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Halder caught up with me and held my arm as I stepped into the Peugeot. 'Mr Sinclair… I can get her for you. They've always wanted me to…'

'Thanks, but you'll be their target for ever. They can write me off as a spoilsport husband.'

I stopped the Peugeot outside the entrance to the alley. Jane was still leaning against the Mercedes, handbag swinging like a signalman's lamp. Her eyes stared at nothing, but every few seconds she seemed to wake as she forced herself to breathe.

She failed to recognize me, or her car, and gestured towards the interior of the limousine, inviting me to her boudoir. The Delages nodded from the doorway, not realizing who I was, faces hidden inside the collars of their coats.

A young Frenchman in black trousers and white shirt stopped beside the Peugeot. A smell of stale cooking fat clung to his clothes, and I guessed that he was an off-duty waiter ready to spend his tips. He surveyed Jane like a seasoned racegoer, intrigued by the combination of this back-alley novice and her powerful car.

Assuming that the Delages were her pimps, he strolled towards Jane, nodding with approval at her waif-like body.

I left the Peugeot and strode towards the alley. The Delages were watching the rear seat of the Mercedes, where Jane and her client sat together, as close but as distant as strangers on a scenic railway. The Frenchman unzipped his fly. With one hand he hunted through his wallet, while the other held Jane's thigh, trying to keep her attention as she lay rigidly against the headrest, a passenger frozen in the last seconds before a collision.

'Paul… over here.' Seeing me, Alain Delage beckoned me to the doorway and made room for me beside Simone. 'I'm delighted you came. We thought…'

He was pleased to see me, glad that I had made the effort to turn up, a valued co-investor. Simone drew me into the doorway, stepping back to allow me the best view. Pressed against her, I noticed that she wore no scent or make-up, as if cleansing her senses and preparing her palate for this most savoury of dishes.

I pulled away from them and leaned against the roof of the Mercedes. Calmly, I said: 'I'm glad I came. What exactly is going on?'

'Paul?' Alain was surprised by my studied but aggressive tone. 'It's Jane – she said she told you. She wanted to try it out…'

'It's interesting for her.' Simone took my arm reassuringly. 'Like all wives…'

Inside the Mercedes the Frenchman had his wallet between his teeth. He gripped Jane's wrists, trying to restrain her as she struggled against him, small fists striking the roof of the car.

When I opened the door he swore and released Jane. He stuffed his wallet into a hip pocket and sprang from the rear seat with a shout of anger. He tried to strike me, but I caught his arm and threw him heavily across the bonnet. He swayed to his feet, thought better of attacking me and strode off, gesticulating at a streetlamp.

The Delages watched as I drew Jane from the car. They seemed disappointed but resigned, accepting that I had committed a modest social gaffe, an investor so caught up by the drama that he had mounted the stage to rescue the leading actress. Already Simone had opened the rear door and was brushing the seat, sweeping away the loose sequins from Jane's dress.

Jane embraced me as we stood by the Peugeot, a shocked child waking from a bad dream. She touched the bruise on her cheek and tried to wipe the lipstick from her mouth. Under the make-up her face was toneless, and I sensed that she still failed to grasp what had happened to her. 'Paul, you came…' Her hands gripped my shoulders. 'Something went wrong. It didn't feel like a game any more.'

I held her close to me, closer than I had held her since arriving at Eden-Olympia. 'Jane, dear – it never was a game…'

She was asleep when I parked behind Halder's Range Rover.

He stood by the door and watched me brush the hair from her face. She woke briefly and stared into my eyes with a kind of dazed surprise, as if I were an old friend from her medical school who had strayed into a blind corner of her life.

Halder surveyed the passing cars, the elderly drivers and broad-shouldered transvestites. The Delages had driven off in the Mercedes, resigned to their spoilt evening. Halder's gaze included me in its candid sweep, and I realized that he held me responsible for everything that had happened to Jane.

'She's all right, Mr Sinclair. You can take her home to London.'

He looked down at the Peugeot's keys that I had placed in his hand. 'You'd like me to drive?'

'Yes. But not back to Eden-Olympia.'

'That's very wise. You're in danger there.'

'I know. It took me a long time to realize it. Frank, I want you to head for Marseilles. Get Jane to the British Consul.'

'Marseilles? That's an all-night drive.'

'Good. You'll be out of the way. Jane will wake up in a few hours. Stop for coffee somewhere. Tell her everything we know – about Frances Baring's death, the child-sex ring, why Greenwood shot all those people, Wilder Penrose and his therapy classes. Find the British Consul, and Jane can claim she lost her money and passport. He'll issue her with some kind of laissez-passer. Make sure she gets on a plane back to England.'

'And you, Mr Sinclair?'

'I'll join her in London. First, I have a few jobs to do here. I need your Range Rover.'

'All right, if you're sure. I'll say it was stolen.'

'And your pistol. Don't worry, I've had weapons training.'

Halder's hand moved to his holster. He stared at me through the passing headlamps, unclipped the holster from his belt and handed the weapon to me.

'Mr Sinclair, you're taking a big risk.'

'Maybe. But there are people who have to be stopped. You know that, Frank. You've known it from the day you killed Greenwood.'

'Even so…' Halder took off his trenchcoat and slipped out of his uniform jacket. He waited as I zipped it over my shirt. 'Be careful. They'll be looking for you.'

'They expect me in the Peugeot with Jane. I need to move around Eden-Olympia. Whatever happens, I'll say nothing about you. One day you'll be security chief of Eden II. You'll make a better job of it than Pascal Zander.'

'I will.' He walked me back to the Range Rover. 'What exactly are you planning to do?'

'Tie up some loose ends. It's best that you don't know.'

Halder handed me his electronic key card. 'This will get you through all the doors in Eden-Olympia. When I come back from Marseilles I'll leave the Peugeot at Nice Airport. They'll think you flew to London. Take care, Mr Sinclair…'

I watched him drive away with Jane in the Peugeot. She slept in the passenger seat, her face white and unresponsive, younger even than the teenage physician I had first met at Guy's, an exhausted Alice who had lost her way in the mirror world.

42 Last Assignment

Light touched the wings and tail-fins of the parked aircraft, warming the cold metal as the first hint of dawn appeared between Cap d'Antibes and the Îles de Lérins. I sat in the front seat of the Range Rover, and watched the darkness retreat across the dew-moist grass, stealing away like a thief between the hangars and fire engines. Above my head the night seemed to falter, then tilted and withdrew in a rush behind the Esterel. The scent of aviation spirit crossed the airfield as mechanics fuelled a twin-engineed Cherokee for an early flight.

Parked beyond the perimeter wire, the aircraft had kept me company during the night. Unable to sleep, I listened to the traffic along the autoroute, Paris-bound tourist buses and lorries from Italy loaded with courgettes and vacuum cleaners and mobile phones. Meanwhile, my damaged Harvard sat in the storage hangar at Elstree, the caked soil embedded in its engine. Flight was an element missing from Eden-Olympia, the certainties of wind-speed, gravity and lift. Absent, too, was the need to explore any interior space, to pioneer the mail routes inside our heads.