I thought it was time I tried to write a mystery. After all, how long can I continue to write stories around a murder mystery show and never actually tackle one? Apparently, at least a bit longer, because even though I was determined to write a mystery, it didn't turn out to be the satisfying 'whodunit' I was hoping for. Even so, it seems to be a move in that direction because a crime and the investigation surrounding it actually figure in this story. That's something I don't think I've actually ever tackled in any of my stories not directly recapping actual episodes…even in them, I think I've managed to avoid dealing directly with the underlying mystery of the show.

Though not a crossover by any means, this one does feature brief guest appearances from DI Lynley and DS Havers of New Scotland Yard because I was sorely disappointed when the Lynley pair worked a case in Oxford, and there was not one mention of Morse or Lewis, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries: A Cry for Justice. (Plus, I'm intrigued by Havers who I think might be the most human female police character ever developed for television.)

Slim Chance

Part One

The killer misjudged two things when he decided he could get away with murder. First, he misjudged his own intelligence. Like a good many men before him, he thought he was smarter than the average cop, even the average Oxford cop. That was a mistake he might have managed to surmount. But, the second mistake, the assumption that he'd be pitted against an average Oxford cop…that was his undoing.

"Tell us about her," Inspector Robbie Lewis said as he met his sergeant upon arriving at the murder scene.

"Name's Courtney Wethersmith—"

"Daughter of Lonsdale's Wethersmith?"

"Sister, Sir. Forty-three, unmarried, in town for a family reunion. Down from London."

"Cause of death?"

"Dr. Hobson is with the body now…looks pretty straightforward, but—I don't think the doctor is completely satisfied."

"About what exactly?" The two men had ducked under the crime scene tape and crossed the courtyard as they talked, and Lewis nodded a greeting to the pathologist kneeling beside the dead woman as he asked that last question. He squatted down for a better look himself while after one quick glance his sergeant found the shrubbery off to the side of more interest.

"Well, she looks like a jumper," Dr. Laura Hobson spoke up.

"But?" Lewis prompted.

"Most definitely not." She stood and frowned down at both Lewis and the body. "She hit the pavement, certainly, but she was dead before that…time of death sometime between twelve and say…four this morning?"

"And she died how?" Lewis asked. He didn't look up from where he was staring somberly at the woman's bruised and bloody face.

"I'll tell you that once I've had time to have a proper look, but those paving stones did not make that contusion you're looking at…that was made by something else, of that I'm certain. But whether that was the killing blow or not—"

Lewis grunted a reply. "Where do these jokers come from, eh?" he asked. "Don't they watch enough telly to know it's not all that hard for you to tell a jumper from a dead body thrown out a window?"

Hobson gave him a wry grimace and a slight shrug and went back to doing her thing. Lewis stayed beside the dead woman a few more minutes. Hathaway was relatively sure the inspector exchanged a few more words with the pathologist and, knowing Lewis, probably a few with the deceased as well, but as the sergeant was busy taking uniform's report of their quick house-to-house he wasn't privy to either.

Finally, Lewis rose. He nodded his thanks to the doctor and motioned for his sergeant.

"Goodbye to you, too," Hobson called after them, and Lewis waved a distracted hand in her direction without answering back. Hathaway noted with interest that Hobson had not really been irritated at Lewis' lack of farewell, and she hadn't called him on the absence of a 'Good morning, Doctor' upon his arrival either. Apparently things were progressing nicely in the inspector/pathologist relationship at the moment. Hathaway was happy to see it. He had enough trouble with his own relationships; he so did not need to be caught in the middle of Lewis'.

Not that Lewis or Hobson would have ever allowed their personal relationship (if that's what they had; Hathaway spent half the time not sure such a thing existed between the two of them) to interfere with their jobs. It was just that sometimes the working atmosphere was much more congenial than others.

The three of them had spent a couple of hours the previous evening at their favorite pub…well, Hathaway's anyway. Hobson's was a bit louder and a bit pricier; while Lewis'…the sergeant wasn't sure Lewis had a favorite pub. He seemed intimately acquainted with most, if not all, the drinking establishments around Oxfordshire, but if he preferred one over the other Hathaway couldn't have named it. At any rate, they'd spent the early evening relaxed and laughing at the pub, then Hathaway had gone off to practice with his band. How the inspector and the pathologist had finished off the night…he couldn't say or even guess. But, it seemed they had parted amicably enough.

