Page 10 of Famous Last Words

‘We’re on it. The CCTV from inside the warehouse suggests Isabella was already there. She behaves like she’s alone, and she and George own the building. She waits for half an hour. Then Deschamps arrives. Either the men were already there when Isabella arrived, or more likely Deschamps brought them in, just cut off from the CCTV, given he then tied them up.’

Niall raises his eyebrows. He is thinking, forming a plan. Deschamps is a known family man: maybe they should get the wife down here. Use her to engage him.

Maidstone continues: ‘Isabella is a forty-two-year-old woman who is local to Bermondsey and owns the warehouse with her husband, derelict as it is. Has no previous and no known connection to Deschamps. Neither does her husband,but he is a Met copper: George Louis. We don’t know how Deschamps captured the other two hostages, nor who they are. We have CCTV on him right now and can see his hostages are bound to chairs, with hoods on their heads. Deschamps is off-screen for now, but is not shouting or making direct threats.’ He takes a breath. ‘He is armed, a Beretta pistol, not automatic, but nevertheless dangerous.

‘Outer cordon, keep the public out. Inner cordon, aim to control Deschamps should he emerge.’ He pauses. ‘At this time … shoot to kill is not authorized, unless – and until – something changes.’

Niall has his eyes on the laptop. The only sound is Deschamps’s footsteps.

‘The layout of the warehouse is online,’ Maidstone continues. ‘There’s one door at the front. There is what is deemed a fire escape at the back of the warehouse, up a flight of stairs. It leads only up to the roof – from which there is no external way down, so it is a fire escape in name only. We have a drone up there now.’

Weapons click as the officers shift, some perching against tables, some standing among the chalkboard specials menus and the fridges full of alcohol. One of the CID gets out a J2O and uncaps it noisily with a hiss.

And that’s when it happens: Deschamps steps back into view on the CCTV, blue eyes right up close to the camera. What is he doing?

The room falls silent. Maidstone comes over to watch Niall’s laptop.

All around the pub, laptops display the CCTV, fifty Deschampses, fifty pairs of blue eyes. He reaches one hand up, concentration etched on his features. He’s holding something. Is it the gun? No, it’s some sort of material …

And Niall knows what’s going to happen before it does. Deschamps’s brow is wrinkled, his eyes wired. And then in one swift motion he covers the CCTV with the material, and the screen goes black. All they have now is sound, the rush of the static.

Next to Niall, Maidstone swallows, loosens his shirt. ‘Right,’ he addresses the room. ‘We have a problem.’ And then, as if Deschamps heard Maidstone, the sound goes off too. He’s switched off the camera. Turned it off at the mains.

6

The squad hums in the unexpected silence.

‘We’ve no longer got eyes or ears on the suspect,’ Maidstone says. He glances at Niall. ‘Any ideas on his emotional state?’

‘Agitated. Scared face,’ Niall answers.

‘Right – we need the silent drills.’ Maidstone looks across at the officers responsible for drilling through the walls in the warehouse with equipment so quiet a hostage-taker won’t hear. ‘Please take this as authorization to get started.’ He turns to Niall. ‘Anything you want to add?’

Niall sucks in a breath. He really thinks he needs to get Deschamps talking. ‘I want a line to him. Now, please. And I want the wife here.’

Maidstone blinks. It’s an unusual move, but not unprecedented. ‘I need to check the protocols.’

‘No you don’t; I’m telling you this is what’s best,’ Niall says. This is always the way of it. The protocols. The risk aversion. The ‘system doesn’t allow it’. The red tape.

‘Let me raise it with the gold commander.’

‘He’s a family man. His wife is his literary agent. They will know how to communicate with each other. They are used to it. I want her here.’

‘I said I will raise it,’ Maidstone says shortly. ‘Meantime – I want you in dialogue with him before I authorize anything further.’ He raises his hands up. ‘Your negotiation’s going well, maybe I grant you a new privilege.’

‘I need to get a look at him before I do anything,’ Niall says. The drillers are already leaving. ‘As quickly as possible.’ He needs to see if he’s hyped up. If he’s calm. Niall’s actions will be different if Deschamps looks angry, if he can’t sit still, if he is tapping the gun off the back of the hostages’ heads …

‘Yes,’ Maidstone says. ‘And see if that gun is pointingat alltowards the hostages …’

Niall says nothing. There are a thousand ways to hold a gun, and only a few of them point to a likelihood of shooting. ‘Aiming doesn’t mean shooting.’ One of the many things Niall learnt on his training is that there are facts and there are assumptions. Niall tries to deal only in facts.

‘No, Niall,’ Maidstone says. ‘If he’s turning off CCTV and pointing a weapon at the hostages, then – then we go in. Armed.’

7

Cam

Cam is back in Putney after a silent and loaded car journey, back at their house that she left two hours or perhaps a century ago. The police follow her in, not saying anything, just standing too close behind her in the sunlit hallway. She walks past Polly’s car seat, and past a stack of mail on the doormat, presumably delivered during the transformation from the before to the afterlife.

---