J.G. Ballard - Super-Cannes

'I thought so. But the Cardin robbery was really a kind of sporting event. The film was a record of a successful hunting party. In fact, all the crimes are somehow… recreational.'

'That's rather good news.' Penrose chuckled over this. 'I didn't know there were any recreations at Eden-Olympia. And the racial crimes?'

'Raiding parties, usually against Arabs and blacks – ratissages, Halder calls them. Action groups drive into La Bocca and Mandelieu. They like to run Maghrebians off the road. Several victims have died, but the Cannes police hush it up.'

'Paul…' Penrose tried to calm me. 'Think about it a little. People drive more aggressively through immigrant areas. They're frightened of being stopped and robbed. Genuine accidents happen, though hating the Arabs doesn't help. Still, you've put together quite a dossier. Have you talked to anyone else?'

'No one. Not even Jane.'

'And Halder? I hear he fainted on the roof of the Siemens car park.'

'He claims he shot Greenwood. He probably did – there are bullet holes in the parapet and a drainpipe caked with blood. Halder can't cope with the idea that he killed Greenwood.'

'So he wants revenge – it's a way of shifting the blame.' Penrose roused himself, his powerful arms straining the leather straps of his chair. 'All this crime – why do you think it's happened?'

'I can't say. It amazes me that people here have the time and energy. They work all hours of the day, and must be exhausted when they get home. Somehow they pull themselves together and organize an armed robbery or beat up some Arabs.'

'Just for kicks?'

'No. That's the curious thing. None of them look as if they're having any fun. There's only one explanation.'

'And that is?'

'They're temporarily insane. Something about Eden-Olympia is driving them into brief fits of madness. You're the psychiatrist. You must know what's going on.'

'I do.' Penrose stood up, speaking briskly as he tightened his snakeskin belt. 'As it happens, I understand exactly.'

'Then come with me to the French authorities. We'll ask to see the Prefect.'

'I don't think so.'

'Why not? There'll be other violent crimes – you'll find a murder on your hands.'

'Very likely. But I have to think of the people here. Most of them are my patients.'

'Then why protect them?'

'That's not the point, Paul.'

'What is the point? Wilder, you can tell me.'

'It's been under your nose for months.' Penrose walked around my chair and placed his hands on my shoulders, like a headmaster with a promising but earnest pupil. 'You've come a long way. We're all very impressed.'

'Wilder…!' I shrugged off his hands. 'If I have to, I'll see the Prefect alone.'

'That wouldn't be wise.' He moved towards the door on his bare feet. 'I'll explain everything in a moment. There's an advanced therapy programme you'll find interesting. You might even want to join us…'

'Wilder, I mean it.'

'It's all right. I don't want you to worry.' He stood by the Alice mirror, smiling with genuine warmth, as if he had just emerged from Carroll's paradoxical world. 'The people at Eden-Olympia aren't mad. Their problem is that they're too sane…'

Elaborately wrapped in rice paper, the parcel lay across my lap, emitting the softest breath of rustling fur.

'Is it alive?' I touched the chrysanthemum-patterned paper. 'Wilder…?'

'It's a present for Jane. A token of our thanks to you both. Open it, Paul. It won't bite.'

I unfolded the envelope and exposed a lustrous pelt, the fur of some drowsing creature in a Dutch genre painting, every hair as vibrant as an electron track in a cloud chamber.

'It's a stole, Paul. The best ranch mink, so they say. We thought Jane would like it.'

A faint scent rose from the fur, the body odours of Japanese models chilled by the Riviera night. I laid the parcel on the coffee table. 'Thanks, but it's the last thing she'd wear. Still, you've made your point.'

'Paul?'

'The raid at the Cardin Foundation – the stole was part of the booty. It's your sly way of telling me you knew about the robbery.'

Penrose sat facing me, elbows on his heavy knees. He raised his hands, as if to ward off a blow. 'Paul? You're trembling. Not with rage, I hope?'

'Just for a moment. I'm tempted to punch you in the face.'

'I understand. I'm not sure how I'd react. You must feel you've been…'

'Used? A little.' The parcel lay against my knee, and I kicked it onto the floor. 'You knew the Cardin robbery was going to take place.'

'I suppose I did.'

'And the other robberies and special actions I've spent months tracking down – they're not exactly a surprise to you?'

'That's true.'

'The ratissage in the Rue Valentin? The road-rage attacks in La Bocca? The drug-dealing business run by Professor Berthoud and Olga Carlotti's teenage vice ring? You knew all about them?'

'Paul, it's my job. I have to know everything about the people here. How else can I care for them?'

'Does that include David Greenwood? As a matter of interest, why did he go berserk?'

'No…' Penrose reached out and gripped my shaking hands, releasing them when I sat back. 'That I can't explain. We hoped you might tell us.'

'You've known everything about Eden-Olympia and done nothing?' I gestured at the antique mirror. 'It's another Alice world – corporate profits are higher than anywhere else in Europe and the people earning them are going mad together.'

'Only in a way…' Penrose raised his voice, placing a professional distance between us. For the first time I knew that he had always seen me as a patient. 'Mad, no. Though one or two of them are a little odd.'

'Odd? Their idea of fun is beating some Arab pimp half to death.'

'But there's nothing vicious in it. You have to understand that these attacks are set tasks, assigned to them as part of a continuing programme of psychotherapy.'

'Assigned by whom?'

'Their case officer. As it happens, myself.'

'You planned the Cardin robbery? The road-rage attacks, the ratissages – they're all your idea?'

'I plan nothing. I'm merely the doctor in charge.' Penrose's eyes had almost closed as he contemplated his responsibilities. 'The patients decide what form their therapy projects will take. Luckily, they show a high degree of creative flair. It's a sign we're on the right course. You don't realize it, Paul, but the health of Eden-Olympia is under constant threat.'

'And you prescribe the treatment?'

'Exactly. So far it's been remarkably effective.'

'What is the treatment?'

'In a word? Psychopathy.'

'You're a psychiatrist, and you're prescribing madness as a form of therapy?'

'Not in the sense you mean.' Penrose studied his reflection in the mirror. 'I mean a controlled and supervised madness. Psychopathy is its own most potent cure, and has been throughout history. At times it grips entire nations in a vast therapeutic spasm. No drug has ever been more potent.'

'In homoeopathic doses? How can they help what's going on here?'

'Paul, you miss the point. At Eden-Olympia, madness is the cure, not the cause of the malaise. Our problem is not that too many people are insane, but too few.'

'And you fill the gap – with robberies, rapes and child sex?'

'To a limited extent. The cure sounds drastic, but the malaise is far more crippling. An inability to rest the mind, to find time for reflection and recreation. Small doses of insanity are the only solution. Their own psychopathy is all that can rescue these people.'

I listened to Penrose's dreamy voice, addressed as much to the mirror as to myself. Controlling myself, I said: 'There's a problem, though. It's wholly criminal. Who else knows about this?'