A world he no longer felt existed.
Then, as the silence threatened to last forever, Theo would always appear. He would always step out from nowhere, his welcoming smile as bright as it had been when he lived.
He would ask Sam to stop fighting. To try to make peace with what had happened.
Sam could never accept it. Would never accept it.
As they walked towards each other, Sam would watch as Theo would start to disintegrate, the mortal wounds he suffered would begin to ravage his body and before he could save his friend, his body would hit the ground, ripped to shreds by the explosion of a grenade.
As Sam would mourn him, he would turn his head round, to look at the street which had now appeared. A car slammed into the lamppost and Miles Hillock fell out of the door, drunk and battered. His head bleeding, as people raced to help.
Sam could see his ex-wife, Lucy, screaming as if she’d just stepped on a rusty nail.
Her heart was breaking, the piercing cries accompanying the rupture.
In front of the car, the broken body of his son, Jamie lay, his arm twisted in a ghoulish way.
His eyes wide open.
His life over.
As Sam tried to walk towards his son, he could hear Theo once again asking Sam to stop.
To forgive himself.
To grieve.
Sam dropped to his knees, the sky opening up and showering him in freezing droplets of rain.
The surrounding scene began to wash away, the rain pushing the memories of his family and his happiness away like a broken drain pumping down the kerb. Feeling tired, Sam slowly closed his eyes, the pain of all his injuries beginning to rage through his body like an unstoppable force.
The knife attacks.
The bullet wounds.
As he flattened himself on the cold, wet ground, Sam closed his eyes and readied himself for death.
‘Not yet, Daddy,’ Jamie’s voice shot through the dark.
Sam’s eyes opened.
Sam shot up in his bed, his T-shirt stuck to his body. The cold sweat he’d come accustomed to had drenched the sheets and he slid out from them, taking a few moments to stretch out his lower back. While he kept himself at his physical peak, the pitfalls of approaching forty were beginning to appear.
Slowly, Sam peeled the sodden T-shirt from his toned body and hung it over the chair that was tucked under the desk. The spare room Etheridge had offered him was spacious, with a few basic furnishings dotted around. It wasn’t the Ritz, and it certainly wasn’t in tune with man Etheridge was only a few months before.
The pain and torture he’d gone through had changed him, that was for sure, and Sam could see it by the lack of showmanship or flagrant displays of wealth. In its place, a steely determination and the want to do the right thing.
Sam approved.
He popped open the wardrobe and thankfully found a few more T-shirts. He slipped one on, the sleeves a bit tight around his muscular shoulders, and he made his way onto the landing. The memories of his gunfight with the police flashed in his mind like a freezeframe in time. It always irked him he had to open fire on the police themselves.
Most of the boys in blue were genuinely trying to do a good job. But months ago, faced with armed response team standing between him and the chance to save a teenage girl from a fate worse than death, Sam didn’t even need to think twice.
He shot to wound.
It was also the night he first came face to face with Amara Singh and despite everything that had happened in the months since he last saw her in Tilbury, she would wander through his mind on a daily basis.
Sam shook her from his mind and ascended the stairs to the hub where Etheridge was sat in front of a wall of screens, the mixture of coffee and sweat pulsed in the air like a heartbeat.
It was a little overwhelming and Sam coughed, drawing Etheridge to spin his chair, his unshaven face twisted in a smile.
‘Morning,’ he said. ‘You look like shit.’
‘Thanks.’ Sam chuckled.
‘How d’you sleep?’
‘Like shit. You?’
‘Haven’t.’ Etheridge spun back to the screen. ‘Whatever Marsden has on this stick, whoever locked down these files really didn’t want anyone to look in.’
‘Really?’
‘Yup. Like a digital Fort Fucking Knox.’
Sam laughed and looked beyond the desk to the window. The sky was clear but grey and a wind swept the debris of leaves from the gutter of the loft conversion. But at least it wasn’t raining. At the desk, Etheridge’s fingers clicked wildly on the keys, like a concert pianist reaching his crescendo.
‘Can you crack it?’ Sam asked.
‘Does the Pope shit on alter boys?’ Sam’s silence caused Etheridge to turn. ‘I mean yes. Give me a few more hours.’
‘Cool,’ Sam said, heading towards the door.
‘Where are you going?’ Etheridge called out, more out of politeness than interest.
Sam smiled.
‘To see an old friend.’
Chapter Twelve
Sometimes, it helped to stop and appreciate the little things.
It was a saying that made him feel like an old man, but these days, Pearce was feeling his age more than ever. At fifty-two years old, he was certainly on the wind down, and had been able to retire for over a year. But the thrill of the job, the grip it had on him was, at times, all he had. His marriage had disintegrated over a decade ago, his ex-wife, Denise, leaving him for a man who gave her the love and affection she deserved,
Pearce had loved her dearly, but his true dedication was to his work. He understood why she left and when she kissed his cheek for the final time, he knew it would be a life sentence.
He would never retire.
They would have to boot him out, give him some quickly thrown together speech about his commitment and loyalty and then present him with whatever they could buy with the whip round.
That unwavering commitment to the job, to the difference between right and wrong and
