Still, she grinned.“I’m a detective, you know.” And to prove it, Octavia now wore the classic deerstalker hat on her head.
Ashton, who had dark bags under his eyes, wordlessly accepted the paper bag Octavia thrust toward him.
“Some refreshments,” she said. “I figured you’d probably been working nonstop since yesterday.”
“Thanks. That’s very thoughtful of you. But if I had to choose, I’d have preferred for you to just let me sleep.”
“Sorry, but I have places to be, too. I’m busy today myself.”
“You’re brazen, ain’t you? Well, I suppose you have to be, to be a detective, innit?” Scratching his head through his tousled hair, Ashton showed Octavia to a chair at one end of the police station. He pushed the pile of documents on the desk in front of it to one side, then set the paper bag on the desk. “Now then,” he said, “what d’you want?”
“I’d like to visit Raven. How should I go about it?”
“Ah, well—usually, you would make that application through the police, but he isn’t being detained in one of our cells. For some reason, he’s in the earthbound palace. I hate to say so, seein’ as you just got here an’ all, but you’ll need to take your inquiry there. Though I reckon you can still make an application at the reception desk downstairs.”
“Do you remember that photograph I showed you yesterday? The one with the child?”
Without delay, Ashton had bitten into one of the baguette sandwiches in the paper bag. Now, he froze mid-bite. But he soon assumed a nonchalant expression and sat down in his chair. “I suppose I do. What about it?”
“You recognized the child in that photograph, didn’t you? Give me information.”
“You’re awfully blunt.” Still, Ashton took a big bite of his sandwich, chewing it and swallowing, before he finally answered. “What happened yesterday is being handled as a failed burglary attempt by Crow, the Phantom Thief. A gag order’s been put in place regarding the details. D’you see what I’m getting at?”
“That you don’t want to get involved with this case? With me?”
“Very astute. I value my salary too, you know.”
“But the baguette sandwich you’re eating right now is a bribe.”
Ashton, who had just swallowed his second bite, looked incredulous. “You really think I’m so easily bought?”
“Well, then, suppose that sandwich has poison in it. I’m the only one with the antidote.”
Ashton choked on his third bite. He recovered with a strained smile on his face. “Y-You are joking, right...?” Seeing Octavia stare steadily back at him without answering, a hint of panic started to creep across his face. “Oi, that was a joke, right? It’s a crime to do that sort of thing!”
“I guess you’re right,” she said after a long pause. “It was a joke.”
“Really? Cor, but with that attitude, you really do seem serious! Oi, this is not a laughing matt—”
“Don’t you hate letting the angels walk all over you?”
At this, Ashton buttoned his lips.
Lowering her voice furtively, Octavia continued, “If you cooperate with me, not only will you get to pay the angels back, they’ll end up owing you. I think.” Octavia thought that if she asked Eliza, it might be possible to get Ashton promoted.
Ashton frowned. “You think? What d’you mean, you think?”
“At the moment, I’m working on pure inference. So I’m looking for a hint, however small. What did you notice about the photograph, Ashton?”
Ashton continued eating his baguette sandwich in silence.
“How about we use one of the tools to probe him, Octavia?” suggested Hat.
Octavia shook her head slightly. They were running out of time; they couldn’t afford to expend so much effort to obtain information that may or may not have even really helped them.
Moreover, thinking of future cases, it would be better for Octavia to have Ashton’s cooperation. Frowning, she waited patiently for Ashton to finish eating his sandwich.
After he swallowed the last bite, Ashton let out a long sigh. “It’s only idle talk. I have no files to support it whatsoever.”
“I don’t mind.”
“I heard a rumor—a number of children around the girl’s age were said to have gone missing very recently. I simply reacted to the thought that you might be involved somehow.”
“Missing? Do you mean they were kidnapped?”
“Dunno.”
“‘Dunno,’ you say? You’re a police inspector, aren’t you? Is this not a case?”
“Right you are. It’s not. And if we, the police, don’t have a case, we can’t carry out an investigation,” Ashton replied carelessly. “In the first place, we don’t know their identities. The rumors only go as far as to say that some orphans, scattered throughout the slums, haven’t been seen recently. The only people who’ve come to speak to me are their employers, whinging about the loss of labor. Yet still the case was quickly taken out of my hands.”
“Taken out of your... So the children were found?”
“According to the higher-ups, they were.” From his tone of voice and the fact that he wouldn’t look straight at her, Octavia could sense the disdain and irritation behind his words. He seemed to want to leave it at that, leaving Octavia to infer the rest for herself.
“So there was pressure from above,” Hat wondered, sitting on Octavia’s knee. “But who on earth would have done that?”
But Octavia knew that, even if she threw that question Ashton’s way, she probably wouldn’t get an answer.
Ashton took a cigarette out of his jacket pocket and lit it. “Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a case, anyway. It was most likely just a few runaways. There was no common thread between the children who went missing, not in terms of the circumstances of their births or their family relationships. Well, besides the fact that they were all girls with black hair.”
Octavia’s eyes widened.
Ashton blew out a stream of cigarette smoke. “That’s enough, right? Sling yer ’ook.”
“Thanks, Ashton! I promise I will repay this favor!”
Octavia leaned across the table and mimed giving Ashton a peck on the cheek. Startled, Ashton recoiled, taking his chair with him, but this was an earnest expression of affection from Octavia.
Following what Ashton had told her, Octavia made her way to the reception desk on the first floor of the palace and applied for a visitation with Raven. She’d thought that she would be sent packing, but, contrary to her expectations, she was simply told to speak to the sentries in front of the palace just after noon. And just like that, her business at the police station concluded.
“So,” mused Hat, “young girls with black hair—just like the one in the photograph—have been going missing, have they? Furthermore, someone behind the scenes put pressure on the police to stop them investigating the matter. Was it the queen’s brother?”