Super-Cannes
Page 24
‘They’ll all be asleep. It’s 3.30. Four hours from now they’ll be at their desks.’
‘Not tomorrow. They’re holding some kind of reunion dinner. Look around the place – you won’t have to talk to them.’
We turned off the corniche road and stopped on a gravel forecourt like a moonlit beach. Two security men in Eden-Olympia uniforms checked Frances’s pass and waved us forward as the gates opened. Screened by tall cypresses, the Villa Grimaldi stood above its sloping lawns, a former palace hotel of the belle époque. We passed the car park, where chauffeurs dozed over their steering wheels, and followed the drive towards a side entrance. A black Range Rover clumsily straddled a flowerbed, its tyres flattening the rose bushes. Isolated figures patrolled the lawns, like shadows free to play among themselves for a few hours each night. Behind the shrubbery sounded the low-pitched murmur of radio traffic, a soft anatomy of the night.
‘Give me five minutes.’ Frances switched off the engine and took the brochures from me. ‘Use the men’s restroom – there’s some expensive aftershave. Jane might spot that La Bocca pong …’
We stepped through the conservatory entrance of the former hotel. The glass-ceilinged lounge was lit by the moon, and upholstered chairs were drawn around a concert platform where dust covers concealed a grand piano. A single standard lamp shone in the central hallway. Statues of condottieri stood in their airless niches, darkness flaring in their eye sockets and nostrils.
A steward carrying a tray of glasses and a bottle of Armagnac greeted Frances and gestured towards an interior courtyard, where a dinner party was still in progress. The four remaining guests sat in shirtsleeves around a table loaded with the debris of a lavish midnight breakfast. Spent champagne bottles lay on their sides among a clutter of silver cutlery and lobster claws.
The guests were senior executives at Eden-Olympia. Besides Pascal Zander, I recognized the chairman of a German merchant bank and the chief executive of a French cable company. The fourth man was Robert Fontaine’s successor, an affable American named George Agassi, to whom I had briefly spoken in Jane’s office. They were pleasantly high, but in an almost self-conscious way, as if they were members of a tontine blessed by the unexpected death of two or three of its members. An aggressive male banter crossed the night air, watched at a distance by the stewards. Only Zander was drunk, barking at a steward to light his cigar, white shirt open to the waist, its silk facings smeared with shellfish. He raised his glass to Frances when she handed the brochures to him, and opened a folder at random. As he questioned her about the property his left hand began to feel her thighs.
Leaving them to it, I walked back to the conservatory. Searching for the men’s room, I followed a sign that pointed down an oak-lined corridor to the library. The purple carpet, trodden perhaps by Lloyd George and Clemenceau, muffled my steps, and I could hear a curious wailing, like the bleating of sheep, coming from the smoking room.
I paused by a pair of glass swing doors fitted with ornate brass bars. A television set played in a corner of the smoking room, watched by two more of the dinner guests, sitting in their leather armchairs. The only light came from the screen, its reflection trembling in the glass eyes of the dead moose whose stuffed heads hung from the walls. A stack of video-cassettes lay on a table between the two men, who scanned the clips like film producers seeing their studio’s daily rushes. They sat with their backs to me, nodding their appreciation of the finer points of the action. One of the men had cut away his shirtsleeve at the elbow, and a lint bandage covered his forearm, but he seemed untroubled by the injury.
I recognized the scene they were watching, filmed from the terrace steps at the Cardin Foundation, which I had witnessed only a few hours earlier. This time the robbery appeared in close-up, taking place within yards of the cameraman’s lens, but there were the same swerving lights, raised truncheons and panic, the same stunned technicians and reeling make-up girls.
I listened to the screaming of the Japanese women. The noise ended when the man with the bandage operated the remote control, and replaced the Cardin cassette with another. The two men sat back to watch a scene filmed in an underground car park, where an elderly Arab in a grey suit lay on the concrete floor beside a car with a broken windscreen.
Some shift of light in the smoking room made both men turn, perhaps sensing my presence. I drew back into the corridor. Beyond the smoking room was the library, its leather-padded doors slightly ajar.
