I tapped the instrument panel. ‘This car – a ten-year-old Continental. I take it that you see Kennedy’s assassination as a special kind of car-crash?’

‘All right,’ Vaughan announced, dusting the fibreglass from his hands. ‘We’ll leave now – I’ll give you a lift.’ When I hesitated he said, ‘Believe me, Ballard, one car-crash looks like another.’

‘We’ll leave now – I’ll give you a lift.’ When I hesitated he said, ‘Believe me, Ballard, one car-crash looks like another.’

Already he was calmer, as if this act of violence had drained some of the tensions from his body, or pre-empted whatever violent behaviour he had suppressed for so long.

‘I’ve always wanted to drive a crashed car.’

Vaughan stared down at the shattered car, almost about to embrace it.

The visitors wandered away to the tea tent.

smile, I stared at Vaughan, uncertain what to say to him. Faced with this junction of the crashed car, the dismembered mannequins and Vaughan’s exposed sexuality, I found myself moving through a terrain whose contours led inside my skull towards an ambiguous realm.

Vaughan had forgotten me, starting forward like a patient suburban voyeur half asleep over his binoculars.

Once again he struck me as being a strange mixture of personal hauntedness, complete confinement in his own panicky universe, and yet at the same time open to all kinds of experiences from the outer world.

Looking across at Helen, as she accelerated along the open deck of the motorway, I suddenly wondered how I could hurt her. I thought of taking her again along the route of her husband’s death – perhaps this would re-engage her sexual need for me, rekindle whatever erotic hostility she felt for me

‘Vaughan annexes people to him.

her eyes flashing at Vaughan.

Presumably Catherine was convinced that within this visual context some kind of erotic junction between Renata and myself was inevitable, and that if she herself were left in this office, working among the contour photographs and layouts of fender assemblies, she too would have formed a sexual liaison, not only with the two young editors, but with Renata as well.

‘That’s the sort of frolic I can well do without.’

There’s an Open Day in a week’s time – we’ll all go together.’

‘That would spoil everything. Besides, I can’t spare the time.

Vaughan had frightened me. The callous way in which he had exploited Seagrave, playing on the violent fantasies of this punch-drunk stunt-driver, warned me that he would probably go to any lengths to take advantage of the immediate situation around him.

Strangely, I felt almost no sense of anxiety.

‘Elizabeth Taylor – are you following her?’‘Not yet. I need to meet her, Ballard.’‘As part of your project? I doubt if she’ll be able to help you.’