J.G. Ballard - Super-Cannes

'I will.'

'Simone and I are very fond of her. She has an ingénue's charm and directness. Why keep her to yourself? You should join more in our social life.'

'Is there such a thing?'

'It's private, but very active. Work is so enjoyable, while play is demanding. It requires special qualities and offers special rewards.'

He opened the nearside door for me and stared at the sea. 'I envy you, Paul, but be careful. You're a pilot, like Saint-Exupéry – and he ended there, lying in the deep water…'

As he held out his hand I noticed the livid bruises above his wrist, the blue and yellow clouds of damaged skin hidden by his shirt cuffs. I imagined him involved in a masochistic game with his bored wife, probably involving more than a brisk rap on the knuckles. Behind the rimless glasses I could see an almost Calvinist repression at work. At the same time he seemed to be smiling at some unexpected good fortune, like a suburban bank manager discovering a book of intriguing phone numbers left by his predecessor.

'Nice-Matin – check them out, Paul.'

'I will. Don't worry, I'll get a present for Jane.'

'Good.' He waved from the window as the limousine slid away.

'And think about Saint-Exupéry…'

A publicity plane flew along the Croisette, its pennant fluttering like the trace of a fibrillating heart, unnoticed by the sunbathers stretched on their loungers in the hotel concessions. The pilot banked steeply when he was level with the Martinez and soared towards Juan-les-Pins and the Antibes peninsula, his propeller shredding the air and throwing shards of sunlight across the vivid sea.

I watched until it disappeared, wishing that I sat in the cockpit of my old Harvard, deafened by the roar of the engine and gagging on the stench of lubricating oil, flight plan clipped to my knee, three bottles of iced beer in a cool-bag hanging from the throttle mount, cigar smouldering in the ashtray sellotaped to the instrument panel. I needed the rush of icy air over the canopy, and the flood of light that irrigated every cell in the retina, every waiting space in the soul.

At the public beach near the Palais des Festivals the speedboats of the water-ski school rocked beside the landing stage as their customers buckled on the safety harnesses. Tourists crowded the Croisette, amiable Americans on short-stay package deals, Germans of technical mind studying the microlight seaplanes moored to the wooden piers, restless Arabs on the terrace of the Carlton, bored with sex and drugs, and waiting for the gaming rooms to open.

There was a whiff of crepes and frites from the lunch stalls, but Wilder Penrose's strictures had begun to bite. The crowds drifted in slow motion, gathering in clumps around the tabacs and the bureaux de change like platelets blocking an artery. With their camcorders and light meters, body bags packed with spare lenses, they resembled a huge film crew without a script.

I was frustrated, and knew it. My irritation was magnified by Alain Delage's veiled threat. He had flattered me by referring to Saint-Exupéry, but the great pilot's bones lay on the seabed in the remains of his Lightning, somewhere near the Baie des Anges. I could take the hint. But why had Delage bothered to give me a lift into Cannes, unless my plumb-line was at last touching bottom?

As he suggested, I visited the offices of Nice-Matin. The back issues told me nothing about David Greenwood and his day of death, and how this amateur marksman had managed to seize his hostages and then kill his victims, despite the substantial distances involved and the elaborate security. There were photographs of Greenwood posing with his orphans at the La Bocca refuge, but no conceivable bridge between the smiling, dark-eyed girls and the harsh news pictures of bullet-starred doors and bloody elevators.

The microfiche copies of the Herald Tribune in the American Library were no more use. A helpful assistant suggested a local newspaper for English-speaking residents, but after a taxi ride to La Napoule I found only the back-street office of a free-sheet listing properties for sale, swimming-pool constructors and dealers in used Mercedes.

Drained by the sun, I walked past the car-park entrance to the Palais des Festivals. The heat rose from the ornamental tiles like a headache. Behind me, ten yards to my left, a blonde woman in a dark suit followed me across the terrace. Face shielded from the sun by a copy of Vogue, she tottered along on high-heels, as if trying to sidestep her own shadow. Then it occurred to me that she might be drunk, and I thought of the air-conditioned bars hidden away in the Palais des Festivals.

Here, in the much-derided pink bunker, where the competing entries in the film festival were screened each May, a congress of orthopaedic surgery was taking place. The American and German tourists I had so looked down on were probably distinguished surgeons from Topeka and Düsseldorf, far closer in spirit to Eden-Olympia than I assumed.

I stepped from the sun into the cool of the foyer, where an accreditation desk was issuing passes to the delegates. Without exception, the surgeons wore trainers and sportswear, and for once my trousers and thong sandals allowed me to merge seamlessly into the crowd. The attendants checking the delegates' badges waved me through. Leaving the others to attend a lecture on tuberculosis of the hip joint, I strolled towards a trade fair on the ground floor. Sales staff patrolled their stands, filled with displays of surgical armatures and corrective body-appliances.

Remembering my modest knee-brace, I stopped by a glass cabinet that displayed two lifesize mannequins in full orthopaedic rig. Replicas of a man and a woman, they each wore a cuirass of pink plastic around the torso, and their jaws were supported by moulded collars that encased them from the lower lip to the nape of the neck. Elaborately sculptured corslets and cuisses, like the fantasies of an obsessive armourer, surrounded their hips and thighs, discreet apertures provided for whatever natural functions were still left to these hybrid creatures.

'Dear God…' an English voice murmured over my shoulder. 'Now we know. Love in Eden-Olympia…'

I turned to find the tipsy woman in the business suit who had followed me across the terrace. Her make-up was still in place, but the sunlight had drawn a film of perspiration through her lipstick and eye shadow. As she swayed on her high-heels I assumed that she was the raunchy wife of a British surgeon attending the congress, an afternoon vamp on the Croisette prowl.

'Marriage à la mode…' She pressed her hands against the display case and peered challengingly at the models. 'But do they love each other? What do you say, Mr Sinclair?'

She steered the blonde hair from her forehead, and I recognized the woman with the laptop who had sat near me in the open-air café near the Elf building. She was sober but ill at ease, her fingers fretting at the copy of Vogue she carried. A male sales assistant moved past us, and she handed him the magazine, waving him away before he could speak. I noticed the dust on her shoes, and assumed that she had been following me for longer than the brief walk across the terrace of the Palais des Festivals.

Irritated that Eden-Olympia was keeping its cyclops eye on me, I tried to step around her, tripped over an uncovered cable and pulled my knee. Wincing at the sudden pain, I leaned against the display case.

'Mr Sinclair?' Her hands steadied me. 'Are you…?'

'Don't tell me, I know…' I pointed to the orthopaedic models. 'I've come to the right place.'

'You need to sit down. There's a bar upstairs.'

'Thanks, but I have to go.'

'I'll buy you a drink.'

'I don't need a drink.' Annoyed by the clinging edginess, I spoke sharply. 'You work at Eden-Olympia. For Pascal Zander?'