J.G. Ballard - Cocaine Nights

'I did.' Andersson stared at his hands, trying to pick the oily flakes from his nails. He spoke in a low voice, as if afraid of being overheard. 'Frank asked me to fix the system so that it filled the house with coloured smoke. Mahoud and I drove there in the afternoon when the housekeeper was busy. I told her I was the maintenance engineer and that Mahoud was my assistant. I opened the intake manifold and showed Mahoud where to put the smoke flares.'

'And then?'

Andersson raised his long hands, exposing his wrists as if offering them to an axe. 'After the Queen's toast Frank left Mahoud in the kitchen and climbed the stairs to the fireplace. He took a small carpet from the floor, laid it on the grate and set it alight. He didn't know that Mahoud had drained the reservoir of the humidifier and filled it with gasoline. After Mahoud left he switched on the air-conditioning system to warn the Hollingers. But no smoke came out of the ventilation grilles…'

'So Frank wasn't aware there would be an explosion?' I let Paula help me from the driving seat. 'Even so, all this petrol and ether… it's insane. You must have realized the risk of the whole house going up.'

Paula pressed her fist to her cheek, searching for her old bruise. 'Yes, but we didn't let ourselves think about that. We needed a spectacle for Bobby Crawford – the Hollingers in a panic, coloured smoke coming out of their ears, perhaps a little damage to the house. The fireplace was huge-Frank said that if the flames did spread they'd take half an hour to get a hold on the staircase. By then the guests would have broken into the house and set up a human chain from the swimming pool. No one was going to die.'

'No one? Did you really believe that? So the whole thing went wrong. What happened to Frank after the explosion?'

Paula grimaced at the memory. 'He ran off when he saw what had happened. He was totally shattered by it all, he could hardly speak. He told me he'd tried to hide the unused flagons but somehow lost his car keys. Gunnar found them the next day when he was flying his hang-glider. They were all we had. We wanted to report Crawford and Betty Shand to the police but there was no evidence against them. Crawford didn't know we would set fire to the Hollinger house, and he'd taken no part in the planning. If we'd confessed to Cabrera all of us would have been charged and the one person really responsible would have escaped. Frank pleaded guilty to save us.'

'So you said nothing until I came along. It was you who fed me the porno-cassette I found in Anne Hollinger's bedroom.'

'Yes – I hoped you'd recognize Crawford and Mahoud, or at least work out where the apartment was.'

'That bit was easy. But I might never have seen the cassette in Anne Hollinger's bedroom.'

'I know. At first I was going to leave it in the Bentley and get Miguel to show you over the car. Then I saw you staring at her TV set – you were so curious to know what she'd been watching as she died.'

'That's true… I hate to have to say it. And the cocaine sachet in Frank's desk? Cabrera's men would have found that in seconds.'

Paula turned her back to me, still uneasy at the thought of the tape. 'I put it there when David Hennessy told me you were flying in from London. I wanted to lead you to Crawford, and make you realize there was more to Frank and Estrella de Mar than a picture-postcard resort. If you thought Crawford was involved in the fire you might have exposed his other activities. He'd have been charged with drug-dealing and car thefts and spent the next ten years in jail.'

'But instead I was drawn to him like everyone else. And the car keys?'

'The only thing left was to steer you towards Frank. If you knew he was involved in the fire it would have blown the lid off everything.'

'So you got Miguel to leave the keys in the orchard. What made you think I might go back there?'

'You never stopped looking at the house.' Paula reached out and touched my chest, smiling for the first time. 'Poor man, you were absolutely obsessed with the place. Crawford could see that too – that's why he left you by the steps to the observation platform. Even then he was preparing you for the next great fire.'

'But he didn't know the keys were waiting for me. Still, I might never have seen them. Or was that where the hang-glider came in?'

'I flew the glider.' Andersson raised his arms and gripped an imaginary control bar. 'I guided you towards the keys, then chased you down to the cemetery. Paula was waiting on the Kawasaki.'

'Paula? That was you in the menacing leather?'

'We wanted to frighten you, make you realize that Estrella de Mar was a dangerous place.' Paula took the keys from the Jaguar's door and gripped them tightly. 'We watched you chasing Crawford all over Estrella de Mar and guessed that he'd take you back to the Hollinger house. Luckily, you found the keys and began to test them on all the cars.'

'But I never tested Frank's car.' I patted the roof of the dusty Jaguar. 'I took for granted this was one car I didn't need to test. Meanwhile Frank had pleaded guilty, the Hollingers were dead, and the rest of you were locked into Crawford's insane little kingdom. Yet Bibi Jansen died in the fire – didn't he feel that was a high price to pay?'

'Of course he did.' Paula stared at me through her tears, refusing to wipe them away. 'When we killed Crawford's child we committed a crime against him – that bound us to him even more tightly.'

'And Sanger? Did he know the truth about the fire?'

'No. Apart from you he was almost the only person at the funeral who didn't. He must have guessed.'

'Even so, he never went to the police. Nor did anyone else, though most of them can't have expected that the Hollingers would die in the blaze.'

'They had their businesses to run. The Hollinger fire was good news for the cash tills. No one lay around watching television, they went out and calmed their nerves by spending money. The whole thing was a nightmare, but the right man had pleaded guilty. Technically, Frank had started the fire. Most people didn't know about Mahoud and the petrol in the air-conditioning system – that was Betty Shand's idea, along with Hennessy and Sonny Gardner. Everyone else saw it as the kind of tragic accident that happens when a party trick goes wrong. God knows, I did myself. I'd helped to murder all those people, and I almost accepted it. Charles, that's why we have to stop the party tonight.'

As she raised her arms I briefly embraced her, trying to still her shaking shoulders. I could feel her heart beating against my breastbone. All the duplicities of the past months had been shed, leaving behind this nervous young doctor.

'But how, Paula? That could be difficult. We'll have to warn Sanger. He and Laurie can leave for Marbella.'

'Sanger won't leave. He's already been driven out of Estrella de Mar. Even if he did go they'd simply pick someone else -Colonel Lindsay, Lejeune, even you, Charles. The important thing is to sacrifice someone and seal the tribe into itself. Charles, believe me – Bobby Crawford has to be stopped.'

'I know. Paula, I'll talk to him. When he sees that I know everything about the Hollingers he'll cancel the party.'

'He won't!' Exhausted, Paula turned to Andersson for support, but the Swede had moved away from us, staring at the parked cars. 'It isn't up to Crawford any more – Betty Shand and the rest of them have made their decision. He'll move on to other pueblos and other towns, bring them to life and then demand a sacrifice, and always there'll be people willing to carry it out. Listen to me, Charles – blood pays for your arts festivals and civic pride…'

I sat in the driver's seat of Frank's car, holding the steering wheel as Andersson raised a hand in a brief farewell salute and walked up the ramp into the late afternoon sunlight. Paula stood beside the Jaguar, watching me through the windshield as she waited for me to respond to her. But I was thinking of Frank and our childhood years together. I understood how he had fallen under Crawford's spell, accepting the irresistible logic that had revived the Club Nautico and the moribund town around it. Crime would always be rife, but Crawford had put vice and prostitution and drug-dealing to positive social ends. Estrella de Mar had rediscovered itself, but the escalator of provocation had carried him upwards to the Hollinger house and the engulfing flames.