by Philip Kerr
‘Lit?’ Munns frowned. ‘I’m not sure I recognize that verb.’
‘Huckleberry Finn,’ explained Stakenborg.
‘That explains it. Twain’s always been a bit of a grey area for me.’
‘I guess that means you haven’t read him,’ I said cruelly.
‘John’s Lamborghini is too flashy and too blue,’ continued Stakenborg. ‘And the Bentley is just too big to do anything but stay in the garage. With the top down he might have been recognized, and in Monaco, with the top up anyone would look conspicuous. No, the Range Rover is what I’d have selected. It’s also grey – a useful colour for going anywhere unnoticed in Monaco.’
‘That would have been my choice, too,’ I said, deciding to play the car game – at least for a short while; if you can’t beat them join them. ‘The Range Rover is always the Goldilocks choice for a getaway: just right. Especially the particular model that John owned: it’s the top-of-the-line Autobiography. A hundred thousand quid. There’s not much that John had I envied except that particular car.’
‘Will you forget about the cars for a moment?’ insisted Munns. ‘The point is that officially John is now a wanted man. Which probably means the Monty cops know a lot more about what happened in John’s apartment than they’re telling. John always did have a thing for guns.’
‘Since when did the Monty cops ever know a lot more about anything very much except how to indulge and humour people with pots of money?’ asked Stakenborg. ‘They may have the largest police force in the world—’
‘Do they really?’ said Munns.
‘Per capita. There are five hundred cops for thirty-five thousand people. But what I’m saying is while the crime rate is low, there’s a hell of a lot that just gets swept under the silk Tabriz in the Salon Privé.’
‘A sunny place for shady people,’ I said, quoting Somerset Maugham.
‘Exactly,’ said Stakenborg. ‘And what was that scandal back in 1999? When they fucked up the case of that billionaire banker guy who died in a house fire?’
‘Edmond Safra,’ I said. ‘Dominick Dunne wrote a pretty good piece about how the cops buried that case, in Vanity Fair.’
‘The Monty cops may have a bigger budget than Scotland Yard,’ continued Stakenborg, ‘but that doesn’t mean they have the brains to go with all that loot. I mean nearly everyone who’s anyone in that pimple of a country comes from Monaco itself, and that’s not much of a gene pool to draw on when it comes to producing cops who can do more than write out a few parking tickets. I mean, look at the Grimaldis for Christ’s sake.’
‘For John’s sake,’ I said, ‘I hope you’re wrong.’
‘That all depends on whether you think he killed her or not,’ said Munns.
‘Obviously I don’t think he killed her. Which is why I hope the cops are equal to the task of catching the real culprit.’
‘In spite of them naming John as their prime suspect? Jesus, Don, what makes you so loyal to that madman?’
‘Loyal? I’m not loyal. Although next to you, Mike, it must seem as if I am. It’s just that I refuse to see him hanged until I’ve heard his side of the story.’
We ordered lunch and I had what I always have when I go to Chez Bruce: the foie gras parfait and then the roast cod with olive mash. This is standard practice for me – ordering the same things wherever I go – and I dare say it’s one reason my wife couldn’t stand to live with me; but as my favourite Genesis song goes – which is another reason my wife left me, I think – I know what I like, and I like what I know.
‘His side of the story stopped counting for very much when he ran away,’ said Mike Munns.
‘Flight is only circumstantial evidence of guilt,’ I said. ‘Think about it. Maybe John argued with Orla and someone overheard that. And if the murderer used one of John’s many guns to shoot her then there’s your case, right there. Two plus two equals fifteen to twenty years in a Monty jail. Under those circumstances I might have lit out of there myself. Jesus, you don’t need to be Johnnie Cochran to see how to defend your client against running away from shit like that.’
‘Monty jail isn’t probably that bad,’ murmured Staken-borg. ‘As jails go. I imagine the cells are quite cushy, with a sea view in the better ones. Just like the Hôtel Hermitage. I wonder if they forbid card games for the inmates like they do for the locals in the casino.’
‘Who the fuck is Johnnie Cochran?’ asked Munns.
