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They were twenty minutes into their discussion of the case when Barok realized his pocket watch was missing. He sighed and looked at the detective whose attention was currently, at least to all appearances, fully on Asogi as he discussed the crime scene.
Barok cleared his throat. “Miss Lestrade?”
“That’s Inspector Lestrade,” she said, without missing a beat.
He folded his arms. “Perhaps I’ll call you Inspector Lestrade once you’ve proven through your behavior that you’ve earned such a title. Now, my pocket watch?”
“Wot pocket watch?”
He narrowed his eyes. “It’s missing, as you well know.”
“Yer suspectin’ me, just cos I used to be a diver?”
“No,” he said, “I’m suspecting you because any time we are in close proximity to one another, you attempt to steal one of my belongings, as if to flaunt your history as a pickpocket. Moreover, I had it prior to this meeting between the three of us, and I’m certain Mr. Asogi has neither the skill nor the inclination to steal.”
Asogi opened his mouth as if to say something, but stopped with a furrowed brow, as if he wasn’t sure if he should be flattered or insulted.
Lestrade folded her arms. “Aw, fine.” She produced his pocket watch from her own pocket and handed it back to him. “Don’t know why ya even care about the bleedin’ thing, considerin’ ’ow much Stronghart liked ’is.”
The implication that Barok should despise all timepieces because of Stronghart was enough to make him roll his eyes, but he stifled his annoyance and turned his attention back to the case. As they resumed discussing it in earnest—this time with him keeping a close eye on all his personal belongings, just in case—he considered the matter of Lestrade.
When it came to her skills, she was shaping up to be an excellent detective. Aside from a tendency to let her emotions get the better of her, she had a keen mind and a good eye for detail, especially notable considering her youth and inexperience. After seeing how well she worked with Asogi, Barok had made arrangements to ensure she would work with them on most of their cases from now on. They were effectively a team.
No, he didn’t worry about her skills as a detective. It was her predilection toward thievery that had him concerned.
On the other hand, he hadn’t heard any reports of her stealing from other people—aside from when she’d swiped one of Sholmes’s belongings, but he didn’t count that as a legitimate complaint. He and Asogi appeared to be her only targets these days. For better or worse, it seemed she now confined her pickpocketing to people she knew personally, which left him rather puzzled about her motives.
Was it her notion of a game? He’d heard from Iris that Gina taught her, Naruhodo, and Miss Mikotoba how to pickpocket people once, and they had, in Iris’s words, “a grand old time” doing so. While irritating, he supposed that was tolerable. However, her occasional thefts might be meant to keep her skills sharp in case she needed to return to a life of crime someday. That would be a more concerning reason.
“I reckon we’ll learn more if we—” Lestrade caught his gaze and stopped talking. “Oi, wot is it this time? I ain’t grabbed any more of yer stuff!”
Barok cleared his throat. “Pray forgive the discourtesy of staring, Miss Lestrade.”
“Inspector.”
“I was simply wondering why you persist in trying to steal my belongings even though you’ve put your criminal past behind you.”
She shrugged. “Ya ain’t never gotten too sore over it, so why not?”
“In other words… you do it because you can get away with it?”
“Eh… not really, cos you always catch me.” She smirked and folded her arms. “One o’ these days I’ll get ya good, though, just wait an’ see!”
“I… I see.”
In other words, it was an attempt to show off. She wished to prove she could steal from them and get away with it. That was harmless enough. Aggravating, perhaps, but no more than the sort of torment Asogi treated him to each day.
Asogi glanced at him. “Why are you staring at me now?”
“No reason.”
#
Raised voices caught Barok’s attention when he reached the office the next morning. He frowned and quickened his pace to reach the source of the commotion.
Partway down the hall in front of Barok’s office, Lestrade stood arguing with Lord Callum, who was both a member of the nobility and another prosecutor. Both of them looked furious, Callum red-faced with rage and Lestrade glaring at him with clenched fists.
Barok strode toward them and cleared his throat. “What is going on here?”
The sudden appearance of the Reaper of the Bailey seemed to startle them both, but Callum’s shocked expression faded into a smile of triumph. He jabbed a finger at Lestrade. “This thief took a valuable piece of evidence from my office.”
“That’s cobblers! I ain’t even seen yer wotever-it-is!”
