'Madame Delage?' I asked. 'Doctor Sinclair?'

'Monsieur? They sleep now.'

'Good. Like Alice…' I pressed a few coins into his hand, stepped past him into the suite and closed the door. A single standard lamp lit the empty sitting room, its glow warming the deep pile of a fur stole lying across an armchair.

A coarse masculine odour hung in the air, a blend of sweat and genital steroids, the unmistakable spoor of a man in rut. A bottle of Laphroaig stood on the mantelpiece, and I guessed that a passionate suitor had fortified himself for the rigours of the bed.

Pools of malt whisky lay around the legs of a carriage clock, and stained a Palais des Festivals film programme.

The sound of running water came from the bathroom. I listened with my hand on the doorknob, uneager to catch Simone Delage in the act of clipping her toenails.

'Jane…?'

She was sitting on the tiled floor between the bath and the bidet, knees drawn against her chest, her left hand trailing in the flow of water from the bath tap. She wore a man's black silk dressing gown that lay like a shadow across the white tiles. Her face was composed, but the blush of a hard slap still burned on one cheek. Propped in the bidet was the patent-leather handbag that served as her off-duty medical valise. Her hand covered the syringe lying on the porcelain rim.

'Paul?' She greeted me with a faint tremor of the lips. She raised her chin, focusing on my eyes and mouth, and then took my hands, as if she needed to assemble in stages a recognizable image of her husband. She seemed almost asleep, her voice slurred. 'Glad you came, Paul. I wasn't sure…'

'I had to come. I guessed you'd be here.'

'So many parties in Cannes tonight. We saw the Eden-Olympia film.'

'Any good?'

'Depressing. Everyone's so happy in Cannes and they make these depressing films. Did you see any?'

'One or two. Not the kind in competition.'

'Depressing?'

'Very.' I sat on the edge of the bath and turned off the tap. I pointed to the inner door. 'Is…?'

'Simone? She's sleeping in the bedroom.' Jane tightened the dressing gown, her childlike shoulders swamped by the black silk.

'You look smart, Paul. I like the dinner jacket.'

'It was David's. It doesn't really fit.'

She nodded at this, and touched my sleeve. 'It suits you. Wear it all the time.'

'Frances Baring loaned it to me. God knows why she kept it.'

'So she won't forget David. He's everywhere still, isn't he?'

She straightened her hair in the wall-mirror. 'Too many mirrors in this house. Paul, tell me how you escape inside them.'

'You don't need to escape. Just take things easier. Wilder agrees you work too hard.'

'Wilder agrees with you about everything. That way you do what he wants.' She smiled with the first affection I had seen since our decision to stay. 'Dear Paul. You crash-landed your plane here and can't climb out…'

I listened to the boom of rock music, a dull pulse like a week-long headache. An odd smell caught my nostrils.

'Jane… was Zander here?'

'Zander?' She closed her eyes. 'Why ask?'

'I saw him on the terrace. The cologne he was using – I could smell it when I came in.'

'Nasty, isn't it? Reminds him of Beirut.' She felt the bruise on her cheek. 'It doesn't matter, Paul. High up here in Super-Cannes, nothing matters.'

I held her hand, chilled by the cold tap water, and noticed the torn skin on her wrist, blood clotting between the tendons. 'Did Zander do this?'

'I fell over. Zander was very drunk. He thinks he has serious problems at Eden-Olympia.'

'They want him out. He knows where the bodies are buried, and they've seen him sharpening his spade. What was he doing here?'

'Alain set up one of his little games. He didn't tell me Zander was going to play.'

'What happened?'

'They pushed him into the bedroom and locked the door.'

'Where were you?'

'In the bed.' Jane shrugged inside the dressing gown. 'He was too drunk.'

I sat on the floor and touched her bruised cheek. 'Jane, we should leave.'

'Now?' She gripped her bag, as if holding tight to a lifebelt. 'Can't leave, Paul. Taken my medicine.'

'All this diamorphine. You'll kill yourself.'

'I'm fine.' Jane squeezed my hand, the doctor reassuring an anxious relative. 'I know how much to take. That's what medical school is really for. All the doctors at the clinic need help to relax…'

'Let's pack tonight and set off for London. We can be in Lyons by morning. Jane, we've spent too long in Eden-Olympia.'

'I'll stay.' She spoke in a sleepy but firm voice. 'I'm really happy here. Aren't you? Talk to Wilder.'

'I have. He's downstairs, watching his pornographic films.'

'Lucky man. I have to cope with too much Belgian angst. Alain and Simone are quite prudish, in their own way.'

'They're degrading you.'

'I know. That's why I became a hippie, to see if I could cope with myself. Then all those caftans and dirty feet were a bit of a bore, so I turned into a doctor.'

'You kept the dirty feet.'

'And you still fell in love with me. I didn't wash for weeks. Now I have clean feet and I'm turning into a slut again. But I do my job and it doesn't matter.' Tired of me, she leaned her cheek against the tiled wall. 'Go, Paul. Just go… fly back to London.'

33 The Coast Road

Fireworks leapt into the night sky, ruby and turquoise umbrellas that formed huge cupolas over Super-Cannes, canopies fit for a caliph's throne. Like a hashish dream, they faded and rejoined the dark. Along the Croisette the flicker of flashbulbs marked the end of another premiere, and headlights glowed through the palm fronds as a motorcade left the Palais des Festivals.

Forgotten above the crowds, the samurai on the roof of the Noga Hilton gestured with his sword at the beach restaurants, where the studio parties were in full swing.

I took a flute of champagne from a cruising waiter, and thought of Jane, asleep against the bidet in the fourth-floor suite. Despite my knee, I was strong enough to carry her to a taxi, pack her into the Jaguar and set off northwards with our passports. But once again I had hesitated, just as I had postponed my decision to report Wilder Penrose to the police. In part I resented Jane for no longer needing me. I knew that she would leave me at the first service station on the Paris autoroute and hitch a lift to Cannes without a backward glance. If anyone needed me now, it was Penrose and his faltering dream of social madness, a larger version of that plane crash from whose wreckage, as Jane had said, I had yet to free myself.

The band had turned up its amplifiers, filling the air with immense blocks of reverberating sound. The social stratification of the guests had at last collapsed. In a new-style peasants' revolt, the lawyers, civil servants and police officials had climbed the steps to the middle terrace, overwhelming the actors and film agents. As if expecting the worst, the bankers and producers on the upper terrace stood with their backs to the Villa Grimaldi, an ancien régime faced with the revolution it most feared, a rebellion of its indentured professional castes.

Frances Baring and Zander were alone on the lower terrace, dancing together by the swimming pool. Zander held his jacket like a matador's cape, urging Frances to lunge at him. Playfully, she let him chase her around the pool, watched by Halder, who sat on the diving board, his dark figure almost invisible against the night.

Seeing me, Frances waved her purse. She whispered something to Zander, ducked beneath his groping hands and ran from the pool. She embraced me, reeking of Zander's cologne.

'Paul… don't ever try dancing with a secret policeman. I'm probably pregnant. Do you mind if we go?'

'We'll leave now.' I was glad to see her, but turned to face Zander, who was searching for the sleeves of his dinner jacket.