Philip Kerr - Research

‘Thanks, Don, but no. It’s a kind offer and I wish you success with it, only I’m through with writing; even if I wasn’t washed up as a writer I’m not sure I could take the pressure of writing two books a year. Not any more. But don’t worry. I won’t tell a soul. Your secret is safe with me.’ He grinned. ‘Besides, it’s so far-fetched who would believe me? Seriously though. Mum’s the word.’

I nodded. ‘I know that, Phil.’

Of course, I didn’t know it at all; I was thinking, ‘Once a blackmailer, always a blackmailer,’ and I could see no option now but to kill Phil as I had killed Colette. That’s the trouble with murder. There’s an exponential factor — the same one that Macbeth encounters. Blood will have blood. If I didn’t kill Philip French then I would have killed both Orla and Colette for nothing. Because this had always been my goal, to have John working for me, just as I’d once worked for him. There was nothing spontaneous about this plan. I’d been working toward this ever since John had closed the atelier . The idea I’d just outlined to Phil had been quite genuine; even the offer I’d made him — that he and I should become writing partners — had been real. At the same time, ever since our unexpected meeting at the Château Saint-Martin I’d always known that killing Philip French was also a possibility; and now that I’d seen the email he’d written — but not sent — to his wife, Caroline, I recognized an opportunity to turn his death to my immediate advantage.

John would cease to be wanted by the Monty police if someone else was held responsible for Orla’s murder. Not to mention Colette’s.

I leaned forward on the desk chair and pointed at the Eames lounger.

‘Sit down,’ I told him. ‘I want to say one more thing and then I’ll leave you alone.’

He nodded and sat down on the Eames.

‘When I’ve got the box and the papers, for the watch, I’ll FedEx them here. All right? I wouldn’t be surprised if the name of Ciribelli, the jewellers, is on them. So that should make things easier for you to get a decent sum for the Hublot.’

‘Thanks a lot, Don.’

‘And by the way, when you’ve got the money promise me that you’ll fix yourself up. Buy some new clothes. Get a haircut. See a dentist. And quickly. All that dope you’re smoking is affecting your gums.’

‘It is?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’

‘It’s been a while since I could afford to see a dentist.’

‘They’re receding badly.’

Philip French touched his mouth.

‘It’s the first thing I noticed when I saw you again, Phil. You know it looks to me that you’re suffering from the same thing Martin Amis had back in 1995, when he spent twenty grand on his teeth. You remember that? Talk about a mountain out of a molehill. The chattering classes thought it was vanity, but of course it wasn’t; it was gum disease: Marty smokes roll-ups just like you. So, see a dentist, Phil. And soon. You wouldn’t want to get an abscess, would you? I’m not so sure you don’t already have one on the way — your face is looking just a little puffy on one side.’

‘What are you, my dentist?’

‘No.’ I smiled thinly. ‘But you’re forgetting that I once studied dentistry. So just occasionally I let my white tunic show.’

‘I thought it was law you studied.’

‘Don’t you think I remember what degree I started?’

‘I didn’t know they did dentistry at Oxford.’

‘They don’t. I was at Cambridge. I couldn’t afford to finish my studies so then I joined the army. That’s why they put me on a toothpaste account when I went into advertising. Because I’d been a dental student.’

French nodded firmly as if he actually recalled my fictional early career as a dental student and said, ‘Yes, I remember now.’

‘It taught me one thing,’ I said. ‘Dentistry, I mean. Not the army. That didn’t teach me anything. Dentistry taught me that there’s so much physiological health that relates to the state of our oral hygiene. Did you know that a lot of heart disease is caused by dental caries? It’s true. Simple flossing is a much more effective way of preventing a heart attack than cutting down on cholesterol. So, if I were you I’d get that swelling seen to as soon as possible, mate. If that’s what it is. I can’t be entirely sure from where I’m sitting.’

Philip French was exploring the state of his gums with his tongue.

