Immediately beyond the high wall was the Catholic cemetery, a cheerful township of gilded statues and family vaults like holiday villas. I had walked around the graves for fifteen minutes, preparing myself for the bleak Protestant service. Flowers decked even the simplest headstones, and each bore a vitrified photograph of the deceased – smiling wives, cheerful teenage girls, elderly burghers and sturdy soldiers in uniform. By contrast the Cementerio Protestante was a boneyard of coarse soil bleached white by the sun, locked away from the world (as if a Protestant death were somehow illicit), entered by a small gate whose key could be rented at the lodge for a hundred pesetas. Forty graves, few with a headstone, lay under the rear wall, mostly those of British retirees whose relatives could not afford to repatriate them.
If the cemetery was a gloomy place, there were few signs of gloom among the mourners. Only Gunnar Andersson, a young Swede who tuned speedboat engines at the marina, seemed grief-stricken. He stood alone by the waiting grave, thin and stooped in his borrowed suit and tie, a wisp of beard on his gaunt cheeks. He squatted down and touched the damp soil, clearly reluctant to consign the girl's remains to its stony embrace.
The remaining mourners waited comfortably in the sun, talking to each other like members of a recreational society. Together they formed a cross-section of the expatriate business community – hoteliers and restaurateurs, a taxi company proprietor, two satellite-dish agents, a cancer specialist from the Princess Margaret Clinic, property developers, bar-owners and investment counsellors. Looking at their sleek and suntanned faces, it struck me as curious that there was no one present of Bibi Jansen's age, for all the talk of her popularity.
Nodding my respects to the Keswick sisters, I left the main party of mourners and walked towards the graves below the rear wall. Here, as if deliberately holding herself apart from the others, stood a tall, strong-shouldered woman in her late fifties, platinum hair tightly crowned by a wide-brimmed black straw hat. No one seemed willing to approach her, and I sensed that a formal invitation was needed merely to bow. Behind her, serving as her baby-faced bodyguard, was the bar steward from the Club Nautico, Sonny Gardner, his yacht-rigger's shoulders constrained by a smart grey jacket.
I knew this was Elizabeth Shand, Estrella de Mar's most successful businesswoman. A former partner of Hollinger's, she now controlled a web of companies in the property and service sectors. Her eyes surveyed the mourners with the ever-watchful but tolerant gaze of a governor at a light-regime prison for executive criminals. As if keeping up a private commentary on her charges, her lips murmured to themselves in an almost louche way, and I saw her as part martinet, part bawdy-house keeper, the most intriguing of all combinations.
I knew that she was a major shareholder in the Club Nautico and a close colleague of Frank's, and was about to introduce myself when her eyes moved sharply from the grieving Swede and fixed themselves on a late arrival at the cemetery. Her mouth opened with a rictus of such distaste that I expected the mauve lipstick to peel from the irritated skin.
'Sanger? Good God, the man's got a nerve…'
Sonny Gardner stepped forward, buttoning his jacket. 'Do you want me to see him off, Mrs Shand?'
'No, let him know what we think of him. The sheer neck of it…'
A slim, silver-haired man in a tailored tropical suit was making his way over the rough ground, his slender hands parting the air. He moved with light but deliberate steps, his eyes searching the diagram of stones around him. His handsome face was smooth and feminine, and he had the easy manner of a stage hypnotist, but he was clearly conscious of the hostile mourners stirring around him. His faint smile seemed almost wistful, and he now and then lowered his head, like a sensitive man aware that because of some minor quirk of character he had never been liked.
Clasping his hands behind his back, he positioned himself at the graveside, the soil breaking under his patent-leather shoes. I assumed that he was the Swedish pastor of some obscure Lutheran sect to which Bibi Jansen had belonged, and that he was about to officiate at her interment.
'Is this the pastor?' I asked Gardner, whose flexing arms threatened to split the seams of his jacket. 'He's rather curiously dressed. Is he going to bury her?'
'Some say he already has.' Gardner cleared his throat, looking for somewhere to spit. 'Dr Irwin Sanger, Bibi's "psychiatrist", the one mad person in the whole of Estrella de Mar.'
