Cocaine Nights

20 A Quest for New Vices

Sunlight crazed the broken surface of the swimming pool, as if released from the glassy depths by my dive. I swam a leisurely length, touched the tiled gutter and hoisted myself on to the diving board. The waves slapped the sides of the pool, refusing to calm themselves, and eager to applaud the next pre-breakfast swimmer in search of an appetite.

As I towelled myself, however, I guessed that another day would pass and I would remain the swimming pool's only customer, just as I would be the only visitor to the tennis courts and gymnasium. Killing time beside the open-air bar, reading the London newspapers and thinking about Frank's trial, I knew that time had died in the Residencia Costasol long before my arrival.

During my first week as 'manager' of the sports club I sat back and watched Elizabeth Shand's groundsmen re-vamp the entire premises. They cleaned and filled the pool, watered the lawns and white-inked the tennis courts, then buffed the hardwood floor of the gymnasium to a mirror-like finish, ready for the first aerobics classes.

Despite these efforts, and the expensive pool-side furniture waiting to cushion their exhausted limbs, none of the Costasol residents had put in an appearance. My hours, David Hennessy told me, ran from eleven a. m. to three p. m., but 'take as long as you want for lunch, dear boy, we can't have you going mad with boredom.'

Nevertheless, I usually drove from the Club Nautico before breakfast, curious to see if the dozing residents of the complex had been tempted to leave their balconies. Hennessy would arrive at noon, retreat to his office and return to Estrella de Mar once he had paid the waiters and ground staff. Sometimes Elizabeth Shand would visit him, arriving in her limousine with the two Germans. In a curious pantomime each would hold open a passenger door for her, while she gazed at the sports club like a predatory widow visiting an entailed property about to fall into her grasp.

Had her legendary business savvy deserted her for once? Eating my breakfast at the bar, surrounded by the silent waiters and the empty sun-loungers, I guessed that she might soon be writing off her investment and leaving for the richer pastures at Calahonda. The caravan would move on to the retirement pueblos of the coast, taking with it my last hopes of discovering the truth about the Hollinger fire.

Frank, absurdly, still maintained his guilt, and I had twice postponed my visit to Zarzuella jail, convinced against all the evidence that the Residencia Costasol might be a back door into the secret Estrella de Mar for so long closed to me. His trial had been set for 15 October, four months to the day after the tragic fire, and despite all my efforts I would be no more than a character witness. I thought constantly of Frank and our childhood years together, but found it almost impossible to face him across the hard table of a prison interview room. His plea of guilty had seemed to embrace us both, but I no longer felt the sense of shared guilt that had once united us.

Behind me a car door opened and a motor faded. I looked up from my Financial Times to find that a familiar BMW had pulled into the car park. Paula Hamilton sat at the wheel, peering up at the bright new awnings that flared from the windows of the sports club. She had changed at the home of one of her patients at the Residencia, and wore a yellow beach robe over her black swimsuit.

She left the car and climbed the steps towards the swimming pool. Ignoring me, she walked to the deep end, left her robe and bag on the diving board and began to fasten her hair, arms raised as she showed off the hips and breasts that I had embraced so eagerly. I had repeatedly rung her flat near the Clinic, but since visiting Frank in Zarzuella jail she kept away from me. I wanted to see her again, and do my best to ease away the strain of contempt she felt for herself, like the prickly humour that shielded her fear of showing her real emotions. But the video-cassette of Anne Hollinger's rape separated us like the memory of a crime.

She swam ten lengths, her streamlined body and clean strokes scarcely disturbing the surface of the pool. Waist-deep in the shallow end, she wiped the foam from her eyes and accepted the towel that I took from the pile beside the bar. Holding my hands, she sprang from the pool and stood dripping beside me, water sparkling at her feet. Happy to see her, I draped another towel around her shoulders.

'Paula – you're our first new member. I hope you want to join the club?'

'No. Just testing the water. It looks pure enough.'

'It's brand-new. You've christened it with your own lips. Now it knows its name.'

'I'll think about that.' She nodded approvingly at the sun-loungers and tables. 'It must be the cleanest pool on the Costa del Sol. Better than all that dissolved muck we usually swim through, under the misguided idea that it's water -detergent, sun-oil, anti-perspirant, aftershave, vaginal jelly, pee and God only knows what else. You look healthier for it, Charles.'

'I am. I swim every day, knock a few balls around with the groundsmen. I've even tried the gym machines.'

