Page 111 of Famous Last Words

And to a copper, too. No wonder. No wonder he had to disappear once he had killed their lackeys.

He’d had no chance.

The Louises don’t want a follower, but that is precisely what Niall is going to be. He checks his phone, wondering whether to contact Cam and tell her, but decides not to. She is not in danger: he is with her enemies.

He can debrief with her, afterwards. Once he’s solved it. Once he’s rescued her husband, and brought him to her.

56

Cam

‘Why has the book moved?’ Cam says.

‘What book?’

‘The book? The book … that Adam …’ She points to it. ‘Did you read it?’

‘The Jiffy bag book?’

‘Yes.’

‘No,’ Charlie says, his expression a perfect picture of mild curiosity. And he’s a good liar, Cam thinks. Exceptional, in fact. But he is lying. Because the book has moved. And there is only one person in the room who could have moved it.

‘Shall we watch something?’ Charlie says, perhaps too quickly. ‘I’ve got the jitters already from one sip of coffee! I need to relax.’

His neck is flushed, a corned-beef pattern creeping across it. Cam’s never seen that before on cool, collected him.

She stares mutely, not saying anything, a hundred thousand thoughts happening internally but none making it out of her mouth and into the real world. Maybe he was only curious. Maybe he’s embarrassed by that. But why, really, would he lie like this? Why would he flush so red?

‘Sure,’ she says, buying time while she thinks.

He fiddles with the remote control. ‘First the boiling water tap, then your telly,’ he says, jabbing buttons.

Cam blinks, looks back down at the sofa. There’s the book,and, just along from it, his phone. As she’s staring at it, it lights up.

She takes a step towards it, her body full of fizzy and sharp adrenaline, thinking that the world is upending in the most domestic of settings, the way it always seems to do for her.

The text previews, and she can just about read it, standing behind the sofa, squinting at it.

George: Thank you. We’re heading to Dungeness now. Keep Camilla there.

A hundred spiders walk their way up Cam’s spine. She takes a step backwards, two, her teeth chattering like she has a fever.

Keep Camilla there.

We’re heading to Dungeness now.

Charlie’s been sent to keep an eye on her. To infiltrate her. All this time.

He looks up at her, perhaps oblivious, perhaps only pretending to be. And Cam realizes, the truth slowly falling into place, that she can’t leave. He may be her Charlie, in his burgundy shirt, fiddling with her television, so his presence seems benign – but it isn’t. She is not tied up. She is not bound and gagged. But she is his hostage, no doubt about it. And, meantime, her husband is in danger.

Her husband is alive and in Dungeness.

And Cam is trapped here. She’s got to get to him. But she’s got to save herself, too. If she lets on, who knows what Charlie might do? And what he might tell Luke’s enemies?

She doesn’t try to look at the book. In fact, she plays an Oscar-winning role at being normal while she summons allthe thrillers she’s ever read to try to work out how she is going to get out of here, and go to Dungeness.

She doesn’t know whether Charlie saw her read the text message, but they talk about his prior relationship, again, and about Libby. Neither of them mentions Luke or the book. And perhaps it’s the lack of mention that is more damning than the text: Charlie knows. And he knows Cam knows, too.