Arthur held her hands, "It's enough to build a case and whoever's behind this knows it. They're going to use it eventually, so we take it from them first."
"And hand it to a court you don't trust, inside a system we now know has at least one person feeding information outward, that's not strategy, that's surrender with extra steps." She looked at him steadily.
"It buys you time."
"It does nothing if you're dead within a week of processing."
Arthur didn't respond and the silence between them carried the weight of mutual defeat. Chen lingered by the door with his hands in his pockets and stayed silent, he knew that speaking up would cost more than staying silent.
"He's not wrong about the footage, if someone with access decides to surface it on their timeline, you lose the ability to frame it." Miller shifted in his chair and suppressed a wince.
"I appreciate the support."
"I am not supporting you; I am just pointing out that if you log the evidence, you gain the advantage of controlling how it's presented.
Mira glanced at Miller, then back at Arthur, "If I log you, I have to log everything I've got and then explain why I didn't log it earlier. Plus, whoever's monitoring the oversight channel will see it within the hour."
"You can redact."
"Redaction is its own signal. A redacted report from me right now, on a case flagged by me?" Mira arched an eyebrow.
"Callow kind of maneuvered you into flagging Diane's case for external review, so you end up stuck and can't do anything in that narrow window when they make their move." Chen sighed.
Mira crossed to the window and looked out at the street without seeing it, "Jones found something in that log before she disappeared, something so dangerous she either had to vanish, or someone took her, same thing happened to Diane. If I file the report, Diane's sacrifice goes to waste, Jones's work goes to waste, Vasic's willingness to help us get to court when we have the evidence goes to waste and the case Diane built and died for ends today."
"We have to save Jones."
"I'm not going to treat her absence as a crisis before I know for sure it is."
"And if it turns out to be one?"
"Then we handle it like a crisis but not by torching the case just to give you a week of access in a system that already wants this buried." She met his eyes, "I need you here, you were on Platform Nine that night and that means Diane wanted you involved in this, just like she wanted me."
Arthur stared at the floor for a long moment and when he finally looked up, the stubbornness in his face hadn’t vanished, just shifted, "You think Diane planned for me too?"
"We'll go by yes." Mira paused, "The footage is out there and the fact they haven't used it to shut down this case means something. They're holding onto it because they need us out here, not behind bars, not dead, they want us to keep working on this case.
"Why?" Chen asked.
"Long story short, the thread leads somewhere they can't go themselves or somewhere they need us to surface for them so they can take it cleanly, somewhere on this case there's something Diane hid that they still haven't found." Mira looked at Miller and Arthur, "You both are coming home with me."
"What should I do?" Chen asked.
"Just get to the station on time, see you there." Mira walked out of the building, carrying Miller with Arthur’s help. She drove to her house, got out of the car and walked around to the passenger side to help Miller to his feet. He accepted the help without comment, which told her how much pain he was in, as she steadied him, her phone buzzed once against her palm and she answered it instantly.
"Mira, you've already met him and he isn't fifth man, you know what I mean, I am safe, I won't call you ever again." The line went dead.
Mira stood on the pavement, Miller leaning heavily against her arm, the dead phone pressed to her ear and the city fading to grey around the edges the way it does just before dawn decides what kind of morning it will be.
"Carmen?" Arthur's voice came from behind.
"She's alive." Mira slipped the phone into her pocket, "Help me get Miller inside."
"What are you planning next? I still think you should..."
Before Arthur could finish, Mira cut in, "Do you not trust me? You said Diane chose well, that I was capable, that you believed in the choice when you saw me, was it all a lie?"
"No, no, Mira, I'm just trying to help."
"I've handled far worse situations in my life, I don't need help, what I do need is for you to keep trusting me, not do anything I wouldn't want you to do, stay safe and let me handle this problem my way."
"Mira." Arthur reached for her hand, but she walked into her bedroom. He glanced at Morse and Miller; Miller stifled a laugh, while Morse seemed proud of Mira.
Mira came out of room dressed and left for work, she did not talk to Arthur, when she reached station, Chen was already waiting for her.
"Aren't you early?"
"So are you."
"Everything we have from Diane's case isn't complete, so we still have the evidence, but where is it? Diane knew she was going to die, so she would have prepared everything and put it somewhere safe. She planned it with me in mind, so she would have left the material within my reach but where?" Mira wondered to herself.
"What are you thinking?" Chen studied her face, came to several conclusions but kept them to himself.
Mira glanced at him without truly seeing, her mind wandered as she replayed everything she'd noticed, from the moment she got the call, to finding Diane arranged on the marble floor, to Miller's update about the evidence Diane had gathered, to spotting Arthur in a photo, then on footage, then in Soane's office, then on a bench, then in the corridor, to kissing him in her apartment, and finally uncovering the fifth man through Jones.
"Something's missing, everything fits together perfectly, yet somehow it doesn't. It's like it's right in front of me, but I just can't see it." Mira mumbled and suddenly, she realized what Jones had said, "He isn't the fifth man."
"Did you just?" Chen studied her face and from her expression, realized she'd figured something out.
"Moore isn't the fifth man, oh my god, Chen, we've gotten it all wrong, every single thing." Mira strode out of the bullpen, "We're heading to Platform Nine, get some coffee."
To be continued...