Completely breaking the law.
Ever since he’d begun investigating Sam, he could feel his loyalty to the justice system waning. After helping Sam escape custody over a year ago, he let the vigilante run free from the High Rise, believing the country needed someone like him fighting for them. He still believed it.
Just.
But there was always a limit, as far as Pearce was concerned. While his career of hunting corrupt policeman had made him far from popular within his own organisation, he’d never broken the law himself.
Helping Sam Pope, the most wanted man in the UK, wipe out an entire security team and then kidnap a leading government official was too far. He had become what he’d spent his career fighting and even though he understood the need for the attack, there was no way he could go back.
Pearce was a man of principal and when they became compromised, he knew it would be time to call it a day. What struck him the most was how easy it was to decide it was over, how ready he was to walk away.
As he guided the police car through the increasing traffic of the London morning rush hour, he flicked a quick glance to Sam who sat beside him. As always, Sam looked deep in thought, his eyes absorbing the packed streets as they whizzed by.
Sam had called Pearce on his way to collect his weapons, telling him what had happened, and that Singh’s life was at stake. The news hit Pearce like a freight train. He cared for Singh deeply, and although his actions had caused her to push him away, the thought of her being caught in the crossfire of Sam’s war filled him with rage.
He held back on reading Sam the riot act. Judging by the tone of Sam’s voice, he understood the gravity of the situation and the horror of pulling an innocent woman into his world. Pearce had warned Singh to step back, to stop knocking on the door and asking for the devil.
Eventually, he will answer.
Pearce had driven to the station and signed out the panda car as soon as he could and then he waited near the war zone, knowing that Sam would deliver the exact wave of violence he’d promised. That’s what scared Pearce the most.
Behind the complex, broken man was a double-edged sword. One side was possibly the most righteous man he’d ever met, a man who never wavered from right in a world filled with wrong. But on the other side, he was an efficient killer and a knowing criminal, flouting the law and putting people in the ground.
Sam told Pearce he needed three minutes to eliminate Wallace’s security detail.
He did it in just under two.
As Pearce had raced towards the massacre, he watched as Wallace emerged from the car, arms raised, and defeat accepted.
Sam delivered the clubbing blow and they quickly made their getaway. In a city swarming with police cars, hiding in plain sight was the easiest way to disappear, as it would take dispatch at least an hour to unpick the tape and see which car turned up at the scene.
They had already switched cars, with Pearce dumping the police car in the same garage that Sam had parked Etheridge’s Range Rover. Pearce had helped Sam shift the mighty Wallace from one vehicle to the other, binding his hands behind his back with masking tape.
With rush hour washing through the city like a tidal wave, they ventured into the traffic, with Pearce driving quietly back over the Thames to South London. After the attack, the city had ground to a crawl, with the traffic backed up from the detours put in place.
Trainlines were suspended for a second day in a row and Pearce smiled at the thought of Sam’s impact on the Transport for London.
Sam had stayed quiet. He knew Pearce was fuming, the fear of Singh’s potential death had created a palpable tension between the two and Pearce had no intention of breaking the silence.
A journey which had begun a year ago, when the city they were crawling through had been rocked by a terrorist attack. An attack that Sam had exposed as a vile cover-up, a despicable link between the Met Police and organised crime. It had created a bond between the two of them, a mutual trust that both men were committed to doing the right thing.
But the cost, now, was potentially too great.
And half an hour later, as Pearce carefully navigated his way through the streets of Dulwich, still hadn’t spoken a word to Sam.
They turned onto the street, one which had bonded them together the previous year and Pearce pulled the car to a stop, sliding it in behind a van on the side of the street.
They were parked outside the ‘High Rise’, the large, four floored building that Sam had laid siege to a year before, a violent ascent that saw him wipe out Frank Jackson’s army of goons, before riddling the gangster himself full of bullets.
Pearce had been present for that moment, when Jackson threatened the safety of an innocent woman.
Sam had not hesitated.
He unloaded the clip, ripping the man’s chest and stomach to pieces.
Pearce had let Sam leave that night, having delivered the treacherous Inspector Howell to the authorities and exposing the hideous truth.
But now, the building that was once the most feared structure in the city, lay abandoned and derelict. A property developer had purchased the lease of the building not long after Sam had ripped through it like a hurricane. Scaffolding had been erected around the entire structure; the remaining windows removed. A few sheets were pinned to the frames, the thick plastic keeping the rain out, but that was about it.
The bottom had fallen out of the development company, investors pulling out
