Epilogue

Eight Weeks Later

The sun was setting, it's last stubborn rays spinning tendrils of bright colour along the edges of the still-heavy winter clouds. The cemetery car park was empty save for Nikki's car - she was the last visitor of the day. Through the windows she could hear the hopeful, warbling song of a lone nightingale, too impatient to wait for night. She let her engine cool and listened to the melody for a moment, before reaching over to pick up her flowers and opening the car door.

Saul's grave was set close beside Lydie's, beneath a wide and spreading Plane tree. It wasn't the first time Nikki had visited, but it was the first time she had arrived so late. The early evening brought the sort of hush it is impossible to find in cities save for at dusk and inside churchyards, and so this place was doubly blessed. The silence - save for the perpetually singing bird, distant now but still distinct - was almost physical. It dulled the pain of her reason for being there, and the lingering memory of Saul's end.

Nikki unwrapped the roses and split them between the two graves before retreating to sit on the bench set around the tree. She shut her eyes, thinking of the brief time she had known Saul, and of all the things that had happened, around and between them. It seemed impossible, somehow, that he was no longer in the world, and on the other hand she sometimes wondered if they had ever really met at all.

"I wondered who it was bringing the flowers."

Nikki jumped, opening her eyes to see Reuben Salter standing beside her.

"Reuben!"

He sat down beside her, stretching his legs out, his worn grey overcoat brushing the pebbles beneath the bench. In his hand was a bunch of white roses, identical to the ones she had brought.

"How did you know they should be white?" he asked.

Nikki shook her head. "I didn't know. They just... seemed appropriate for Saul. Simple. Beautiful."

Salter nodded. "It's good of you, but you don't have to, you know. You didn't know him very long."

Nikki stared at the inscription on Saul's grave. He lived for others. "How long is long enough?"

Salter nodded. "I didn't mean... sorry. I didn't mean that badly. I just don't want you to let guilt take over. Saul did that, and it wasn't right. You - you made things better for him. Made him think there was a future, where before there wasn't. It's me who should feel guilty. I went home that night. Early, too. It was slack. I should have gone back in. I should have-"

Nikki put her hand on his arm. "It wasn't your fault. Of course it wasn't. Odeyele and his men - they murdered him. They-"

She broke off. Thinking about what must have happened that night still opened a wound in her heart. Nikki blinked away tears. "What upsets me the most is that no one will pay for that. That they got away. That there is no justice for Saul."

Salter leaned forward, the evening breeze ruffling his hair as he rested his elbows on his knees.

"Ash would say that justice isn't finite," he told her. "That it isn't about righting one wrong but about making sure that others don't happen in the same way. That's why justice and revenge are two different things. So he would say that justice has been done, because we shut that pipeline. Because he saved those three kids and made sure there wouldn't be others. Because we got Crossfair and Tanner."

"And what about you?"

Salter glanced at her, and then down at his hands. "I say the next time Odeyele surfaces, someone will have to stop me ripping his throat out."

Nikki's phone rang in her pocket. She rushed to silence it, hating the intrusion. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm on call."

Salter nodded. "So am I."

Nikki leaned over and kissed his cheek before standing. "Take care, Reuben."

"You too," he said, softly.

She walked away, glancing back as she put the phone to her ear. Salter remained, leaning forward, a lonely figure in the fading light.

"Doctor Alexander," she listened for a moment. "OK. I'm on my way. Tell me where…"

It was very late by the time she got home. Her flat was in darkness and cold, too, a testament to the lateness of the hour – her timed heating had switched itself off. Nikki opened the door and dropped her bag on the table, shrugging off her coat. She undressed in the living room, folding her clothes over the back of the couch, shivering as the cold air traced goosebumps along her skin.

The bedroom was in darkness. She slipped under the duvet and shuffled the width of the bed until she came up against Harry's back.

"Mmph," he mumbled, sleepily, fumbling around until he found her hands and then pulling her arms around him. "You're freezing."

"Sorry."

"What time is it?"

"Very late."

"Did you get called to that pile up?"

"Yes…"

Harry let go of one of her hands and reached back, crooking his arm awkwardly to run his palm down her side from her ribs to her backside. "You feel suspiciously bare. Are you naked?"

She snickered quietly, lips against the curve of his C3 and C4 vertebrae. "I might be. You'll have to turn over to find out."

He did, their limbs tangling together. "Should I take this as a hint?"

"Do you need one?"

"Not really," he admitted, as he kissed her.

Later still, Nikki lay against his chest, her left hand spread against his ribs, feeling the rise and fall of his breathing beneath her cheek. Harry's fingers were tangled gently in her hair as he dozed.

"You were right, you know," she said softly.

"About what?"

"This world. It's not all bad. And maybe, after all - we do make a difference."

He shifted to kiss her forehead. Nikki turned over, feeling him wrap himself around her, already almost asleep.

Outside her window, another bird was singing. In her dreams, it was the same one, and it was happy.

[END]