Page 83 of Famous Last Words

‘Anyway,’ Lambert says, ‘it is so unlikely Deschamps is alive. In seven years, not a single sighting, no slip-ups, no passport pinged, no bank cards used. What would he even be living off?’

The windows are open, the summer sweeps its smells in, and Lambert concludes the briefing. An end-of-term feeling settles around the room. Any further activity on the Dungeness burner phone will be called in, but that’s all. A perfunctory search for the contract killers’ real identities that Niall knows, without big budget, will yield nothing: how could it?

‘Sometimes,’ Lambert says, wheeling the whiteboard to the back of the room, then rolling his shirt sleeves up, ‘you just don’t get the answers.’ Possibly he thinks this is some sort of pitch-perfect ending to the briefing but, really, he just sounds like he’s in a hokey cop movie. Niall catches Tim’seye, and Tim gives him a small, sad smile full of pity, and they leave the briefing together.

Outside in the too warm corridor, Tim stops at a translucent blue water dispenser, pours himself a drink, and sips it neatly. ‘You know, I did think we would one day get answers on this one. Pains me to end it, but it’s so expensive and I don’t think it would achieve much.’

‘Sure,’ Niall says, and Tim’s face falls into relief. Niall grabs his own cup and fills it. He thinks, these days, that he likes to have a drink on him partially to buy time. That was what the Coke was about: thinking time. He gulps the water down now, fingertips on the ridges of the plastic cup. ‘Just the small matter of justice.’

‘Oh, Niall, don’t be like that,’ Tim says. ‘Two people are dead. Possibly three. We’re never going to find out exactly what went on in that building, no matter how much we read on the dark web. It would only ever be Deschamps’s account of it.’

‘You’re no longer interested, then. On to the next?’

‘I am never not interested in my old cases.’

‘I didn’t mean the case,’ Niall says coolly. Tim waits. ‘I meant the truth,’ Niall says.

They’re in an anodyne place for such a significant moment in their relationship. The water cooler. A grey-carpeted corridor. A fake plant at the end that the cleaner sometimes absent-mindedly waters.

Deschamps might be innocent. Niall believes that he is.

Deschamps knew two men were sent to kill him. And Niall knows, deep somewhere in his heart, that Deschamps might therefore have been acting in defence of himself. The problem is, he’d never get off on self-defence. For that, his life would have to be under immediate threat. Somebodypointing a gun at him, about to fire it. If he took their gun, it won’t work. In so many ways, Tim is right, but that doesn’t mean you stop trying to find the truth, does it?

There must be an answer, now that Niall knows the two men were sent to kill him. Why were they there? Why did Deschamps decide to shoot after so long?

He has to find out.

The police don’t care at all. They won’t care that he murdered two men because they were sent to kill him.

They’ll simply go after him, and, if they find him, charge him, let a jury decide on self-defence.

And if when they try to arrest him he even appears to be armed, they will probably kill him.

That is what Tim meant by his statement:Imagine … we go in with the wrong tactics, because we believe him not to be dangerous.

This is the Met. This is what Niall’s struggled with all along. The due process, the red tape, the by-the-book attitudes. If he complies, it sentences Deschamps to life.

I miss you. I miss you I miss you I miss you. The texts to Deschamps’s old number, sent by Camilla out into the ether.

How could he? When he knows Deschamps may now be the victim?

‘I care about the truth,’ Tim replies, but he says it reflexively.

‘Yeah, well,’ Niall says, thinking that nothing can stop him from looking into this by himself. And nothing can stop him trying to find Deschamps, and get the right ending for him, too. Off record. He buys a new burner phone, later, calls the number again. This time: phone not in use. Deschamps, if it is him, has ceased using it.

It’s funny, Niall is thinking as he climbs the stairs to Jess’s consulting room that evening, he wanted nothing to do withtherapy, and now it’s the first place he wishes to come tonight, when in need. As though his brain has begun to exist outside of his body, a ball of yarn being unspooled by a professional, someone who only wants the best for him. Who takes the knots out and gives him back his thoughts in neat, segmented strands.

It’s a later session, the bakery below shut up, but also the other consulting rooms, too. Jess lets them both in with her own key, and they sit down in her room, which is chilly from lack of use. She clicks a small heater on and places it between them.

‘The gunshot case,’ Niall says carefully. It’s the very first sentence he utters to her.

‘Yes …’ Jess says, her expression as sharp as a bird’s. Finally: her topic.

‘This is confidential, right?’ he says, blowing a laugh out of the side of his mouth.

‘Right,’ Jess says. The heater begins to glow orange at her feet, pumps out the smell of burnt toast.

‘No ifs, no buts?’

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