Page 104 of Famous Last Words

He catches her eye. ‘It’s been seven years?’ he says, a guffaw escaping. ‘Slow down– isn’t the agent’s advice usually to speed up?’

Charlie’s brow begins to furrow, wondering perhaps if he ought to be privy to this sort of strategic conversation between agent and client.

‘Well, yes, but … I mean, by all means, write your third if you’re happy to!’

It’s Adam’s turn to frown, now. ‘What?’ he says. He downs his drink, and Cam suddenly wonders if he might think she’s baiting him or something. Maybe he doesn’t want to discuss his long break in books here and now, is embarrassed to do so.

She waves a hand as Stuart drifts by, talking to somebodyin foreign rights. ‘Let’s talk about something else,’ she says. ‘Whatever you want.’

‘My third?’ he asks. ‘I haven’t written my second.’ He says it slowly, like she is an idiot.

Cam stares at Adam, dumbfounded. ‘You posted me your book,’ she says. ‘Your crime novel …’

‘No I didn’t,’ Adam says.

‘Oh,’ Charlie says awkwardly. ‘Someone else, maybe? Something unsolicited?’ he says, clearly trying to smooth things over.

Adam blinks, perplexed and – clearly – ashamed.

‘But …’ Cam says. ‘It was sent in a Jiffy bag. Like you did with the first. In Baskerville,’ she adds lamely, though it occurs to her that this is a common font. ‘I saidthank you for your bookat the bookshop launch!’

‘I wondered what you meant by that,’ he says. ‘I thought you meant my debut … I didn’t send you a book, Cam,’ he says.

And, distantly, in Cam’s mind, she’s aware she’s committed a social faux pas. But she doesn’t care. Can’t seem to. Because of the implications of what he’s saying.

He didn’t write that anonymous book.

Somebody else did. And they wanted her, and only her, to see it.

49

Niall

Niall checks the tracker next on Deschamps’s email: it’s remained there for the entire seven years, as is the case with wanted and dangerous people, but it yields nothing. Deschamps must’ve turned off the confirmation from Text Anon, so only the website itself knew about it. He’s ditched the burner phone.

There is no trace of him.

Niall hunts around in the surveillance file for other activity, but there isn’t any. He is on borrowed time here. He ought to tell the Met what he knows. But he wants more information. He wants hard evidence of why Deschamps did what he did.

If he tells them Deschamps is very likely alive and well, they will throw the full force of the state into finding him. And incarcerating him. Or worse.

‘How are you feeling about Viv?’ Jess asks mildly.

‘Haven’t had a chance to think about her,’ Niall says. Downstairs, the bakery hums with activity. If Niall has a morning session it smells of bread. Lunchtime, sausage rolls. And now, near to evening closing, a mish-mash of leftovers. You can get a cinnamon swirl for ten pence if you time it right, which Niall very often does.

‘I don’t buy that,’ Jess says.

‘OK – I have, but … I … I don’t know,’ he says carefully,thinking how funny it is that for his entire career, he’s been trying to make people open up, and now, it’s him. It’s him who’s got to do it, and Jess,hisnegotiator, is sitting in front of him. ‘It’s weird, the Deschamps case resolving.’

‘They’re tied for you in your brain.’

‘Well. It was the same day,’ he says. ‘Obviously.’

‘But – beyond that?’ she probes. ‘That day when your man shot the hostages, and then you went home and Viv had gone. What, for you, stands out about then?’

In his mind, Niall turns away from the warehouse, and, suddenly, he’s in their flat in the Barbican, largely as it is now, except with a better kitchen, a more colourful one. He walks around their preserved apartment. Viv’s teapot out on the counter, the ceramic one she painted herself. Pasta in jars – the sort of thing she did, not him.

She didn’t take much stuff with her. He turns around in their kitchen and looks into the hallway, where she’s standing in his mind. Bags packed. A large suitcase and a small holdall too. Her fucking birthday. How could he have been so stupid? The mistake is so tangible it makes his regret bitter and black. If only, if only.

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