Cocaine Nights

26 The Last Party

Leaving the bedroom door ajar, Sanger watched the sleeping young woman for a few moments before turning to me. He gestured with the kidney dish and hypodermic that he held in his hand, as if ready to offer me a sedative dose, and touched the dark stains on his jacket, reminding himself that the blood was not his own. His usually pallid cheeks and forehead were flushed with anger, and he gazed in a disoriented way at the books on his shelves, putting a past phase of his life, with its too-thoughtful dependencies, for ever behind him.

'She'll sleep for a few hours. We'll go on to the terrace. You probably need to rest.'

I expected him to change, but he was scarcely aware of his still-dripping clothes and the wet prints that his leaking shoes left on the tiled floor. He led the way to the umbrella and chairs beside the pool. Taking my seat, I noticed the upstairs windows of my villa and realized how close they were to the bungalow compound, and that he would have heard every sound during our boisterous parties.

'It's very quiet here,' I told him, and pointed to the calm surface of the pool, disturbed only by a small insect that struggled with the jelly-like meniscus clasping its wings. 'Your tenants have gone.'

'The Frenchwoman and her daughter? They flew back to Paris. In some ways the ambience wasn't suitable for the child.'

Sanger drew a hand across his eyes in an attempt to clear his mind. 'Thank you for the lift. I couldn't have carried her here.'

'I'm sorry she… collapsed.' I tried to think of a word that would better describe the nightmarish descent of the past weeks. Concerned for Sanger, I added: 'She shouldn't have left you. In her way she was happy here.'

'Laurie never wanted to be happy.' Sanger ran a hand through his damp hair, and then stared at the clots of blood left on his fingers. But he made no attempt to smooth the dishevelled mane that he had once tended so carefully. 'She's one of those people who flinch from the very idea of happiness-in her mind nothing could be more boring or bourgeois. I helped her a little, as I helped Bibi Jansen. Doing absolutely nothing is a kind of therapy in itself.'

'What about the nosebleed?' It occurred to me that she might be bleeding to death in her drugged sleep. 'Are you sure it's stopped?'

'I cauterized the septum. It seems that Crawford punched her – another of his Zen statements, so he said.'

'Dr Sanger…' I wanted to pacify this unsettled man, whose eyes were fixed on the bedroom door. 'It's hard to believe, but Bobby Crawford was fond of Laurie.'

'Of course. In his own deranged way. He wanted her to find her true self, as he would call it-like everyone else at the Residencia Costasol. I'm sorry he took against me.'

'You're one of the very few people he personally resents. You're a psychiatrist 'And not the first one he's met.' Sanger noticed the water streaming from his shoes. 'I must change – do wait here and I'll bring something to drink. As a friend of Crawford's, it's important that you hear of the decision I've made.'

He returned ten minutes later, wearing sandals and a floor-length towelling robe. He had washed the blood from his hands and hair, but the careful grooming and dilettante manner now belonged to the past.

'Thank you again for your help,' he told me, as he set a tray of brandies and soda on the table. 'Laurie is sleeping, I'm glad to say. I've been anxious about her for months. It's difficult to know what to tell her father, though the poor man is scarcely in a frame of mind to care.'

'I feel the same way,' I assured him. 'It's not something I've enjoyed seeing.'

'Of course not.' Sanger nodded to me. 'Mr Prentice, I distinguish you completely from Bobby Crawford-and from Mrs Shand and Hennessy. My position here is ambiguous. Technically I've retired, but in fact I still practise, and Laurie Fox is one of my patients. I can put up with a certain amount of harassment from Crawford, but the time has come to speak out. Crawford must be stopped-I know you agree with me.'

'I'm not sure if I do.' I played with the brandy tumbler, aware that Sanger was watching the open windows of my villa. 'Some of his methods are a little too… aggressive, but on the whole he's a force for good.'

'Good?' Sanger took the tumbler from my hand. 'He uses violence quite openly, against Paula Hamilton and Laurie and anyone else who stands in his way. The Residencia Costasol is awash with cut-price drugs that he force-feeds into almost every house and apartment.'

