Adapting the Method

The entire work force had been gathered together in the staffroom yesterday so that Donovan could give them a speech about not hassling the apprentices. They're here to learn, he had said, not to take away your jobs. So the best you layabout can do is just be nice to them and help them out as much as possible.

Not hassling them was something that Clive certainly had no problems with. On the rare occasions when he was at the office at all (as he preferred to work from home beyond the unavoidable submission process), his only concerns were to be out of there as soon as possible. Talking to anyone was very low on his list of priorities.

The apprenticeship lot were a regular fixture, turning up in batches at least once a year, with most of them dropping out in the months that followed. It took a tough new-comer to put up with both Donovan's strict rules and a bunch of paranoid reporters, who were sure you were put there to replace them. Anyone who actually lasted the full year was deemed worthy and accepted into the London Times's steadily growing team.

After that they'd just become someone else who Clive would ignore.

“Oi, Clive! Get in here!”

However, his employer was the one person here he was not permitted to pay no attention to.

Clive slunk through into the office, standing in front of the desk that Donovan was sat at. He did not take the offered seat, as that would have implied he wanted to sit and chat, which they both knew was not the case.

“What have you got there?” Donovan opened with.

“Just my article for tomorrow. I was taking it to be printed,” dismissed Clive.

“Another story about Professor Layton?” Donovan probed. When he didn't get a direct reply to that, he already knew what the answer was. He went on, “Look, I mostly let you do your own thing. A lot of them lot out there have accused me of favouritism and, heck, they're probably right. You do a good job and you work better on your own, so I'm not going to nitpick your methods, as long as you get a story printed at the end of the day. But people complain. They say it isn't fair that every year you get shot of having an apprentice, when none of them want one either.”

“So what did you tell them?” Clive droned, already guessing.

“I told them that I'd give you one this year. And don't pull that face, I was sure to pick out the softest-looking boy of the bunch, so he'd be likely to drop out quicker. I know you don't want this, but do it this once and I won't hassle you again for the next few years,” Donovan promised.

“Very well. Where is he?” asked Clive, curtly.

“In the lobby, kicking his feet about. You probably past him on the way in,” Donovan replied, and as Clive began to leave, he called after, “Try not to kill him, all right?”

Clive smirked. He and his employer shared a somewhat sinister sense of humour that, amongst other things, had sparked the favouritism in the first place.

If anyone else had asked, he'd have flat out refused. And in most other places he probably would have lost his job long ago because of his attitude. But Donovan was right, it would only be this once and it'd get the others off his case. So with that in mind, he headed back down to the lobby where, sure enough, a wide-eyed boy who he'd ignored on the way in was stood waiting.

“Name?” Clive demanded, as he approached the lad.

“Luke Triton, came here for my apprenticeship!” he barked, standing to attention when Clive spoke.

“Well, I'm here to teach you. I'm Clive Dove. Come with me,” Clive instructed, heading out of the lobby and onto the streets.

Luke trotted along behind him, and quickly checked, “Aren't we, um, supposed to be going in there?” He pointed back at the London Times office.

“What do you expect to learn in there?” Clive enquired, without stopping.

“I don't know. How to run a printing press, lay out a newspaper, that sort of thing,” he replied.

“I'm a reporter. They've assigned you to me because they want you to learn how to be a reporter,” Clive corrected, halting as he reached his car, “And you don't learn about finding stories by sitting in an office waiting for inspiration to make time for you. Now get in the car so we can get to the other side of London before we lose this one.”

Luke thankfully followed orders without complaint, but he did ask a lot of questions. Once they were in the car and on the move he launched into another one.

“What sort of things do you write stories about?”

“Most reporters are given specific fields to work on. You've got the headliners, which is a matter of luck, the sports team, they probably have the steadiest job of us all, the garden section, boring lot they are, and so on,” answered Clive.

“And what do you do?” Luke pressed.

“Usually whatever I feel like,” Clive snorted, “Which isn't normal practise. Most likely you'll be assigned to something if you stay on.”

“Why aren't you?”

“I have... a special arrangement.”

“Okay, so what are you reporting on today?”

A frown. Clive knew that he couldn't do another story about Layton after just submitting one. The man didn't work that fast. But there was a display on at Oxshire Museum featuring the artefacts that Layton had brought back from that dig. The ones that he had, once again, prevented Jean Descole from stealing. And Clive just had a feeling...

“A robbery.”

