different position at the roulette table to prevent people getting close enough to either pickpocket or steal his chips, even though he was confident he would have instantly detected any attempt at either. The need, as always, was to avoid attracting attention. He was aware, too, of two unaccompanied women who had seen his success at the card table and were now attentively standing on the other side of the roulette wheel; he identified both – professional recognizing professional – as working girls. He decided against either this early on in his vacation. Because of how he lived, Jordan accepted that any permanent relationship – certainly another marriage – was impossible but sex was as essential as the best food and finest hotels during such periods of necessary relaxation. But Jordan preferred equally casual but uninvolving holiday romances to financial practitioners, no matter how adept. There was often an added frisson from amateur enthusiasm.
Jordan concluded his evening just before midnight with a profit of ?2,500, the essential casino receipt confirming the gambling winnings for later tax submission proof, and a feeling of total satisfaction at his first, non- working day for three months. He decided it was an omen that aurgured well for the rest of the trip.
Which it proved to be.
As he drove the following day into the mountain hills to St Paul de Vence, he decided to extend his stay in Nice, to allow more time to re-explore the surrounding countryside, momentarily doubting his decision when he reached the village which was full of too many milling, jostling tourists in very narrow streets. The uncertainty seeped away when he reached the Colombe d’Or to savour both the luncheon menu and the display of original Impressionist art. Jordan considered the small Chagall, protectively stored in one of his well hidden bank vaults, probably the best investment he’d ever made. Twice, once in London and again during his most recent New York expedition, he’d felt sufficiently confident of his specific Impressionist knowledge to have successfully passed himself off as an expert on the subject under two separately assumed identities.
Jordan telephoned the hotel from the Colombe d’Or to lengthen his stay in Nice and to alter the already confirmed reservation in Cannes – because Jordan never did anything even as mundane as moving from one place to another without guaranteeing the most appropriate accommodation – sure there would be no difficulty in his arranging either, which there wasn’t. The years – and the period had been years, not months – over which Jordan had worked to protect and preserve his now near perfect existence was finally paying the highest dividends and it was a good feeling he wanted always to preserve.
That night’s gambling was at the Beaulieu casino in which Jordan finished?4,800 ahead, which provided another useful tax receipt. An equally satisfying success was in confirming his previous night’s judgement; there was a mutual facial recognition between both of them. She was the second of the two professionals he’d isolated in Monaco, tonight’s simple black tube dress, the only jewellery a single rope of pearls, better showing off both her figure and blonde attractiveness than the earlier more full skirted red. She smiled at their initial eye contact and he briefly nodded back in acknowledgement. She made her approach – as Jordan had anticipated she would – when he was having his farewell brandy, after he’d cashed up.
‘You gamble well,’ she opened.
‘Luckily,’ Jordan qualified. ‘How did you know I was English?’ Such attention to detail was always important.
‘You talked more in English than French to the croupier.’ Her own minimal accent wasn’t French.
‘And you don’t gamble. You didn’t last night. Or tonight.’ He wanted to establish his own awareness.
‘Not at the tables.’ She slightly moved the chair at which she was standing. ‘May I join you?’
Jordan nodded, politely rising as she sat. ‘You’d like champagne?’
‘That would be very pleasant. My name is Ghilane.’
‘John,’ responded Jordan, gesturing for a waiter. It was the christian name of his most recent victim and that to which he was therefore most accustomed. It would have been unthinkable – amatuerish – to have given her his real name even though this was going to be the most fleeting of encounters.
‘You are here on vacation, John?’
Jordan hesitated, while her wine was served. ‘I enjoy the South of France.’
‘So you know it well?’
‘Well enough.’ He wondered by how much the fulness of her breasts was helped by the uplift of her bra, but decided against paying to find out.
She grimaced extravagantly, pulling down the corners of her mouth. ‘Which means I can’t offer to show you places you haven’t seen before?’
She was very good and very enticing, acknowledged Jordan. Refusing the heavily intended double entendre, he said, ‘It’s quite late.’
‘Not too late to be too tired,’ she misunderstood.
‘I was thinking of you.’
‘As I was, of you.’
‘An hour from now only sad loss-chasers will still be here, without any money left. I don’t want it to be a lost evening for you.’
Her face tightened imperceptibly but quickly relaxed, opening into a smile. ‘You sure about that?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘I don’t usually get a response like this: get so immediately recognized like this. I think we could have had fun together -more interesting fun than normal for both of us.’
‘I’m sure we could,’ said Jordan, meaning it but at the same time discomfited by her reaction to his rejection. He’d never known a hooker anywhere in the world – and he’d known enough in a lot of the world – who wasn’t or didn’t easily become a willing police informant to protect themself. Which, professionally again, he totally understood and accepted.
‘You’re right,’ said Ghilane, looking briefly around her. ‘It is late and there’s a lot of desperately perspiring men around the tables. Maybe tomorrow night will turn out better.’
Jordan knew she hadn’t given up and admired her for it. He touched her champagne flute with his brandy snifter and said, ‘Here’s to a more successful tomorrow.’
‘But not with you?’
‘But not with me,’ echoed Jordan. It had been a passing, even entertaining interlude but it was time it ended.
‘Perhaps I’ll see you again? I’m often here or in Monaco.’
‘I’m moving on tomorrow,’ said Jordan, gesturing for his bill.
She shrugged, philosophically. ‘My loss.’
‘Both our loss,’ said Jordan, gallantly.
Jordan’s excursion the following day took him away from the coast, just beyond Mougins to where Picasso once crafted his ceramics, of which there were still a lot of photographs but with most of which Jordan was unimpressed, as he was with some, although by no means all, of the artist’s various period experimentation, particularly Picasso’s female genitalia obsession. The eating choice had obviously to be the Moulin de Mougins, even though Jordan knew the legend of Picasso settling bills there with sketches instead of cash to be untrue.
Jordan didn’t hurry the short descent to the Carlton at Cannes, timing his arrival perfectly for a late lunch on the terrace, although as far back from the traffic-thronged promenade as possible, his placement perfect for when the heat went out of the day. He wasn’t aware of her when he first sat, but almost at once registered the carefully page-marked but set aside book, as well as the solitaire engagement ring he conservatively estimated to be at least five carats overwhelming the surprisingly slim adjoining wedding band. She was remarkably similar to the blonde- haired, heavily busted girl who had called herself Ghilane, although younger, probably little more than thirty. There was a handbag too small to contain a cell phone, a protective, wide-brimmed hat on the same side chair as the discarded book, no longer necessary because of the table umbrella, the shade of which made it impossible for Jordan to make out her features. Despite the shade, she still wore sunglasses. She was already on her coffee, the single glass of wine only half drunk. Jordan smiled when she turned to look across the intervening four tables in his direction. He could see enough of her face to know that she didn’t smile back but looked immediately away, towards the sea.
Time to move on from Impressionists, Jordan concluded. It really was developing into the sort of vacation he’d hoped it would be, as in previous years it had invariably proved to be.
