Philip Kerr - Research

‘Sorry, Phil. If you can still hear anything then I just want to say that I didn’t want this at all. You do see that, don’t you? Really. It was a genuine offer I made to you earlier this evening. I’d have much preferred having you as a writing partner, buddy. As it happens I think you were right about that and I was wrong. Now I come to think about it, you were written out. That last novel you wrote for John wasn’t very good. I thought it was just a blip, but John recognized that something more fundamental had happened. So, it looks like I’m going to have to do this by myself, as I don’t much like the idea of sharing anything with Mike Munns. I don’t know about Peter Stakenborg. I’ll have to think about him. He’s harder to control. And I don’t want to do this with anyone I can’t control. That would defeat the whole object of the exercise.’

A sound like the drain in a sink — or perhaps a coffee machine — emanated from the depths of his throat and lasted for almost a minute before, like him, it died. I felt for a pulse, and not finding one I now considered the forensic picture I wanted to paint for the local police, much as I would have done if I’d been writing a novel. The difference was that this was real, although I have usually found that the best way to achieve realism within a text is to imagine oneself carrying out a crime, much like a method actor might have done; in other words, I have always tried to feel what it would be like to have done some dreadful thing in a novel, so much so that I sometimes have trouble separating those people I really killed from those I think I’ve only killed within the context of a story. So I finished my wine, and then began work.

Gunshot residue — GSR — is the burnt and unburnt particles of primer and propellant that are left on a gunman’s hand after a shot has been fired: it’s one of the first things scenes of crime officers look for in determining whether or not someone took their own life with a firearm. So I put the still-cocked automatic in Phil’s right hand and fired the gun out of the open door and into the olive grove. Then I let his arm fall with the gun still in his hand; to my great satisfaction, with his finger hooked through the trigger guard the gun remained firmly in his grip.

Next, I searched carefully for both brass cartridges: two would have made the police suspicious. I didn’t find two, but I found one and pocketed it carefully before seating myself in front of his iMac and typing a few extra lines onto the maudlin and self-pitying email he’d written to his wife Caroline. I added some stuff about John Houston that held him responsible for the things that had gone wrong in Philip’s life; I drew back from a full murder confession, of course. That would have been too much. Then I pressed send.

I wiped the Apple keyboard with some cyber-cleaning compound I found in his desk drawer and then, still carrying my wine glass — which was covered with fingerprints — I went back to the Bentley and dropped the glass into the boot, from where I now retrieved my backpack.

Back on the terrace I retrieved the butt of my cigarette from his ashtray and lit another to help me concentrate. I had all the time in the world, of course. Everything was quiet. The nearest neighbour must have been at least half a kilometre away. There was just the incessant noise of the cicadas and a dog barking in the distance to disturb the peace of the countryside.

Back in the house I placed Colette’s car and door keys in the drawer of a fitted closet in a bedroom upstairs. In another drawer I left her laptop, but not before wiping it carefully, of course. I put her hairbrush beside the sink in the bathroom and one of her lipsticks in the bathroom cabinet. In the kitchen bin I placed the ticket for the parking lot at Terminal 2 of Nice Airport where I had left the Audi and her dead body.

I was on my way out to the garage to add the Tour Odéon in Monaco to the list of favourites on the satnav in Phil’s car when I saw a copy of that day’s Riviera Times on a pile of newspapers by the kitchen door, and I remembered the story about the unidentified body found in the ashes of the forest fire in the forêt de l’Albaréa , near Sospel.

Rereading the story I found that the police thought it unlikely the body would ever be identified, as it was so badly consumed by the enormous heat generated by the fire. This was very much to my advantage. So when I went into the garage to program the satnav I also added the coordinates of Sospel to make it seem as though Phil had visited both of these places. Then I circled the story in the paper and left it where I had found it, on a pile of old newspapers in the kitchen.

It was all circumstantial stuff but, in my experience of dealing with the police — and in particular, the RUC — the circumstances of collecting evidence are such that, short of a full confession on the part of a suspect, there’s seldom any one thing that stands out to the exclusion of everything else. Most cops will tell you that circumstantial evidence will usually do very nicely thank you, and I’d left enough of it scattered around poor Philip’s house to convince Henry Fonda and a whole room full of angry men. As soon as the police located Colette’s body they would conclude that she and French had been co-conspirators; and if I got really lucky they might even conclude that they had killed John and dumped his body in the forêt de l’Albaréa , which was perhaps an hour’s drive north of Monaco.

I went back into Philip’s study to double-check that he was dead. There’s an easy way to do this and it isn’t a pulse. You just put your mobile phone under the victim’s nostrils and then check to see if there’s any condensation on the glass. There wasn’t. He was as dead as the net book agreement.

I pocketed the twenty thousand euros but I left John’s Tumi bag on the floor beside the desk; Tumi luggage and bags all have metal plates containing twenty-digit numbers permanently affixed to a pocket inside so that it’s easy to trace them if they get lost. John’s bag in Philip French’s possession would be another piece of important evidence that he was dead. I’d been with him when he’d bought it in the Hôtel Métropole shopping centre in Monaco.

Another excellent piece of evidence was the million-dollar watch that French had extorted from John; with any luck someone at the Château Saint-Martin or in Tourrettessur-Loup might have seen him actually wearing it. Anyone disposing of John Houston’s body would surely have taken an expensive watch like the Hublot Black Caviar.

But perhaps the best evidence of course was the murder weapon now in Philip’s hand — the same make and calibre of pistol that had been used to murder Colette, not to mention the same ammunition: I’d been quite careful about that.

I walked around the villa trying to think of anything I’d forgotten; but the more I thought about it the more inclined I was to the conclusion that even Inspector Clouseau could have made a good case against Philip French with the picture I’d painted for the local police.

I was about to get back in the car and leave Philip’s villa when my mobile started ringing. To my horror the caller ID said it was Chief Inspector Amalric. I thought about not answering it but then he’d have only rung again; besides, as Michael Corleone once said, ‘Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.’

‘Chief Inspector,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry. I was going to call you, wasn’t I? I completely forgot. I’m afraid it’s been one of those days.’

‘That’s quite all right, monsieur. Geneva must be a lot more interesting on a Sunday than I remember it.’

‘Not nearly as interesting as Monaco. As a matter of fact I’m going back to London, on Tuesday. It would be difficult to meet on Wednesday, but I could meet you any day after that, if you’re still planning on going to London yourself.’