Free Research by Philip Kerr Page B

Amalric. ‘It’s the theme from
Betty Blue
. The sergeant has a thing for Béatrice Dalle.’
    I shrugged. ‘That’s easy to understand. She was very beautiful. Whatever happened to her, anyway?’
    ‘Like all beautiful women, monsieur, she got older. Savigny keeps a copy of the DVD in his suitcase. Always.’
    ‘That and a novel by John Houston. But then with 140 million books sold, I guess that’s a little less unusual. Statistically speaking. It’s said that one in every thirty books being bought in the world right now is likely to be written by John Houston. Did you know that? And your sergeant certainly fits the standard profile of a John Houston reader.’
    ‘Is there such a thing?’
    ‘Oh yes. Every so often Houston commissions a piece of market research into who is reading his books. Impact – that’s the name of the research company that John used – they carry out focus groups and sometimes John insists that the writing team come along and watch what the groups aresaying, through a two-way mirror. Which is the way these things are done in an advertising agency. He’ll end up with a report that describes socio-economic profiles of readership, buying habits, income – in the exactly same way that Heinz will try to find out who is buying what soup and why. John has never quite stopped being a successful advertising man. Having read several of those research reports I can probably tell you quite a lot about your sergeant. What is he – thirty-five?’
    Amalric nodded. ‘This is fascinating. Please go on.’
    ‘All right. He buys no more than two or three books a year and rarely ever reads a newspaper, unless it’s free. The chances are that in all the years you’ve known him you’ve never seen him read anything you’d like to read yourself. The one time you looked at the book he was reading you were a bit shocked at how simplistic it was, how short the chapters seemed to be, how small the sentences were. Mostly the sergeant doesn’t have time to read because he thinks of himself as a busy sort of guy – if that’s even possible in a place like Monaco. One time he bought the same book he bought the last time and read half of it before he realized he’d read it already.’
    Amalric tried to conceal a smile, which only encouraged me to show off a little.
    ‘Voltaire and Molière, he couldn’t get on with them at school, and as for history, he probably thinks Philippe Pétain was a male prostitute, or even something you say when you get cross. He’s easily amused with quite a short attention span so he reads in short intense bursts – maybe ten or fifteen minutes at a time, with a very furrowed brow, as if he’s actually doing something quite difficult, almost like he’s trying to solve a puzzle. He doesn’t read in the bath becausehe prefers a shower. He always rolls a book like a magazine, which probably irritates you; no one who loves books could ever treat a book the way he treats them. But then you probably don’t know that for this same reason all of Houston’s books are printed in a B or C format, with stitched binding which is more durable than just glue, so they don’t fall apart when you treat them like a football programme. He watches a lot of television – football, mostly – and he has an Xbox or a PlayStation at home, and there are certainly more than a few games he keeps on that iPhone of his:
Temple Run
,
Extreme Road Trip
 – something like that. He lives out of the microwave and his favourite actors are Tom Cruise, Matt Damon and Brad Pitt. He prefers beach holidays to doing anything cultural. He never goes to art galleries or museums. He likes fast cars, big yachts, sleazy-looking women, but these are more of an aspiration than a reflection of his own life. He has a tattoo, smokes too much but still keeps himself fit. He doesn’t drink much and he’s certainly not interested in fine wine like you. His spelling and grammar leave a little to be desired. He