J.G. Ballard - Super-Cannes

'Frances, don't blame yourself. You didn't pull the trigger.'

'Maybe not.' She inhaled the pine-scented air, trying to rally herself. 'But I have to finish David's work. The madmen are still walking around Eden-Olympia. Paul, I need your help.'

'You have it. But it's hard to know what exactly we can do. People look at the Dow and the Nikkei and think everything is fine. Eden-Olympia is very powerful.'

'And over-confident. Penrose and Alain Delage think nothing can stop them. We need tapes of the special actions, the more violent the better. They incriminate everyone – the senior executives with the big companies, the security guards and off-duty local police.'

'And me. Don't forget that.'

'You're an observer. You sit in the back seat of the Merc while the heavy mob go in. We'll make copies of the tapes and send them to the head offices of Shell and Monsanto and Toyota.'

'That's more or less what Zander planned to do. The tapes are hidden away in the Villa Grimaldi. Security is tight.'

'We're not going to pick the locks.' Irritated with me, Frances kicked the ground. 'You're close to Penrose. He likes you, because you're so easily impressed. You half-believe his scary ideas. Go along with him, play more of a part in the ratissages.'

'Frances, I couldn't.'

'They won't expect you to rape some old whore. Just move into the front seat of the Merc. Help with the planning sessions, offer to look after the cameras. That should get you nearer the tapes. Find out the targets, especially the racist ones. We'll get our own film crew on the scene, some renegade BBC team. Sooner or later Penrose will make you his assistant. Like all great visionaries, he needs a disciple.'

'He does – you're right. The sad thing is, I think he's found one.'

'You?'

'Maybe.'

'Paul, what is it?'

'I'm thinking of Jane.'

'Good. She's Simone Delage's lover. Alain is at the heart of everything now. Use Jane to get closer to him.'

'I don't want to use her. She's my wife. I want to save her and get her back to London.'

'You will. Paul, it's the only way.'

'The only way to get her struck off the register. Plus a long spell in a French jail. I can't involve her.'

'Fair enough. But why so much husbandly concern?' Frances peered at me with a surprisingly cold eye. 'You've watched her turn into a heroin addict.'

'She's not an addict. Doctors work hard, and a lot of them take something to ease the stress. She talked it over with Wilder – it's all under control. You're asking me to incriminate her. Jane is -'

'It's not Jane! It's nothing to do with her.' Frances shook my shoulder, as if trying to rouse a dozing sleeper. 'You're thinking of Penrose. You don't want to damage him.'

'That's not true.'

'Part of you believes in his lunatic ideology. That's why you've been so passive from the start. They corrupted your wife and you sat back and watched. I always wondered why.'

'You say I'm a voyeur.'

'That's not the reason. You secretly think Penrose is right, and a new kind of world is being born here, based on psychopathology. You're deeply impressed by Eden-Olympia. These vast companies with their powerful executives, sitting in their glass atriums like so many minotaurs. Once a year there has to be a sacrifice of six maidens. Except that it isn't once a year. It's every weekend, in the back streets of La Bocca. Still, who cares if a few teenage whores disappear into the labyrinth?'

'I care. Frances, I can see the flaws in Wilder's scheme.'

'Can you?' She turned to stare at me, as if understanding me for the first time. 'I know him a lot better than you do.'

'I'm sure you do. Did you have an affair with him?'

'Nearly.' She nodded bleakly to herself, unsettled by the memory. 'He helped me after the divorce. I needed support, and he was generous with his time. Wilder Penrose can be very attractive.'

'And very dangerous?'

'He frightened me. One moment there was all that smiling charm, the gentle giant with the strange new take on the world. The next moment he was going to hit me. I laughed at him over something and he raised his fist. I got out fast.'

'He was a boxer. Like his father.'

'He wanted to be, but something went wrong. He started to tell me about it – a fight after a rowing-club party with a nightclub bouncer, an old pro with early signs of brain damage that Wilder spotted. The man couldn't see anything coming from his left side…'

'So Wilder gave him a beating. Did he injure the man?'

'Badly, but that wasn't it. He saw all the repressed violence inside himself, the kind of violence his father wouldn't have liked. So Wilder decided other people would be violent for him, and he looked around for a system that could make it happen. Psychiatry was tailor-made for him. Once he'd dreamed up his ideology he could sit back and watch his patients getting their faces bloodied, all these repressed executives like Alain Delage that he's turned into playgroup Nazis. Now Wilder sees himself as a new kind of messiah, and our role is to act out his fantasies for him. Zander was right about Wilder Penrose.'

'And that's why he was killed.' I took her arms and held her to me, feeling her heart as it beat against her breastbone. We left the observation platform and walked back to the BMW.

'Let's leave before anyone notices your licence number – these accident widows must have sharp eyes. Listen to me. David died for something I believe in. I want to put Eden-Olympia on trial. I want Wilder Penrose to take the stand and be our chief witness.'

Applause eddied across the rows of guests, an approving murmur barely audible above the flapping of the canvas marquee.

Sitting beside Penrose in the second row of gilt chairs, I watched Olivier Destivelle, chairman of the Eden-Olympia holding company, bowing his thanks. With a theatrical flourish he accepted a silver trowel, presented on a velvet-lined tray by an attractive aide in a sky-blue uniform.

In front of the platform was a short section of newly laid brick wall, the pointing between the courses still damp and creamy. Set into the wall was a marble plaque, celebrating the foundation of Eden-Olympia Ouest, better known in the international business community as Eden II.

Dressed in his morning suit, and as plumply convivial as a retired matinée idol, Destivelle held the silver trowel in his manicured hands. He beamed at the audience of notables as he plucked a scoop of fresh mortar from a trestle table. Distracted by the photographers' flashbulbs, the television lights and the distant drone of advertising aircraft, he raised the mortar in a proud gesture, his nostrils flicking at the scent of quicklime.

Penrose leaned back in his chair, treating me to a stage whisper.

'Is he recommending a new truffle pâté? He's poncing about like the maître d' at Maxim's. Lay it, Olivier, don't taste it.'

Already bored, Penrose loosened his tie. He took off the jacket of his dark suit, exposing his heavy shoulders and crumpled sleeves. Nibbling at a thumbnail, he ignored the glares of the sleekly dressed women around us, wives of the Riviera elite in their ribboned hats and couture gowns. Humming loudly to himself, he gazed over the greenfield site towards the Alpes-Maritimes.

Buoyed by the prospect of the new business park that would be his next ideas laboratory, Penrose had been in good humour during our drive to the ground-breaking ceremony. Collecting me from the house, he was handsomely at ease in his black silk suit, and adjusted the rear-view mirror so that he could watch himself turn the ignition key. He made no attempt to reset the mirror, and waved my worries aside. 'Paul, do we need a rear-view mirror?' he asked as we left the enclave. 'Nothing can overtake us, so why look back into the past?'