I went back to the table, where I found Savigny had gone and my glass had been refilled with wine. For a moment I left it alone and waited to resume my story.
‘Where’s the sergeant?’
‘He’s gone outside for a cigarette.’
‘Shall I wait for him?’
‘No. Besides, it will be his job to transcribe what’s on the tape. I mean the digital recorder. He will hear everything you say again soon enough. That’s another reason I brought him to London. Savigny’s English is almost as good as mine. His mother is Canadian. From Quebec City.’
‘I thought they spoke French in Quebec.’
‘Oh, they do. But Didier’s mother was raised to be bilingual. And so was he. So, I think you were about to tell us about John Houston’s existential choice.’
‘I was only going to say that money gave John an enormous amount of freedom. He was free to behave like a fool. Free to marry, several times. Free to have many homes, and fast cars, and even faster mistresses. He was free to be his own boss, to say yes, to say no – free to be and to do whatever he liked. And yet, in the end he wasn’t free at all. I think it was the fifteen-book contract with VVL that did it. One morning John woke up with the idea that he was a prisoner not just of that but everything else too. It was the responsibility of his position as an employer and the sense that so much was riding on him that began to weigh on him.’
‘Noblesse oblige,’ said Amalric.
‘Perhaps. At least that’s what he told me. As a matter of fact I think it was me he told before anyone else.’
‘Told you when? How?’
‘We were on the autoroute, driving to Paris from Monaco early one morning about three months ago in an Aston Martin Vantage, ostensibly to discuss a book I was writing for him called Dead Red. But he’d been quiet and I could sense that something was bothering him, not least because he was driving below the speed limit. I thought it might have something to do with what I’d written and asked him about that, but he said it wasn’t, and finally he told me what was on his mind:
‘It seems only fitting that you should be the first to know, old sport.’
‘First to know what, John? Are you ill?’
‘No, but thanks for asking, Don. You were always the one who I could talk to like a friend. It’s just that I’ve had enough of all this – I’ve had enough of producing six books a year. I’ve had enough of overseeing websites, supervising blogs about my wonderful life and my books, employing all these fucking people, the marketing meetings in London and New York with VVL. I’ve had enough of agents, fucking agents. Did you know that Hereward drives a fucking Rolls-Royce? The other day I read an interview with him in The Times, and there he was pictured sitting astride the bonnet like he was Tom fucking Jones. The self-importance of the man staggered me; he talked like everything he’d achieved was by his own hard work; and like somehow I owe everything to him. He went on and on about his legendary New Year’s Eve parties at his legendary Windsor house with his smart lefty fucking friends. I thought, “What a cunt”, and “That cunt is your agent”; and then I thought, “Let’s see what happens to your legendary Windsor house and your smart Rolls-Royce and your legendary party when I’m not around to generate the ten per cent that pays for it, you cunt.” Did you know he didn’t invite me to his last party?’
‘He probably thought that living in Monaco, you wouldn’t come.’
‘Bollocks. It’s because he and his lefty friends all read the Guardian and the book world still regards me as a kind of literary pariah. That’s why he didn’t invite me. I vote Conservative. I don’t pay UK taxes. I’m his guilty little secret.’
‘Perhaps the invitation got lost in the Christmas post. I’m sure he didn’t mean to upset you.’ I shrugged. ‘But he didn’t invite me either, if that’s any consolation.’
