Philip Kerr - Research

French nodded sullenly and took an asthmatic drag on the joint he was smoking as if he was hoping it might provide some actual nourishment. He looked as if he could have eaten a good meal.

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. And where are my manners? Would you like a drink?’

I nodded.

Phil fetched a glass of red from the wine box and handed it to me.

‘Where is he, anyway?’ he asked.

‘Actually, he’s drunk. I left him back at the Château Saint-Martin sleeping it off. The way he’s been drinking, this might easily have become more unpleasant than it needs to be.’

‘I’m sorry about this afternoon. I don’t regret pinching his watch, but I do regret being so rude to you, Don.’

‘Forget about it.’

I tasted the wine, which wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked.

‘You’re selling the house?’ I said, changing the subject.

‘Have to. Unfortunately my missus left before I could murder her like John murdered his. Lucky bugger. But now she wants her half. Only the property market in this part of the world is fucked now that the socialists are in and screwing the last penny in taxes out of everyone. So, no one’s interested. No one wanted to rent it. No one wants to buy it.’ He looked at the huge watch on his wrist and smiled a fake sort of smile. ‘Until I got this little gewgaw I was actually thinking of applying for the Society of Authors’ hardship fund so that I could afford the fucking ticket home.’

‘And now that you have that watch, what will you do?’

‘Flog it, of course. See what I can get for it in Monaco if I can find out where he bought the thing. I’ve got a day off tomorrow so I figured to check that out on the internet.’

‘Ciribelli,’ I said. ‘That’s the name of the shop where he bought it. Actually there are three stores, but your best bet is probably the one in the Hôtel de Paris.’

‘Oh. Thanks.’ He frowned. ‘Thanks a lot.’

‘Don’t mention it.’

‘Listen, Don, under the circumstances I’m the last person to give anyone advice on their behaviour. But do you know what you’re doing? Since I moved down here I’ve met a few French cops, and they play rougher than our own boys in blue. Aiding and abetting a man who’s wanted for murder and all that; you’re taking a bit of a risk, aren’t you? If the police nick you, they’ll throw the book at you. Not to mention the desk it was resting on. This is a high-profile case. It’s been all over The Riviera Times and Nice-Matin .’

‘I know. But I figure it’s worth the risk. You see I’m not actually helping John. He only thinks I’m helping him. I’ve got plans of my own.’

‘Oh? And what are they?’

‘As a matter of fact that’s what I want to talk to you about. Why I came up here on my own tonight.’

‘You want to smoke a joint while we talk about it?’

‘No thanks. I’ll stick to cigarettes if you don’t mind. For what I’ve got to say I need a clear head.’

‘Sounds ominous.’

I sat down, opened my cigarette case and laid it open on the table like a little jewellery box before taking one and lighting it. I sat back and smoked it as if I had all the time in the world to get to the point.

‘There’s nothing I like more than smoking a cigarette on a terrace in the south of France,’ I said. ‘Unless it’s fucking someone on a terrace in the south of France. But at my age it looks as if I’ll have to settle for the cigarettes, I think.’ I shrugged. ‘Then again, maybe there’s an alternative. Which is what I want to talk to you about.’

Philip French sat down opposite me and started to make another joint. ‘So what is it?’

‘First, the twenty grand you were demanding from John; to stop you going to the police and informing on him — and by extension me.’ I reached into the Tumi bag and tossed the money onto the table between us. ‘There it is. Paid in full.’

‘Thanks.’

I shrugged. ‘Of course, another twenty grand is nothing beside what you could get for that watch if you had the box and all the papers that came with it when John bought it. Without any of that you’ll be lucky to raise a hundred grand, compared with maybe four times as much if you had everything you need to make the thing look kosher.’ I took another drag on the cigarette. ‘But I can get you all that. The box and the papers are in the safe at the atelier in Paris and I still have the key and the combination. The cops are probably keeping an eye on the place, so there’s a risk factor involved. Which means it’s going to cost you, Phil.’

‘How much?’

‘Twenty grand.’

‘Oh, I see. I take the blame with John and you take the cash.’

‘A bargain considering you might raise four hundred grand.’

He smiled.

‘Did I say something funny?’

‘Just that there was I feeling like a fucking criminal and now here you are dealing off the bottom. We make quite a pair.’

‘That’s why I’m here.’

‘Wait. Why aren’t you asking for half of what I can get for the watch?’

‘Because I already have the Bentley.’

‘What? He said it belongs to someone else.’

‘It does. Only I have a buyer who’ll give me fifty grand for it, no questions asked. You get the watch and the box and I get the car and twenty grand. That makes seventy grand for me.’

‘Seventy versus four hundred. It still sounds to me as if you’re coming up short, Don.’

‘Perhaps. You can call it a sign of good faith, if you like.’

‘In what?’

‘First things first: do we have a deal about the money?’

‘Sure. Keep it. If you can get the box and make the watch squeaky clean, so much the better. But don’t take any unnecessary risks.’

‘Okay.’ I put the money back in the black bag. ‘Thanks.’

‘But I still think you’re selling yourself short.’

‘And like I said, that’s a sign of good faith.’

Phil opened his hand as if expecting me to put something other than money in it. ‘In what?’ he repeated. ‘Don’t make me strip naked for it.’

‘In you, Phil. In you. You see I’ve got a nice proposition for you that can make us both much wealthier than a few hundred grand a piece. Enough for you to pay off your wife and to keep this place, if that’s what you want to do.’

‘What kind of proposition? And don’t say a novel, or a script, or I’ll laugh. It’s only the people who’ve got almost nothing to say who are being paid the big money to say it in print: cooks and fucking footballers and national treasure actresses with backsides almost as big as their books. These days the Christmas bestsellers look like they were published by Hello! magazine.’

‘Just hear me out. If you were describing my idea as a plot for a book, you would call it a simple reversal of fortune plot. You know? The Prisoner of Zenda . We put John Houston to work. For us.’

‘And how would that work? He’s a wanted man.’

‘In a way, that’s not true. John Houston no longer exists. John is using a false passport. That’s how we’re getting around without any trouble. At the moment he’s someone called Charles Hanway.’

‘I might have known he’d have done something like that. Yes, I remember him getting that passport for research when he wrote whichever fucking book it was. And he employed the Forsyth method to get it. So that’s how he’s managed to evade capture. He’s nothing if not resourceful, is our John.’

‘My plan is this: we get Charles back to England and we put him up at my place in Cornwall. It’s so out of the way that everything but the rain avoids the fucking place. John keeps that beard going until he looks like all of the other hobbits who live down there. He’d be like the man in the iron mask. He stays there and continues to do what he does best, which is to write story outlines for us. And then we write the actual books. Simple as that. Just like before. Only this time it will be us who reap the benefits. We’ll pay him what he used to pay us. Just enough to enable him to live, reasonably, in Cornwall. Which is to say not very much. Meanwhile you and I will become Philip Irvine — a pseudonym for our writing partnership. I would say Don French, but there’s Dawn French, of course. And we wouldn’t want to be confused with her. Not to mention another pseudonymous writing partnership called French: Nicci French.’