“There's been a robbery!” Luke gasped.

“Not yet, but there will be.”

“How do you know that?” checked Luke, sounding suspicious, “Are you going to steal something?”

“Of course not,” Clive tutted, “But I have a nose for this sort of thing.”

By the time he pulled the car up in front of the museum there was already a crowd, but fortunately no other reporters. He knew it.

Before he had a chance to give Luke any instructions, his charge was already out the door and had run over to ask the closest person some questions. Good instinct, Clive mused, it's a nice starting point if nothing else.

“Excuse me, miss,” Luke called to a lady who was carrying a small dog, “Can you tell me what's happened here?”

“I'm not entirely sure. There's just a lot of people about, so I thought I'd have a look. They're saying something was stolen,” she answered.

“Thank you,” said Luke.

He noticed that Clive had already started pushing through the crowd and assumed it would be a good idea to follow him. This wasn't an easy task, as Luke had a natural urge to be polite and people didn't seem to move for that as quickly as they did when Clive shoved them, but after a few minutes he made his way to the front. There he saw that Clive had already begun talking raptly with a short man who had an air of importance to him.

“It was simply awful, Mr. Dove!” the man proclaimed, swooning dramatically, “I thought that we'd seen the last of this, but apparently not! I'd been gone for a matter of mere minutes and the most valuable items on display had been swiped from under our noses! Of course, I called Scotland Yard as soon as I could, but you can't have police cars outside without attracting a crowd...”

“I can see. And that's not what you need, not with everything else that's happening right now,” agreed Clive. Luke noted that his mentor sounded much more heartfelt and concerned talking to this person than he had done talking to Luke in the car. But now was not the time to ask about it and Clive had already moved on in his discussion; “So are the inspectors in there now?”

“Why yes, that Grosky fellow is charging about. You can go talk to him if you like,” offered the man.

“Thank you, that would be most kind. My assistant and I will see what we can find out and get back to you if there's anything of interest,” Clive replied, bowing before heading into the building with Luke. Once they were out of earshot, he said, “It's good that we've got Grosky. This won't mean a thing to you right now, but you'll learn soon enough that there are two important names in Scotland Yard – Grosky and Chelmey. Grosky isn't the brightest, so if he's on a case he'll probably tell you anything as long as you don't make it too obvious what you're doing. Whereas Chelmey won't talk at all. The best you can hope for with Chelmey is that Barton's with him, because Barton's more likely to let something slip by accident.”

“Okay then,” murmured Luke, feeling that this was all going over his head, “But are we even supposed to be here?”

“The museum's curator gave us permission,” Clive answered.

“That guy? All right, so he let us in. But it seemed a little too easy. You'd think that he'd be a bit more cautious about who goes through after he's just been burgled,” said Luke.

“I've written a lot of stories that put Oxshire in a positive light. People like him remember the ones who compliment them,” hummed Clive, as looked around for Grosky, “It's very important to remember to be sympathetic to those who own big businesses. You can be rude to everyone else, but once you publish slanderous material about one of the bosses, don't expect that boss to give you a tour of their factory again. He knows he can trust me to- ...Ah! Grosky!”

Looking in the direction Clive was waving, Luke caught sight of a large man who was charging about, yelling orders at other officers. He seemed to be in his element and everyone else seemed keen to keep out of his way. When Clive had caught his attention, he strode over like he had a purpose. Luke had to resist the urge to step back.

“I thought I'd find you here, lad!” Grosky boomed, “And I see that you've got an even littler lad with youay!”

“Easy now, you'll give him a complex,” laughed Clive, “Luke's in his twenties, or I'm assuming he is, since Donovan rarely brings them in straight out of school.”

“Not often I see you with a tag-along,” commented Grosky.

“Most of them can't keep up with me. But you'd know that feeling, eh Inspector?” Clive replied. And Luke noted, that once again, he was using that overly friendly tone of voice.

Grosky seemed to buy it, answering, “I do indeed! Not many can keep up with men as fast as us. Champions in our own fields, if I do say so myself!”

“And speaking of our own field, I'm sure that you'll have found out what's going on, a brilliant mind like yours,” Clive purred. If it had been any other situation, Luke might have confused the way he said that for flirting, but surely not.

