The question of what happened to York University cook Claudia Lawrence is simultaneously a family tragedy, a thorn in the side of North Yorkshire Police, and one of the country's most intriguing unsolved crimes.
Claudia, 35 and apparently single, is assumed to have been murdered after failing to turn up to work in March 2009, leaving no obvious clues about what had happened to her.
In the six years she has been missing there have been just two arrests and no charges.
It is little wonder that people are asking if the police have run out of ideas.
So is the recent renewed police activity around her former home, and the claim that more arrests could be imminent, just an attempt to silence the critics, or are the police on to something?
And why are there so many undercurrents to the mystery, with some people still unwilling to talk to journalists, and others issuing warnings or threats?
To find the answers you have to look at the history of the investigation and at the police team trying to move it forward.
There were undoubtedly mistakes made in the spring of 2009. For months after Claudia vanished the entire publicity effort of Detective Superintendent Ray Galloway's investigation showed her with the wrong colour hair, while detectives allowed the misleading narrative that Claudia was an unassuming young woman to run away with them and never really recovered from the belated attempt to correct it.
The truth - that her relationships involved what Mr Galloway eventually described as "complexity and mystery" - was not made public until three months after she disappeared, many weeks after they had built up what one described to me as a "rogues' gallery" of some of the men she had been involved with.
With a continued insistence from Claudia's family and friends, from whom it seems she hid much of her private life, that the police were wrong, and with many locals knowing differently all along, it set the tone for mistrust and conflict.
To be fair the police did not know what they were walking into: Claudia apparently lived a significant part of her life in secret and her parents had endured such a bitter divorce that to this day they have never made a joint appeal over their daughter's disappearance.
Meanwhile, journalists were finding the story hard to tell. For a privately-educated daughter of a country solicitor Claudia had some unusual acquaintances and this remains the only missing person case where I've been warned off or threatened - not once, but twice.
Journalists and the police alike have found it hard to break the silence surrounding some of her relationships.
Fast forward five years and following the retirement of Ray Galloway a new police team has relaunched the investigation.
Detective Superintendent Dai Malyn, the senior investigating officer, has described the investigation as engrossing and quickly said he had "spotted things" to work on.
Detective Chief Superintendent Simon Mason, the force's head of crime, knows the Police and Crime Commissioner wants a result.
Neither give the impression of police officers who would spin lines for publicity or conduct stunts to make themselves look busy.
So far they've arrested two men, with one released without charge and the other still on bail on suspicion of perverting the course of justice.
They have re-examined Claudia's house, carried out a much-publicised fingertip search outside and re-interviewed key individuals and in doing so they have created a buzz which might yet solve the crime.
Det Supt Malyn is now talking about new leads, continuing obstruction, cover-ups and lies by some people and the possibility of more arrests soon.
But he's a realist too: "Ultimately we may not be able to prove what happened to Claudia, or be able to find her," he admitted this week.
There is a feeling among Claudia's family and the reporters who have covered this case from the start that if North Yorkshire Police fail to solve this crime it will not be for the want of trying.
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