Super-Cannes Read online

  Sitting at the terminal, Jane accessed the X-rays of my knees now held in the clinic’s files, along with an unforgiving description of my accident and a photograph of the ground-looped Harvard. Tapping her teeth, Jane read the pathologist’s analysis of the rogue infection that had kept me in my wheelchair for so many months.

  ‘It’s right up to date – practically tells us what we had for breakfast this morning. I could probably hack into David’s files …’

  I clasped her shoulders, proud of my spirited young wife. ‘Jane, you’ll tear the place apart. Thank God it doesn’t say anything about my mind.’

  ‘It will, dear, it will …’

  Gazing at the garden, Jane finished her spritzer, eager to get back to the terminal.

  ‘I’ll give you a list of interesting restaurants,’ Penrose told her. He sat by himself in the centre of the wicker sofa, arms outstretched in the pose of a Hindu holy man, surveying us in his amiable way. ‘Tétou in Golfe-Juan does the best seafood. You can eat Graham Greene’s favourite boudin at Chez Félix in Antibes. It’s a shrine for men of action like you, Paul.’

  ‘We’ll go.’ I lay back in the deep cushions, watching a light aircraft haul its advertising pennant along the Croisette. ‘It’s blissful here. Absolutely perfect. So what went wrong?’

  Penrose stared at me without replying, his smile growing and then fading like a dying star. His eyes closed and he seemed to slip into a shallow fugue, the warning aura before a petit-mal seizure.

  ‘Wilder …’ Concerned for him, Jane raised her hand to hold his attention. ‘Dr Penrose? Are you –?’

  ‘Paul?’ Alert again, Penrose turned to me. ‘The aircraft, they’re such a nuisance, I didn’t quite catch what you were saying.’

  ‘Something happened here.’ I gestured towards the office buildings of the business park. ‘Ten people were shot dead. Why did Greenwood do it?’

  Penrose buttoned his linen jacket in an attempt to disguise his burly shoulders. He sat forward, speaking in a barely audible voice. ‘To be honest, Paul, we’ve no idea. It’s impossible to explain, and it damn near cost me my job. Those deaths have cast a huge shadow over Eden-Olympia. Seven very senior people were killed on May 28.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘The big corporations would like to know.’ Penrose raised his hands, warming them in the sun. ‘Frankly, I can’t tell them.’

  ‘Was David unhappy?’ Jane put down her glass. She watched Penrose as if he were a confused patient who had wandered into Casualty with a garbled tale of death and assassination. ‘We worked together at Guy’s. He was a little high-minded, but his feet were on the ground.’

  ‘Completely.’ Penrose spoke with conviction. ‘He loved it here – his work at the clinic, the children’s refuge at La Bocca. The kids adored him. Mostly orphans abandoned by their north African and pied-noir families. They’d never met anyone like David. He helped out at a methadone project in Mandelieu …’

  Jane stared into her empty glass. The sticky bowl had trapped a small insect. ‘Did he ever relax? It sounds as if the poor man was overworked.’

  ‘No.’ Penrose closed his eyes again. He moved his head, searching the planetarium inside his skull for a glimmer of light. ‘He was taking Arabic and Spanish classes so he could talk to the children at the refuge. I never saw him under any stress.’

  ‘Too many antidepressants?’

  ‘Not prescribed by me. The autopsy showed nothing. No LSD, none of the wilder amphetamines. The poor fellow’s bloodstream was practically placental.’

  ‘Was he married?’ I asked. ‘A wife would have known something was brewing.’

  ‘I wish he had been married. He did have an affair with someone in the property-services division.’

  ‘Man or woman?’

  ‘Woman. It must have been.’ Jane spoke almost too briskly. ‘He certainly wasn’t homosexual. Did she have anything to say?’

  ‘Nothing. Their affair had been over for months. Sadly, some things are fated to remain mysteries for ever.’

  Penrose scowled at the pool, and chewed on a thumbnail. The garden was now in shadow as the late-afternoon light left the valley of Eden-Olympia, and the top floors of the office buildings caught the sun, floating above the trees like airborne caravels. Our conversation had drained the colour from Penrose’s face. Only his hands continued to move. Resting on the cushions beside him, they flinched and trembled with a life of their own.