‘So, I’ve had enough of all that,’ said John, ignoring me. ‘And I’ve certainly had enough of living in Monaco. It’s a dump. A housing estate for billionaires. A traffic jam. I’ve had enough of the travel. The tax-exile thing. The IRS and the Inland Revenue. The meetings with financial advisers. The accountants. The lawyers. The hedgies selling their funds. The boats. The plane. The cars. Do you know I rent a garage in Monaco with my own personal mechanic just to look after all the cars? It’s ridiculous. Who needs all these fucking cars, anyway? I mean some of them are just more trouble than they are worth. The Ferraris especially. The other day I spent a thousand euros just to have the wheels aligned on the F12. A thousand euros. I told them – I’m not Fernando Alonso, you thieving bastards. And as for the houses. Jesus, the fucking houses with their caretakers and gardiens. Whenever we go to our house in Courchevel we spend a whole morning listening to the gardien’s problems: the roof has a leak, his child was sick, the gardener is unreliable, the sauna still isn’t fixed; could I have a cheque for this, and one for that? It’s the same everywhere else. Bastards moaning that you don’t pay them enough or stealing from you when you do. I think I know how God feels on a Sunday. All of these fucking people complaining about this and that must drive him mad; no wonder he sent a flood to destroy the world and drown everyone. I’d have done the same, just to get some peace and quiet. Several times over, probably. No, I’ve had enough of it, old sport.
‘Lately it’s all begun to weigh on me rather. When I was taken ill a few years ago, remember? And I was only able to produce three books in one year instead of five? I never told you this, but VVL’s share price actually fell by five per cent when that happened and so VVL’s publishing director – Bat Anderton – had to go to Wall Street to explain why VVL’s profits were going to be down on the previous year. And while he was there I had to do a conference call from my sickbed to reassure a load of wankers I’d never seen that my output would soon be back to normal. Then there’s the fact that VVL have employed a whole department of copy-editors and publicity people to look after my output.’
‘They are trying to keep you happy, that’s all.’
‘Oh, I understand why they’re doing it, old sport. I get it, all right. But it’s started to annoy me that I am personally responsible not just for the shares in some tosspot institutional investor’s pension fund but also the livelihoods of as many as forty people. And for what? So that my wife can blow it on fucking handbags and hats. Orla’s got more hats than Ascot races.’
‘Handbags and hats don’t sound so bad, John, in the scheme of things. It could be cocaine. Or American miniature horses, like your last missus.’
‘True. True. And as for my kids. They’re useless, one and all. Stephen has given up his legal studies at Bristol and decided he wants to go to film school, in L.A. While Heddy wants to open a shop in Chelsea selling her ghastly fucking jewellery. You know, the rough diamond stuff she designs herself that was inspired by her gap year in Thailand?’
I smiled; Heddy Houston’s jewellery designs – ‘every bracelet tells a story’ – were beloved of magazine editors and fashion mavens everywhere, but to me they looked childlike and naïve, and I guessed that like me John was a man who liked a diamond ring to look like a diamond ring and not a half-eaten boiled sweet.
But my smile lasted only as long as it took for it to dawn on me that I was probably out of work.
‘Let me get this straight,’ I said. ‘You’re saying that you want to wind the whole thing up. The atelier – everything?’
‘That’s right, old sport. The whole shooting match. Everything. I’ve bought a house in Chelsea – in St Leonard’s Terrace. As soon as the builders have finished with it I’m going to sell the penthouse in Monaco and move back to London. And to hell with the income tax. I want to go to the Garrick Club on a Friday, walk down the King’s Road on a Saturday, and see Chelsea play football on a Sunday. I want to watch the BBC and ITV and eat fish and chips in the Ivy and have Christmas with all the trimmings. And I’m going to spend the rest of the week writing a book – I mean not just the plot, but the whole thing, the way I did when I first started writing. I’v
e got an idea that I might have one good book in me – the sort of book that might last a bit longer than the glue on the spine, if you know what I mean. I think perhaps that if I go back to basics, so to speak, I might even win one of those smaller awards – a dagger, or an Edgar. Maybe something better. Fuck knows.’
‘But what about your fifteen-book contract with VVL?’
‘To hell with it. And to hell with them, too. I’ll just have to pay them back the twenty million dollars advance.’
‘Just like that?’
‘Just like that.’ John grinned. ‘Yes.’
‘But what about Dead Red?’
‘Don’t worry, you can finish Dead Red and get paid just like we agreed, old sport; for that matter all of you guys can finish whatever it is you’re writing now. That should also help to soften the blow for VVL. Naturally I’ll try to cushion the blow for you and everyone else in the atelier with some sort of severance package. Which, of course, will be rather more generous in your own case, Don, since you’ve been with me the longest. Fifty thousand quid. How does that sound?’
