J.G. Ballard - Super-Cannes

'So many cameras,' I commented. 'You're taking part in an extraordinary film that no one will ever see.'

'I hope not. That would be a sign of failure by the security system. Regrettably, there are many thieves on the Côte d'Azur. They say we are safer here than in the vaults of the Bank of France.'

'I'm glad. Is the security keeping the thieves out, or you in?'

I had hoped to relax her with this modest quip, but she stared at me as if I had recited a verse of the Kamasutra. I knew that she would not be keen to talk about Greenwood. At the same time she seemed intrigued by my motives, her eyes noting every wayward crease in my trousers and the chipped toenails in my open sandals.

'It was all so tragic,' she said. 'When did you last see David?'

'About a year ago, in London. It's hard to believe what happened.'

'It was a shock to us, too. In many cases, fatal. May I ask how you found my telephone number?'

'I asked someone at the clinic. Penrose's secretary, I'm not sure…'

'Dr Penrose? That doesn't surprise me.' She glanced at the nearest security camera, as if warning it that the burly psychiatrist was prowling nearby. 'Dr Penrose has made a career out of being indiscreet.'

I leaned forward, trying to hold her attention, which seemed to wander into the side corridors of her mind. 'Madame Duval, I'm trying to understand what happened on May 28. In London, David seemed so clear-headed.'

'He was. As his secretary, I knew him well. Of course, I wasn't involved in his charity work at La Bocca. ' She spoke sharply, as if she disapproved of the refuge. 'It's too late now, but I criticize myself.'

'You were with him for many hours each day. What do you think drove him over the edge?'

She stared at her immaculate carpet, where a stray grey hair caught the light. 'I can't say. He never confided his doubts to me.'

'He had doubts?'

'Like all of us. Sadly, I wasn't with him during the last days. I might have been able to help him.'

'You were away?'

'He asked me to take a week's leave. This was in April, a month earlier. He said he was going to a medical conference in Geneva.'

'Presumably you saw the tickets?'

'And the hotel reservations. But Professor Kalman told me that David was at the clinic throughout the time of the conference. For some reason, he decided not to go to Geneva.'

She spoke as if Greenwood had let her down, and I wondered if she saw the murders as a kind of unfaithfulness.

'A month…' I repeated. 'He was planning well ahead. Madame Duval, he was trying to protect you. Everything you say suggests it wasn't a brainstorm. He didn't suddenly go mad.'

'He was never mad.'

She spoke in a calm but firm voice. I imagined her lying awake at night, in this electrified but nerveless world, thinking that if only she had forgone her holiday she might have reached out to Greenwood and calmed his dream of death.

'Was he working too hard?' I asked.

'It wasn't a matter of hard work. David committed himself too much to other people and their special needs. He was very distracted, it explained his… carelessness.'

'Over what?'

Madame Duval glanced around the sitting room, carrying out a quick inventory of the table lamps, desk and chairs, reestablishing her tenancy of this segment of space-time.

'His mind was on his patients and their medical needs. Sometimes he took things from the shops in the Rue d'Antibes and forgot to pay. Once the Gray d'Albion stopped him at the door. They called the police, but Professor Kalman explained the misunderstanding.'

'The police didn't charge him?'

'It was too trivial. An atomizer of scent – we exchanged gifts on our birthdays. His thoughts were elsewhere.'

'The orphanage at La Bocca? If your mind is on higher things, it's easy to -'

'Higher things?' She laughed at my naivety. 'Those girls used him. Arab street children are completely ruthless. He had money and they thought he was a fool. Another time he borrowed a car without permission.'

'Is that wrong? There's an emergency car pool for doctors at the clinic.'

'This was in Cannes, outside the railway station. A man stepped out to kiss his wife. He left the engine running.'

'And David drove it away?'

'The police caught him on the Croisette. He said it was a medical emergency.'

'Perhaps it was. But Professor Kalman hushed it up again?'

'He set out the situation with the commissaire. Eden-Olympia is very important to the police. They benefit from off-duty payments, special fees and so on.' Madame Duval stood up and stepped to the window, as if hoping to catch a glimpse of Eden-Olympia and the happier hours she had spent in Greenwood 's office. 'I knew David. He would never steal. He cared nothing for money, and gave away half his salary.'

'But he was distracted?'

'He tried to help so many people – poor Maghrebians looking for work, students, old women. He would take drugs from the pharmacy to help the addicts at the free clinic in Mandelieu. When he was mugged it created problems with the police.'

'Mugged? Are you sure?'

'He had many bruises. Cannes La Bocca is not like the Croisette. He tried to stabilize the addicts before he could treat them. They were selling their drugs on the street outside the clinic. David didn't realize it, but he became a kind of dealer.'

'Doctor Serrou worked with him. Everyone speaks well of her. Why did David shoot her?'

'Who can say?' Madame Duval turned her face in profile, trying to hide the flush in her cheeks. 'She was not a good influence.'

I waited for her to continue, but she had finished with me. As we stood up, I said: 'You've helped me greatly. Did you mention any of this to the investigating judge?'

'No.' She pursed her lips, frowning from an imaginary witness box. She spoke scathingly of herself. 'It was the time to speak out, but I let David down. I wanted to defend his name. Believe me, there are others to blame here.'

'Madame Duval… did David actually kill the victims?'

'Kill them? Of course.'

Surprised by my obtuse question, she opened the front door.

The colour drained from her throat as she waited for me to leave.

'It's very pleasant here,' I told her. 'But why did you resign from the clinice?'

'They offered me a special retirement plan. Eden-Olympia is very generous. They understood how shocked I was. At the time many people feared another attack.'

'So you wanted to retire?'

'I accepted that a reassignment of personnel was necessary. My presence was…'

'An embarrassment? I'm sorry you left, my wife would have enjoyed working with you. It might be best not to speak about this conversation. Are you in touch with Professor Kalman?'

'No. But someone from the finance department comes every month, to see if I have special needs. There are accumulated cash benefits paid to founder-employees like myself.'

'As long as the business park prospers?'

'Exactly.' Isabel Duval smiled her first smile, a slow grimace of the lips that revealed a dry knowingness. 'Eden-Olympia is very civilized, and very corrupt. Once you are there, they look after you for ever…'

'For ever' was a difficult concept to grasp along this everchanging coastline. Port-la-Galère, where the chauffeurs' widows now lived, lay between Théoule and Miramar, five miles to the west of Cannes. I set out along the beach road from the Vieux Port towards La Napoule. A midnight storm had covered the sand with driftwood carried across the water from the Îles de Lérins, where legend had imprisoned the man in the iron mask for ten years in the grim Ste-Marguerite fortress.

By contrast with its gloomy cells and triple bars, Antibes-les-Pins was a most civilized detention centre. Isabel Duval was, after all, free to leave at any time. I imagined this rather proud and strained woman moving among the holiday-makers in the streets of Juan-les-Pins, staring into the windows of the boutiques as she held tight to her memories of David Greenwood. Her apartment at Antibes-les-Pins was a decompression chamber, where the explosive forces set off on May 28 were allowed to leak away.