Page 36 of Famous Last Words

He waves a hand and lets it flap by his side, trying to stay mindful. For now, he is here.

This is now a homicide investigation. It’s not what he does – he isn’t needed. He tells himself he can go home to Viv, to discover an unknown stray animal in their kitchen, to let her stories and her humour wash over him. That this is only work, but he doesn’t believe it.

His phone rings: it’s Maidstone.

‘He’s escaped,’ Maidstone says.

‘How?’ Niall says into the phone, thinking that this really is the end for his career, now. A suspect at large. Two men dead. Maidstone will be questioned; Niall will be questioned. And, slowly, everybody will distance themselves from him and turn against him. Niall has seen this happen countless times to coppers who have had the audacity to make a human error.

‘Isabella told us that right at the back of the warehouse is a service lift no one knew about – beyond the view we had of him, not on the plans. It leads from the ground floor to an underground car park shared by an office block three doors down that we also had no idea about. We have surrounded the wider area.’

‘How did he know about it?’

‘Isabella has just admitted in questioning – he said he would let her go if she gave him an escape route. And she did. Her husband didn’t know about it. She was the manager of their building.’

Ah. Of course. That makes complete and total sense. She saved herself, knowing it might damn the others, and escaped. And who wouldn’t do that? He can’t blame her.

Niall’s voice is too thick to speak back, lined with his tears and sadness. Deschamps’s and Isabella’s quid pro quo. All the while, Niall was waiting like an idiot.

How could he have got it so wrong? Henevergets it wrong. His instincts are king, and they have never let him down.

Until now.

London sprawls beneath him. Old London, grotty railway arches and ancient buildings, and new London, big, clean silver skyscrapers glinting in the sun.

So – what? Is he dogmatic? Unable to listen to others? Admit that he’s wrong? Did he cause this? Or was it just George, his outburst – bad luck? Would Deschamps have shot without it?

He focuses his gaze down on the street, at the detritus of everything left.

And then he sees her; there she is, a little way down the street, flanked by two officers, looking right up at him on the roof: Camilla Deschamps.

And even though she is in miniature, he feels their eyes lock, and he thinks, I am going to find your husband. And I am going to bring him to justice.

And make him pay.

When he arrives home that night, much, much later, Viv has packed and taken two suitcases, left him a note, saying she can’t do it any more, can’t be married to him, to somebody who always puts work first.

PS, the note goes on.It was my birthday today.

17

Cam

Ten minutes go by, fifteen, the afternoon sun begins its descent from up high, Cam just watching the roof clear and the warehouse suck up the police and not spit them back out again, the two officers near her not saying a word, or removing her, just doing nothing.

It’s sixteen minutes after the shots that Cam sees them. Her body chills as she notices. The crawl of them. The slow-moving non-urgency.

Forensic scenes-of-crime officers, all in white, like something from a silent movie.

And then, several moments later, an ambulance, but there’s no emergency contained within it.

It’s the only vehicle around without its blue lights on.

Cam can only hope it’s not for her husband.

18

‘If you think of anywhere your husband is likely to head, call,’ Lambert says, his parting shot outside Scotland Yard, where Cam’s been held practically all night, answering question after question about her husband, who is now – officially, thank God, thank God? – on the run.

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