J.G. Ballard - Cocaine Nights

I hesitated, but Sanger had slipped the question in so casually that I almost warmed to him. 'Our mother died when we were young. It left us… a broken family. Frank was desperately unsettled.'

'He did steal?'

'It brought us together. I'd cover up and try to take the blame. Not that it mattered – our father rarely punished us.'

'And you never stole yourself?'

'No. I think Frank was doing that for me.'

'And you envied him?'

'I still do. It gave him a kind of freedom I didn't have.'

'And now you're again assuming your child role, rescuing Frank from another of his scrapes?'

'I knew that from the start. The curious thing is that part of me suspects he may have started the Hollinger fire.'

'Of course, you envy him his "crime". No wonder you find Bobby Crawford so intriguing.'

'That's true-there's something mesmerizing about all that promiscuous energy. Crawford charms people, always sailing so close to the rocks. He graces their Uves with the possibilities of being genuinely sinful and immoral. At the same time, why do they put up with him?' Too restless to sit in the chair, I stood up and paced among the cartons of books, while Sanger listened to me, constructing a series of steeples with his slender fingers. 'I followed him this afternoon – he could have been arrested a dozen times. He's a genuinely disruptive presence, running a network of drug-dealers, car thieves and prostitutes. He's likeable and enthusiastic, but why don't people send him packing? Estrella de Mar would be a paradise without him.'

Sanger collapsed his steeple, vigorously shaking his head. 'I think not. In fact, Estrella de Mar is probably a paradise because of Bobby Crawford.'

'The theatre clubs, galleries, choral societies? Crawford has nothing to do with them at all.'

'He has everything to do with them. Before Crawford arrived Estrella de Mar was just another resort on the Costa del Sol. People drifted about in a haze of vodka and Valium – I had a great many patients then, I may say. I remember the silent tennis courts at the club, a single member lying by the pool. The water's surface wasn't broken from one day to the next. You could see the dust lying on it.'

'And how did Crawford bring everything to life? He's a tennis player 'But it wasn't his cross-court backhand that revived Estrella de Mar. He made use of other talents.' Sanger stood up and walked to the window, listening to a nearby security alarm that shrilled through the evening air. 'In a sense Crawford may be the saviour of the entire Costa del Sol, and even wider world beyond that. You've been to Gibraltar? One of the last proud outposts of small-scale greed, openly dedicated to corruption. No wonder the Brussels bureaucrats are trying to close it down. Our governments are preparing for a future without work, and that includes the petty criminals. Leisure societies lie ahead of us, like those you see on this coast. People will still work – or, rather, some people will work, but only for a decade of their lives. They will retire in their late thirties, with fifty years of idleness in front of them.'

'A billion balconies facing the sun. Still, it means a final goodbye to wars and ideologies.'

'But how do you energize people, give them some sense of community? A world lying on its back is vulnerable to any cunning predator. Politics are a pastime for a professional caste and fail to excite the rest of us. Religious belief demands a vast effort of imaginative and emotional commitment, difficult to muster if you're still groggy from last night's sleeping pill. Only one thing is left which can rouse people, threaten them directly and force them to act together.'

'Crime?'

'Crime, and transgressive behaviour – by which I mean all activities that aren't necessarily illegal, but provoke us and tap our need for strong emotion, quicken the nervous system and jump the synapses deadened by leisure and inaction.' Sanger gestured at the evening sky like a planetarium lecturer pointing to the birth of a star. 'Look around you – the people of Estrella de Mar have already welcomed this.'

'And Bobby Crawford is the new Messiah?' I drank the last of Sanger's water, trying to wash the flatness out of my mouth. 'How did a small-time tennis pro discover this new truth?'

'He didn't. He tripped across it in despair. I remember how he paced those empty courts, playing endless games with his serving machine. One afternoon he left the club in disgust and spent a few hours stealing cars and shoplifting. Perhaps it was coincidence, but the very next morning two tennis lessons were booked.'

'Does one follow the other? I don't believe it. If someone burgles my house, shoots the dog and rapes the maid my reaction isn't to open an art gallery.'

'Not your first reaction, perhaps. But later, as you question events and the world around you… the arts and criminality have always flourished side by side.'

I followed him to the door and waited while he telephoned for a taxi. As he spoke he watched himself in the mirror, touching his eyebrows and adjusting his hair like an actor in his dressing room. Was he telling me that Bobby Crawford had started the fire at the Hollinger house, and had in some way forced Frank to be his scapegoat?

As we stood on the steps, the graffiti glowing beside us under the security lights, I said: 'One thing is missing in your scheme of things-a sense of guilt. You'd expect people here to be crippled by remorse.'

'But there is no remorse in Estrella de Mar. We've had to forgo that luxury, Mr Prentice. Here transgressive behaviour is for the public good. All feelings of guilt, however old and deep-rooted, are assuaged. Frank discovered that. And you may, too.'

'I hope I do. One last question – who killed the Hollingers? Bobby Crawford? He has a taste for fire.'

Sanger's nose was lifted to the night air. He seemed sensitive to every sound, to every squeal of brakes and blare of music. 'I doubt it. That fire was too destructive. Besides, he was very fond of Bibi and Anne Hollinger.'

'He disliked the older couple.'

'Even so.' Sanger steered me across the gravel as the taxi's headlights swept the drive. 'You won't find who was responsible by looking for motives. In Estrella de Mar, like everywhere in the future, crimes have no motives. What you should look for is someone with no apparent motive for killing the Hollingers.'

Frank, unpredictable to the end, had decided to see me. Senor Danvila brought the good news to the Club Nautico, certain that a breakthrough of importance had taken place. He was waiting for me in the lobby as I returned from the swimming pool and seemed unsurprised when I failed to recognize him against the background of English sporting prints.

'Mr Prentice…? Is there a problem?'

'No. Senor Danvila?' Taking off my sunglasses, I identified the harassed figure with his perpetually shuffled briefcases. 'Can I help you?'

'It's an urgent matter, concerning your brother. I heard this morning that he will now receive you.'

'Good…'

'Mr Prentice?' The lawyer followed me to the elevator and placed his hand over the call button. 'Can you understand me? You may visit your brother. He's agreed to see you.'

'That's… wonderful. Do you know why he's changed his mind?'

'It doesn't matter. It's important that you meet him. He may have something to tell you. Perhaps some new evidence about the case.'

'Of course. It's excellent news. He's probably had time to think everything over.'

'Exactly.' For all his air of a dogged but tired schoolmaster, Danvila was watching me with unexpected shrewdness. 'Mr Prentice, when you see your brother give him time to speak for himself. The visiting hour is four-thirty this afternoon. He asked you to bring Dr Hamilton.'