Out from edom book i of.., p.7
Famous Last Words, page 7
The first day was lectures that Niall found so dry, he slow-blinked his way through them, texting Viv under the desk to stay awake. The final three days were role-plays: armed fugitives, terrorists, everything. This, Niall needed no distracting from. This was what he was there for.
He sat outside a stately room that an actor playing an armed perpetrator had locked himself inside, and tried to get him to talk with methods he’d only just learned. Open questions, slow and steady, build rapport. What do you like to do in your spare time? You’re having some intense feelings now, but they will pass. Me? I can’t wait to get home to my girlfriend and watch Seinfeld with her: we’re rubbish at modern TV, we are still in the ’90s. Niall always told the truth in these negotiations: he and Viv really do like old telly. Or, rather, they did: When did they last watch reruns together?
They learned about pacing and leading, about priming the suspect to start to agree with you.
They did theory in the mornings, practicals in the afternoons and into the evenings. Eleven-o’clock finishes, sometimes midnight, after which they were encouraged to drink at the bar together, hitting the dorm rooms at three, up again at eight. Niall had at first assumed this was a bonding exercise, but later realized that the instructors’ aims were to tire them out. The practical assignments got harder the more exhausted they got, and that’s when they transformed: into people who could think fast, people who could hold their emotions at any cost. The only way to learn it was to do it.
On the final day of the course, Niall had walked with Larry to the car park across pale gravel that crunched underfoot and through high autumn winds that rattled leaves. Like every immersive experience, at the end of the week, Niall had felt changed.
“What would be your only tip—if you had to give just one?” Niall had asked him.
Larry had paused for a minute or two as they reached his car—as old as his Apple Mac computers, a 1980s racing-green Mini—then replied: “Above all else, reciprocity: never give up something without getting something in return.”
Niall had thought about that a lot in the weeks that followed. But the more experienced he’s become, the more he’s realized that the rules are just that: rules. And sometimes, they’re there to be broken.
And so Niall is going to offer Deschamps some coffee and ask for nothing in return just yet. He’s offering it only because he wants Deschamps to know Niall is willing to give, not just take, somebody who wants to listen to him, and to what he likes. His wife says he likes coffee. It’s their thing.
“Coffee can be the very beginning of a dialogue,” Niall says now to Maidstone. They hurry down the street. “Coffee as an invitation—to open up.”
“We are running out of time very quickly here.”
Maidstone is the sort of copper who finds doing nothing too anxiety-provoking, would rather take a different kind of risk. He favors action. Niall favors patience, especially with a man who looks too frightened to shoot.
The job of a hostage negotiator, in many ways, is to simply run down the clock. Let the kidnapper become tired, jaded, know that it isn’t going anywhere.
Maidstone flicks his gaze to Niall. “You can deliver the coffee,” he says. “It’s an offer of coffee, left by the door. That’s all. You tell him just that. You’ve got half an hour.”
Niall directs an assistant to go and get the coffees. Starbucks, four lattes, four cinnamon swirls. Uncontroversial. Isabella’s husband calls in, speaks to Maidstone, says he’s heard nothing from Isabella. Says she would have texted if at all possible. Niall closes his eyes for a few moments to think about the hostages. Their fear. Their beating hearts inside that building, relying on Niall to save them.
He heads to stand outside while he waits for the coffees, wishing they’d be faster, and skim-reads a report he’s been cc’d on with information Camilla has given, wondering when Maidstone will pull the plug and stop his plans.
Hmm. Interesting: Deschamps has wiped tech and failed to report a crime. See? This is why you wait. You find stuff out with the time that you buy. And all of this points to a man who is hiding something.
He continues scanning the report. No access to recent internet searches as yet . . . Suspect is not on Prevent list or known to have terrorist associations . . . combing his current contacts now . . . no list of recent iPhone locations visited since April . . .
Niall stops reading at that and dials the telecoms team who—in situations like this—answers immediately: one of the many reasons Niall likes the dynamism of an unfolding real-time situation.
“Why are Deschamps’s locations post-April not available?” he says.
“I know—we’re on it,” the analyst says. “It’s top of my list.” It’s Claire. He likes her, mum to three, therefore a brilliant multitasker, doesn’t miss a trick. “He stopped his phone from location tracking on the twenty-first of April this year. Could just be an iOS update thing.”
“I doubt that,” Niall says flatly. In his experience, coincidences do not really exist in policing, not as much as people seem to think, anyway. “Twenty-first of April. What time?”
“Just before midnight,” Claire says. “Which coincides with an iPhone update while it was charging.”
“Or somebody out doing something at close to midnight that they didn’t want anybody to know about,” Niall replies, wandering into the cool shade of the pub again as he rings off.
Where the fuck are the coffees? Niall grabs a laptop in frustration, begins the research into Deschamps’s locations as the clock ticks ever down.
The investigation management system has an old-style display, green text on black, and he’s searching for any crime committed on the twenty-first of April this year. It’s plausible that something happened involving Deschamps that led him to where he is now: So what was it?