‘I think it’s no accident that the novels Mike used to write for John were so often the biggest sellers,’ Stakenborg said to me. ‘John always valued that. He used to talk about Mike being the lowest common denominator of a set of very vulgar fractions.’
‘Very funny,’ said Munns.
‘Cochran was O. J. Simpson’s lawyer,’ I said.
‘That explains it,’ said Munns. ‘Jesus, that was twenty years ago. Sometimes I forget that you two are so much older than me. At least I do until I see your grey hair.’
‘So much older and so very much wiser,’ said Stakenborg.
‘As it happens I think I wrote John’s biggest-selling book of all,’ I said. ‘Ten Soldiers Wisely Led. Which was the last one. Not that it matters very much now.’
‘Not as long as you got your bonus.’
‘Three bonuses as I recall. One for each million sales.’
‘That was the one about the private detective, wasn’t it?’ said Stakenborg.
‘No, Ten Soldiers is the one about the Pakistani arms dealer. Fools of Fortune was the one about the private detective. Peter Coffin. Who reappeared in The Manxman.’
‘And then again in The Riddle Index. Which is the worst of the lot, frankly.’
‘John’s characters,’ Munns sneered. ‘I mean who could believe in a hero called Peter fucking Coffin?’
‘As a matter of fact,’ I said, ‘Peter Coffin is a character in another novel you might not have read either. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. For a man whose books the Guardian newspaper described as “Vogon novels” John is remarkably well-read.’
‘The Vogons,’ said Munns. ‘From Douglas Adams’s A Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, right?’
‘At last,’ said Stakenborg. ‘A book Munns has read.’
‘Vogon novels being like Vogon poetry, I suppose,’ continued Munns. ‘The third-worst poetry in the Universe.’
‘And clearly one book he’s read all the way to the last page,’ added Stakenborg. Laughing, he ordered another bottle of wine.
‘Fuck off,’ said Munns, but he was laughing, at least until he checked the wine list and saw the price of the Rully.
The starters arrived; and the second bottle of Rully which Munns changed for something cheaper.
‘You know, it’s a pity Philip French isn’t here,’ said Munns. ‘To make up the Houston quartet.’
‘I suppose he’s at his place in the South of France,’ I said. ‘The lucky bugger.’
‘You make it sound like it’s something special,’ said Munns.
‘I think it is, to Philip,’ I said. ‘It cost him all he had.’
‘It certainly wouldn’t have been my choice,’ said Munns. ‘It’s a modest little house. There’s an olive grove but there’s no air conditioning.’
‘It sounds quite idyllic,’ insisted Stakenborg.
‘Tourrettes-sur-Loup is hardly that. It’s more of a syndrome, really.’
‘Coming from you, Mike, that’s almost witty.’
‘Hey, I wonder if they’ll make Philip a suspect,’ said Munns.
‘Why would they do that?’ I asked.
‘Because Tourrettes is just an hour’s drive from Monaco,’ said Munns.
‘And?’
‘And because Philip hated John Houston even more than I do. Am I right, or am I right?’
‘You’re never right, Mike,’ I said. ‘Even when you’re not wrong.’
‘You just think you hate him,’ Stakenborg told Mike. ‘Which is something altogether different from the way poor old Phil feels. Bes
ides, Phil doesn’t really hate John. It’s just that he’d gone out on a limb to buy that house in Tourrettes; he assumed that his income from ghosting Houston’s books was going to stay at a steady hundred grand per annum plus bestseller bonuses for the next ten years.’
‘It’s always a mistake to assume anything when you’re a freelance hack,’ I said. ‘Which is what we all were.’
‘So when John pulled the plug on our little atelier—’
I felt myself wince: I’d always been a little embarrassed by Houston’s name for our writing quartet: the atelier. It made us sound as if we had all been employed in the workshop of a real artist, instead of someone whose only talent was for making tons of money.
‘Philip felt especially aggrieved.’
‘… And blamed Orla,’ added Munns. ‘For putting him up to it. That’s what he told me at any rate.’
‘Best keep that to yourself,’ I said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘If the Monty cops turn up here asking questions it might be best if you didn’t repeat that,’ I said. ‘For Philip’s sake. There’s no point in dropping him in it, too. And before you ask, no, I don’t believe Philip killed Orla any more than I think it was John who did it. Or you, or Peter.’
