Philip Kerr - Research

But I was more horrified to see the person of Chief Inspector Amalric coming out of the front door; he even glanced at the Bentley, and it was only the car’s tinted windows that prevented him from having a clear sight of me. This was fortunate, as I would have found it hard to explain exactly what I was doing there. Were there other policemen still in the building — Sergeant Savigny, perhaps? Was it possible the police were still questioning the other occupants of the Odéon about what they had seen, or more likely — this was Monaco — not seen? Were there still scenes of crime officers searching John’s apartment for minute and important clues as to who had killed her?

I almost kept on going round the mini-roundabout and back down the hill to the restaurant. Instead I held my nerve and drove into the Odéon’s underground garage, where I parked the Bentley, closed my eyes and drew a deep breath before deciding what to do next. I tried to telephone John, to let him know what I was doing, but found that I couldn’t get a signal. Not that this mattered much; it suited me nicely to keep him on edge. So I just sat there, listening to the hot, six-litre engine at rest; after almost 300 kilometres without a stop there were so many taps and ticks and knocks it sounded like a tiny silver mine.

Waiting awhile before venturing upstairs seemed the wisest course of action; I had no wish to meet Sergeant Savigny again, least of all in the Odéon lift. Of course, I could easily have driven away without doing anything because I knew exactly where Colette was at that particular moment — she was my accomplice, after all; but to have abandoned my mission to recover her iPad from the apartment would have left what happened next to chance, in which case John might easily have panicked and given himself up to the Monty police, and that was the last thing I wanted. So long as we seemed to have a definite plan about what to do next I had control of things, which, ultimately, was what this was all about.

To my surprise there was a copy of Merrychristmas Makeba’s new novel, Drowning in the Kalahari , in the Bentley’s glovebox underneath the car’s manual. I started to read a chapter — either it was terrible stuff or I was too much on edge because it didn’t make any sense. The Canongate blurb said it was African magic realism, but to me it was more mundane than realistic and had nothing up the sleeve, so that it was rather less magical than a three-card trick. I was puzzled as to why a man like Bob Mechanic should have had a Man Booker shortlisted novel by an African woman writer in his car until I saw that someone called Grace de Beer had written all of her contact details and some kisses, as well as an injunction that Bob should feel free to call her any time, in a neat copperplate hand on the flyleaf. In this, the age of the e-book, it’s reassuring to know that the printed page still has its uses.

After about fifteen minutes I left the car and having checked the garage for police cars — there were none — I went to the lift and rode up to the twenty-ninth floor, where the lift chime quietly announced my arrival like a butler’s cough into a corridor already hushed by an inch-thick Wilton and ostrich-leather walls. It’s only on the streets of Monaco that money talks; in the principality’s more expensive apartment buildings it always lowers its voice discreetly.

I walked to the door of Colette’s apartment and pressed my ear to the kauri wood for a second before touching the keyless lock with the lacquered plastic fob, and then stepped inside with the speed of a tango-dancer. All was quiet as I stood in the tiny hallway and closed the door behind me. Apart from the sour smell of rotting garbage that lingered in the air, everything else was much as I remembered: the balcony sofa where we had sat and planned everything; the little dining room where she had cooked me more than one supper; the bed where I had fucked her several times. The fucking had helped to cement our pact, like Frank and Cora in The Postman Always Rings Twice , which is a pretty good book. Movie’s pretty good, too; as a matter of fact, it’s one of my favourites. When Frank fucks her it’s like he’s wrestling God’s angel. ‘ I’m getting tired of what’s right and wrong ,’ says Cora. Amen to that, little sister.

I went into the kitchen and double-bagged the contents of the bin to drop into the chute when I left. I even cleaned up a bit and watered her pot plants, which was very considerate of me. At the same time I noted the iPad on the marble worktop where Colette had carelessly left it. But before collecting this and making my exit I opened the doors onto the balcony to let in some air; that was the good thing about the private apartments in Tour Odéon: it was so high above the streets of Monaco that cars and their exhaust fumes were hardly noticeable; even in summer the air was as cool and fresh as if you were standing at the top of a schooner’s main mast listening to the whip and snap of a dozen sails. The air was the best thing about the Tour Odéon; that and the view, of course.

I glanced around the coastline amphitheatre of tall buildings that was Monaco and Beausoleil. It was hard to tell where the backdrop that was France ended and the tax-free principality began. The buildings of Beausoleil were no less ugly or featureless than those of Monaco, and the idea that property in one cost more than four times as much as in the other would have seemed laughable to anyone who had never heard of what the French called l’impôt de solidarité sur la fortune . Whenever I looked at this view — which some consider spectacular — I thought of my financial advisers back in London and the yearly reviews they used to produce with 3-D bar-graphs showing you how much your pension might be worth in fifteen years’ time; or, in my case, how little. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see nineor ten-figure numbers hovering in the sky over the primary-coloured rectangular bar of each building, as if to indicate the collective net worth of its privileged, tax-free occupants.

Beyond the harbour and out to sea, things were rather more obviously picturesque; a slowly shifting constellation of brightly lit boats on the darkening blue surface of the sea looked like an inverse planetarium. Above these the moon was a red circle on the eastern horizon, although any iniquity or spilling of blood that this might have foretold was long past.

I glanced back through the window glass into the apartment and for a moment I caught sight of my reflected self, locked in animated conspiracy with Colette. A moment later we seemed possessed by each other and I drew her into my arms and kissed her before pushing my hand deep between her thighs. She dropped her head back on her shoulders and gave herself up to my impudent fingers before climbing on to my lap. I think at that point I might even have told her I loved her, the way you do sometimes when you’re trying to persuade a nice girl to help you commit a murder.

We met for the first time at the Columbus in Fontvieille Port, which is the best bar in Monaco. I’d flown in for a meeting with John, to discuss the first draft of Dead Red — after him closing the atelier it was to be our last meeting before Orla’s murder — but as usual I was staying in Beausoleil, which meant opportunities for a drink or dinner were limited, and while the Columbus is expensive it’s not as extortionate as a lot of other places in Monaco. Just as importantly, the Columbus serves the best fish and chips on the Côte d’Azur and is a welcome antidote to anything the Hôtel Capitole has to offer. In Beausoleil nightlife is a contradiction in terms, although sometimes there is a certain kind of entertainment to be had when the French police and tax authorities operate night-time spot checks on cars with Monaco licence plates passing through on their way to the clubs in Antibes and Cannes, looking for people who are cheating on their 182 days. You take your pleasures when and where you can.