SSE Easy to pickpocket NPC

[Andy40]

Hello, I’ve create a mod where the player must pickpocket a key from an NPC in order to complete an objective. Sometimes the NPC detects the player, meaning they can no longer pickpocket (without waiting 24 hours). This is not ideal and I'd like to either use settings so the NPC never detects pickpocketing, or apply a 'reset' so the NPC is no longer alerted to the pickpocket threat. The NPC uses a small patrol route, so it would be easy run some code to reset him. I tried using the functions stopCombatAlarm and setAlert, but neither worked. Any suggestions on how this can be done?