Research (21 page)

‘You’re exaggerating, surely.’

‘Am I? You turned my life upside down, like a bloody egg-timer. One minute I’m going one way and then the next minute I’m going the other. It’s been months now but I still don’t know where I really am. I’ve been trying to write a novel of my own but I’ve got a dreadful feeling I’ve become hopelessly addicted to John Houston’s crack-pipe. That I can’t do it without the stuff you supply. I might end up having to look for a job myself – like Philip French. I might even have to go back to advertising. At my age. Can you imagine how awful that would be? Me writing copy at sixty. Christ, I’d probably have to work on retail, or below the line.’

‘So what do you want me to do about it now? Jesus, Don, you know how to pick your fucking moments.’

‘I want what any friend would want in a situation like this. Some recognition on your part that you behaved like an arsehole. And an apology. After twenty years of loyal service I think I’m entitled to one.’

Of course this wasn’t what I wanted – not in the least – but, before I put into motion the real point of our journey,
it was fun making him jump through yet another hoop like this. Pure sadism on my part.

‘Okay,’ he said impatiently. ‘Yes, you’re right. I was wrong. I behaved badly. And I apologize.’ He paused for a moment. ‘All right?’

I shrugged. ‘It might be, but only if you said it like you mean it.’

Out of the corner of my eye I saw John shrink into the diamond-quilted leather seat and let out a sigh. Then he said:

‘For fuck’s sake, Don, you’ve no idea of the pressure I was under. The pressure to deliver the goods. Again and again. I needed to get out from underneath it all. You remember that scene in
A Clockwork Orange
when Alex and his droogs tip the bookcase on top of poor old Patrick Magee? That’s what it felt like. A man buried under a whole library of fucking books. But, you’re right. I didn’t ever take into account your feelings, Don; and the feelings of everyone else. And I’m truly sorry about that. It was thoughtless and inconsiderate of me. And I should like to offer you my sincere apology. Okay?’

I nodded. ‘Thank you. Your apology is accepted.’

‘Twenty years,’ he said. ‘I’d forgotten it was that long.’

We both lapsed into silence after that – or as much silence as can be encountered in an open-top sports car travelling at a hundred miles an hour on a French autoroute – and I let my mind drift for a while. You would be forgiven for imagining that I was racked with guilt about Orla’s murder; but I wasn’t. Not for a second. I had no regrets on that score. She’d had it coming for a long time and while it’s true, I’d enjoyed killing her – rather more than I had expected to enjoy it – in truth Orla’s death was only the means to an end. In my defence I should add that it has been a long time since I was obliged to pull the trigger on someone in cold
blood – the last time was in Northern Ireland. That was on another Mick, of course, while I was on active service, and not exactly to the sound of trumpets, as what happened with the Int and Squint boys in County Fermanagh was murder pure and simple. I’m not ashamed of what happened there. But all the same if things work out the way I’ve planned then it’s to be hoped I won’t ever have to kill anyone again.

Several minutes passed before John glanced over at the Bentley’s speedometer and said, ‘Better keep to the speed limit, old sport. In case the local filth pull us over. I wouldn’t like to answer a lot of awkward questions about who this car belongs to.’

‘No, you wouldn’t want that, would you?’ I said, and lifting my foot off the gas pedal a little, I let our speed drop back to a more respectable eighty-five miles per hour.

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘That’s always how wanted felons get nicked, you know. Committing some ordinary misdemeanour like that.’

I nodded.

‘I mean, it’s John Houston that Bob Mechanic thinks he’s lent his cars to, not Charles Hanway. Not that Bob’s around to answer any nosy-parker cop questions. But all the same. Best keep our noses clean, eh?’

‘Sure, John, I can do that. As a matter of fact, I’ve been keeping my nose clean for years.’

We stopped for an early dinner at the Hotel Cinzia, which was a nondescript modern building of red and yellow concrete set back from a deserted crossroads in Vercelli, and not at all what I’d been expecting; it looked about as charming as my local launderette. But after a delicate lemon and asparagus risotto every bit as good as John Houston had said it would be, we drove on, with him at the wheel, which allowed me a chance to doze for a while.

