This one is set in the first year after Lewis returns to Oxford when Lewis and Hathaway were still finding their way as a team, and Lewis was still lost in his grief…

Four Years Gone

Part One: Into the Night

Lewis sighed. Time was he had found the job exciting. Now he found it sad. A call out used to bring with it a thrill of anticipation; now more like a cloud of depression. His age probably didn't help. Perhaps chasing after murderers was a job for the young. Though Morse had managed to hold on to the thrill of the chase up till the end…well, most days anyway. No, Lewis suspected, it wasn't so much his age as his own life that had drained his liking for the job away.

Years before Morse had told him of Chief Inspector McNutt and his wife who had betrayed McNutt by dying. Lewis, in Morse's estimation 'an ignorant, young sergeant' like Morse himself had been back when McNutt had been his chief inspector and secure in his world with Val and the kids safely at home, had murmured, "That happens, you know" without even a shudder of premonition.*

He'd call back those casual, thoughtless words now if he could. McNutt had given up his chief inspectorship, left the job behind, and took up with God. By the very skin of his teeth, Lewis had somehow held onto his inspectorship and the job, but he found no pleasure in either of them anymore. He'd been as proud of his inspector's as he had been of his wife and his kids though he couldn't quite think why anymore. Now though…

"Sir?" his sergeant called to him, pleading with him to take an interest, to get on with the job. He turned to frown at Hathaway. The sergeant had become disillusioned with the priesthood, left God, and came to the force though he'd missed McNutt traveling the opposite direction by several years. He was a capable enough cop, thorough and competent, and Lewis suspected that deep beneath the indifferent surface Hathaway took a great deal of satisfaction from the hunt. The sergeant had the makings for a real detective if someone would nurture it like Morse had in Lewis.

That was up to Lewis. He sighed again. He might have lost his love of the work, but it still needed done. He rubbed a tired hand over his chin and widened his eyes a tiny fraction to acknowledge Hathaway.

"The body's over here, Sir," Hathaway said. He motioned with his head off towards the shadowed back alley.

"Right," Lewis said. With a flap of his hand, he indicated the sergeant should lead the way with his torch. He tried to shake off his apathy as he followed Hathaway's lanky form into the dark alley, but it wasn't going anywhere. The night of December 18 was drawing to a close and tomorrow would mark the anniversary of Val's death. He'd thought not taking the time off might keep the day from disappearing into an alcoholic haze like it had in previous years. She deserved better than him drinking himself into oblivion as though he were hell-bent on forgetting her. And the kids…they weren't any less touched by the day than he was. He should be available to them if they needed to talk, not passed out.

And that was true enough, but it didn't mean he was in any state to be working. The job deserved, required, and demanded more than he had to give. He shouldn't have taken the call, shouldn't have agreed to be the one that stood between the poor, dead soul laid out in the alley and justice. He or she deserved more than a burned out, depressed inspector and an all-but green sergeant.

He, it was apparent when Hathaway slowed to a stop within the circle of emergency lights illuminating the crime scene. Lewis forced himself to squat by the body and take in the details of the battered skull and the torn hands that hadn't been strong or quick enough to stop the fatal blow. The poor sod had seen it coming…Val—she would have seen it too. The car careening towards her…and she would have been even more vulnerable and less about to stop it than this poor bloke.

"Lewis," Dr. Hobson, the pathologist, said in greeting. He avoided her look. There might have been a question there as much as the acknowledgment it was meant to be. She knew the date as well as he did, and if that 'Lewis' carried with it a sympathetic, "Are you all right? Are you going to make it through tomorrow?" he didn't want to hear it or know it.

"Time of death?" he asked in reply and hoped she'd let him get away with it. She vacillated between trying to get him to talk his sorrow out and letting him hold it in…between forcing him to accept what he'd lost and just being there in quiet, unvoiced support. She'd had more than a few things to say when he'd about let everything go that second year after Val's death…in fact, it was probably her persistence more than anything else that had sent him off to the British Virgin Islands. He'd resented it, fought against her, but in the end, she'd been right. The change had done him good. Maybe he should have made it permanent.

Coming home hadn't been easy. Still, he'd thought that he was going to make it…pick up the job, take on young Hathaway, dig in, and get on with life. It had seemed doable in the challenge of the Regan Perverill case and those that followed. That had been before winter set in.

"You're going to have to give me some time here," Hobson told him. "I've only just arrived myself. Traffic was backed up on the way."

He stood and said, "Right then. Tell me when you've something to go on." She frowned up at him, opened her mouth, and then thought better of it. Even if she'd barely had a chance to give the body a once-over, he knew there were things she could have told him. She was good at her job. He couldn't guess if she'd been about to snap at him for presuming otherwise, or if, as he suspected, it had been something else she'd wisely decided to swallow. Not the time or place for it. He could only hope the right time and place wouldn't come around until he'd managed to push back the darkness pressing against him. She, too, deserved more than he had to give her.

The whole bloody world did. His sergeant for starters. He turned from the pathologist to glare at Hathaway and demand, "Have you any more to tell me than Hobson here, Sergeant? Or have you, too, only just arrived?" He could count on one hand the times he hadn't beaten Morse to the scene to put together a quick report before the chief inspector arrived. Leave and late sitters, family celebrations and sickness, backed-up traffic—nothing had ever been an acceptable excuse for not having a grasp of the essentials of the case when Morse was ready to hear it. Even the time Morse had been in the very building as the murder occurred and there was no way Lewis could have beaten him to the scene,* the chief inspector had made it very clear that he expected more from his sergeant. Lewis, however, wasn't Morse; he immediately regretted his harsh words.