'Dr Sanger… to Crawford's generation cocaine and amphetamines are no more than mood-enhancers, like brandy or Scotch. The drugs he loathes are the ones you prescribe-the tranquillizers, especially. Perhaps he was sedated for a long period as a boy, or by the army psychiatrists who had him cashiered. He told me once that they tried to steal his soul. He's not a corrupt man. In many ways he's an idealist. Look at what he's achieved in the Residencia Costasol. He's done so much good.'

'Even more frightening.' Sanger lowered his eyes from my villa, satisfied that no one was observing us. 'This man is a danger to everyone he meets. He travels from place to place along the coast with his tennis racket and his message of hope, but his vision is as toxic as snake venom. All this ceaseless activity, these art festivals and town councils are a form of social Parkinsonism. The so-called renaissance everyone sings about is bought at a price. Crawford is like L-dopa. Cataleptic patients wake up and begin to dance. They laugh, cry, speak and seem to recover their real selves. But the dosage must be increased, to the point where it will kill. We know what medicine Crawford prescribes. This is a social economy based on drug-dealing, theft, pornography and escort services – from top to bottom a condominium of crime.'

'But no one thinks of it as crime. Neither the victims nor the people who take part. There's a different set of social conventions, as there is in the boxing ring or the bull-fight arena. Theft and prostitution exist here, but everyone sees them as "good works" of a new kind. No one at the Residencia Costasol has reported a single crime.'

'The most telling fact of all.' Sanger brusquely pushed away a lock of hair that tried to intrude across his field of vision. 'The ultimate crime-based society is one where everyone is criminal and no one is aware of the fact. Mr Prentice, this will change.'

'You're going to the police?' I watched Sanger's jutting jaw, an unexpected strain of pugnacity. 'If you bring in the Spanish authorities you'll destroy everything that's good here. Besides, we already have our own volunteer police force.'

'The kind of police who enforce a rule of crime. Your retired stockbrokers and accountants are remarkably adept in the role of small-town criminals. One could almost assume that their professions were designed for just such a contingency.'

'Cabrera and his detectives have been here. They've found nothing. No one has ever been charged.'

'Except for your brother.' Sanger had softened his harsh tone. 'His trial starts tomorrow. How will he plead?'

'Guilty. It's a nightmarish kind of irony. He's the one man here who's completely innocent.'

'Then Crawford should take his place.' Sanger rose to his feet, ready for me to leave, his ears listening for any sounds from the bedroom. 'Go back to London, before you join Crawford in Zarzuella jail. He's changed you, Mr Prentice. You now accept his logic without understanding where it will lead. Remind yourself of the Hollinger fire and all those tragic deaths…'

Hearing a murmur from the bedroom, Sanger fastened his dressing-gown and left the terrace. When I let myself through the front door he was sitting on the bed beside Laurie Fox, a hand stroking her damp hair, a father and lover waiting for this wounded child to meet him once again in her waking sleep.

Delivery vans were parked in front of my gates, and workmen unloaded the chairs and trestle tables for the party that evening. The drinks and canapés would arrive later, ordered by Elizabeth Shand from one of the Keswick sisters' restaurants in the plaza. The party would begin at nine o'clock, giving me ample time to change after an hour's tennis with Crawford, our first and last game together.

As the workmen carried the chairs to the terrace I stood in the centre of the tennis court, my hand on the barrel of the practice machine. The conversation with Sanger had unsettled me. The once venial and effeminate psychiatrist had found a second, more determined self. He was working himself up into a confrontation with Crawford, probably fearing that he would try to abduct Laurie Fox when he set off for Calahonda. With a little help from Sanger, Inspector Cabrera would soon unearth the depots of drugs and pornography, and expose the car thieving and the dubious escort services.

Life in the Costasol complex, everything that Crawford and I had worked for, would come to an end as the frightened British residents, fearful of losing their residence permits, abandoned their clubs and societies and retreated into the twilight world of satellite television. A social experiment of the most ambitious and idealistic kind would fade in the settling dust of another moribund sun-coast resort.

