Cocaine Nights

by J. G. Ballard

  'No – he was playing tennis with his machine at the Club Nautico. He knew nothing about the detailed plans. I don't think he knew the Hollingers were the target.'

  'Then who did? Who planned the fire?'

  Paula lowered her head, trying to hide her cheeks behind the black tresses that fell from her temples. 'All of us. We all did.'

  'All of you? Not the whole of Estrella de Mar?'

  'No. Just the same key group-Betty Shand and the others, Hennessy, Mahoud and Sonny Gardner. Even Gunnar here.'

  'Andersson? But Bibi Jansen died in the fire.' I turned accusingly towards the Swede. 'You loved her.'

  Andersson stared stony-faced at the garage ramp, feet shifting, ready to race away and join the wind. He spoke tersely, as if he had already heard his words repeated a hundred times inside his echoing head. 'I did love her. I know it looks bad for me – Crawford had taken her away and made her pregnant, she went to live with the Hollingers… But I didn't want her to die. She should have got out by the escape stairs. But the fire was so strong.' He tore the police tape from the Jaguar's windows and crushed it in his hands.

  I left him and turned to Paula. 'And what about you?'

  She pressed her lips together, reluctant to let the words emerge. 'They didn't tell me what they planned ~ I thought it was some sort of glorified prank that would send up the Hollingers' feudal notion of how to run a party. The idea was to start a small fire in the house, let off some smoke bombs and drive them down the fire escape. At last they'd have to mingle with their guests.'

  'But why the ether? It's not all that flammable, compared with petrol or kerosene.'

  'Exactly. They needed a volatile liquid, and asked me to supply it. The real motive was to bind me to them, and they were right. Mahoud added petrol to the ether, and I have five deaths on my hands.' Angry with herself, she brushed the hair out of her eyes and gazed coldly at her reflection in the windscreen. 'I was a fool – I should have guessed what they were really planning. But I was under Bobby Crawford's spell. He'd created Estrella de Mar, and I believed in him. After the fire I knew people would go on killing for him, and that he had to be stopped. Still, he and Betty Shand were right – the fire and the deaths held everyone together and kept Estrella de Mar alive. Now they plan to do the same thing for the Residencia Costasol, with poor old Sanger as the sacrifice. If Laurie Fox dies with him in his bed that makes it all the more lurid – no one will ever forget it, and the bridge parties and sculpture classes will run for ever.'

  'And Frank? Where was he in all this?'

  Paula wiped the dust from her hands. 'Did you bring the car keys? The ones I saw on your desk?'

  'They're here.' I took them from my pocket. 'Do you want them?'

  'Try the door.'

  'Your BMW? I already have-weeks ago, when we first met. I've tried every car in Estrella de Mar. They don't fit.'

  'Charles… not my car. Try the Jaguar.'

  'Frank's car?' I stepped past her, wiped the grime from the lock on the driver's door and inserted the key. The socket was stiff, and I felt a surge of relief that the key failed to fit and Frank was still innocent. But when I reversed the key I heard the four-door locking mechanism unclasp itself.

  I lifted the handle, opened the door and gazed into the car's musty interior, at the route maps and driving gloves on the passenger seat, and the copy of my travel guide to Calabria on the rear shelf. A sense of loss and exhaustion came over me, as if all the blood had been drained from my body in some blundered transfusion. I no longer wanted to breathe, and sat in the driving seat with my feet on the garage floor. Paula knelt beside me, a hand pressing my diaphragm, eyes watching the pulse in my neck.

  'Charles – are you all right?'

  'So Frank was there. He took part in the Hollinger fire, after all. Did he plan it?'

  'No, but he knew something spectacular was going to happen. He accepted that Bobby Crawford was right, that once he left Estrella de Mar everything he'd done would fall apart. We needed something to remember him by. Frank thought the fire would be some kind of stunt for the Queen's birthday.

  He didn't realize that the Hollingers would be trapped in the house and burn to death. Frank felt responsible, since he organized everything.'

  'And you all played a part?'

