37 A Plan of Action

I found frances by the telescope, pacing to and fro under the trees, fingers tearing a pine cone she had picked from a branch. The black-clad women were walking towards the church, bereaved wives and mothers making their annual visit to the Virgin of La Garoupe.

Frances stared irritably at the women, unable to face this chorus of the undead. Aware of her blonde hair and tailored trouser-suit, she pulled at her buttons and scuffed through the gravel to the telescope. Leaning against the brass barrel, she stared across the bay to Golfe-Juan, searching for Zander's overturned car. I realized that she had chosen La Garoupe as our meeting place in order to punish herself.

' Frances, come on. Be honest, you loathed Zander…'

'Where is it?' She pushed me away, and tossed the pine cone from one hand to the other. 'A grey Audi – I can't see it.'

'It's in a police lab – they must be checking the brakes and steering.'

'Why? We can tell them all they need to know. Or will we, Paul? Somehow I doubt it…' She slapped the telescope, and her rings sent out a sharp metal cry that drew the eyes of the widows.

'Give me a coin – ten francs. The car must be there…'

I held her shoulders and steered her to the wooden bench on the observation platform. 'Let's rest here. There's nothing on the beach: I went back to have a look. Frances, we were two hundred yards away when it happened.'

'It was a set-up. Didn't you guess?' Her moment of panic had passed, and she spoke calmly. 'I was the decoy. While you were looking for Jane, I played the vamp with Zander. I told him to follow me back to Marina Baie des Anges.'

'And that's why he trailed us? He must have seen me in the passenger seat.'

'He didn't mind. I said you were a great fan of threesomes.'

'So all that roaming around Super-Cannes in the dark? The back streets near the Vallauris road…?'

'I was giving everyone time to catch up. Alain Delage told me to take the coast road to Juan-les-Pins. Drink-drivers are always ending up in the sea.' She raised her arm and threw the pine cone down the slope, watching it bounce into the deep ferns. 'Believe me, I didn't think they planned to kill him.'

'So you knew nothing – don't blame yourself.'

'I should have known!' Disgusted with herself, she turned her eyes from the beach. 'Until then I could cope with Eden-Olympia. But the waves were on fire. Paul, that was a warning – these people have to be stopped, or others are going to die.'

'They'll pull back now. Delage took a risk in killing Zander. He was head of security.'

'Acting head. He knew too much, and that made him greedy. He had all the videotapes, and he'd started to put pressure on the smaller companies. He wanted huge share options built into his salary package. Besides, there was one other mark against him.'

'He was just another Arab? Still, Yasuda is Japanese. There are Hong Kong and Singapore Chinese in every boardroom. A Mexican CEO lives on my avenue.'

'But they're paid-up members of the new elite. They're the corporate chosen people. Zander ran a security firm in Piraeus before he came here. He was technical services, one up from the janitors. The top managements at Eden-Olympia are deeply racist, but in a new way. The corporate pecking order is all that counts. They know the world would collapse without them, and think they can get away with anything.'

'They probably can.'

'No!' Frances pulled at my shirt. 'Listen to me. Some of the therapy groups are starting to stockpile weapons. They're setting up "hunting lodges" near the immigrant housing estates in La Bocca and Mandelieu. Technically, they'll be safe depositories for pharmaceuticals and industrial diamonds, and the guards will be heavily armed.'

'But their real role will be to provoke the local criminals and layabouts?'

'And then take on the immigrant population as a whole. We're back in Weimar Germany, with a weekend Freikorps fighting the Reds. Sooner or later some corporate raider with a messianic streak will turn up, backed by all the natural gas in Yakut, and decide that social Darwinism deserves another go. Listen to Alain Delage and Penrose talking together and you know they're just waiting for him to arrive.'

'Dictators always step into an open jackboot. How many executives are involved in the therapy classes?'

'Something like three hundred. A lot are off on overseas trips, but most weekends at least a hundred take part. They're operating as far away as Nice and St-Raphaël. There's some grim stuff going on – nasty child porn, rapes of young Arab wives…'

'The police will step in.'

'They're looking the other way. Eden-Olympia is expanding. Destivelle and the holding company are buying thousands or hectares to the west of the D103, right up to the edge of Sophia-Antipolis.' Grimly, Frances gestured towards the open hinterland beyond the coast. 'The taxes paid by Eden-Olympia amount to billions of francs. They pay for new schools and colleges and sports stadia. That's why we're so popular. Wilder Penrose and Delage have to be stopped, along with their lunatic scheme. Not because it's crazy, but because it's going to work. The whole world will soon be a business-park colony, run by a lot of tight-lipped men who pretend to be weekend psychos.'

She stared fiercely at the beaches of Juan and Cagnes-sur-Mer, as if hoping for a tsunami to appear and wash the entire coastline into the sea. I remembered the bored and moody woman I had met at the Palais des Festivals, feigning an interest in me as she pondered how to take her revenge on Eden-Olympia.

But Zander's death had driven her to the edge. For the first time she had looked down at her feet and was ready to jump.

'We'll stop them, Frances. But we need hard evidence. The testimony of Philippe Bourget and a couple of chauffeurs' widows won't be enough.'

'The evidence is there. All the ratissages are filmed. There must be a thousand tapes at the Villa Grimaldi. In Menton I went to see a retired judge I met when we bought his old house. He used to be vice-president of the Alpes-Maritimes Development Council, but fell foul of Jacques Médecin and his gangster cronies. They forced him to resign. He was very interested in what I told him.'

'Be careful, Frances. I need to think of Jane. I'll try to get her back to London.'

'She won't go. You know that.' Frances drummed her fists together, tired of my obtuseness. 'She's one of their main targets. They've given her this huge diagnostic project.'

'It's not a front. The system will work.'

'Naturally! It's a brilliant way of recruiting new entrants to the therapy classes. "Too many summer colds, feeling a little seedy? Try one of our special workouts, rubber truncheons provided." Jane is perfect for them.'

'She's pretty spirited.'

'Not any more. For God's sake, Paul, she's a heroin addict. They need a compliant doctor. One who'll supply all the hard drugs they want, ask no questions about strange bruises and find a hospital bed for any whore who gets hurt when some sadistic game goes wrong. They like a paediatrician who can deal with any underage girls and boys who catch VD. And it's always useful to have a doctor who'll sign death certificates when they're needed. Jane will do all that for them.'

'She's already started. She signed the attestation for Zander's death.'

'She saw what happened?'

'No. She was asleep in the back of Delage's Merc. Still, she was there.'

'That's why Alain brought her along. And she genuinely thinks it was an accident?'

'I'm not sure…' I watched the first of the old women leave the church and make their way back to their coach. 'Frances, there's one thing I've never understood. Why did David try to kill you?'

Frances stared me out, barely masking the self-contempt in her face. 'Did he?'