by Philip Kerr
‘I already considered that, and the answer is no.’
‘Why not?’
‘Look, Don, I don’t want to go into any details right now. What I want to say is this: I know you might think I let you down and maybe I did and I’m sorry about it. But you’re the only one who can help me. You’re the only person I can trust, old sport. I need a favour. A big favour. And it’s the kind of favour you simply won’t be able to do if you set up a Skype call between me and those two Monty cops, because if that happens then it stands to reason the British police will start watching you in the hope you’ll lead them to me.’
‘I get it. I’m to come and see you, is that it? Sure. Just tell me where you are and I’m there.’
‘Look, I know this is asking a lot. You’ll be aiding and abetting a serious crime and subject to prosecution. If you were found guilty you could go to prison, Don.’
‘What am I, Forrest Gump? John, I trained to be a lawyer, remember? Say what you want me to do and then you can read me the Miranda.’
‘There’s a sort of box containing some stuff which I’d like you to pick up and bring to me here.’
‘You mean like a safety deposit box?’
John laughed. ‘Jesus, Don, that stuff is strictly for the Ludlum movies. Nobody bothers with safety deposit boxes these days. At least no one who wants to keep things secret. For one thing you can’t trust any of the fucking banks to keep their mouths shut – least of all the Swiss ones. And for another I happen to know of at least two Liechtenstein banks that are under constant surveillance by the CIA – I mean you walk out of some of these places it’s like the red fucking carpet. You might as well pause and smile and tell the folks watching back home that Domenico Vacca made your fucking tuxedo. No, if you really want to keep your stuff safe and secret you use a self-storage facility. And it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than a fucking bank, too. UK has eight hundred self-storage facilities – more than the rest of Europe put together. It’s a 350 million pound a year industry in Great Britain alone and there’s no way that any law enforcement agencies can keep eyes on them. Al-Qaeda probably has shares in these companies.’
I laughed. The way John talked sometimes, it was like reading one of his novels.
‘So, here’s what you do,’ he said. ‘You drive to Big Yellow Self Storage on Townmead Road in Fulham. Next to the Harbour Club where I used to be a member.’
‘I know it.’
‘I rent twenty-five square feet of storage space on the first floor. Number F14. And that’s where you’ll find this box. The pin number to get in the place is 1746, Battle of Culloden, so a Jock like you shouldn’t have any trouble remembering it. And there’s free parking so it won’t cost you a penny either. There’s a combination padlock on the door. It’s another Scottish defeat. Flodden Field, 1513. Anyone asks you – not that they will – then the space is rented to a Mr Hanway. You’ll see that your name is also on the system. A little precaution I took at the time. In the storage space you’ll find a box. Really, it’s more of a foot locker. Or a small trunk. The combination on that lock is Bannockburn. 1314.’
‘So what’s in the box?’
‘You could call it research, I suppose. You know how I always tried to get things right – how far I would go. Yes, of course you do. Sometimes a little too far, right? I got myself a fake British passport and driver’s licence, sourced an illegal handgun, and bought some of the last US Treasury bearer bonds. I broke a few laws in the cause of checking out what was actually possible, sure. But that’s what made the books work; because the stories were watertight. I always figured that if I got caught doing any of that shit I’d deploy the Forsyth defence. I’d get my lawyer to say that I was merely practising the same research techniques used in undercover journalism – in the same way that Freddie did when he wrote The Day of the Jackal. Of course, I never did get caught; and I held on to the stuff for what you might call romantic reasons. I mean I suppose I always rather fancied myself as Jason Bourne. Anyway, that’s what’s in the box, old sport. A thriller writer’s career contraband. Look, bring the cash and the documents – in fact bring everything except the gun and the bonds. Yes, you’d best toss the gun in the river. But inside a Mont Blanc Meisterstück pen you’ll find there are some conflict diamonds, so for Christ’s sake don’t try to use it to sign anything.’
‘How much cash?’
