Slowly but surely, progress had been made on the Darius McGallogat case.

As the case had went on, it had become more obvious that more Enquiry Teams were needed than CCTV teams, and so Carter Burnes and Gareth Masters had been moved.

Two weeks had now passed since the night of the murder. There was still a mountain of work to be done.

Burnes thought that the investigation was going pretty well. After a week, the names of everyone checked into the hotel had been gathered. There were fifteen rooms per floor and sixteen floors to work through. That meant close to five hundred people in the hotel alone including staff to interview.

They'd worked with four other Enquiry Teams to get through every possible witness as quickly as possible. It was still an ongoing task.

There were ten Enquiry Teams working the McGallogat case in total, and an approximated six hundred interviews to be carried out.

It was only a matter of time before the press began to snoop around for details. Darius had been a well-known, influential man. His death would be the cause of much speculation.

"We've made good progress with this case. There's a lot still to be done of course, but the Enquiry Teams have now managed to get through three hundred and fifty interviews. Team four, how is the hotel coming along?" The Senior Investigating Officer turned her attention towards Burnes, rather than Gareth.

Carter Burnes looked up from the neatly stacked notes that sat on the table in front of him when he felt the SIO's eyes upon him. "Yesterday, we got through rooms one hundred and forty to one hundred and fifty-five. There are a few loose ends to chase down. We may need to travel to Swansea, Birmingham, and Newport, but other than that the Action is completed."

The SIO nodded her head once. "Do that. We need all possible witnesses accounted for." She moved on to the fifth team.

Burnes had a look around the room. There were around twenty officers gathered around the long, U shaped table. The SIO sat at the curve of the U, her hands clasped on the table in front of her. Her hair was swept up into a neat red bun. She wore a navy suit and white dress shirt. Her eyebrows sat like church steeples upon her forehead.

The morning briefing had gone on for fifteen minutes so far. They tended to be short and targeted, and today was no different.

The other five Enquiry Teams had made similarly good head way with their interviews. Teams six to ten had been given the area surrounding the hotel in a ten-block radius, and the taxi drivers to interview. It was a huge operation, with miles of ground to cover.

Usually, there would've been more than a dozen Teams working on a case like this, but due to a lack of available hands, they were down to just ten. It was slower, but the work would still be done regardless.

The SIO delegated tasks to the remaining teams within the next ten minutes. Carter recognised a lot of the faces he could see. The Deputy, sitting beside the SIO, he'd come across many times at many briefings. The Deputy had led a couple of them, but was generally quiet for the most part while the SIO spoke. He had inquisitive blue eyes, and hair that appeared to be dyed so that it appeared more blue than black. A line art tattoo peeked out at the collar of his shirt. Burnes had never seen the entire thing, but it looked like a wing shape wise.

Burnes also recognised the present Detective Sergeant. His name was Martin. He'd been promoted not too long ago. Burnes had spoken to him a few times. He was rather young, with a determination about him that was quite admirable.

Across from Martin, there was another man that Burnes wasn't overly pleased to see at the briefing. He was a part of the CCTV team. His name was Brian. Burnes knew him as sloppy and unreliable. They'd been partners once, years ago. It had been a great relief to be transferred away from him.

Brian was alright at his job; he was just lazy and seemingly incapable of doing anything on time. It didn't surprise Burnes all too much that he'd been put on the CCTV Team. Of all available jobs, it was by far the best fit for him on this case.

After this meeting, Burnes and Gareth would have to return a light red and orange striped jumper to Ruth Harris. She wasn't present at the table, but Burnes was fairly certain she was a part of the CCTV Team. He shot another look at Brian.

"I think that wraps everything up for today. Tomorrow, be here by 9 am as usual. I may not be able to make it due to prior engagements, and if so, Deputy McClucky will be overseeing the events of the meeting." The SIO stood up, sorted her notes on the desk, and walked out. Most others around the table followed suit, chattering amongst themselves.

Burnes turned to Gareth. Is Ruth in CCTV?" He asked, looking around the table again.

"Yeah. Can we go there next? I've got the jumper right here." Gareth held up a white plastic bag with 'ASDA' in stark green capital letters written upon it.

"Of course. CCTV's on the second floor I think, past the Staff Room. Let's go." Burnes stood up and made his way towards the door.

Gareth was the last to leave the room. He switched the lights off and closed the door behind him.

"How did Daniel's party go anyway?" Burnes had watched Gareth plan the event for over two weeks. He'd helped decide where it should be held.

