undergrounds | waves that swallow quick and deep

Spy? His eyebrows loft in surprise, then Lancelot shakes his head quickly.

"No! No, good lord no. But you can probably understand that I must ask a few questions. Gilbert Norrell had plenty of enemies, but some were more... pronounced than others."

Louder. He shrugs minutely, digs for a small notebook and pencil and gestures with them vaguely. He can't believe she hasn't been questioned before, so she probably knows how this goes.

She frowns at him, her brow furrowing. "You think I did something?" There was a slight note of panic in her voice. Innocent suspects got worried. It was just the way it often went.

There was no way any evidence could lead back to her. She'd been extremely careful. She'd taken everything she'd come in with out, hadn't wiped any running makeup off, nothing. There were few in the city who could have pulled something off like she did.

"I promise you, I had nothing to do with it, Lance." A bold-faced lie, as she looks up at him. She hardly looks the innocent she was in Norrell's office, all dressed up for work. "If my circle did, I've no bloody clue."

Her fear gives him a stab of guilt, but he still can't rule out her involvement. Nancy isn't stupid, and he knows she and her circle dislike Daybreak and especially Norrell.

"I need you to tell me where you were on the 19th," he responds smoothly. Keeping his tone as calm as he can in the hope of not sounding to accusatory. "Your movements, anyone who can verify them for you. Where I might find them. That sort of thing. We have no official suspects at the moment." Which means she isn't an official suspect, something he hopes is reassuring.

Feeling guilty? Good. You should, she's a sweet innocent girl just swept up in a bad situation.

No official suspects. So she wasn't one of them. "Just the unofficial ones." You can't blame her, it's insulting to be considered a suspect in any way, shape, or form.

"The nineteenth- alright, yeah. I was with Larkin Meadows- she's a witch. I can give you her number, if you like." Larkin was a woman she'd met once. But she was an air-tight alibi, and Nancy was incredibly thankful for. Eames was a godsend when it came to procuring alibis. Hopefully she didn't have need for one again. "I went to her flat around 6:30, I think it was?" Well before Norrell disappeared. "Left around midnight, or so."

She looks at him with a slight twist to her lips.

The name is unfamiliar to him, but Lancelot nods regardless as he makes a note of it.

"A number would help," he confirms, "and anyone who may have seen you coming or going. Anything else. The better I can verify you were far away the easier it is for me to leave you in peace."

Although Lancelot looks terribly uneasy regardless, for Lancelot is not good at hiding things he does not wish to hide. His emotions wear too easily in his features, in the flick of his eyes. It is a good thing he is an officer and not a criminal, he'd make a terribly poor one.

Edited (weird icon choice) 2016-07-30 22:29 (UTC)

"Alright, let's see here-" she pulled up her phone. A few moments later, and she had the number, and told Lance. "I imagine her doorman, the boy who brought take-away." Getting an alibi was hard work. But Eames was absolutely brilliant. She had nothing to fear.

She paused, looking up at Lance. He's uneasy, she can read it from a mile away. "What is it?" She furrows her brow. "There's something you're not telling me, Lance. Why would you think I was even involved? I mean- you know me." She pouts just slightly, the betrayal she was feeling slowly donning.

He does, and yet somehow he also feels he doesn't. He knows Nancy has sympathy in her heart, yet also viciousness. He knows she dislikes Sylvia Redbright, and Daybreak, but he also doesn't know how far she'd go.

Taking down the number he makes note of the others she mentions -- doorman, she says? Who is this witch, rich enough to have a doorman? How did they become friends with Nancy?

"We do have something that places you within Norrell's house," he offers, and he keeps his eyes down as he says it. Focusing on writing, collecting himself enough that when he lifts his eyes again his voice is still even. Even as his eyes beg her to pay careful attention to what he's saying. "Within his library, specifically. Have you been there before?"

If Lance digs, he'll find all the information he needs to prove Nancy's innocence. Larkin knows the story backwards and forwards- Both women were Midnight supporters, and Larkin had Nancy over for a glass or twelve of wine, thinking she should have a girls' night. Easy.

"...What...?" Her mouth is dry as she looks at Lance, her lower lip jutting out in disbelief. She thought she'd been careful. How could they place her there? But it didn't matter, because she had a chance to explain herself.