I stepped into the high-ceilinged room, its stale air heavy with the immemorial odour of unread books, pierced by a sharper and more exotic scent that I had caught earlier that night. Glass-fronted mahogany cases lined the walls, filled with leather-bound volumes that no one had opened for a century. A faint light shone from the gilt-ribbed spines, but a far greater lustre glowed from the booty in the centre of the room.
Fur coats were heaped high on the billiard table, the rich pelts of lynx, sable and silver fox. There were more than a dozen coats, some full-length, others with puffed sleeves and exaggerated shoulders. Two mink stoles and an ocean-blue sheared-mink poncho lay on the floor, their resilient pile still recovering from the booted feet that had stepped across them.
I looked down at this hillock of hair, savouring the curious perfume that had drifted across the night air from the Cardin Foundation. In their terror, the Japanese models had shed the powder from their skin, and the ice-like talc now lay on the dusty linings.
‘Paul…?’ A voice spoke behind me. ‘I didn’t know you were here. My dear man, you should have joined us at dinner.’
I turned to find Alain Delage standing in his shirtsleeves by the doors. He greeted me affably, unconcerned by his slurred speech and flushed face. He swayed in the dim light, trying to find his feet, and I noticed the bruises on his chest and arms, as if he had been involved in a violent street-brawl.
In one hand he held a cassette, and he seemed about to present me with a record of our shared evening. Did he know that I had seen the robbery take place? His eyes wandered around my face, searching for a sign of my approval, as if he were a moderate tennis player who had managed to beat the club professional.
‘Magnificent, aren’t they?’ He pointed to the fur coats. ‘The finest graded pelts. We should give one to Jane.’
‘Alain, that’s kind of you. But her generation … they have a thing about fur. What about Simone?’
‘Yes, well, she’d love one. Think of the two women in mink together. Jane likes to do what Simone says …’
‘Where did the furs come from?’
‘I’m not sure.’ Delage gazed around the shelves of books, hoping for an answer in their sealed pages. ‘We borrowed them from an advertising company. We’re using them in a film for Wilder Penrose.’
‘They’re props, then?’
‘That’s it.’ Alain smiled at me, happy to display a freshly chipped tooth. He blinked behind his lenses, an earnest accountant who was proud to have acquitted himself well in this dangerous action. I sensed that he wanted to confide in me, and assumed that I was about to become one of his intimate circle.
Frances was waiting for me in the conservatory, brochures under her arm. I already guessed why she had made the detour to the Villa Grimaldi, another stage of my education into the realities of Eden-Olympia.
‘Paul, are you all right? You look as if you’ve seen something.’
‘I have.’ I opened the passenger door of her car, realizing the role played by the brochures. I glanced at the Range Rover parked across the rose bushes. In his escape from the Cardin Foundation, the driver had torn a deep rent in the wing. ‘Frances, for the first time I understand what’s going on.’
‘Tell me. I’ve been trying to find out for years.’
‘These robberies, the amateur drug-dealing, all this playground violence – the people running Eden-Olympia are pretending to be mad. Frank Halder was right …’
28
Strains of Violence
‘PAUL …? THIS IS very hus
h-hush. Slip in before anyone sees you.’
A smiling conspirator, Wilder Penrose opened his front door and drew me into the hall. He pretended to glance up and down the quiet avenue, taking in the plane trees freighted with Sunday morning light.
‘Safe to breathe?’ Penrose closed the door and leaned against it. ‘It looks as if only you and the sun are up.’
I let Penrose enjoy his joke and followed him into the living room. ‘Sorry for the short notice – we could meet at the clinic, but it’s too exposed.’
‘It’s a hive of gossip.’ Penrose beckoned me to a chrome and black leather chair. ‘I’m happy to see you here at any time. And Jane. It’s not a medical emergency?’
‘In a way, it is …’
‘Really? Yes, I can see you’re under some strain.’
Penrose’s heavy mouth parted in a grimace of concern, revealing his strong, unbrushed teeth. He was barefoot, and wore a collarless white shirt that exposed the thuggish build of his shoulders. He was glad to see me, though I had woken him when I telephoned at seven o’clock. He hovered around my chair, so close that I could smell the sleep odours on his unshowered body.
