Page 49 of Famous Last Words

‘Sure you can get some book proofs for the party favours,’ Cam says drily.

‘That’s such a good idea!’ Lily says with a squeal.

This is enough for Cam. Too much, in fact. She congratulates her again, then retreats to her office, waits ten seconds for them to pass, and puts her head on its side on the desk, blinking, looking at her computer mouse, thinking about how her marriage ended: with the newspapers speculating endlessly on the note he left her.Suicide warning or love note?one said.

Fuck him.Fuck him.

It’s time to move from the upside-down house. That is what started this process, four months ago. Libby and her husband, Si, both say that she can’t sell up without removingLuke from the title. And she can’t do that without a declaration that he is dead.

And she couldn’t do that until seven years had elapsed. But seven years is too long to have remained there in stasis, her bedroom divided in two: her side, books everywhere. And his: neat as a pin. Preserved. The only change she’s made is that, when his bedside lamp broke, she threw it out and didn’t replace it.

She opens the form, and it’s overwhelming. Their questions, her answers, and now their comments on her answers.

Question one: please outline the circumstances in whichLuke Deschampsdisappeared. His name is written like that, in a different font. An impersonal insertion, one missing man in a sea of a million.

Cam rereads her answer, covering the siege, the bodies, clearly stating no one ever found out who the hostages were.

Nobody could ever identify the hostages. No DNA match, no DVLA hit, no missing relatives coming forward, no dental records. Nothing. It remains one of the great mysteries of the siege. Cam was told, by Lambert and Smith, that they searched and searched for these people, but never found them.

Stuart ambles past her office, his clothes straining slightly at their seams, gym clothes thrown away years back. She glances at him, then hides her screen.

Question two: please indicate the steps the authorities have taken to findLuke Deschamps.

Answer: Full homicide investigation – case reference LD36550. Regular contact from police chasing up all of Luke’s friends and family, anywhere we spent time together that he might seek refuge in, anywhere at all that he could have been hiding. Not a single sighting. No bankcards used, didn’t take wallet or passport. Last police visit was three years ago, except occasional calls from hostage negotiator, Niall Thompson, who said he will let me know if anything significant happens.

There are no comments on either question. Evidently, Cam passed the test.

For those first few years, Cam searched, on and off, for answers. Found the district judge whose book Luke had worked on, asked him if there was anything unusual he had exposed. He’d been baffled, said there was nothing controversial whatsoever. He had worked only civil cases, nothing criminal. She’d visited the Rightmove house again – owned by a man called Harry, a tradesman who’d never met her husband in his life. When she asked him why the house had appeared on Rightmove, he said it had been put up for sale but he had changed his mind. Maybe her lie to the police had been the truth, after all.

She’d tried to restore Luke’s laptop, once she got it back from the police in a ziplock bag. She’d hired a PI to search for him the following summer, who didn’t turn up a thing. ‘He’s either very dead, or really knows how to hide,’ he told Cam – rather insensitively, she thought. That night, she couldn’t sleep for thinking about it: Luke wouldn’t be good at hiding. He was too flippant, scatty. Liked people too much.

She finds the comments underneath the questions.

Please provide: passport and driving licence forLuke Deschamps.

We also need: names, addresses and contacts details ofLuke Deschamps’: children, siblings, parents, first cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and any half-siblings, step-parents, second cousins, aunts and uncles by marriage.

Contact details of Polly. This form is foolish and generic. What is Polly going to say about it all? Cam’s heart wrenches for her daughter, who drew the short straw and barely even knows it. She is so like Luke. Painfully so. Gregarious, fun – and funny, too. Happy to go anywhere, to do anything, regards a trip to Sainsbury’s as a cool afternoon out. Cam used to envisage reading books with her child, but, when she suggested this recently, Polly said, ‘Or, we could have a fashion show?’ and so they had.

She skips to the parts with more missing information.

Please also provide details of:Luke Deschamps’GP.

Please also provide: last-seen location. Private CCTV not acceptable.

Please also provide: evidence ofLuke Deschamps’unused credit cards, bank cards, his final mobile phone contract.

Cam gulps at the last one: she’s continued to pay it, all these years, for reasons she’s too ashamed to go into on a form. It was easy to allow the payment to continue to leave his account and, when the money ran out of that, to transfer it to their joint one.

Their requests are overwhelming. She can’t possibly … she blows air out of her mouth, then dials the number on the bottom of the form.

‘Probate department,’ a crisp female voice says after twenty minutes’ muzak and assurances about calls being important.

‘Hi,’ Cam says, her voice stilted. ‘I’m – struggling with your form. I have received some comments back asking for extra documents, but there are so many – and most don’t apply.’

‘Please give us the form number.’

‘N208,’ Cam says, and there’s a silence on the end of the line.

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