  'All of us. I ordered the ether from a laboratory supplier in Malaga, Betty Shand moved it around in one of her vans, the Keswick sisters stored it in their refrigerators at the Restaurant du Cap. Sonny Gardner buried the flagons in the orchard. By then Mahoud had secretly poured off most of the ether and refilled them with petrol. Frank and Mahoud dug up the flagons a few minutes before the loyal toast and carried them into the kitchen while the housekeeper was serving the canapés on the terrace. Cabrera's timetable was pretty well right.'

  'But who rigged the air-conditioning system? Frank?'

  'I did.' Andersson stared at his hands, trying to pick the oily flakes from his nails. He spoke in a low voice, as if afraid of being overheard. 'Frank asked me to fix the system so that it filled the house with coloured smoke. Mahoud and I drove there in the afternoon when the housekeeper was busy. I told her I was the maintenance engineer and that Mahoud was my assistant. I opened the intake manifold and showed Mahoud where to put the smoke flares.'

  'And then?'

  Andersson raised his long hands, exposing his wrists as if offering them to an axe. 'After the Queen's toast Frank left Mahoud in the kitchen and climbed the stairs to the fireplace. He took a small carpet from the floor, laid it on the grate and set it alight. He didn't know that Mahoud had drained the reservoir of the humidifier and filled it with gasoline. After Mahoud left he switched on the air-conditioning system to warn the Hollingers. But no smoke came out of the ventilation grilles…'

  'So Frank wasn't aware there would be an explosion?' I let Paula help me from the driving seat. 'Even so, all this petrol and ether… it's insane. You must have realized the risk of the whole house going up.'

  Paula pressed her fist to her cheek, searching for her old bruise. 'Yes, but we didn't let ourselves think about that. We needed a spectacle for Bobby Crawford – the Hollingers in a panic, coloured smoke coming out of their ears, perhaps a little damage to the house. The fireplace was huge-Frank said that if the flames did spread they'd take half an hour to get a hold on the staircase. By then the guests would have broken into the house and set up a human chain from the swimming pool. No one was going to die.'

  'No one? Did you really believe that? So the whole thing went wrong. What happened to Frank after the explosion?'

  Paula grimaced at the memory. 'He ran off when he saw what had happened. He was totally shattered by it all, he could hardly speak. He told me he'd tried to hide the unused flagons but somehow lost his car keys. Gunnar found them the next day when he was flying his hang-glider. They were all we had. We wanted to report Crawford and Betty Shand to the police but there was no evidence against them. Crawford didn't know we would set fire to the Hollinger house, and he'd taken no part in the planning. If we'd confessed to Cabrera all of us would have been charged and the one person really responsible would have escaped. Frank pleaded guilty to save us.'

  'So you said nothing until I came along. It was you who fed me the porno-cassette I found in Anne Hollinger's bedroom.'

  'Yes – I hoped you'd recognize Crawford and Mahoud, or at least work out where the apartment was.'

  'That bit was easy. But I might never have seen the cassette in Anne Hollinger's bedroom.'

  'I know. At first I was going to leave it in the Bentley and get Miguel to show you over the car. Then I saw you staring at her TV set – you were so curious to know what she'd been watching as she died.'

  'That's true… I hate to have to say it. And the cocaine sachet in Frank's desk? Cabrera's men would have found that in seconds.'

  Paula turned her back to me, still uneasy at the thought of the tape. 'I put it there when David Hennessy told me you were flying in from London. I wanted to lead you to Cra
wford, and make you realize there was more to Frank and Estrella de Mar than a picture-postcard resort. If you thought Crawford was involved in the fire you might have exposed his other activities. He'd have been charged with drug-dealing and car thefts and spent the next ten years in jail.'

  'But instead I was drawn to him like everyone else. And the car keys?'

  'The only thing left was to steer you towards Frank. If you knew he was involved in the fire it would have blown the lid off everything.'

  'So you got Miguel to leave the keys in the orchard. What made you think I might go back there?'

  'You never stopped looking at the house.' Paula reached out and touched my chest, smiling for the first time. 'Poor man, you were absolutely obsessed with the place. Crawford could see that too – that's why he left you by the steps to the observation platform. Even then he was preparing you for the next great fire.'

  'But he didn't know the keys were waiting for me. Still, I might never have seen them. Or was that where the hang-glider came in?'