‘Paul, rest here while I make coffee.’ He snatched at a beam of sunlight, as if swatting a fly. ‘There’s a dream I can’t get rid of…’
When he had gone I strolled around the room, empty except for the two chairs and a glass table, and so cool and white that I imagined it suffused by a residual glow long after nightfall. Looking around this minimalist space, with its implicit evasions, I thought of Freud’s study in his Hampstead house, which I had visited with Jane soon after our wedding. The entire room was filled with figurines and statuettes of pagan deities, like a hoard of fossilized taboos. I often wondered why Jane had taken me to the great analyst’s house, and whether she suspected that my leg injuries, which had lasted so many months, were not entirely physical.
By contrast, Penrose’s living room was devoid of bric-à-brac, a white cube whose most real surface was the large Victorian mirror in a crumbling frame that leaned against one wall. Its faded silver-screen resembled a secret pool clouded by time.
‘Mysterious, isn’t it…?’ Penrose steered a coffee tray through the double doors. ‘I bought it from an antique shop in Oxford. It’s just possible the young Alice Liddell stared into it.’
‘Perhaps one day she’ll step out …?’
‘I hope so.’
I moved along the mantelpiece, dominated by a silver portrait frame enclosing a photograph of a strongly built man in his fifties. He wore khaki fatigues and smiled at the camera like a tourist, but in the background was the burnt-out hulk of a battle-tank.
‘My father …’ Penrose took the frame from me and repositioned it. ‘He was killed by a stray mortar shell in 1980, working for Médecins Sans Frontières in Beirut. One of those pointless deaths that make the rest of life seem a complete mystery. I read medicine out of a need to be like him, and then became a psychiatrist to understand why.’
Next to the father’s portrait was a photograph of a young man with the same heavy brows and aggressive build, standing in a boxing ring with his seconds. He wore gloves, high-waisted shorts and a sweaty singlet, and was being presented with a championship shield. He smiled attractively through his bruises, and I assumed he was the younger Wilder Penrose, taken years earlier after a testing bout.
‘So you boxed, Wilder? You look almost professional.’
‘That’s my father again, back in the fifties.’ Wilder nodded to the photograph, springing lightly on his bare feet. ‘He was a keen amateur, a heavyweight with really fast hands. He boxed for his college, then for the army during his national service. He loved it – he was still climbing into the ring twenty years later.’
‘When he was a doctor? Isn’t that a strange sport to take up? Head injuries …’
‘No one worried about brain damage then.’ Penrose’s fists clenched and unclenched. Across his face moved emotions of envy and admiration he had long come to terms with, but had no wish to share. ‘Boxing released something in him – he was a gentle man out of the ring, a very good husband and father, but vicious inside the ropes. One of those genuinely violent people who never realize it.’
‘And you?’
‘Am I genuinely violent?’ Grinning, Penrose lightly punched my left kidney. ‘Paul, what a suggestion!’
‘I meant, did you take up boxing?’
‘I did, for a while, but …’
‘The ring triggered the wrong emotions?’
‘A good guess, Paul. That’s perceptive of you. Still, it gave me an important idea – my father’s boxing career, in particular …’ Penrose sat down in the chair facing mine and poured the coffee. His lips parted in a generous smile that exposed a small scar on his lip. ‘Never mind about me. We’ll talk about your problems. This medical emergency – it’s not venereal, by any chance?’
‘Not as far as I know.’
‘Good. People are coy about sexual ailments, for sound Darwinian reasons. In your case, sharing the marriage bed with a physician …’
‘Wilder, the emergency doesn’t concern me. Not yet.’
‘That’s a relief. So it concerns –?’
‘Eden-Olympia. More exactly, the senior management.’
‘Go on.’ Penrose set down his cup and lay comfortably in the chair. His arms hung loosely from his shoulders, knuckles touching the floor, making him as unthreatening as possible. ‘Have you spoken to Jane?’
