Riviera News

The children's carousel rotated in the Place des Martyrs, a gilded roundabout untouched by time. A small boy sat solemnly in a miniature aeroplane, circling to the same music I had first heard thirty years earlier. Antibes never changed, perhaps the reason why Greene, who spent his life seeking change, had settled there so contentedly.

I left the Jaguar in the underground car park near the Post Office and walked through the streets of the Old Town to the Place Nationale, where the restaurant tables were laid out under the plane trees. My parents and I had eaten lunch here during a sudden cloudburst, as raindrops danced in our soup.

I found the offices of Riviera News above an outboard-motor dealers in a side street off the Avenue de Verdun. The manager, Don Meldrum, was an affable Australian with a drinker's puffy face disguised by a tennis tan. A Fleet Street veteran of the hot-metal days, he had moved to the Mediterranean and spotted an anglophone niche among the marinas and yacht brokers.

He beckoned me into his cupboard of an office, where I sat with my back to a partition wall and my knees against his desk.

'If you're in pain, let out a shout. You need to be a contortionist here, and I'm not talking about the programmes.' He pressed his head to the wall and listened to the commercial break from the adjacent studio, advertising a gourmet caterer eager to perform his magic in the smallest yacht-galley. 'So, Mr Sinclair… you're reporting in from the battle-front?'

'Is there a war on?'

'Bet on it. Eden-Olympia versus the rest of the Côte.'

'Who's winning?'

'Need you ask? Whatever the physicists say, time here runs one way, head-first into the future. There's no looking back, and almost everyone knows it.'

'Almost?'

'A few old-fashioned folk still think people come to the Côte d'Azur to have a good time. You and I know they come here to work. This is Europe's California. High-tech industries, an army of people programming the future, billions surfing on a silicon chip.'

'And once a year you have the movies?'

'Exactly.' Meldrum tapped his veined nose. 'But forget about Hollywood and the Palme d'Or. I'm talking about one-man-and-a-dog operations from the Philippines. If I wanted to be accurate I'd say one-woman-and-a-dog. Now, I hear you're a close friend of David Greenwood. Or were.'

'To be honest, I hardly knew him. I was trying to impress your secretary.'

'You did. She has more news sense than I do. She tells me your wife took over from Greenwood at the Eden-Olympia clinic. A nifty berth. Some say the best hospital on the coast. When Jacques Chirac sprained his thumb opening an oyster at the Colombe d'Or that's where they took him. I hope they gave you a luxury flat.'

' Greenwood 's old villa. Nothing else was available.'

'Makes sense – just about. A cold lot of fish, but that's corporate life. At least someone in the family can look after you if things go wrong.'

'I hope nothing does.' I waited until a timeshare commercial came to an end. 'I'm keen to know what happened on May 28. That's one day when something did go wrong.'

'For Greenwood, and ten other poor sods.' Meldrum fiddled with a transcript on his desk. 'So you're having a quiet rake through the ashes. Can I ask why?'

'He was a fellow Brit. My wife knew him. I sleep in the man's bed, eat at his breakfast table, shit in his toilet. I'd like to know the truth.'

'Sounds like a personal crusade. Worst reason for getting involved. I take it you've come up with something? A diary? Confessional tapes?'

'Sorry. But there are things that don't add up.'

'Such as?'

'Motive. There isn't one.'

'Or one you understand. If I were you, I'd stay close to the nearest piña colada.'

Ignoring this, I said: 'I've talked to people who knew Greenwood, doctors who worked with him. No one has any idea why he went berserk. They're not covering up, but…'

'There's nothing to cover up.' Tiring of me, Meldrum stared at the Arab yachts in the harbour. 'For once, you can believe the official story. This young English doctor, practically the Albert Schweitzer of the Côte d'Azur, was working too hard for his own good. One day a fuse blew and the lights went out.'

'Or another set of lights came on. Brighter and harder lights that made everything seem very clear. Especially inside his own head.'

Meldrum laughed ruefully at this. 'Mr Sinclair, you should be working for one of those concierge rags in Paris. My reporter spent a lot of time at Eden-Olympia. It was a big case. CNN, the London tabloids, all the news agencies. They found nothing.'

