Super-Cannes Page 11

  I took the appointments list from my wallet and spread it across the table. I scanned the names, with my scribbled comments identifying their posts at Eden-Olympia. Asterisks marked those who had died.

  Alain Delage. CFO, Eden-Olympia holding company.

  * Michel Charbonneau. Chairman, Eden-Olympia holding company.

  * Robert Fontaine. Chief executive, E-O administration.

  * Olga Carlotti. Manager of personnel recruitment, E-O.

  * Guy Bachelet. Chief of security, E-O.

  * Georges Vadim. General manager, TV Centre, E-O.

  * Dominique Serrou. Physician.

  * Professor Berthoud. Chief Pharmacist.

  Walter Beckman. Chairman, Beckman Securities. Relocated New York City.

  Henry Ogilvy. Insurance broker. Ex-Lloyd’s syndicate partner. Relocated Florida.

  Shohei Narita. President, investment bank. Former Greenwood neighbour.

  F.D.?

  Pascal Zander.

  Wilder Penrose.

  Seven of the first eight had been killed by Greenwood, only forty-eight hours after he began to schedule their appointments. Two of the victims were fellow physicians at the clinic, and Jane had pointed out that doctors arranged to see their colleagues informally. Penrose, moreover, sat in the next office.

  Alain Delage headed the list. I remembered that Simone had mentioned their trip to Lausanne. Had they stayed at Eden-Olympia, she told me, they would have witnessed the violent tragedy of the final shoot-out.

  But perhaps more closely than she guessed. As I stared at the list I realized that I was looking at a schedule of appointments, but of a special kind. What I had taken from Jane’s computer was a selection of targets.

  A hit list?

  11

  Thoughts of Saint-Exupéry

  ‘MONSIEUR DELAGE! COULD you wait? Alain … !’

  I had left the Jaguar a hundred yards from the administration building, in the only free parking space I could find. As I limped between the lines of cars I shouted to the dark-suited figure who emerged from the revolving doors. Except at a distance, exchanging good mornings outside our garages, we had never spoken. Not recognizing my raised voice, Delage lowered his head and stepped behind a male aide. The chauffeur held open the door of his limousine, gloved fist raised warningly at me.

  ‘Alain … I’m glad I caught you.’ I stepped past the aide, who was handing a black valise through the open window. He barred my way, but I pushed him aside. The chauffeur’s hands gripped my shoulders from behind, and he tried to wrestle me to the ground. I propped myself against the car, held his lapels and threw him against the boot. Then a far stronger pair of arms seized me around the waist, pinning my elbows to my chest. I could feel a security guard’s hot breath on my neck. He swung me off balance, kicked my heels away and bundled me to the hard asphalt.

  Delage looked down from the window, moustache bristling and pallid eyes alarmed behind his rimless spectacles. Then he recognized the dishevelled Englishman, cheeks grazed with gravel, trying breathlessly to call to him.

  ‘Mr Sinclair? It’s you?’

  ‘Alain …’ I forced the guard’s hand from my chest and drew the appointments list from my pocket. ‘Read this … you may be in danger.’

  ‘Paul? Can you breathe? I wasn’t expecting us to meet in quite this way.’

  Delage stood by the car, blinking at me with concern as he dusted the grit from my jacket. I rested on the passenger seat, leaning against the open door with my feet on the ground.

  ‘I’m fine. Give me a moment.’ I tested my knee, relieved that the pins still held. ‘Sorry to ambush you like that. There may be a threat to your life.’

  ‘Let’s think about your life, Paul. I can call the clinic. Jane will come with the medical team.’

  ‘Don’t bother her.’ I saluted the security man, still watching me warily, radio at the ready. The chauffeur was limping across the drive to retrieve his peaked cap, which the aide had located under a nearby car. ‘I’m glad security is up to scratch. He was quick off the mark.’

  ‘Naturally.’ Delage seemed glad. ‘After all that happened last May. If you want to kill someone at Eden-Olympia it’s best to make an appointment. Now, you spoke of danger?’

  ‘Right …’ I opened the crushed printout. ‘I took this from a computer in Greenwood’s office. Jane came across it by chance. She doesn’t know that I have it.’

  ‘I understand. Go on, Paul.’

