J.G. Ballard - Super-Cannes

'Marseilles? That's an all-night drive.'

'Good. You'll be out of the way. Jane will wake up in a few hours. Stop for coffee somewhere. Tell her everything we know – about Frances Baring's death, the child-sex ring, why Greenwood shot all those people, Wilder Penrose and his therapy classes. Find the British Consul, and Jane can claim she lost her money and passport. He'll issue her with some kind of laissez-passer. Make sure she gets on a plane back to England.'

'And you, Mr Sinclair?'

'I'll join her in London. First, I have a few jobs to do here. I need your Range Rover.'

'All right, if you're sure. I'll say it was stolen.'

'And your pistol. Don't worry, I've had weapons training.'

Halder's hand moved to his holster. He stared at me through the passing headlamps, unclipped the holster from his belt and handed the weapon to me.

'Mr Sinclair, you're taking a big risk.'

'Maybe. But there are people who have to be stopped. You know that, Frank. You've known it from the day you killed Greenwood.'

'Even so…' Halder took off his trenchcoat and slipped out of his uniform jacket. He waited as I zipped it over my shirt. 'Be careful. They'll be looking for you.'

'They expect me in the Peugeot with Jane. I need to move around Eden-Olympia. Whatever happens, I'll say nothing about you. One day you'll be security chief of Eden II. You'll make a better job of it than Pascal Zander.'

'I will.' He walked me back to the Range Rover. 'What exactly are you planning to do?'

'Tie up some loose ends. It's best that you don't know.'

Halder handed me his electronic key card. 'This will get you through all the doors in Eden-Olympia. When I come back from Marseilles I'll leave the Peugeot at Nice Airport. They'll think you flew to London. Take care, Mr Sinclair…'

I watched him drive away with Jane in the Peugeot. She slept in the passenger seat, her face white and unresponsive, younger even than the teenage physician I had first met at Guy's, an exhausted Alice who had lost her way in the mirror world.

Light touched the wings and tail-fins of the parked aircraft, warming the cold metal as the first hint of dawn appeared between Cap d'Antibes and the Îles de Lérins. I sat in the front seat of the Range Rover, and watched the darkness retreat across the dew-moist grass, stealing away like a thief between the hangars and fire engines. Above my head the night seemed to falter, then tilted and withdrew in a rush behind the Esterel. The scent of aviation spirit crossed the airfield as mechanics fuelled a twin-engineed Cherokee for an early flight.

Parked beyond the perimeter wire, the aircraft had kept me company during the night. Unable to sleep, I listened to the traffic along the autoroute, Paris-bound tourist buses and lorries from Italy loaded with courgettes and vacuum cleaners and mobile phones. Meanwhile, my damaged Harvard sat in the storage hangar at Elstree, the caked soil embedded in its engine. Flight was an element missing from Eden-Olympia, the certainties of wind-speed, gravity and lift. Absent, too, was the need to explore any interior space, to pioneer the mail routes inside our heads.

Only Wilder Penrose had furnished us with an atlas of destinations, a black geography sketched on his prescription pads, populated by menageries of perverse creatures like Simone and Alain Delage.

The scent of Jane's dress clung to my hands, and reminded me of our embrace in the Rue Valentin. She would have arrived in Marseilles, and be sitting with Halder in a café near the Old Port, embarrassed by her whore's frock as she listened to him unfold the secret history of Eden-Olympia. By nine o'clock she would be rousing the British Consul, and soon after be on her way to the airport. While she flew back to London, high above the Rhône valley, Frances Baring would still lie on her bed at Marina Baie des Anges, the zebra dress around her waist and Greenwood 's dinner jacket across her legs. And no doubt the film of her death was being hawked by Dmitri Golyadkin around the villas of Super-Cannes…

A Mobylette passed me, engine clacking, its slim-shouldered rider in a large safety helmet. Fishing tackle was tied to the pillion seat in a green canvas bag. Searching for the sea, he circled the next roundabout and drove back towards me, then cut the engine and stopped outside the showroom of Nostalgic Aviation. After dismounting, he pushed up his visor, and I recognized Philippe Bourget, brother of the murdered hostage.

When I stepped from the Range Rover he stared in surprise at the blue uniform jacket I was wearing, as if expecting to be arrested.

'Paul Sinclair? That's a relief. For a moment, I thought…'

'I'm glad you came.' I held his hands, surprised by how cold they were. 'When I phoned last night you weren't sure.'

'Well… at the last moment there are always doubts. I've thought about it for many months.' He watched me warily, not wholly convinced that I was the man he had met at Port-la-Galère.

He pointed to the Range Rover. 'You're alone?'

'Yes. No one will know I called you.'

He took off his helmet and held it under his arm. His schoolmaster's face was paler than I remembered, and I guessed that he had not slept since my call. Reassured that I was in command of myself, he placed the helmet on the seat of the Mobylette and untied his fishing tackle. He paused to blow on his fingers, taking a little too long to warm them.

'Monsieur Bourget?'

'I need a minute. It's a large decision, I can't visualize all the consequences.' He spoke in a low voice, as if clearing his conscience. 'Last night I listened carefully to what you said.'

'It's all true – the murder of my friend, the stockpiling of weapons…'

'I decided it was time to act. We've heard many stories – violent attacks in La Bocca, rapes of immigrant women. And everyone is bought off. It's a kind of weekend fascism, where the stormtroopers clean up afterwards.'

'But the blood-stains remain. You've spoken to the chauffeurs' widows?'

'No. It would upset them. They will testify for you if it's necessary. The investigation into their husbands' deaths is now closed. The magistrate said they were hostages and they're content to believe that. But it's not right, Mr Sinclair.'

'That's why I'm going to act.'

'By yourself? Is that wise? I can come with you.'

'No. Three dead hostages is enough.'

'You're going to Eden-Olympia? How will you get in? There's good security.'

'It's Sunday morning. I have the Range Rover and a special pass.' Trying to reassure this worried schoolmaster, I said: 'I'll arrest a few key people and take them to the TV centre. There's a link to TF1 in Paris.'

'A public confession? Good. That's the best justice available today.' He unpacked the long canvas shroud containing his fishing rod. 'I don't like afternoon television, but I'll be watching. Good luck, Mr Sinclair.'

He shook my hand and managed a smile of encouragement, and then left me before he could reveal his doubts.

I watched him putter away, his face hidden inside his helmet.

Without looking back, he waved for a last time. The Cherokee's engines were warming up, too loud to let me think, and I stepped into the rear seat of the Range Rover. I unclipped the canvas shroud and looked down at the pump-action shotgun. A pack of large-bore shells, the heavy duck-load with which Hemingway had blown out his brains, was taped to the stock. Jacques Bourget's weapon would take his revenge.

Twenty yards away was the showroom of Nostalgic Aviation, with its collection of memorabilia, ejection seats and radial engines, an Aladdin's Cave of possibilities far more potent and enduring than anything Wilder Penrose could offer. Looking at the forties flying helmets, I thought of the blonde-haired passenger sitting behind the Green pilot who had strafed the Eden II ceremony. She had worn a pair of antique goggles, bought or borrowed from Nostalgic Aviation, a tribute to her beauty and quirky tongue from one of her pilot-admirers. I only wished that I could have flown Frances Baring towards the sun…