'They were looking for a _crime passionel_ among the roulette wheels. Drugs and decadent film stars. Handsome chauffeurs sleeping with the film producer's wife… Someone at Eden-Olympia said she'd heard a report on Riviera News that mapped out Greenwood 's route. I mentioned it to your secretary.'

'I looked it out for you.' Meldrum pushed the transcript across the desk. 'One of our stringers did a round-up piece. He added a few contact numbers you might find useful.'

'It's a big help.' I searched the faded photocopy. 'What's the reporter's name?'

'Roger Leland. That was his last effort. He took off and moved down to the Algarve.'

I started to read the transcript, no more than three paragraphs.

'"One minute, fifty-two seconds…"? A little on the short side?'

'Here that's practically Marcel Proust. Keep it to yourself. The people who run Eden-Olympia have a lot of power.'

'I understand.' I noticed the date of transmission. 'July 25? Nearly two months afterwards?'

'We had some late info.'

'A tip-off? Someone at Eden-Olympia?'

'Who can say? Leland kept his sources to himself. Take it easy, Mr Sinclair.'

I shook his hand and eased myself around the door. 'Do you ever get out to Eden-Olympia?'

'Not if I can help it. People there keep to themselves.'

'Are they popular along the coast?'

'Some are. Some definitely aren't. A bunch of them were making trouble in Mandelieu last weekend. They set up a latenight brawl with the local Arabs in the fruit market.'

He watched me make my way down the stairs. As he waved, I called up to him: 'These brawlers from Eden-Olympia – were they wearing black leather jackets?'

'You know, I believe they were. It looked like they were part of a bowling team…'

I returned to the Place Nationale and sat under the plane trees outside the Oasis restaurant, where the rain had once danced in my soup. Cooling my hands around a vin blanc, I studied the transcript. The transmission times on July 25 were listed: 2.34 p.m., 3.04, 3.34, presumably following the half-hour news breaks. The abrupt end hinted that pressure had been brought to bear from Eden-Olympia, which wanted nothing to rekindle the anxieties of staff and corporate clients.

Roger Leland, speaking from Eden-Olympia, site of the greatest tragedy to hit the Côte d'Azur in recent years. Two months have passed since the horrific day when a young English doctor, thirty-two-years-old David Greenwood, ran amok with an automatic rifle, killing ten victims before turning the weapon on himself.

Investigating judge Michel Terneau is still no nearer finding a motive, but has repeatedly stated that Greenwood acted alone and chose his victims at random.

Riviera News has now uncovered new facts that suggest the killings were carefully planned and involved at least one co-conspirator.

Video film from the business park's surveillance cameras reportedly revealed Greenwood and an unidentified white male in the TV centre car park, transferring weapons from an unmarked van into Dr Greenwood's Renault Espace. Sadly, this film was accidentally destroyed. Mystery also surrounds Greenwood 's movements in the last minutes of his life. Driven back by gunfire as he attempted to enter the Siemens building, Greenwood returned to his villa and immediately murdered his three hostages. Logs of police radio traffic suggest that Greenwood made the 2.8 kilometre journey on foot, taking just over three minutes, a feat even Olympic athletes would find impossible. There were no reports of stolen or hijacked vehicles.

Was there an accomplice who helped Greenwood make his escape? The possibility that a second assassin is still at large, perhaps planning his revenge, has sent alarm bells ringing throughout the business park, still struggling to regain its calm after the tragic events of May 28. Roger Leland, for Riviera News, reporting from Eden-Olympia.

I read the transcript again, disappointed that it provided no details of Greenwood 's murder route. The references to a co-conspirator were speculation, and I turned to the contact list at the foot of the page.

Among the worthies named were Professor Kalman, director of the clinic; Pascal Zander, acting chief of security; Claudine Galante, manager, press bureau.

Scribbled in longhand at the bottom of the page were four more names, each with its telephone number.

Mlle Isabel Duval. Secretary of Dr Greenwood.

Mme Cordier and Madame Ménard. Wives of dead hostages.

Philippe Bourget. Brother of dead hostage.

All, surprisingly, as their phone numbers indicated, were still resident in the greater Cannes area, as if the magnitude of the crime still held them in its grip, part of the business park's baleful gravity that would never release those who came within its orbit.

Дата добавления: 2015-09-07