"Yeah- I have, actually. Norrell had Childermass solicit me." She doesn't need to tell him about Norrell's true reason to have her there. What's wrong with a little mud-raking now that the man was gone? Nancy looks away, hunching her shoulders like she's ashamed of it.

Solicit her? Lancelot's eyebrows shoot up at the statement, then furrow into a frown of confusion.

"Solicit you for..." he prompts, trying to establish if he has misunderstood in some way. Gilbert Norrell hadn't exactly struck him as the type to hire a prostitute, certainly not one of Nancy's type, but then again he could very well be wrong. He hadn't known the man personally at all, not spoken with him outside of public engagements.

Although the very idea makes him feel faintly ill.

Nancy was the only remaining one who had been in the room, who had been in that limo. She nodded, pressing her lips together like she wasn't proud of herself. She should have felt bad. But she really didn't. There was no reason to.

"I refused." Because she still had some amount of pride. "He wanted his manservant to watch."

He wanted--

Lancelot grimaces slightly, making a note of this regardless.

"When was this?" he prompts, trying to remain professional despite the ill feeling welling up all over again. If it is to be her reason why there is evidence she was there, after all, he'll need to confirm that too.

She presses her lips together, counting back. "A bit ago- I'm sure if you needed it, I could get you a more precise date. It's just not something I like to think about." Which was, for the record, completely true.

All the same, she shivers. "Just- the nerve of him, actively oppressing us and turning around and trying to pay me- I told him I may be a whore, but I have standards. Can- can I ask, Lance, what the evidence against me is?" Give her an opportunity to explain it. Whatever it is, she's sure she can spin it.

"I can't give away details of an active investigation like that," he says gently, but he looks uncomfortable nonetheless. Like he wishes he could help her. "If you can think of a more precise date, though, that would help."

He hesitates uneasily, trying to work out how to negotiate the conversation.

"We will be pulling footage from traffic cameras too, so, if there's one near your friends house that will help."

Although, equally, if there's one near Norrell's then it might not.

Nancy nods. "Of course." Shit. Shiiiit, traffic cameras. Hopefully Eames had thought of that- she'd speak with him immediately after this. Or, well, a little while after this, she didn't want to raise any further suspicion. `

"Lance," she asks after a moment, turning on the charm as much as she could. Her eyes are wide and she pouts just slightly, the picture of concern and worry. Fagin had always said she was quite an actress. "You don't think I did this... do you?" A personal appeal, to him as her friend. Not as a Guardian or an officer or anything. Just as her friend, the man who bought her chocolate to help calm her down, who carried her back to her apartment when he saw she was in trouble. He was a good person, and she knew that. She just had to appeal to that.

"There are no official suspects," he repeats, keeping his tone reassuring, because it's true -- and he can't say he'd be surprised if Nancy's Circle was involved in some way, which means he can't entirely rule her out. "Like I said, we're just talking to everyone. Protocol."

Nancy he especially can't avoid, especially since she's been placed in his house.

Nancy shakes her head, and takes a step towards him. "That's not what I'm asking, Lance." She looks up at him, imploring him to answer as himself. He surely had to have a personal opinion on the matter, and all at once she suddenly realized how much this actually meant to her.

She honestly wanted Lance to believe she was innocent. Because worse of being caught- actually legitimately caught, something she hadn't even considered before going in. She'd taken so many precautions, sure, but the idea of being caught wasn't something she even saw as an option. Because if he thought she did it... Then he'd know just what a terrible person she was.

And he would be right.

"Nancy," he says, in something of a low chide. "We don't even know what this is. All we know is Gilbert Norrell and Childermass are missing. I can't have an opinion on what may or may not have been done if I don't know what it is I'd be accusing someone of."

But, in his heart, Lancelot is plenty wary. Maybe she's telling the truth, and her story of visiting him before is why her hair is in his room, but... maybe she isn't.

It isn't that Lancelot thinks her capable of murder, not really, but he does think her more capable of aiding her friends in an elaborate scheme if she believed it was the right thing to do.

There's something calming in his voice. No, calming isn't the right word. But there's something that has her settle somewhat. She nods, lips pressed together. It's the first time she allows herself to look guilty.

"I know- I'm sorry," she admits, but she doesn't know, and she isn't sorry. Just a few more lies to add to the ones that she's been telling all night long. But she doesn't want him scolding her.

For a moment, she really is just a teenager.

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