Page 33 of Famous Last Words

Two taps.

Shit. He needs to concentrate. He strides away from Maidstone, who ought to know better than to interrupt him at a crucial moment like this.

‘Is Deschamps near you? Two taps for yes.’ Two taps.

Maidstone rises to his feet, and so Niall steps towards the open pub doors, irritated.

Maidstone catches his eye, looking reproachful, but Niall ignores him. He’s just as able to take a call outside as he is in the official RVP.

Niall’s breath is held. Deschamps could be right behind her. He could be forcing her to take the call. He could have his pistol in the small of her back. And all Niall has is taps.

Niall looks up at the sky. Cerulean blue, a perfect summer’s day. His forehead is sweating as he decides what to do next.

He’s gazing down the road, thinking, when he hears it: running footsteps. A commotion of some kind behind him. He whirls around, a finger in his ear, closely listening to Isabella, and stares. And there he is: a uniformed officer, low rank, dark hair and eyes, hands outstretched. It’s George Louis, being flanked by two police officers, trying to run towards Niall.

‘That’s my wife!’ he shouts. ‘That’s my wife on the phone! I heard you say her name as you came outside!’

Niall looks at him in shock and has a strange, prescient feeling that this has been his first mistake. They should’ve kept him away. It was fucking stupid to allow him to come to the scene, a loose cannon. Shit, shit, shit.

‘That’s my wife! Let me in there,’ he cries, and Niall closes his eyes. He shouldn’t have taken the call outside.

He gestures for the coppers to control him, to hush him up. They cover his mouth and he strains against them, pulling at their hands. His eyes are round with shock and fear. Niall looks at him for a second, and suddenly he doesn’t see a copper: he sees a scared husband, struggling against the authorities, his own colleagues, as they try to contain him, and keep him safe.

Eventually, to Niall’s horror, he manages to wrench the officer’s hand from his mouth. ‘That’s my wife,’ he bellows at full volume. ‘If you’re listening, hostage-taker, we’re going to come in and we’re going to fucking kill you.’

Every single hair on Niall’s back and neck rises up. He stays on the line, but turns to stare at the warehouse. There is no way Deschamps didn’t hear that down the line.

Within seconds, there is a movement at the door to the warehouse. The slightest thing. Something you could miss but that nobody will.

Everybody in the vicinity sees it and holds their breath. It’s silent. George is contained. Tens of the police crouching diligently around the warehouse aim their guns towards the door. Radios crackle, but, otherwise, the air is quiet and still and blue with police lights, like they’re deep in the ocean.

The door moves again.

And then.

In a single, fluid, silent motion, the armed police move forward like army troops advancing at war. Niall stands there, unarmed, in the centre of it, the phone still in his hand, just watching the door open slowly, slowly, slowly. The police cock their guns with a collective crack as a figure emerges, all in black, and Niall unconsciously braces himself for gunfire.

13

It’s Isabella and Isabella alone, emerging gracefully like a ballerina from the dark wings of backstage and into the spotlight.

She has a black bag over her head. She can’t see, so moves this way and that, her hands tied behind her back. She emerges on to the police-blue street in the silence. She thrashes, trying to remove the hood by bending over.

An officer moves a torch over her even though it’s bright sunlight, looking for weapons. A voice booms out from a police megaphone, tinny and distorted, asking her to stop, to raise her hands. She halts, still blanched in light, and someone approaches and unties her hands, freeing her arms which spread out, a Christ the Redeemer in the sun. And, for just a few, strange seconds, Niall feels as if this moment is only for him.

He moves towards her. He will be authorized to do so: his bulletproof vest is still on; he’s the hostage negotiator, after all, and she his first released hostage.

Niall takes five steps, ten, and then he’s right next to her. Two officers move out of the way to allow him to get near to her.

A copper pats her down, then removes her hood and steps away, leaving Isabella and Niall alone together. He looks down at her. She has dark hair, is of slight build. Slim wrists and shoulders. She has large hoop earrings in, and something about this makes Niall feel a wave of sympathy for her that is almost painful. How she must have put them in that morning, optimistic, George nearby; maybe he likes it when she wears those …

She survived, but she will never be the same again. That’s the reality. PTSD, claustrophobia, anxiety, flashbacks. These are what she may experience. Niall forgets this, sometimes, at the height of negotiations, but at the end of every siege he remembers there is always damage done, even to the living. Especially to the living.

‘It was me who took your call. Your husband is here waiting. You’re safe,’ Niall says to her. ‘You’re safe now.’

‘He let me go,’ she says, eyes wet. ‘He said he would let me go. He knew I was just caught up in it … accidentally, because we own the building.’

Niall nods his head. Makes sense. His shoulders drop in relief, relief at having a hostage released. ‘Do you know anything about the other hostages?’ he is unable to stop himself asking.

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