J.G. Ballard - Cocaine Nights

'Of course. His confession is so out of character. Inevitably, as the older brother you hold yourself responsible. Do sit down, and I'll bring you some mineral water.'

He excused himself, smoothing his silver hair in a mirror as he set off for the kitchen. I tried to visualize him living in this airless villa with the sedated Bibi Jansen, a curious menage even by the standards of Estrella de Mar. There was something almost feminine about Sanger, a constant attentiveness that might have reassured the dazed drug-addict and persuaded her to invite him into her bed. I imagined him making love with all the unobtrusiveness of a ghost.

At the same time there was an evasive strain running through him that roused my suspicions. Sanger, too, had a motive for setting fire to the Hollinger house-the foetus in Bibi's womb. The discovery that he had made one of his patients pregnant would have led to him being struck from the medical register.

Yet he had clearly cared for the young woman, and had mourned her in his ambiguous way, braving the hostile crowd at the funeral and then flushing with embarrassment when I caught him alone by the headstone. Vanity and self-reproach shared the same suede glove, and despite myself I wondered if he had selected the exact shade of silver marble to match his suit and hair.

I searched for a telephone, eager to call a taxi. The excitements of chasing Crawford around Estrella de Mar, the discovery of the keys, and my duel with the hang-glider had left me ready for even more action. I walked to the garden windows and peered down at the drained pool. Someone had thrown a can of yellow paint over the wall, and a canary sunburst leaked towards the drainage vent.

'Another abstract painting,' I remarked to Sanger when he returned with the mineral water. 'I can understand why you're moving.'

'There's a time to stay and a time to leave.' He shrugged, resigned to his own rationalizations. 'I own some property in the Costasol development along the coast, a few bungalows I let out in the summer. I've decided to take one of them for myself.'

'The Residencia Costasol? It's very quiet…'

'Of course, practically somnambulistic. But that's what I'm looking for. The security arrangements are more advanced than anywhere else on the coast.' Sanger opened a window and listened to the evening sounds of Estrella de Mar, like an exiled political leader resigned to his heavily-guarded villa and the company of his books. 'I won't say I've been driven out, but I'm looking forward to a quieter life.'

'Will you practise there? Or are the people of the pueblos beyond psychiatric help?'

'That's a little unfair.' Sanger waited for me to return to the armchair. 'No one would ever dare to retire if dozing in the sun was forbidden.'

I sipped the tepid water, thinking of Frank's bracing malts. 'Strictly speaking, Doctor, few of the people in the Residencia Costasol are retired. They're mostly in their forties and fifties.'

'Everything comes sooner these days. The future rushes towards us like a tennis player charging the net. People in the new professions peak in their late thirties. As it happens, I've a fair number of Costasol patients. It makes sense to move now that my practice here has dried up.'

'So the residents of Estrella de Mar are made of sturdier stuff? Few conflicts or psychic stresses?'

'Very few. They're too busy with their theatre clubs and choral societies. One needs a great deal of idle time to feel really sorry for oneself. There's something special in the air here – and I'm not thinking of your hang-glider.'

'But you do mean Bobby Crawford?'

Sanger stared at the rim of his glass, as if searching for his reflection in the crazed surface. 'Crawford, yes. He's a remarkable man, as you've seen. He has certain dangerous qualities, of which he isn't really aware. He excites people, and stirs them in ways they don't understand. But on the whole he's a force for good. He's put so much energy into Estrella de Mar, though not everyone can stand the pace. Some have to retreat to the sidelines.'

'Someone like Bibi Jansen?'

Sanger turned to stare at the patio, where a deckchair waited by the pool. Here, I guessed, the young Swede had relaxed in the sun under her psychiatrist's melancholy and wistful gaze. At the mention of her name he seemed to slip into a shallow reverie of happier times.

'Bibi… I was very fond of her. Before she was taken in by the Hollingers she would often ring my door-bell and ask if she could stay with me. I'd treated her for one addiction after another and always let her in. It was a chance to wean her from everything that was crippling her mind. She knew the beach bars were too much for her to take. Crawford and his friends were testing her to destruction, as if she were a Piaf or Billie Holiday with a huge talent to sustain her. In fact she was desperately vulnerable.'

'Everyone seems to have liked her – I saw that at the funeral.'

'The funeral?' Sanger re-focused his eyes, returning himself to the present. 'Not one of Andersson's better days. A sweet boy, the last of the hippies who found that he was a talented mechanic. She reminded him of his teenage years, backpacking in Nepal. He wanted Bibi to remain a child, living on the beach like a gypsy.'

'He felt she belonged there. Perhaps the world needs a few people ready to burn themselves out. By the way, Andersson thinks you were the father of her child.'

Sanger smoothed his silver hair with the back of his hand. 'So does everyone else at Estrella de Mar. I tried to protect her, but we were never lovers. Sadly, I don't think I ever touched her.'

'They say you sleep with your patients.'

'But, Mr Prentice…' Sanger seemed surprised by my naivete. 'My patients are my friends. I came here six years ago when my wife died. The women I met asked me for help-they were drinking too much, addicted to sleeping pills but never getting any real sleep. Some of them had travelled to the far side of boredom. I went after them and brought them back, and tried to give their lives some meaning. For one or two, that meant a personal involvement. With others – Bibi, and the Hollingers' niece – I was no more than a guide and counsellor.'

'Anne Hollinger?' I grimaced at the memory of the gutted bedroom. 'You didn't bring her back – she was a heroin addict.'

'Absolutely not.' Sanger spoke sharply, as if correcting an incompetent junior. 'She was completely clear. One of the Clinic's few successes, I can assure you.'

'Doctor, she was shooting up at the time of the fire. They found her in the bathroom with a needle in her arm.'

Sanger raised his pale hands to silence me. 'Mr Prentice, you rush to judgement. Anne Hollinger was a diabetic. What she injected into herself was not heroin, but insulin. Her death was tragedy enough without further stigmatizing her 'I'm sorry. For some reason I took it for granted. Paula Hamilton and I visited the house with Cabrera. She assumed that Anne had relapsed.'

'Dr Hamilton no longer treated her. There was a coldness between the two women, which I can't explain. Anne's diabetes was diagnosed in London six months ago.' Sanger stared bleakly at the sun setting above the miniature garden, with its drained pool like a sunken altar. 'After all she endured, she had to die with Bibi in that senseless fire. It's still hard to believe that it ever happened.'

'And even harder to believe that Frank was behind it?'

'Impossible.' Sanger spoke in measured tones, watching me for my response. 'Frank is the last person in Estrella de Mar who could have started that fire. He loved ambiguity, and sentences that end in question marks. The fire was too definite an act, it stops all further discussion of anything. I knew Frank well – we played bridge together at the Club Nautico in the early days. Tell me, did Frank steal as a child?'