‘She’s too busy with her work.’ Collecting myself, I said: ‘I want to go to the French authorities – serious matters have to be brought to their attention. Powerful people at Eden-Olympia and the Cannes police are involved, and I need someone to back me up, a person with a certain amount of clout. Otherwise I’ll get nowhere.’
Penrose examined his deeply bitten fingernails. ‘You mean me?’
‘You’re the chief psychiatrist here. It might be a mental health problem. You’re one of the few senior people who isn’t involved.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. Is this anything to do with David Greenwood?’
‘It’s possible. He knew what was going on, and might have been killed because he planned to take action. But it goes far beyond Greenwood.’
‘Right… Now, what exactly do you want to report? A crime of some kind?’
‘Of all kinds.’ I lowered my voice, suddenly aware of the mirror behind me. ‘Everything you can think of – armed robberies, murders, drive-by killings, drug-dealing, racist attacks, paedophile sex. There’s a well-financed criminal syndicate, probably involved with the Cannes police.’
Penrose raised his hands to silence me. ‘Whoa … these are huge charges. Who actually is involved in these crimes?’
‘Senior management at Eden-Olympia. Pascal Zander, Alain Delage, Agassi and any number of company chairmen and managing directors. Plus most of those killed by Greenwood – Charbonneau, Robert Fontaine, Olga Carlotti. I realize it’s a serious accusation to make.’
‘It is.’ Penrose sank lower into his chair, shoulders straining through his cotton shirt. ‘Tell me, Paul – why are you the only one aware of this crime wave?’
‘I’m not. People know more than they let on – most of the security guards, Greenwood’s secretary, the widows of the dead chauffeurs. Talk to them.’
‘I will. The armed robberies and racist attacks – you’re sure they’re taking place?’
‘I’ve seen them.’
‘Where? On film? The surveillance cameras are hopelessly unreliable. Someone tries to unlock his car with the wrong key and you’re convinced you’ve seen the Great Train Robbery. Who showed you the tapes? Halder?’
‘I haven’t watched any tapes. The crimes I’ve seen I witnessed myself.’
‘Where? In some theatre of the mind?’
I ignored this and pressed on. ‘Three nights ago there was an armed robbery at the Cardin Foundation. A gang stole a collection of furs being filmed in a Japanese commercial.’
‘Very clearly. It started at about 8.30 and was over sixty seconds later. The gang were highly professional.’
‘Latvian KGB, probably. They have a lot of experience with valuable furs. And you were actually there? At the Foundation?’
‘I was in a house nearby. Frances Baring was looking at a property. We had a clear view of the whole thing.’
‘Frances Baring? She’s rather attractive in her intense way. An old flame of Greenwood’s …’ Momentarily lost, Penrose searched the ceiling. ‘Frightening for you. But why do you assume the gang were involved with Eden-Olympia?’
‘Frances drove me home. She dropped off some brochures for Zander. Do you know the Villa Grimaldi?’
‘In Super-Cannes? It’s owned by Eden-Olympia. We hold receptions and conferences there. It has a superb view – on a clear day you can practically see Africa, the next best thing to for ever …’
‘I wandered into the library, and had quite a surprise. The billiard table was piled three feet high with stolen furs.’
‘Why stolen?’ Penrose massaged his face, as if trying to unify its separate components. ‘There was a party going on – I was hoping to be there myself. The furs belonged to the wives. It was a cool night, perfect for a little power-dressing.’
‘It was a stag party. No women were there. The furs carried Japanese designer labels. They were covered with talc and body paint – the models must have been naked.’
‘Naked? Not quite what senior wives get up to at Eden-Olympia. More’s the pity. But the furs …’
‘Wilder, I saw them.’
‘You thought you saw them. It’s dark inside the Villa Grimaldi, you might have seen a trompe-l’oeil painting, some second-rate Meissonier.’ He raised a hand to silence me. ‘Paul, you’ve had a lot of spare time to cope with. Too much, perhaps. If you don’t keep busy it’s easy to find yourself in a state close to sensory deprivation. All kinds of chimeras float free, reality becomes a Rorschach test where butterflies turn into elephants.’