Happy Days Read Free Page B

explanation he’d simply shrugged and reached for another tinny. It felt like someone else’s life, he’d murmured. It had come and it had gone, much like everything else he’d ever touched, and he’d never been one for nostalgia.
    At the time Winter had put this down to the Stella. Shortly afterwards their conversation had been interrupted by a mate of Lizzie’s, a looker with scarlet nails and a big leather belt. Winter couldn’t remember her name, but she’d introduced herself with a cheesy little flourish before towing Faraday across to the brimming display of canapés, and somewhat later Winter had spotted them leaving together. Good on you, he’d thought at the time. Enjoy.
    Now, though, he began to wonder. As a D/C on division, he’d spent a couple of years working under Faraday, and later they’d been thrown together on a couple of Major Crime inquiries. Winter had always recognised his D/I as a fellow loner, and when he’d left the Job and journeyed to the Dark Side, Faraday had been one of his few ex-colleagues to spare him the time of day. For that Winter had always been grateful. The man had more in his life than canteen gossip. He’d taken the trouble totry and figure out why someone as difficult and gifted as Winter would end up working for the city’s top criminal face, and when circumstances had occasionally brought them together, he’d never rushed to judgement. On the contrary, he seemed to understand the path that Winter had chosen. That, of course, was why Faraday had been a decent cop. He was patient. He listened. He watched. He resisted the obvious conclusions. He let events play out, sharpened his pencil, reviewed the evidence, set a trap or two, and then joined the dots. Winter had always admired this MO because it so closely resembled his own. But then he, Paul Winter, was a survivor. Whereas Faraday, all too clearly, was anything but.
    True? Winter eyed his reflection in the sliding glass door that led to the balcony. In his early fifties, he was Faraday’s age, give or take. He was overweight by at least a couple of stone. He drank too much, ate too much and took full advantage of any passing opportunity. He was losing his hair, and physical challenge of pretty much any description was definitely becoming an issue. But he had resilience, and resilience mattered, and what he also had was self-belief. There were few decisions he’d taken in his life that he’d ever regretted, and if he’d finally arrived at a parting of the ways with Bazza then that, too, could be sorted. Because it had to be faced. Because it had to be done. Because otherwise, for all his matey confidence, he knew he’d end up like Faraday.
    He thought about a drink, a private farewell toast to mark the man’s passing, then shook his head. The light was still on in the bedroom, but Misty appeared to be asleep. Recently she’d taken to wearing a black silk camisole that cost a fortune and properly belonged on someone a bit thinner. She’d also installed her favourite stuffed animal, a pink leopard called Charlie with one eye missing and badly repaired damage around the hindquarters where Bazza had once attacked it with a broken bottle.
    The beast stood knee-high and had occupied a corner of thebedroom for a couple of weeks now, an affront to Winter’s sense of independence. He’d loathed it from the moment it had invaded his space, and the more he saw of it the more he knew it had to go. It was chavvy. It was infantile. It clashed with his curtains and filled him with dread in case Misty turned up with the rest of the zoo he knew she kept at home. For years, at considerable risk, he’d been knobbing Bazza’s mistress at every opportunity. Now, for reasons he still didn’t fully understand, he and Mist appeared to have become an item.
    Misty stirred. She wanted to know who’d been on the phone.
    ‘Jimmy Suttle.’
    ‘What did he want?’ She was struggling to look at the bedside clock.
    ‘It was just a