Christopher Foyle walked slowly along the seafront, hands thrust deep into his coat pockets, gazing out at the moonlit Channel. It was close to midnight, an hour which usually found him in bed, but sleep was impossible tonight. He drew in deep breaths of salt-tinged air and listened to the gentle wash of waves on the beach below, but the susurrating rhythm, usually so soothing, was not sufficient to restore his tranquillity on this occasion.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd indulged in a late-night walk near the sea. He had fallen into the habit after Rosalind's death, when grief and loneliness had left him unfit for easy slumber, but the war and the blackout had made it impractical. On this July evening, however, the sky was bright with stars and the luminous glow of the nearly-full moon provided adequate light for safe walking.

The first inkling he'd had of trouble was when the meeting in Hugh's office was interrupted by distant shouts. Hurrying downstairs, they had reached the lobby just in time to see a bloody figure being borne out the front doors on a stretcher. His shock upon recognising his sergeant had left him momentarily speechless. Ignoring the commotion and the approaching wail of a siren, he'd pushed his way past the officers to Milner's side. The younger man was conscious, he saw, but covered in blood and deathly pale. "What happened?" he had demanded, his heart pounding.

"It was fair -" Milner gasped weakly, his voice faltering. "He had Sam, sir. A knife. Down- downstairs. Had to get him away from - " the rest of his words were drowned out by the ambulance pulling up in front of the station. Foyle stepped back and nodded to the constables to load their burden into the vehicle, and stood watching while the M.O. joined his sergeant in back and slammed the door.

Once the ambulance had pulled away, he'd turned back to the building and saw Sam leaning against the wall by the door, tears running silently down her face. She, too, was bloodstained, her uniform torn and her hair badly rumpled and slipping from its Victory roll. When their eyes met she made an obvious effort to collect herself, straightening and wiping her cheek with the back of a shaking hand, but the gesture left a bloody smear in its wake. "You hurt?" he asked her, indicating the stains on her hands and clothing.

"No, sir, it's …" she gestured after the retreating ambulance to indicate the source of the blood, her voice shaking. "Will – will he be all right?" He had no answer for her.

It was clear she was teetering on the edge of a breakdown but there were things he needed to know first, so he got her down the passage to his office straightaway, sending Brooke to fetch a glass into which he poured a generous two inches of his hoarded single-malt scotch. He wanted to pace but, mindful of the need to present a calm façade, he forced himself to take his usual place behind his desk. He managed to wait until she'd got a few sips down before beginning. "Tell me," he said. "You were attacked? By whom?"

A shake of the head. "I - don't know, sir. I'm sorry. He looked a bit familiar, but …it was dark down there. I never got a good look at him."

"He had a knife?" She nodded, gesturing mutely toward her torn shirt and cut necktie. "And this happened downstairs. Where?"

"The old interview room."

That brought him to his feet. "What were you doing down there?" he demanded, anxiety making his voice sharper than he intended. "For God's sake, you know better than to be wandering round down there by yourself!"

The rebuke was enough to shatter her fragile composure. "But I wasn't!" she cried, fresh tears welling up. "I was in the kitchen, doing the washing-up. He – he grabbed me from behind and dragged me down there before I even knew what was hap – " she trailed off into sobs, slumping forward on his desk and burying her face in her arms.

Foyle looked down at the tousled red-gold curls and the shaking shoulders and chewed his lip, stomach churning with fear and guilt. God almighty, anything could have happened to her down there, he thought. What could have possessed her attacker, whoever he was, to assault her in a building full of police officers, of all places? And why go after Sam?

A horrifying possibility occurred to him. He rose and moved quietly round the desk to stand next to her, patting her shoulder gently and murmuring vague words of apology and comfort. He felt rather awkward; as paternally fond as he was of his driver, this sort of thing had never come naturally to him. Milner would be better at it, he thought wryly, then felt a fresh pang when he remembered his sergeant's injured state. After a minute or two she raised her head and he offered his handkerchief. She mopped at her face. "I'm sorry, sir."

He didn't reply, merely gave her a few more moments to collect herself before asking, "You sure you're all right? He didn't hurt you?"

"No, sir. Banged my head a bit is all. I'll be fine."

His frown deepened. "Mmm," he grunted. She would need to be seen by a doctor, and soon, but he had a few more questions first. "Did he say anything? Any idea what it was about?"

She dropped her eyes in consternation. "Well, yes. He wanted … you."

