A slightly shorter one but its where a good natural chapter break fell I'm afraid. The good (I hope its good) news is that I am trying very hard to get this all wrapped up (excuse the pun) before I go to relatives for Christmas. The epilogue is already written, so I just have to get us there! This means that there might be multiple updates a day, as I'll upload as I finish.

The bad news is that I have a slight crisis of confidence in the ending – but I'm just going to stick with it as the foundations are too well laid to write around now!

Chapter Seven

By the evening it was beginning to feel as though they were making very little progress. Sarah Blackwall continued to vehemently deny even having driven the car on the previous evening and yet was still unable to explain the presence of her car on the CCTV or how exactly the vehicle had become damaged. Lewis had the dizzy feeling that came of spending the majority of the afternoon going around in distressingly similar circles. Unfortunately, until the Investigation Unit released their report and they could definitively prove that her car was responsible for the hit and run they had no excuse but to release her with a strong caution not to leave the area.

The two officers, tired and frustrated after a day of achieving nothing had spent the evening staring blankly at Lewis' television with a bottle of beer in hand, cursing the slowness of the lab.

"Do they have no concept of hurrying up?" Lewis sighed miserably.

"I did ring them," Hathaway commented, "I'm sure that 'Now That's What I Call Christmas' is encouraging them to new heights of efficient work practices."

"Did you tell them it was urgent?" Lewis asked, already knowing the answer.

"I did. They called me Scrooge," Hathaway sounded almost affronted by that, "then told me the old one about how they would get more work done if I stopped ringing."

"It's all machines down there isn't it?" asked Lewis, vaguely remembering a trip into the bowels of the station once to seek out another missing report.

"I did point that out to them." Hathaway observed, taking a swig of his beer.

"What did they say to that?"

"Nothing repeatable. Then they hung up."

They lapsed back into silence, Hathaway stifling a huge yawn with the back of his hand, that Lewis couldn't fail to notice.

"Go on," Lewis ordered the younger man, "Away to bed with you Jim, you look done in."

Hathaway didn't argue, which went a long way towards proving just how tired he really was. Yawning again he stretched his arms high above his head with a groan before standing up.

"Sorry, sir. It's been a long few days."

"Aye I know, and you're meant to be the young one. Now off to bed."

Hathaway couldn't suppress a cheeky grin.

"Yes dad."

"Go'on away with you!" Lewis repeated himself, but still found himself smiling, "I'll see you tomorrow."

Lewis was woken up less than an hour later by the shrill, insistent ringing of his phone. Without even glancing at the caller display, he knew whose slightly apologetic voice he would hear at the other end.

"Lewis?" he grumbled.

"Sorry, sir," Hathaway did indeed sound an interesting combination of both irritated, apologetic but mostly, to his senior's surprise – he sounded deeply confused.

"Can it wait, Hathaway?" Lewis didn't know why he asked the question, the fact that Hathaway had even called meant of course that it could not, and yet he lived in the fervent hope that one day he would not have to drag himself out of bed into the frosty Oxfordshire night.

"Well, they aren't going anywhere," Hathaway mused, "but I suspect Doctor Hobson would not be too impressed with us sir."

"True," the thought of an irate Laura was not one he wanted to consider too closely, "a suspicious death then is it?"

"Yes sir," Hathaway still sounded confused, which in turn was confusing Lewis.

"What's bothering you Sergeant?" There was a long pause.

"Well sir, you're never going to believe this," Hathaway appeared distinctly like he didn't, but an ominous faint flicker of suspicion was kindling in the back of the Inspector's mind.

"Go on," he said warily.

"Uniform had a potential ID on the victim when they called me. Sir, its Sarah Blackwall. They thought it was a suicide but the Doctor is on the scene and apparently there is some kind of doubt. I'm entirely sure what."

Although his suspicion had indeed been proved correct, Lewis still found himself astonished by the revelation.

"You've got to be bloody kidding me," he exploded, regretting his sharp tone and cursing immediately. It certainly wasn't Hathaway's fault.

The tone of Hathaway's voice suggested he could quite cheerfully start cursing himself.

"You did say it came in threes, sir. I'll pick you up in ten minutes."