Happy Days Read Free

glasses and of the lifeless corpse in the bedroom above. He checked his watch and began to turn away from the window, but as he did so he caught sight of another letter. It was lying on the window sill. The masthead was all too familiar. Hantspol.
    He picked up the single sheet of paper. It had come from a woman in the Personnel Department. She was pleased at the progress D/I Joe Faraday appeared to be making and noted that he had nearly a year to serve before he could retire on a full pension. Under the circumstances, she hoped he’d agree that a return to Major Crime would be inappropriate, but another vacancy had come up and she had great pleasure in making the formal offer. An interview would be unnecessary. The job was his for the asking.
    Suttle checked the date. The letter had been written barely a week ago. Add the delay for second-class post and Faraday must have been living with this career-end curtain call for no more than a couple of days. He’d no idea what Theme Champions’ Coordinator on the Safer Portsmouth Partnership actually entailed, and Faraday had probably been equally clueless, but it was all too easy to imagine the eternity of meetings that lay ahead. A body like this would speak the language of the newpolicing. The language of Service Performance Indicators and Victim Focus, of the Outcomes Matrix and the Neighbourhood Policing Offer. After years and years of life at the coal face, of multiple homicides and complex stranger rapes, of high-profile kidnaps and simpler acts of mindless brutality, what would any half-decent copper make of a letter like this?
    From Hantspol’s point of view, of course, it made perfect sense, the gentlest of landings after a bumpy ride. But for someone with blood in their veins, someone with an ounce of self-respect, someone who thought that coppering had some faint connection with justice rather than collective hand-holding, the thought of becoming a Theme Champions’ Coordinator would have been the kiss of death.
    The latter phrase drew a shake of the head from Suttle. He returned the letter to the window sill. A knock at the front door took him down the hall. There were two figures waiting to come in. He didn’t recognise the D/S, but the duty D/I had decided to come too. Nick Hayder was probably the closest Faraday had to a friend in the job, a like-minded forty-something who rarely let sentiment get in the way of the facts. On this occasion, though, he looked shocked.
    ‘What’s going on?’
    Suttle explained. Hayder nodded, made no comment, accompanied the D/S upstairs. Then came another knock on the door. Hayder, it seemed, had already contacted Scenes of Crime. There were two of them, a Crime Scene Investigator and the Imaging Specialist who’d tote his cameras up to the bedroom and put the lot on DVD. They both knew Faraday well. They took an appraising glance around the big living room and then followed Suttle up towards the bedroom.
    Suttle had been through this routine on countless occasions. Normally, whether they were dead or alive, you were dealing with strangers. You stepped into the wreckage of their lives and did what you had to do. You were respectful and businesslike, but behind closed doors you often lightened proceedings witha muttered quip or two as the occasion suggested. Not this time. The CSI, a guy in his forties who’d had a great deal of time for Faraday, took one look at the body and left the image specialist to get on with it. There were windows to dust for prints, items to seize for analysis, the PC and Faraday’s mobile to bag for the techies at Netley. Soon, the doctor would arrive.
    On the landing Hayder was conferring with his D/S. Back downstairs in the living room, Suttle waited for them to finish. He’d found an old address book in a drawer and was leafing through it, amazed at how few friends or family Faraday appeared to have had. He was transcribing J-J’s contact details when the CSI returned from the bedroom. He needed