He narrows the search to Putney and Bermondsey, the two places Deschamps is most likely to have been on that day. There’s a red spot for every single crime reported, most of them petty. Muggings, burglaries, assaults, batteries: this is London. Niall scrolls and scrolls, hoping that something will jump out at him, scanning for murders, anything very serious, but there isn’t one.
He flicks his gaze out of the window to the warehouse. Anything could be happening in there . . .
Concentrate. He goes to the automatic number-plate-recognition database. Somebody in the intelligence bureau will be doing this, but Niall can’t resist performing his own search for faster answers.
He types in Deschamps’s registration, which pulls up a hundred hits, and Niall scrolls to the twenty-first of April.
Six hits.
22:00: Putney High Street
22:20: an A road in Clapham
22:40: Camberwell
23:05: Whitechapel
23:10: Poplar
23:30: East Ham
Odd place to drive, through Central London—unusual for a native—and so late at night. He can access pictures from each hit, but they’re as crappy as ever, near-useless, taken from gantries or poles by the side of the road, dark and grainy. You can barely make out it’s a white male, certainly nothing else.
He flicks to the twenty-second of April, but there’s nothing, nor on the twenty-third. Nothing comes back on until early May, two weeks later. Now it’s the twenty-first of June.
So Deschamps goes out that night but, according to the database, he doesn’t come home again.
Maidstone arrives at Niall’s table, interrupting him. “Where are your coffees? You’re almost fifteen minutes into your allotted thirty.”
“Coming,” Niall says tightly.
“Growing the beans yourself? We have guns to heads here, Niall.”
Niall ignores him. Maidstone is holding a piece of paper: reports of missing persons from this morning in London—sixty of them, with descriptions.
“No matches to our unknown hostages. These guys are both in jeans and white trainers, middle-aged, we think. No one’s phoned that in at this time,” Maidstone says.
“Lambert was just saying it’s weird.”
“It is.”
Niall points to his screen. “Look at this: Deschamps goes out one night, gets pinged all over the place by ANPR, but then doesn’t come home again according to the cameras—and turns off his iPhone location data just before midnight.”
“Hang on,” Maidstone says. “Let me get the report on the state of the car.” He types away on his phone. “See if it’s got any evidence on it . . . Finally—your order is arriving,” he says, gesturing briefly toward the assistant at the door holding a drinks tray and a brown paper bag. “Get moving. Twelve minutes.”
“James.”
“What?”
“If he comes to the door to get these, I need an assurance from you that you will do absolutely nothing. And I really mean nothing.”
Maidstone shifts on his feet. “That depends what he does.”
“I need to be able to give him a cast-iron guarantee that you will do nothing if he gets those coffees. If one of your snipers aims, the rapport will be lost.”
“Provided he doesn’t aim at us, we won’t shoot.”
“He may well aim. But I just don’t think he’ll shoot.”
“Hmm.”
“Where are the snipers situated?”
He sighs. “One on the door and one on the roof. Do not so much as glance at them, or you will get me sacked and sued.”
“I’m not an idiot.”
“I’m thinking of the inevitable public inquiry here.”
“I need to be able to promise him that we won’t harm him. That’s my first move always. This coffee needs to be a true offer. Not bait.” Niall pauses. “He will think it’s bait anyway. I want to prove him wrong as my opening effort.”
“Fine,” Maidstone says.
“Look at this. Officers have checked the car and the ANPR system for the twenty-first of April. Reg plates got covered in mud, it seems. Stopped pinging the ANPR on the way home. You can see where the mud has crusted off when he starts pinging them again in May.
“At the same time he turned off his location data.” Niall’s tone slides to frustrated. Yes, they need to do the coffees, but they also need to crack the mystery.
“Right,” Maidstone says, finally leveling with him. He holds Niall’s gaze. “Pretty suspicious.”
“It was dry that day,” Niall says. It had been dry all spring. “No mud spray.”
“Hmm.”
Niall picks up the coffees and begins to get moving. He suddenly has an urge to text Viv. She’ll be thinking he’s staking Deschamps out, wearing riot gear and holding a machine gun. Instead, he’s serving coffee.
Niall is ready for contact, holding the coffees and wearing a bulletproof vest.
He is interrupted by Maidstone, talking into his radio. “Engage protocol: negotiator to approach the building in two minutes for first contact.”
Niall is wired up. His bulletproof vest is heavy, sticking the sweat to his back.
The coffees are steady in their tray in his hands, probably cold now, but that’s policing for you: everything takes longer than you’d think. It tires Niall out, sometimes. Like you have all these instincts and ideas about what to do for the best, and they’re culled and culled by red tape and processes.
He stares at the warehouse, his gaze narrowing to focus on the black wooden door.
Amazing where the fear goes, when it comes to it: it just disappears. If you do something often enough and don’t die, then you somehow think you never will, like when you first learn to drive a car and think about crashing all the time, but within a year are steering with your knees and eating burgers.
The riot squad is ready. The inner cordon is a tidal wave of officers, all waiting, their bodies still, shields up. The road is full of people, but it’s utterly silent as Niall walks. Officers part for him like the Red Sea.
The walk takes him one minute. In his ear, Maidstone gives him the all-clear, and Niall stops at the door.
