J.G. Ballard - Super-Cannes

'Perhaps one day she'll step out…?'

'I hope so.'

I moved along the mantelpiece, dominated by a silver portrait frame enclosing a photograph of a strongly built man in his fifties. He wore khaki fatigues and smiled at the camera like a tourist, but in the background was the burnt-out hulk of a battle-tank.

'My father…' Penrose took the frame from me and repositioned it. 'He was killed by a stray mortar shell in 1980, working for Médecins Sans Frontières in Beirut. One of those pointless deaths that make the rest of life seem a complete mystery. I read medicine out of a need to be like him, and then became a psychiatrist to understand why.'

Next to the father's portrait was a photograph of a young man with the same heavy brows and aggressive build, standing in a boxing ring with his seconds. He wore gloves, high-waisted shorts and a sweaty singlet, and was being presented with a championship shield. He smiled attractively through his bruises, and I assumed he was the younger Wilder Penrose, taken years earlier after a testing bout.

'So you boxed, Wilder? You look almost professional.'

'That's my father again, back in the fifties.' Wilder nodded to the photograph, springing lightly on his bare feet. 'He was a keen amateur, a heavyweight with really fast hands. He boxed for his college, then for the army during his national service. He loved it – he was still climbing into the ring twenty years later.'

'When he was a doctor? Isn't that a strange sport to take up? Head injuries…'

'No one worried about brain damage then.' Penrose's fists clenched and unclenched. Across his face moved emotions of envy and admiration he had long come to terms with, but had no wish to share. 'Boxing released something in him – he was a gentle man out of the ring, a very good husband and father, but vicious inside the ropes. One of those genuinely violent people who never realize it.'

'And you?'

'Am I genuinely violent?' Grinning, Penrose lightly punched my left kidney. 'Paul, what a suggestion!'

'I meant, did you take up boxing?'

'I did, for a while, but…'

'The ring triggered the wrong emotions?'

'A good guess, Paul. That's perceptive of you. Still, it gave me an important idea – my father's boxing career, in particular…'

Penrose sat down in the chair facing mine and poured the coffee. His lips parted in a generous smile that exposed a small scar on his lip. 'Never mind about me. We'll talk about your problems. This medical emergency – it's not venereal, by any chance?'

'Not as far as I know.'

'Good. People are coy about sexual ailments, for sound Darwinian reasons. In your case, sharing the marriage bed with a physician…'

'Wilder, the emergency doesn't concern me. Not yet.'

'That's a relief. So it concerns -?'

'Eden-Olympia. More exactly, the senior management.'

'Go on.' Penrose set down his cup and lay comfortably in the chair. His arms hung loosely from his shoulders, knuckles touching the floor, making him as unthreatening as possible. 'Have you spoken to Jane?'

'She's too busy with her work.' Collecting myself, I said: 'I want to go to the French authorities – serious matters have to be brought to their attention. Powerful people at Eden-Olympia and the Cannes police are involved, and I need someone to back me up, a person with a certain amount of clout. Otherwise I'll get nowhere.'

Penrose examined his deeply bitten fingernails. 'You mean me?'

'You're the chief psychiatrist here. It might be a mental health problem. You're one of the few senior people who isn't involved.'

'I'm glad to hear it. Is this anything to do with David Greenwood?'

'It's possible. He knew what was going on, and might have been killed because he planned to take action. But it goes far beyond Greenwood.'

'Right… Now, what exactly do you want to report? A crime of some kind?'

'Of all kinds.' I lowered my voice, suddenly aware of the mirror behind me. 'Everything you can think of – armed robberies, murders, drive-by killings, drug-dealing, racist attacks, paedophile sex. There's a well-financed criminal syndicate, probably involved with the Cannes police.'

Penrose raised his hands to silence me. 'Whoa… these are huge charges. Who actually is involved in these crimes?'

'Senior management at Eden-Olympia. Pascal Zander, Alain Delage, Agassi and any number of company chairmen and managing directors. Plus most of those killed by Greenwood – Charbonneau, Robert Fontaine, Olga Carlotti. I realize it's a serious accusation to make.'

'It is.' Penrose sank lower into his chair, shoulders straining through his cotton shirt. 'Tell me, Paul – why are you the only one aware of this crime wave?'

'I'm not. People know more than they let on – most of the security guards, Greenwood 's secretary, the widows of the dead chauffeurs. Talk to them.'

'I will. The armed robberies and racist attacks – you're sure they're taking place?'

'I've seen them.'

'Where? On film? The surveillance cameras are hopelessly unreliable. Someone tries to unlock his car with the wrong key and you're convinced you've seen the Great Train Robbery. Who showed you the tapes? Halder?'

'I haven't watched any tapes. The crimes I've seen I witnessed myself.'

'Where? In some theatre of the mind?'

I ignored this and pressed on. 'Three nights ago there was an armed robbery at the Cardin Foundation. A gang stole a collection of furs being filmed in a Japanese commercial.'

'Right. I read about it in Nice-Matin. Economic terrorism, or some local turf war. You saw that take place?'

'Very clearly. It started at about 8.30 and was over sixty seconds later. The gang were highly professional.'

'Latvian KGB, probably. They have a lot of experience with valuable furs. And you were actually there? At the Foundation?'

'I was in a house nearby. Frances Baring was looking at a property. We had a clear view of the whole thing.'

'Frances Baring? She's rather attractive in her intense way. An old flame of Greenwood 's…' Momentarily lost, Penrose searched the ceiling. 'Frightening for you. But why do you assume the gang were involved with Eden-Olympia?'

' Frances drove me home. She dropped off some brochures for Zander. Do you know the Villa Grimaldi?'

'In Super-Cannes? It's owned by Eden-Olympia. We hold receptions and conferences there. It has a superb view – on a clear day you can practically see Africa, the next best thing to for ever…'

'I wandered into the library, and had quite a surprise. The billiard table was piled three feet high with stolen furs.'

'Why stolen?' Penrose massaged his face, as if trying to unify its separate components. 'There was a party going on – I was hoping to be there myself. The furs belonged to the wives. It was a cool night, perfect for a little power-dressing.'

'It was a stag party. No women were there. The furs carried Japanese designer labels. They were covered with talc and body paint – the models must have been naked.'

'Naked? Not quite what senior wives get up to at Eden-Olympia. More's the pity. But the furs…'

'Wilder, I saw them.'

'You thought you saw them. It's dark inside the Villa Grimaldi, you might have seen a trompe-l'oeil painting, some second-rate Meissonier.' He raised a hand to silence me. 'Paul, you've had a lot of spare time to cope with. Too much, perhaps. If you don't keep busy it's easy to find yourself in a state close to sensory deprivation. All kinds of chimeras float free, reality becomes a Rorschach test where butterflies turn into elephants.'

'No…' Doggedly, I said: 'The furs were there. I touched them with my hands. I saw the robbery take place. Alain Delage and another guest were watching a video taken at the scene.'

Penrose leaned back in his chair, bare left foot almost touching my knee in a curiously intimate gesture. 'They filmed their own crime? Isn't that a little strange?'