A Reconstructed Corpse – Simon Brett (1)

The detective sergeant was deciding whether to pull out now or to settle in for an evening’s drinking with an actor. At the end of a long silence, Marchmont’s gaze shifted to their glasses, which were both empty. ‘Same again?’ Charles nodded. Greg Marchmont banged down on the bell. When they were resupplied with Bell’s, Charles got his question answered. ‘Ted Faraday was always an unconventional operator – tended to have a lot of criminal contacts and sailed pretty close to the wind a lot of the time.

Coppers who work that way do sometimes set themselves up.’ ‘You mean, by getting too close to the criminals they’re investigating?’ Marchmont nodded. ‘Right. You want something from them, they usually want something from you. So often there’s a trade-off for information.’ ‘What kind of trade-off? Money?’ ‘Not usually.

No, a villain’ll tell you what you want to know in return for . . . well, it can be a straight exchange of information. He tells us about some job one of his mates is planning, we tell him how much we know about what he’s up to. Or maybe we agree to turn a blind eye to his next little effort .

. . All kinds of different deals get done.’ ‘You need them as much as they need you.’ ‘Oh yes. But sometimes it goes a bit too far . . .’ ‘In what way?’ ‘Well, starts with a trade-off for information. I tell you this, says the villain – in return you don’t shop me for that. Only a small step then for the villain to say – you don’t shop me for that . . . in return for this . . . and he bungs the copper a few hundred.’

‘Is that what happened with Faraday?’ The detective shrugged again. ‘Don’t know for sure. But he was well on the way to it. He was investigating a loan-sharking operation, and getting bloody close to the villains who were running it. OK, in order to get that close, he had to pretend he was on their side, he had to look like he was bent .

. . Maybe that’s all he was doing. Certainly that’s all he said he was doing.’

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

This title first published in Great Britain in 1993 by Victor Gollancz eBook edition first published in 2012 by Severn House Digital an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited Copyright © 1993 Simon Brett. The right of Simon Brett to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0018-1 (epub) Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental. This eBook produced by Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland. 1kitap1.com/en To Ian and Penny, with thanks for the idea 1kitap1.com/en Chapter One CHARLES PARIS had never thought that he looked like a murder victim.

And for most of his life he didn’t. But then someone who looked a little like the actor apparently got himself murdered, and Charles Paris was faced with the unusual prospect of employment. It was for a programme called Public Enemies, one of the rash of ‘True Crime’ series which had suddenly appeared on British television.

Like the others in the genre, the hour-long Public Enemies programmes used a worthy, pious, together-we-can-beat-crime approach to pander to its audience’s worst instincts of prurience and ghoulishness. The programme was presented with straight-faced grittiness by self- appointed ‘man of the people’ Bob Garston who, after lucrative excursions into the lighter areas of television game shows, had returned to what he continuously described as his ‘no-nonsense hard-bitten journalistic roots’.

(Usually he also managed to get a reference to ‘working at the coalface of real life’ into the same sentence.) Public Enemies was produced for ITV by West End Television, in association with ‘Bob’s Your Uncle Productions’. Bob Garston had, in common with many other successful presenters and writers, formed his own production company to secure a bigger slice of profits and greater control over the shows he worked on.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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