‘Look, forget I said anything. It’s probably nothing at all. These things usually are.’

‘Would you take a quick look before you go?’

I shrugged. ‘Really, I’m not qualified, Phil. You should see a professional. If there is the beginning of an abscess you’ll need it properly drained and you’ll need an antibiotic. To stop an infection. Amoxicillin is generally prescribed and is very effective. But if it starts to become painful Nurofen is probably best.’

I knew all this because I’d already endured treatment for a dental abscess the previous summer. As John used to say, in preparing one of his story outlines, ‘There’s no research quite as effective as something you’ve experienced yourself.’

‘Just humour me, Don, please. Just take a quick look and see what you think.’

‘All right. But let me fetch a flashlight from my bag so I can see what’s what.’ I frowned. ‘Have you got any mouthwash?’

‘There’s this,’ he said and held up a bottle of scotch.

‘That’ll have to do.’

We both took a swig and I collected the Tumi bag off the floor.

‘Just lean back on the recliner,’ I said. ‘Now then, open wide and let me take a look.’

He leaned back and opened his mouth.

‘Wider.’

Behind my back I thumbed down the hammer on John’s Walther .22 and slipped off the safety catch. I knew there was already one in the chamber because I’d seen him lock and load the gun when we were on the autoroute. Obviously I’d have preferred a 38 — or better still Hemingway’s twelve-gauge — to shoot a man in the head; and I certainly wouldn’t have trusted a .22 to trepan a male skull; but the soft palate at the back of his mouth was a different story: that was just muscle fibres sheathed in mucus membrane, after which the next stop was a really thin piece of bone the name of which I couldn’t remember, and then the hypothalamus. A lot depends on the ammunition of course; but for what I had in mind the .22 would do just fine.

‘Wider.’

I put the muzzle inside Philip’s mouth — he probably thought it was a flashlight — and quickly squeezed the trigger, shooting him, Hitler style, like he’d actually meant to commit suicide. His body went into spasm for a moment as if the neurons that controlled his nerves had been fried with electricity; his eyes filled with blood and other stuff, and his legs twitched violently for several seconds — so violently that I was obliged to hold them down for fear that he might fall off the recliner and ruin the death scene I’d so carefully contrived. Then his head rolled slowly to one side. After another moment or two his breathing became laboured and messy as blood and cerebrospinal fluid started to drain through the open wound in the palate of his mouth, straight down his throat and into his lungs. A pink bubble formed on his lips and began to enlarge as if it was being inflated by some hidden pump. His chest was struggling to get a hold on the atmosphere. I stood back and waited for the bubble to burst and for him to drown.

As always when I kill someone I felt a tremendous sense of cosmic connection to the world, as vivid and sharply defined as if I had touched the forefinger of my maker. A South Bank Show moment. I don’t normally believe in God, but it’s at moments like these that I do experience a timeless force in the world that is Life itself. You only have to see a human life ebbing away in front of you to feel a tremendous relationship with all of nature, not just the omnipresent cicadas and the strong smell of violets in the air, but the shimmering leaves on the olive trees and the stars in the sky. It is as if life is enhanced and amplified to an almost deafening maximum by the witnessing of its departure. Human existence asserts itself most vigorously in the face of death. I expect that’s why men and women used to attend public executions — as if, in an uncertain world, it was only by seeing someone put to death that they themselves could feel the truly fantastic sensation that is life itself. It is the most beautiful and shattering experience to find yourself so strongly underlined like a great passage of writing in a book that otherwise can sometimes feel just a little ordinary. That’s a shocking admission, I know; but I feel true clarity most when I have a smoking gun in my hand. I’ve noticed how people in movies always do it with a long face and then beat themselves up about it afterward; that’s not how it is at all. From everything I’ve read, most people get off on killing someone. Me, I was grinning like a loon. So much so I felt obliged to offer some sort of explanation to someone I’d known for more than a decade.