  ‘It’s a list of names, drawn up by Greenwood two days before the murders. Seven of the people listed he shot dead.’

  ‘Tragic, for them and the families. Every day I thank God we were away.’

  ‘Your name is top of the list.’

  Delage took the sheet from me and stared hard at the list with his accountant’s eye. He ducked his head in an oddly uneasy way, as if he had just overheard some unpleasant corridor gossip about himself.

  ‘I’m here, yes. Why, I can’t imagine.’ He folded the sheet, punctiliously using the original creases. ‘You have a copy of this?’

  ‘Keep it. It’s only a guess, but it may be a target list. If Greenwood had collaborators you could still be in danger.’

  ‘You were right to show it to me. I’ll pass it to Mr Zander.’ He spoke quickly to his aide, a slim young man who still seemed shaken by our brief confrontation. He took the printout and headed towards the building. Delage watched him disappear through the revolving doors and then turned to me, his manicured hand brushing the last dust from my jacket. He was clearly weighing the seriousness of my message against my scruffy appearance.

  ‘Paul, you’ve put your spare time to good use. I’m off to Nice Airport, but we can speak en route to the heli-shuttle in Cannes. Afterwards the car will bring you back. It’s not often that you see your name on a death list …’

  The limousine moved swiftly through the outskirts of Le Cannet, a target safely ahead of any possible attacker. Through the window divider I watched the chauffeur speaking on the carphone, eyes meeting mine in the rear-view mirror. No doubt the security apparatus at Eden-Olympia was at full alert, with a Range Rover parked outside the Delages’ house.

  But Alain had recovered his poise. The tentative hands that had straightened my shirt and jacket emerged from crisp cuffs that concealed the strong tendons of his wrists. I guessed that he had been a dedicated athlete in his earlier days, handicapped by poor sight and the seriousness of a born accountant. Behind the expensive suiting a masculine tension was waiting to be released. I could see him ranging along the baseline, playing his methodical returns as he watched for his opponent’s weaknesses, now and then attempting a lob or backhand pass that never quite found its mark. I remembered that he had been present at the brutal beating in the clinic car park, one of the executives who had stopped their cars to watch a display of summary justice at its most unpleasant. The beatings had probably helped to draw some of the tension from him, but he was a man who would never completely relax, except in the company of his passive and ever-watchful wife.

  I assumed that he had already amortised the threat to himself. In an effort to distract me, he pointed to a heritage sign at the junction with the Mougins road.

  ‘If you’re interested in painting, Bonnard’s house is here in Le Cannet. Picasso worked at Antibes, Matisse further down the coast at Nice. In many ways modern art was a culture of the beach. They say it’s the light, the special quality of quartz in the Permian rock.’

  He spoke in the fluent, uninflected English of the international executive, with the kind of arts connoisseurship picked up in the antique shops that lined the lobbies of luxury hotels. I gazed at the roadside, lined with speedboat dealerships, video warehouses and swimming-pool showrooms. Together they crowded the few spaces between the autoroute access ramps.

  ‘The light? Or were people more cheerful then? Picasso and Matisse have gone, and the business parks have taken their place.’

  ‘But that’s good. It’s the turn of the sciences. E
verything is possible again – organisms with radial tyres, dreams equipped with airbags. What do you think of our new silicon valley? You’ve had the leisure to look around.’

  ‘I’m impressed, though leisure is in short supply. The new Côte d’Azur doesn’t have time for fun.’

  ‘That will change.’ Delage gripped his briefcase, as if about to offer me a position paper. ‘People realize they can work too hard, even if work is more enjoyable than play. Your countryman, David Greenwood, was a sad example.’

  ‘You knew him well?’

  ‘We were neighbours, of course, but he was always busy with the refuge at La Bocca. We never met socially – my wife found him far too earnest. She likes to sunbathe, and it made him uncomfortable, he would even lower the blinds.’ Delage stared at his thighs, and then hid them behind his briefcase. ‘Now, this list. I’m grateful for your concern, but I doubt if these names are what you think. Perhaps Greenwood was drawing up a group of volunteers for a medical experiment.’

  ‘It’s possible. Though he did shoot seven of them. Is there any reason why he might have wanted to kill you?’