‘Very generous,’ I said, although I could have pointed out that in any normal year this was only half of what I made from writing John Houston books.
‘And I certainly haven’t forgotten my promise – to try to find you a decent outline for a bestseller of your own, old sport.’
I felt my heart skip a beat; this was something much more worrying than a catastrophic reduction in my earnings.
‘Holy shit, John. You goddamned asshole.’
‘What?’
‘What do you mean “try”? You already said you were going to give me the outline of The Geneva Convention.’
As a reward for twenty years of loyal service, John had previously promised to ‘donate’ me the very much-needed plot for a book I was going to write myself, just as soon as I’d finished writing Dead Red. This was to be a stand-alone thriller about a Geneva-based hedge fund called The Geneva Convention and John had said it was one of the best outlines he’d written in a long time; when I read it I knew he wasn’t wrong, and I had no doubt that provided I observed all of the lessons I had learned while writing thrillers for John then The Geneva Convention might actually make me a small fortune. Perhaps even a large one. My own agent, Craig Conrad, had listened to my description of John’s outline and assured me he could probably sell it to someone at Random House for at least fifty grand; all that I had to do was write the damn thing.
‘I think I said that it was probably the best outline I could give you. Which, to be fair, is not quite the same thing as actually agreeing to give it to you, old sport. Or even saying that I was going to give it to you. I hate to split grammatical hairs here, but I really don’t think what you’re saying truly reflects our conversations about this idea.’
‘Come on, John. You certainly led me to believe that this was the outline you were going to give me.’
‘No, you led yourself to believe it, Don. I think that’s more accurate. And it’s not like I gave you the finished article, is it? Bound in leather, with gold letters on the cover, like we normally do? With a contract? No. Look, don’t worry about it. I told you, I’ll try to give you something else. Something just as good, I promise. But it so happens that The Geneva Convention is the book I’m going to write myself. The whole damn thing. After all, it is my story to do with as I like. I don’t know why I feel I have to justify this to you. It’s not as if you’ve ever had anything to do with writing the outlines, old sport. Besides, this book needs to be a little different from what we’ve been writing up until now. This book is going to need more atmosphere. More detail. Closer observation. Which is precisely why I want to write it myself.’
‘Sure, John, sure. It’s your damned outline to do whatever you like with.’
We were both silent for about thirty or forty miles of auto-route. I stared out of the Aston’s passenger window as we hurtled through the French countryside. Outside, the car’s V12 engine sounded like some wild beast in distress; but cocooned inside, the quiet was a little unnerving and the silence nothing short of awkward. John felt it, too; and after a while he said, ‘Tell you what, old sport. I’ve had a great idea. You can write the next Jack Boardman book.’
‘What do you mean, the next? I already wrote the last six, remember?’
‘What I mean is, why don’t you take him over? With your name on the jacket, and only your name. I’ll give him to you. The character. Yours to do with as you like. Book six sold a million and a half copies, right?’
‘Yes, but book five sold twice as many, which is why you decided not to pursue book seven, remember?’
‘Maybe so. But it’s still a valuable franchise, Don. And I do have a finished outline for book seven which I will gladly give you as my parting gift. There’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t squeeze another three books out of that character. Maybe five, which could be worth millions; I bet VVL would go for it, too. Especially now that they know I won’t be writing any more of those books myself. There are plenty of precedents for doing that sort of thing: Kingsley Amis, John Gardner and Sebastian Faulks with James Bond. The Faulks book Devil May Care was actually very successful. Good title, too. I had plans to use that title myself. And of course you wouldn’t have to cut me in for a percentage the way Faulks was obliged to do with Ian Fleming’s estate. Whatever money the book made would be yours and yours alone.’
I bit my lip and grunted as if I was thinking about it. I hadn’t in the least enjoyed writing the sixth Jack Boardman book; after six I was heartily sick of him – as sick of him as Ian Fleming had been of James Bond, perhaps – and I’d hoped never to write another one again, but, all the same, I didn’t want to say no; an outline for another of Boardman’s adventures was still a valuable property, John was right about that much.