‘There’s about a hundred grand in euros.’
‘Suppose they see it on the X-ray?’
‘They won’t. It’s all new 500-euro notes. So, you buy a copy of a nice big history book. Something thick and very worthy-looking by Max Hastings or Antony Beevor. One banknote between two pages. Simple as that. Besides, the law says that you can actually move as much cash as you like around the EU. You only need a cash declaration form if you’re leaving or entering the EU and it’s more than ten thousand euros. But even so, you wouldn’t want to have to explain it to them because then the Revenue would want to know where you got a hundred K. So best use the book.’
‘Okay, I get your box. Then what do I do?’
‘Wait for the Monty cops to fly home, just in case they have any more questions for you; and then come and see me here. Use some of the cash to pay your expenses. Air fare. Car hire at the airport. Just make sure you’re not followed.’
‘Where?’
‘Geneva.’
‘Hang on, that isn’t actually in the EU.’
‘Depends what exit you choose at Geneva airport, doesn’t it? There’s a Swiss side and there’s a French side. Look, the worst that can happen is that they’ll confiscate the money. Which isn’t yours anyway. So don’t worry about it.’
‘All right.’
John gave me the address and phone number. ‘I’ve been staying here on and off since I closed the atelier. To write my book. The place belongs to a hedgie I know. I keep a few million in his fund so he’s cool about me being here. He’s in the Antarctic, right now. On some charity expedition to drive across the continent. At one stage I was going to go with him. I wish to Christ I had. Anyway, he won’t be back for months.’
‘I should have guessed you were there.’
‘Look, call me when you get to Geneva. It’s about a thirty-minute drive to the house from the airport.’
‘Okay.’
John nodded silently. For a moment he looked overcome; then he said, ‘Don. Thanks, old sport. I really appreciate this.’
‘I doubt that. I really do, John. But you can rely on me. I’ll be there.’
I clicked the mouse and ended the Skype call while he was still staring sincerely into the camera on his laptop and trying to look properly grateful but not bringing it off.
CHAPTER 5
A few days later I took the 14.00 British Airways flight to Geneva. For a change I flew Business Class. I figured John could afford it. As well as five stones in his Mont Blanc that were each about a carat in size and probably worth at least thirty thousand pounds, the box at the lock-up in Townmead Road had contained 100,000 euros in cash. At Cointrin Airport I breathed a sigh of relief that I had arrived ‘without let or hindrance’ as a British passport has it. I called John on a payphone to let him know I’d landed and then went to the Avis desk to rent a car. I had to use my own credit card for that, so I chose something small – a VW Golf – just in case I ended up doing more driving than I anticipated. But in the car I helped myself to a generous amount of John’s folding to cover a week’s car hire and petrol and then keyed the address he’d given me on the phone into the satnav. The highlighted route away from the airport took me east onto Lake Geneva and then north along the Quai de Coligny.
I’ve never liked Geneva that much. Before going up to Cambridge I went to summer school at the University of Geneva for six weeks to improve my French, fell in love with a peach of a girl from Italy called Ernestina who wasn’t in love with me, and had a thoroughly miserable time. And when I was still in advertising I went to the Geneva Motor Show with some suits from the agency to
view a range of shitty French cars before we pitched for the manufacturer’s account; we didn’t get it. These days I associate Geneva with EasyJet flight delays at the end of ski holidays that had already proved disappointing, or ludicrously expensive, or both. It’s hard to feel enthusiastic about a city that was once home to a bigot like John Calvin and which in le jet d’eau has a landmark that resembles nothing so much as a giant stream of piss.