‘Do you think they will?’ Munns asked. ‘The cops. Turn up here, I mean?’
‘Peter’s right,’ I said. ‘The Monty cops have got plenty of money and not much else to do. Which means some cops are bound to show up here before very long. London is the most logical place to start an inquiry like this. Let’s face it, his publisher lives in London. His agent lives in London. We all live in London. His two ex-wives and his kids live in London. His old mother lives in London.’
‘And they all hate him, too,’ said Munns. ‘Yes, you’re right. You just named the whole pack of Cluedo cards for those who might have had a bit of malice aforethought where John is concerned.’
‘Never let the facts get in the way of a good story,’ said Stakenborg. ‘It’s easy to see why John thought you had a talent for fiction, Mike.’
‘Actually it was Don here who brought me into the atelier,’ said Munns. ‘Not John.’
‘Mike used to bring those same rigorous talents to his journalism when he was a hack on the Daily Mail,’ I said. ‘Didn’t you, Mike? But for that, who knows where you’d be now, post-Leveson? In prison for phone hacking, probably.’
Munns grinned. ‘Maybe. I pulled a few strokes in my time, sure. But look here, you can’t argue with the fact that when Houston switched off the atelier’s router he let everyone down. Not just the monkeys like us who wrote John’s books to order, but a virtual industry that was dedicated to one man: the publisher, the agent, the whole fucking shooting match. He had his own bloody West Wing dedicated to his publishing brand at Veni, Vidi, Legi. How many was it? Ten, fifteen people? Not to mention those three girls in the Houston office. All of whom lost their nice jobs when John decided he wanted to go back to basics and write something on his own. To say nothing of the effect on VVL’s share price, reduced lawyers’ fees, accountants’ fees, and Christ only knows what else. I reckon you’ve got more motives there than at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute.’
‘For murder?’ I laughed.
‘Certainly for murder. Why not? But you’re right, Peter. That wasn’t the reason why the ex-wives and the kids and his old mother hated him. They hated him already.’
‘Need I remind you that it’s poor Orla who’s dead,’ I said. ‘Not John.’
‘Listen to him. Poor Orla. Poor Orla, my arse. Poor Orla had it coming. Even so I reckon John must have used a silver bullet from a melted-down crucifix for her. He’d certainly have needed one.’
‘Unless he’s dead, too,’ added Stakenborg. ‘And we just don’t know it yet. Russian mafia, a disgruntled hooker – Christ, there must be plenty of those, I never knew a man who liked having rentals more than John. A jealous husband or two – John never could keep his hands off another chap’s girl. A dope dealer, perhaps – yes, he liked a bit of blow now and then, especially when he was partying with the ladies. Or, maybe you’re right after all, Mike, his literary agent; Hereward’s income must have fallen off a cliff since John got to fancying he could win the Booker Prize. And if it hasn’t yet, it soon will. Agents are an egotistical lot. Always think they made their client’s money for them. Or none at all, as in my case. Actually I’m sure my agent wishes I was dead. He could probably sell my novel – yes, my novel – if I could only do something that might make me a bit more of a marketable commodity, such as die in some trendy way. Like Keith Haring. You know, a dead John Houston might actually sell a shedload of his next book. The one Mike wrote.’ Stakenborg snapped his fingers as he tried to remember the title.
‘The Merchant of Death,’ said Munns.
‘So, who knows, maybe he’s cooked up this whole thing to sell even more. No one knows more about how to sell a book than John Houston. I mean look how many records Michael Jackson sold after he checked out of Neverland. Or wherever it was. In the twelve months following his death the King of Crap sold thirty-five million albums.’
‘I never thought of that,’ said Munns. ‘Not a bad idea at all. This celebrity slaying is bound to get more column inches than Jordan’s tits.’
‘Now who’s writing fiction?’ I said.
‘But either way, however you look at it,’ added Munns, ‘you have to admit that John himself is totally fucked.’
