Famous Last Words

Chapter 2

2

Cam’s legs feel imaginary, too light. She walks across the foyer and could swear she’s four inches from the ground, a ghost floating around a literary agency. It must be shock. Fear.

‘That’s me,’ she finds herself saying loudly in the foyer. ‘Camilla.’

‘Are you the wife of Luke Deschamps?’ One of the coppers turns from talking to the receptionist and looks directly at Cam.

‘Yes,’ she says quickly, thinking that at least it’s not Polly. How strange it is the way the order of disasters inverts post-baby.

It’s been so lovely with you both . What did he mean by that? Was that – a goodbye ?

‘DS Steven Lambert,’ one of the coppers says. Late thirties maybe. Pale, freckled. He’s accompanied by a woman who introduces herself as PC Emma Smith. She has with her a notepad and biro, just holding them, standing there like a journalist from the eighties.

‘Have you got time to have a quick chat?’ Smith says, her tone gentle, but in the way somebody has when they’ve been told to do it.

‘What’s happened?’

‘Is there somewhere we can …’

Cam indicates a meeting room off the foyer without thinking, wanting only information, and as quickly as possible.

‘Is Luke OK?’ she asks.

‘Yes.’

Cam’s shoulders drop six feet. In her relief, she bursts into an occupied room, apologizes and heads to the one next door.

Steven Lambert meets her gaze and he looks tired. He is a cliché of a workaholic. Dark circles, coffee on his breath. ‘There is a hostage situation unfolding,’ he says plainly.

‘I saw it – on the news,’ Cam says, blinking. Stunned that these two pieces have connected together: the police and the news story. Maybe she’s dreaming. Maybe she’s reading a novel.

‘A siege. A man has taken three hostages in a warehouse in Bermondsey.’

Bermondsey. Luke’s co-working space is in Bermondsey, and the word hits Cam with the strength of an anvil. She feels utterly disorientated, Bermondsey reverberating around her skull. Cartoon stars appear above her head. Her neck goes hot, a rising tide of blood working its way towards her face like a filling bath. She brings her hands to her chest and feels her pulse in both wrists.

‘Oh my God,’ Cam says. She brandishes her phone. ‘That’s why … is he OK?’ And then she adds, to explain: ‘I texted him – he … has someone got him?’

Lambert hesitates, and something about the gravity in his expression makes Cam stop speaking. He shifts in his seat, his shirt moving slightly up his arm, revealing a wrist tattoo. Cam can’t quite make it out, some swirled symbol or other.

His eyes meet hers. ‘Your husband hasn’t been taken.’

‘Oh! Good!’

‘We believe that he is the person who has taken the hostages,’ he finishes quietly.