He pauses there, just listening.
He leans closer, clears his throat. “Luke Deschamps?” he says, one ear to the wood. “My name’s Niall.”
Nothing. He waits five seconds. “I’ve got a team outside here, with me,” he says. “They tell me you’ve got a gun in there. I wonder if you can help me work out what’s going on?”
Nothing.
“Nobody wants to come in. Least of all me. I wanted to talk, really, but first—I heard you like coffee, so I got you some. I’m going to place them—there’s four cups here, and some snacks—outside the door. And you have my word that if you open it and pick them up, nobody is going to do a thing. Right?”
On the other side of the door is total silence.
He places them on the ground, on a rubber mat with holes in it, feeling the back of his neck exposed and vulnerable. He straightens up, but still there’s nothing.
“Starbucks. Lattes,” he says.
Nothing.
“So if you’re tired or hungry or thirsty—any of you—they’re here. All right?”
He wonders if the hostages can hear his futile attempts.
“So—Luke?” He uses his first name deliberately. “I’ll be moving away from the door shortly. And nobody is aiming at you. I don’t lie here. So, anything you want to ask me, you know that I’ll tell you the truth.”
Still nothing. Niall stands back, just waiting, but the coffees go untouched.
“Now, you’re in control here, Luke,” he says. “You decide whether to stay in or come out.”
This is what all hostage-takers want: control, and certainty. Or at least the illusion of it.
Still, Deschamps doesn’t speak.
But just as Niall is about to leave, he hears it. A mumble. Nothing more. He raises a hand, knowing the officer with his eyes on Deschamps through the hole will have more idea than him.
A hand is raised back: Continue.
Niall steps toward the door again. “Luke—your wife, Camilla, told us you like coffee,” he says. “She’s very keen to get you home.”
At this, he hears something more distinct.
“She’s missing you,” Niall adds softly.
And there it is: a noise. So quiet, he wonders if his mic and recording device will capture it at all.
“Luke? You OK in there?” Niall asks. “It’s tough, isn’t it? When we’ve made decisions we wouldn’t ordinarily make. And perhaps for reasons you feel others wouldn’t understand.”
Now there’s silence. Niall turns around. A hand goes up. Proceed: Deschamps isn’t displaying dangerous behavior.
And that’s when he realizes what the noise is: it’s sobbing. Deschamps is sobbing.
And this is the bit where it gets easy. The communication channel has opened, and Niall steps into it like it’s a fresh running stream that’ll carry him away.
“There’s always a way out. And it doesn’t have to be as bad as you think. I can hear you’re crying,” he says, and then he starts it: the priming, telling him things he wants him to think. “And I know that’s because you care. And I care, too, so let’s find a way to get you out of there together.”
And then Deschamps speaks.
10
“Niall?” Deschamps calls, a disembodied voice from inside the warehouse.
A rush of relief moves up through Niall like he’s a Champagne bottle somebody has just popped.
“Yes?” he says.
Nothing.
“Yes?”
“Can you get a message to somebody?”
“Yes, anything,” Niall says, moving even closer to the door. He begins to plant the persuasive seeds. “We’ve got you coffee here and we’re also more than happy to pass a message on.” This is the beginning of reciprocity. Here’s what we’ve done for you . . .
“OK.”
“What would you like to say?”
“Tell my wife . . .”
“Camilla?”
“Yes. Tell my wife that I love her. Her and Polly.”
Niall stares at the peeling paint of the door, listens to the silence around him, the desperate, eleventh-hour proclamation of a man trapped in his own actions. What does it mean?
“I will,” Niall says. “Anything else you want me to relay?”
Silence.
“Luke? You could come out—tell her yourself. She’d love that.”
Nothing.
“Luke?”
Nothing.
Deschamps doesn’t speak again. Silence follows silence follows silence. Niall stays there for half an hour, but, just like that, the communication channel is shut off again, the stream run dry.
Furthermore, when Niall gets back to the RVP and watches it all back, he sees Deschamps only held the gun down by his side once: when he sobbed, wiping tears away roughly from his eyes with the back of his hand, like a child. The rest of the time, he kept it trained on his hostages.
“Gold commander thinks we need to go in. And I agree,” Maidstone says, arriving by Niall and talking quickly. “Threat to life. He’s still aiming at them. He failed to engage. Article Two of the European Convention on Human Rights. These hostages have a right to life, Niall.”
Niall heaves a sigh that seems to come right from his trainers. He knows that this is theoretically right, but he doesn’t agree on this occasion that their lives are truly under threat. Something in Deschamps is hesitating, and he wants to listen to it. “He said he loves his wife.”
Maidstone looks incredulous. “Like a final parting shot? A goodbye? A suicide note?”
Niall appraises Maidstone. How can two people read the same set of circumstances so completely differently? “I took it as a gesture of submission,” he says. “He trusted me enough to tell me that. To be his messenger. Of his first message.”
“He’s issuing goodbyes.”
“If we go in, he will shoot,” Niall says, looking directly at Maidstone. “If we get him talking, he won’t. He hasn’t shot anyone yet. I want Camilla in.”