"Pretty well, surprisingly..." he shouldered the stairwell door open, "...there were only two kids meant to be there that ended up not turning up, so number wise it worked out great. The Lab was a complete success. They made volcanoes, slime, everything. Daniel loved it, and Amelia did too"

"Great! I wasn't sure what that'd be like; an interactive lab. I'm glad he enjoyed it so much." Burnes missed when his children were younger sometimes. He had two children; one fourteen, one seventeen. Neither of them were very interested in birthday parties like that anymore.

Gareth had three children; Daniel, Amelia, and Robin. Daniel was ten, Amelia was six, and Robin was just two. Burnes could remember how much more involved he'd been in his own children's lives back then. It was hard to believe just how much had changed in a few short years.

Of course, there were positives of his own children being older. They weren't as reliant on him, so he had more time to himself, and they could be left to their own devices for hours without causing any havoc.

"We're thinking of booking there again sometime, maybe for Amelia in a few years. She's always bringing home these drawings and little figurines she's made. I think she'd enjoy it too."

"I'm sure she would, you'll have to keep the place in mind." Burnes knocked on the door to the CCTV room. The window upon the door was blackened to keep the room's contents private. The smell of cigarettes and coffee grounds hung in the air. Burnes pushed the silver handle down and opened the door wide. A few people in the room looked up as they entered

The room was well lit by several long windows that ran across two of the four walls. There was a view of an estate outside, and a few small corner shops arranged in a semi-circle. There was a drive-thru in the distance, its neon sign glimmering in the sunlight.

Gareth strode into the room and over to one of the faraway desks. Burnes followed him, walking at a slower pace. "Ruth! You got a second?" Gareth asked the woman sitting in front of it.

Ruth Harris clicked some buttons on her keyboard with her long, rounded acrylic nails. It was a mildly unsettling sound. She turned in her seat to look at Gareth, and smiled. Her teeth were small and uneven. Her short hair was tied back in a loose plait.

"Yes, I do. What's up?"

"Jamie left his jumper at ours yesterday, I thought I'd bring it back while I was here. I would have asked Daniel to give it back in school, but I know what he's like. It never would've got there." Gareth handed her the bag.

"Oh! I was wondering what had happened to it. Thank you, Detective. How did the party go?" She took it from him and read the label on the back of the jumper. Nodding once in satisfaction, Ruth then placed the bag beneath her desk.

"Good, good. Daniel loved it! There was nearly a disaster with the cake – I almost dropped it – but Parker caught it just before it slipped right off the plate." Gareth smiled. "Is Phoebe feeling any better?"

Ruth tilted her head from side to side. "She's doing a bit better. The doctors are saying it was some kind of allergic reaction. She's staying off work for another week."

"Well, I'm glad she's doing better." He frowned when he looked past Ruth, at the computer. "What're you working on up here?" He asked, nodding towards the screen.

Ruth glanced over her shoulder. "The hotel lobby just now. You were both on CCTV for a bit, weren't you? Have a look." She pushed her chair off to one side so Burnes and Gareth could see the screen better.

Burnes narrowed his eyes. He'd watched these tapes multiple times before he'd been moved. "Anything weird about this one?" He asked. When they'd been walking towards her desk, Ruth had seemed pretty intent on the screen in front of her.

"Sort of." She paused the tape. The footage was grainy and grey-scale, but figures were easy enough to make out. Ruth pointed one finger at a woman near the middle of the screen. She was blurry, but Burnes recognised her from looking over the tapes himself. She was walking with a taller man with shorter hair and a wide frame; Darius. "This woman here doesn't seem to leave the hotel at any point. And as far as we are aware, she isn't checked into a room either."

Gareth blinked, digesting that information. "How can someone just...not leave the hotel?"

"Exactly. I've watched the tapes over and over again. This woman..." Ruth pointed once again to the pixelated figure on the screen, "...comes into the hotel, and just doesn't leave. Everyone else has matched up so far, except for her. She isn't checked into a room, she doesn't, presumably, leave by any of the other two entrances – I've checked the CCTV footage four hours before and after the incident– and as far as I can see, she just vanishes after she goes up those stairs." She moved her hand up, now pointing to a set of double doors off to the right-hand side.

"Play it again, please." Carter asked, his face a mask of concentration.

The figures reversed, and then began to move forwards. He watched as the woman and Darius made their way through the lobby. They were arm in arm, her head on his shoulder. They stopped at the end of a queue for the elevator, and then headed towards the stairs.

Gareth watched the footage in silence. He had followed the advice given to him by his tutor constable years before, "Keep your mouth shut, and your eyes and ears open". So far that advice had served him well.

Gareth had looked over the stairwell footage when he'd been part of the CCTV Team and deemed there was little of interest in it. He'd taken note of everyone who'd been in the stairs, matched them to a name, and moved on to helping Burnes as he'd been instructed to. That was all he had really done in the first few days. It had been mind-numbing work.