Twenty-eight minutes from the airport (Rolex time), the village of Collonge-Bellerive is one of the most exclusive places to live in the world, not just Geneva. Houses on the lakeshore cost anything up to sixty million euros. I knew that because I’d been on a website called The Leading Properties of the World and I’d also explored the area a bit on Google Maps. From the air the house where John was holed up, on Chemin Armand Dufaux, was surrounded with trees and looked like a small hunting lodge, but only if you were the Crown Prince of Austria. With its own jetty and boat house, a box-hedge maze, and a drive longer than the Hadron Collider, the red-roofed manor house was as cosy and private as a ruby ring in a green velvet box; Martin Bormann could have been living there and no one would have known, or cared. The Swiss are like that. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you did somewhere else just as long as you wipe your shoes and wash your hands before you walk off the plane.
I pulled up in front of an impressive-looking gate, leaned out of the car window, tapped the number John had given me into the security keypad and waited to be admitted. A camera moved, the lens twisting as it focused on my face.
‘It’s me,’ I said. ‘Don Irvine.’
Minutes later I was approaching the house.
‘Jesus,’ I exclaimed as the real scale of the place became more apparent to me. ‘What is this place? East Egg?’
In front of the house was a courtyard that lacked only Captain Dreyfus and a full court martial while the enormous, dihedral roof properly belonged on the massif of a small Alpine range. As I stepped out of the car the front door opened to reveal not a count or a baron, nor for that matter a cadaverous butler, but John Houston wearing a tweed suit and a big smile, and looking more than a little like Toad of Toad Hall. He tap-danced his way down the stone steps to the door of my car and shook me firmly by the hand.
‘Don,’ he said, fondly. ‘I appreciate you coming all this way to help me try to unfuck my life.’
‘That’s okay, Mr Hanway,’ I said, pointedly. ‘And it makes a pleasant change for me to try and unfuck someone’s life.’
‘You brought my passport and driving licence?’
‘Of course. I was wondering why you picked that name.’
‘Charles Hanway?’ He shrugged. ‘I didn’t pick it. Not exactly. That’s not how it works, old sport. You have to find some poor bastard about the same age who died young. And apply for a new birth certificate in his name. So you can then apply for the passport. The police do it themselves when they want to go and work undercover. At least, that’s what The Guardian says.’
‘Only you picked someone who was a bit younger, I see.’
‘Why not? Applying for a false passport is an excellent way of knocking a few years off your mug. Cheaper than surgery. You know, there’s a small part of me that’s going to enjoy being someone else for a while. Come in and have a drink and I’ll show you around Xanadu.’
‘Who owns this place?’
‘A fellow named Bob Mechanic. He runs a hedge fund in Geneva called The Mechanism. It’s one of those funds run by a series of algorithms that no one understands which adds up to a licence to print money. Last time I looked in Forbes he was worth about two billion dollars.’
‘Two billion’s a figure I can understand. He’s the guy driving across Antarctica, right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Sounds like a useful friend to have.’
John led me into a large hallway which was dominated by the sculpture – if that’s the right word – of a seated golden nude woman with several hundred surgical syringes instead of hair.
‘That’s quite a conversation piece,’ I said.
‘It’s by Mauro Perucchetti,’ said John. ‘Bob is quite a collector. This house is full of modern art. Some of it is worth a small fortune.’
‘This one looks like a bad trip to the hairdressers.’
John laughed and pointed at the large stairway on the opposite side of the hall. ‘She gave me quite a start the other night when I came down here in the dark. Her body is made of Swarovski crystal which was catching the moonlight through the window and makes her look rather ghostly. For a moment I thought it was Orla. I nearly had a heart attack.’
‘Sounds like a guilty conscience. You sure you didn’t shoot her?’
‘Funny, but not funny.’
He led me into a kitchen which could have served a good restaurant and poured me a glass of cold wine from a bottle of Corton-Charlemagne that was cooling in a refrigerator as big as a bank vault. The kitchen was immaculately clean and it was hard to imagine that anyone was actually living here. Even the stainless steel sink was gleaming like a suit of armour at Windsor Castle.
‘Cheers.’ He raised his glass and I caught sight of the massive Hublot on his wrist; it looked like a Range Rover parked on a beach towel.
I drank some of the wine and nodded appreciatively.
