Page 48 of Famous Last Words

How very interesting. Niall veers once again to thinking it’s Deschamps. It’s a smart location in which to stay hidden. Not at all overlooked. If you can run the London CCTV gauntlet and get here, you’d be able to do your dealings pretty much anonymously.

Time runs down slowly like sand through an hourglass. At approaching eight, Niall slinks into the shadows even further.

And soon, it is eight, then five past. Niall purses his lips, thinking.

He can’t imagine they’re not coming. Nobody who sends that sort of text would then ghost.

He takes a slow stroll around the cement island, and that’s when he sees it. A small envelope tucked into one of the barrels. It’s brown; it blended in. Niall picks it up between his index finger and thumb. It’s empty inside, but written on the back flap is a mobile number.

He types it into his phone, then sends a message with a simpleI got your note x.

A text comes back immediately.Are you there?

Yes, Niall types back, keeping it simple, giving nothing away. Camilla would presumably do the same.

His phone rings, three times. There’s no way Niall can answer, so he merely stares down at it, waiting for whoever it is to ring off.

Speak to me, a text comes through.

I’m too scared to, he types.

I need to know it’s you.

Oh, it’s me.

Niall paces out of the courtyard, down to the alleyway. He pauses, then another message flashes up.It isn’t you.

Niall tries to reply, but it says:Number blocked.

24

Cam

Form N208

Fee: £628

Status: Submission failed

Cam is at work the next day and – to add insult to injury – the form has already come back, its submission failed.We found some areas where we needed more information, the government email attaching it says. Cam reads it, her eyes immediately wet, steeling herself against the impersonal questions. She is not surprised to find it’s failed. Cam is dashed through with a jaded kind of pessimism these days that has spread and imbued her personality, like a single drop of ink running into water. Just last night, she paused the television during a scene where a man left a woman, and said, ‘Figures,’ to an empty room.

Luckily, two junior agents drift by outside her office, distracting her. ‘Oh, Cam,’ one of them, Lily, says, stopping. Cam smiles warmly, standing up and slipping into character. Bubbly, happy Camilla Fletcher, formerly Deschamps to people who’ve been around long enough, who nobody truly notices actually keeps everyone, these days, at arm’s length.

‘Look look look,’ Lily says, holding out her left hand.

‘Aaah, oh! Lookindeed,’ Cam says, holding Lily’s fingers gently and admiring the engagement ring. It’s a princess-cutdiamond. Just like Cam’s, which lies in the bottom of Luke’s bedside drawer.

‘Took him fifteen years,’ Lily says. ‘Fifteen. Years.’

‘Worth the wait?’ Cam says with a grin that is – she is ashamed to admit – somewhat fake. Behind her, sun hits her desk. Her coffee pipes out delicious smells. And the email about the form looms like a spectre, open on her computer.

‘Oh, maybe,’ Lily says, admiring the ring. ‘We needed to save up, anyway.’

Cam closes her eyes. She remembers this phase of life. Engagements and excitement and the delicious notion that you are stepping into adulthood, finally, after all this time. Marriage and houses and kids. So much fun, it felt like pretend-play.

‘And will it be literary-themed?’ the other agent asks.

‘Ha. Maybe. Who knows?’ Lily says, smiling at nothing in the way that people in love do.

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