  'I flew the glider.' Andersson raised his arms and gripped an imaginary control bar. 'I guided you towards the keys, then chased you down to the cemetery. Paula was waiting on the Kawasaki.'

  'Paula? That was you in the menacing leather?'

  'We wanted to frighten you, make you realize that Estrella de Mar was a dangerous place.' Paula took the keys from the Jaguar's door and gripped them tightly. 'We watched you chasing Crawford all over Estrella de Mar and guessed that he'd take you back to the Hollinger house. Luckily, you found the keys and began to test them on all the cars.'

  'But I never tested Frank's car.' I patted the roof of the dusty Jaguar. 'I took for granted this was one car I didn't need to test. Meanwhile Frank had pleaded guilty, the Hollingers were dead, and the rest of you were locked into Crawford's insane little kingdom. Yet Bibi Jansen died in the fire – didn't he feel that was a high price to pay?'

  'Of course he did.' Paula stared at me through her tears, refusing to wipe them away. 'When we killed Crawford's child we committed a crime against him – that bound us to him even more tightly.'

  'And Sanger? Did he know the truth about the fire?'

  'No. Apart from you he was almost the only person at the funeral who didn't. He must have guessed.'

  'Even so, he never went to the police. Nor did anyone else, though most of them can't have expected that the Hollingers would die in the blaze.'

  'They had their businesses to run. The Hollinger fire was good news for the cash tills. No one lay around watching television, they went out and calmed their nerves by spending money. The whole thing was a nightmare, but the right man had pleaded guilty. Technically, Frank had started the fire. Most people didn't know about Mahoud and the petrol in the air-conditioning system – that was Betty Shand's idea, along with Hennessy and Sonny Gardner. Everyone else saw it as the kind of tragic accident that happens when a party trick goes wrong. God knows, I did myself. I'd helped to murder all those people, and I almost accepted it. Charles, that's why we have to stop the party tonight.'

  As she raised her arms I briefly embraced her, trying to still her shaking shoulders. I could feel her heart beating against my breastbone. All the duplicities of the past months had been shed, leaving behind this nervous young doctor.

  'But how, Paula? That could be difficult. We'll have to warn Sanger. He and Laurie can leave for Marbella.'

  'Sanger won't leave. He's already been driven out of Estrella de Mar. Even if he did go they'd simply pick someone else -Colonel Lindsay, Lejeune, even you, Charles. The important thing is to sacrifice someone and seal the tribe into itself. Charles, believe me – Bobby Crawford has to be stopped.'

  'I know. Paula, I'll talk to him. When he sees that I know everything about the Hollingers he'll cancel the party.'

  'He won't!' Exhausted, Paula turned to Andersson for support, but the Swede had moved away from us, staring at the parked cars. 'It isn't up to Crawford any more – Betty Shand and the rest of them have made their decision. He'll move on to other pueblos and other towns, bring them to life and then demand a sacrifice, and always there'll be people willing to carry it out. Listen to me, Charles – blood pays for your arts festivals and civic pride…'

  I sat in the driver's seat of Frank's car, holding the steering wheel as Andersson raised a hand in a brief farewell salute and walked up the ramp into the late afternoon sunlight. Paula stood beside the Jaguar, watching me through the windshield as she waited for me to respond to her. But I was thinking of Frank and our childhood years together. I understood how he had fallen under Crawford's spell, accepting the irresistible logic that had revived the Club Nautico and the moribund town around it. Crime would always be rife, but Crawford had put vice and prostitution and drug-dealing to positive social ends. Estrella de Mar had rediscovered itself, but the escalator of provocation had carried him upwards to the Hollinger house and the engulfing flames.

  Paula paced around the car, her confidence in me ebbing as the blood drained from her flushed cheeks. At last she gave up, dismissively throwing an arm across the gloomy air, aware that I would never rally myself to challenge Crawford. I stretched across the rear seat and took the Calabria travel guide from the window shelf, then turned to the dedication I had written to Frank on the flyleaf. Reading the warm words that I had penned three years earlier, I heard the engine of Paula's car turn beside me, its sound lost in the memories of boyhood days.

