Page 82 of Famous Last Words

‘So he was come for by hitmen?’

‘Exactly,’ Niall says. And, right then, he gets another bad feeling about it. The room isn’t reacting as he wanted.

‘And your only proof of this is a conversation on the dark web? You have no idea who sent them?’ Tim’s voice is imbued with scepticism.

‘Yes …’

‘What evidence do you have of what Deschamps needed protecting from?’ Tim says.

‘Only what he wrote.’

‘I’m thinking about self-defence.’ Tim says, a barrage of questions beginning now.

‘Clearly, he needed help.’ The feeling of unease grows: he is the only one trying to turn a tide. He’s standing there, at the shore, doing it all himself.

‘Well, Deschamps could’ve easily written anything he liked on the dark web, to cover up what he wanted to do,’ Tim says mildly. ‘Proving self-defence is a high bar. The threat has to be to someone’s life, and an immediate one.’

‘He asked for help on there in a panic.’

‘No: all we really know is he posted on the dark web – and then he still went into that warehouse and shot two men.’

Niall shakes his head. ‘That is not what we know,’ he says. ‘What about the stuff that isn’t hard evidence? That here’s a guy withzerocriminal history, who never wanted to kill anybody, who was begging for help. That here’s someone who could’ve picked up and used their gun, in self-defence.’

‘Instead he tried to buy his own,’ Tim says. ‘Which doesn’t look a lot, to me, like self-defence. It looks like pre-meditation.’

‘He didn’t get it in time.’

‘Despite trying. Look – we are nothing without evidence,’ Tim remarks, while the rest of the team watch the tennis match of an argument, looking awkward. Conflict hums in the air like a piano key depressed and then released, the air almost silent afterwards. Niall shifts slightly away from his boss and jiggles his foot in irritation.

‘We have no idea whether Deschamps used their gun,’ Tim says. ‘As I recall it, the footage doesn’t show it.’

‘Exactly. It doesn’t. I think the men turned up in their balaclavas,’ Niall says. ‘I don’t think Deschamps bagged them.But we can’t tell. They arrived off CCTV, only stepped into the frame once it was done.’

‘Or, Deschamps herded them in, also off-camera. Look – we can keep the file open. We can look for hit men who were operating then,’ Tim says, and it’s a weak compromise. No direct action. No reinvigorating of the whole case. No desperate search for Deschamps, to find and exonerate him.

‘OK – next steps,’ Lambert says. ‘I am not minded to throw a lot of resource at who did what in that warehouse: Deschamps is long gone.’

‘Camilla is not in touch with Deschamps, that’s very clear,’ Claire says. ‘Her call to 999 last night about the figure in her garden is probably something and nothing. Paranoia. But she wouldn’t do that if it was Deschamps.’

Niall is worried for Camilla, and he can feel where this is going. As he sinks his head to his chest and tries to take deep breaths, his anger begins to simmer. They’re giving up. Leaving a mystery unsolved. A woman perhaps in danger. They ignored him about what he saw in the alleyway off her street.

Lambert continues: ‘I still think we leave surveillance on Camilla for another month. We can see if we can figure out the basics of who the contract killers were and who hired them. But nothing more than that. There isn’t the money here to chase this around London for another seven years on the off chance that this wasn’t Deschamps’s fault. He fired the shots. That’s the main thing.’

There’s a murmur of assent around the room.

‘What?’ Niall explodes. ‘Hang on – I mean … are we not trying to solve a mystery here? Does thewhynot matter? Or self-defence?’

Tim’s eyes flash, but he says nothing, doesn’t back Niall up.

‘I was sent to get information from Harry Grace, and I did. I got you all the information you wanted,’ Niall continues. ‘And for what?’

‘Information, maybe, but all of it insubstantial,’ Tim says.

‘No it’s not.’

‘We can’t verify that it was even Deschamps typing on the web. Imagine,’ Tim says, his voice now slightly raised, too – as incensed as he ever gets. ‘Imagine if we acted on this, Niall. Let’s say we find him. We go in with the wrong tactics, because we believe him not to be dangerous, but instead – some sort of victim.’

Niall’s sitting slack-jawed at the table, though, really, he ought not to be surprised. This sort of game-playing has gone on his entire career. If this, then how will it look? If that, then how will we cover our own arses? The police are only ever interested in toeing the line. If something doesn’t fit with their narrative, they’re not complying.

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