J.G. Ballard - Cocaine Nights

I sat in Frank's leather armchair, my fingers kneading the soft, clubman's leather. I nodded my agreement to Cabrera, but I was thinking of the strip of far tougher hide that had driven the blood from my brain. Paula hovered beside me, one hand on my shoulder and the other on her medical valise, unsure of my state of mind. Any resemblance between Frank and myself had been erased by the attempt on my life and my lighthearted refusal to accept that someone had tried to kill me.

'You say "officially" – does that mean that I'm being formally expelled from Spain?'

'Of course not.' Cabrera scoffed at this, refusing to play my verbal games. 'Expulsion is a matter for the Minister and the Spanish courts. You can stay as and when you wish. I'm advising you, Mr Prentice, as a friend. What good can you do here? It's regrettable, but your brother refuses to see you.'

'Inspector, he may change his mind now.'

'Even so, his trial will not be affected. Think of your safety – a man tried to kill you last night.'

I adjusted the collar and beckoned Cabrera to a chair, wondering how to reassure him. 'As a matter of fact, I don't think he did want to kill me. If he had, I wouldn't be sitting here.'

'That's nonsense, Mr Prentice…' Cabrera patiently dismissed this amateurish notion, and gestured at the balcony. 'He may have been disturbed or seen from below in the lighthouse beam. You were lucky once, but twice is too much to expect. Dr Hamilton, speak to him. Convince him that his life is in danger. There are people in Estrella de Mar who guard their privacy at any cost.'

'Charles, think about that. You have been asking an awful lot of questions.' Paula sat on the arm of the chair, her hand trembling slightly against my shoulder. 'You can't help Frank, and you nearly had yourself killed.'

'No…' I tried to ease the collar away from the bruised muscles of my neck. 'That was a warning – a kind of free air-ticket back to London.'

Cabrera pulled up a straight-backed chair and straddled the seat, resting his arms on the back as if examining a large and obtuse mammal. 'If it was a warning, Mr Prentice, you should listen to it. You can turn over one stone too many.'

'Exactly, Inspector. In a way it's the breakthrough I've been waiting for. It's clear I provoked someone, almost certainly the Hollingers' killer.'

'You didn't see the man's face? Or recognize his shoes or his clothes? His aftershave…?'

'No. He seized me from behind. There was a strange smell on his hands, perhaps some sort of special oil that professional stranglers use. He must have carried out similar attacks before.'

'A professional killer? It's remarkable that you can talk at all. Dr Hamilton says your throat isn't damaged.'

'It's hard to explain, Inspector.' Lips pursed, Paula pointed to the bruises on my neck left by the assailant's fingertips. The attack had shocked her. Usually so quick-witted, and never at a loss for a word, she was almost silent. By leaving me alone in the apartment she had made herself partly responsible for my injuries. Yet she seemed unsurprised by the assault, as if expecting it to take place. Speaking in her flat, lecture-room voice, she said: 'In cases of strangulation the voice-box is almost always crushed. In fact, it's difficult to strangle someone to the point of unconsciousness without doing serious structural damage to the nerves and blood vessels. You were lucky, Charles. If you blacked out that was probably because you hit your head on the floor.'

'Actually, I didn't. He lowered me there quite gently. My throat's very sore – I can barely swallow. He used a peculiar grip on my neck, like a skilled masseur. The strange thing is that I feel slightly high.'

'Post-traumatic euphoria,' Cabrera commented, at last slotting one of his psychology seminars into place. 'People who walk from plane crashes are often laughing. They call taxis and go home.'

When Cabrera first arrived at the apartment and found me sitting on the balcony, reassuring Paula that I was well, he obviously suspected that I had imagined the assault. Only when Paula showed him the bruises to my jaw and neck, the clotted blood in the swollen veins, did he accept my account.

I had regained consciousness in the small hours of the morning, and found myself lying on the balcony among the overturned plants, my wrists tied to the table frame by the belt of my slacks. Barely able to breathe, I lay on the cold tiles as the lighthouse beam swept the grey dawn. When my head cleared I tried to recall any detail of my attacker. He had moved with the swiftness of a specialist in unarmed combat, like the Thai commandos I had seen in action at a passing-out parade in Bangkok, demonstrating how to seize and kill an enemy sentry. I remembered his heavy knees and strong thighs clad in some kind of black cord, and the cleared soles that sucked at the stone floor, the only sound apart from my strangled gasps. I was certain that he had been careful not to injure me, avoiding the large vessels and my larynx, and applying only enough pressure to suffocate me. Beyond this there was little to identify him. There was a waxy but astringent smell on his hands, and I guessed that he might have ritually bathed himself.

At six, when I freed my wrists, I limped to the telephone. Croaking to the startled night porter, I insisted that he call the Spanish police and report the assault. Two hours later a veteran detective arrived from the robbery squad at Benalmadena. As the concierge translated, I pointed to the scattered furniture and the violent scuff-marks on the tiled floor. The detective was unconvinced, and I heard him murmur 'domestica' into his mobile phone. However, when he was told my surname his manner changed.

Inspector Cabrera arrived as Paula Hamilton was treating me. The concierge had telephoned her while I rested on the balcony, and she had driven immediately from the Princess Margaret Clinic. Shocked by the attack, and all too easily imagining Frank in my place, she was as puzzled as Cabrera by my calm manner. I watched her take my blood pressure and test my pupils, and noticed how confused she seemed, twice dropping her stethoscope on to the floor.

Despite her concern, I felt stronger than I expected. The attack had revived my flagging confidence. For a few desperate moments I had grappled with a man who might well be responsible for the Hollingers' deaths. My neck bore the imprint of the hands that had carried the ether bottles into the mansion.

Tired of the orthopaedic collar and the soft leather armchair, I stood up and stepped on to the balcony, hoping to work off my restlessness. Cabrera watched me from the door, restraining Paula when she tried to calm me.

He pointed to the overhanging brise-soleil. 'Entry from the roof is impossible, and the balcony is too high for a ladder. It's curious, Mr Prentice-there is only one way into the apartment – the front door. Yet you insist that you locked the door behind you.'

'Of course. I intended to spend the night here. In fact I'd decided to check out of my hotel and move into the apartment. I need a closer eye on everything.'

'Then how did your attacker gain access to the balcony?'

'Inspector, he must have been waiting for me.' I thought of the loose decanter stopper. Paula had entered the apartment, unaware that the assailant was hiding in its shadows and calmly helping himself to the Orkney malt. He had listened to us struggling in the bedroom, recognized my voice and then seized his chance once Paula left.

'Who else has the key?' Cabrera asked. 'The maids, the concierge?'

'That's all. No, wait a minute…'

I caught Paula looking at me in the mirror over the sitting-room mantelpiece. With her bruised mouth and untidy hair she resembled a guilty child, a startled Alice who had suddenly grown to adulthood and found herself trapped on the wrong side of the glass. I had said nothing to Cabrera about her visit to the apartment the previous evening.