by Philip Kerr
I moved out onto the fire stairs and worked my way carefully down almost ten flights, checking each step with my flashlight for traces of shit; and only when I was satisfied that every trace of the stuff was gone did I pick up my shoes and open the fire door on 29.
Then, if all that wasn’t enough, outside Colette’s door I couldn’t make her key work and another nervous minute passed before I discovered it was actually John’s key I was using and not hers, since the two were more or less identical. These small errors can mean the difference between success and failure, of course; they’re not exactly Freudian slips – I had no subconscious desire to get caught – more what you might call fate’s attempts to trip you up. That’s what makes life interesting; and of course murder creates its own unique gestalt. The Gestalt of Murder; it’s probably the title of a crime novel by John Creasey; with more than six hundred novels to his name something usually is.
In Colette’s apartment I placed John’s key on the table by the door where I’d found it, jumped out of his tracksuit, tossed it back on the floor and, breathing a little heavily now, went back into the spare room, where I dressed in the dark and waited for him to finish what he was so vociferously doing in the bedroom. It didn’t bother me that he was fucking Colette; on the contrary it meant that she was playing her part right and that he was quite unaware that his wife was dead.
Sitting in the dark I felt quite at home. Some people don’t like the dark at all, but I have always loved it. I feel comfortable there. The thicker and more palpable the darkness around me, the better. As a boy I used to sit in the dark and without the distraction of light and colour I would make all sorts of plans for my life that seemed altogether more possible. It was a little like dreaming without being asleep. I still find a mental clarity in darkness that is hard to find anywhere else. Let’s face it, after life is over the darkness is all there is, so you’d better get used to it. Jenny used to think it was creepy, my fondness for the dark. She would open a door and find me there in the dark and scream with fright, which is why she took to calling me ‘the bat’. Another reason why she left me, probably. No one likes bats very much.
CHAPTER 6
The medieval village of Èze lies along the famous Moyenne Corniche and is the perfect antithesis of Monaco glitz. Friedrich Nietzsche was fond of Èze, and it’s easy to see why. Perched on a rock fourteen hundred feet above sea-level, Èze is built around the ruins of a twelfth-century castle and commands perhaps the best view of anywhere on the Côte d’Azur, which probably went to Nietzsche’s head; either way it’s just the kind of high and magical place to write some unreadable German nonsense about God and the philosophical importance of having goblins around you. This and the lack of glamour, and two celebrated local perfumiers, make Èze popular with the older sort of tourist, which could explain the defibrillator you see on a wall as you begin to climb the steep, labyrinthine streets, although you would be forgiven for thinking that this might be more usefully located nearer the top of the hill.
Èze is also home to a famous hotel, the Château de la Chèvre d’Or. The Château is actually a haphazard series of jasmine-covered buildings, saucer-sized sun-terraces, fountains, waterfalls, private suites and precipitous Moroccan-style gardens that seem to be part of the village and yet somehow also manage to be very private. With its immaculate green lawns, giant-sized chess-set, croaking toads and crappy modern sculptures it all reminded me – a little – of Port-meirion in North Wales. It’s the kind of place where you expect to see Number Six from The Prisoner striding around in a neat blue blazer and roll-neck sweater, although, according to the guidebooks, Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio are more likely to be seen there.
We checked in, sharing a room with twin beds to save money and because that’s all they had; then we went to dinner in the hotel’s terrace restaurant, Les Remparts, which enjoyed a spectacular view of St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. Rather more than we enjoyed the food, thus confirming a prejudice I have long held that the quality of food declines in inverse proportion to the altitude at which it is served. I think the three worst dinners I ever had were up the Eiffel Tower, at the top of the Shard, and in the Piz Gloria revolving restaurant at the summit of the Schilthorn, in Murren.