‘At least say you’ll think about it, old sport. Look, I’ll even mention it to Anderton when I see him to tell him I’m through with all this.’
‘All right. I’ll think about it.’ I thought for a moment. ‘Are you planning to tell the rest of the guys when we get to the atelier in Paris?’
‘That’s right, I am. And then I’m going to catch the Euro-star to London and tell Anderton and everyone at VVL and then Hereward. I can’t wait to see his fucking beard turn fifty shades of grey.’
‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’
John grinned and pressed his foot down on the accelerator as if he was anxious to get to Paris so that he could action his new plan as soon as possible.
‘I have to confess I am a little. You know, part of being a winner, old sport, is knowing when enough is enough. When it’s time to give up the fight and walk away and find something new. Like J. K. Rowling. I mean, good for her, I thought. Knowing when to quit is the essence of real creativity, wouldn’t you say?’
‘I don’t know. I’m just glad I chose not to buy any of VVL’s shares when they came on the market. You do know that Bat Anderton is going to have a heart attack.’
John laughed. ‘He’ll survive. And so will VVL. Bloomsbury survived after Harry Potter, didn’t they?’
‘Yes, but their shares halved after the series came to an end. They had to invest heavily in the German publishing market. They bought Berlin Verlag.’
‘Then VVL will have to do something similar, won’t they? Besides, it’s not like they won’t get Dead Red and the three books that Munns and Stakenborg and Philip French are writing right now. And The Geneva Convention.’
*
I shrugged and drank some wine. ‘When we got to Paris, Houston told everyone he was ending our arrangement, like he said he would, and then he went on to London where he did the same. We’ve spoken on the telephone since then but I think that might have been the last time I saw him, Chief Inspector.’
‘How did they take it? Your fellow writers?’
‘Not well. Philip French had just bought a house in the south of France – in Tourrettes-sur-Loup – and I think he’d been cou
nting on continuing his working association with John in order to pay for it. Things have been difficult for him ever since. Peter Stakenborg was predictably underwhelmed by the news. Nothing ever surprises Peter. I think he even said he’d seen it coming. Mike Munns probably received the news with the least amount of good grace – which is because he hadn’t much grace to start with. Myself – I was a bit shocked at first. But it wasn’t like John just cast us all adrift. He did pay us off very handsomely. As he promised he would.’
‘And did he give you the outline for a seventh Jack Boardman book? Like he said?’
‘Yes. He did. Although as yet I’ve not been able to work up any great enthusiasm to write it. To be quite frank I was burned out on that series long before book six. John knew that, which is another reason why we didn’t write any more. That’s how it goes, you see. After a while a series character becomes the creature to the writer’s Victor Frankenstein; he’s a hideous monster that you’re obliged to spend time with but who you would happily see destroyed. Right now I could no more sit down and write another Jack Boardman book than I could go back in the army. He was a two-dimensional character, Chief Inspector, and without depth to a character about whom you’re writing, it’s just typing. I mean check out the reviews for those books on Amazon and you’ll see what I’m talking about. It is soon plain that the people who enjoy these books and give them five stars aren’t what you and I would call readers. A typical Amazon review for a Jack Boardman book reads something like “Houston’s books are easy to read and the ideal choice if you are unable to read for very long at a time”. The true readers, the real readers – readers like you and me, Chief Inspector – these are the people who give those books one-star reviews.’
I smiled and shook my head.
‘What?’ asked Amalric.
‘It’s just that John – always sales-led – was never ever bothered by those one-star reviews. Most writers – me included – get very hung up by what’s written in the Amazon reviews. But John said that if you actually read the one-star reviews they’re almost always better written than the five-star reviews, and that these always reveal readers who were never the true target market for John’s books in the first place. He used to call this kind of reader a “mal-purchase”. His real market he insisted was the authors of the illiterate, badly spelt five-star reviews, which is of course a much larger number of people than the authors of the better-written ones.’