Research (20 page)

‘Yes. We are going somewhere.’

‘Where? Do tell? But it will have to be somewhere better than this. I’m feeling just a bit like
Le Grand Meaulnes
now that the prospect of leaving this particular lost domain has been mooted.’

‘When we first talked, John, you mentioned trying to find Colette Laurent.’

‘Yes. I did.’

‘I think that’s a good idea. I think it’s best to be proactive in this situation. Everything else I can think of involves doing nothing very much except sit here on our arses. You said this girl had family in Marseille, so that’s where I think we should go and search for her.’

‘Okay, Popeye, but the trouble is Marseille is a city of one and a half million frogs and I don’t have an address.’

‘That’s a pity.’

‘But I do know where I could find one. In her apartment.’

‘At the Tour Odéon? In Monaco?’

‘Of course, she might actually be there. Just not answering her phone. Wouldn’t that be interesting? But her iPad was lying on the kitchen worktop when I left. That’s got her diary on it. And an address book. We might also look for her Apple Mac. The one I bought her. If it’s not there we’ll know for sure she’s not dead.’

‘How’s that?’

‘She took it everywhere. It had her whole life on it.’

Don was nodding, thoughtfully. ‘It’s risky.’

I shrugged. ‘Yes, but it’s almost the last place the Monty cops will expect to find me. And after all I still have a key for her apartment. Not to mention a pass for the Odéon’s underground garage. If we wait until this afternoon before we leave, we can arrive in Monaco when it’s dark. There’s less chance of me being recognized then.’

Don shook his head. ‘There’s no question of you going in the building. That would be crazy. You can wait in that wop restaurant around the corner you mentioned before.’

‘Il Giardino.’

‘I’ll go in your building, fetch her iPad from the apartment, and her laptop if it’s there. Then we can get the hell out of Monaco. Spend the night in a hotel in Beausoleil, finding an address on Colette’s iPad. And head to Marseille in the morning.’

‘Using what? Your hired car?’

‘Of course. Why not?’

‘We can do better than that, I think. And as a matter of fact, I rather think we should.’

After breakfast I led Don to Mechanic’s garage, opened the side door, and switched on the light to reveal a whole series of
Top Gear
: Ferraris, Astons, Lamborghinis, Bentleys, there was even a Bugatti Veyron. ‘Bob Mechanic’s an even bigger petrol-head than I am.’

‘Magnificent,’ said Don. ‘It’s like Jay Leno’s garage. Christ, there must be at least a million quid’s worth of cars in here.’

‘Two million. You’re forgetting the Veyron.’

‘He won’t mind if you borrow one of these?’

‘Mechanic is worth at least a couple of billion dollars. He once left a new Porsche Turbo in the car park at Nice airport and forgot all about it. By the time he remembered he’d run up a bill for almost seven thousand quid. So, no, he won’t mind at all. Anyway, I have the best part of two million quid invested in his Mechanism fund. If we wreck his fucking car he can deduct the cost from my year-end dividend. Besides, if we’re going to drive into the Tour Odéon, we’d better do it in a car that looks like it belongs there. And that also means we’d better stay somewhere other than
Beausoleil. Èze, probably. I hear Le Château Chèvre d’Or is pretty good. I should think they’re used to smart cars there. And in Marseille, we’d better stay at Villa Massalia; they have an excellent business centre. It actually works, unlike most business centres in France. It’s just the spot to do a bit of research, if necessary.’

‘Makes sense.’

‘We’ll drop your car off at the airport and take the A1 out of Geneva.’ I watched as Don ran his hand along the wing of the Bugatti, open-mouthed with envy. ‘But not this one, obviously. Even in Monaco this will attract a lot of attention. I think we’d better borrow the Bentley. They’re ten a penny on the Côte d’Azur. And unlike the Ferrari the boot offers room for more than just a tart’s clean panties.’

‘One thing before we go, John.’

Don was looking grave again. Resentful, even. To be honest, it was his natural default expression, but on this occasion he had also deployed an accusatory forefinger, like I was a soldier in his platoon who was now on report.

‘What’s that, old sport?’