  ‘Was anyone else involved?’ I pointed towards Cannes. ‘Coconspirators on the outside?’

  ‘The investigating magistrate found nothing. He spent weeks here with his police teams, staging reconstructions of the murders. A strange kind of street theatre, you’d think Eden-Olympia was taking over from the Edinburgh Festival. Meanwhile, foreign governments were pressing hard for a result. Half the world’s psychologists jammed the baggage carousels at Nice Airport. There was even a televised debate in the conference room at the Noga Hilton. They came up with nothing.’

  ‘He tried to kill you.’ Jane pushed her glass away, distracted by the insect’s angry buzzing. ‘You were wounded. How did he look when he shot you?’

  Penrose sighed, his heavy chest deflating at the memory. ‘I didn’t see him, thank heavens. I’m not sure that I was one of his targets. A glass door blew in while I was checking something in the pharmacy. David was firing from the outside corridor at Professor Berthoud. By the time I stopped bleeding he’d gone.’

  ‘Grim …’ I felt a sudden sympathy for Penrose. ‘A nightmare for you.’

  ‘Far more for David.’ Penrose watched his restless hands and then nodded to me, grateful for this display of fellow-feeling. ‘Paul, it’s impossible to explain. Some deep psychosis must have been gathering for years, a profound crisis going back to his childhood.’

  ‘Did David know any of the victims?’

  ‘He knew them all. Several were patrons of the La Bocca refuge, like poor Dominique Serrou, the breast cancer specialist at the clinic. She gave a lot of her free time to the refuge. God only knows why David decided to kill her.’

  ‘Was Eden-Olympia his real target?’ Jane carried her glass to the open air and released the trapped insect. ‘I love it here, but the place is disgustingly rich.’

  ‘We thought of that.’ Penrose watched the insect veer away, smiling at its angry swerves and dives. ‘Eden-Olympia is a business park. This isn’t Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Drive to Le Cannet or Grasse and you’ll find a dozen old “zincs” where you can enjoy your pastis and bet on the horses at Longchamp.’

  ‘Third-World politics?’ I suggested. ‘Multinational corporations make a perfect terrorist target.’

  ‘IBM Europe? Nippon Telegraph?’ Penrose reluctantly shook his head. ‘Companies here aren’t involved with the Third World. None of them are sweating rubber or bauxite out of a coolie workforce. The raw material processed at Eden-Olympia is high-grade information. Besides, political terrorists don’t rely on people like David Greenwood. Though you have to admire the way he carried it off. Once the alarm was raised he must have known all the doors would shut around him.’

  ‘Which they did?’

  ‘Tighter than a nun’s knees. When he realized it was over, he came back here and killed his hostages, a couple of off-duty chauffeurs and a maintenance engineer. Why he seized them in the first place no one knows …’

  ‘Wait a minute …’ Jane stepped forward, pointing to Penrose. ‘Are you saying …?’

  ‘Tragically, yes. He killed all three.’

  ‘Here?’ Jane seized my wrist, her sharp fingers almost separating the bones. ‘You’re saying this was David’s villa?’

  ‘Naturally.’ Penrose seemed puzzled by Jane’s question. ‘The house is assigned to the clinic’s paediatrician.’

  ‘So the murders began …’ Jane stared at the white walls of the sun lounge, as if expecting to see them smeared with bloody handprints. ‘David lived in this house?’

  Penrose ducked his head, embarrassed by
his slip of the tongue. ‘Jane, I didn’t mean to alarm you. Everything happened in the garage. David shot the hostages there, and then killed himself. They found him inside his car.’

  ‘Even so …’ Jane searched the tiled floor at her feet. ‘It feels strange. David living here, planning all those terrible deaths.’

  ‘Jane …’ I took her hands, but she pulled them away from me. ‘Are you going to be happy? Penrose, can’t we move to another house? We’ll rent a villa in Grasse or Vallauris.’

  ‘You could move, yes …’ Penrose was watching us without expression. ‘It will create problems. Houses here are at a premium – none of the others are vacant. It’s a condition of Jane’s contract that she stay within Eden-Olympia. We’d have to find you an apartment near the shopping mall. They’re pleasant enough, but … Jane, I’m sorry you’re upset.’

