Saturday, 30 November, 2002*

"I'll only have a little; I'm on call tonight and you never know." Laura Hobson took a sip of mulled wine from her mug handed to her by her boyfriend. She then placed it back on the end table and patted the couch next to her so that they could cuddle in front of the fireplace.

Franco Wagenbauer was barely a year older than Laura, but his hair was already generously flecked with silver. It makes him look so handsome, and I always was attracted to older men, Laura Hobson thought as she watched the fire reflected in his hair. She nuzzled her head against his shoulder as he described in accented English what they would do together on their upcoming trip to his native Germany. He eagerly told of the friends and family they would meet and the places they would see. They had been dating about a year, and he was looking forward to sharing that part of his life with Laura at last.

The call came in from Sergeant McLennan around midnight. Franco knew from the one-sided phone conversation that Laura would be leaving him. "Don't go!" He pulled her back down to the couch onto his lap and kissed the back of her neck. "I'm not done with you yet, Liebchen."

"I wish I could stay, but I can't. You know how it works."

He released her from his embrace. "So long as you're completely free for our trip."

"Of course! I 'm on leave starting Wednesday. Then I am all yours." She gave him a passionate kiss before departing for the crime scene- Lady Matilda's college.

Dr. Hobson arrived on the scene to find EMTs desperately trying to revive the "corpse" she had been summoned to attend. Chloe Brooks, as it turns out, was not dead- though she wasn't exactly among the living either. The teenage girl had fallen from a second story window. She was comatose with a barely detectable pulse. She had broken bones and her brain had been deprived of oxygen; there would certainly be brain damage if she survived at all.

Hobson had a few choice words for Sergeant Allison McLennan. McLennan apologized in a very insincere way for not calling Hobson a second time to say that her services were no longer required. She asserted that she was too busy trying to track down a possible witness to the crime who seemed to have disappeared, one Judd Haverlock. "The whole investigation is a giant cock-up and my governor's not even here yet." Hobson concluded that McLennan was too daft to be running an investigation.

Dr. Hobson lingered for a while with the SOCOs in case she was needed, but once Chloe Brooks was en route to hospital, Hobson saw no reason to stay.

On her way back to the car, Dr. Hobson crossed the path of Inspector Robbie Lewis. He called over to her, "leaving so soon, Doctor?"

"Your murder victim is still alive. You'd better teach your sergeant to recognize a corpse, Inspector." She liked Lewis. There was an easy banter between them. He was a man of humble origins like so many coppers, but different from so many of the "fast-tracked" inspectors that she seemed to deal with these days. Lewis hadn't gone to university, but rather worked hard, studied the job, and waited patiently for years for his promotion to Inspector. And once he had his promotion, he did the job right and enjoyed it more than anyone else she knew. Indeed, "slow and steady wins the race" was a personality trait of his that Hobson identified early on. While she had identified the trait, she didn't fully appreciate it yet.

Hobson thought that Chief Superintendent Strange made a good match by partnering Lewis and McLennan. She felt wicked thinking it, but the lowbrow McLennan made Lewis seem like quite the distinguished senior officer despite his Geordie accent and his atrocious spelling. It was a stark contrast to the years Lewis had spent as a sergeant with the irascible intellectual Morse. Lewis usually took Morse's abuse with good humor, but Hobson knew that Lewis would never rebuke McLennan in the same way, even though she deserved it.

What would Morse have made of McLennan? She wondered as Lewis marched off to investigate the crime with his sergeant. Hobson reached her car but turned around to sneak one last peek at Lewis. She felt a chill as she watched him disappear down the moonlit path. She shook off her chill and eagerly recalled that Franco was keeping her bed warm.

*In Old Unhappy Far-Off Things, Hathaway tells the owner of the costume hire shop that he was looking for records for the last weekend in November.