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“How did it go?”

He gave her a dark glance. “As I expected.”

Reina grinned and reached up to rub the tight muscles at the back of her neck. “Staff,” she repeated absently. “Why do we use that word for a group of servants?”

“I believe it comes from military usage, ma’am—in reference to the baton that served as a symbol of office.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I’m sure we could come up with a better word than that. What do you think about ‘collaboration’? ” Before he could reply, she said, “No, something alliterative . . . perhaps a ‘support’ of servants? . . . a ‘scurry’? . . .”

John wondered at a mind that was so obviously tired and yet ready to frolic.

When he’d started on the force in Manchester, he’d found it difficult at first to chase fleeing suspects as they’d darted through narrow alleys and rundown buildings and leapt over the gates of walled-off yards. Some of the little bastards were so damn agile, they appeared to run sideways even while moving forward.

“The problem isn’t your legs, it’s your head,” the old chief constable, Captain Moss, had told him. “These young ruffians always zig when you expect them to zag. Stop thinking and just try to keep them in sight.”

So John had learned to let his instincts take over. Just relax and follow.

That was what it was like, talking with Reina Martin.

“A scheming,” he said decisively.

“A ‘scheming of servants’ . . .” Reina looked doubtful. “Is that word appropriate?”

“For your servants, aye.”

“Oh, dear.” Her lips twitched. “What have they been scheming about?”

“At dinner I told them about the police supervisor who’ll be visiting for an inspection,” John said, laying out the cutlery. “They started plotting to do away with him as soon as he arrived.”

Reina averted her face, but he could tell she was struggling not to laugh. “You talked them out of it, I hope.”

“Aye, ma’am.”

She rested her chin on her hand. “One has to admit it would have been an effective short-term solution. Long-term, however, it might have proved problematic.”

“Especially for the supervisor,” John said, which made her laugh outright. “I’m glad you find it amusing, Miss Martin.”

“I’m sure they wouldn’t have gone through with it. There’s a difference between plotting and pondering.”

“Perhaps in a high-functioning brain. Which I assure you is not the case downstairs.”

Reina made a few little clicks of reproach with her tongue. “We can’t always assume the worst about people, Pembroke. It doesn’t help them improve.”

“You’re living in a house full of hardened criminals,” he said. “Some reasonable suspicion wouldn’t be amiss.”

“All of them, including you, have paid their debt to society and earned early discharge through good behavior. Furthermore—”

“Not really.”

Reina blinked in mild surprise. “Not really what?”

“The discharges weren’t earned through good behavior—only a lack of bad behavior.”

After considering that, Reina viewed him with new interest. “Isn’t the lack of bad behavior the same thing as good behavior?” she asked, as if she already had an opinion but was curious about what he might say.

“No. ‘Good’ is an active force. ‘Bad’ is what happens in its absence.”

“Ah,” she said, the outer corners of her eyes tipping upward. “That’s Augustine’s privation theory of evil. But he also believed in redemption as a process. A journey.”