  ‘I’m all right.’ Jane took a clip from her purse. Staring hard at Penrose, she smoothed her shoulder-length hair and secured it in a defiant bunch. ‘You’re sure no one was killed here?’

  ‘Absolutely. Everything happened in the garage. They say it was over in seconds. A brief burst of shots. Heart-rending to think about.’

  ‘It is.’ Jane spoke matter-of-factly. ‘So the garage …?’

  ‘Virtually rebuilt. Scarcely a trace of the original structure. Talk it over with Paul and let me know tomorrow.’

  ‘Jane …?’ I touched her cheek, now as pale as the white walls. Her face was pointed, like a worried child’s, and the spurs of her nasal bridge seemed sharp enough to cut the skin. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Odd. Don’t you?’

  ‘We can move. I’ll find a hotel in Cannes.’

  Penrose took out his mobile phone. ‘I’ll get Halder to drive you to the Martinez. We have several guest suites there.’

  ‘No.’ Jane brushed me aside, and took the phone from Penrose. ‘I’m too tired. We’ve both had a long drive. We need time to think it through.’

  ‘Good. You’re being very sensible.’ Penrose bowed in an almost obsequious way. Despite his concern, I was puzzled by his behaviour. He had deliberately concealed from us the crucial fact that David Greenwood had lived in this house and died within its grounds. No doubt Penrose had feared, rightly, that Jane would never have accepted the post at Eden-Olympia if she had known.

  I examined the chairs and tables in the sun lounge, pieces of department-store furniture in expensive but anonymous designs. I realized that Jane was as much the hired help as Halder and the security guards, the murdered chauffeurs and maintenance man, and was expected to keep her sensitivities to herself. Ambitious dentists did not complain about the poor oral hygiene of their richer clients. I remembered Halder’s sceptical gaze as he lounged by the Range Rover, making it clear that we were lucky to be admitted to this luxury enclave.

  Penrose said his goodbyes to Jane and waited by the pool as I found my walking stick. He had replaced his sunglasses, hiding the sweat that leaked from his eye-sockets. In his creased linen suit, with its damp collar and lapels, he seemed both shifty and arrogant, aware that he had been needlessly provocative but not too concerned by our reactions.

  Joining him, I said: ‘Thanks for the tour. It’s a superb house.’

  ‘Good. You’ll probably stay. Your wife likes it here.’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Believe me.’ His smile drifted across his face like a dismasted ship, detached from whatever he was thinking. ‘You’ll be very happy at Eden-Olympia.’

  I walked Penrose down to the avenue, and waited while he called the nearest patrol car.

  ‘One thing …’ I said. ‘Why did you tell Halder that I was a pilot?’

  ‘Did I? I hope that wasn’t indiscreet.’

  ‘No. But you made a point of it.’

  ‘Halder is a difficult man to impress. He has the special kind of snobbery that servants of the rich often show. As your security man it’s important he take you seriously. I thought it might break the ice.’

  ‘It clearly did. Is he an amateur pilot?’

  ‘No. His father was in the US Air Force, stationed at a base near Mannheim. The mother was a German girl working in the PX. He abandoned her and the baby, and now runs a small airline in Alabama. He was one of the few black commissioned officers. Halder’s never met him.’

  ‘An airline? That’s impressive.’

  ‘I think it has two planes. For Halder, flying is confused with his wish to confront his father.’

  ‘A little pat?’

  Penrose playfully punched my shoulder, a hard blow that made me raise my stick to him. He stepped out of my way and signalled to an approaching patrol car. ‘Pat? Yes. But I’m not speaking as a psychiatrist.’

  ‘Are you ever?’

  With a stage laugh, Penrose drummed his fist against the roller doors of the garage. He swung his large body into the passenger seat of the Range Rover, sprawling against the driver. The sound of his mocking cheer, good-humoured but derisory, was taken up by the vibrating metal slats, a memory of violence that seemed to echo from the sealed garage, eager to escape into the warm August air.

  Jane had left the sun lounge and was sitting by the computer in the study, choosing a new screensaver. I limped towards her, already tired by the spaces of the large house. Jane raised a hand to me, her eyes still fixed on the screen. Alone in this white room, she seemed at her prettiest, a charming ingénue in a modern-dress version of a Coward play. I leaned against her, glad to be alone with my sane young wife.