‘It’s the ’85,’ he said.
‘I think that being a fugitive has some very obvious advantages if this is what you’re drinking.’
‘There are worse places to go into hiding,’ he admitted. ‘Bob keeps a superb cellar here. I’ll say that for him.’
He was leaning nonchalantly against a white marble worktop except that the nonchalance never lasted for longer than a few seconds. He was too restless to quite pull that off. There was always an oven clock to adjust, a glass to top up, a mark on the marble to wipe, a shirt cuff to correct, and once a handful of vitamins to swallow.
‘I’m taking these because I need to stay sharp,’ he explained. ‘Three times a day. The stress I’ve been under, I haven’t been eating very much.’
‘That would explain why the kitchen is so neat,’ I said. ‘I thought you’d lost a few pounds. It suits you. Unlike that suit.’
‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘Nothing. I’m sure they wear that kind of thing at Bal-moral all the time.’
‘I had to leave Monaco in a bit of a hurry. I was stuck with the winter wardrobe I’d already brought here on a previous trip.’
‘That’s what it looks like.’
He was looking at my cabin luggage.
‘It’s all in there? In that toilet bag you call a suitcase?’
‘Everything except the gun. I chucked that off Putney Bridge. Not that it would have worked anyway.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your nice Brocock Magnum with the inox finish. It had been deactivated.’
‘What? I paid two grand for that off some natty dredd on the Barking Road.’
‘You were done. He saw you coming. He sold you a weapon that was perfectly legal. You’d have needed someone with a lathe and the curiosity of a dead cat to make that thing fire again.’
I laughed and so did John.
‘You’re right. I was so fucking nervous when I bought it that I didn’t think to actually test-fire the thing.’
‘That’s not so easy to do, even in Newham.’
‘So why did you chuck it if it didn’t work?’
‘Because these days the Met is very trigger-happy. They shoot you dead when you’re only carrying a table leg. It’s best not to have anything that even looks like a gun. They shot a blind man the other day because he was carrying a white stick.’
‘Buying a gun is so much easier in Monaco.’
‘Evidently. Or we wouldn’t be talking like this now.’
‘Point taken.’
I put my hand in my jacket and brought out my passport-wallet, from which I withdrew John’s passport and then his driving licence. He frowned.
‘Yo
u brought it through customs like that?’
I shrugged. ‘Of course. Best place for a passport, wouldn’t you say? A passport-holder.’
‘But where’s your own passport?’
‘In my other pocket. They make you take it out of the holder when they look at it anyway. So what the fuck? I figured no one is going to look in the passport-holder if they’re already holding your passport.’ I shrugged. ‘That’s just the Father Brown principle of concealment. G. K. Chesterton? The Innocence of Father Brown?’
John started to nod. ‘Where does a wise man hide a leaf? Sure. I remember.’
He looked at the picture in his false passport and nodded. ‘It’s lucky I wore my glasses and grew a beard for my passport picture.’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Not that I’ve ever dared use this, you know. I mean, I stuck to the Jackal’s recipe, for how to get one. PO Box and everything. I mean it ought to be kosher enough. But I really don’t know for sure.’
‘You could try to assassinate the President of France. That’s one way of finding out if it works like a passport should.’
‘The way things are going there right now, they’d probably give me the Légion d’honneur.’
‘Or you could go back to the UK, like any other British passport holder. That’s probably the best road test you could give it. On the other hand if you want to use it without anyone actually looking at it, then Corfu is your best bet. No one ever looks at your passport when you fly there. The Greeks are glad to see anyone who’s going to spend some money. Robert Mugabe could fly into Corfu without a problem.’
John didn’t answer and I wondered where he was thinking of going. South Africa? Colombia? New Zealand? What was the destination of choice these days for people who wanted to do a Lord Lucan?
I put the Mont Blanc on the worktop and lifted my case onto the kitchen table. I unzipped the case and placed Charles Moore’s biography of Margaret Thatcher in his hands.
