Gosh, I hope these chapters are still ok! I really really want to get this out before Christmas, and I'm reckoning on three more chapters. So it's looking very promising, real life allowing of course!

Chapter Nine

Clouds had given way to clear blue skies and crisp ice underfoot but even that did little to shed any light on the case or on any connection between the three deaths. Hathaway, always an earlier riser, was in work before many others in the department, including Inspector Lewis. Devoid of inspiration for how to proceed with the investigation into the deaths he wrestled a large whiteboard into the shared office to make a start on writing down what it is that they did know. He found that organising things, giving them a structure helped him to see the connections he might otherwise miss.

It was there that Lewis found him on his arrival, chewing absentmindedly on the end of a marker pen, staring intently at smiling photographs of now dead women.

"Moved up from tobacco to solvents, have we James?" he asked, as he walked through the door. Hathaway jumped and flushed, he'd been so engrossed in his thoughts that he hadn't noticed Lewis' approach, let alone the fact he wasn't just chewing on a pen but was also holding it like an overgrown cigarette.

"Just trying to put together the pieces sir," he put down the pen and rested his chin in his hand instead, "it's obvious that Sarah Blackwall is the link; her mother, her car, her. It's..." he trailed off deep in thought again.

Lewis recognised the expression on his face from countless other investigations. It was the look Hathaway got when he'd had a hunch about something but had then suffered a crisis of confidence about expressing it because he lacked any firm evidence to back it up. However, their long association had taught Lewis to persuade Hathaway to share these musings, because while they may not always be right, they often provided the chink that let them crack open the whole case.

"Go on lad," he encouraged, "What are you thinking?"

Hathaway shifted, so that he was stood directly in front of the board, blocking it entirely from Lewis' sight. He fiddled around with the photographs he had stuck on their earlier, arranging them in a step wise fashion: first the elderly Mrs Blackwall towards the bottom left corner, then Rachel Emmerson above and to the right of her, and finally Sarah Blackwall in the top right corner.

He stepped back again, to allow Lewis a clear view.

"Well," he began, somewhat hesitantly, "I don't know why but for a minute it almost seemed to me like someone is upping the ante."

"Go on," Lewis encouraged, his face serious. Before Hathaway could continue DCI Innocent had stuck her head through the office door.

"How's it going?" she asked in her usual brusque fashion.

"Slowly, ma'am," Lewis confirmed reluctantly.

"I heard about the death last night, definitely not suicide?"

"Afraid not Ma'am," Hathaway replied, "That would have almost made some kind of sense."

"We'll figure it out," Lewis asserted, as much to reassure his Sergeant as his boss, "We always do in the end."

Innocent nodded and turned to leave the office, half way out she spun round, piercing Inspector Lewis with an eagle-eyed glare.

"Inspector you haven't forgotten there's a budget meeting this morning have you?"

He looked so outraged that Hathaway had to work astoundingly hard to stifle a smirk.

"Ma'am, I'm in the middle of a murder enquiry!"

"Yes," she retaliated as she left, "And as you're so fond of telling me, Sergeant Hathaway is an extremely competent detective who does not require his hand to be held by you for the single hour for which I require the pleasure of your company." She shut the door behind her with perhaps more force than was strictly necessary.

At that Hathaway couldn't help but look a little bit smug, which earned him an angry glare from Lewis.

"Come on, deflate that ego and get your brain back in gear. What were you saying? Something about 'upping the ante'?"

Hathaway's face immediately turned serious. Lewis had always appreciated that about his sergeant, he knew when to make a joke, had the makings of a damn good sense of humour sometimes, but equally importantly, he knew when to stop and get back to the work in hand.

"Yes sir, as I was saying it all has to be linked to Sarah Blackwall. I mean her mother's murder could be a coincidence, and I suppose her covering up a hit and run could be too, she's upset, her mum dies, she's not thinking straight... It's just... it's a few too many coincidences for my liking. No one is that unlucky."

Lewis couldn't help but agree.

"So you think what?"

"Well, its a long shot sir."

"This is Oxford, Hathaway. Haven't you noticed that 90 percent of our cases seem to deal solely in long shots?"

"Well, what if someone was trying to... unsettle her? Take her off the scene for something? I'm not sure what, though. But, they stage a burglary at her Mum's, or perhaps they even need to do that to get the spare key for the house, then they try to have her arrested by framing her in a hit and run. But then we release her, so the only thing they can think of to get rid of her is..."

"To murder her?"

"Sorry sir," Hathaway looked somewhat abashed, "I said it was a bit of a strange idea."

"We've had stranger ones, lad," Lewis pointed out bluntly. The blond man nodded, relieved that Lewis didn't seem to think he was crazy. He appreciated that in his guv'nor; too many of them seemed to think that his role was merely to sift information and read reports, and leave any ideas about 'detecting' to them. It was why, all those years ago he'd offered Lewis first refusal of his services, and why he'd never come to regret the decision. Hathaway's loyalty was something that, in his eyes, Lewis had earned a thousand times over.

Lewis pondered the case for a moment before coming to a decision.

"Why don't you go and have a quiet word with the ex-husband, see if he has any ideas about enemies, debts, family politics, that sort of thing while I'm in this damn meeting. Oh and while you're at it see if their divorce really was as happy-as-larry as they made out will you?"

Hathaway nodded, and grabbed his jacket and car keys, halfway out of the door Lewis' voice stopped him for a moment.

"Oh and Hathaway?"

"Sir?"

"Stay out of mischief while I'm not there to hold your hand, eh?"

"I'll do my upmost sir."