Page 31 of Famous Last Words

‘Do you expect him to answer the phone?’ Cam is unable to stop herself asking.

Niall spreads his hands in front of him, and then deflects. ‘Do you?’

She thinks about how much her husband loves to communicate. Usually. They talk much more than other couples, often about total rubbish. And now, nothing. One sentence uttered to Niall. Nothing else.

‘He didn’t answer me calling his mobile.’

‘If he’s smart, he will answer the landline.’

‘He is smart,’ Cam says automatically. ‘And he likes to talk,’ she adds quietly.

‘Well, then,’ he says lightly. He looks at her, holds her gaze for a few seconds.

‘What if he does? Answer?’ Cam says.

Niall looks at the table, then back up at her. ‘Surrender’, he says, ‘is the only acceptable resolution. So – we work towards that.’

Cam stares at the warehouse, just visible through the pubwindows. She surveys the walls, Luke just inside, she outside, separated only by molecules of brick and air, nothing more, but a million ideological miles apart. It is absurd to Cam that they can’t just go in, unplanned. The way her husband has been available to her for their entire marriage.

‘I don’t know why he’d do that,’ she says. ‘I don’t know anything. He’s a good person. If he doesn’t answer the phone,’ Cam gabbles, ‘surelyIcould go in? He wouldn’t shootme?’

This is the first time Niall’s eyes flash with any kind of emotion, though he covers it up well. ‘Did you think he’d do any of this?’ he says mildly, while the sand continues to run down the hourglass.

God, she just wants to do it now. Go in. End this.

Evidently, Niall can read a witness, because he says, ‘Right, let’s do it,’ seeming to make a decision and sitting up straighter. ‘We offer you up, and we hope in return – well, we hope for reciprocity, always.’

‘The release of a hostage,’ Cam says in understanding. Of course: the police care primarily about the hostages – and about arresting her husband. And she’s here to assist with that. Nothing more.

‘Exactly,’ Niall says smoothly. ‘Let’s run through a script of what you say if he answers.’

‘Whenhe answers,’ Cam says.

‘If he answers,’ Niall replies. ‘The cardinal rule: you don’t lie to him. If he asks if you’re with police, you say yes. If he asks if he will be arrested, you say you don’t know.’

‘Right.’

‘But don’t disclose anything you don’t need to.’

‘But – what should I say?’

Niall moves his phone out of the way and rests his hands, palms up, on the table. ‘My entire aim is to give him a wayout,’ he says. ‘So that should be yours, too. What does a way out look like for him?’

‘I …’ Cam says, thinking that she is not equipped to answer this, to make this call. She thinks for a few seconds about Luke, about herself, about their marriage.

‘I suppose that I will always love him,’ she says eventually, her voice gloopy with uncried tears. ‘That Polly will, too. That he’s her father. That he can’t leave us.’

‘Exactly. Tell him that. Tell him it’s OK to come out. Tell him he hasn’t killed anybody yet.’

After this, like two people about to jump from a plane, he looks at her, checks she’s OK, checks the Met are ready, puts an earpiece in, and then presses Call.

The tinny ring blares out into the pub around them. Two rings. Cam can just imagine him about to answer. Four. His warm voice, his jovial tone. The explanation, whatever it is. Six.

Eight. By ten, Cam knows Luke isn’t going to answer.

Only, Niall holds a hand up, then, and says, ‘We don’t hang up. Not yet.’

Twelve. Fourteen.

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