*
It was past six o’clock when I got back to my flat in Putney. This was on the top of one of those gloomy but large red-brick buildings near the bridge and overlooking the river – what the Americans would have called a wraparound apartment, with a little corner turret and a round window; handy for the shops, some quite decent pubs, and the number 14 bus to Piccadilly. The writer J. R. Ackerley – the one who was overly fond of his Alsatian dog – had once lived opposite; and, in one of the other mansion blocks nearer the bridge, so had the poet Gavin Ewart and the novelist William Cooper, both of whom I had sort of known. Putney’s a bit like that, with lots of writers you haven’t quite heard of, which is why they live in Putney and not Monaco, I suppose. As I stared out of my turret window at the small boats that passed up and down the dirty brown river Thames I often told myself that the view from University Mansions was infinitely preferable to the one John had enjoyed of the Ligurian Sea from the double-height windows of his apartment in the Tour Odéon; but this was just another fiction in my life – like the one that I was happier living alone, or the one that I didn’t need John Houston to get a novel published. The fact of the matter was that I hated London. The place was full of miserable people who were always moaning about the weather, or the bankers, or Europe, or this government or the last government; Cornwall wasn’t any better; that was just moaning with a fucking fleece on. John was fond of describing Monte Carlo as a slum full of billionaires, but that sounded just fine to me. Billionaires have higher standards than yokels who buy all their clothes at Primark.
I was pissed of course. In spite of my best intentions we had drunk at least a bottle apiece, followed by vintage brandies off the trolley, which is when the Chez Bruce bargain set lunch stops being such a bargain. I’d paid for all six of those, which ended up costing more than the food. That’s what they mean by vintage brandy: filling the tank of an old Rolls-Royce would have been so much cheaper.
There was no chance of me being able to write anything other than my name and form number at the top of the paper, so I switched on the telly and sat on the sofa in the hope of having a nap. It wasn’t long before ITV News got round to the murder of Orla Houston in the running order of ‘stories’. That’s one of the reasons I never watch television news; because ‘stories’ used to be ‘reports’ (I have enough of stories during my working day); possibly this might be because there’s nothing in the news that sounds very much like news – it’s all speculation and opinion and stream of consciousness, or just plain bullshit. Facts are rare.
Virginia Woolf could write the script for the six o’clock news. And so it was with the Houston ‘story’: John was still missing and the prime suspect – anyone who knew of his whereabouts was encouraged to call the Monty police; Orla’s body had been removed from the apartment and taken to a local mortuary; and her family had been informed and some of them were travelling from Dublin, presumably to identify the body and arrange a funeral. Cruelly I wondered if there might be a colour party. Orla’s cousin, Tadhg McGahern, was a Sinn Féin MEP and had already arrived in Monaco from Brussels. The last time I’d seen him he’d been at Orla’s wedding, when he’d been wearing an expression that was not unlike the one his half-brick of a face was wearing now – the bastard.
The Mac Curtain family were a rough lot. One of her brothers, Colm, was a Fianna Fáil member of the Dáil Éirann, which is the principal chamber of the Irish parliament; of course there’s nothing wrong with that, but at his sister’s wedding in St Maarten, Colm and I had almost come to blows when someone – most likely it was Orla herself – told him that before working for the London advertising agency where I’d met John, I’d been a junior officer in the British army. Colm had received this news with something less than the good humour that ought to have been required at his sister’s wedding. As I recalled it now, sprawled on the sofa with eyes half closed against the undulating room, the conversation had gone something like this:
‘So you’re Donald Irvine.’
‘That’s right,’ I said, extending my hand to shake his. ‘And you must be Orla’s brother, Colm. I’m pleased to meet you.’
Colm had stared at my hand as if it had been covered in the blood of Bobby Sands; but I still left it out in front of me, if only for the sake of Anglo-Irish relations. Not that I’m English, but you know what I mean.
‘I can’t shake your hand, Don,’ he said. ‘Not until I’ve found out if it’s true.’
‘If what’s true, Colm?’
‘If it’s true that you were a British soldier in Northern Ireland?’
I smiled a conciliatory smile and dropped my hand.
‘It was twenty-five years ago, Colm. It would be a real shame if the British Prime Minister and Gerry Adams can manage a handshake in Downing Street and we can’t do the same at your own sister’s wedding.’