Philip Kerr - Research

Several minutes passed before John glanced over at the Bentley’s speedometer and said, ‘Better keep to the speed limit, old sport. In case the local filth pull us over. I wouldn’t like to answer a lot of awkward questions about who this car belongs to.’

‘No, you wouldn’t want that, would you?’ I said, and lifting my foot off the gas pedal a little, I let our speed drop back to a more respectable eighty-five miles per hour.

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘That’s always how wanted felons get nicked, you know. Committing some ordinary misdemeanour like that.’

I nodded.

‘I mean, it’s John Houston that Bob Mechanic thinks he’s lent his cars to, not Charles Hanway. Not that Bob’s around to answer any nosy-parker cop questions. But all the same. Best keep our noses clean, eh?’

‘Sure, John, I can do that. As a matter of fact, I’ve been keeping my nose clean for years.’

We stopped for an early dinner at the Hotel Cinzia, which was a nondescript modern building of red and yellow concrete set back from a deserted crossroads in Vercelli, and not at all what I’d been expecting; it looked about as charming as my local launderette. But after a delicate lemon and asparagus risotto every bit as good as John Houston had said it would be, we drove on, with him at the wheel, which allowed me a chance to doze for a while.

When I opened my eyes again, about an hour later, we were already on the Italian coast and driving west, away from Genoa toward Ventimiglia and France. The Bentley ate up the road with a voracious appetite that showed no sign of abating.

‘Wish I could sleep like that,’ said Don. ‘In the car, I mean. I can manage it at home, in a chair, but never in a car. Especially with the hood down.’ He shrugged. ‘Not that anyone could sleep when Orla was driving. She was a terrible driver.’

‘Me, I can sleep anywhere,’ I said.

‘You must have a clear conscience, old sport.’

I pretended to think about that for a moment. ‘I suppose I have.’

‘It was a joke,’ said John.

‘All the same, there’s nothing much that I do feel bad about. Except perhaps Jenny. Yes, there is Jenny. Perhaps, if I’d fought a little harder to keep her, I might still have her.’ I shrugged. ‘But I don’t blame her for leaving me. Not in the least. No, I expect she needed a bit more excitement than I was able to give her.’

‘With a High Court judge?’ John shook his head. ‘Surely not. He’s seventy-something isn’t he? Lord Cocklecarrot or whatever his name is?’

‘Yes. Seventy-three.’

‘He doesn’t sound very exciting. How old is Jenny? Fifty?’

‘Fifty-one.’

‘So what kind of excitement was it that you were thinking of? I can see what’s in it for him. She’s a very good-looking woman. But I can’t see what’s in it for her. Apart from the thrill of being Lady Cocklecarrot.’

‘I expect they talk. I was never one for talking very much.’

John laughed. ‘So I’d noticed.’

‘And I think they go to Fiesole a lot. Apparently Harold Acton used to be a neighbour, when his lordship’s parents owned the place. I’m told it has a rather fine garden. Not to mention a fantastic, E. M. Forster view of Florence. I think I might easily have left someone like me for something like that. Unlike the Reverend Eager, I’ve always rather liked that particular view of Florence. Of course, I’d have Jenny back in a heartbeat, you know. If that’s what she wanted.’

‘Have you even had another woman since she cleared off?’

‘No.’

‘Christ. What, not even a rental?’

‘I’m not like you, John. I’m not led by my cock.’

‘Oh, I’m not led by my cock. But I do think it’s there to be used, at least while I can. It’s a short time we have on earth, I think, and perhaps it’s just as well that I’ve got a very big cock.’

‘Not that I think Jenny’s coming back any time soon.’

I might have added that the real reason she wasn’t coming back was that I scared her. I’d never told my wife exactly what I did when I was in the army but she knew that there was something I wasn’t telling her. Something importantly horrible. Of course she did; wives always know when they’re being lied to and sometimes they can even see the killer in your eyes. I’m certain mine could.

In July 1977, after Sandhurst, I’d joined the Queen’s Own Highlanders, and I went with them to Belize and then on their second tour of Northern Ireland. We were there until 1980. 1979 was the worst year for British security personnel killed in the province. My own regimental CO, Lieutenant-Colonel David Blair, was one of them. On 27 August 1979 — the same day that the Duke of Edinburgh’s uncle, Lord Louis Mountbatten, was assassinated by the Provos, along with the boatman and three members of his family, in County Sligo — Blair was killed in the Warrenpoint ambush. A British army convoy drove past a 500-pound bomb hidden by the road, killing six members of 2nd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment. Thirty minutes later, the Provos detonated a second bomb, at a nearby command point, killing twelve more soldiers — including my CO, Blair — who’d gone to assist the dead and injured. I was at the scene soon after the second explosion and it was a butcher’s shop, with body parts all over the road, in the River Clanrye, and hanging from the trees. Only one of Colonel Blair’s epaulettes remained to identify him, as his body had almost completely disappeared in the blast. I gave the epaulette to a brigadier from the 3rd Infantry, David Thorne, who took it with him when he briefed Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who apparently wept when she saw it.

I must say that Warrenpoint affected me very deeply, too. This was what motivated me to volunteer for military intelligence duties in NI when the QOH tour ended; being a Scot I was very good at doing an Irish accent. After an eight-week course with the SAS I returned to the province as part of the 14th Intelligence Company, who used to conduct undercover ops alongside loyalist paramilitaries. Which is an army way of saying we helped the UVF to murder members of the Provisional IRA. I did this until 1982, when I left the army and went into advertising, although at the time I’d wished I’d stayed on, as my regiment went to the Falklands soon after that; I remember them reaching the South Atlantic in July 1982 on the same day that John Houston and I had a meeting on the agency’s toilet paper account — although by then hostilities were over, of course.

‘You’re well out of it,’ said John. ‘You did your best with Jenny, I’m sure. But sometimes women are just like the clients we used to meet when we were in advertising. They really don’t know what the fuck they want. All they know is that it’s not you.’ He laughed. ‘Hey, do you remember the time we did all those commercials for Brooke Bond Red Mountain coffee?’

‘How could I forget? Coffeez never been so full of beanz .’

‘That was a really crappy coffee. How many fucking scripts did you write for it?’

‘Twenty-two. And they still wouldn’t buy one.’

‘I remember you brought a bloody starting pistol to the client meeting and you laid it on the boardroom table and told them that before the meeting was over they were going to buy your commercial. That was very funny.’

I smiled, remembering the incident, but I neglected to add that it hadn’t been a starter’s pistol at all but a real Smith & Wesson 38 — the same weapon I’d used for my wet work in Northern Ireland. I doubt that everyone would have thought this quite so funny if they’d known the gun was loaded with live ammunition and had been used to off more than one Fenian bastard.