She reversed from the space and set off down the ramp, missing the parked cars by inches. In the entrance she braked hard before we reached the sunlight, throwing me against the seat belt like a crash-test dummy.

'You look better already,' she told me. 'There's nothing like a woman's driving to revive a man. What about a trip along the coast? I have to look at a house in Miramar.'

'Are you kidnapping me?'

'If you want me to. You need to get away from Eden-Olympia. It's setting up a branch office inside your head.'

'Right, I'm game.'

'Good. First, let's get rid of the war paint.'

She licked a tissue and began to work at the smudge of blood on my cheek. The soft scent of her neck and breasts, the faint bitter-sweetness of her tongue, were belied by her surprisingly rough hands, as if she resented the stain on my skin, and my lack of title to this last signature trace of the dead doctor.

'David's blood…' She spoke to herself. 'All gone. It's rather sad…'

She stared at the ruddy tissue. The stain seemed to glow more brightly in the fading afternoon light, as if revived by the breath between her lips and her memories of Greenwood.

25 The Cardin Foundation

Across La Napoule bay the evening mist veiled the Croisette, and the black breasts of La Belle Otero seemed to float above the Carlton Hotel, like gifts from one pasha to another borne on a cushion of vaporizing silk. The sea was smooth enough to xerox, a vast marbled endpaper. But three hundred yards below me the waves were channelled into the cove that separated Port-la-Galère from the Miramar headland, and spears of foam leapt through the dark air like berserk acrobats.

The vacant house we were visiting was virtually a small chateau, built into the rocks of the Pointe de l'Esquillon, with its round-the- compass views of the sea. The presence of the orienteering platform helped to straighten my own perspectives, after days of unsettling truths and evasions. Now Frances Baring had dealt herself back into the game, playing with her marked cards and her rigged shoe. Already I suspected that I would do anything to lose to her.

Unsure why she had taken me on her house-call, I suggested that we stop at a café in Théoule. She sat over her citron pressé, watching as I poured a cognac into my espresso coffee, and then ordered another for me before I could ask for the bill. Her moods flared and darkened in a few seconds, a shift of internal weather almost tropical in its sudden turns. She reminded me of the women pilots at the flying club, with their wind-blown glamour and vulnerable promiscuities. She still played with the blood-stained tissue, and I took for granted that she had been Greenwood 's lover.

'Paul, what do you think? Is it worth renting?'

Her heels clicked across the parquet of the high-ceilinged drawing room. As she stepped onto the terrace the wind rushed to greet her, filling out her skirt and jacket. Frogs honked at her from the half-filled fountain, but nothing else had disturbed the garden for months. The flowerbeds had run to seed, and globes of unpicked fruit rotted around the lemon and grapefruit trees.

I pointed to the swimming pool, filled with an opaque white fluid. 'I hope that's mare's milk. Ninety thousand francs a month? Are you planning to move here?'

'No fear. Some snobby little yachting resort? I rent villas for corporate visitors and high-powered academics.' She leaned on the balcony and slipped her arm through mine. 'Feeling better?'

'By the second. I'm glad I came.' I held her wrist when she tried to move away. ' Frances, I take it we didn't meet by chance at the Palais des Festivals?'

'Not exactly. I saw you looking a little lost, as usual, and thought you might be interesting.'

'Was I?'

'More than you realize.' She turned her back to the sea. 'You're a political prisoner. You wander round all day, searching for the escape tunnel, while getting more and more involved with the guards.'

'I could drive back to London tonight.'

'Rubbish. And it isn't just Jane who keeps you here. Why do you think you're so obsessed with David? You're in a trance.'

She smoothed my lapel, as if suddenly concerned for me. Her hands were forever brushing away imaginary flecks in a kind of submissive grooming. At the same time she eyed me in an openly calculated way.

'A trance? More than likely. I was the joyrider who stole your car.'

'_You_ took it?'

' Frances… don't be so arch. You invited me to steal it.'

'Did I? I think I was slightly drunk.'

'You left the keys on the passenger seat. Why?'

'I was curious about you. It was a sort of test.'

'To see if I had what it takes to steal? I might have killed myself.'

'Never. You're too cautious.'

'So I failed the test?'

'Six out of ten. I want you to understand Eden-Olympia. Then you might be able to help me.'

'But first I have to change?'

'A little. Admit it, you enjoyed stealing the car. I watched you drive down the Croisette. You had wings again.'

'You're right.' The lights had come on at Port-la-Galère, and I thought of the chauffeurs' widows sitting in their honeycomb apartments. 'Flying, yes… the first take-off after having sex. What's the next test?'

'You decide that. Tell me about the ratissage. The Rue Valentin may be more your street than you realize…'

She took a lighter and cigarette case from her purse. Cupping one hand, she lit the cigarette, but the wind blew a shred of burning tobacco over her shoulder. It landed on the parquet floor of the drawing room and glowed brightly in the air, a fire-creature breathing the wind. Intrigued by it, and tiring of me for the moment, Frances left the terrace. Her feet scattered the embers, which danced around her heels as she crossed the floor.

She began a circuit of the dining room, peering at the baronial fireplace with its andirons the size of torture racks, and heavy oak carvers like gnarled thrones. She jotted a comment in her notebook, but I knew she was covering up her embarrassment.

I had been too slow to respond to her, and she faulted herself for not playing the femme fatale more skilfully. I was attracted to her sexually, but she needed my complete submission if I was to join the secret game she controlled.

A brochure she had left on the terrace table began to flutter in the evening air. I turned it face down, and then read the printed name on the addressee label. 'Mme Frances Delmas, Marina Baie des Anges, Villeneuve-Loubet.'

I remembered the cryptic initials on Greenwood 's target list.

'F. D.'

Carrying the brochure, I followed Frances into the kitchen, where she stood on the small balcony overlooking the hillside. A hundred yards away was a large building that easily eclipsed the oddities of Port-la-Galère. Like a segmented flying saucer, it resembled a spacecraft that had landed by error in the steep hills of the Esterel and then reconfigured itself among the pine trees. A series of interlocking domes were pierced by porthole windows a dozen feet in diameter. Together they sprawled towards a terrace wide enough to stage a football tournament.

Lights flared through the portholes, as if a computer in the control room was waking from its slumbers and testing its own sentience. Teams of athletic young men and women stepped onto the terrace, setting up film lights, cameras and reflector screens. They wore jeans and trainers, money pouches slung from their waists, baseball caps over their Asian faces. To one side, waited on by a retinue of attendants, stood a favoured group of fashion models, dressed for the night in lustrous fur coats, stoles and bolero jackets. The platinum and auburn pelts seemed to drain the last light from the evening air, distilling the lees of the sun in their exquisite filaments. But the models stared expressionlessly at the film cameras, like the chorus in an avant-garde version of Madam Butterfly.