Philip Kerr - False Nine

I went back and fetched the abandoned mattress — but not without getting thoroughly wet from a particularly vigorous wave — and bent it over the coils of barbed wire. With this simple precaution I easily climbed over the gate and dropped onto a concrete path that led up to a series of steps. Near the top of these was a low rectangular building from which emanated a flickering blue light. A few seconds later I was standing beside a sliding glass door. I peered around the edge to see Jérôme 1 watching a movie on television — Goodfellas — and eating a meal off the tray brought to him by Charlotte who now seemed to have gone. He wasn’t wearing an iron mask but a large set of Beats headphones which adorned his unwitting skull as if he’d hoped to prevent the sound of the TV from reaching my inquisitive ears.

I paused to observe his demeanour. It was almost astonishing how alike the two brothers were. But for the absent earrings and watch I would have sworn that this was the same man I had just seen asleep in the master bedroom. He was wearing a Barcelona football shirt and a pair of white jeans. He didn’t look like a prisoner, however. He was laughing; Joe Pesci was in the middle of his ‘I’m funny how?’ scene. Jérôme was too relaxed, too much at home in his comfortable surroundings to look like he was in any kind of trouble. I pushed gently on the polished steel handle of the sliding glass door, just to see if it was open. It was, which proved simultaneously that this man was certainly no prisoner.

‘Fucking bastard,’ I muttered.

The headphones Jérôme 1 was wearing now served my purpose, and a minute or so later I had crept into the room and seated myself silently in an Eames chair immediately behind the sofa on which, deeply absorbed in his movie, he was still ensconced. I could even hear the dialogue in the Beats. I smiled bitterly to myself. I was going to enjoy this moment; no one likes to be hoodwinked. I now had the irrefutable evidence of the existence of Jérôme 2’s twin brother. Evidence I was now determined to make the most of, like Hercule Poirot in the big reveal scene at the end of some crappy movie.

Finally, he took off his headphones, dropped them onto the sofa and just sat there, quite still, as if he suspected he was no longer alone; my aftershave, probably. Creed. It is, as James Bond observes to Mr Wint in Diamonds are Forever , ‘rather potent’. A few seconds more passed like this and then he turned slowly around and met my eyes. For a moment I thought he was going to shit himself.

‘It’s not how it looks,’ he said, quietly.

‘I suppose I should have suspected something like this, given that your name is Dumas,’ I said. ‘What, is your dad related, perhaps? To the famous French author of The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers and yes, The Man in the Iron Mask? Is that where you got this idea, do you think? By the way, Alexandre Dumas was a proper author. Not like that irritating velvet-rope revolutionary you seem to admire so much. Now that we’re all out in the open I can tell you what I really think about Russell Brand. I can’t stand him. All the same, I wonder what he would make of this situation. Are dishonest bankers any worse than dishonest footballers?’ I sighed. ‘Anyway, Dumas would certainly have loved this story. It’s got everything.’

Jérôme 1 said nothing.

‘Incidentally, he was black too. Dumas. His father was from Haiti. A little-known fact that people often tend to forget. Or perhaps they’re just not aware of it. The black count, the French used to call him. At least I think that’s what they called him. Lucky that he wasn’t playing for Queens Park Rangers against Chelsea, eh? John Terry might have called him something else. What do you think? I mean, you’d be the man to ask.’ I smiled thinly. ‘Forgive my manners but I’m just a bit pissed off to discover that you and your twin brother have been playing me for a cunt. And after all your earlier protestations of honesty. That hurts. I mean, I really did come here to help you and now I find that you’ve been taking advantage of me.’

‘It’s not how it looks at all,’ he repeated.

‘Isn’t it?’ I grinned. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, you mean there’s actually a plausible explanation that makes this all right? At the risk of being played for a cunt again, why don’t you tell me what that is? Fess up, son. Or is telling the truth just something that’s just way beyond your abilities? Only I feel I should warn you. My patience is almost gone. If what you tell me sounds or smells like bullshit I shall walk out of here, get on that plane and go home by myself. And you can stay here and rot on this grubby little island. Like fucking Napoleon.’

‘It’s like this,’ said Jérôme. ‘You see—’

‘No, wait a moment. I’d like Tweedledum to be there when Tweedledee starts to talk. I mean, I’ve no way of knowing which of you is the real deal. Come on. Let’s go and wake him up. I want to make sure I get more than fifty per cent of the story. Maybe he’ll contradict you. Who knows? I somehow got the impression earlier that Jérôme Dumas is not such a great guy. That he’s a selfish prick.’

We left the beach house and walked up the lawn to the main building.

‘By the way, what’s your brother’s name? Is he Jérôme Dumas, or is that you?’

‘I’m Jérôme. His name is Philippe. Philippe is older than me by about five minutes. And wiser, too, probably.’

‘That makes us practically related.’

Jérôme was about to go upstairs and fetch his twin brother when I caught sight of the Mont Blanc on the table where I’d left it last night.

‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘Let me see the palm of your right hand.’

He hesitated.

‘It’s all right,’ I said, picking up the pen. ‘Much as I’d like to, I’m not going to stab you with this. I just want to make sure who I’m talking to.’

He held out his hand; there was still some ink on his forefinger. But I still wrote a large letter ‘J’ onto the back of his hand blew on it to help dry it off, and then inspected my handiwork.

‘There. That should keep things straight for a while. I wouldn’t like you two bastards to work a switch on me again. Now go and get your doppel-fucking-ganger and let’s see what’s what. And don’t take long about it. I’m in no mood to be patient here. Come on, move it. If I had a football boot in my hand I’d throw it at you, kid. I really would.’

Oddly, I hadn’t met many twins since leaving school, but I’d never met twins who looked as alike as these two did. Two peas in a pod just about covers it, provided you could find two peas that were also perfect specimens of pea. There’s something weird about some twins — but not these twins, who were both perfect physical specimens. My earlier, conceited confidence ebbed away more than just a little as the two men came downstairs and faced me silently, as if intent on convincing me that I might be seeing double.

In spite of all this it didn’t go unnoticed by me that Philippe Dumas was holding a large hunting knife in his hand. There was a line of sweat beads on his forehead and the muscles in his neck and arms looked about as tense as steel hawsers. And there was a meanness in his brown eyes I hadn’t seen before.

Suddenly I began to perceive the obvious difficulty in my situation. Apart from Grace Doughty, no one knew where I was. Barcelona had sent a jet to meet me at the airport, in Pointe-à-Pitre, but other than that they really hadn’t a clue as to my exact whereabouts. My email to Jacint had informed him only of the circumstances surrounding Jérôme’s disappearance — which bore no relation to the present facts. I hadn’t thought to give them an exact address for the simple reason I didn’t know what it was. For all they and PSG knew I could have been anywhere on the islands, which have a land area of more than sixteen hundred square kilometres, much of it jungle-covered hills.