I kissed the pearl lipstick on her mouth, but she was distracted by the noise on the Croisette. She stabbed her cigarette into a wet pulp, and pushed away her martini.

'All this din,' she complained. 'Let's find somewhere quiet.'

'It's the film festival – everyone's enjoying themselves.'

'Awful, isn't it? You can get knocked down by the world's oldest hooligans.'

' Frances…?' I pressed her hands to the bar. 'What is it? You're as nervous as a bird.'

She glanced into the mirror of her compact, scanning the restaurant behind her. 'I think I'm being followed.'

'I'm not surprised. You look like a movie star.'

'I mean it. That's why I haven't been in touch. There's someone watching me when I leave the office. I'm pretty sure it's one of Zander's security men.'

'What does he do?'

'Nothing. He sits in a parked car on the roof deck, near where David was killed.'

'Maybe he's holding a vigil?'

'Paul, I'm serious.'

'He's just doing his job. Frances, you're an important person in the property office. You help them with the… recreational side of things.'

'That's quite a euphemism. Write it down.' She frowned at the olive in her martini, as if suspecting that it might be bugged.

'At least I don't like doing it. You accept everything.'

'Not true. I'm waiting for Penrose to go over the edge. Then the whole balloon will burst and the police will have to act. I hate the racism and violence, but the ratissages are just an adult version of "ring the doorbell and run".'

'That's very tolerant, coming from someone as straitlaced as you. I'm glad no one rings my doorbell.' She laughed at this, trying to reassure herself, and then stared at me like a shady boxing manager setting up one of his fighters. 'Wilder Penrose impresses you, I can see that. Have you ever thought where it's going to lead? And where he's taking you?'

' Frances… he's not taking me anywhere. Stop working for them. Apply for a transfer. By the way, I assume you picked out the Arab yacht they set alight?'

'So vulgar. A floating brothel. I had a look round – it reeked of semen.' She revived, the flames almost reflected in her eyes. 'You should have joined in, Paul. You'd have fun beating up some rich Arab.'

'I doubt it.' I wanted to calm her, and took away her cigarettes.

Lowering my voice, I said: 'You've been trying to use me ever since we met. Why?'

'Who knows? Revenge, anger, envy – invent a new deadly sin. We need one.' She moved closer to me, and took a cigarette from the packet in my hand. Casually, she said: 'There's going to be an "action" tonight. A really big one.'

'Ringing doorbells?'

'More serious than that. They've rented cars and an ambulance. Because of the film festival they've had to bring them in from Marseilles and Dijon.'

'That's a lot of trouble to go to. How do you know?'

'I booked the drivers' return air tickets. If there's an ambulance it means people will be hurt. I think they plan to kill someone.'

'I doubt it. Who?'

'Hard to say.' She stared at herself in the mirror behind the bar.

'It could be me. Or you. In fact, you're much more likely.'

'Hire cars and an ambulance? Return tickets to Dijon?'

'Why not? They must be tired of you poking around. You haven't discovered anything about David they didn't already know. You're no more part of Eden-Olympia than those African salesmen they're always roughing up. Your wife's practically moved in with one of their senior executives.'

'That's not true.'

'No? I'm sorry, Paul. I didn't mean that.' She smiled dreamily, like a clever child, and then seized her purse. 'I'm getting the Blue Bar blues. Let's get out of here and see some healthy, life-enhancing porn…'

We strolled arm in arm along the Croisette, stepping back when groups of limousine-chasers raced across the pavement, chattering into their mobile phones as they coordinated their celebrity hunt.

I thought of Frances 's talk of a special action. But I was too easy a target, a crippled ex-pilot barely able to pump the clutch pedal of his rebored Jaguar, with a wife who was a key member of the clinic.

But the threat nagged at me, as Frances had intended. She was forever playing with my emotions and loyalties, skilfully weaving them through the woof and warp of her own insecurities. Lying in bed beside me at Marina Baie des Anges, surrounded by the vast, curved night, she would watch me as I caressed her thighs, confused by the affection I felt for her. She had never understood the secret rationale of Eden-Olympia, and still assumed that its senior executives were giving in to a repressed taste for thuggery and violence.

'Paul?' She gripped my arm as I stopped to scan the traffic.

'You've seen something?'

I pointed to the central reservation, sealed off by railings to protect the palms from the graffiti artists. A stout man with reddish hair and a bottle nose stood on a patch of grass, staring over the crowd.

'The Riviera News manager…' Frances turned her back.

'Is that -?'

'Meldrum. Do you want to talk to him?'

'No. He's watching us. He knows something is on tonight.'

'There is. You're in the middle of it.' I waited as the Australian jotted something into a notebook. 'He's a reporter, Frances. He's covering his beat.'

'Let's get away. Here, anywhere…' I could feel her shaking as she dragged me up the steps of a short-let apartment building.

The flats had been rented out to small independent producers, and every balcony was draped with banners advertising the company's latest film.

'"Where Teachers Dare"… "Schoolgirl Killers"…' I read out. ' Manila, Phuket, Taiwan. What Meldrum calls one man, a boy and a dog operations…'

'The man holds the camera while the boy… Paul, are you interested?' Frances had calmed herself, and waited for me to reply. 'They're all on video. You sit on a bed and take your pick from six television sets.'

'Group sex, donkeys, water sports? Krafft-Ebing meets Video-8?'

'Please… this isn't Surbiton or Maida Vale. It's all very normal – paunchy men in their fifties having straight sex with fourteen-year-olds. Nothing pervy, thank you.' She took my arm like a helpful tour guide. 'Cahiers du Cinéma says the porn movie is the true future of film.'

'In that case…'

We entered the lobby of the apartment building. Beyond the glass doors was the reception bureau, which resembled the registration office of a paediatric conference. Two middle-aged Asian women with the faces of retired croupiers sat at a baize-draped table, beside a display board covered with room numbers and film stills. Leaflets and advertisement flyers were stacked on a desk, showing a selection of well-groomed and smiling children barely on the edge of puberty, as if illustrating a seminar on rubella or whooping cough.

' Frances… hold on.'

'What is it? Spoilt for choice?'

'This isn't for me.'

'How do you know? Are you sure, Paul?'

'Absolutely. You've had me wrong from the beginning.'

'Fair enough.' She seemed relieved, but added offhandedly: 'David loved it here.'

' Greenwood? That surprises me.'

'It was a laugh. A huge joke. He was curious – in a way, he was working in the same field.'

'A joke?' I watched the Asian women. One of them was trying to smile, and a strange crevice appeared in the area of her mouth, a vent of hell.

I stepped into the Croisette and the safety of the television lights.

A stretch limousine with Eden-Olympia pennants slowed to a halt, held up by the crowd that surged aimlessly along the pavement like a tide swilling to and fro among the piers of a tropical harbour. I could see clearly into the rear seat, where Jane sat between Alain and Simone Delage. All were in evening dress, Jane with Wilder Penrose's mink stole around her shoulders. She was staring at the sea, as if unaware of the film festival and lost in her thoughts of modem links and mass medical screenings. She was tired but all the more beautiful for it, and I felt proud of her and glad to be her husband, despite what Eden-Olympia had done to us.