Page 105 of Famous Last Words

‘It’s this,’ Niall says, his eyes popping open, the kitchen and the hallway suitcases disappearing. ‘I missed it.’

‘That the hostage-taker would shoot?’

‘No. That, all the while, I was focusing on the case, and she was leaving me. Picking which clothes to take, which to leave. Taking her book from by the bed, her toothbrush … I was negotiating with the wrong person,’ Niall says, blinking back tears. ‘Fucking futile. All of it.’

Jess is looking at him, her expression somewhat sad, too. He isn’t too surprised: all good negotiators feel too much empathy.

‘I put her bin back for her. The other day.’

‘Her bin?’ Jess says, with the practised professional expression of somebody who has been told everything any human could ever admit.

‘She hated doing the bins. Her worst chore. Used to leave it out until the next week, easily. So I passed her house – legitimately, for work – and I just dragged it back up for her, put it in the bin store.’

‘Why did you do that?’ Jess says, but she doesn’t say it with criticism or judgement. Sometimes, Niall wonders whether she is paid to be on his side or if she really is.

‘I thought a lot after our last session,’ Niall says, and he’s surprised to find his cheeks are burning. ‘About what Viv actually said to me, and perhaps – what she really meant.’

‘Right – good,’ Jess says with a wide and genuine smile. ‘And what do you think she meant?’

‘I did put work first. I did. It’s undeniable. It wasn’t just about a birthday.’

‘And so the bin …’ Jess says, her tone dispassionate, and Niall suddenly wonders if she goes home to her husband and moans about counselling ordinary men about ordinary occurrences. ‘It was a whole session on bins today,’ she will say. Niall frowns at the thought of it.

‘What?’ she says. ‘What’s that—’ And then she scrunches up her face, a rough imitation of his.

‘Nothing. Just feel – I don’t know. Embarrassed to be telling you this stuff,’ he says. ‘It’s so – quotidian.’

‘Doesn’t seem it to me,’ she says lightly. ‘The bin, for you, is:I see you.You see Viv. What she likes to do, what she doesn’t. What she finds hard, or boring. And you did it for her.’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you think there is a way for you to do what you do for a living but not have it be top priority? Above all else?’

Niall thinks of the Inner Temple with Camilla, finally getting her to talk, betraying his own employer to do so. It had never even crossed his mind that it was out of hours, overtime. Some people tot up their time off in lieu, and those people are not police. ‘I don’t know,’ he says honestly. ‘When I’m chasing something down … when I’m negotiating … it’s like I can’t even see anything else.’

‘So you could say you would be conflicted about entering another relationship.’

‘I don’t want another relationship if I can’t have her.’

‘We know you are a bit of an all-or-nothing guy.’

‘Maybe so.’

‘And so, naturally, you obsess over your work,’ Jess says, leading him faithfully down the road she wants them to travel through.

‘Precisely,’ he says. ‘I feel like she made me feel guilty for working at all. And then didn’t even say anything. Didn’t give me a chance to put it right. Just – left.’

‘Maybe she felt you wouldn’t change.’

‘Maybe I wouldn’t,’ Niall says honestly.

‘Maybe she’d already said it.’

Niall says nothing to this. Jess waits a beat, then asks outright: ‘Had she?’

‘Sort of,’ Niall says, and she had, hadn’t she? ‘Yes.’

‘Right.’ Jess leaves a loaded pause, clearly hoping he will fill it.