Chapter Text
The first snow had come down overnight.
Gina hadn’t liked winter, back in the East End - not enough places to hunker down, keep warm - but the snow had always been nice. Wasn’t too hard to take the other kids into the street and make snowmen, lie down in the street and leave little angels behind. It was always cold, though - cold enough that it shook your bones, that kids’d come to you in the middle of the night and you’d try to hold them, keep them warm, but, of course, you’d still shiver, and they would too, because it weren’t like there was anywhere to light a fire anyway.
She’d tried to convince Gregson, to begin with, to let her take the others - the little ones; the older kids would understand - let her bring them back home and let them sleep on the sofa, the carpet, the hardwood floor, even. Gregson’s apartment was modest, but she’d fit more in spaces far smaller than this. Even moreso, now he was gone, now that the master bedroom she’d never set foot in was hers, now that the spare room off to the side that she’d lived in could fit at least three or four other kids.
She could invite all of them. The flat was pretty much under her ownership, in that the coppers hadn’t bothered kicking her out of there, and she was pretty sure they knew she was still living there. Probably needed her genius detective intellect for the force, after all - they couldn’t dispose of such a valuable asset - and, well, if that weren’t true, she was still reaping the benefits of it. A rent day or two had passed since, and no angry landlord had once thought to come down to her door and demand payment she didn’t know how to give.
They’d given her his old coat right after it had been discharged as evidence, neatly washed, folded, delivered at the flat door like an apology. She hadn’t wanted to wear it - really, who wants to wear a coat that had rotting fish and chips in the pocket, and blood all over it, just imagine how the thing stank before they’d washed it! - but maybe she’d just fallen asleep on the sofa that night with it draped over her, and maybe she’d hung it off her shoulders as she’d cobbled together her breakfast, and maybe she’d started wearing it on the job despite how it practically fell off her, reached down to nearly her ankles. What of it? If people were gonna get on her for honouring the old man’s memory, they could sod off. The damn thing was comfy anyway.
She pulled it closer around her as she shivered in the morning wind, boots sinking down into the snow. She still technically had a supervisor, but the bounds of that could be stretched even further than they had been with Gregson, especially now she had the excuse of Toby - Well, sorry sir, ‘e just ran off! Not like I can do nuffin’ about it! - so at the very least she’d had her excuses, easy to toss their way and get right back to what she was doing. The inspector in charge of her - Smith or something or other, some dumb boring name - was wherever the hell else, and she wasn’t about to go looking for him, not when there were murders to solve. Some poor bloke got stabbed out in the street, right in the middle of the night. The body was all frozen up when they’d got there - and the killer had left footprints, bright red against the snow.
Toby had set to it, but in the end, it’s hard for a dog to follow a scent it doesn't recognise. All either of them had to show for all their hard work were the footprints Toby’d left sniffing around in circles, trying to follow the fading trail of red. Someone had yelled at him to stop, after a bit. The way it was coming down, half the evidence would be buried before evening - and still, no lead. Gregson would have done better - made a laughing stock of all these mugs.
“Miss Lestrade!” A voice called out over the conversation. Gina’s head snapped up to look for its source, striding over to the silly-hatted fellow across the street, Toby beneath her arm.
“That’s Inspector Lestrade to you, mate!” She still pulled Gregson’s old badge from her pocket and rubbed it in the officer’s face. If it much bothered him at all, he right well wasn’t making it clear.
“Right- Miss Lestrade, can I trust you to head over to the forensics laboratory?” the officer sighed - she’d stopped bothering to remember all their names after a while, hard enough to remember those of who she already knew. “Miss Gorey should be ready with the autopsy report, I reckon.”
She’d be lying if she said her heart didn’t jump in her chest when the officer had uttered the name ‘Miss Gorey’ - though she was Maria, really, they’d turned to first names in no time, easy off the tongue. Maria. She’d thrown a nickname or two her way, ‘Ria, Bloody Mary, both of which had been met with such non-reaction - the way she wielded her knives was hardly a decent indicator, so she’d come to learn - that they’d simply fallen off, back to Maria, pretty enough either way.
“Uh- I- Well- Y’see-” she started, the stutters tumbling from her mouth until she pulled herself together enough. “Uh, yes, might as well, sir! D’you want me to take Toby wiv me?”
The man’s mouth lifted at the corner, and Gina, for a second, reeled backwards in the past - there was a ghost of Gregson in all of them, most likely the fault of being his subordinate; all of them, her too, tied to him no matter what path they took. He lifted his hand and shook his head, chuckling out his words.
“Nah, don’t mind it,” he laughed. “You can leave him with me. Chances are we’ll need him around here, at some point.” He paused, surveying the street, the lot of them wandering aimlessly, searching for a clue that probably didn’t exist. “...Hopefully.”
Gina snorted, setting down Toby by the officer’s feet with a reluctant pat. She’d taken him over to Maria’s place a couple of times when they’d tasked her with collecting autopsy reports, questioning coroners, and it hadn’t ended well - so better for him to stay back, if only to have enough room to run around. At the very least, the other coppers had taken kindly to him, too, so he’d have his own good company. Gregson hadn’t minded Toby, but Gina had the feeling he’d never been so good on dogs, from the way he hopped about the living room when she and Toby played together, and then straightened his tie and acted like he weren’t scared just a minute later. Maria, well - she’d loved him, the few times they’d visited together, happily playing with him a little too close to a dead body for Gina’s own comfort, but the way her face lit up like the sun was more than bleedin’ worth it.
The thought of seeing her again made her kind of sick - but, like, a good sick, the kind that made your stomach flip beneath your skin. What would she say when she saw her? Maria always talked pretty, prettier than her, smarter than her - she was a fool standing next to her, any idiot could see that. Yet Maria had made of her an equal, understood the mishmash of words that tumbled out her mouth in a panic whenever she’d be met with a smile like the brisk light of day, a laugh like the ringing of bells.
Gina cleared her mind - an autopsy report, that was the goal here. Gregson had insisted upon the importance of work, of keeping to the task, of serving the force before all else - and so what if that had run down the cracks of his character and rotted in a way that had sullied his good name to all who refused to speak it? It was still decent advice, and so long as she stuck to it, stuck to the task, the Yard wouldn’t sack her.
“Good luck wiv that,” she clapped her hands, standing, heart pounding beneath her ribs. It felt right to salute, but when she went to do it, the idea soured, and her hand went back down to her pocket. “Take good care o’ Toby for me, will ya?” she nodded the officer’s way, and then, to the puppy, already off making his own rounds of the crime scene, “See ya, boy!”
Taking off with what was probably more speed than reasonable for a respectable detective, she did her best to mask the grin on her face as she dashed down the road to hail a cab.