"So, then," his boss said bringing him back to the case. "What's Courtney Wethersmith doing here if she was in town for a big family do? Doesn't seem the sort of place to shunt your out of town relatives." The run-down building, the crumbling pavement, and the neglected flower boxes filled with urban debris instead of flowering greenery bore witness to the truth of that statement. It was not the sort of place the master of Lonsdale College would house his sister, regardless of how they got on.

"No, Sir. She was to be staying at her brother's. At college, actually. However, there was a bit of a row. She'd gone off in a huff, and, according to the cousin I spoke to, no one in the family knows where she'd gotten. From what I've gathered, such occurrences were fairly common. Bit of a drama queen was our Miss Wethersmith."

"How long had she been missing?"

"Since Sunday afternoon…interestingly, she'd only just registered here late last evening."

"So where was she between Sunday afternoon and last night? Any leads?"

"Not yet, Sir. Early days."

"Aye," Lewis said after inhaling deeply and sniffing. "Early days, but with the big cheese from Lonsdale involved, our great leader will be wanting this one solved last Tuesday."

Hathaway threw him an assessing look. Most days DCS Innocent and DI Lewis seemed to have formed an easy alliance after their rocky beginnings when Lewis had first arrived back from special assignment. However, there were still times, especially those involving the high rollers in Oxford politics and society, when that easy alliance dissolved into almost open hostilities. Hathaway hoped this wouldn't be one of them.

Innocent was keen, a bit too keen at times in Lewis' view, to close cases at best possible speed. Bring in a likely enough suspect for questioning, and she'd have the case all sewn up if you weren't careful. Lewis liked to take things a bit slower. He was all for pulling in suspects if he thought it would gain him anything, but he wasn't worried about the stats as much as he was worried about getting things right. Even so, his cautious tendencies didn't cost him much in the solve-time stats; he consistently closed cases in the amount of time it took some other inspectors to kick the incident room into gear. They did, however, help his conviction rate. In all the time Hathaway had worked with the inspector, they'd never had one case handed back to them as unprosecutable or dismissed once it went to trial.

That was the sort of record that should have given Lewis some rather generous leeway with the chief superintendent. And it frequently did, but whether because of her own ambition or because of pressure from those above her, in the presence of old money and influence or new money and raw power, Innocent tended to forget all of that. Lewis was unswayed by money (new or old), titles, or power. Not to say he was totally impartial, but it was the unknowns and the have-nots that were likely to bring out his biases. Even then though, Lewis was a man who believed justice was Justice and that it was for All. Nothing could raise his ire quite as quickly or as blatantly as Innocent's implied partiality. Unless it was her penchant for playing up to the press. Another problem likely to rear its ugly head in a case like this.

Hathaway sighed and mumbled a reluctant agreement. And they were off.

A quick word to the hotel staff who had reluctantly reported the body splayed on the pavement in front of their building and who had just as reluctantly given them the contact information to the clerk, Kira Osborne, who had registered Ms. Wethersmith the evening before. A desultory look around the motel room with its unrumpled bed and specks of blue and white toothpaste in the washbasin and not one hopeful looking scrap of evidence. Followed by an equally unhelpful stop off at the clerk's bedsit.

Kira knew nothing, had seen nothing, and had noticed even less. The two police officers were inclined to believe her; whatever intelligence she'd been born with she'd traded in for the arguable delights of drug-induced, brain-destroying highs. It was a wonder she knew her own name let alone held a job. Kira couldn't tell them if their victim had been distressed or in dire straits upon her arrival at the motel. Or if, while signing the registry, she'd mentioned someone was following her or chatted casually about where she'd been and what she'd been doing. Probably even if Wethersmith had signed the registry with her hands cuffed together and a masked man holding a knife to her throat, the clerk wouldn't have noticed.

Lewis gave up the attempt of getting anything useful from the burnt-out shell of a girl, shook his head, and strode off to his car. Hathaway followed him with a sarcastic 'thanks a lot' thrown over his shoulder to Kira which was totally wasted on the girl.

