Philip Kerr - Research

I picked up the phone and was about to call the police and then it dawned on me that Orla must already have been dead when I returned from Colette’s apartment. Clearly I must have got into bed with a corpse. It was obvious that the only time Orla could have been murdered was when I was downstairs with Colette, but I didn’t think the cops were going to buy that. The more I thought about it the more I realized that I was about to become their number one suspect: my wife, my bedroom, my gun, my opportunity and, I dare say, with a little help from the staff and customers at Joël Robuchon, my motive, too.

I considered calling Ince & Co, who are my lawyers in Paris and Monaco, and asking their advice about what to do next; but then I decided to go down to Colette’s apartment and discuss what to do with her. She was my alibi for the time that Orla had been murdered after all, although the precise time of death was going to be difficult to prove. Of course, my alibi in such an alluring shape as Colette was equally problematic; there’s nothing cops like more than a lover’s triangle.

I had a key to Colette’s apartment but she wasn’t at home. That wasn’t unusual, she often worked on a Saturday. I was going to call her on my mobile and then changed my mind on the assumption that, if I was arrested by the police, my call would probably incriminate her. I tried to use Colette’s landline but for some reason it wasn’t working, so at around 5.30 I walked out onto the Boulevard d’Italie and called Colette’s mobile from a payphone next to the BNP Paribas bank. Again, I wasn’t alarmed that she didn’t answer. I assumed she had a client and that she would be free to talk on the hour. I walked a bit further down the boulevard to an Italian restaurant called Il Giardino, had a coffee and then called her again at exactly six o’clock. Several times, without reply. I called her again at seven and when she still didn’t answer I went back to the Odéon where I checked her car-parking space and saw her car wasn’t there. I went back to Colette’s apartment and it was now, as I searched the place for some clue as to where she might have gone, that I made a very unwelcome discovery: an empty bottle of Russian Shampanskoye in the very same ice-bucket I’d used to chill the Dom. You know? That awful sweet fizz that Russians call champagne and that frankly only they find palatable. When I first saw it I thought it was the Dom. But as soon as I realized what it was it was clear that someone else had visited Colette after I had left her and that more than likely this someone was Russian.

You might wonder why a man whose wife had just been murdered would devote any thought to something as trivial as a bottle of Russian champagne.

I can assure you it wasn’t out of jealousy. After seeing the bottle of Russian champagne I decided to take a good look around the apartment and see what else I could find. In the wastepaper bin I came across an empty packet of Russian fags. And some other stuff, too. A book. A newspaper. The Moscow Times . And it was now that I began to consider the frightening possibility that Colette’s former boyfriend, Lev Semyonovich Kaganovich was now back from Russia and had returned to his apartment. Thinking I’d better make myself scarce, I went back up to my apartment, made myself a drink and considered my options.

Was it possible that Lev’s arrival back in Monaco was connected with Orla’s death? Was it possible that Lev had intended to frame me for my wife’s murder? Not for a moment did I think that Colette had killed Orla by herself. The only time I’d been out of my apartment was when I was with her. I was her alibi, as much as she was mine. But I could hardly ignore the idea that Lev had turned up while I was fucking his girlfriend and perhaps killed Orla in revenge. According to her he was like all Russians — a very violent man with connections in the world of organized crime; I’d only ever started seeing Colette on the understanding that Lev was completely off the scene. But it was now perfectly obvious to me that he wasn’t and before very long I was absolutely shitting myself.

To be honest I’d never been completely satisfied at Colette’s explanation concerning Lev’s protracted absence. According to her, Lev was the kind of man who had a girl in every port and she was required to look after the apartment and him whenever he was in Monaco. But the telephone number she had for Lev in Moscow had been disconnected and the email address he had given her no longer functioned either. The service charge on the apartment in the Odéon was paid up until the end of the year, at which point it looked probable that she would have to leave Monaco and return to her family home in Marseille. I didn’t mind that Colette was obviously looking for someone to replace Lev and that I might be it. I’d already considered the possibility of renting her a small place in Beausoleil. What I did mind hugely was the idea that a Russian gangster might now have me in his sights.

For several minutes I wandered through my apartment in a cold sweat and trying to figure out what to do. I don’t mind telling you, I was sick with fear, old sport. I mean I actually vomited with fear. Since there was no sign of a break-in at my own apartment, it was clear that whoever had killed Orla must have had a key and that more than likely this was the key I had left on the hall table while I was fucking Colette.

Until now I don’t suppose I had even considered robbery as a motive, so I went to the safe and found everything there that should have been there: a couple of thousand euros, some chequebooks, and a few smaller pieces of Orla’s jewellery — all of the decent stuff was in a security box at Jacob Safra’s Bank. None of the pictures were missing. What kind of burglar was it who ignored a decent-sized Picasso on our living-room wall and yet was compelled to shoot a sleeping woman? There were no answers that came my way. Just more questions, and one thing was soon obvious: the only way I had a chance of answering any of them and clearing my name was not to contact the police. Whichever way I looked at it I was squarely in the frame for my wife’s murder, which bore all the hallmarks of a professional hit. For this reason it seemed to me that there was also a very real possibility that I was in danger myself. All of this meant I had to get out of Monaco, and fast.

I packed a bag, returned to Colette’s apartment and waited around in the hope she might come back; I even took a gun with me in case Lev showed up. But by midnight I was convinced that something must have happened to her, too, and the possibility that I might find myself incriminated in two murders seemed all too possible. Perhaps her body was already lying in a cabin in my boat and I’d be kneeling there on the floor holding her body in one hand and a knife in the other like Roger Thornhill in North by Northwest when the cops showed up.

So I went down to the garage, where I got into my car and drove straight here.

Not exactly straight, no; the obvious route from Monaco to Geneva would have been on the A10, via Italy. Instead, I took a much longer route along the coast road west — there are lots of traffic cameras on the A8 out of Monaco — and then north, through the Écrins National Park, to avoid any toll roads. That’s another way they have of tracking you. I mean things have changed a bit since Tom Ripley went on the lam. Not that anyone was looking for me when I got here — and I figured I had seventy-two hours before the maid found Orla’s body — but Interpol can be quite tenacious when it sets its mind to catching someone. There was always a slim chance that the Monty cops would pay the French some serious cash to spend thousands of man-hours combing through CCTV footage of the roads in and out of the principality. Stranger things have happened. I recently read a couple of excellent thrillers by a fellow named Mark Russinovich — Zero Day and Trojan Horse — that really made me think about digital forensics, old sport. Russinovich is a PhD computer scientist and Microsoft Technical Fellow and really knows his stuff. There’s not much the geeks can’t find out with their drones and their satellites and their ‘digital bloodhounds’. You should check him out before you write the next Jack Boardman. Some of that high-tech stuff I put in the outline already looks like an old version of Windows.