Then again, our thoughts were not really on food at all but on the iPad we had brought with us to the table; and there was nothing wrong with the wine. We ordered a bottle of delicious Domaines Ott rosé, which is almost ubiquitous in that part of the world, and stared silently out to sea. An Artist of the Floating World. It’s the title of a slight novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, and for a few moments it felt as if we two were at peace and had become so unmoored from the realities of everyday life that we were floating high above the rest of the world. Then again, that’s how most writers feel, most of the time.
‘I gave her this iPad, as a little present, on the twelfth of December,’ said John. ‘Her birthday. But I’m certain the pass-code number isn’t that, and I know it’s not mine because I already tried those numbers.’
I lit a cigarette and nodded; knowing the number – as I did – I now hoped to prod his memory with some helpful suggestions. But while it could easily have been a date, the actual number – 0507 – did not present any other obvious possibilities than a birthday or a significant date in July.
‘I still can’t figure her doing something like this to me,’ he said. ‘After all I gave her. I mean, there was a lot more than a fucking iPad, I can tell you. Money, trips, diamond earrings, clothes, an expensive watch. You name it.’
‘The anniversary of when you met, perhaps,’ I said, helpfully.
‘March something or other.’ John shook his head. ‘Can’t be that. We never really mentioned that kind of thing.’
‘Her telephone number, perhaps.’
He thought about that for a moment, tapped the number into the iPad and then shook his head.
‘How many tries did the internet say you got? Before the thing locks down?’
‘Ten,’ said John.
‘So how many is that now?’
‘Five.’
‘I still can’t figure why she wouldn’t have got in touch with me, either,’ he said. ‘I mean, she knows my email addresses – even the secret one. The Hushmail address I have. Why hasn’t she left a message on that?’
‘What the fuck is Hushmail?’
‘It’s an HIPAA-compliant email service. HIPAA is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which sets the standard for protecting sensitive patient data. Which makes it very fucking private for anyone else who uses it. Hushmail is the email equivalent of a burner phone. I was planning to use it in a novel and then decided not to just to help keep the existence of Hushmail a bit more hush-hush.’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway. I checked. There’s no message from her on that account either.’
‘My guess is that she probably wants to make you sweat a bit. To soften you up so you’ll be more inclined to offer her a decent bit of wedge for an alibi.’
‘She could be dead of course. This whole trip might be a wild goose chase.’
‘Maybe. But we’re doing this to be proactive, right? And because we can’t think of anything else to do in the circumstances.’
John nodded. ‘Think of a number.’
‘Le quatorze juillet.’
John tapped the number into the iPad and shook his head.
‘Six,’ he said. ‘Four strikes left.’
As John refilled our glasses with the excellent rosé my phone started to ring; to my horror this was a number I could easily identify. It was Chief Inspector Amalric. I felt my stomach empty. I excused myself and walked away from the table into a little private garden to take the call.
‘Chief Inspector,’ I said, pleasantly. ‘What a pleasant surprise. How can I help you?’
‘You’re not in London?’ he said.
For a moment I considered the possibility that he really had seen me in the lift, at the Odéon. But then I realized it was just as possible he had made this conclusion
based on my ringtone. When you’re in a foreign country the ringtone on an English mobile phone sounds different to the way it sounds when you’re back in the UK.
‘No, I’m in Switzerland. I’d been cooped up writing for too long. Cabin fever, I think. So I decided to get away from London for a couple of days. I needed to get some fresh air and to feel the sun on my face.’
‘But the weather is nice in England right now.’
‘Not in Cornwall it isn’t. And besides, the food isn’t nearly as good.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. That dinner we had at Claridge’s was excellent. That’s why I was calling actually. I’m coming back to London on Wednesday, and I hoped to have dinner with you again. I have some more questions for you. About Mr Houston.’
‘I imagined you might, since you haven’t yet caught him.’
‘Now you sound like my boss, Paul de Beauvoir, the Commissioner. Every day he asks me the same question: where is Houston? I know that sooner or later I am going to answer “Texas” out of sheer frustration and I will be off the case. People are starting to avoid me. After almost two weeks they’re as frustrated with my lack of progress as I am. Why just tonight, a man at the Tour Odéon – someone who knew Madame Houston – he virtually ran away when he saw me.’
