J.G. Ballard - Super-Cannes

A party of hopefuls, mostly Spanish women in their best formal wear, dismounted from a bus, awed by the silent perfection of this lake and forest world. Halder watched them file into the building, shaking his head with the weary tolerance of a veteran eyeing a squad of callow recruits.

'Olga Carlotti…?' I took the photograph from Halder. 'She was director of personnel for the whole of Eden-Olympia. I assume Greenwood had no problems getting in to see her?'

'A doctor in a white coat isn't most people's idea of a serial killer. The security men saw him cross the lobby and said he looked normal. The place was filled with ushers, applicants coming out of interview booths, clerks checking social-security references. He showed his pass and went straight up to her.'

Death at Eden-Olympia seemed to come by flashlight, in the lens of a police photographer. Olga Carlotti lay across her desk, arms hanging loosely, ringed fingers almost touching the floor. She had been shot while inspecting a selection of passport-booth snaps. Blood from the bullet wound in the back of her head formed a mask of black lace across the features of a well-groomed Italian woman in her forties. A canted interior window looked down into the concourse below. The interview booths were empty, but a crowd of security guards, French police and office personnel stared up at the Carlotti office, watching the forensic team at work.

'I've seen enough.' Chilled by this last death, I handed the print back to Halder. 'Let's call it a day. Counting up all these murders is a nasty kind of arithmetic. Where were you at this time?'

'9.45? Driving with Captain Kellerman to the Siemens building. An armed man had tried to slip through the entrance on the garage roof. Someone parking a car said he saw a doctor with a rifle.'

' Greenwood? Did he enter the building?'

'Briefly. He reached the lobby but ran off when the security men challenged him. By now the general alert had gone out.'

Halder cruised along the central avenue, holding the Range Rover to the pace of a running man. For all his self-control, a fine sweat covered his amber skin, as if he were watching the murders inside his head and was even more disturbed by the replay.

He turned onto an access road that led to the multistorey garage behind the Siemens building. He raised the sun visor and pointed to the roof.

'There's a footbridge from the top deck to the senior executive offices. Security is light – it's a clever way to get in.'

'Who was the target?'

'No one knows – other companies share the building. Some president or CEO. We'll go up.'

'Halder, let's give it a rest. I know what a garage roof looks like.'

'This one is interesting…'

Ignoring me, Halder entered the garage and accelerated sharply. He swung the heavy vehicle past the parked cars, like a mountaineer making his final assault on the summit. Sweat drenched his uniform shirt as he pumped the brake pedal and forced the engine to labour in low gear. I sensed that he needed the Range Rover's howling supercharger to distract him from the private drama that had dogged him all afternoon.

We emerged onto the roof and swerved around an electrician's van that sat alone in the sun. Shielding my eyes, I thought of the white concrete searing Greenwood 's retinas as he stepped breathless from the staircase. Thirty feet away was the pedestrian bridge to the top three floors of the building.

Halder switched off the engine and lay back in his seat. I stepped out, and waited for him to join me, but he was staring at the parapet to our right. I walked around the car and leaned against his windowsill.

'So this is where it ended? Greenwood had killed seven people, and now he knew it was all over.' I pointed to the digital security panel beside the entrance. 'If the alert was on, his electronic passkey wouldn't have worked. How did he get into the lobby?'

'He called someone he knew – a woman in one of the offices. She came down and let him through.'

'Isn't that strange? There was a killer on the loose.'

'She didn't know it was Greenwood. His name had only gone out to the security teams. Some people say she tried to calm him down.'

'Brave woman. What was her name?'

'Madame Delmas. Very brave – and lucky. Greenwood had problems with his rifle.'

'He tried to shoot her?'

'That's what the security men said.' Halder noticed a face watching us from a window and lowered his visor. ' Greenwood was inside the lobby, trying to eject the empty magazine. When he put in a new clip the guards challenged him.'

A uniformed security man appeared at the glass doors, reluctant to test the heat of the open roof. He raised a hand in a deferential salute, as if Halder were a minor celebrity.

'You have an admirer,' I commented. 'In fact, you're quite a star.'

'I wouldn't say so. The guards here panicked a little.'

'But not you. So Greenwood backed away and disappeared into the garage, then somehow made his way to the villa?'

'That's it. End of story.'

'Almost.' I remembered the Riviera News transcript. 'He had less than five minutes to reach the villa and start killing the hostages. How did he manage it?'

Halder gestured evasively, trying to wipe the flood of sweat from his face and neck. 'Who knows? Maybe he stole a car – the garage is full of them. People forget their keys in the ignition.'

I waited for Halder to start the engine, but he seemed curiously reluctant to leave the roof. He stepped out and stared stonily at the glass curtain-walling, then walked towards the waist-high parapet.

His fists were clenched at his sides, his shoulders braced so tightly that the sweat-drenched fabric of his shirt seemed about to split.

He leaned against the parapet, dislodging flakes of white cement into the rain gutter. A few inches from his knee a hole had been crudely drilled into the parapet. A second puncture, like a crater on a lunar map, marked the cement a foot away.

'Bullet holes…' I joined Halder and pointed to the puncture points. A third aperture was filled with a plug of Ciment Fondu.

I looked back at the entrance and imagined the disoriented guards opening fire at Greenwood as he ran to the stairs.

'Halder, there was shooting here.'

'That's right.' Halder watched me examine the bullet holes. 'There was quite a firefight.'

' Greenwood shot back?'

'He got off a few rounds.'

'Was he wounded?'

'Wounded?' Halder frowned at the sun, pondering the exact meaning of the term. 'No, you couldn't say he was wounded.'

I knelt down, and with my fingers explored the rain gutter.

The shallow gulley ran to a drainage vent six feet away. The zinc surface of the down-pipe gleamed in the sunlight among the debris of leaves and book matches. I felt the polished metal with my hand. The surface was covered by a hatchwork of lines incised by an abrading power tool. I remembered the concrete floor near the pumphouse of the swimming pool, marked by the same fine abrasions. The drainage vent had been carefully scoured, as if to erase the shadow of the desperate man who had paused here.

'Mr Sinclair…' Halder was standing close to me, a hand reaching for the parapet. 'It's getting hot out here…'

The sweat streamed from his face and arms, as if his body was releasing all its fluids in an attempt to wash away a virulent toxin. He swayed from the parapet and searched for the Range Rover, ringing the ignition keys like a blind man with a bell.

'Halder…?'

'I'm ready. We'll go now. Where's the car?'

'It's there. In front of you.'

I started to follow him, but his head was lolling on his shoulders. I could sense the roof deck tilting in his eyes while the paintwork of the Range Rover reached its melting point. Halder leaned against the car, his hands pressed to the hot surface as if sinking into soft tar.