Page 84 of Famous Last Words

‘The onlybutis if you might be thinking of murdering somebody,’ Jess says, and she means it in a completely offhand way, but it gives Niall a shiver. No, he’s not. But, with policing, with hostages, you never quite know where someone might end up.

‘Of course not,’ he says, deadpan.

‘What about the gunshot case?’

Niall looks down at his hands, folded in his lap, and then back up at her. ‘I found something out,’ he says. ‘And I’ve fallen out with work over it.’

Jess pauses, perhaps thinking that this goes far beyond a therapist’s job.

She reaches to straighten her notebook on the desk. ‘OK. So. What’s going on?’

‘The man who shot his hostages …’

‘… Yes.’

‘Two people were sent to murder him,’ Niall says. ‘The hostages were hitmen. That’s why he killed them. He wrote online, before it all, that he knew he was going to be murdered. It makes sense to me that it was self-defence. Or that he had no choice. He knew they were there to kill him, so he got in first. They knew something about him, but I don’t know what.’

Jess seems to shudder, just slightly, looking at Niall. He’s never seen her nervy before.

‘Horrible, isn’t it?’

‘It really is,’ she says. ‘So …’

‘So?’

‘This is the case where you made the police wait to enter, because you thought the hostage taker wasn’t going to kill?’

‘That’s right.’

Niall wants advice. He wants to focus on practicalities, on what to do next. He isn’t sure why she’s saying this. But, as always, Jess is smarter than he is.

‘Well – isn’t this kind of good, then?’ she says.

‘Huh?’ Niall says dumbly. ‘I mean – I’ve now lost the support of the police in looking into it.’

‘Not that. I meant … that – after all – your instincts about Deschamps were nailed on.’ She sits back in her chair, crosses her legs at the knee. She’s so young. Maybe only thirty. She’s so young to be so wise. ‘You weren’t wrong, after all.’

‘I …’

‘You were right to stall, even if it didn’t work out like you expected. He was not the perpetrator everyone said he was. And, somewhere deep down, you knew this.’

Niall closes his eyes, stands up, then sits down again. Something feels like it is bubbling up through him. Something that feels like relief. In all the murkiness.

He had been right.

Outside, it begins to rain. A fat patter of raindrops that are the way they should be in summer: huge and loud, a tin of marbles being emptied on the roof above them.

‘It always rains when I’m here,’ Niall says.

‘Hey, Niall,’ Jess says. ‘Stay with it. Lean into it.’

‘Hmm.’

‘You did nothing wrong. You can trust yourself.’

He opens his eyes, and Jess is still looking at him. He thinks about his own correct instincts, and he thinks about the off-record call he’s going to make to tell Camilla that her husband was good.

Jess wordlessly scoots the box towards him. It’s the first time he’s needed the tissues in a session with her.

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