When he said this it was as if I’d had a mild electric shock. Had he seen me, too? Or was he just fencing with me?
‘I hope you don’t think that I’m avoiding you, Chief Inspector.’
‘You, monsieur? Why would I think such a thing? You are an English officer and a gentleman.’
‘I was,’ I said. ‘I’m not so sure I’m either of these things now. They both sound like luxuries I can ill afford.’
‘In fact, I would go so far as to say that no one has been as helpful as you have been.’
‘I’m glad you think so.’
‘Certainly not his ex-wives or his children. Nor his publisher. When are you going back to London?’
‘I’m not sure. I’m staying with some friends. In Geneva.’
‘Then perhaps I could meet you there. It’s not so very far away from Monaco, you know. Five or six hours by car.’
‘Yes, of course. But look, could I call you back about when and where? I’m a little tied up with something right now.’
‘I hope she’s nice.’
‘I wish it was like that. But it isn’t. I’m afraid I lead rather a dull life, Chief Inspector.’
‘You? A writer? I don’t believe it. All writers have a mistress, surely?’
‘Not me.’
‘Take it from a Frenchman. Perhaps it’s time you got one.’
‘Thanks for the advice. Look, I’ll call you, okay? Tomorrow. But I really do have to go now.’
‘Certainly. You have my number, of course.’
I ended the call; and then checked several times that the call was actually ended. Sometimes you think you’ve hung up and you haven’t. All the same it had been careless of me to use my own phone in Monaco. It was probably too late but I switched it off anyway. That’s how technology works against you. Did he suspect me? There was just enough in what he’d said to make me think he did but not enough to make me think he didn’t. Surely it was just a coincidence that he had telephoned on the very night I had been in Monaco? I’ve never much liked that word, ‘coincidence’; there’s more comfort to be found in words like ‘fluke’, ‘happenstance’ and ‘accident’; thanks to Jung no one believes in coincidence much any more. But Amalric had been helpful in one respect at least. I’d realized exactly what Colette’s passcode number meant.
I dropped my phone into my jacket pocket and was walking toward the gate when it opened to reveal the one person next to Chief Inspector Amalric and Sergeant Savigny whom I least wanted to see on the whole of the Côte d’Azur.
‘I don’t believe it. Talk about coincidence, you coming here to the Chèvre d’Or. Gee, that’s hilarious. Lev. I never ever see you before and then I see you twice in one evening.’
It was Michael Twentyman and he was accompanied by two permatan blondes wearing tiny skirts and heels as sharp as a leather worker’s awl. They had all just started cigarettes.
‘How the hell are you? Ladies, this is the man I was telling you about. This is Lev Kaganovich. My neighbour from across the hall. Lev? I’d like you to meet a couple of friends of mine. Anastasia and Katya. Say hello to my little friends, Lev. Ladies, Lev is from Smolensk.’
I bowed my head politely. ‘Dobry vecher.’ That and ‘Dobry den’ were two of only three things I knew how to say in Russian. I actually said it twice; perhaps I figured it would make me sound twice as Russian as saying it only once.
One of the women said something back in Russian which of course I didn’t understand.
‘Do you speak any Russian, Michael?’ I asked him.
‘Not a damn word,’ he said.
‘Then ladies, for Michael’s sake, let us speak only in English. Or perhaps French. To do otherwise would be rude.’
‘I don’t speak any French either,’ said Twentyman. ‘No one speaks French in Monaco. And frankly these days, Lev, Russian will get you further than English. That and Arabic, of course. Hey, look, are you with someone? Why don’t we all hook up? We’re having dinner right now in the hotel’s Michelin-starred restaurant and we just came out for a smoke.’
‘Yes,’ said Anastasia. ‘That would be nice.’
‘That’s the great thing about France. No one minds if you smoke outside a restaurant.’
