Philip Kerr - Research

‘You seem to have thought of everything already.’

‘Yes, I think you’re right. And perhaps I have. It is curious that since you mentioned the idea this plan seems to have arrived in my head as one whole, like the plot for a novel.’

‘It seems that you are much better at plots than you thought you were.’

‘Isn’t that interesting? On the other hand maybe it’s not so surprising. After all, I’m beginning to realize that I would do anything for you, Colette. Even commit a murder.’

‘But why do you say so?’

I stood up and surveyed the Legoland scene below. The summer sporting club, on the promontory of land that marked the eastern edge of Larvotto, was no bigger than a one-euro coin, while the old port — Port Hercule — to the west, was the size and shape of a bottle opener. It was not a view for the faint-hearted — anyone with vertigo or acrophobia could never have inhabited the Tour Odéon — but it was the very place a more modern-minded devil might have chosen if he had been looking for a high place to tempt someone with ownership of the whole world. And Monte Carlo is as near to being a holy city as there is for the world’s wealthiest people. It was certainly worth a try. I turned to face her and leaned back confidently on the handrail of the glass balcony; only in a novel would the rail have given way, sending me to a probably well-deserved death a couple of hundred feet below for my Icarus-like hubris. A warm breeze stirred my hair and then hers, but it might as easily have been something altogether more sinister — a subtler, more ethereal ectoplasm that contained the essence of pure temptation.

‘Honestly, Colette, it’s no accident our coming together in the Columbus Bar the other night. No accident at all. The way it happened — John’s book as the nexus of our meeting — that was fate pure and simple. I know it. You know it. I’ve thought a lot about it and I think it happened because, frankly, it’s within my power to give you exactly what you want in life; to enable you to live the life of luxury you’ve probably always wanted: a beautiful apartment, a lovely town house in Paris, a home in the Caribbean, an expensive sports car, a child — all of these things I will give you, Colette, if you’ll let me help you. And I tell you without fear of contradiction that after all that’s happened to you, you deserve these things. You know it and I know it. But we needn’t dwell on any of that because while material things are important they’re not that important. Happiness, fulfilment in life, love — these are the things that really matter. So now I’m going to tell you exactly why I want to help you — why I’m your most devoted servant in this matter. Please don’t be embarrassed if I tell you it’s because I think I love you. What do the French call it? Un coup de foudre ?’

‘Really? After so short a time?’

‘Is that not how lightning strikes, Colette? Suddenly? Like something which is beyond our control. Perhaps that’s one of the few benefits of being older. You make up your mind about things like that so much more quickly than when you’re a bit younger. Carpe diem , so to speak. Anyway, I’d hardly be contemplating such a drastic course of action if I didn’t love you, I think. Do you? Only a truly devoted lover could be willing to do what I am willing to do for you, which is murder, my sweet.’

I was on the verge of mentioning Thérèse Raquin — Zola’s marvellous book about a love triangle and a murder — until I remembered that it hadn’t ended well for any of them. I pressed my belted waist hard against the brushed steel handrail, as if testing the absolute limits of the world I was in. I remained exactly where I was, with my feet not exactly on the ground but still very firmly on the polished wooden decking of that little twenty-ninth-floor balcony.

‘No, I suppose not.’ She finished her cigarette and smiled. ‘I’m very fond of you, Don. But please, give me a little more time. For my feelings to catch up with yours. Yes?’

‘Of course. I understand.’

‘And look, I think it’s a good plan. But tell me please, is ours a perfect plan? After all, we don’t want to get caught, do we? It’s odd how getting caught never seems to be part of anyone’s plan. I’m terrified of going to jail.’

I wondered if Colette had ever read Camus, like every French schoolchild. I certainly didn’t want to end up in jail like Meursault, talking to a priest about the absurdity of the human condition. Because that’s the part of the plan that les hommes d’action always fail to consider; and yet it’s the one that needs debating most of all — the possibility of failure and of being caught. Looking at Colette though, I didn’t think the existential niceties of crime were worth mentioning.

‘The perfect plan?’ I smiled and flicked my still smouldering cigarette in the general direction of Beausoleil, where I hoped it might ignite the lacquered hair of some elderly French matron. ‘It’s an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. It doesn’t exist. Order always tends toward disorder; this is called entropy. So there is only a good plan, and this is a very good plan. But a good plan is only a good plan if it’s flexible enough to deal with something that goes wrong, even sometimes very wrong. In my experience something always goes wrong. That’s why there’s no such thing as a perfect plan. Or a perfect murder. Because something always goes wrong.’

She nodded. ‘When are we going to do it?’

‘When’s he back from Geneva?’ I said.

‘In two weeks’ time, they’re both here for their wedding anniversary, I think.’

‘Then that’s when we’ll do it.’

I picked up the iPad and surveyed the apartment, satisfied that I had everything I had come for. But I didn’t bother searching the place for Colette’s laptop; I knew where it was: she had taken it with her when she had gone with me in the car to Nice Airport. Her leaving the iPad on the kitchen worktop had been a mistake; I simply hadn’t noticed it and nor had she. It had been the kind of thing I’d been referring to when I’d talked to her about entropy and was just one of a couple of things that had gone wrong with the plan immediately after I’d murdered Mrs Orla Houston.

It still felt a little weird saying that. I didn’t regret it for a moment, however. In truth I was having the most fun I’d had since leaving the army. Nothing — not the huckster/wanker world of advertising nor the solitary/autistic life of a writer — can compare with the exhilarating thrill of getting away with murder.

I used the Judas hole in Colette’s door to check that the corridor was empty and thinking the coast on floor twenty-nine was clear I went out of the apartment and closed the door behind me.

‘Hello at last,’ said an American voice.

I turned to see a smallish man in a grey suit with a Van Dyck beard, a paunch and an unlit Cohiba shuffling toward me. He was perspiring heavily and in his other hand was a handkerchief as big as a flag of truce. He looked like a Confederate Army general.

‘You must be my Russian neighbour — Mr Kaganovich, isn’t it?’

I fixed a smile to my face and nodded, vaguely.

‘Colette — Miss Laurent has told me so much about you, but I was beginning to think you didn’t exist.’ He smiled. ‘Unless you’re a ghost.’

I smiled, enjoying the irony and said, ‘There are no ghosts in this building.’

‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that.’

He held out a hand that only just cleared the sleeve of his ill-fitting jacket. ‘Michael Twentyman. Originally from New York but now of no fixed abode. Hey, but we all are if we’re here in Monaco, right?’