Back then, the woman who'd been with Darius had yet to be followed up, and Gareth had noted that down for future reference, but it hadn't seemed like much of a priority. It was still early days; there had still been many stones left unturned.

It was a very slow, tedious process, especially when there were so few leads and so many possibilities to look through.

"I've watched that footage before. I noted her down as a possible suspect. She goes all the way up the stairs and to Darius' floor with him." Gareth muttered.

Ruth nodded curtly. "That's correct. She was also noted down as a person of interest, but no further traces of her were found after the stairs. It's like she vanished into thin air." Ruth pursed her lips.

"It doesn't help much that the Marbaya has so few cameras, I suppose. I found that irritating." Gareth mused.

"It does make this whole thing just that bit more difficult, that's for sure."

Burnes had stayed uncharacteristically quiet while the tape played, and afterwards. He rubbed his chin with his left hand.

He had found out the names of everyone who had been checked into the hotel at the time of the murder over the course of the last week. He'd met with quite a few of those people too. None of them had mentioned that woman, and none of them had looked like she did in the footage he saw now.

Yet, hearing that there was someone who had never left the hotel sparked something in his memory. "Ruth, play clip...35?36 maybe? The once in which Sandra and her group come through the front entrance. I want to see something, if that's alright."

Ruth did as requested and played the clip. It showed the lobby of the hotel before midnight, not long after the murder had taken place.

The lobby was fairly silent; there were a few men standing together, some couples, and a receptionist behind the desk. She didn't appear to be watching the lobby. From an interview report that Burnes had carried out himself, she hadn't seen Darius at all that night either.

A few people came out of the hall off to the right-hand side. Some ambled across the lobby to form their own groups, some headed into the elevator, some had a look at who was present, and then returned to the hall.

The elevator door opened, and two couples squeezed inside. One woman exited. She strode past reception. She ignored the hall and the couples dotted around her. She continued straight out of the revolving front door.

A few minutes later, a group of staggering women entered the hotel. Burnes recognised them as Sandra and her friends. They arrived at the time she'd said they had; another alibi that had checked out. The clip stopped just as Sandra turned to laugh at something said by someone behind her.

Burnes had worked on many murder cases in his time; in Scotland, England, even on a three-year-long exchange program in Canada.

He'd served as part of the Intel Cell, CCTV team, door-to-door team as he did now, and even as part of the HOLMES team.

Not all of those cases had been solved and closed. Some had no leads, and had been abandoned after everything that could be done had been. Each time, Burnes had refused to give up, regardless of what he was told to do by others.

He spent longer than most would on these cases, and sometimes it had proven a worthy use of his time. He had, in the past, solved and closed a few cases that had been labelled 'cold'. It was for this reason that he was always hesitant to give up on supposedly 'cold' cases.

Carter Burnes had been told many times that his diligence was nothing but stupidity, but he had also been told that if it weren't for his diligence, families would never have known peace, murderers and kidnappers and rapists would have been allowed to roam freely without ever facing the sentence they deserved.

Now, he felt his time spent late that night at the office had been worth it.

Gareth spoke up then, understanding what the two tapes held in common. "That's the woman you said never came into the building, isn't it?" He asked, the frown engraved on his face ill-matching the curiosity of his tone.

"Yes, it is. I didn't get a chance to figure out who this woman was. Is she seen anywhere else?" Burnes watched as Ruth scrutinised the screen. She minimised the page and opened another document. After a minute or two of scrolling, she broke her silence. "No, she's not. She's also been flagged as suspicious on the basis that this is the first time she's seen anywhere, even on surrounding CCTV, evidently." She skimmed the page, then sat back.

"How did we manage to miss that? This document's been updated since the murder occurred. Someone should've..." she waved her hands, her expression one of confusion, "...put two and two together before now."

Burnes barked a laugh. "This is an absolutely massive case. This is something that's easy enough to overlook. What really matters is that it's known now." He replied, watching the pixelated figure cross the screen again.

"Where does she go, once she leaves the hotel? We didn't get on to any outside footage." Gareth said. He'd pulled a chair over from an empty desk beside Ruth. He sat with his arms folded over the backrest. The slim silver engagement ring on his hand caught the light from the windows. Even though he was married, Gareth preferred it to his marriage ring. To him, it was just more special. The day of his engagement had been the happiest of his life, possibly even more so than his weeding. The Detective smiled ever so slightly as he thought about it.

"Into a taxi. The last we see of her is just outside the lobby." Ruth pressed another few buttons, and a third clip began to play. "This was taken from a Chinese restaurant across the street.