I started the tennis machine, and listened to the first ball as it exploded from the barrel, thinking of a harder projectile that might be fired from a different weapon…

David Hennessy was at his desk on the ground floor of the sports club, scanning the computer screen while Elizabeth Shand stood behind him. The accumulating totals seemed to light up the tailored business suit into which she had changed, dressing the sleek fabric with a sheen of pesetas. I realized that the Costasol festival had ended, and that the profit-taking had begun. The tourists were leaving the plaza, and the cafés around the shopping mall were almost empty, the few patrons gazing out at a sea of litter and fading petals. The tennis courts and swimming pool of the sports club were deserted, and the members had left early to prepare for the evening's private parties. Wolfgang and Helmut stood by the draining pool, watching as the Spanish groundsmen changed the water and the waiters straightened the tables.

'Charles…?' Hennessy stood up to look more closely at me. He had put aside his avuncular clubroom manner and now resembled a shrewd accountant faced with an extravagant and thoughtless client. 'That was generous of you, dear chap – helping Sanger with the girl. Was he right to take her, though…?'

'She is his patient. And she obviously needed help.'

'Even so. The two of you turned a bit of horse-play into a medical emergency. Not exactly good for the members, would you think?'

'Never mind. You put an end to a nasty scene.' Elizabeth Shand picked up a scab of dried blood on my shirt, grimacing with distaste as if reminded of the messy and unreliable fluid coursing through even her cool veins. 'Bobby did so much to help her, but these kindnesses are never appreciated. You took her back to Sanger's bungalow?'

'He's looking after her. She's asleep now.'

'Good. Let's hope she remains asleep and gives us all a chance to calm our nerves. I must say Sanger's dedication to that damaged child is touching. Of course, I knew her father, another of those doctors with wandering hands. I only pray that Sanger can restrain himself.'

'I don't think he will.'

'Really? I feared as much. There's something deeply unsavoury about the thought. I always suspected that psychiatry was the ultimate form of seduction.'

I joined her at the window, and looked down at the grass verge scarred and trampled by the tourists. 'I talked to him before I left-I think he may go to the police.'

'What?' Elizabeth Shand's make-up seemed about to crack. 'Report himself for professional misconduct? David, what would the General Medical Council make of that?'

'I can't imagine, Betty.' Hennessy raised his hands to the heavens. 'I don't suppose the contingency has ever arisen. Are you sure about this, Charles? If the news got out it would cause a good few problems here. The London tabloids would have a field day.'

'This has nothing to do with Laurie Fox,' I explained. 'It's Bobby Crawford he's concerned about. Sanger loathes everything we've done here. I'm fairly certain he's going to lay the whole operation out in front of Cabrera.'

'How silly of him.' Elizabeth Shand gazed calmly at Hennessy, unsurprised by what I had told her. She rested her hand on my shirt and began to pick again at the dried blood. 'That's rather worrying, Charles. Thank you for letting us know.'

'Betty, it's more than a possibility. The scene in the pool pushed him over the edge.'

'It probably did. He's a curious man, with all those difficult moods. Why the girls like him I can't imagine.'

'We do need to head him off.' Trying to sound a more urgent note, I said: 'If Sanger sees Cabrera there'll be an army of detectives here, pulling up every floorboard.'

'We don't want that.' Hennessy switched off the computer and stared at the ceiling with the distracted expression of someone faced with a difficult crossword clue. 'It's a bit of a poser. Still, the party tonight should clear things up.'

'Exactly.' Elizabeth Shand nodded vigorously. 'A good party solves all sorts of problems.'

'Shall I invite him?' I asked her. 'You could have a friendly word with him, reassure him that everything will settle down once Bobby leaves for Calahonda.'

'No… I think not.' She picked away the last of Laurie Fox's blood. 'In fact, make sure you don't invite him.'

'He'd enjoy the party.'

'He will, anyway. You'll see, Charles…'

Scarcely reassured, I left the sports club and set off across the plaza, hoping to find Crawford and persuade him to take a more combative line with Elizabeth Shand. The festival had ended, and the last tourists had left the bars and cafés and returned to their cars beside the beach. I walked across the fading petals and confetti as a few helium balloons floated in a desultory way above the litter, hunting their own shadows.

The floats that had so entertained the crowds were drawn up in the supermarket compound, where half a dozen small children romped around them. Leading them in their game of hide and seek was Bobby Crawford, still tirelessly pouring out his energy and enthusiasm. As he leapt around the abandoned tableaux, arms wreathed in the tattered bunting, pretending to search for a squealing little girl who had hidden herself under the piano, he seemed like a forlorn Peter Pan trying to stir the remnants of his never-land into a second life. His Hawaiian shirt was stained with dust and sweat, but his eyes shone as eagerly as ever, driven by that dream of a happier world that had sustained him from childhood. In a sense he had turned the Costasol residents into children, filling their lives with adult toys and inviting them out to play.

