J.G. Ballard - Super-Cannes

Gold, I soon noticed, was a special target of the bowling teams.

I pretended to play lookout when a hapless Saudi broker was brutally beaten in the underground garage at the Noga Hilton.

Sexual assaults provided a unique frisson, and older prostitutes received special treatment, for reasons locked deep in childhood pathology. I tried to forget that I had held open the lift doors in a Mandelieu tower block as a handsome Spanish whore who ran a two-room brothel fought to shield her infant daughter.

After this I almost broke with Penrose, warning him that his therapy programme was moving out of control. But he knew that neither I nor any other executives would go to the police. The camcorder footage incriminated us all, as he reminded me, and the radical therapy clearly worked. The members of the bowling teams glowed with health, and Eden-Olympia had never been so successful. The flow of adrenalin, the hair-triggers of fear and flight, had retuned the corporate nervous system and pushed profits to unprecedented heights.

Even I felt better. I sat in the lavatory cubicle in the Blue Bar, listening to the play of water on my hand. As the pain eased, I slipped into a reverie of Jane and our drive through Provence, in those months long ago that now seemed like years…

'C'est stupide… Monsieur!'

'Paul, are you in there? Don't die yet…'

I eased myself from the washbasin, woken by the raised voices.

A fist pounded on the plywood panel. I unlatched the door as a Blue Bar waiter fell against me. He peered into the cubicle, searching the floor between my feet for any sign of an addict's gear.

Behind him stood Frances Baring, blonde eyebrows springing in alarm. She pressed her hands to my cheeks, staring into my still sluggish eyes.

'Paul? You're hiding in here? Is someone after you?'

'No. Why? Sorry, I fell asleep.'

'I thought, maybe…' She slipped a fifty-franc note into the waiter's hand. 'Monsieur is with me. Have a nice day…'

Frances took my arm and eased me out of the cubicle. The scent of her body, the touch of her hands, quickly revived me.

She wore a white trouser suit and sunglasses, as if she had stepped from one of the gangster generals' helicopters. She leaned forward to kiss me, sniffing at my breath before our lips touched.

' Frances, relax…' I noticed the hypodermic wallet jammed behind the washbasin taps and stuffed it into my jacket. 'My knee's been creating hell – I gave myself a shot of Jane's painkiller and drifted off… thinking about you.'

'I hate that stuff. One day we'll be meeting in the local morgue. The barman said he'd seen you – an Englishman, très méchant.'

Still unconvinced, she closed the cubicle door. 'Let's get you out of here.'

'I'm fine, no problems with the knee.' The sleep had refreshed me, and I felt almost euphoric. As we stepped into the crowded restaurant I pointed to the Croisette. 'God, it's dark.'

'It usually is. It's called night.'

Frances steered me to the stools by the bar. Glad to see her, I watched as she fumbled in her purse for cigarettes and lighter.

I liked her quirky humour, her sudden moods of self-doubt when she gripped me tightly and refused to let me leave her bed. She was still trying to turn me against Eden-Olympia, but approved of my taking part in the ratissages, sometimes telling me of a mansion that might be robbed. In return, she asked me to introduce her to some of the pilots at the Cannes-Mandelieu airfield, an engaging crew of French, American and South African flyers who towed the advertising pennants above the beaches of the Côte d'Azur in their ageing Cessnas and met to drink at a Thai restaurant in La Napoule. She commissioned one of the Frenchmen to take aerial photographs of the Var plain near the Sophia-Antipolis science park, ostensibly as part of her property surveys, and later I found his flying jacket at her apartment. But Jane's anaesthetic took care of that pain too…

I kissed the pearl lipstick on her mouth, but she was distracted by the noise on the Croisette. She stabbed her cigarette into a wet pulp, and pushed away her martini.

'All this din,' she complained. 'Let's find somewhere quiet.'

'It's the film festival – everyone's enjoying themselves.'

'Awful, isn't it? You can get knocked down by the world's oldest hooligans.'

' Frances…?' I pressed her hands to the bar. 'What is it? You're as nervous as a bird.'

She glanced into the mirror of her compact, scanning the restaurant behind her. 'I think I'm being followed.'

'I'm not surprised. You look like a movie star.'

'I mean it. That's why I haven't been in touch. There's someone watching me when I leave the office. I'm pretty sure it's one of Zander's security men.'

'What does he do?'

'Nothing. He sits in a parked car on the roof deck, near where David was killed.'

'Maybe he's holding a vigil?'

'Paul, I'm serious.'

'He's just doing his job. Frances, you're an important person in the property office. You help them with the… recreational side of things.'

'That's quite a euphemism. Write it down.' She frowned at the olive in her martini, as if suspecting that it might be bugged.

'At least I don't like doing it. You accept everything.'

'Not true. I'm waiting for Penrose to go over the edge. Then the whole balloon will burst and the police will have to act. I hate the racism and violence, but the ratissages are just an adult version of "ring the doorbell and run".'

'That's very tolerant, coming from someone as straitlaced as you. I'm glad no one rings my doorbell.' She laughed at this, trying to reassure herself, and then stared at me like a shady boxing manager setting up one of his fighters. 'Wilder Penrose impresses you, I can see that. Have you ever thought where it's going to lead? And where he's taking you?'

' Frances… he's not taking me anywhere. Stop working for them. Apply for a transfer. By the way, I assume you picked out the Arab yacht they set alight?'

'So vulgar. A floating brothel. I had a look round – it reeked of semen.' She revived, the flames almost reflected in her eyes. 'You should have joined in, Paul. You'd have fun beating up some rich Arab.'

'I doubt it.' I wanted to calm her, and took away her cigarettes.

Lowering my voice, I said: 'You've been trying to use me ever since we met. Why?'

'Who knows? Revenge, anger, envy – invent a new deadly sin. We need one.' She moved closer to me, and took a cigarette from the packet in my hand. Casually, she said: 'There's going to be an "action" tonight. A really big one.'

'Ringing doorbells?'

'More serious than that. They've rented cars and an ambulance. Because of the film festival they've had to bring them in from Marseilles and Dijon.'

'That's a lot of trouble to go to. How do you know?'

'I booked the drivers' return air tickets. If there's an ambulance it means people will be hurt. I think they plan to kill someone.'

'I doubt it. Who?'

'Hard to say.' She stared at herself in the mirror behind the bar.

'It could be me. Or you. In fact, you're much more likely.'

'Hire cars and an ambulance? Return tickets to Dijon?'

'Why not? They must be tired of you poking around. You haven't discovered anything about David they didn't already know. You're no more part of Eden-Olympia than those African salesmen they're always roughing up. Your wife's practically moved in with one of their senior executives.'

'That's not true.'

'No? I'm sorry, Paul. I didn't mean that.' She smiled dreamily, like a clever child, and then seized her purse. 'I'm getting the Blue Bar blues. Let's get out of here and see some healthy, life-enhancing porn…'

We strolled arm in arm along the Croisette, stepping back when groups of limousine-chasers raced across the pavement, chattering into their mobile phones as they coordinated their celebrity hunt.