When I opened my eyes again, about an hour later, we were already on the Italian coast and driving west, away from Genoa toward Ventimiglia and France. The Bentley ate up the road with a voracious appetite that showed no sign of abating.

‘Wish I could sleep like that,’ said Don. ‘In the car, I mean. I can manage it at home, in a chair, but never in a car. Especially with the hood down.’ He shrugged. ‘Not that anyone could sleep when Orla was driving. She was a terrible driver.’

‘Me, I can sleep anywhere,’ I said.

‘You must have a clear conscience, old sport.’

I pretended to think about that for a moment. ‘I suppose I have.’

‘It was a joke,’ said John.

‘All the same, there’s nothing much that I do feel bad about. Except perhaps Jenny. Yes, there is Jenny. Perhaps, if
I’d fought a little harder to keep her, I might still have her.’ I shrugged. ‘But I don’t blame her for leaving me. Not in the least. No, I expect she needed a bit more excitement than I was able to give her.’

‘With a High Court judge?’ John shook his head. ‘Surely not. He’s seventy-something isn’t he? Lord Cocklecarrot or whatever his name is?’

‘Yes. Seventy-three.’

‘He doesn’t sound very exciting. How old is Jenny? Fifty?’

‘Fifty-one.’

‘So what kind of excitement was it that you were thinking of? I can see what’s in it for him. She’s a very good-looking woman. But I can’t see what’s in it for her. Apart from the thrill of being Lady Cocklecarrot.’

‘I expect they talk. I was never one for talking very much.’

John laughed. ‘So I’d noticed.’

‘And I think they go to Fiesole a lot. Apparently Harold Acton used to be a neighbour, when his lordship’s parents owned the place. I’m told it has a rather fine garden. Not to mention a fantastic, E. M. Forster view of Florence. I think I might easily have left someone like me for something like that. Unlike the Reverend Eager, I’ve always rather liked that particular view of Florence. Of course, I’d have Jenny back in a heartbeat, you know. If that’s what she wanted.’

‘Have you even had another woman since she cleared off?’

‘No.’

‘Christ. What, not even a rental?’

‘I’m not like you, John. I’m not led by my cock.’

‘Oh, I’m not led by my cock. But I do think it’s there to be used, at least while I can. It’s a short time we have on earth, I think, and perhaps it’s just as well that I’ve got a very big cock.’

‘Not that I think Jenny’s coming back any time soon.’

I might have added that the real reason she wasn’t coming back was that I scared her. I’d never told my wife exactly what I did when I was in the army but she knew that there was something I wasn’t telling her. Something importantly horrible. Of course she did; wives always know when they’re being lied to and sometimes they can even see the killer in your eyes. I’m certain mine could.

In July 1977, after Sandhurst, I’d joined the Queen’s Own Highlanders, and I went with them to Belize and then on their second tour of Northern Ireland. We were there until 1980. 1979 was the worst year for British security personnel killed in the province. My own regimental CO, Lieutenant-Colonel David Blair, was one of them. On 27 August 1979 – the same day that the Duke of Edinburgh’s uncle, Lord Louis Mountbatten, was assassinated by the Provos, along with the boatman and three members of his family, in County Sligo – Blair was killed in the Warrenpoint ambush. A British army convoy drove past a 500-pound bomb hidden by the road, killing six members of 2nd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment. Thirty minutes later, the Provos detonated a second bomb, at a nearby command point, killing twelve more soldiers – including my CO, Blair – who’d gone to assist the dead and injured. I was at the scene soon after the second explosion and it was a butcher’s shop, with body parts all over the road, in the River Clanrye, and hanging from the trees. Only one of Colonel Blair’s epaulettes remained to identify him, as his body had almost completely disappeared in the blast. I gave the epaulette to a brigadier from the 3rd Infantry, David Thorne, who took it with him when he briefed Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who apparently wept when she saw it.

I must say that Warrenpoint affected me very deeply, too. This was what motivated me to volunteer for military intelligence duties in NI when the QOH tour ended; being a Scot I was very good at doing an Irish accent. After an eight-week course with the SAS I returned to the province as part of the 14th Intelligence Company, who used to conduct undercover ops alongside loyalist paramilitaries. Which is an army way of saying we helped the UVF to murder members of the Provisional IRA. I did this until 1982, when I left the army and went into advertising, although at the time I’d wished I’d stayed on, as my regiment went to the Falklands soon after that; I remember them reaching the South Atlantic in July 1982 on the same day that John Houston and I had a meeting on the agency’s toilet paper account – although by then hostilities were over, of course.