“Right you are! My men have scampered about, checking every nook and cranny. It didn't take long before we came across Descole's calling card. Some might have said it had been right in front of our faces the whole time, but we had to be thorough,” Grosky answered, “Any old thief could send a calling card and sign it Jean Descole. But, as you know, I have had much more dealing with this criminal genius than anyone on the force and therefore were able to expertly tell the real card from any fakes.”

“I'm very glad to hear it. We'll all sleep soundly tonight knowing that Inspector Grosky is on the trail,” cooed Clive, “So do you have any ideas where he's gone?”

“Can't have gone far, it only happened an hour ago...” muttered Grosky.

Clive was smart enough to know that meant 'no'.

Before he could say anything else, Luke cut-in, “Then don't you think that you should all be out looking for him? If he had a car he could have driven miles away in an hour!”

“Lad thinks he can tell me how to do my job!” Grosky bellowed, and Clive gave an awkward fake-laugh to that. Then Grosky put his hand on Luke's shoulder and assured him, “We've already got plenty of officers on the case. And if I don't personally escort that Descole behind bars, then my name's not Clamp Grosky.”

“And when you do I'll be there to give the first interview of London's greatest hero,” Clive added.

“Too right! Wouldn't let any of those other reporters have it. None of them respect me the way you do,” agreed Grosky, “Now, if you don't mind, I must be off. Wouldn't want anyone else to worry that I wasn't pursuing the criminal!”

With that, Grosky darted off out the door, the sheer force of his momentum almost blowing the two of them off their feet. There was a definite feeling of relief from the other officers as he left.

“Between us, I doubt he's going to be the one to catch Descole, if anyone does. But you can never be sure, so it pays to be friendly to him,” Clive informed.

“Friendly?” check Luke.

“Yes. What do you think I was doing?” Clive asked.

“It seemed like...” Luke mumbled, not knowing how to put this, “Don't take this the wrong way, but it seemed, um, a bit like you were flirting with him.”

“I was flirting with him,” answered Clive, looking as if this was no big deal.

“What!” spluttered Luke.

“Not in the way you're probably thinking,” Clive dismissed, “But people like Grosky respond better to compliments. If you want to get anything out of them then it pays to flirt just a little bit.”

“But that seems wrong. Don't you feel dirty doing that?” asked Luke.

Clive shrugged; “I've flirted with men who look worse than Grosky before.”

“That's not right,” Luke gasped, shaking his head, “You can't do that with another man. What if they got the wrong impression?”

“The only impression Grosky has is how great Grosky is,” Clive promised him, “But I see what you're getting at. And to be truthful, depending on the person, I might well be interested myself anyway. So no harm there.”

Upon hearing that, Luke had to turn away. He'd never heard anyone talk about such things before and when Clive said that he didn't mind the idea of doing... he-had-no-idea-what with men like Grosky, he just weird inside. His face was going red and he wished hard he could stop it.

Seemingly oblivious to Luke's discomfort, Clive continued, “We should get back before anyone else has a chance to pin Grosky for questions.”

“What?” The idea of returning to the office was enough to snap Luke back to attention. He looked back at Clive and said, “But what about Descole? He hasn't been caught yet.”

“That's not our job. Our job is to discover something has happened, find out all the details that we can and write a story about it that'll stir up enough interest to sell newspapers,” Clive corrected, “Leave catching the criminal to Scotland Yard.”

“It just feels wrong,” argued Luke, “It's not right to come here knowing you're not going to do anything about it.”

“Someone who's sighted Descole might read the article and then go to the police with information,” Clive debated, “In a roundabout way we're helping.”

“No you're not! You're just flirting with men to find out stuff that has nothing to do with you! In the car you said you had a feeling this was going to happen. Well, if you knew that, then why didn't you tell someone?” demanded Luke.

“It's not my fault if the people who run this place don't know Descole better by now! Of course he's going to steal the treasure that Layton stopped him from getting, that's just how how he works!” Clive snapped, “And also, you seem a little hung up on the flirting. Does it really bother you that much?”

“Messing with people's feelings is wrong!” Luke screeched, causing some of the officers to look their way, “And not helping is wrong and so's looking for trouble! Everything you do is wrong!”

He turned and ran, not waiting for Clive to make a reply.

An officer that Clive was sure was called Colby whistled a loud note, but by the time Clive looked around he had gone back to work. Or at least, pretending to work.

For a few minutes Clive stood there not knowing what to do. There was a chance that Luke would go back to the London Times and tell them all about Clive's methods. But then, Clive was pretty sure that Donovan was already aware of his methods by this point anyway. To be fair, it seemed more likely that Luke had ran home and now wanted nothing to do with being a reporter. It was a nasty job and someone as nice as Luke had no place in that career.