  28 The Syndicates of Guilt

  The steady beat of the tennis machine rose from the court as I parked in the villa's drive, that monotonous thumping that had presided over Estrella de Mar and the Residencia Costasol since my arrival in Spain. I listened to the hiss and wheeze of the loading mechanism, followed by a faint creak as it adjusted its angle and trajectory. While driving from the Club Nautico I had thought of Crawford tirelessly returning the balls, preparing himself for his departure that evening and the tasks that lay ahead of him in Calahonda. With nothing but his battered Porsche and a collection of tennis rackets he would set off to arouse another stretch of the sun-coast.

  I switched off the Citroen's engine and gazed at the lines of gilt chairs and trestle tables on the terrace, trying to decide what I could safely say to Crawford. The preparations for the party would begin within an hour, when the canapés and drinks were delivered, and there would be little time for our first and last tennis match. I was sure that Crawford would let me win, part of that generosity of spirit that so charmed, everyone who met him.

  Before leaving the Club Nautico I had telephoned Inspector Cabrera, asking him to meet me at my villa. There I would tell him everything I had learned of the Hollinger deaths and of the arson attempt on Sanger's bungalow. Aware of my changed tone of voice, Cabrera had begun to question me, then accepted the seriousness of my call and promised to meet me as soon as he could drive from Fuengirola.

  Replacing the receiver, I had looked around Frank's apartment for the last time. The silent rooms seemed airless, and all too aware that Frank would never return. They had decided to withdraw into the secret past of his evenings with Paula and his long conversations with an eager young tennis professional who had drifted down the coast and discovered, in the somnolent beach resort, an elixir that would wake the world.

  I listened to the tennis machine, feeding itself from the hopper of balls. The boom of the firing mechanism was followed by each ball's impact as it crossed the net and struck the clay, but there was no sound of Crawford's return service, no rasp of his sliding feet and familiar grunting breath.

  I stepped from the car and walked past the cooling Porsche. The swimming pool was smooth and undisturbed, the vacuum hose roving the surface, sucking away the leaves and insects. I followed the pathway around the house, past the garage and kitchen entrance. Through the wire screen that surrounded the tennis court I could see Crawford's towel and sports bag on the green metal table beside the net. The surface of the court was strewn with balls, each newcomer cannoning among them like the white o
n a crowded snooker table.

  'Bobby…?' I called out. 'There's just time for a quick set…'

  The machine varied its trajectory, tilting upwards and to the right. The ball shot across the net, struck something on the baseline and ricocheted almost vertically into the air, soaring over the wire screen. I ran the few paces towards it, hand above my head, and caught the ball as it fell.

  Blood spattered my arms and face. Holding the sticky ball in my fingers, I stared at the tarry carmine. I wiped the clotting blood from my cheeks, my hands smearing the sleeves of my shirt.

  'Crawford…?'

  I opened the wire door and stepped into the court as the tennis machine fired its last ball and fell silent. A final unreturned service, it struck the scuffed clay beside the body of a man in white shirt and shorts who lay across the baseline. Racket in hand, he rested face up in a lake of blood that leaked across the yellow clay.

  Mouth gaping, as if he had died in a moment of unfeigned surprise, Bobby Crawford lay among the bloodied balls. His left hand was open, its fingen splayed fiercely at the sun, and I guessed that he had tried to catch the two bullets fired into his chest. The punctures stood out clearly in his cotton shirt, one beside his left nipple, the other below his collarbone.

  A few feet from him was a small automatic pistol, its chromium barrel reflecting the cloudless sky. I dropped the stained ball in my hand, knelt down and picked up the pistol, then gazed at the murdered man. Crawford's lips were parted as they prepared to shape themselves into the first grimace of death. I could see his ice-white teeth, and the porcelain caps that he always claimed had been his most valuable investment before setting out on his career as a tennis professional. As his head struck the ground the cap of his left incisor had broken loose, and the steel peg shone in the sun, a small dagger like a concealed fang in the smile of this dangerous but likeable man.

  Who had shot him? I held the pistol in my blood-soaked hand, carefully erasing the killer's fingerprints. The low-calibre weapon was a lady's handbag pistol, and I imagined Paula Hamilton carrying it inside her purse, her white hand clasping the cleated butt, letting herself into the court and walking through the service balls as Crawford waved to her. Assuming that I would never betray him, she had decided to kill Crawford before the farewell party could embark on its lethal evening's programme.