  ‘None. It’s inconceivable. Believe me, find a different approach. I hear you have new evidence.’

  ‘Three spent bullets. I handed them in to Zander this afternoon. I’m surprised you know.’

  ‘Monsieur Zander and I speak all the time. Tell me, Paul, how good is our security?’

  ‘First class. There’s no doubt about it.’

  ‘Even so, you were able to get within a few feet of me. Suppose you had been carrying a gun? Who told you I was leaving for Nice?’

  ‘No one. I wanted to see you at your office. It was pure chance.’

  ‘Chance can work for terrorists. Pursue your enquiries, but keep Zander informed. You may come up with something important.’

  ‘Unlikely. Apart from this list there’s nothing to go on. I need to know the exact sequence of deaths that morning. It might explain Greenwood’s state of mind.’

  ‘Ten people were killed – what does the sequence matter?’ Delage pushed his glasses against his eyes, scanning the small print of my quibbles and queries. ‘Your friend wasn’t designing a ballet.’

  ‘All the same, the pattern of deaths may say something. Who was the first to die?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Try Nice-Matin, they have an office in Cannes. The municipal library has back copies of important newspapers.’

  ‘And the police?’

  ‘If you want to waste your time. They’re happy to have an Englishman who went mad without cause. That’s your historical role.’

  ‘We’re the village idiot of the new Europe?’

  ‘The misfit, the holy fool. Think of David Greenwood, this poor poetic doctor with his children’s shelter …’ Delage spoke with pleasant but cruel humour, part of the sadistic strain in this repressed accountant that I had already noticed. He moved into the corner of the leather seating and observed me in his steely way. ‘You’re very concerned with Greenwood – it may be that you need a mystery. Did you know him well?’

  ‘Hardly at all.’

  ‘And Jane? Slightly better, perhaps?’

  ‘No husband can ever say.’ Moving on from his veiled suggestion, I spoke briskly: ‘I’m impressed by Eden-Olympia, but there are things that seem deliberately out of focus. Putting us in Greenwood’s house. Giving Jane the same office. It’s as if someone is flashing a torch in the dark, sending a message we should try to decode. Half the victims were senior managers at Eden-Olympia. Suppose there are rival groups locked in a power struggle? You say Greenwood was your holy fool, but a better term might be fall guy. I haven’t seen any evidence yet that he fired a single shot.’

  Delage flicked at a loose thread on his cuff. I had taken a gamble, rattling my stick in an apparently empty kennel, in the hope that a drowsing beast might emerge.

  ‘The evidence is there, Paul…’ Delage had withdrawn behind his watery lenses. ‘I’ll speak to Zander: we need to be less secretive. Eden-Olympia is home to the greatest corporations in the world. Their chief executives are too valuable to risk in a small local feud. Greenwood killed his victims, stalking them one by one. Secretaries saw him walk through their offices and open fire. As they knelt behind their desks they were showered with their employers’ blood.’

  ‘Even so …’

  But Delage was speaking to the chauffeur as we rolled down the Boulevard de la République, past the elegant apartment houses that lay below the heights of Super-Cannes. I sat forward when we reached the Croisette, for once needing to get my bearings in the maze of afternoon traffic. Crowds strolled under the palms, enjoying the warm autumn day, like citizens of another world who had come ashore for a few hours. Wilder Penrose had been right to say that there was something unreal about them.

  Delage beckoned to me. ‘Paul, the Noga Hilton. There are nice shops in the lobby. Buy Jane a present.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Simone and I are very fond of her. She has an ingénue’s charm and directness. Why keep her to yourself? You should join more in our social life.’

  ‘Is there such a thing?’

  ‘It’s private, but very active. Work is so enjoyable, while play is demanding. It requires special qualities and offers special rewards.’ He opened the nearside door for me and stared at the sea. ‘I envy you, Paul, but be careful. You’re a pilot, like Saint-Exupéry – and he ended there, lying in the deep water …’

  As he held out his hand I noticed the livid bruises above his wrist, the blue and yellow clouds of damaged skin hidden by his shirt cuffs. I imagined him involved in a masochistic game with his bored wife, probably involving more than a brisk rap on the knuckles. Behind the rimless glasses I could see an almost Calvinist repression at work. At the same time he seemed to be smiling at some unexpected good fortune, like a suburban bank manager discovering a book of intriguing phone numbers left by his predecessor.