  ‘What was all that, Paul? You weren’t hitting him?’

  ‘As it happens, he punched me.’

  ‘Vile man. Are you all right?’ She took the walking stick and pulled up a chair for me. ‘Speaking of punches, Dr Wilder Penrose was a bit below the belt.’

  ‘Not telling us straight away about David? That’s obviously his style — watch out.’ I sat beside Jane, and stared at the complex patterns that revolved like a Paisley nightmare. ‘What did you make of him?’

  ‘He’s an intellectual thug.’ Jane massaged my knee. ‘That set-to over our bags with Halder. And the nasty way he stared at the African salesmen. He’s racist.’

  ‘No. He was trying to provoke us. Visitors from liberal England, we’re as naive as any maiden aunt, an unmissable target. Still, he’s your colleague now. Remember that you have to get on with him.’

  ‘I will. Don’t worry, psychiatrists are never a threat. Surgeons are the real menace.’

  ‘That sounds like hard-won experience.’

  ‘It is. All psychiatrists secretly dream of killing themselves.’

  ‘And surgeons?’

  ‘They dream of killing their patients.’ She rotated her seat, turning her back to the computer. ‘Paul, that was a weird afternoon.’

  ‘Very weird. I don’t know whether you noticed, but a rather odd game is being played. Penrose is testing us. He wants to see if we’re good enough for Eden-Olympia.’

  ‘I am.’ Jane’s chin rose, exposing a childhood scar. ‘Why not?’

  ‘So you want to stay?’

  ‘Yes, I do. There are possibilities here. We ought to explore them.’

  ‘Good. I’ll back you all the way.’

  Jane waited as I embraced her, then held me at arm’s length. ‘One thing, Paul. It’s important. We don’t talk about David Greenwood.’

  ‘Jane, I liked him.’

  ‘Did you? I’m not so sure. Face it, we’re never going to know what happened to him. He’s not coming back, so stop worrying about him. Agreed? Let’s go upstairs and unpack.’

  Jane led the way, hefting her leather suitcase while I limped after her, stick in one hand and two of the soft bags in the other. Once we reached our bedroom Jane collapsed onto the ivory-white sofa. She ran her cheek along the silk cushions.

  ‘Paul, isn’t this a little lavish for a member of staff? Have you wondered why?’

  ‘Are they trying to bribe us? I seriously doubt it. You’re a consultant paediatrician, one of the
new professional elite.’

  ‘Come off it.’ Jane unbuttoned her shirt. ‘I’m a barefoot doctor with a short-service contract. Still, sitting in the sun will do you good. Before we leave, you’ll be playing tennis again.’

  ‘I might even beat you.’

  ‘Losing to their favourite patients is part of a doctor’s job. It happens every day in Bel Air and Holland Park.’

  I wandered around the air-conditioned suite, with its dressing room and double bathroom. Despite Jane’s comments, the furniture was more Noga Hilton than Versailles, and I guessed that the originals had been replaced. But there were faint ink-marks from a ballpoint pen on the fabric of an armchair by the window. I moved the chair to one side, then knelt down and felt the dents in the carpet, deep and smoothly polished by the castors. David Greenwood had probably slumped in this chair at the end of a long day, ticking off the latest bulletins from Médecins Sans Frontières. One May morning he sat with a rifle across his knees and a map of Eden-Olympia, working out a special itinerary.

  Jane stood beside me, her dark hair falling to her bare shoulders. She had stepped from the dressing room and held her nightdress to her chin, admiring herself in the full-length mirror like a child trying on her mother’s clothes.

  ‘Paul, are you there?’ Concerned, she took my hands, as if leading me out of a dream. ‘You were asleep standing up. This house does odd things to people …’

  She let the nightdress fall to the floor and drew me towards the bed. I lay beside her, resting my face against her small breasts, with their sweet scents of summer love. Once again I wondered how well she had known David Greenwood. It occurred to me that three of us would sleep together in this large and comfortable bed, until I could persuade David to step out of my mind and disappear for ever down the white staircase of this dreaming villa.

  4

  A Flying Accident