‘I want your word of honour. Yesterday, when I said that I didn’t care if you killed your wife or not, it didn’t, but I think it matters now, if I’m going to help you like this, don’t you? I think it matters a lot. So I want your word that you didn’t murder Orla. If it doesn’t sound too much like a cliché I want to be sure that I’m not helping a murderer to escape justice instead of enabling an innocent man to find it. That you’re not making a complete fucking chump out of me,
old sport
.’

In my head I tapped a little tuning fork, stood it on the rough surface of my conscience and listened to the clear, true sound of the times when I had been less than honest with
poor Don Irvine. He was quite right of course – what he’d said about me the previous day. On occasion I
had
behaved badly toward him just the way Harry Lime had behaved to Holly Martins in
The Third Man
: not like a real friend at all; there had been several times when I had treated Don like a chump. He’d chosen exactly the right word. Times when I’d regarded him as someone to use and exploit and ultimately betray. I don’t know how else you can describe paying him so very, very little to do something for which I was being paid so much. I felt bad about that now – especially now that I desperately needed him to help me. For a moment I considered a confession and an apology for all those years when I’d taken ruthless advantage of him, but the words melted in my mouth, and when I swallowed, they were gone, like a single Malteser. Of course, he was right, it did sound exactly like a cliché, but I could see that he really did need to know I was innocent and so I did my best to look honest, and steadfast. This is certainly not
my
natural default expression. I’m much too much of a cynic to look anything but world-weary and contemptuous – even Orla had accused me of smirking at her in front of the altar on our wedding day, as if I’d been amused at her dress; she was wrong, of course; she’d looked wonderful; all the same I’d had the devil of a job to assure her that this was just the way my face was – but for a brief moment I think I did manage to appear to be as honourable and trustworthy as Don seemed to require me to be. I thought that was best.

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I understand perfectly. And I certainly don’t blame you for asking, old sport. I rather think I would, if I was in your shoes. So, to answer your question: no, I did
not murder Orla. On my honour, Don. On a stack of bibles, Don. I’m innocent. I’m guilty of a lot of things – you know that more than anyone. But a murderer I’m not.’

‘All right.’ He smiled. ‘That’s all I need to know.’

And then we shook hands on it, just to make sure the bond of trust was firmly there between us.

It was almost three o’clock on Saturday afternoon when after returning the hire car at Cointrin Airport, we got into the leather-lined passenger cabin of the blue Bentley and, with me at the wheel, started for Monaco. We were soon driving in France. John talked incessantly, excited and happy to be doing something, but his voice was full of anxiety about exactly what we would find in Colette’s apartment and whether or not we could pull off our plan without being arrested and put in prison. With the hood down and wearing Mechanic’s expensive sunglasses – there were several pairs of Persols in the glovebox – we must have looked the very picture of two rich, carefree Swiss friends driving down to the Côte d’Azur or perhaps the Italian Riviera, for the weekend. This was an image we were content to hide behind. A clear and innocent conscience fears nothing, and that’s usually the best way to behave when you have committed or are committing a serious crime. And I know what I’m talking about. After all, I’d been feigning innocence for weeks.

Ever since I murdered Orla.

You might have thought that play-acting has its limits – that it’s only too easy to become weary of constant dissimulation and to get caught out in a lie; but this simply isn’t true. Once you commit to an egregious deception – really
commit to it – there’s very little that can break your resolve. The fact is that it’s exactly as Joseph Goebbels said: if you tell a big enough lie and keep repeating it people will eventually come to believe it. The evidence of this was right beside me, in the passenger seat, in the person of John Houston, who was much too naïve ever to have asked me the same question I had asked him. He really did believe I was his protector – the solid, dependable type with a stiff upper lip you see in so many old British films, when in truth I was more of the James Steerforth sort who turns out to have run off with Little Emily. Or put a bullet in her head. And it struck me as ironic, but the man with all the imagination didn’t seem to have considered the possibility that the true author of his misfortunes was not some Pakistani arms dealer, some local hedge-fund scammer, or even a Russian mafioso; it was me, his oldest friend. But there’s a coda to what Goebbels said: the fact is if you tell a big enough lie and keep repeating it, after a while you start to believe that lie yourself. In fact that’s almost necessary if you stand any chance of getting away with it. Honestly, there were plenty of times since my arrival in Geneva when I’d managed to convince myself of the possibility that John might actually have murdered his wife just so that I could look him straight in the eye and treat him exactly like the prime suspect the Monty police thought he was. But if you’re going to kill your friend’s wife and make out that he did it, you have to become a good dissembler: the need to smile and smile and be a villain is found on page one of the Sparknotes on how to play the scoundrel.