I listened to the cicadas rasping while the mourners stared with varying degrees of hostility at the silver-haired newcomer, and reminded myself that there were far more tensions below the surface of this charming beach resort than first seemed apparent. Elizabeth Shand was still staring at the psychiatrist, clearly disputing his right to be present. Protected by her baleful presence, I raised my camera and began to photograph the mourners.
No one spoke as the sounds of the motor-drive echoed off the walls. I knew they disapproved of the camera, as they did of my continued presence at Estrella de Mar. Watching the mourners through the viewfinder, it occurred to me that almost all of them would have attended the Hollingers' party on the evening of the fire. Most were members of the Club Nautico and knew Frank well. None, I had been relieved to find, accepted that he was guilty.
Every morning, since my first visit to Estrella de Mar, I had driven from the Los Monteros Hotel, carrying out my detective investigation. I cancelled my TV assignment in Helsinki and telephoned my agent in London, Rodney Lewis, asking him to put all other commitments on hold.
'Does that mean you've found something?' he asked. 'Charles…?'
'No. I've found absolutely nothing.'
'But you think it's worth staying out there? The trial won't start for several months.'
'Even so. It's an unusual place.'
'So is Torquay. You must have some idea what happened?'
'No… to tell the truth, I haven't. I'll stay here, though.'
Nothing I had found gave me the slightest hint of why my brother, at home and at ease for the first time in his life, should have turned into an arsonist and murderer. But if Frank had not set fire to the Hollinger mansion, who had? I asked David Hennessy for a list of his fellow-guests at the party, but he refused point-blank, claiming that Inspector Cabrera might charge other guests with the crime if Frank withdrew his confession, and perhaps incriminate the entire community.
The Keswick sisters told me that they had attended the Queen's birthday parties for years. They had been standing by the pool when the flames erupted through the bedroom windows, and left with the first stampede of guests to their cars. Anthony Bevis, owner of the Cabo D'Ora Gallery and a close friend of Roger Sansom, claimed that he had tried to force the French window but had been driven back by the exploding tiles that were leaping from the roof. Colin Dew-hurst, manager of a bookshop in the Plaza Iglesias, had helped the Hollingers' chauffeur to carry a ladder from the garage, only to watch the upper rungs catch fire in the intense blaze.
None of them had seen Frank slip into the house with his lethal flagons of ether and petrol, or could conceive of any reason why he might want to kill the Hollingers. I noticed, however, that of the thirty people I questioned not one suggested any other suspect. Something told me that if his friends really believed in Frank's innocence they would have hinted at the identity of the true assassin.
Estrella de Mar seemed a place without shadows, its charms worn as openly as the bare breasts of the women of all ages who sunbathed at the Club Nautico. Secure on their handsome peninsula, the people of the resort were an example of the liberation that follows when continuous sunlight is shone on the British. I could understand why the residents were less than keen for me to write about their private paradise, and already I was beginning to see the town through their eyes. Once I had freed Frank from prison I would buy an apartment of my own and make it my winter base.
In many ways Estrella de Mar was the halcyon county-town England of the mythical 1930s, brought back to life and moved south into the sun. Here there were no gangs of bored teenage
rs, no deracinated suburbs where neighbours scarcely knew each other and their only civic loyalties were to the nearest hypermarket and DIY store. As everyone never tired of saying, Estrella de Mar was a true community, with schools for the French and British children, a thriving Anglican church and a local council of elected members which met at the Club Nautico. However modestly, a happier twentieth century had rediscovered itself in this corner of the Costa del Sol.
The only shadow cast across its plazas and avenues was the fire at the Hollinger house. In the late afternoon, when the sun moved behind the peninsula and set off towards Gibraltar, the silhouette of the gutted mansion crept along the palm-lined streets, darkening the pavements and the walls of the villas below, silently wrapping the town in its sombre shroud.
As I stood among the graves beside Elizabeth Shand, and waited for the casket of the young Swedish woman, it occurred to me that Frank might have pleaded guilty in order to save Estrella de Mar from being overrun by British and Spanish police, or by private detectives hired by relations of the Hollinger family. This innocence of crime might even explain the voyeuristic gaze of the people I had caught in the floodlights of the Club Nautico car park. Never having seen a rape, they had watched the assault as if it were some folkloric or pagan rite from a more primitive world.
