But the youth centre had been a passion project for Theo, and ever since Adrian Pearce had retired from the Met, it had been his, too. Sam could feel the smile spread across his face as he watched Pearce lock up the building, retirement clearly working for him. Dressed in chinos, trainers, and a white polo shirt, Pearce looked plenty younger than his fifty years of age, the only tell being his grey hair and beard, which stood out against his dark skin.

Without the toll of investigating bent coppers, Pearce looked fit as a fiddle. And as he turned away from the locked door, he stopped, his eyes wide with surprise as Sam walked across the road.

‘Well, well, well,’ Pearce finally said. ‘This is a surprise.’

‘How are you, Adrian?’ Sam offered with a warm grin. The sun shrouded them with a warm glow, and the idea of the beer garden grew in temptation.

‘Not bad. You?’ Adrian pointed at him. ‘You’re looking well for a dead guy.’

Sam chuckled.

‘You heard?’

‘I did.’ Pearce stepped forward and thrust his arms out. ‘I didn’t believe it for a second.’

Sam stepped in, and the two men hugged. Just as he had with Alan during his fight for Alex’s survival, Sam had built this unbreakable bond with Pearce by their shared need to do the right thing.

For both of them, it was a compulsion, and the sad reality was by doing so, they’d alienated everyone.

‘I need a job,’ Sam eventually said. ‘I don’t need to be paid or anything. I just want to be a part of what you and Theo have built.’

‘Good, because the pay is terrible.’ Pearce joked before patting Sam on the shoulder. ‘Come on, I’ll buy you a beer. You can tell me what prison was like.’

Laughing out loud, Sam followed Pearce through the sun, ready to start his first day as a free man, without the need to set the world straight.

As they sat in the beer garden, Sam raised the beer to his lips and savoured the chill in the heat.

He appreciated the company of Pearce.

Sam had accepted where his life was. Who and what he’d lost. The things he’d done.

What he’d tried to be.

A good man.

A man of his word.

And as he settled down, ready to enjoy the rest of his life and the possibilities it held, he realised he was finally content.

The fight was over.

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