He felt the blood in his veins congeal into ice. It was exactly what he'd feared - someone nursing a grudge against him had vented his anger on Sam. And on Milner too. "What did he say?" he asked tightly.

"A lot of things. He blamed you for sending him to prison. His brother was killed in the war, his wife left him. And he said something about a conscientious objector – it didn't make a great deal of sense to me. I think Milner understood, though. He recognised him."

Foyle's usually erect posture had gone ramrod straight. "Did he get away?"

"No, I don't think so. The duty officers got him."

He nodded grimly, his jaw tightening. The details of her story could wait; just now he needed to confirm the suspicion taking hold in his mind. "Wait here," he told her, starting for the door.

Down in the cellblock, noise and confusion reigned. Officers hurried this way and that, talking excitedly, while the few prisoners currently in custody added to the din by shouting. Foyle glimpsed Hugh Reid, chief superintendent in charge of the uniformed side of the force, trying to restore order. Ignoring the chaos, he strode directly to the cells, glancing at the occupant of each until he found the one he sought.

It was as he'd suspected. William Ferris, onetime sergeant of the Hastings Constabulary, without a doubt. He was older and rougher-looking than Foyle remembered, but there was no mistaking those pale eyes, those florid features. Milner, he realised, had even tried to tell him so. "It was fair," he had said, clearly trying to say Ferris.

The ex-police officer's face was unshaven, his hair overlong and greasy, his shirt and trousers torn and faded. His unkempt appearance was a far cry from the spit-and-polish of the uniform he'd once worn with such pride. He slumped motionless on the hard cell bed, his lip bleeding and one eye nearly swollen shut – Milner' s handiwork, Foyle guessed. Slowly he raised his gaze to the DCS and his expression shifted from blank despair to virulent hatred. The pale blue eyes burned with a rage as powerful and malevolent as any the detective had ever seen, but Foyle did not flinch. He met the stare with his own steely gaze, silently conveying both implacable contempt and deepest disgust. When Ferris opened his mouth to speak, he turned his back deliberately and walked away. There was nothing this piece of human waste could say that he wanted to hear and he had no intention of giving the lout the satisfaction of listening to even one minute of his vitriol. Hugh Reid, who had come to stand behind his friend, silenced his former subordinate with a single chilling remark. "You know you'll hang for this, Ferris."

Foyle had gone next to the neglected little room in the station's basement. He couldn't have said exactly why he felt compelled to visit this place just now, but his detective's instincts always demanded a firsthand view of the scene of a crime. There was little enough to see other than a hunting knife and a dented fire bucket on the floor, but the bloodstained tiles bore eloquent testimony to the violent struggle that had taken place here. Looking round the dingy walls, poorly illuminated by a low-wattage bulb, he understood why Ferris had chosen this spot to take his revenge: their fateful interview, all those years ago, had been conducted in this very room. But even this realisation offered no answer to the enigma at the forefront of his mind: why, if Ferris had been determined to avenge himself on Foyle, had he assaulted his sergeant and his driver instead?

He picked up the knife and fingered the blade, wincing at its sharpness and feeling a fresh surge of anxiety over Milner. Pray God he hadn't suffered any lasting harm; that young man had been through quite enough as it was. He'd best get over to the hospital to check on him; he would take Sam along and have her seen to at the same time.

And now, hours later, he was walking along the promenade feeling the soft breeze against his face, savouring the stillness of the summer night. Somewhere across the water, far out of sight in the velvety darkness, lay France. Over there were battalions of tanks and heavy artillery, regiments of infantry armed with rifles and grenades battling fiercely across fields and hedgerows. And aeroplanes too, of course. Somewhere on the other side of that dark Channel was Andrew, a tiny speck of life in a sea of combat, flying and fighting and dodging hostile fire and antiaircraft volleys determined to send him to a fiery death. Andrew, his son. His only family.

During the past six weeks, since the start of the great Allied invasion of France, worry about Andrew's safety had followed him about like an ever-present ghost, silently weighing down his spirit. Not a day passed that he didn't fear the arrival of a telegram bearing the news he most dreaded, and his nights were regularly disrupted by terrifyingly vivid dreams. And always, always at the back of his mind was the unbearable knowledge that if he were to lose Andrew, he would be left entirely alone.

