J.G. Ballard - Cocaine Nights

'Interested, Charles?' Crawford asked. 'Our white lady of H.'

'Who is she?'

'Laurie Fox – she was working in a club in Fuengirola until Sanger found her. Father's a doctor at a local clinic; after his wife died in a road crash he began to share his heroin habit with Laurie. She's appeared in a couple of low-budget TV series made out here.'

'Any good?'

'The series were shit, but she looked good. Has the right kind of bones in her face.'

'And now she's with Sanger? How does he do it?'

'He has special talents, and special needs.'

The French teenager shrieked and dived. The shattered water sent a burst of light across the garden. Laurie Fox flinched and searched for Sanger's hand. He stood behind her, stroking her short-cropped hair with a silver-backed brush. Trying to soothe her, he loosened the nightdress and rubbed sun cream into her shoulders, his fingers as gentle as a lover's. She took his hand and wiped the oil away, then placed it over her breast.

The frankness of her erotic response, the unashamed way in which she used her sex, seemed to unsettle Crawford. The plastic vanes slipped from his grip and danced against the window, but he controlled himself and steadied them. His heavy breath blurred the dusty glass as he panted quietly, partly in anger and partly in admiration and sensual pleasure.

'Laurie…' he murmured. 'She's your star, Charles.'

'Are you sure? Can she act?'

'I hope not. We need a special kind of… presence. Your film club will love her.'

'I'll think about it. You have met her?'

'Of course. Betty Shand owns half the club in Fuengirola.'

'Well, maybe. She looks happy enough with Sanger.'

'No one is happy with Sanger.' Crawford rapped the glass with his fist, then stared fixedly at the psychiatrist. 'We'll get her away from him. Laurie needs a different sort of encouragement.'

'Such as…?'

I waited for Crawford to reply, but he was watching Sanger like a hunter in a hide. The psychiatrist was walking towards the pool with a dry towel. As the French girl stepped from the water he draped the towel around her, gently drying her shoulders as he gazed at her growing nipples. Hidden in the towelling, his hands lingered over her breasts and bottom, then gathered her hair into a damp coil that he laid over the nape of her neck.

The small bedroom was strangely silent, as if the entire villa was waiting for our response. I realized that both Crawford and I were no longer breathing. His chest was still, and the muscles of his face seemed ready to burst through his cheeks. Usually so relaxed and amiable, he was about to drive his forehead through the glass. His fierce resentment of Sanger, his envy of the affection the psychiatrist was bestowing on the young woman, made me certain that he had come into conflict with the psychiatric profession in the past, perhaps during his last days in the army.

The French teenager returned to her bungalow, and Sanger strolled back to the pool-side table. He took Laurie Fox's hand, lifting her from the chair, and wrapped a comforting arm around her as they walked into the bungalow behind them.

Metal louvres tore and clattered against the window. Ripped from the wall by Crawford's hands, the blind lay on the floor at our feet, a trembling mass of plastic vanes. I stepped back, trying to take Crawford's arm.

'Bobby? For God's sake 'It's all right, Charles. I didn't mean to upset you…' Crawford calmed me with a ready smile, but his eyes moved around Sanger's compound. He was working out the sight-lines between the bungalows, and I was sure that some brutal challenge was about to be mounted.

'Bobby… there are other girls like Laurie Fox. Just as stoned and just as weird. Fuengirola must be full of them.'

'Charles… don't panic' Crawford spoke quietly, his sense of irony returning. He flexed his shoulders like a boxer and grimaced over his torn hands, smiling at the blood. 'There's nothing like a violent reflex now and then to tune up the nervous system. For some reason, Sanger really gets to me.'

'He's just another flawed psychiatrist. Forget about him.'

'All psychiatrists are flawed-believe me, Charles, I've had to cope with the poor devils. My mother took me to one in Ely. He thought I was a budding sociopath and liked bruising myself. Father knew better. He understood that I loved him, despite that strap.'

'And what about the army psychiatrists in Hong Kong?'

'Even more amateurish.' Crawford turned to watch me in his most level way, eyes searching my face. 'For what it's worth they used even stronger terms.'

'Like "psychopathy"?'

'That sort of thing. Hopelessly muddled. They don't realize that the psychopath plays a vital role. He meets the needs of the hour, touches our graceless lives with the only magic we know.'

'And that is?'

'Charles… come on. I must have some professional secrets. Let's get back to the club and sign up all those eager new members.'

As I followed him to the door he turned and smiled his most winning smile at me, then clasped my face in his hands and left his bloody fingerprints on my cheeks.

'Inspector cabrera…?' I stood in the doorway of my office at the sports club, surprised to see the young policeman sitting at my desk. 'I was expecting Mr Crawford.'

'He's difficult to find. Sometimes here, sometimes there, but never in between.' Cabrera adjusted the mouse beside my computer keyboard, scanned the menu and scrolled through the membership list, his lips pursed almost in disapproval. 'The club is very popular, Mr Prentice-so many new members in so little time.'

'We've been lucky. Still, the facilities are excellent. Mrs Shand has put a lot of money into the club.'

I waited for Cabrera to rise from my chair, but he seemed content to remain behind my desk, as if curious to see everything from my perspective. He turned in the swivel chair, and gazed at the crowded tennis courts.

'Mrs Shand is a fine businesswoman,' Cabrera acknowledged. 'For years the Residencia Costasol was asleep, and now, suddenly… how could Mrs Shand know when it would wake?'

'Well, Inspector…' Cabrera's aggressive gaze unsettled me, like his youthful face with its too obvious hint of intellectual thuggery. 'Business people have a feel for this sort of thing. They can read the psychology of a particular street corner or sidewalk. Can I help you, Inspector? I'm not sure when Mr Crawford will be back. There's no problem with work permits, I hope? Our staff are all EC nationals.'

Cabrera raised himself slightly from my chair, trying to find in its geometry some clue to my own activities. He frowned at the monotonous sound of the tennis machine. 'No one is ever sure about Mr Crawford – a tennis coach who has a machine to do his work for him. You at least remain in one place.'

'My job is here, Inspector. I still sleep at the Club Nautico, but I'm moving my things to the Residencia this afternoon. Mrs Shand has rented a villa for me – next-door to Dr Sanger, as it happens. I looked over the house yesterday afternoon.'

'Good. Then we will know where you are.' Cabrera's glance took in my smartly-cut safari suit, run up for me by an Arab tailor in Puerto Banus. 'I wanted to ask if you had heard from your brother?'

'My brother…?' Something unsettled me about Cabrera's loaded use of the term. 'Do you mean Frank?'

'You have another brother in Spain? Not in Zarzuella jail.'

'Of course not.' I placed my hands on the desk, trying to steady the scene. 'I haven't had any recent messages from Frank. Mr Hennessy and Dr Hamilton visit him every week.'

'Good. Then he's not abandoned.' Cabrera was still looking me up and down, trying to identify some unstated change in my appearance and manner. 'Tell me, Mr Prentice, will you visit your brother before the trial? It's over two months away.'