J.G. Ballard - Cocaine Nights

Mrs Shand sighed deeply, and I realized that she had been holding her breath. 'You'll find drugs anywhere these days, especially along the coast. Something new and strange happens when the sea meets the land.' She pointed to the distant pueblos. 'People are so bored, and drugs stop them going mad. Sometimes Bobby is a little too tolerant, but he wants to wean people off all these tranquillizers that people like Sanger prescribe. Now those are the really dangerous drugs. Before Bobby Crawford arrived the whole town was Valiumed out of its mind.'

'I imagine business generally was rather slack?'

'Flat on its back. People didn't need anything except another bottle of pills. But they've picked up now. Charles, I'm sorry about the Hollingers. I'd known them for thirty years.'

'You were an actress?'

'Do I look like it?' Mrs Shand sat forward and patted my hand. 'I'm flattered. I was an accountant. Very young and very ruthless. I wound up Hollinger's film business – a bottomless resource sink, all those people on the payroll, buying rights and never shooting a single frame. After that he asked me to join his property company. When the building boom ended in the 1970s it was starting out here. I had a look at Estrella de Mar and thought it seemed promising.'

'So Hollinger was very close to you?'

'As close as a man ever gets to me.' She spoke matter-of-factly. 'But not in the way you mean.'

'You hadn't fallen out with him?'

'What on earth are you trying to say?' Mrs Shand took off her hat, as if clearing the decks before a fight, and stared unblinkingly at me. 'Good God, I didn't set fire to the house. Are you suggesting that?'

'Of course not. I know you didn't.' I tried to pacify her, changing tack before she could summon Sonny Gardner to her aid. 'What about Dr Sanger? I keep thinking of that scene at the funeral. Everyone there clearly disliked him, almost as if he was responsible.'

'For Bibi's pregnancy, not the fire. Sanger is the sort of psychiatrist who sleeps with his patients and thinks he's doing them a therapeutic favour. He specializes in drugged-out little things who are searching for a friendly shoulder.'

'He may not have started the fire, but could he have paid someone to do it for him? The Hollingers had effectively taken Bibi from him.'

'I don't think so. But who knows? I'm sorry, Charles, I haven't been much help.' She stood up and slipped on her beach robe. 'I'll walk you back to the house. I know you're worried about Frank. You probably feel responsible.'

'Not exactly responsible. When we were young it was my job to feel guilty for both of us. The habit has stuck – it's not easy to throw off.'

'Then you've come to the right place.' As we passed the pool she gestured at the crowds lying on the beaches below. 'We don't take anything too seriously in Estrella de Mar. Not even…'

'Crime? There's a lot of it around, and I don't mean the Hollinger murders. Muggings, burglary, rapes, for a start.'

'Rape? Awful, I know. But it does keep the girls on their toes.' Mrs Shand lowered her glasses to peer at my neck. 'David Hennessy told me about the attack in Frank's apartment. How vile. It looks like a choker of rubies. Was anything stolen?'

'I don't think theft was the motive – I wasn't really hurt. It was a psychological assault, of a curious kind.'

'That sounds rather new and fashionable. One has to remember how much crime there is along this coast. Retired East End gangsters who can't get rid of the itch.'

'But they're not here. That's the odd thing about Estrella de Mar. The crime here seems to be committed by amateurs.'

'They're the worst of all – they leave such a mess to be cleared up. You can only trust the professionals to do a decent job.'

Behind us Helmut and Wolfgang had returned to the pool. They dived from the twin boards and raced each other to the shallow end. Mrs Shand beamed at them approvingly.

'Handsome boys,' I commented. 'Friends of yours?'

'Gastarbeiters. They're staying in the annexe until I find work for them.'

'Waiters, swimming coaches…?'

'Let's say they have all sorts of uses.'

We left the terrace and stepped through the French doors into a long, low-ceilinged lounge. Film industry memorabilia covered the walls and mantelpiece, framed photographs of award ceremonies and command performances. On a white baby grand was a portrait of the Hollingers standing by their pool during a barbecue. Between them was a good-looking and confident young woman in a long-sleeved shirt, eyes challenging the photographer to catch her restless spirit. I had last seen her on the television screen in Frank's apartment, smiling bravely at another camera lens.

'Something of a character…' I pointed to the group portrait. 'Is that the Hollingers' daughter?'

'Their niece, Anne.' Mrs Shand smiled sadly to herself and touched the frame. 'She died with them in the fire. Such a beauty. She might have made it as a film actress.'

'Perhaps she did.' The chauffeur waited by the open front door, a burly Maghrebian in his forties who was clearly another bodyguard and seemed to resent me even looking at the Mercedes limousine. 'Mrs Shand, you might know – is there a film club in Estrella de Mar?'

'There are several. They're all very intellectual. I rather doubt if they'd find you up to scratch.'

'I don't suppose they would. But I'm thinking of a club that actually makes films. Did Hollinger shoot any footage here?'

'Not for years. He hated home movies. There are people who make films. In fact, I think Paula Hamilton is something of a camera buff.'

'Weddings and so on?'

'Possibly. You'd have to ask her. By the way, I think she's much more suited to you than to Frank.'

'Why? I hardly know her.'

'What can I say?' Mrs Shand pressed her ice-cold cheek to mine. 'Frank was awfully sweet, but I suspect that Paula needs someone with a taste for the… deviant?'

She smiled at me, well aware that she herself was charming, likeable and totally corrupt.

Deviance in Estrella de mar was a commodity under jealous guard. Watched by the wary and suspicious chauffeur, who was logging my licence number into his electronic notebook, I freewheeled down the drive past the Mercedes. With its tinted windows, the bodywork seemed both paranoid and aggressive, like medieval German armour, and the nearby villas shared this nervous stance. Razor-glass topped almost every wall, and security cameras maintained their endless vigil over garages and front doors, as if an army of housebreakers roamed the streets after nightfall.

I returned to the Club Nautico, trying to decide on my next move. Elizabeth Shand, just conceivably, had a motive for killing the Hollingers, if only to get her hands on a piece of prime real estate, but she would have chosen a less crude weapon than arson. Besides, she clearly liked the old couple, and the five murders would certainly have been bad for business, frightening away potential property investors.

At the same time she had given me a glimpse into another Estrella de Mar, a world of imported bed-boys and other genial pleasures, and had identified Anne Hollinger for me. Sitting by the television set, I rewound the cassette of the porno-film, then played through the violent scenes again, trying to identify the other participants. How had this maverick and high-spirited young woman found herself in such a crudely exploitative movie? I froze her brave smile to camera as she sat in the tattered wedding dress, and imagined her playing the tape as she injected herself in the bathroom, trying to blot out all memory of the pale-skinned young man who had been determined to humiliate her.

The frightened eyes wept their black ink, and the lipstick skewed across her mouth like a gasp. I reeled back to the moment when the second bridesmaid entered the bedroom and the mirror-door reflected the balcony of the apartment and the sloping streets below.