'And now you're working for Elizabeth Shand? That's really bizarre. Does she pay you well?'

'It's an honorary post. Hennessy covers my expenses. Bobby Crawford thought I might write a book about it all.'

' "Is there Death after Life? The Resurrection of the Residencia Costasol." How is our tennis pro?'

'I haven't seen him for days. The Ponche flashes by now and then. All mysterious errand stuff – speedboats, remote beaches, drug drops. I'm too square for him.'

Paula stopped to stare at me as we walked towards the diving board. 'You're getting involved. Be careful, he'll damage you if he wants to.'

'Paula, you're too hard on him. I know about the films and the dealing and the car thefts. He tried to strangle me, for reasons he probably doesn't understand. But it's all in a good cause, or so he thinks – he wants to bring people back to life. In many ways he's very naive.'

'There's nothing naive about Betty Shand.'

'Or David Hennessy. But I'm still trying to find what happened at the Hollingers'. That's why I'm playing Frank's role. Now, tell me how he is.'

'Pale, very tired. He's resigned to everything. I think the trial's already over for him. He accepts that you don't want to see him.'

'Not true. Paula, I do want to see him. But I'm not ready yet. I'll visit him when I have something to tell him. Is there any chance of him changing his plea?'

'Of course not. He thinks he's guilty.'

I drove a fist into my palm. 'That's why I can't see him! I won't collude with whatever lies he's hiding behind.'

'You're colluding with everything else here.' Paula watched me, frowning to herself as she slipped into her robe, uncertain whether the bronzed and muscular man beside her was an impostor masquerading as the soft-skinned journalist who had embraced her on Frank's bed. 'You're involved with Elizabeth Shand, Hennessy and Bobby Crawford. It's almost a conspiracy, based on this club.'

'Paula… this isn't Estrella de Mar. It's the Residencia Costasol. Nothing happens here. Nothing ever will.'

'Now you're being naive.' Shaking her head at my foolishness, she strolled with me to her car. She tossed her bag into the passenger seat and then pressed her cheek to mine, her hands on my chest, as if reminding herself that we had once been lovers. 'Charles, dear, a great deal is happening here, far more than you realize. Open your eyes Almost on cue, a Spanish police car circled the central plaza. It stopped beside the marina, and one of the uniformed officers shouted to the boatyard where Andersson worked each morning on Crawford's speedboats. Often I walked down to the quay, but the morose Swede avoided me, unwilling to talk about the Hollinger fire and still nursing his memories of Bibi Jansen. During his rest periods he retreated to the Halcyon, which was berthed near the boatyard, and sat in the cabin, ignoring my feet on the deck above.

Hennessy was waiting in the entrance to the sports club, smiling affably under his reassuring moustache. A Hawaiian shirt covered his ample paunch, and he seemed the epitome of the shady businessman with whom the Spanish police would feel most at ease. He ushered them into his office, where a bottle of Fundador and a tray of tapas were ready to speed their investigation.

They left twenty minutes later, faces flushed and confident. Hennessy waved when they drove off, beaming the benign smile of a department-store Father Christmas. No doubt he had reassured them that he would personally see to the security of the Residencia Costasol and so free them to pursue their proper tasks of manhandling hitch-hikers, plotting against their superiors and collecting backhanders from the Fuengirola bar-owners.

'They don't seem too worried,' I commented to Hennessy. 'I thought they left us alone.'

'Spot of bother on the outer perimeter road – some sort of break-in last night. One or two people have had VCRs stolen. They will leave their patio doors open.'

'Burglaries? Isn't that unusual? I thought the Residencia Costasol was a crime-free zone.'

'I wish it were. Sadly, we're living in today's world. I've heard reports of car thefts, though heaven knows how the thieves get through the security barrier. These things happen in waves, you know. Estrella de Mar was as quiet as this when I first arrived.'

'Car thefts and burglaries?' For some reason I felt a stir of interest. The air around me had become crisper. 'What do we do, David? Start a neighbourhood watch scheme? Recruit some volunteer patrols?'

Hennessy turned his mild but steely eyes on to me, unsure whether I was being ironic. 'Do we need to go that far? Still, you may have a point.'

'Think about it, David. It might help to rouse people from this dreadful torpor.'

