Philip Kerr - Research

Anyway, by the time poor Orla’s body was found in the Tour Odéon I was safely hidden here in Collonge-Bellerive, which really is one of the most private places in the world; forget South America — you could hide the whole of the ODESSA here, in Jerry uniform, too, and no one would be any the wiser. Bob Mechanic — the guy who owns this place — has lived in this house for five years and he’s never even seen his fucking neighbours. For all he knows he could be living next door to Joseph Kony and he wouldn’t have a clue. And he’s so bloody paranoid about being spied on he has his own pet geeks at the hedge fund’s office in Geneva block Google Earth street views; the image that’s on the site right now is at least a year or two old.

When the cleaner turns up I lurk down in Mechanic’s study where she’s forbidden to go in case she ever tries to dust his PC, which is on twenty-four hours a day, and Mechanic loses some important data. I think he must log into it remotely from an internet café on the Ross Ice Shelf to check his trades. Anyway, she’s also the one who fills the fridge, not me. Mechanic had a butler for a while. So, as you can see, this is an ideal place to hide when you’re a wanted man. It was an ideal place to write, too, which is why I came here in the first place. I just wish I’d stayed on to work through the summer instead of going back to Monty that weekend. I wouldn’t have gone at all, but it was our wedding anniversary — something the cops don’t seem to have noticed. I mean why would I have murdered Orla on her wedding anniversary? If I stayed on here in Switzerland then perhaps none of this would have happened. I wrote at least thirty thousand words of The Geneva Convention before Orla was murdered. Frankly, it’s the best work I’ve done in a long time. Seriously, old sport, if you want to drive life and all its attendant cares into a remote corner, forget Walden Pond, this is it. This is what I call a writer’s retreat. You can really think in a place like this, which is all I’ve been doing, of course, since I left Monaco.

I paused and waited for Don to say something. His habitual demeanour is always pretty calm and unflappable, as befits a former army officer with two tours of Northern Ireland under his belt. Don’s more of a Guy Crouchback than a Christopher Tietjens, but he was looking even more composed and unemotional than was normal even for him. His fingers were laced and his thick forefingers were touching the end of his square jaw, like a man contemplating a chess move. To my surprise he was still wearing his wedding ring, although Jenny, his wife, gave him the heave-ho more than eighteen months ago. Found herself someone else, apparently — and of all people he was a High Court judge, with a title, so the former Mrs Irvine is now Lady Somebody with a nice house in Kensington and a holiday home in Fiesole. Frankly I think she did him a favour; Jenny was always a bit too fast for old Don. On one occasion she even made a pass at me.

‘I can imagine,’ was all he said.

I rather doubted that. Don was never all that imaginative. I sometimes think he and the others would never have managed to become writers at all if not for me. And too late I’d realized that was the real thing I’d taken away from them when I closed the atelier ; it wasn’t the money they missed most, it was the delusion that any of them could hack it as proper writers. It’s one thing to take away a man’s livelihood; but it’s something else — something terrible — to take away his dreams.

‘At least say that you believe me, old sport.’

His cornflower-blue eyes narrowed; he tried a smile, then thought better of it, as if remembering that my wife was dead after all.

‘It’s not me you have to convince, John. It’s the police. Frankly, I really don’t give a damn if you killed her or not. I mean, it hardly matters between you and me. But if you’re suggesting that this Lev character killed your wife and framed you in revenge for shagging his girlfriend, I just don’t buy it. And for fuck’s sake, when will you learn not to shit on your own doorstep? Why fuck a girl who lives in your own building? It’s bloody madness. What on earth possessed you to do something so utterly crazy? Didn’t I always say that something like this would happen? That you would always be getting into scrapes so long as you believed that you did things to girls instead of with them? You were crazy to get involved with this woman.’

‘You have to be a bit crazy to fall in love with anyone, don’t you think?’

But Don wasn’t really listening. ‘No, the idea that Lev killed Orla simply because you were shagging some bimbo he doesn’t sound as though he cared two kopecks for makes no sense to me at all. It’s a serious crime for a pretty trivial motive, if you don’t mind me saying so. Not all Ivans are as crazy or as lethal as the ones Jack Boardman meets in your novels.’

Don shook his head and drank some wine. He was wearing his usual uniform: beige chinos, a plain white shirt, and a blue blazer. His brown brogue shoes were beginning to seem rather more venerable than sensible and the watch on his wrist looked like a knock-off. But he looked pretty fit, as always; every year he did a triathlon in the Cornish town where he had a small holiday home; I looked it up online one year after he’d told me he’d finished near the back of the field and was surprised to discover he’d actually come third. That said something important about old Don. There was more to him than met the eye. It was easy to underestimate him.

‘Mind if I smoke?’ he said.

‘Go ahead.’

Don took out a silver cigarette case — he was the only person I knew who used one; he said it meant he could ration his day’s smoking — and lit one with a silver Dunhill I’d given him for his fortieth birthday; I was touched to see he was still using it. He puffed, licked his lips and continued speaking:

‘And forgive me, John, but it’s really not like he could have killed Orla without Colette’s help, is it? Think about it for a moment. Lev would have to have pinched your key while you were shagging her, nipped upstairs, shot Orla and the dogs, come back downstairs, returned your key without you noticing, and hidden somewhere until you’d gone home. And she helps him to do all this because what — she’s afraid of him? If any of that was true she could have told you and then dialled 112. It’s John Houston’s basic rule to writing a thriller, number one; the whole house of cards falls down if you can’t answer a simple question: why didn’t X or Y call the police? And here’s another thing: are you seriously suggesting that the first thing Lev does after killing Orla is open a bottle of Russian champagne? That doesn’t strike me as very likely either. It doesn’t matter who you kill, champagne — cheap or otherwise — is not and never has been a post-homicidal drink. You drink a scotch or a brandy, or maybe even vodka to calm your nerves but you don’t crack open a bottle of bubbles.’

I nodded. ‘Yes, you’re right, Don. None of it makes any sense when you think about it.’

‘Oh, I didn’t say it didn’t make any sense. I just don’t think it makes the sort of sense you think it does. I believe it’s quite possible that the champagne bottle was a message, for you. That maybe Colette meant you to see the bottle and to put two and two together and make pyat . A Russian code. A message from Otto Leipzig. Tell Max that our Russian friend is back in town.’

‘You mean, she meant me to think that Lev had returned to Monaco and was now on the scene with malice aforethought.’

‘Exactly. She would have known the effect that seeing something Russian like that bottle would have on you. Because it was her who gave you the legend about Lev in the first place — his connections to the mafia, the fact that he was a violent man, an oligarch with an attitude. And just to underline that she leaves an empty packet of Russian cigarettes in the wastepaper bin and a recent copy of The Moscow Times .’