One of the couples, I suspected, was present among the mourning party, a retired Bournemouth accountant and his sharp-eyed wife who ran a video-rental store in the Avenida Ortega. Both tried to avoid my camera lens and only relaxed when a black Cadillac hearse drew up outside the cemetery.
In Estrella de Mar death alone had been franchised to the Spanish. The pallbearers of the funeral firm in Benalmadena eased the polished casket from the hearse and transferred it to a cart manned by the cemetery staff. Preceded by the Reverend Davis, the pale and earnest vicar of the Anglican church, the cart rumbled towards the waiting grave. The clergyman's eyes were fixed on the grating wheels, teeth gritted against the painful sounds. He seemed embarrassed and uneasy, as if in some way holding the mourners responsible for the Swedish girl's death.
Stiletto heels teetered on the stony ground as everyone stepped forward. Heads were lowered, eyes avoiding the coffin and the hungry vault that would soon embrace it. Only Gunnar Andersson watched as it sank jerkily from sight, fed into the ground by the gravediggers' tapes. Tears gleamed through the faint beard on his sallow cheeks. His long legs straddled the heap of damp soil when the men reached for their spades, delaying the interment to the last moment.
A few feet from him Dr Sanger was staring at the coffin. His slim chest inflated at ten-second intervals, as if he were unconsciously starving himself of air. He smiled in a tender but almost remote way, like the owner of a dead pet briefly remembering their happier days together. He picked a handful of soil from the ground and threw it on to the coffin, then ran his hand through his shock of blow-dried hair, leaving a few grains of sand in the silvery waves.
The Reverend Davis was about to speak, but waited for a group of late arrivals who had entered the cemetery. David Hennessy led the way, nodding to the mourners as he carried out a quick head-count and confirmed that everyone he had notified was present, glad to lend his special skills to that even larger club than the Nautico, with its unlimited membership and no waiting list.
Behind him, face hidden by a silk scarf, was Dr Paula Hamilton, the dark-haired swimmer I had seen soon after my arrival. A resident physician at the Princess Margaret Clinic, she was one of the few people who had declined to talk to me. She had failed to return my telephone calls, and refused to see me at her office in the Clinic. Now she seemed as reluctant to attend the burial service, standing behind Hennessy with her eyes fixed on his heels.
Bobby Crawford, the Club Nautico's tennis professional, followed her from the gate. Dressed in a black silk suit and tie, sunglasses over his eyes, he resembled a handsome and affable gangster. He greeted the mourners with a reassuring wave, his outstretched hands touching a shoulder here and patting an arm there. Everyone seemed to revive in his presence, and even Elizabeth Shand raised the brim of her new straw hat to beam at him maternally, lips fleshing as she murmured sleekly to herself.
The Reverend Davis completed his perfunctory address, never once meeting the mourners' eyes and clearly eager to be back with his parish. Stones rattled on the coffin lid as the gravediggers spaded the heavy soil into the grave, shoulders bent in the sunlight. Unable to control himself, Andersson seized the spade from the older of the men and flailed at the loose soil, shovelling sand and grit on to the casket as if determined to shield the dead girl from any sight of the world that had failed her.
The mourners began to disperse, led by the uneasy clergyman. They stopped to look back when a spade rang against an old marker stone. There was a high and almost strangled shout, which Mrs Shand involuntarily echoed.
'Dr Sanger…!' Andersson stood astride the grave, spade held across his chest like a jousting pole, glaring in a deranged way at the psychiatrist. 'Doctor, why did you come? Bibi didn't invite you.'
Sanger raised his hands, as much to calm the watching mourners as to restrain the young Swede. His melancholy smile seemed to float free of his lips. Eyes lowered, he turned from the grave for the last time, but Andersson refused to let him pass.
'Sanger! Doctor Professor… don't go away…' Andersson pointed mockingly to the grave. 'Dear Doctor, Bibi's here. Have you come to He with her? I can make you comfortable A brief but ugly brawl followed. The two men grappled like clumsy schoolboys, panting and heaving until Bobby Crawford wrenched the spade from Andersson's hands and sent him sprawling to the ground. He helped Sanger to his feet, steadied the shaken psychiatrist and dusted his lapels. Ashen-faced, his silver hair breaking around his ears, Sanger limped away, guarded by Crawford as he held the spade in a two-handed racket grip.
