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hard butting against my sternum as the Marseille-born footballer’s.
    ‘Enough to know that Monaco is the name of the country; that Monte Carlo is just one neighbourhood; and that the capital is the neighbourhood known as Monaco-Ville, which according to your card is where your office appears to be located. I’ve been going there for quite a few years. Ever since John Houston relocated there for tax reasons.’
    ‘Which is why you know the Hermitage, perhaps?’
    ‘Not to stay there. Whenever I’ve been in Monaco I’ve stayed in Beausoleil. At the Hôtel Capitole on Boulevard General Leclerc. At a hundred euros a night that’s more in my price range, I’m afraid. And by the way, John Houston was never really my boss. I’m a freelance writer. Self-employed.’
    I neglected to add that on one occasion when I’d been staying in Beausoleil I had stood on my tiny balcony and urinated into Monaco which, at the time, gave me an absurd amount of schoolboy pleasure.
    ‘You never stayed with him?’ Savigny sounded a little surprised. ‘In your friend’s apartment?’
    ‘No. I was never asked. Oh, I went to the apartment in the Odéon Tower several times to deliver or to collect something.But ours was more of a business arrangement. It’s been a long time since we were something so innocent as friends.’
    The waiter came back with my champagne and I toasted the two policemen politely. They were drinking gin and tonic. The sergeant put down his glass and placed a little Marantz dictation machine upright on the table in front of me.
    ‘Do you mind this?’ he asked. ‘It is difficult for us to eat and take notes at the same time.’
    I shrugged. ‘No, I don’t mind. But look, what are you expecting me to say? I should tell you right now that I don’t think John Houston murdered his wife. I’ve known the man for twenty-five years and he doesn’t strike me as a killer. And believe me I know what I’m talking about. If he’s done a runner it’s probably because he’s scared, not because he’s guilty.’
    ‘Let’s order first,’ said Amalric, ‘and then you can tell us some more about why he’s innocent.’
    I ordered a beetroot tartare and a seared loin of venison; Amalric ordered his own food and a hundred-and-twenty-quid bottle of Vosne-Romanée.
    ‘Your expense account must make entertaining reading,’ I said. ‘For a policeman.’
    ‘The Interior Minister of Monaco, Dominique de Polignac, takes all crime in the principality very seriously,’ said Amalric. ‘His specific orders to me before we came to London were that no expense is to be spared in catching Mrs Houston’s killer, and as you can see I am not a man who is inclined to disobey his superiors.’
    ‘Under the present circumstances, I’m very glad to hear it.’
    ‘Not that he reads much, you understand. The Minister is more interested in football. AS Monaco is his great passion. Did you know that Arsène Wenger used to manage the team?’
    ‘Yes, I did. And you, Chief Inspector? Do you have much time for reading?’
    ‘My wife died a few years ago and since then I have developed quite a habit for reading. Mostly I like to read history. Simon Sebag Montefiore. Max Hastings. But I confess I have never read a book by John Houston. Until his wife died I had never even heard of him. But Sergeant Savigny has read a lot of his books. Haven’t you, Sergeant?’
    Savigny nodded. ‘I don’t know the English titles, only the French. But the Jack Boardman books. I have read all of them.’
    ‘Did you like them?’
    ‘Yes. I buy one at the airport every time I go on holiday. What I like is that you always know exactly what you’re going to get.’
    The sergeant made it sound like a Big Mac. For some writers this would have been an insulting remark, but for Houston this was what his books were all about; a successful brand was based on a consistent product.
Give them what they want and then teach them that they can have it again. And again
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