Page 74 of Famous Last Words

His phone goes shortly after the food’s ready. It’s Tim. ‘Telecoms have a hit on the number Camilla Deschamps just called,’ Tim says. ‘Goes by Harry Grace. He’s a heavy. A criminal. Fancy popping by tomorrow?’

‘For sure,’ Niall says.

‘He lives at twenty-two Grove Avenue in Lewisham. The house from Rightmove.’

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Harry Grace does indeed live in the two-up two-down in Lewisham that the police searched right after Deschamps’s disappearance. Harry claimed not to know him, and they had no reason to suspect he did. A saved Rightmove property is not a connection. Camilla visited it, right after the siege ended, but gleaned nothing either though they questioned her about it.

But, since then, Harry has been arrested multiple times on petty offences, nothing connecting him to Deschamps, but slightly suspicious, nevertheless.

It looks like a perfectly normal house on a busy road. A bay window at the front, two Velux windows in the roof. The only curious thing is that he has three burglar alarms above the porch, all in a row above the door. Three different brands: ADT. Veritas. Yale. Underneath those, a Ring doorbell.

Interesting.

Niall’s been sent out in good faith by his old friend Tim, and trusted to talk – the thing he’s best at in the world, or so Tim says. And now, he’s deciding how to play it. He has no idea why Camilla would call a criminal, only best guesses and hunches. He’s meandered this way and that over strategy, enjoying the old detective instincts coming back to life within him, but, eventually, he realized that you can’t decide anything until you’re in front of somebody.

Niall doesn’t have to press the doorbell before a formappears behind the fake stained glass. A man, tall but stooped, gingery hair. Niall doesn’t recognize him, hasn’t dealt with him or interviewed him, and all he can think as Harry opens the door is that he doesn’t look like a criminal. He looks studious, like somebody who might recite poetry at an open mic night.

‘Harry Grace – Niall Thompson. Nice to meet you,’ Niall says cordially.

Harry reacts to this with suspicion, and then he says, ‘Police?’

Niall nods.

And, without a second’s hesitation, Harry says, ‘Warrant?’

Niall cracks a smile. OK, so he is a criminal – and a real pro, at that. ‘No, no,’ he says, ‘for once, you’re not in trouble.’

‘Right?’

‘A man you know is.’

‘And?’ Harry says. The sunlight illuminates his sallow skin momentarily, burnishing him orange. ‘Might be nice if I could come in and discuss? Away from the heat.’

A quick backward glance into the house tells Niall plenty. No invitation will be forthcoming, and Niall is too fixated on the job at hand to care.

‘I’m told you knew a man called Luke Deschamps,’ he says, deciding to play the first of his cards face up. And just the name, that distinctive name, it evokes raw emotion on Harry’s face. It isn’t anger or guilt, or any of the usual criminal fare: it’s fear. Something Niall sees often in hostage negotiation, more rarely elsewhere. Harry is afraid of that name, and what it might mean for him. That much is clear.

Still, Niall lays his next cards out carefully, one by one, all facing upwards. ‘I’m told if you pass us informationabout him, we could very easily make that count positively for you.’

‘I don’t need you: I’m out,’ Harry says. Shorthand fornot currently in prison, and Niall is reminded – he forgets this – that a vast section of the British public are in and out of prison, of magistrates’ hearings, on bail, on remand, and that they treat this with as much significance as going to Tesco Express.

Harry paces a step backwards into the house, moving his face into shadow. Niall can’t work out whether this is an invitation to come in, so assumes it isn’t.

Their eyes meet, Harry clearly working out whether it’s better to discuss Deschamps in the open or let a copper into his home where, clearly, there is evidence of something.

He chooses the latter, which tells Niall he is more afraid of someone seeing him with Niall than he is of talking to him in private. He steps aside and leads him into a small kitchen that seems to be part way through some sort of renovation: tired pine cabinets and linoleum floor on one side, brand-new bifold doors on the other. A stack of new, modern, dark green kitchen units teeters in the corner. There are no appliances, no kettle, no toaster. Renovations mean money, and Harry doesn’t work: he recently stated to the magistrates’ court he wasbetween jobs.

He doesn’t gesture for Niall to sit, and so they stand there, by the pots of paint samplers and boxes of tiles.

‘Farrow & Ball,’ Niall remarks. It’s a light-hearted and a loaded statement all in one, one that he’s proud of. Here’s leverage. Harry is doing something to fund an expensive paint habit, and Niall is on the tail of quite what that is.

‘Builder says it’s a con, needs tons of coats,’ Harry says.

‘My wife swears by it, and she has good taste,’ Niall saysback, wondering if he’s fully in character himself or just enjoys the delusion of pretending Viv is still married to him. ‘Did you know Deschamps?’ Niall asks, his voice low, telling Harry:I understand your fear.People work on the basis of these small exchanges. Not the words used, but everything else. Human interaction is twenty per cent words, eighty per centother. Body language and tone.

‘I didn’t have anything to do with what he did,’ Harry says carefully, turning his back to Niall and running the tap. He fills a mug, doesn’t offer Niall one.

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