J.G. Ballard - Super-Cannes

'No?' She sounded doubtful.

'My wife was a colleague of David's, and you're one of the last people who knew him well. Now, you have the analysis with you?'

'As I promised.' She took off her glasses, her eyes turned inward as she thought about Greenwood. 'When we met, you were looking into the events around David's death. Can I ask if you found anything?'

'Nothing, to be honest. Everyone liked him.'

'That's good. He was an admirable doctor.' She ventured a sip of water. 'Time stands still at Antibes-les-Pins. But the dead go on opening doors in our minds.'

'Isabel, please – the analysis?'

'Forgive me.' She took an envelope from her handbag and drew out a sheet of typewritten paper. 'First, can I ask why you came to me?'

'I didn't want to involve the clinic. One never knows what complications might follow.'

'Any pharmacy would have arranged the analysis. There must be fifty in Cannes.'

'True. But I had no idea what was in the sample. An ordinary pharmacy might contact the police. It struck me that you would know of a suitable laboratory, one that would be…'

'Discreet?' Madame Duval shook her head, finding me a clumsy conspirator. 'What was the source of this phial?'

'I found it in the house.' Doing my best to lie fluently, I said: 'It was among David's old things. It might give a clue to his mood. If he suffered from diabetes…'

'He didn't. I contacted a small laboratory in Nice. David used them for special preparations before the clinic expanded. I may say that the chief pharmacist was surprised.'

'Why?'

'It's an unusual cocktail.' She put on her reading glasses and scanned the sheet. 'There were vitamins, B group and E, an anti-inflammatory preparation and a postoperative painkiller.'

'Good.' I thought of Jane putting together this potion, measuring the constituents like a mother preparing her baby's feed.

'Then it's in order?'

'Not exactly.' Madame Duval placed the sheet on the table, watching me warily as I fiddled with my mineral water. 'They were in very low concentrations, only fifteen per cent of the total. The remaining eighty-five per cent was made up of a powerful tranquillizer, amitryptiline. It's used as a long-term sedative in mental hospitals.'

I took the analysis from her and studied the French orthography with its vagrant decimal points. 'That sounds like a large dose.'

'Very. Assuming five ccs per day, the patient would find himself in a cloudy world like a steam bath. Nothing would bother him, either internally or from surrounding events.'

'It sounds useful.'

'For people under stress, or faced with a mental crisis they are unwilling to resolve.' Madame Duval provided a judicious pause. 'It's unusual to prescribe such a powerful tranquillizer for people in postoperative pain. Surgical patients are encouraged to move about, not sit in a chair all day.'

'There might be other reasons…' I took the analysis sheet and tucked it into my pocket. 'I'm grateful, Madame Duval. You've been a huge help.'

'I don't think so.' She steadied the table as my left knee bounced up and down. 'You're still happy at Eden-Olympia?'

'On the whole, yes.'

'It's a demanding place. Everything seems clear, but… at least pain sharpens the mind.'

I shook her hand warmly, glad that I did not have to spell everything out for this intelligent woman.

When we left the café the bikers were rearranging their legs around the open-air tables. Madame Duval stepped over an outstretched boot, but I waited for its owner to beat a loose heel plate against the pavement. As I leaned against the door I noticed a sandy-haired man with a straw hat in his hand, standing near a parked Renault.

Printed notices intended to pacify the police and traffic wardens were peeling from the inner surface of the windscreen, hinting that the driver was a doctor or vet on urgent call. He turned his back to the café, and perused a map of the Côte d'Azur.

'Meldrum…' I recognized the Australian manager of Riviera News. He was watching Isabel Duval's reflection in the car's passenger window, and I guessed that he already knew who would follow her from the cyber-café.

I paid my respects to Madame Duval, and waited until she reached the entrance to her apartment wing. Walking to the car-park lift I saw that Meldrum was now sitting in the Renault fifty yards from the garage exit.

I rode the lift down to the lower level, where the Jaguar was parked. When I opened the driver's door a card fell to the floor at my feet. Someone had unlocked the door and then carefully closed it, trapping the card against the sill. Only one person had a spare set of the Jaguar's keys. I read: Paul, leave the Jaguar here. My car is parked in the next aisle with the roof up. Keys under your seat. Try not to be seen as you drive out. We'll meet in the Church of La Garoupe by the lighthouse on Cap d'Antibes.

Presiding over the gloomy silence, the gilded wooden statue of Our Lady of Safe Homecoming was barely visible in the darkness that filled the adjoining chapels of the modest church.

Two women in bombazine dresses and dark headscarves sat in the front pew, lost in their thoughts of departed husbands or children. I bought a candle for ten francs, and carried the trembling flame down the side aisle. Dozens of votive offerings hung from the walls, memorials to disasters at sea, to air and road accidents, many illustrated with fading photographs and newspaper cuttings. Faces of the dead hung in brass lockets and plastic frames: a cheerful schoolgirl who had perished in a Nice ferry sinking, sailors who had died during a wartime naval action, fishermen from Antibes run down by a tanker, three scuba divers who had drowned within sight of the church that memorialized their deaths. Among the antique clutter of dusty silk flags and models of nineteenth-century steam yachts was a box with a transparent lid and a plasticine model of an air crash. A child's fingerprints were visible in the broken wings.

The door opened, throwing a brief light across this warehouse of grief. A woman in a wide-brimmed hat and black trouser suit closed the door behind her and searched the darkness.

' Frances?' Carrying the candle, I walked between the pews and held the flame to the woman's face. Shadows wavered across a nervous mouth and lowered eyes. 'Madame, excuse me… are you -?'

'Paul? Good. We'll go outside.'

She pulled at the wooden door, flooding herself with light like a corpse in an opened coffin. Behind me, the two women rose from their seats and walked towards the exit. As they emerged into the sun I recognized Madame Cordier and Madame Ménard, the chauffeurs' widows I had last seen in the apartment at Port-la-Galère.

When they spoke to Frances they turned their backs to me, as if fearing that I might report them to the authorities at Eden-Olympia. After the briefest thanks they walked quickly to a waiting taxi in the car park.

Frances waved to them, but seemed too tired to look at me.

Her hand fell under its own weight and hung by her side. She was thinner than I remembered, and hesitated before touching my shoulder, unsure whether I was still the person she had known. She held my hand for a moment, trying to remind herself that we had once been lovers. The ghosts of emotions past seemed to gather and dissolve in her troubled face.

'Frances…? It's good to see you.'

'Wait. I can't breathe here.'

I followed her across the uneven ground outside the church, and we walked towards the fir trees that shielded the plateau of La Garoupe. A coin-in-the-slot telescope pointed towards the Antibes peninsula, a panorama of the Riviera from Super-Cannes to Juan-les-Pins, and from the crowded Antibes harbour beyond the Napoleonic battlements to the apartment city of Marina Baie des Anges. An airliner made its descent towards Nice Airport, its winged shadow trembling across the faces of the hotels that overlooked the glide path.