This one was much shorter than the others. It wasn't grainy at all, and provided a clearer picture than any within the hotel had. It showed a line of five taxi cabs waiting outside of the Marbaya hotel. A group of women stumbled out of one, and seconds later another woman took their place. Her face was hidden by her hair.

"Has anyone followed up that cab?" Burnes looked the vehicle over. It was a part of a company. He could see a logo on the side.

Ruth went back to the document. "Yes, it has. That taxi was driven by... Jovan Singh that night from 9pm to 4am. It belongs to Dragon Taxis. We have some contact information for them here too."

Gareth looked at Burnes sideways. He could see where this was going. "If you could print that out, we'll get it on the way out. I think a further interview of Mr Singh is in order. Thanks Ruth." Burnes stood up and started back towards the door. He heard Gareth say his goodbyes too.

As they walked back down the corridor, Burnes replayed the clips in his head. Two women, one seen entering the building, one seen leaving. Both wore very different outfits, different bags, different hairdos.

He'd seen this somewhere before. It had been a similar situation, but back then the case had gone completely cold because there had been so little evidence to go on.

He couldn't remember the exact details. The Senior Detective made a mental note to look through the case at some point and see what he could find.

If this was someone who'd murdered before, and had gotten away with it, he sure as hell wouldn't be letting them get away with it again.

The door to the copying room was already ajar when Burnes and Masters got to it. They could hear the humming and mechanical grinding of a printer in motion.

Burned stopped his colleague at the door. "You can go get the car started up, I'll be out soon." He offered. There was no point in them both standing there, waiting for the machine to spit out what could be a dozen sheets of paper.

Gareth seemed to see this logic, and left the room. "I'll do that. The engine can be a bit funny sometimes." Burnes watched him go.

Less than a minute later, Deputy McClucky appeared at the door. He held three sheets of paper in his hand. He walked towards the copier and placed one sheet in. Then, he looked up at Burnes. "Ah! Carter! Fancy running into you in here." He smiled easily. To Burnes, it seemed almost like there was a darkness behind the man's eyes.

The Detective smiled in reply. "Hello again, Deputy." He didn't much feel like talking. There was a lot on his mind, and Burnes would rather have been left alone with his thoughts than talk to this man.

McClucky didn't seem to understand this. "So, what's kept you in the building?" He asked casually. Burnes couldn't quite figure out what it was that was setting off the faint alarm in his head.

His instincts tended to be reliable; they'd been well tuned over the last thirty or so years and hadn't let him down more than a couple of times. He wondered if this was one of those times. What could possibly be off about the Deputy?

"Just printing out some contact info from CCTV. We came across some new information. There are two women from the hotel without names. One only appears entering the building, and one only appears leaving." Burnes wasn't sure about saying all of this, but he also figured he could trust someone with such a high rank as Deputy McClucky.

He watched McClucky's reaction carefully. The Deputy's stark blue eyes narrowed ever so slightly, and his mouth twitched, but then his face returned to politely interested neutral. He placed a second piece of paper in the copier.

"That's...interesting. Where do you plan to go now?"

"To the taxi headquarters. I think the driver should be interviewed again in regards to this new lead."

"Yes, that does sound like the right thing to do." He fed a third sheet into the copier.

The printer beeped twice. Burnes retrieved at least twelve sheets of paper from it and slid them into a poly-pocket he'd found beside the machine. "I agree. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll need to take my leave." The Deputy didn't reply.

Burnes was out of the room and at the stairs in less than two minutes. He held the poly-pocket in one hand, taking the steps two at a time. There was a lot he wanted to get done today, and that left little time to walk leisurely.

By the time Burnes had made it outside, Gareth already had the silver Vauxhall started and ready to go. It was parked facing the gate, in Burnes' usual parking spot that allowed for a quick exit.

He slid into the passenger seat and slid the paper out of its holder while Gareth manoeuvred the car out of the carpark. Burnes flicked through the twelve sheets of paper that had been inside. They were still warm to the touch. He pulled one sheet out of the bundle and skimmed over it, front and back.

There were a number of short paragraphs on it. The fifth one down on the reverse side of the page caught his attention. Burnes' eyebrows furrowed as he read it.

Gareth slowed the car to a stop at a set of traffic lights. There was a three-way junction ahead. "Where to first? The hotel?" His finger was poised over the turn signal lever.

"Drop me off at Dragon Taxis. Do you know where that is?"

"Yeah, it's about fifteen minutes away?" Masters replied, readjusting his grip on the steering wheel.

Burnes nodded. "That's the one. Mr Grish is with that company, and we need to talk to him about that woman. It shouldn't take more than ten minutes." Burnes shoved the paper back into the poly-pocket. He left the sheet reading 'JOVAN GRISH' in capital letters at the top. Maybe this would be the day they got a concrete lead.