  ‘Nice-Matin – check them out, Paul.’

  ‘I will. Don’t worry, I’ll get a present for Jane.’

  ‘Good.’ He waved from the window as the limousine slid away. ‘And think about Saint-Exupéry …’

  12

  A Fast Drive to Nice Airport

  A PUBLICITY PLANE flew along the Croisette, its pennant fluttering like the trace of a fibrillating heart, unnoticed by the sunbathers stretched on their loungers in the hotel concessions. The pilot banked steeply when he was level with the Martinez and soared towards Juan-les-Pins and the Antibes peninsula, his propeller shredding the air and throwing shards of sunlight across the vivid sea.

  I watched until it disappeared, wishing that I sat in the cockpit of my old Harvard, deafened by the roar of the engine and gagging on the stench of lubricating oil, flight plan clipped to my knee, three bottles of iced beer in a cool-bag hanging from the throttle mount, cigar smouldering in the ashtray sellotaped to the instrument panel. I needed the rush of icy air over the canopy, and the flood of light that irrigated every cell in the retina, every waiting space in the soul.

  At the public beach near the Palais des Festivals the speedboats of the water-ski school rocked beside the landing stage as their customers buckled on the safety harnesses. Tourists crowded the Croisette, amiable Americans on short-stay package deals, Germans of technical mind studying the microlight seaplanes moored to the wooden piers, restless Arabs on the terrace of the Carlton, bored with sex and drugs, and waiting for the gaming rooms to open.

  There was a whiff of crepes and frites from the lunch stalls, but Wilder Penrose’s strictures had begun to bite. The crowds drifted in slow motion, gathering in clumps around the tabacs and the bureaux de change like platelets blocking an artery. With their camcorders and light meters, body bags packed with spare lenses, they resembled a huge film crew without a script.

  I was frustrated, and knew it. My irritation was magnified by Alain Delage’s veiled threat. He had flattered me by referring to Saint-Exupéry, but the great pilot’s bones lay on the seabed
in the remains of his Lightning, somewhere near the Baie des Anges. I could take the hint. But why had Delage bothered to give me a lift into Cannes, unless my plumb-line was at last touching bottom?

  As he suggested, I visited the offices of Nice-Matin. The back issues told me nothing about David Greenwood and his day of death, and how this amateur marksman had managed to seize his hostages and then kill his victims, despite the substantial distances involved and the elaborate security. There were photographs of Greenwood posing with his orphans at the La Bocca refuge, but no conceivable bridge between the smiling, dark-eyed girls and the harsh news pictures of bullet-starred doors and bloody elevators.

  The microfiche copies of the Herald Tribune in the American Library were no more use. A helpful assistant suggested a local newspaper for English-speaking residents, but after a taxi ride to La Napoule I found only the back-street office of a free-sheet listing properties for sale, swimming-pool constructors and dealers in used Mercedes.

  Drained by the sun, I walked past the car-park entrance to the Palais des Festivals. The heat rose from the ornamental tiles like a headache. Behind me, ten yards to my left, a blonde woman in a dark suit followed me across the terrace. Face shielded from the sun by a copy of Vogue, she tottered along on high-heels, as if trying to sidestep her own shadow. Then it occurred to me that she might be drunk, and I thought of the air-conditioned bars hidden away in the Palais des Festivals.

  Here, in the much-derided pink bunker, where the competing entries in the film festival were screened each May, a congress of orthopaedic surgery was taking place. The American and German tourists I had so looked down on were probably distinguished surgeons from Topeka and Düsseldorf, far closer in spirit to Eden-Olympia than I assumed.

  I stepped from the sun into the cool of the foyer, where an accreditation desk was issuing passes to the delegates. Without exception, the surgeons wore trainers and sportswear, and for once my trousers and thong sandals allowed me to merge seamlessly into the crowd. The attendants checking the delegates’ badges waved me through. Leaving the others to attend a lecture on tuberculosis of the hip joint, I strolled towards a trade fair on the ground floor. Sales staff patrolled their stands, filled with displays of surgical armatures and corrective body-appliances.