Neither was Hathaway Lewis. He threw dismayed, apprehensive glances Lewis' way as he gave his dismally uninformative report. Though Hathaway seemed to have more of what it took to flourish in the world of modern policing than Lewis had ever had, he lacked the inner confidence that had kept Morse's criticisms from devastating Lewis. Hathaway thrived in an atmosphere of positive reinforcement—Lewis with a happy, secure childhood behind him and Val's love and belief supporting him had never fought the demons oppressing his sergeant. That didn't make him blind to his sergeant's needs; unfortunately, insight didn't always keep him from taking his bad mood out on the poor lad anyway.

The sergeant didn't have much of a report to appease Lewis. Either no one knew much or no one was saying much. The same old story, really. He shook his head and wondered why they bothered. The whole world seemed set against them doing their jobs. Always ready with a lie or an evasion, and if there was a word given it was always grudging and they were lucky if it were even a half-truth…oh, he should most definitely have taken some personal leave. Whether or not he should have spent it drinking himself to an early grave was questionable but not the fact that he should have taken it.

So, Lewis. What would it be? Go through the motions, act like he cared a whit or hand it over to someone else? Was he capable of spending tomorrow morning holding the next of kin's hand while he or she identified the body all the while swallowing down the emotions he'd lived through four years before? Whatever had made him think he could do the job and deal with that? He had to be the biggest fool he'd ever met.

"Sir?" Hathaway called to him once again. Lewis stuck his tongue in his cheek and looked the younger man up and down. What if he walked away, left it to Hathaway? The sergeant had shown himself to be capable enough…but, Lewis had known an inspector or two in his day who had given up on the job. They'd left their sergeants to cover for them, and when the case had proven too hard for young men without the experience behind them—they'd left their sergeants holding the bag, taking the blame for bungled jobs and preventable deaths and destroying their careers and lives in the process. Hathaway was a good man, a good copper, and a decent detective; Lewis wasn't about to throw all that away because he wasn't the man or inspector he needed to be. He wouldn't be dropping the whole mess in his sergeant's lap.

He fingered his mobile in his trouser pocket. He could call Innocent. Tell her…something and get them both replaced. Only Hathaway was still looking at him like a small boy expecting a walloping and Hobson was still hovering over the body and throwing speculative looks his way and—there was still tomorrow to live through.

He sighed and said, "All right, Sergeant, point us towards the man who found the body…let's see if we can't get any more out of him."

"Leave every night about this time…" the man looked pointedly at his watch and said, "…well, half ten. Supposed to be in at eleven. Boss won't be half-pleased."

"Sorry," Lewis told him. "It is a murder enquiry. I imagine your boss won't begrudge us the odd half hour. So…you backed your car out of the garage and…"

"Well, I just…saw him. Only I didn't know, did I? Just could make out something dark…thought some kids had been playing with the rubbish—kicking the bags about and such. Thought it would be better to toss them back in the bin tonight before they'd been ripped open and spread from one end to the other. I put the lights on to see better—and then I knew. Called you lot and have been waiting here ever since."

"But, you didn't recognize him?"

"No. Never seen him about. Mind, I don't know many of the neighbors. Working nights—just don't run into them much."

"Right, then. If you've given your information to the sergeant here, we'll let you get on to work. Thanks," Lewis said and strode away with Hathaway on his heels. "Let's see what the good doctor has to tell us, eh? Before she's off."

Hobson saw them coming and stood to meet them. Lewis manned up enough to meet her searching gaze.

"Anything?" he asked.

"About what it looks like." She handed him an evidence bag enclosing a bloodied rock. He took it carefully from her, but she shook her head. "I don't think we'll find much on it…besides the obvious, of course. I'd say he's only been dead an hour or two…three at the most. Not the healthiest of individuals to start with…there's evidence of several abdominal surgeries. May be able to ID him from that alone if they were done locally. He'd definitely been in some hospital or another more than once. Malnourished, probably bowel problems...about…mmm—upper fifties? Possibly younger—depending on how long he had been unwell. I'll be able to pin things down better after the PM—there's a backlog. Might not get to him until the afternoon, but I'll do my best."

"Thanks, Doctor," he told her. He shuffled his feet a bit before finally adding, "Sorry—for being a being a bit snippy earlier."

"I hadn't noticed," she told him. "See you tomorrow then?"

"Tomorrow," Lewis agreed wearily.

"Well, then. Good night, boys."

"Good night, Doctor," Hathaway murmured, and Lewis nodded his head. He watched her go while he thought over whether there was anything they could accomplish working through the night. There were the missing person files they could look through, but the dead man hadn't appeared to be sleeping rough. It was doubtful he was already listed as missing. The neighbors were sleeping or trying to anyway with police lights flashing through their back windows…no, there was nothing more to be done tonight. Tomorrow—well, if he survived the night, there'd be plenty of work for tomorrow.

"Better get off home, then, Hathaway. Nothing more to do tonight."

"I could take a look—"

"Tomorrow. We'll take a look tomorrow."

"Right. Well, then…good night, Sir?"

He grunted in reply and walked off down the dark alley. Hathaway had parked on the other end, and so Lewis was alone when his assailant struck. The attacker was younger, fitter, and more prepared. Lewis disappeared into the night.

*Masonic Mysteries, Inspector Morse. Thanks to princessozmaofoz for reminding me of this great episode.

*The Settling of the Sun, Inspector Morse