'Do we want them roused? They could become a nuisance, develop all sorts of odd enthusiasms. I'll mention it to Elizabeth.' He pointed to the stretch limousine moving through the gates of the sports club, its burnished carapace outshining the sun. 'How sleek she looks today, positively purring. I dare say she's bought up the last of the leases. Curious how a few robberies can be a boost to business. People get nervous, you know, and start shifting their cash around…'

So crime was coming to the Residencia Costasol. After its brief years of peace, the unending slumbers of the sun-coast were about to be disturbed. I counted the silent balconies overlooking the plaza, waiting for the first signs of morning life. It was ten o'clock, but scarcely a resident had stirred, though the first glimmers of a breakfast-television programme had begun to play across the ceilings. The Costasol complex was about to wake itself from the deep sea-bed of sleep and break the surface of a new and more bracing world. I felt surprisingly elated. If Bobby Crawford was the young district officer, then David Hennessy and Elizabeth Shand were the agents of the trading company who dogged his heels, ready to rouse the docile natives with their guns and trinkets, beads and brummagem.

This time, however, merchandise of a different kind was being delivered. From the trunk of the Mercedes the young Germans lifted a computerized cash-register. Elizabeth Shand broke off her téte-á-téte with Hennessy and beckoned me towards her. Despite the heat, her immaculate make-up was untouched by the slightest hint of perspiration. A cooler blood chilled her veins, as if her predatory mind worked best at temperatures lower than the heart's. As always, though, her lips parted generously when she greeted me, holding out the promise of an erotic encounter so strange that it might jump the species barrier.

'Charles, how good of you to be here so early! I do value keenness. These days no one wants anything to be a success, as if failure were somehow chic. I've brought something that should help to make the profits sing. Show Helmut and Wolfgang where you want it.'

'I'm not sure.' I stood back to let the Germans carry the computer into the foyer. ' Elizabeth, it's a great show of confidence in us, but don't you think it's a little premature?'

'Why, dear?' She pressed her veiled cheek to mine, her handsome body sheathed in a cascade of silks that rustled against my bare chest like the plumage of a tremulous bird. 'We must be ready when the flood comes. Besides, you won't be able to cheat me, or not quite so easily.'

'I'll happily cheat you – it sounds rather exciting. It's just that we haven't had a single recruit. Not one resident has applied to join the club.'

'They'll come. Believe me.' She waved to the Keswick sisters, who were pacing out an area of the terrace behind the bar, as if defining the margins of an open-air restaurant. 'There'll be so many new attractions that no one will be able to resist. Don't you agree, David?'

'Absolutely.' Hennessy stood by the concierge's counter, his arm around the computer, welcoming a new confederate in crime. 'I'm sure we'll be as busy as the Club Nautico.'

'You see, Charles? I'm completely confident. We may have to build out on to the car park, and lease parking space from the marina.' She turned to the docile young Germans, waiting in their tennis whites for her next command. 'Wolfgang and Helmut – I think you've already met them, Charles. I want them to help you here. They can move into the apartment upstairs. From now on they work for you.'

I shook hands with the Germans. As if embarrassed by their own musculatures, they bounced lightly on their feet, huge knees moving like bronzed piston heads, forever trying to rearrange their bodies in some less self-conscious configuration.

'Good… but, Elizabeth, what exactly will they do?'

'Do?' She patted my chin, pleased by my teasing. 'They will do nothing. Wolfgang and Helmut will "be". They will be themselves and become very popular. I know about these things, Charles. As it happens, Helmut is extremely good at tennis – he once beat Boris Becker. And Wolfgang is a frightfully good swimmer. He's covered enormous distances in the Baltic Sea.'

'Useful… getting from one side of the Jacuzzi to the other is more than most people here can manage. So they could be sports coaches?'

'Exactly. I know you'll put their talents to good use. All their talents.'

'Naturally. They can help with the recruitment drive.' I accompanied her to the limousine, where Mahoud stood beside the open passenger door, heavy jowls sweating under his peaked cap. 'The club does need new members-I thought I might mail a few leaflets. Or hire a plane to fly around the Residencia every day with a banner. Free tennis lessons, aerobics classes, massage and aromatherapy, that sort of thing…?'

Elizabeth Shand smiled at Hennessy, who was carrying her briefcase to the car. The underwriter seemed equally amused, frisking up the ends of his moustache, eager for them to join in the fun.

'Leaflets and banners? I don't think so.' She took her seat, settling herself in a bower of silks. When Mahoud had closed the door she reached through the window to squeeze my hand reassuringly. 'We need to wake everyone up. The people at the Residencia Costasol are desperate for new vices. Satisfy them, Charles, and you'll be a success…'