'Just give me a moment.'

'What is it? Paul?'

'I need a word with Zander.' I flexed my shoulders. 'He's about to be the first policeman I've ever punched.'

'Why?' Frances held my arm. 'I was joking. You sound like a Victorian father. He scarcely touched me.'

'He touched Jane.' I waited while Zander strolled towards us, smiling with all his corrupt charm, as if our real evening together was about to begin. ' Frances, wait here… it won't take long.'

'Paul!' She shouted above the music, shaking her head when Halder caught up with the security chief. 'I'm too tired to watch you three brawling.'

'Right…' I saw Halder raise a slim hand in warning. I could deal with Zander, but Halder would be too fast for me. 'We'll go – I'll talk to Zander another time…'

'Is Jane all right?' Frances steered me down the path towards the car park. 'What happened to her?'

'Nothing. Zander came on a little too heavily.'

'I'm sorry.' Frances handed her ticket to the valet-parkers, and then gripped my arms. 'Forget about Zander. He doesn't matter. None of it matters.'

'That's what Jane said. I almost believe it…'

We moved down the drive towards the gates, queueing behind the Saudi ambassador's Cadillac. Trying not to think of Zander, I realized that once again I had yielded to the greater status quo that was Eden-Olympia. The business park set its own rules, and had effectively switched off our emotions. Violence and aggression were only allowed within the therapeutic regime administered by Wilder Penrose, like rationed doses of a rare and dangerous medicine.

Yet a brawl around the swimming pool of the Villa Grimaldi, in full view of the assembled judges and police chiefs, with Halder lightly hysterical and Zander wallowing in the deep end, would have been a breakthrough of almost surrealist proportions, a genuine lunge for freedom. I was tempted to tell Frances to turn back.

'Paul…' She tapped my injured knee, waking me from my reverie. 'Look up there…'

She pointed across the landscaped lawns to the conservatory entrance of the Villa Grimaldi, where we had parked after the Cardin Foundation robbery. Two immaculate black Mercedes straddled the flowerbeds, as if delivered straight from a showroom. Behind them was a commercial ambulance with curtained windows, its red-cross light switched off, the driver and his paramedic asleep in the front seat.

Frances fumbled with the headlight switch, trying to read the ambulance's numberplate.

' Toulon…' She seemed thrown by this. 'I told you they'd leased a lot of cars. Why bring an ambulance from Toulon?'

'Watch the Cadillac…' I held the wheel, avoiding the Saudi bumper. 'The ambulance is here for the party. Those elderly bankers have to be kept alive – as long as there's a pulse, the money flows.'

Frances stalled the engine, and clumsily restarted it. 'There's something on tonight, a ratissage…'

'Penrose would have told me. He's keen that I'm involved.'

'Only in the fun ones, the rugger club japes. This one is serious. Was Penrose here? He doesn't usually go to parties.'

' Frances, relax…' I moved her edgy hand from the gear lever, trying to calm her. 'He was upstairs, watching his videos. Nasty stuff – he's starting to prescribe some really violent therapy.'

'Then do something about it. At least six senior judges were at the party.'

'And several police commissaires. I appear in a lot of the video footage – I don't want to spend the next ten years in a Marseilles jail. Besides, they turn a blind eye. They won't admit it, but the French upper class are deeply racist.'

We left the gates of the Villa Grimaldi and set off along the high corniche. Despite her edginess, Frances drove at a leisurely pace, reluctant to change up from second gear. I lay back, and let the last traces of Zander's cologne blow away on the night air.

When we reached the Vallauris road Frances stopped at the green traffic lights. Without moving her head, she pointed to the rear-view mirror.

' Frances? Let's go.'

'There's a car following us.'

I gazed back at the darkened road, briefly lit by a salvo of fireworks. A car with dipped headlights approached us, drifting from the verge to the centre line as if the driver suffered from defective night vision.

'Paul?'

'It's all right. He's looking for someone's villa.'

'No. He's after us. The car has Eden-Olympia plates.'

The car, a grey Audi, was fifty yards behind us when the traffic lights turned to red. Frances let out the clutch and accelerated across the empty intersection, turning right towards Golfe-Juan.

The Audi driver cruised through the red lights, and at the last moment swung round to follow us, his nearside wheel clipping the kerb.

I pointed to the first side road. 'Take a left here. He'll go by.'

We turned into an avenue of small houses with well-stocked gardens. The reflector discs of parked cars glowed in our headlights.

The Audi had stopped, as if the driver was unsure where we had gone. Then he pulled off the Vallauris road and resumed his unhurried pursuit.

'Right,' I told Frances. 'He's tailing us. It's probably one of Halder's chums, keeping a routine watch over you. He's a real amateur – we'll soon lose him.'

'Him? It might be a woman.'

'Jane? She was too stoned to switch off the bath taps. Anyway, she doesn't care about us.'

Leaning against the door, I watched the Audi over my headrest. It swayed across the steep camber and its wing mirror struck a parked van. The driver caught himself and straightened out, but soon drifted from left to right across the road.

Below us, at the end of the avenue, was the RN7, the brightly lit coastal highway from Cannes to Golfe-Juan. We drove through the underpass, then paused at the junction. In the amber glare of the sodium lights I watched our pursuer stop thirty yards behind us. A hand emerged from the driver's window and tried to reset the broken wing mirror on its mount.

' Frances, you look exhausted…' Concerned for her, I tried to take the controls. 'Pull in here – I'll get out and talk to him.'

But Frances pressed on, joining the coast road towards Juan-les- Pins and Antibes. She gripped the wheel and glanced over her shoulder, as if fleeing from the night.

' Frances… slow down.'

'Not now, Paul. Our friend isn't alone.'

Afew yards behind the stationary Audi were two large Mercedes limousines, similar models to those we had seen at the Villa Grimaldi. As the Audi followed us, they pulled out onto the RN7, moving nose to tail with their headlights dimmed. The Audi driver seemed unaware of his black escort, and was still grappling with the broken wing mount.

We passed the old Ali Khan house beyond the railway tracks, a crumbling deco ghost above the beach. A slip road crossed the railway line and led to the harbour and waterfront bars of Golfe-Juan. Frances accelerated and hurled the little BMW through the dark air, wheels almost losing their grip on the unlit macadam. At the last moment she braked as we reached the railway bridge. The Audi was now a hundred yards behind us, the driver irritated by the Mercedes trying to crowd him off the slip road.

I saw a fist raised through the window, and his headlights flared when the tank-like limousine jolted his bumper.

'Brake now! Harder!' I leaned across Frances and switched off the lights. I forced the wheel from her hands and slewed the BMW across the beach road. We hurtled into the car park of Tétou's and came to a neck-jarring halt, startling the young attendant who was dozing in an open-topped Bentley.

The Audi sped past, its burly driver hunched over his wheel, followed by the two Mercedes, headlights on full beam, horns blaring as their drivers jockeyed like chariot-racers.

Too breathless to speak, Frances waved away the puzzled attendant. She lay back in the darkness, and stared at the diners in the beach restaurant across the road. She seemed stunned but relieved, as if she had completed an exhilarating fairground ride and was ready to rejoin the strolling crowd.