In every hand there was an orange and black card, "what is going on out here?" he barked, "surely it's not time for recess already!"
Carlisle stepped out of the middle of the huddle and handed him a card identical to the one that others were seeming to find so amusing.
"What is this?" Hardy asked not bothering to open it.
"It's an invitation to the Halloween Party Natalie and I are having," Peter grinned.
Slipping his glasses on Hardy read the invite, then started to hand it back with a sneer of contempt but at the last moment he changed his mind and stuck it in his pocket.
Then addressing the entire room said, "I'm pretty sure this is a police station, we are supposed to be solving crimes, saving innocents, and so on, let's put on our big boy pants and get back to work!"
His words had little effect on the general air of mirth but at least people started heading back to their desks, still clutching the invitations as if they were made of gold, not printed on cheap card stock.
"Carlisle!" Hardy crooked a long finger at his subordinate, "in here, now."
"Uh oh," someone whispered as Peter followed Hardy into his office, "someone's getting sent to the Headmaster's office!"
The minute Peter stepped inside Hardy slammed the door, "where's the updates on those shop break ins?"
"I don't have any updates," Peter quickly corrected himself, "yet."
Before Hardy could launch into a tirade he continued, "I've been going over the CCTV footage, the parts that have not been erased of course..."
"And?"
"Whoever did the erasures obviously had a good knowledge of the software used and the methods for deletion of the images."
Hardy put his hands on his hips and was about to say something about stating the obvious but Peter pressed on, "I've sent four of the backup devices to the data recovery labs in London. The drives the images were stored on were not destroyed so there is some chance that the data can be recovered."
Hardy's shoulders relaxed a bit and Peter could tell that he had managed to impress his rather sceptical boss, even if just a tiny bit.
"Make sure they put a rush on it," Hardy turned away dismissing him, "close the door behind you."
"Yes, sir!" Peter resisted giving a sarcastic salute. Instead he walked out of the office, and into a room of people who suddenly had to pretend they hadn't been watching them through the blinds.
Sitting at his desk, Hardy pretended to be engrossed in something on the computer screen. Instead he had slipped the invitation out of his pocket and set it on the keyboard.
The invitation was a mismatched bit of Halloween clip art, including the requisite spider in a web in one corner and a flock of bats circling the words.
A costume party? Hardy snorted softly. He was well into his adulthood and couldn't imagine dressing up like a child and making a fool of himself in front of his employees.
He almost crumpled the card up and tossed it into the rubbish bin, but then he remembered his promise to himself to get out more. Enjoy the life that his recent surgery had granted him.
But never in his wildest dreams had he imagined a costume party as being part of this grand plan.
Gazing out into the squad room he tried to imagine what people would dress as...and more importantly what in the hell would be appropriate for himself?
He discretely pocketed the card again, resettled the glasses on his nose and put the whole crazy idea out of his head...for now.