‘I’d really love to, Michael.’ I eyed Katya meaningfully as if nothing would have given me more pleasure than a couple of hours spent with her. ‘But I have an important client waiting on the terrace restaurant downstairs and I’m on the verge of closing a very lucrative deal. So you’ll really have to excuse me.’
I knew that wouldn’t be enough for Twentyman so I took him by the elbow and led him out of the back of the garden to the door of the Michelin-starred restaurant.
‘Give me your card,’ I said. ‘Perhaps, if I can finish my business in time I can join you somewhere afterward. I really like your two friends.’
‘Stasia is my girlfriend,’ explained Twentyman as he opened his wallet and thumbed out a business card that was as thick as an invitation to a royal garden party. ‘But Katya is a great girl. Very warm. You and she would really hit it off.’
‘I think so, too.’
Twentyman handed me his card. ‘Do you have a card?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘In my line of work, it’s best to keep one’s telephone numbers secret. But I will call you later, yes?’
‘Great. Hey, maybe we can go to Studio 47 in Nice.’
‘Sounds like a plan.’
‘By the way, I meant to ask you earlier. Where’s Colette? I haven’t seen her in a while.’
‘She’s with her family, in Marseille.’ I winced. ‘She and I are no longer an item, as you Americans say. To be frank with you, it’s been a little difficult with her.’
‘Sure, I know what that’s like.’
‘See you later, I hope.’
I went back down to the table where I’d left John. He had one of his little Smythson notebooks open on the table in front of him and he was writing something in a small, neat hand.
‘You’re writing?’
‘Keeping notes,’ he said. ‘For research purposes. You never know, some of these experiences might turn out to be useful. For a novel. Or perhaps my prison autobiography.’
‘Or The Geneva Convention, perhaps. I’m sure you can work some of your recent experiences into a plot like that.’
John shook his head. ‘I’m afraid The Geneva Convention is no more,’ he said. ‘It turns out that Robert Harris wrote a thriller called The Fear Index about a Geneva-based hedge fund.’
‘But the plot you outlined to me is very different from his,’ I said. ‘Besides, you’ve always said that you should never be deterred by someone writing a book which is in the same ball-park. That sometimes the second book about s
omething succeeds where the first one fails.’
‘But his one didn’t fail. That’s rather the point, old sport. Anyway, what the fuck took you?’ John drained his glass and poured another. ‘I thought you’d run out on me. The food here’s not that bad.’
‘You know you’re going to have to start trusting me, John.’
He nodded. ‘Fair enough. I’m sorry.’
‘I ran into Michael Twentyman. It seems he’s having dinner with a couple of friends in the other restaurant.’
‘What did you tell him? Suppose he recognizes me?’
‘He doesn’t know you.’
‘No, but my picture has been on the front of Nice-Matin.’
I smiled, wryly. ‘That picture doesn’t do you justice.’
‘I’m glad you think this is funny.’
‘I also had Chief Inspector Amalric on the phone,’ I said. ‘It seems that he wants to question me again.’
‘Jesus. About what?’
‘I rather imagine he thinks I can tell him where you are hiding.’
John bit his lip and looked worried. He turned around in his chair as if expecting to see the Chèvre d’Or terrace surrounded by French gendarmes. ‘Maybe they’re undercover cops,’ he said. ‘These other diners.’
Several of the other tables were occupied by Chinese – imperceptibly different from the Japanese who’d once flocked to Europe. I shook my head.
‘You don’t suppose he’s on to me? Your chief inspector.’
‘No. But I’m not so sure that he wouldn’t like to make me a suspect.’
‘You? What the fuck for? You haven’t killed anyone. At least no one I know about.’
‘I had the sneaking suspicion he might have spotted me in your building. When I was in there fetching that iPad.’
‘Christ, Don.’
John looked around again.
I shrugged. ‘Look, I’m probably imagining it. He didn’t get a good look at me. I’m certain of it.’