‘The quickest route back to Monaco,’ explained John, ‘is via Italy and the A10. We go right through the Alps. Should take us about five hours. It’s one of my favourite drives in the world. Especially in summer. It’s interesting how most of
these ski resorts – Chamonix, Courmayeur, Aosta – look completely different at this time of year. And there’s a very good hotel-restaurant in Vercelli we should stop at – the Cinzia – where they serve twenty different kinds of risotto. You’ll love it, Don. Years ago, I had this thing with an Italian publisher who worked for Mondadori – the publishing house in Milan – and that’s where we used to meet. Lovely she was; I think her name was Domitilla.’

‘Not exactly the sort of name you forget,’ I said.

‘Monaco is only sixteen kilometres from Italy and there have been a lot of Italians in my life, one way or another. Sometimes I wonder how I didn’t marry one. I used to go there on the
Lady Schadenfreude
a lot. To Portofino, Santa Margherita.’

‘You’ve led a charmed life,’ I said. ‘And no mistake.’

‘Until now. If I go down for this it will be my only compensation, old sport. That at least I’ll have lived life to the full, you know?’

‘Anyone can say that, surely.’

‘Yes, but I can say it and mean it. Like Roy Batty in
Blade Runner
. “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.”’

‘“Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion”.’ I laughed. ‘But if I’m “you people” that must make you a replicant. One thing’s for sure: you’re just as fucking ruthless as Roy Batty.’

‘Me? Ruthless? That’s not how I see myself at all.’

‘John, the last time the two of us were in a car on a French autoroute like this you told me you were closing down the
atelier
for no other reason than you wanted to leave Monaco and watch bloody Chelsea play football. You knew the damage and disarray that this would cause to those around you: all the people who would lose their jobs because of your decision, the effect it would have on VVL’s share-price, the
friendships it was probably going to cost you; but you still went ahead and did it. I seem to recall you even rather relished the damage it might do to poor old Hereward. To say nothing of the damage you must have known it was going to do to me. Now that’s what I call fucking ruthless.’

‘But I compensated everyone, didn’t I? In what way was I ruthless?’

I paused for a moment as I steered the big Bentley into a slower lane. A big truck crept along the near side and the driver’s mate stared down at me. From the look on his dark, unshaven face I was just some rich bastard in a Bentley with no idea of what it was like to really work for a living. His arm was hanging out of the open window and I was close enough to see the pink, bubble-gum patch of eczema on his elbow and the cigarette in his thick, yellowish fingers, but he might as well have been on another planet; there was nothing about what I had to say to John that would have made sense to him and I knew instinctively that he dearly wanted to treat the Bentley like a large, expensive ashtray and tip his fag ash onto our heads. In his position it’s what I would have done. It’s what anyone would do.

‘The trouble with you, John, is that you think that the answer to every problem is to throw money at it.’

‘That’s bollocks.’

‘Really? Has it occurred to you that your relationship with Travis might have been better if you’d just spent more time with the boy and less money trying to please him?’

‘Let’s leave my son out of this, okay, old sport? This has got nothing to do with Travis. And exactly what damage did my closing down the
atelier
do to you? You had the best compensation package of anyone, Don.’

‘John. You weren’t listening. For me and the people like
me – Peter Stakenborg and Philip French – the money was irrelevant. Surely it must have occurred to you that none of us has ever been able to make a decent living from his writing on our own? When you closed the
atelier
you extinguished the flame that we called an artistic life. You took away all our dreams that we could be something other than nine-to-five men who were part of the awful rat-race called full-time employment – that we too were writers and part of the exclusive club that’s London literary society. It’s one thing to take away a man’s livelihood, John; it’s something else to shatter his dreams. And there’s no amount of money can compensate for something as terrible as that.’