‘How are you?’ she asked. ‘The ribs?’

‘OK. Still hurts to breathe, and I don’t think I’ll be setting any track and field records for a while. The body heals. It’s the mind that’s harder, right? Do I still have what it takes? Will I be the first in next time, or a step behind everyone else?’

She could only imagine how his confidence had been knocked. Her own was shot.

‘You’ll be the classic fool rushing in,’ she remarked.

He didn’t look reassured. ‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘How are you doing? Really?’

‘I’ve been better. Some guy wasted an hour of my life today. Emailed me claiming he knew something about the footage of that night. Said I’d get it if I came to meet him in Nantwich. Never showed. I emailed him, giving a few choice thoughts on him wasting my time, but it’s probably some troll with a fake account.’

‘Harami,’ Sabih said. ‘Powell should have done more to keep your name out of the papers.’

Harri nodded. She’d devoted her life to the police, but none of that had mattered and her boss had hung her out for the vultures.

Sabih’s phone rang and he pulled it from his pocket.

‘Sorry, it’s the guv’nor,’ he said. He answered the call. ‘Go ahead, guv.’ There was a brief pause and Harri imagined Powell rattling off an instruction. ‘I’m on my way.’

He hung up and gave Harri an apologetic puppy-dog shrug. ‘Sorry. Duty calls.’

Harri felt a pang of envy. A few weeks ago, she would have been going with him.

‘Ah, that was insensitive of me. Great body, sharp mind, not so hot on all these complicated human things,’ he said, his index finger shuttling back and forth through the air between them.

Harri suddenly felt sorry for him. He’d been beaten and battered physically and psychologically, and he was grieving too. He’d lost a partner.

‘Complicated human things?’ Harri replied. ‘What are you, a robot? Just say, “Let’s grab a beer sometime”, and leave with a smile on your face.’

‘Let’s grab a beer sometime,’ Sabih said as he backed towards the door. ‘You’re the best, Harri. A top girl.’

She couldn’t resist a smile at his awkwardness.

After he was gone, Harri stood in the little flat for a moment, listening to the distant sounds of the city, where thousands of lives far more productive than hers were being played out. She glanced around the messy room and thought about tidying up, but the brief surge of energy that had risen in Sabih’s presence soon dissipated. The mess could wait. She left everything as it was, and returned to her book.

Extract from Happiness: A New Way of Life

By Isabella Tosetti

Printed with permission of Vitalife Press

Happiness as Love

Romeo and Juliet. Star-crossed lovers, ill-fated to suffer. A picture of love that’s endured to this day. One of pain and sacrifice. Love as tragedy. Alongside this runs a steady stream of novels, television, film and song that tell us love is the most powerful source of happiness.