“It was a gold plate, as you well know. It’s also critical evidence in my current case, but I suppose that wouldn’t matter to a gutter rat like you.”
Anger washed over Barok. While he might have privately questioned Lestrade’s suitability for being a detective from time to time, that didn’t give anyone else the right to denounce her like this. If it were any other detective, Callum would have handled it differently. He saw Lestrade as an outsider, someone he could condemn without anyone caring.
Perhaps he’d forgotten that Barok himself had been viewed as an outsider often enough to remember what it was like.
Both of them appeared oblivious to the storm brewing next to them.
“Oi, you got some proof it were me, or—”
“As if I need evidence when dealing with someone like—”
“Enough!” Barok shouted.
They fell silent.
He folded his arms and fixed Callum with a serious stare. “Do you have evidence that she is the culprit? A prosecutor should know better than to make spurious accusations with no proof of their veracity.”
“It’s obvious enough even without evidence when a pickpocket is allowed to roam the halls of the prosecutor’s office unchecked! Gina Lestrade is—”
“Inspector Lestrade is here because she is a detective from Scotland Yard and should be afforded the respect due one. She says she has nothing to do with the theft, and since you have neither evidence against her nor adequate reason to suspect her, that is the end of the matter. I do not take kindly to false accusations being leveled against my associates, Lord Callum. Now, if you intended to report the theft to her so that Scotland Yard might investigate it and simply expressed yourself poorly, I will overlook your mistake.”
Callum’s expression darkened, but whatever he saw in Barok’s face convinced him to stop arguing. “Fine. Consider this my official report to Scotland Yard, then.” He turned and stalked down the hall in the other direction.
Lestrade, meanwhile, was staring at Barok with her mouth hanging open.
He turned toward his office and beckoned for her to follow.
When they got inside, the office was empty. Asogi either hadn’t arrived yet, or had left to take care of something. Good. He’d rather have this conversation in private anyway.
He faced Lestrade again. “Miss Lestrade, pray do not take this the wrong way, but I want to be absolutely certain—you didn’t steal that piece of evidence, did you?”
“’Course not!” she snapped.
“Good. In that case, we’ll need to decide whether we should pass the details of the theft on to Scotland Yard or undertake the investigation ourselves. Personally, I believe handling it ourselves will be ideal.”
“’old it!” she said. “Cor blimey, wot’s gotten into you?”
“I beg your pardon?” he asked.
“I was gonna ask why ya believed in me when I’m always nickin’ yer stuff, but now I don’t get it at all.” She stared at him like he was a puzzle. “You weren’t even sure I didn’t do it?”
“Correct,” he said.
“Then wot did ya defend me for? Even callin’ me ‘Inspector,’ an’ all!”
“You are a member of Scotland Yard,” he said. “He was not treating you as such, so I deemed it prudent to remind him.”
Lestrade furrowed her brow. “So… wot if I ’ad nicked it?”
“I would have handled the matter myself and returned the stolen item privately.”
“Why?”
“Considering your newness to this life”—not to mention her recent loss of her mentor, although he withheld from saying that out loud—“it is understandable that you might stray from the path occasionally. I certainly would not have wanted to make a spectacle of you.” He knew all too well what being turned into a spectacle felt like.
“An’… you believe me? Just like that?”
“Yes,” he said. “I do not believe you would lie at a time like this.”
“Yer like me, though. You never trust no one.”
“Trust does not come to me easily,” he said, unable to deny that. “Yet… if we’re to work together on cases, I owe you some measure of trust.”
She stared at him for a moment, and then she smiled. “Yer not ’alf as rotten as you seem, eh?”
Barok raised his eyebrows.
“Anyway, uh…” She cleared her throat. “Thanks.”
“Think nothing of it. You’re a member of this team and will be treated as such, Miss Lestrade.”
“Oi, what happened to ‘Inspector Lestrade’?”
“That can wait until you’ve earned it.”
With a snort, she folded her arms and smirked. “Guess this means I can keep tryin’ to swipe your stuff.”
“What on Earth led you to that conclusion??”
She just laughed, and Barok shook his head with a resigned sigh. He would need to continue to keep a watchful eye on his possessions while around her, it seemed, and yet… he didn’t mind nearly as much as he expected to.
“Come,” he said. “We should begin our investigation.”