If English isn’t your first language, you’ve got a pretty good hold on it. I’ve come across native speakers who aren’t as good.
I said “first draft” but that was wrong. You’ve clearly done a lot of work on it. However, a couple of hints.
I’ll take as an example an early scene where Gumshoe has delivered the food he failed to bring previously:
The man’s eyes light up, glad to avoid another punishment from the higher-ups.
«Thank you! Thank you so much, you’ll see it was worth it, I promise,» he answers, unable to contain a huge smile.
«Don’t forget to bring two, Gumshoe. The Jury is coming in as well today, try not to let her starve too,» Robert adds from the other side of the room, after finishing his dessert-based breakfast.
«Yes sir! I won’t forget to bring food to both of them three times per day, you can count on me!»
The boy starts laughing loudly before dismissing the man with the viands: «Don’t worry, I won’t mention this to the prosecutor. But mind you, be more careful next time. Now please, would you call in officer Bristle?»
Without another word, Gumshoe leaves the room, making sure to close the door properly behind his back after getting out: a behavior a bit too specific not to be related to one of the man’s “previous mistakes”.
Increased “Affinity” with Robert!
- Point of view shift (head hopping)
The man’s eyes light up, glad to avoid another punishment from the higher-ups.
This is a shift in point of view, also called head-hopping. The story is all from the protagonist’s POV but here we have something from inside Gumshoe’s head. Your protagonist can deduce what Gumshoe thinks but they don’t actually know.
You could do something like:
The man’s eyes light up. You suspect he is glad to avoid another punishment from the higher-ups.
although I think you have enough in the next paragraph to simply say:
The man’s eyes light up.
This is the sort of thing we all do in first drafts. It’s not a big thing but it can cause an unconscious ‘blip’ for your reader, even if they don’t consciously realise.
By way of contrast, the other paragraph with POV is excellent, because here the protagonist is speculating why Gumshoe is acting the way he does:
Without another word, Gumshoe leaves the room, making sure to close the door properly behind his back after getting out: a behavior a bit too specific not to be related to one of the man’s “previous mistakes”.
You’ll find a few examples of these, but they’re easy to fix.
- Avoid long explanatory bits in speech tags
“Don’t forget to bring two, Gumshoe. The Jury is coming in as well today, try not to let her starve too,” Robert adds from the other side of the room, after finishing his dessert-based breakfast.
The stuff after the direct speech is a little awkward. I don’t think it is all necessary (does it matter what side of the room Robert is on?) but the main thing is you can separate the two sections with a full stop between them:
Robert brushes off the crumbs of his breakfast. “Don’t forget to bring two, Gumshoe. The Jury is coming in as well today, try not to let her starve too”
To a certain extent this is stylistic preference but I throw it in for what it is worth. It feels much tighter to me.
On a similar note, you could consider (and I do mean, consider - it’s not wrong as such and this is just a suggestion) changing the first bit from:
The man’s eyes light up, glad to avoid another punishment from the higher-ups.
«Thank you! Thank you so much, you’ll see it was worth it, I promise,» he answers, unable to contain a huge smile.
To something like:
The man’s eyes light up,
«Thank you! Thank you so much," he says with a huge smile. «You’ll see it was worth it, I promise,»
- Use of present continuous tense
Present continuous is where we use the “is doing” rather than the “does” form of a verb. That is, ending in “ing”.
It is the difference between “I love you” and “I am loving you” - the second indicates an ongoing process, not a state of mind. (I know I’m descending into the depths of English grammar here but it does make a difference)
There are of course cases where the continuous form is appropriate but it doesn’t have the same punch:
The boy starts laughing loudly before dismissing the man with the viands:
becomes
The boy laughs loudly before dismissing him.
(keep ‘with the viands’ if you want - I don’t think it adds anything but that is purely my preference, it’s not a problem)
- This one has nothing to do with the drafting process
I would have liked to know why affinity is increasing. Maybe something like “You smile at each other”? Up to you. This really is my personal preference and others may disagree.
- It’s really very good
Honestly, these are smallish details but they are why I see it as a draft rather than a finished product.
If you were my student I would strongly be encouraging to write more and get it published.