Lonsdale's Wethersmith, Professor James Calhoun Wethersmith the Fourth, master and a nominee for knighthood, was not delighted to find the police at his door. His secretary, or assistant, or whatever was the going name for university dogsbodies this year announced them in a carefully neutral tone and then quickly disappeared as though to put as much distance between this unwelcome interruption in the master's day and himself as was possible.

Lewis looked the professor over and thought if the circumstances had been different he wouldn't have minded putting a wrench in the man's busy schedule. But, this, notifying the next of kin…even self-important men like Professor James Calhoun Wethersmith the Fourth didn't deserve hearing the news they'd brought him.

"I'm afraid, Sir," he began, "that I have some distressing news for you. Might we sit down?"

Wethersmith frowned at the two policemen and reluctantly ushered them into his sitting room. Haphazard piles of books and files filled the room and had to be shuffled out of the way before they could perch uncomfortably on the dusty, leather sofa.

"Sorry," Wethersmith said with an apologetic grimace. "I'm afraid I don't do much entertaining, and I'm quite busy with the annual Forster review."

Hathaway raised a knowing eyebrow at this; Lewis assumed the Forster review was some big academic accolade or do that he was expected to be wowed by the very mention of…he wasn't. Wowed or interested for that matter.

"Your sister? Courtney, Sir?"

"Courtney? You've come about Courtney? I'm afraid…I don't actually know where she is or what she's up to…gone off home to London, I dare say. She was supposed to be here through the end of the week, but…" he shrugged as though he expected them to understand the Wethersmith family dynamics.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Wethersmith. But, we believe your sister was found dead this morning. We're going to have to ask you to come and identify the body…unless there is someone else?'

The master blinked his faded blue eyes in disbelief and leaned forward with his head inclined to bring his right ear nearer Lewis as though he thought he couldn't be hearing him correctly.

"Courtney? Dead? My sister? Little Courtney?" Tears glittered in his eyes and his voice cracked. Hathaway looked away, licking his lips; Lewis met the man's gaze and nodded his head.

"I'm afraid so, Sir. Or we have reason to believe it's her at any rate. Sergeant, see if you can fetch some tea and perhaps a drop of brandy for the professor, won't you?"

As Hathaway rose to fetch the tea, he heard the professor say, "How can you know it's Courtney? There must be some mistake…" Lewis' sympathetic murmur in response was lost to Hathaway as he headed down the hallway. He wondered though that the cousin he'd spoken to that morning who had informed him about the row between Courtney and her brother and her subsequent absence from the family reunion hadn't taken the time to inform the professor the police had been asking after his sister. It seemed like that would have been the expected thing to do and would have helped prepare the man for the unwelcome, unexpected news of her death. Yet, Hathaway judged it had taken the man completely by surprise. And, if he'd had to offer an opinion, he would have to say that he thought the grief and sorrow building under the man's shocked response was very real and very heart-felt.

Well, clearing the master would please the chief superintendent no end even if it would have been nice to have come straight from the body to the murderer's door.

"Thank you, Sergeant," Lewis said after Hathaway had returned to place the tea into the master's trembling hands. "Professor Wethersmith believes his sister might have been staying with a friend of hers from her college days," he handed Hathaway a paper with a name and address. "Call uniform and have them swing by and give us a lift. You go on and see what you can learn from Mrs. Tevett." Hathaway frowned down at the paper to make sure he could read the inspector's scrawls. Satisfied he could, he nodded an acknowledgment and left Lewis to the distraught academic.

Hathaway was relieved to not have to play nursemaid to the obviously upset man, but he wasn't happy to be sent off. Not because he needed the inspector to hold his hand. No, he was quite capable of interviewing victims, witnesses, and suspects on his own.

The bothersome point was that so was Lewis. Hathaway hated knowing that while he was out chasing down Mrs. Tevett, Lewis would be learning all sorts of things from Wethersmith and who knew whom else. Lewis would fill him in, of course, but…it wouldn't be the same as hearing and seeing the interviews himself. He wouldn't learn nearly as much; both from the interviewees and from watching Lewis at work. Notwithstanding the unhelpful Kira Osbourne, the man could get information from a turnip. He was a master and Hathaway hated losing out on the chance to observe him in action.

He shook his head at his own foolishness. If Lewis had insisted on keeping him close, not letting him earn his keep or prove his worth, he'd have been bristling about that as well. So, 'mustn't grumble' he told himself and drove off to interview Mrs. Tevett.