Page 90 of Famous Last Words

I turn to leave, to go back, to report to my brother: he will want to know this.

41

Niall

Camilla is waiting for Niall the next evening at the entrance to the Inner Temple.

She is indeed as pretty as she was then, but Niall hadn’t imagined the fragility last time he saw her. It’s there in her plainer clothes, her lack of jewellery – no wedding ring – and the lines around her mouth.

She says nothing as he approaches her, just watches him. She’s wearing a plain white T-shirt, jeans, and an apprehensive expression.

‘Sorry it’s so late in the day, and such a strange place,’ he says. ‘I will explain.’

‘We’re going in here?’ she asks, and she looks nervous. And Niall thinks, Shoot, he didn’t mean to cause her worry, or force her into a situation that made her uncomfortable.

‘Weird spot, I know, but it’s very private,’ he says. ‘A good place to discuss …’ He lets his sentence trail off, unfinished.

The Inner Temple is a gated precinct where lawyers and judges work and sometimes live, and it hardly ever admits members of the public. It’s as safe as could be: neither of them can be followed in, on the off chance the Met are still tailing her. You need a pass, which Niall got via a friend of a friend.

It’s the perfect place to betray the police, and to tell Camillawhat he knows. Niall lets them in. She glances at him as the wrought-iron gate closes behind them, but says nothing further.

The buildings are a Christmastime model village – even now in the height of summer it looks like there ought to be snow surrounding the hundreds of tiny orange windows. It’s quiet here, and populated, Niall hopes, by good people. A golden Pegasus sits on the top of a weathervane, and Niall stares up at it, thinking about freedom and taking risks and doing the right thing.

They head through an archway and into a courtyard. He lets a breath out when he sees that it’s empty. On to a narrow cobbled street lit softly from below, columns of golden light beaming upwards.

‘Look. Thanks for coming,’ Niall says. ‘And for bearing with me. Cryptic as this is.’

‘I just want to know what you know,’ Camilla says, perhaps rather shortly.

They continue to walk through the courtyard. The night is quiet and calm around them, scented with wild garlic and that wind-burnt smell people get when they come in from the outside.

‘It’s delicate,’ Niall says. ‘But first: will you tell me what you know about Madison?’ He doesn’t add anything further. He bluffed to Camilla last night when she asked him if this was about Madison. If she thinks he knows everything already, she will talk. That’s how negotiating works.

And they’ve both been looking for Deschamps for so long that, surely, their information may be able to help the other?

Camilla visibly winces. Her skinny shoulders go up. Niall feels a lurch of sympathy for her. That she’s come out here,met a virtual stranger, late, all on the promise of information. That most precious commodity.

‘Once a negotiator …’ she says.

‘Tit for tat.’

Camilla sighs. ‘Madison Smith found me at the school gate – she was wanting to meet to talk properly. I guess she saw an article a paper wrote about me,’ she says. ‘You see it?’

‘TheMail. Yes.’

‘They overheard me oversharing at a work thing.’ She waves a slim hand. ‘Obviously I didn’t sell my story to them.’

‘No. What did Madison say to you?’

‘She said that she was married to one of the hostages my husband murdered. We arranged to meet, but she didn’t show. She didn’t tell me her name. So I didn’t know anything, until I recognized her in an article and saw that she’d been murdered. I didn’t tell anyone.’ She drops her voice to such a low register that Niall can barely hear her at all. ‘I didn’t tell the police. No one. I … I feel so wrapped up in something that I don’t even know what it is. The – theshadowhe has cast over me,’ she says, clearly meaning Deschamps. ‘I know I should have told someone – but I was terrified.’

Niall shivers with the shock of it. Knowledge. Fuck. Madison’s husband was one of the hostages. So much for the Met doing its paltry research. Look: the answer was waiting for him here, all along. ‘Who? Who was the hostage?’ he asks, ignoring her anxiety. She has nothing to be anxious about with him, anyway.

‘I don’t know. She said – “theytold us not to tell anyone they were missing or dead.” I tried to find her husband but couldn’t …’

‘I’ll look.’ He pauses, then says: ‘And now she’s dead.’

‘I know,’ she says softly.

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