But this evening's events had temporarily driven such fears from his mind. As Sergeant Brooke drove them to hospital, he had listened with mounting incredulity to the details of Sam's story. When she explained her refusal to comply with Ferris' demand that she summon the DCS, he had been unable to contain his reaction. "What were you thinking, Sam? You could have got yourself killed!" he'd burst out, outraged. "You had no business taking such a risk. Why didn't you ring me upstairs? You knew where I was."

"Oh, I – I couldn't have done that, sir," she'd responded firmly. "He was so angry, so set on getting his own back at you, I'm sure he would have – well -" she trailed off, looking too stricken to finish, but her meaning was clear enough.

He had stared at the young woman who, though still rumpled and tearstained, was meeting his appalled gaze with that queer mixture of earnestness and stubbornness that characterised her. He could manage no more than a choked, "For God's sake, really!" before their arrival at St. Luke's forced him to table the discussion.

Milner's words to him, a few minutes later, had been nearly identical. He'd found his sergeant lying shirtless on an examining table as the doctor wrapped a bandage round the ugly stitches on his bicep. In addition to the three-inch gash, the younger man's chest and torso were covered liberally with darkening bruises, but he had recovered sufficiently to give a full account of the incident. Foyle had again listened with growing astonishment. Once he'd grasped the most significant point – that Milner had deliberately deflected Ferris' wrath upon himself to spare Foyle – he had again been rendered momentarily speechless. "You should have sent for me," he'd told the younger man tightly, his voice betraying his tumultuous emotions. "Nothing to do with you."

Milner had merely smiled faintly, his handsome face white and drawn with pain, and replied with that gentle, self-effacing manner Foyle had come to expect of him. "Couldn't do that, sir," he'd replied simply.

Foyle halted by a stone pillar on the promenade and gazed out at the shining path the moonlight made on the water, rippling gently with the current. He was greatly disturbed, of course, by what had happened that evening. It wasn't so much the danger to himself that upset him; every police officer lived with the knowledge that he could fall victim to some vengeful felon, and he had sent more men to prison than most. No, it was the price paid by his innocent colleagues that distressed him so deeply.

For both of them, it had transpired, had been injured in the struggle. Sam had suffered a mild concussion and had been sent home to her digs with strict orders to rest for several days. Milner had been kept in hospital overnight for observation, as the doctor was concerned about the amount of blood he'd lost. Both were expected to make a full recovery, but this was of little comfort to Foyle, who was only too aware that the incident could have ended very differently.

Their courage and selflessness moved him deeply. Both these young people – still in their twenties, with their whole lives ahead of them – had risked serious injury or death in order to protect him. Each had also tried to shield the other from harm. In Milner's case, at least, there was a certain expectation of professional police conduct when faced with a dangerous criminal, but his actions had surely gone far beyond the call of duty. And as for Sam – well, dealing with armed felons was certainly not part of her brief as an MTC volunteer. He had tried to find the words to thank them, but both had brushed aside his inadequate efforts.

He recalled a long-ago conversation with Milner, one which had taken place in the wake of his sergeant's early misjudgement of the fascist Guy Spencer. He had stressed the importance of the three of them operating as a team, able to rely upon each other completely. Little had he suspected how powerful that trust would become. He was awed and humbled by the loyalty both Milner and Sam had shown him today.

It wasn't, he reflected, as though he had never experienced such a bond with his comrades before – he had, as a young soldier in the trenches of France more than a quarter of a century ago. He and his fellow 'Tommies' regularly risked their lives for each other. But he hadn't quite realised that he could find the same degree of esprit de corps within the humble walls of the Hastings police station.

He couldn't deny, of course, that the three of them had been forced to work exceptionally closely together over the past few years. With manpower in the police force shorter than ever, they'd had to depend upon each other. But that intimacy had gradually extended far beyond their jobs. Both Sam and Milner had become like family to him – as close as Andrew in their way, as he had spent little time with his son since he had gone on active service. He felt a rush of affection for them both – for Milner, quiet and self-contained, but displaying every quality he would need to succeed as a detective: intelligence, intuition, determination, persistence. And for Sam, ever cheerful, inquisitive, lively, outspoken, a bright light in his daily routine, like the daughter he'd never had. He had taken their role in his life for granted, but he knew now that he had come to feel for both of them the same fierce paternal love he felt for his own son.

After a long while, Foyle pushed his hat back on his head and moved on, turning his back on the whispering sea. As he headed toward Steep Lane, carrying with him the comforting knowledge that he wasn't quite as alone in the world as he'd thought.

Finis