Super-Cannes. Ali Smith

I thought it might break the ice.’

      ‘It clearly did. Is he an amateur pilot?’

      ‘No. His father was in the US Air Force, stationed at a base near Mannheim. The mother was a German girl working in the PX. He abandoned her and the baby, and now runs a small airline in Alabama. He was one of the few black commissioned officers. Halder’s never met him.’

      ‘An airline? That’s impressive.’

      ‘I think it has two planes. For Halder, flying is confused with his wish to confront his father.’

      ‘A little pat?’

      Penrose playfully punched my shoulder, a hard blow that made me raise my stick to him. He stepped out of my way and signalled to an approaching patrol car. ‘Pat? Yes. But I’m not speaking as a psychiatrist.’

      ‘Are you ever?’

      With a stage laugh, Penrose drummed his fist against the roller doors of the garage. He swung his large body into the passenger seat of the Range Rover, sprawling against the driver. The sound of his mocking cheer, good-humoured but derisory, was taken up by the vibrating metal slats, a memory of violence that seemed to echo from the sealed garage, eager to escape into the warm August air.

      Jane had left the sun lounge and was sitting by the computer in the study, choosing a new screensaver. I limped towards her, already tired by the spaces of the large house. Jane raised a hand to me, her eyes still fixed on the screen. Alone in this white room, she seemed at her prettiest, a charming ingénue in a modern-dress version of a Coward play. I leaned against her, glad to be alone with my sane young wife.

      ‘What was all that, Paul? You weren’t hitting him?’

      ‘As it happens, he punched me.’

      ‘Vile man. Are you all right?’ She took the walking stick and pulled up a chair for me. ‘Speaking of punches, Dr Wilder Penrose was a bit below the belt.’

      ‘Not telling us straight away about David? That’s obviously his style — watch out.’ I sat beside Jane, and stared at the complex patterns that revolved like a Paisley nightmare. ‘What did you make of him?’

      ‘He’s an intellectual thug.’ Jane massaged my knee. ‘That set-to over our bags with Halder. And the nasty way he stared at the African salesmen. He’s racist.’

      ‘No. He was trying to provoke us. Visitors from liberal England, we’re as naive as any maiden aunt, an unmissable target. Still, he’s your colleague now. Remember that you have to get on with him.’

      ‘I will. Don’t worry, psychiatrists are never a threat. Surgeons are the real menace.’

      ‘That sounds like hard-won experience.’

      ‘It is. All psychiatrists secretly dream of killing themselves.’

      ‘And surgeons?’

      ‘They dream of killing their patients.’ She rotated her seat, turning her back to the computer. ‘Paul, that was a weird afternoon.’

      ‘Very weird. I don’t know whether you noticed, but a rather odd game is being played. Penrose is testing us. He wants to see if we’re good enough for Eden-Olympia.’

      ‘I am.’ Jane’s chin rose, exposing a childhood scar. ‘Why not?’

      ‘So you want to stay?’

      ‘Yes, I do. There are possibilities here. We ought to explore them.’

      ‘Good. I’ll back you all the way.’

      Jane waited as I embraced her, then held me at arm’s length. ‘One thing, Paul. It’s important. We don’t talk about David Greenwood.’

      ‘Jane, I liked him.’

      ‘Did you? I’m not so sure. Face it, we’re never going to know what happened to him. He’s not coming back, so stop worrying about him. Agreed? Let’s go upstairs and unpack.’

      Jane led the way, hefting her leather suitcase while I limped after her, stick in one hand and two of the soft bags in the other. Once we reached our bedroom Jane collapsed onto the ivory-white sofa. She ran her cheek along the silk cushions.

      ‘Paul, isn’t this a little lavish for a member of staff? Have you wondered why?’

      ‘Are they trying to bribe us? I seriously doubt it. You’re a consultant paediatrician, one of the new professional elite.’

      ‘Come off it.’ Jane unbuttoned her shirt. ‘I’m a barefoot doctor with a short-service contract. Still, sitting in the sun will do you good. Before we leave, you’ll be playing tennis again.’

      ‘I might even beat you.’

      ‘Losing to their favourite patients is part of a doctor’s job. It happens every day in Bel Air and Holland Park.’

      I wandered around the air-conditioned suite, with its dressing room and double bathroom. Despite Jane’s comments, the furniture was more Noga Hilton than Versailles, and I guessed that the originals had been replaced. But there were faint ink-marks from a ballpoint pen on the fabric of an armchair by the window. I moved the chair to one side, then knelt down and felt the dents in the carpet, deep and smoothly polished by the castors. David Greenwood had probably slumped in this chair at the end of a long day, ticking off the latest bulletins from Médecins Sans Frontières. One May morning he sat with a rifle across his knees and a map of Eden-Olympia, working out a special itinerary.

      Jane stood beside me, her dark hair falling to her bare shoulders. She had stepped from the dressing room and held her nightdress to her chin, admiring herself in the full-length mirror like a child trying on her mother’s clothes.

      ‘Paul, are you there?’ Concerned, she took my hands, as if leading me out of a dream. ‘You were asleep standing up. This house does odd things to people …’

      She let the nightdress fall to the floor and drew me towards the bed. I lay beside her, resting my face against her small breasts, with their sweet scents of summer love. Once again I wondered how well she had known David Greenwood. It occurred to me that three of us would sleep together in this large and comfortable bed, until I could persuade David to step out of my mind and disappear for ever down the white staircase of this dreaming villa.

       4 A Flying Accident

      SUNLIGHT WAS INFILTRATING the misty lakes and forests of Eden-Olympia, probing the balconies of the residential enclave as if trying to rouse the company chairmen and managing directors, calling them out to play. I stood in the open doorway of the breakfast room, letting the warm air bathe my legs. An advertising plane was taking off from the Cannes-Mandelieu airfield, and I realized that my shadow was probably one of the few human silhouettes still visible from the sky over the business park.

      It was 7.45, but my neighbours had already left for work. Long before the sun reached across the Baie des Anges the senior executives had finished their croissants and muesli, their mortadella and noodles, and set off to another long day at the office.

      As I settled myself in a poolside chair the sun seemed to pause, surprised to find someone not already bent over a boardroom table or laboratory bench. Along the Croisette in Cannes the day would hardly have begun. The waiters at the Blue Bar would be pausing for a cigarette before they set out the table placements, and the water trucks would still be spraying the side roads off the Rue d’Antibes. But in Eden-Olympia the mainframes would be wide awake, the satellite dishes draining information stored in the sky. A busy electronic traffic was already sluicing through the cabled floors, bringing the Dow and Nikkei indexes, inventories of pharmaceutical warehouses in Düsseldorf and cod depositories in Trondheim.

      Thinking of Jane, who had been up at six and off to the clinic before I woke, I eased myself onto the sun-lounger and lifted my right leg above the foam rubber cushion.