sunrise and wouldn't be back till close to dark." She offered a tiny smile. "He also hated school."
Mr. Walker sighed and looked up at the ceiling. "You always were better at reading and writing."
"And sitting still," his sister teased gently.
"I'd love to go back someday," Mr. Walker said, smiling again.
"To school?" Kristina, quick as ever, shot at him, startling the man's sister into a laugh that quickly turned into a cough. Mr. Walker himself chuckled.
"Never," he declared. "I meant the country. Get away from the crowded streets and all these people. Do some farming, maybe get some chickens, some cows, a goat or two..."
"Sounds lovely," Kristina said, smiling.
The rest of the evening passed by in much the same manner, with Kristina and Mr. Walker doing most of the talking. Miss Walker seemed content mostly to sit and listen, adding to the conversation only occasionally. Giles himself had very little to offer, but for once his sister did not seem to mind.
He was half expecting her to suggest that he could have been more outgoing as the door closed behind their guests and she turned back toward him, but instead Kristina grinned.
"Well, that went well," she declared. "Don't worry about the dishes, Giles, I'll clean up."
Giles was not sure exactly had gone so well, but certainly was not going to ask, not when his sister looked as pleased as she currently did.
He settled for sitting at the kitchen table while she worked, listening with half an ear as she talked about how nice it was to have friends over, and how much she enjoyed Violet and her brother's company at dinner, and how they would have to get together again sometime soon.
Author's Note: I know, I know, it's been a while on this one. Just been having a lot of trouble finding motivation for this one? Plenty of interest in other stuff, but for some reason I haven't been feeling this guy...maybe I need to go read some Sherlock Holmes, or watch something, for inspirational purposes. I don't know. If you have any good fic recommendations, send them my way?
Also, it's hard to plan a murder/crime story. You gotta figure out who did it, and why, you gotta have clues, and you gotta make your detective talk to people and what-not, it's work, guys. And mine is not a spectacularly organized sort of brain.
Anyway, hope you liked it, and I hope ya'll haven't completely lost interest by this point. ;) Thanks, as always, for reading, and especially for those of you who take the time to review. I know I'm guilty of not always taking the time, or overthinking it, because even just an "this was great" or "I liked it" or an, "I'm glad you're back" is always welcome-not that constructive criticism isn't wonderful as well.