'Charles…?' Delighted to see me, he held the little girl in his arms and jumped from the float, the children hunting around him. 'I've been looking for you-how is Laurie?'

'She's all right, sleeping quietly. Sanger gave her a sedative. She's better off there.'

'Of course she is.' Crawford seemed surprised that I might have thought otherwise. 'For weeks I've been telling her to go back to him. She'd burned herself out, Charles, she needed to feel angry and depressed again – Sanger's the man for that. I couldn't help her, though God knows I tried.'

'Listen, Bobby…' I waited for him to calm himself, but he was still watching the children, ready to join them in another game. 'I'm concerned about Sanger. I'm fairly certain that he's going to -'

'Cabrera?' Crawford waved to the children as they ran off to join their parents by the supermarket entrance. 'I'm afraid he will, Charles. I've known it for a long time. He's an unhappy psychiatrist, and the police are the only way he can get back at me.'

'Bobby…' Anxious for him, I tried to distract him from the little girl waving to us. 'Is Sanger the reason why you're leaving the Residencia?'

'Good God, no! My work here is done. You can run the show by yourself, Charles. It's time for me to move down the coast. There's a whole world waiting out there, filled with people who need me.' He held my shoulder and surveyed the litter-strewn scene around him, with its faded bunting and drifting balloons. 'I have to dream for them, Charles, like those Siberian shamans – during times of stress, to give the tribe some sleep, the shaman dreams their dreams for them 'But, Bobby… Sanger may cause trouble. If he goes to Cabrera the Spanish police will overrun the Residencia and undo everything you've achieved.'

'You're worried, Charles-don't be.' Crawford was smiling at me like an affectionate brother. 'We'll talk about it at the party. Believe me, everything will be fine. We'll play a couple of sets this evening and you can show me the new backhand you've been practising.'

'Sanger is serious – I spoke to him an hour ago.'

'The party, Charles. There's nothing to fear. Sanger won't harm us. I've dealt with psychiatrists before-they're only interested in their own flaws, and spend their lives looking for them…'

He waved for a last time to the children driving away in their parents' cars, and then leaned against the float behind him, tearing a handful of petals from the floral sign of 'The End'. He watched them flutter to the ground. For once he seemed tired, exhausted by the responsibilities he had borne, and numbed by the vastness of the task that lay ahead of him, the endless coasts waiting to be brought to life.

Reviving himself, he slapped my shoulder. 'Think of the future, Charles. Imagine the Costa del Sol as another Véneto. Somewhere here a new Venice might be born.'

'Why not? You've given them every chance, Bobby.'

'The important thing is to hold them together.' Crawford took my arm as we strolled back to the sports club. 'Things may happen that will surprise you, even shock you, Charles. But it's vital that we stay together, and keep the memory alive of everything we've done. Sometimes it's necessary to go too far just to stay in the same place. Be with you in an hour – I can't wait to see that backhand…'

I was practising on the court when the telephone rang, but I ignored the call and concentrated on the barrage of balls from the tennis machine, returning them deep to the baseline. The telephone drilled away in the empty house, its sound magnified by the lines of gilt chairs.

'Charles…?'

'What is it? Who's this?'

'Paula. I'm calling from the Club Nautico.' She seemed self-controlled but oddly strained. 'Can you come over?'

'I'm playing tennis. When exactly?'

'Now. It's important, Charles. It's vital that you be here.'

'Why? There's the party this evening. Can't it wait till then?'

'No. You must come now.' She paused and muffled the telephone, speaking to someone beside her, and then continued: 'Frank and Inspector Cabrera are here. They need to see you.'

'Frank? What is it? Is he all right?'

'Yes. But they must see you. It's about the Hollinger fire. We're in the basement garage at the Club. We'll wait for you here. And, Charles…'

'What is it?'

'Don't tell anyone you're coming. And bring those spare car keys. The ones I saw this morning in your office. Cabrera is very interested in them…'