‘You’re well out of it,’ said John. ‘You did your best with Jenny, I’m sure. But sometimes women are just like the clients we used to meet when we were in advertising. They really don’t know what the fuck they want. All they know is that it’s not you.’ He laughed. ‘Hey, do you remember the time we did all those commercials for Brooke Bond Red Mountain coffee?’

‘How could I forget?
Coffeez never been so full of beanz
.’

‘That was a really crappy coffee. How many fucking scripts did you write for it?’

‘Twenty-two. And they still wouldn’t buy one.’

‘I remember you brought a bloody starting pistol to the client meeting and you laid it on the boardroom table and told them that before the meeting was over they were going to buy your commercial. That was very funny.’

I smiled, remembering the incident, but I neglected to add that it hadn’t been a starter’s pistol at all but a real Smith &
Wesson 38 – the same weapon I’d used for my wet work in Northern Ireland. I doubt that everyone would have thought this quite so funny if they’d known the gun was loaded with live ammunition and had been used to off more than one Fenian bastard.

‘But still, I learned something important from that whole process,’ I said.

Taking the gun with me had been a test of whether or not I could live again in the normal world. Could I take criticism without using a gun? Fortunately for the Brooke Bond execs, it turned out that I could.

‘Oh? What was that?’

‘How not to take it personally when someone doesn’t like your stuff. How to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.’

‘I guess you must have done,’ said John. ‘I’ve never known anyone who is as even-tempered as you, old sport. The number of times you must have wanted to kill me.’

‘It never entered my head to kill you,’ I said. ‘Lord, no. That would spoil everything. No, you’re the goose that lays the golden eggs. And will do again, I’m sure of it.’

‘Me, I’m hopeless at taking criticism,’ admitted John. ‘Christ, many’s the time I’ve wanted to kill someone who criticized my work. Most writers do, I think. It’s just that some of them are better than others at pretending they don’t care about that sort of thing. You know, I sometimes think that writers are just people who might have become criminals except for the fact that they were lucky enough to learn how to read and write. Although in my case the
Guardian
thinks I am a criminal
because
I learned to read and write. My God, if my critics saw me raise fucking Lazarus from the dead they would say I’d only done it to help promote one of my books.’

‘I think it’s simpler than that. Being a writer is a kind of elegant sociopathy, that’s all. I don’t know how else you’d describe a person who doesn’t care about other people very much, who thinks mainly of themselves, who has a complete disregard for rules, and who lies for a living. Some socio-paths become murderers, it’s true; but probably just as many become writers.’ I laughed. ‘Hell, I know I did.’

After a few miles we changed seats again and we reached the tiny barnacle on the bottom of the hull of France that is Monaco. The sun was setting but John still wore his sunglasses and insisted on putting up the hood, since every single car entering Monaco – even a newish Bentley – is scanned by police CCTV to keep criminals out. High-summer tourists were in more obvious and plentiful supply. Most had come to rub their tattooed shoulders with big money, or so they fondly imagined, and the main square was full of people who were as pink as the Beaux Arts-style casino that occupied its pride of place, taking pictures of anyone loitering on the steps who looked remotely famous or of the several expensive cars that were busy arranging their own very shiny and exclusive Saturday night traffic jam. As always the lawn in front of the Café de Paris was so impeccably green and the fountain so perfectly wet and the surrounding palm trees so uniformly sized it looked as if the whole area had been sponsored by some Qatari irrigation company, or perhaps a Disney cartoon about a cute little talking oasis. It might have been, too, except that Santander and UBS had got there first, like Germans marking their territory on a beach with a strategically placed towel. The sea itself was only a few yards away but it might as well have been somewhere back in Switzerland. You couldn’t see the water for white boats,
and any sea breezes had been strictly forbidden by the principality out of deference to hairpieces and hemlines and the more-is-best flower-beds, while the only gull wings in evidence were the doors of outrageous candy-coloured Lamborghinis and top-end Mercedes-Benzes.