Graham Hurley: Cut to Black

"Joe? Something's come up. Where are you?"

Faraday glanced at his watch. 07.22.

"Still at home, sir. I can be in by eight, maybe earlier."

"Don't bother."

"Why not?"

"I'm still waiting to talk to the medics at the QA. Ask for Critical Care."

The Queen Alexandra Hospital was on the lower slopes of Portsdown Hill, a 1300-bed goliath with views across the city towards the Isle of Wight. The Department for Critical Care was on the third floor, two open wards with side rooms for solo occupancy. In the corridor outside, Faraday spotted the tall, bulky figure of Willard deep in conversation with a young nurse.

Faraday paused to peer into the nearest of the open wards. Most of the beds were occupied propped-up, comatose shapes moored to life-support machines, monitoring equipment, and an assortment of drips. At this range, it looked like an audition for the city's undertakers. No one seemed familiar.

"Nick Hayder." Faraday found Willard at his elbow. "Third bed on the left."

Faraday, astonished, took another look. Last time he'd seen Nick was a couple of days back. As fellow DIs on the Major Crimes Team they'd been obliged to attend a headquarters briefing on a recent change to CPS protocols. Afterwards, they'd gone down the road for a snatched pint at a Winchester pub. Now this.

"What happened?"

"Good question. You know that patch of scrub round Fort Cumberland? He was found there last night. Unconscious."

Faraday was still gazing at the bandaged figure Willard had pointed out. Fort Cumberland was an MOD site on the south-western tip of the island, acres of brambles and couch grass, as remote a spot as you could find in a city as densely-packed as Portsmouth.

"So what happened?" Faraday repeated.

"No one knows, not for sure. He was in running gear. It was dark."

"Any witnesses?"

"One old boy, late sixties, walking his dog. Says he saw some kind of fracas but he was a fair distance away. He thinks there was a car involved but that's about as far as we've got."

"Make? Colour?"

"He can't say. We'll start on the CCTV this morning but don't hold your breath. Nearest camera's the far end of Henderson Road." Willard was watching a doctor in green scrubs who'd paused at Hayder's bedside.

"There must have been a car because they're saying he's been run over.

He's got compound fractures, both legs, a broken pelvis, ruptured spleen, and query brain damage. They took the spleen out in theatre but it's the head injury that's bothering them."

"How bad is it?"

"They won't say, but they're talking a three on the coma scale."

"What's normal?"

"Fifteen."

"He's unconscious?"

"Very. He was brought in around nine thirty last night. Still hasn't surfaced. He '

Willard broke off. The nurse had returned and was indicating an open door down the corridor. The consultant, she said, would be in touch with him as soon as he was free. Willard looked pointedly at his watch, then led Faraday to a small, bare office. There was a poster advertising yachting holidays in the Peloponnese on the wall, and a list of names and bleep numbers on the wipe board. A plant on the window sill was fighting a losing battle against the central heating.

Willard shut the door, eyeing Faraday for a moment before settling into the chair behind the desk. Three kids beamed out of a stand-up frame beside the PC.

"Mates, weren't you? You and Hayder?"

Faraday nodded. "Mates' wasn't a term he'd applied to many men in his life but in Nick Hayder's case he liked to think it was close to the truth.

"Pretty much," he agreed.

"Did he have any personal problems that you'd know of?"

Faraday hesitated. Willard's use of the past tense was beginning to irrit-atp him. Critical Care was hiah tech. Critical Care was where they hauled you back from the brink. So why the rush to consign Hayder to the Recycle Bin?

"Nick has a partner," he said carefully.

"That wasn't my question."

"I know, but that's the situation. I can give you her number. Why don't you ' "Don't fuck around, Joe. I'm asking you about his love life. Someone tried to kill him. It may be they've done just that. Does the word "motive" ring any bells? Or do you think you're doing him some kind of favour? All this buddy-buddy shit?"

Faraday held Willard's furious gaze. The Det-Supt was as armour-clad as any detective when it came to the flesh and blood consequences of serious violence, but this was family and family was different.

"Nick's been living alone for a bit," Faraday said at last. "Gutty little bed sit off Albert Road."

"Why was that?"

"Problems between him and Maggie. They were trying to work it out…

Are trying to work it out."

"Was he over the side?"

"No."

"Was she?"

"Not that I know of."

"You're sure about that?"

It was a fair question and Faraday wondered how much further he should go. Monday's lunchtime drink in Winchester had stretched to two pints and a coffee, chiefly because life in a Southsea bed sit was driving Nick Hayder nuts. Faraday had never met a fellow detective so self-contained, so centred, so sure of his own judgement. Yet here he was, totally lost.

"There's a problem with Maggie's boy," he said. "Nick would be the first to tell you he hasn't been handling it brilliantly."

"Let's hope he gets the fucking chance." Willard was still angry.

"What was the problem?"

"Nick thought thinks the kid's doing drugs. Nothing heavy but enough to get Nick going."

"Like what drugs?"

"Cannabis mainly. Speed and ecstasy at the weekends."

"How old's the boy?"

"Fourteen."

"And his mum? What does she think?"

"Maggie prefers to deal with it in her own way. She's a teacher, one of the local comprehensives. This kind of stuff's meat and drink in schools like hers. She thinks wading in's the last thing you do."

"Which Hayder couldn't handle?"

"Exactly."

Willard nodded, saying nothing. He had no kids of his own, though his long-term partner, a Bristol psychologist, was rumoured to be contemplating IVF.

"So no one else?" Willard mused at last.

"Not to my knowledge. I've been round to see her a couple of times.

She's a strong woman."

"Attractive?"

"Nick thinks so."

"And he dwells on it? All those nights banged up by himself? No wonder he went running."

"He's been doing it for years. He got the bug from Brian Imber and thank God he did. If you want my opinion, running was the best '

Faraday broke off, hearing a soft knock at the door. Brian Imber was the DS with the Force Intelligence Unit.

The nurse at the door was full of apologies. The unit manager needed her office back. The nurse was about to suggest an alternative when Willard shook his head and got to his feet.

"We're through, love." He turned to Faraday and then glanced at his watch. "Back to base? Ten o'clock at Major Crimes?"

The operational heart of the Portsmouth Basic Command Unit lay in a suite of offices on the first floor of Kingston Crescent police station, a stone's throw from the Continental Ferry Port. These offices, stretching the length of the corridor, housed the Senior Management Team, including the uniformed Chief Superintendent who headed the BCU. To these men and women fell the everyday challenges of policing Portsmouth.

For several years, Pompey's top cop had been Chief Supt Dennis Hartigan, a diminutive martinet who'd made no secret of his determination to end his career in an ACPO job. In this respect, an Assistant Chief Constable's vacancy with the Cleveland Constabulary had been the answer to his prayers, and he'd stepped briskly out of Portsmouth after a burst of valedictory e-mails and the most cheerless leaving party in living memory. Few regretted his promotion, and a couple of dozen survivors from Hartigan's routine bollockings held an impromptu celebration in the top-floor bar the day after he'd gone.