Relatives say Paul Coker was on the cusp of a new beginning. After a year in jail for burglary offences, he had a new job, a new flat. Things were looking up.
That all ended 12 days ago, when Paul died alone in a desolate police cell in Plumstead, south-east London. Having been restrained by officers and arrested for causing a breach of the peace, he died within two hours of his arrival at the station. There was no time for the dash to hospital. He was confirmed dead where he lay.
Just how and why Paul died is now the subject of an inquiry by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. But more than that, the 32-year-old's death has triggered outrage in an area where police and community relations are forever defined by the events which followed the murder of Stephen Lawrence.
After the criticisms of the MacPherson Inquiry, police liaison with communities in south-east London was supposed to be the best in the country. This week, as up to 80 protesters demonstrated outside Plumstead police station, simmering tensions were again laid bare.
But there was also an added poignancy: Paul Coker knew Stephen. They went to the same school, their parents attended the same church. Stephen's mother Doreen would, on occasion, look after Amy, Paul's younger sister.
In the days after Stephen's murder, Plumstead police station was the focus of community protests. The two families, linked by faith and proximity, are now linked in tragedy.
Makhan Bajwa, the chairman of Greenwich Commission for Racial Equality, said the people are puzzled and angry. "Most of these deaths in custody involve young black men. I don't know what happens when people go into a police station and end up dead. Feelings are high. How can a fit man go into a station and be dead within two hours?"
Mr Coker's mother Patricia, 61, says they are still trying to piece together events. The official postmortem proved "inconclusive". The family, distrusting the official verdict, have commissioned another.
They question whether the fact that Mr Coker had won a compensation case against the Met six years ago, and was known to local police had any bearing on his treatment.
He had initiated a second legal action against the Prison Service, claiming he was assaulted by a prison officer while serving the one-year sentence which ended last year. Relatives wonder if these things singled him out.
"He was fit. He would go to the gym almost every day," said Mrs Coker. "He would take vitamins. He looked after himself. Strange things happened. He died at 6.45am and yet I was not told until 3pm. His girlfriend was not informed until 11am. All she was told was that, 'There was a bit of a struggle - Paul is dead.'"
The riddle can only be solved by the officers involved in the arrest and the discoveries of forensic analysis. No other parties were in the room.
Police were called to Mr Coker's girlfriend's flat in the early hours after the two had a loud argument. By the end of the incident there were 10 officers at the flat.
Mr Coker's sister Amy, 24, said the family have the account of Paul's girlfriend, Lucy. "She said she had told the police that they had settled their differences and was trying to get to him, but she was surrounded by officers.
"Paul and another group of officers were upstairs and she could hear him screaming, 'You are killing me. You are killing me.' She had never heard a man scream like that. Then it all went quiet. A woman downstairs says that when he was carried out Paul was not struggling. Police were holding his arms and legs."
A Scotland Yard spokesman said that the police cannot comment while the matter is being considered by the IPCC. For its part, the IPCC commissioner Mehmuda Mian Pritchard, has promised a "thorough and impartial" inquiry.
Local police officers will want that, too - the vast majority have sought to heed the lessons of Lawrence and forge links with the community.
But a minority remains. Recently a constable was suspended for making monkey noises at a youth he was arresting. Two officers reported the incident. A third who did not was disciplined.
Gilly Mundy, of the pressure group Inquest said: "We need to know what kind of restraint was used at the point of arrest and what level of care he received. Was it appropriate for him to be taken to the police station, or should he have gone to hospital?
"It is another young black man dead after being restrained by the police. We had hoped that the police had learned from what has happened before."