Philip Kerr - Research

I bought a coffee from a Starbucks and carried it and the papers back to my flat where, after glancing quickly over the other articles, I finally read Mike Munns’s story. The purpose of lunch the previous day was now plain to me: Munns had needed some quotes to spice up his piece, which was every bit as hurtful as Peter Stakenborg had said it was — worse, if you were John Houston, Stakenborg or Philip French. I came out of it marginally better than they did. Oddly the thing that irritated me most was that Munns had attributed Somerset Maugham’s famous quote about Monte Carlo to me; it looked as if I’d tried to pass it off as my own, and since the subtext of the article was that I was the ‘Machiavellian’ mastermind behind a kind of grubby fraud in which a sweatshop of poorly paid, ruthlessly exploited authors wrote all of Houston’s books in order that he might pass them off as his own work, I saw myself portrayed as a sort of literary forger, like Thomas Chatterton or, more recently, Clifford Irving. It mattered not a bit to Munns or to the Mail that over the years, in the many interviews he conducted with the press — including the Daily Mail — John had always been perfectly open about his modus operandi. And after all, what was so wrong with the idea of a writing factory? Hadn’t painters like Van Dyck and Rubens kept ateliers where other artists skilled in painting landscapes or children or animals were employed to fill in the blank spaces on some of those enormous canvases? And like Andy Warhol, didn’t Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst do something very similar to what Van Dyck and Rubens had done? Why in the minds of critics — and the critics had been very critical of John Houston, the author — was it all right for a painter to rely on assistants but not all right for an author to do the same? Would War and Peace have been any less of a great novel if today it were to be revealed that Tolstoy had employed another writer to pen that account of the Battle of Borodino in exactly the same way that Eugène Delacroix employed Gustave Lassalle-Bordes to help him paint some of his larger murals? I doubted it very much.

But then I would say that, wouldn’t I?

I called Peter Stakenborg back and tried to reassure him the article wasn’t nearly as bad as he had imagined it was; he wasn’t convinced; so I called Mike Munns and left a one-word message on his cellphone that Samuel Beckett informs us was the trump card of young wives. Then I stood in front of my standing desk, switched on my computer and tried to forget the whole wretched affair.

The thing is I feel more alert while I’m standing; when I’m sitting behind my other desk I am too easily distracted by the internet — the PC on the standing desk isn’t connected, so there’s no temptation to send an email, to pay a visit to YouTube or Twitter, or make a bet on the William Hill website. Writing is all about the elimination of distractions. I’m always amazed how some writers have music playing in the background. Like anything else, a standing desk takes a little bit of getting used to; you have to learn not to lock out your knees and to spread the weight between both legs; but there’s no doubt that I feel much more alert while I’m standing. Above my desk there’s a picture of Ernest Hemingway typing something while he’s standing up: the typewriter is balanced on top of a music case which is on top of a set of shelves, and so strictly speaking there’s no desk involved, but it always reminds me that a good writer ought to be able to write anywhere. A standing desk hasn’t made me the writer Papa was, but then again it hasn’t done me any harm either: I couldn’t fall asleep at my desk when I was standing up or browse any online porn. Being on your feet all day — like a beat copper — burns calories, too, and there are already enough lard-arse writers around as it is.

At lunchtime I wandered out onto the High Street and picked up a sandwich from Marks & Spencer; after eating it I had a short nap in my Eames chair, and then continued work until around 4.30. The phone did not ring again until almost six o’clock, which was a bit of a surprise; it was much more of a surprise to discover that it was the cops who were calling me.

‘Monsieur Irvine?’

‘Speaking.’

‘My name is Vincent Amalric and I am a chief inspector of police with the Sûreté Publique in Monaco. My Commissioner, Paul de Beauvoir, has ordered me to investigate the murder of Madame Orla Houston. I believe you knew her quite well, yes?’

It was a masculine-sounding voice, masculine and very French; every few seconds there was a short pause and a quiet inhalation of breath, and I guessed he was smoking a cigarette. Cops should always smoke when they’re working on a case; not because it makes them look cool or anything but because a cigarette is the perfect baton for conducting an interrogation; it gives the smoker pause for thought and a pregnant pause for disbelief, and if all else fails you can always blow smoke in someone’s face or press it into your suspect’s eye.

‘I knew her.’

‘Tell me, monsieur — and forgive me for asking this so soon in our conversation — but has John Houston spoken to you recently?’

‘No, not for several weeks.’

‘An email, perhaps? A text?’

‘Nothing. I’m sorry.’

‘So. I am arriving in London on Saturday. My sergeant and I will be staying at Claridge’s.’

‘Very nice for you both. I can see that life as a policeman in Monaco has its rewards.’

‘Claridge’s is a nice hotel? Is this what you mean, monsieur?’

‘It’s probably the best hotel in London, Chief Inspector. Not quite as opulent as the Hermitage, perhaps, or the Hôtel de Paris, but probably as good as it gets in London.’

‘ Bon . In which case I feel there could be no problem in me inviting you there for dinner next Monday evening. I was hoping that you might help me with my inquiries.’

I could have pointed out that this was once a euphemism in English crime reporting — a phrase that implied a degree of guilt — but I felt this was hardly the time to help Chief Inspector Amalric with the subtleties of his English, which anyway was better than my French. Besides, the phrase seemed almost to have disappeared; these days the Metropolitan Police just arrested you and then tipped off the newspapers.

‘Certainly, Chief Inspector. At what time?’

‘Shall we say eight o’clock?’

‘Fine. I’ll be there. By the way, how did you get my telephone number?’

‘Your colleague Mike Munns gave us your contact details. We saw the article in today’s newspaper and spoke to him only a short while ago. He was most helpful. He said that if we spoke to anyone in London we should make sure that we spoke to you, since you have known Monsieur Houston the longest?’

‘Longer than Mike Munns, yes.’

‘And longer than his late wife, too?’

‘Oh yes. I’ve known John for more than twenty years. Since before he became a published author.’

‘Then I have just one more question for the present, sir. Is it possible you have some idea where Monsieur Houston might have gone?’

‘I’ve been thinking about that. I know he’d been working on a book in Switzerland but he didn’t think to tell me where and I didn’t ask. He had a largish boat, as I’m sure you know. The Lady Schadenfreude . And a plane at Mandelieu. A twin-engined King Air 350. With a plane like that he could have gone anywhere in Europe in a matter of hours. In fact I know he used to fly it quite regularly here to London.’

‘The boat is still in its berth in the Monte Carlo harbour. And the plane is still at the airfield. No, we believe Monsieur Houston must have left Monaco by road. A car has been taken from his garage.’