After he'd composed himself, Clive returned to the car, quickly wrote up the story (being sure to quote Grosky in as much of a supportive light as possible) and then returned to the office to submit it. Sure enough, Luke was nowhere to be found and no one said anything that implied he had been there.

That was the end of that.

Maybe he'd get an award for losing an apprentice quicker than anyone else.

By the time he came to work the next morning, the whole ordeal had left his head entirely. Or at least, it had done until Donovan called him through to his office for the second time in so many days.

“We had to pull your story,” Donovan informed, with an air of regret at having to tell him this.

“Why?” Clive scoffed, “Did that boy come back and-”

“Yes, he did,” confirmed Donovan, “And I don't know whether to praise you or question you about the whole thing, but we ended up publishing his story instead anyway. Don't think I haven't clicked on with what you're up to. Here I thought that you'd try to get rid of him on the first day, when instead you wanted to prove yourself my making him the best apprentice this place has ever seen. And that's fine. We want that. But I don't want you going behind my back and submitting half-finished stories, and then having him submit the finished thing under his own name first thing the next day. If you want to do that at all, at least do it when we haven't already wasted a lot of money printing your first story.”

“I don't know what to say...” mumbled Clive. He really didn't.

“Don't say anything. Just go meet Luke to congratulate him on his first successful headliner,” Donovan instructed, “And be sure to be smarter about all this next time. Even you only have so many chances.”

Despite that being an empty threat Clive was too stunned to acknowledge it as such. He walked out of the office in a daze, trying to figure out what was going on. Luckily for Clive, Luke caught him before he could walk into anyone else.

“Hey!” Luke called, grinning widely.

“H-hi, um, Luke,” stammered Clive, “Can you tell me... can you, what I mean is, what happened yesterday?”

“I should probably say sorry for that,” Luke admitted, “I was so angry that I just said things and really didn't have time to think about it all. It's just that I'm new to all of this and it was very overwhelming. Maybe I'd had the wrong idea about what being a reporter is. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised that maybe you didn't have the right idea either. I couldn't be like you. Well, maybe I could a little bit, but not for the part where you just watch stuff happening and not do anything about it. So I, well, I helped Scotland Yard look for Descole. We didn't catch him in the end, but we did get all of the artefacts back and on top of that I had a great story to submit about it!”

If Clive had been shocked before that was nothing compared to how he felt now.

“You... recovered the stolen artefacts?”

“Yeah!”

“Then you wrote a story about it?”

“That's what I just said.”

“In which you told everyone that you had helped Scotland Yard save the day?”

“I couldn't lie, could I? Mr. Donovan says that if people like me and I keep it up, then he'll see what he can do about giving me my own weekly article about being a reporter who helps the police,” answered Luke, beaming proudly.

“That's nice,” Clive muttered.

“But don't worry, for now I'm just going to carry on with my apprenticeship, because there's still so much I can learn from you,” Luke promised.

“It sounds like you don't want to do things my way at all,” Clive protested.

“Maybe I will do things a little differently. That doesn't matter though, because when you think about it, if it wasn't for you I wouldn't be doing anything at all,” answered Luke, “You're the best reporter and I'm simply responding to your teachings in the best way I can, so everyone can see how good you are.”

Clive looked suspicious; “Are you trying to win me over by pretending to be nice?”

“I wouldn't do that! I told you yesterday that I don't agree with doing that sort of thing,” scolded Luke, smirking slightly.

“I'm not Grosky, okay?” Clive answered, “If you want to go about it that way you're going to have to be a little less obvious with what you're doing. I play this game too much for someone to play me back.”

“Wouldn't know what you're talking about,” replied Luke, with a wink, “Now let's hurry up. I got word that there's a display on for home-made flying crafts just outside of London and I can imagine that with Don Paolo's jealous streak he'll probably turn up just to ruin it.”

Luke dashed off, heading out the door and presumably towards Clive's car.

It took Clive several moments to realise that he'd been blushing since Luke had winked at him.

No!

He was a professional and he wasn't going to let himself get beaten at his own game. Yesterday was just a fluke, that was all. Today, he would be the one to write the story and Luke would be the one learning from him.

...All he had to do was make sure he refrained from teaching Luke anything that could be used against him in future.