J.G. Ballard - Cocaine Nights

'Perhaps the cigarette lighter was partly engaged. Mr Prentice? A short circuit…?'

'I don't smoke, Inspector. Mr Hennessy needn't have called you, it's only a rental car. I won't be out of pocket.'

'Naturally. They'll bring a replacement. Or you can use your brother's car in the basement garage. The forensic team have finished with it.'

'I'll think about it.' Whistling, I walked Cabrera back to his Seat. 'The manager at the rental office in Fuengirola tells me that spontaneous fires are very common along the Costa del Sol.'

'As I said.' Cabrera turned to peer at me, unsure whether I was being ironic. 'At the same time, be careful. Keep the doors and windows closed whenever the car is out of your sight.'

'I will, Inspector. You can relax – I'm sure the point has been made.'

Cabrera stopped to scan the windows of the Club Nautico. 'You think it was another warning to you?'

'Not exactly. More of an invitation. Fires are the oldest signalling system.'

'And if it was a signal, what was the message?'

'Hard to say. Something like "Come on in, the water's fine". Same as the speedboat fire the other night.'

Cabrera tapped his temple, despairing of me. 'Mr Prentice, that fire was deliberate. They found an empty gasoline can floating on the sea. There were traces of human skin on the handle. The thief must have burned himself when the fire flashed back across the waves. In the case of your car, the investigation shows nothing.'

'That doesn't surprise me. Whoever started the fire would hardly want to do your work for you.'

'You saw no one running from the car park?'

'The blaze had begun by the time I woke. Mr Hennessy was in his pyjamas-he thought I was inside the Renault.'

'I spoke with him earlier.' Cabrera put on his most sombre expression. 'He's very concerned, Mr Prentice. The danger to you, and also the atmosphere in the club.'

'Inspector, there's nothing wrong with the atmosphere. Five minutes after the fire service arrived everyone was enjoying a pool party. It lasted till dawn.' I pointed to the stream of members moving through the entrance. 'The Club Nautico is having one of its busiest days. Frank would have been impressed.'

'I spoke to Senor Danvila this morning. It's possible that your brother will see you.'

'Frank…?' The name had a curious echo, as if refracted through a more rarified medium. 'How is he, Inspector?'

'He works in the prison garden, his face is not so pale now. He sends his affections, and thanks you for the parcels, the laundry and books.'

'Good. He knows I'm still trying to discover what happened at the Hollinger house?'

'Everyone knows that, Mr Prentice. You've been very busy at Estrella de Mar. It's even possible that I will re-open the investigation. Many things are unexplained…'

Cabrera placed his hands on the roof of the Seat and stared through the haze at the wooded slopes of the Hollinger estate. His talk of re-opening the case unsettled me. I had begun to take an almost proprietary view of the gutted mansion. Despite its tragic outcome, the fire had served its purpose for Estrella de Mar, and satisfied certain needs of my own. Part of the past had vanished in the conflagration, unhappy memories that had dispersed with the rising smoke. Nothing pointed to the identity of the arsonist, but a trail of sorts had been laid for me. I did not want Cabrera and his forensic team stumbling over my heels.

'Inspector, is there really anything to explain? Clearly, someone set fire to the house, but it might have been no more than… a practical joke that got out of hand.'

'A very sinister joke.' Cabrera stepped towards me, suspecting that I had been touched by the sun. 'In any case, you know the circumstances of the deaths.'

'Hollinger and Bibi Jansen in the jacuzzi? Probably innocent – with the stairs on fire and her own bedroom blazing, where else could Bibi have gone but across the hall to Hollinger's room? They may have hoped to lie under the water until the fire had passed.'

'And Mrs Hollinger in the secretary's bed?'

'On the bed. There was a window overhead. I can imagine them trying to escape on to the roof. He held her feet as she reached towards the window catch. It's possible, Inspector 'It's possible.' Cabrera hesitated before getting into his car, unsettled by my change of tack. 'As you say, your brother holds the key. I'll telephone when he agrees to see you.'

'Inspector…' I paused before committing myself. For reasons that I scarcely understood I was now in no hurry to see Frank. 'Give me a few more days. I'd like to have something solid to bring to Frank. If I can prove to him that no one else wanted to kill the Hollingers he's more likely to admit that his confession is meaningless.'

'I agree.' Cabrera started the engine, then switched off the ignition and carefully scanned the other vehicles in the car park, taking care to read their licence plates. 'It may be that we are looking in the wrong place, Mr Prentice.'

'Meaning what?'

'That outside elements are involved. The fire at the Hollinger house was untypical of Estrella de Mar. Likewise the theft of the speedboat. Compared with the rest of the Costa del Sol, there is almost no crime here. No burglaries, no car thefts, no drugs.'

'No drugs and no burglaries…? Are you sure, Inspector?'

'None are reported. Crime is not a characteristic of Estrella de Mar. That's why we are happy to leave the policing to your volunteer force. Perhaps, after all, the Renault's fire was a short circuit…'

I watched him drive away, and repeated his last words to myself. No crime at Estrella de Mar, no drug-dealing, burglaries or car thefts? In fact, the entire resort was wired up to crime like a cable TV network. It fed itself into almost every apartment and villa, every bar and nightclub, as anyone could see from the defensive nervous system of security alarms and surveillance cameras. At the pool-side terrace below Frank's balcony half the talk was of the latest ram-raid or housebreaking incident.

At night I listened to the wailing sirens of the volunteer police patrols as they chased a car thief around the steep streets. Every morning at least one boutique-owner found her plate-glass windows lying shattered among the couture gowns. Drug-dealers haunted the bars and discos, prostitutes high-heeled the cobbled alleyways above the harbour, and the cameras of the porno-film makers probably turned in a score of bedrooms. Crimes took place in abundance, yet Cabrera knew nothing of them, since the residents of Estrella de Mar never reported them to the Spanish police. For reasons of their own they kept silent, fortifying their homes and businesses as if playing an elaborate and dangerous game.

Walking around Frank's apartment, I thought of him working in the prison garden, homesick for the Club Nautico. No doubt he was hungry for news and eager to see me, but a certain distance had opened between us. I felt too restless to spend any time in a gloomy invigilation room at the Zarzuella jail, hunting for clues to the truth among the nuances and studied vagueness of Frank's elliptical replies.

The sight of the Renault burning in the night had excited me. Roused by flames that seemed to leap across the bedroom ceiling, I ran to the balcony and saw the passenger cabin lit like a lantern, smoke swirling in the headlamps of the members' cars as they backed away to safety. One of the modern world's pagan rites was taking place, the torching of the automobile, witnessed by the young women from the disco, their sequinned dresses trembling in the flames.

When the pool party began as an excited response to the inferno, I almost changed into my swimsuit and joined the revellers. Trying to calm myself, I sipped Frank's whisky and listened to the shrieks and laughter as the sun came up over the sea, its copper rays touching the villas and apartment houses, a premonition of the last carnival blaze that would one day consume Estrella de Mar.