'Let's try to calm things…' Crawford raised his arms to the mourners. 'This isn't a bull-ring. Think of Bibi now.' When the Reverend Davis stepped quickly through the gate with an embarrassed flurry, Crawford shouted: 'Goodbye, Vicar. Our thanks go to you.'
Handing the spade to the impassive gravediggers, he waited for the mourners to move away. He pulled off his black crepe tie and shrugged his crumpled jacket on to his shoulders, the same gesture that I had seen at the Club Nautico when the would-be rapist made his escape.
The cemetery was almost empty. Paula Hamilton slipped away with Hennessy, denying me another chance of speaking to her. Mrs Shand was helped by Sonny Gardner into the rear seat of her white Mercedes, where she sat grim-mouthed. Andersson stared at the grave for a last time. He smiled gamely at Crawford, who waited amiably beside him, saluted the settling earth and walked stiffly to the gate.
The gravediggers nodded without comment as they accepted Crawford's tip, resigned to any behaviour by the foreigners in their midst. Crawford patted their shoulders and stood beside the grave, head lowered as he mused to himself. Almost alone now in the cemetery, he had switched off his ready grin, and a more thoughtful face settled itself over his fine bones. An emotion close to regret seemed to touch his eyes, but he gestured in a resigned way and set off for the gate.
When I left a few minutes later he was staring over the wall at the gilded statues of the Catholic cemetery.
'Cheerful, aren't they?' he commented as I walked past him. 'One good reason for being a Catholic.'
'You're right.' I stopped to size him up. 'Still, I imagine she's happy where she is.'
'Let's hope so. She was very sweet, and that's cold ground in there. Can I give you a lift?' He pointed to a Porsche parked under the cypresses. 'It's a long way back to town.'
'Thanks, but I have a car.'
'Charles Prentice? You're Frank's brother.' He shook my hand with unfeigned warmth. 'Bobby Crawford, tennis pro and dogsbody at the Club Nautico. It's a pity we had to meet here. I've been away a few days, looking at property along the coast. Betty Shand's itching to open a new sports club.'
While he spoke I was struck by h
is intense but refreshing manner, and by the guileless way he held my arm as we walked towards our cars. He was attentive and eager to please, and I found it hard to believe that he was the man who had carried out the attempted rape. I could only assume that he had lent the car to a friend with far rougher tastes.
'I wanted to talk to you,' I said. 'Hennessy tells me you're an old colleague of Frank's.'
'Absolutely. He brought me into the club – until then I was just a glorified tennis bum.' He grinned, showing his expensively-capped teeth. 'Frank never stops talking about you. In a way I think you're his real father.'
'I'm his brother. The boring, older brother who always got him out of scrapes. This time I've lost my touch.'
Crawford stopped in the middle of the road, ignoring a car that swerved around him. He stared at the air with his arms raised to the sky, as if waiting for a sympathetic genie to materialize out of the spiralling dust. 'Charles, I know. What's going on? This is Kafka re-shot in the style of Psycho. You've talked to him?'
'Of course. He insists he's guilty. Why?'
'No one knows. We're all racking our brains. I think it's Frank playing his strange games again, like those peculiar chess problems he's always making up. King to move and mate in one, though this time there are no other pieces on the board and he has to mate himself.'
Crawford leaned against his Porsche, one hand playing with the tattered roof liner that hung over the passenger seat. Behind the reassuring smile his eyes were taking in every detail of my face and posture, my choice of shirt and shoes, as if searching for some clue to Frank's predicament. I realized that he was more intelligent that his obsessive tennis playing and over-friendly manner suggested.
'Did Frank have it in for the Hollingers?' I asked him. 'Was there any reason at all why he might have set fire to the house?'
'No-Hollinger was a harmless old buffer. I won't say I cared for him myself. He and Alice were two of the reasons why Britain doesn't have a film industry any longer. They were rich, likeable amateurs-no one would have wanted to hurt them.'
Cocaine Nights Page 6