‘Now then. Years ago you wrote a storyline for a book called Hidden Genius. Do you remember?’
He nodded again.
‘You’d ripped off the plot from a book by Marguerite Yourcenar, called The Abyss. L’ Œuvre au Noir, in French. The book — your book — was about a nuclear physicist, a genius called Jonathan Zeno, who decides to live under an alias somewhere quiet and out of the way after he decides that what he has discovered is too dangerous for anyone to know.’
‘I remember,’ said John. ‘He gets a job teaching physics at a school near a nuclear power station in the West Country. But then he discovers something that makes him think there’s been a leak of radioactivity and he has to choose between blowing his alias and saving all the kids in his school. Actually only part of it was ripped off from Yourcenar’s book. It’s also ripped off from Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People.’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, what about it?’
‘There were some interesting observations about aliases and pseudonyms and noms de guerre, and it got me thinking about the whole business of having a pen name, a nom de plume. Samuel Clemens being Mark Twain, Amandine Dupin being George Sand, and more recently J. K. Rowling being Robert Galbraith.’
‘It wasn’t a bad book,’ admitted John. ‘Was it you who wrote that one, or Peter?’
‘Me. And actually it was my best, I think. Not necessarily in terms of sales, but critically.’
‘I suppose that’s why we never did another,’ said John. ‘But what’s your point, old sport?’
‘Like a successful lie, a successful alias requires that you believe it yourself. That you never stop being that other person.’
John was nodding. ‘It’s what the shrinks call reflex conditioning. If you never step out of character you don’t get rumbled.’
‘So then. You have a passport and a driving licence in the name of Charles Hanway. Then why not live as Charles Hanway? Provided you stick to the alias and keep your trap shut you can live, quietly, at my house in Cornwall. And here’s the smart angle. You carry on writing storylines, albeit anonymously, and I carry on writing the books. Just like before. I’ll get Hereward to make a deal with VVL. And I’ll pay you out of what I can make from them. That way you won’t ever have to meet anyone who remembers you. No one but me. And this way we can both benefit. I stay in print, and you stay out of prison. Simple as that.’
‘Someone would be bound to find out.’
‘Not in Cornwall. Nobody knows you in Cornwall. Frankly, they hardly know what fucking day of the week it is down there in the shire. You can go for days without seeing anyone vaguely human. And when you do they tend to keep themselves to themselves. Frankly the place is so out of the way that it’s only the fucking mice who visit. It’s like being back in the 1950s. The very opposite of Monaco.’
‘You really think it would work?’
‘I know it would work, I’ve lived there. Believe me, I know the place. Look, Manderley — that’s the joke name on my front door — is quite comfortable. There’s a good broadband connection, a widescreen telly, Sky TV, a decent wine cellar, a good library, and a nice vegetable garden; the nearest neighbour is Bilbo Baggins, and he’s more than a mile away.’
‘Might work at that.’
‘What’s the alternative? Risk your future to a jury? Fuck that. Rich bastard like you — they’d send you to the guillotine, if they could. Especially in this economic climate. Who knows? After a while they might even declare you dead, which might take some of the heat off you.’
John nodded. ‘You know, you’re right. It might just work.’
‘Of course, you’d have to lie low for a long time. Maybe for ever. No trips up to London. Penzance maybe. Or perhaps Truro. Certainly nothing east of Exeter. But what have you got to lose? It’s me who’s taking the bigger risk. The cops aren’t after me. It’s you they’re after. Right now, I don’t even have a bad credit rating. But if I get nicked hiding you then I’m facing at least five to ten, I reckon. To encourage the others.’
John fetched another whisky miniature from the minibar.
‘I’m not completely convinced,’ he admitted. ‘But so long as the cops are looking for me I can’t think where else to go. Bob Mechanic is bound to turn up in Geneva sooner or later, and if I know Bob the very last thing he’ll want to do is to help a good friend. Not if it might imperil his reputation with the Swiss authorities. He’ll deny he even knows me, if I know Bob.’
‘A friend in need, eh?’
‘That’s Bob’s idea of a nightmare. He’s not in the least like you, old sport. I’m beginning to realize just what a good friend you are, Don.’
‘All right then.’ I glanced at my watch. ‘My suggestion is this. Instead of driving west, to Marseille, we head north, back to England. We can stop overnight in Paris. We’ll dump the Bentley there and take the Eurostar back to London first thing Tuesday. With any luck it might be months before your careless pal Bob Mechanic even notices his car is missing. Like that Porsche Turbo he left at the airport.’
John nodded.
‘This is good of you, Don. I don’t know what I would have done without you.’
‘Forget it. That’s what real friends are for, right?’ I shrugged. ‘It’ll be just like old times. Me and you in a fast car on the A7 to Paris and the atelier, which we’ll start up again, albeit on a rather more modest scale. In London. Only this time I’ll be out front and you’ll be in the backroom. Good for you, good for me.’
Chapter 13
The drive to Paris was uneventful with neither one of us saying very much. With me driving for most of the way we reached the outskirts of Paris just after five o’clock on Monday evening and I headed across the river, up the Champs-Élysées. Paris was the usual mess of traffic and attitude, tourists and metropolitan disdain.
‘Where are we staying?’ he asked. ‘Not the George V. They know me there. Or the Crillon. Or the Bristol. The last time I was at the Bristol it was with poor Colette.’
‘The Hôtel Lancaster,’ I said. ‘I stayed there a couple of times with Jenny on those rare occasions when you’d paid me a decent bestseller bonus. It’s on Rue de Berri, near the Arc de Triomphe. There’s an underground parking lot right next door and we can dump the car there. No one at the hotel will even know we arrived by car.’
‘Good idea.’
We checked into separate rooms this time, and after I’d asked the concierge to book us a table at Joël Robuchon, across the Champs-Élysées — of course, in my mind we were celebrating — I lay down for a nap before dinner and went straight to sleep. I hadn’t been asleep for very long when there was an urgent knock at my door. It was John, of course, and he was looking pale and agitated, again. He didn’t say anything. He just pushed past me into the room, and switched on the television.
I guessed what he probably wanted me to see but I thought it was probably best to play dumb. So while he tried to find the right channel I yawned and said, ‘John, if you don’t mind, I’m not really in the mood to watch TV right now.’
He shook his head, silently.
‘As a matter of fact I’m a bit tired after the drive.’
Finally, he found TF1 and stepped back from the screen as if he wanted me to see as much of it as possible.
This time the police line and the news reporters were in Tourrettes-sur-Loup. I recognized the rusting sign at the bottom of Philip French’s drive — the Villa Seurel — but I pretended I didn’t.
‘What is this?’ I asked.
‘That’s Phil’s house.’
‘Is it? Christ, what’s happened?’
‘Phil’s dead,’ said John. ‘He’s committed suicide.’
‘That’s impossible,’ I said.
‘No, it isn’t,’ insisted John. ‘He shot himself. Not only that, but it seems there was some connection between him and Colette. In fact, the police seem to think Phil may have shot Colette. What about that for a fucking plot twist? Talk about truth being stranger than fiction.’