J.G. Ballard - Super-Cannes

We left the gates of the Villa Grimaldi and set off along the high corniche. Despite her edginess, Frances drove at a leisurely pace, reluctant to change up from second gear. I lay back, and let the last traces of Zander's cologne blow away on the night air.

When we reached the Vallauris road Frances stopped at the green traffic lights. Without moving her head, she pointed to the rear-view mirror.

' Frances? Let's go.'

'There's a car following us.'

I gazed back at the darkened road, briefly lit by a salvo of fireworks. A car with dipped headlights approached us, drifting from the verge to the centre line as if the driver suffered from defective night vision.

'Paul?'

'It's all right. He's looking for someone's villa.'

'No. He's after us. The car has Eden-Olympia plates.'

The car, a grey Audi, was fifty yards behind us when the traffic lights turned to red. Frances let out the clutch and accelerated across the empty intersection, turning right towards Golfe-Juan.

The Audi driver cruised through the red lights, and at the last moment swung round to follow us, his nearside wheel clipping the kerb.

I pointed to the first side road. 'Take a left here. He'll go by.'

We turned into an avenue of small houses with well-stocked gardens. The reflector discs of parked cars glowed in our headlights.

The Audi had stopped, as if the driver was unsure where we had gone. Then he pulled off the Vallauris road and resumed his unhurried pursuit.

'Right,' I told Frances. 'He's tailing us. It's probably one of Halder's chums, keeping a routine watch over you. He's a real amateur – we'll soon lose him.'

'Him? It might be a woman.'

'Jane? She was too stoned to switch off the bath taps. Anyway, she doesn't care about us.'

Leaning against the door, I watched the Audi over my headrest. It swayed across the steep camber and its wing mirror struck a parked van. The driver caught himself and straightened out, but soon drifted from left to right across the road.

Below us, at the end of the avenue, was the RN7, the brightly lit coastal highway from Cannes to Golfe-Juan. We drove through the underpass, then paused at the junction. In the amber glare of the sodium lights I watched our pursuer stop thirty yards behind us. A hand emerged from the driver's window and tried to reset the broken wing mirror on its mount.

' Frances, you look exhausted…' Concerned for her, I tried to take the controls. 'Pull in here – I'll get out and talk to him.'

But Frances pressed on, joining the coast road towards Juan-les- Pins and Antibes. She gripped the wheel and glanced over her shoulder, as if fleeing from the night.

' Frances… slow down.'

'Not now, Paul. Our friend isn't alone.'

Afew yards behind the stationary Audi were two large Mercedes limousines, similar models to those we had seen at the Villa Grimaldi. As the Audi followed us, they pulled out onto the RN7, moving nose to tail with their headlights dimmed. The Audi driver seemed unaware of his black escort, and was still grappling with the broken wing mount.

We passed the old Ali Khan house beyond the railway tracks, a crumbling deco ghost above the beach. A slip road crossed the railway line and led to the harbour and waterfront bars of Golfe-Juan. Frances accelerated and hurled the little BMW through the dark air, wheels almost losing their grip on the unlit macadam. At the last moment she braked as we reached the railway bridge. The Audi was now a hundred yards behind us, the driver irritated by the Mercedes trying to crowd him off the slip road.

I saw a fist raised through the window, and his headlights flared when the tank-like limousine jolted his bumper.

'Brake now! Harder!' I leaned across Frances and switched off the lights. I forced the wheel from her hands and slewed the BMW across the beach road. We hurtled into the car park of Tétou's and came to a neck-jarring halt, startling the young attendant who was dozing in an open-topped Bentley.

The Audi sped past, its burly driver hunched over his wheel, followed by the two Mercedes, headlights on full beam, horns blaring as their drivers jockeyed like chariot-racers.

Too breathless to speak, Frances waved away the puzzled attendant. She lay back in the darkness, and stared at the diners in the beach restaurant across the road. She seemed stunned but relieved, as if she had completed an exhilarating fairground ride and was ready to rejoin the strolling crowd.

'Paul?' She smoothed her hair, aware that I was watching her with interest. 'What is it?'

'Nothing… Let's go. They're heading for the beach road to Juan. We'll follow.'

'Why? We've lost them, thank God. Those big cars look nasty.'

'They weren't after us. They were chasing the Audi. You were right all along – it's a ratissage…'

Watched by the perplexed attendant, we left the Tétou car park and drove into Golfe-Juan. Despite the film festival, most of the restaurants facing the marina had closed for the night. Guests were leaving a party aboard a motor yacht, tipsily making their way down a gangway, visitors to a white township that emitted an ivory light like a floating cemetery.

'They've gone.' Frances searched the darkness for a turning.

'We'll go back to the RN7.'

'They're up ahead. I want to see what happens.'

'Forget about it! Did you recognize the man in the Audi?'

'Some tired dentist on his way home.'

'He followed us. Why?'

'You, not us. A midnight blonde on her way back from the festival with her pimp. Our vigilantes must have seen him and didn't approve. He looked a little Maghrebian – they'll teach him a lesson in racial respect.'

Reluctantly, Frances drove along the darkened front. At the eastern edge of Golfe-Juan a new apartment complex stood on the site of the ceramics factory I had once visited with my parents. The Audi was circling a nearby roundabout, chased by one of the Mercedes. Almost rolling the limousine onto its side, the driver rammed the rear of the Audi. The second Mercedes blocked the exit of the return road to Golfe-Juan. Its headlights shone on a violent game, a private demolition derby played out beneath the palm trees. Shards of broken glass from the Audi's tail-lights lay on the road, spitting like embers of a fire as the tyres raked across them.

'Hold back for a second.' I tried to steady Frances, who seemed disoriented by the harsh collisions. 'He's decided to cut and run…'

The Audi swerved from the roundabout, struck the kerb and set off towards Juan-les-Pins. The two Mercedes hurtled after it, engines blowing with an elephant-like roar, headlights picking out their quarry.

' Frances… let's move.'

'Why?' She sat stiffly at the wheel, refusing to look at the windscreen. 'They're crazy, Paul…'

'They're trying to be crazy – that's the point. We need more evidence.'

'Evidence?' Frances hunted the gearbox until I rammed the lever through its gate. 'On top of everything else?'

'Just keep going.'

We followed the deranged motorcade as it moved along the beach road. Waves broke on the strip of sand, their foam sluicing through the debris of beer cans and forgotten rubber flippers where the ageing Picasso had once played with Dora Maar and his children. The rotating beam of the lighthouse at La Garoupe swept along the shore, illuminating the closed bar-cabins and the low sea wall.

Frances slowed when one of the limousines ran alongside the Audi, jostling it as the second Mercedes accelerated and braked, lunging at the rear bumper. On our left, across the railway line, was the apartment complex of Antibes-les-Pins. A single light shone above a balcony, where some insomniac neighbour of Isabel Duval sat alone in her high-security apartment. I searched the balconies, distracted by a rush of noise as the Nice to Paris express emerged from the darkness. It thundered past us in a roar of steel rails and sped away into the night.