Cocaine Nights

‘Now and then.’

‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell Father. How is the old chap?’

‘We’ve moved him to a smaller nursing home. He doesn’t recognize me now. When you get out of here you must see him. I think he’d remember you.’

‘I never liked him, you know.’

‘He’s a child, Frank. He’s forgotten everything. All he does is dribble and doze.’

Frank leaned back, smiling at the ceiling as his memories played across the grey distemper. ‘We used to steal – do you remember? Strange that – it all started in Riyadh when Mother fell ill. I was snatching anything I could lay my hands on. You joined in to make me feel better.’

‘Frank, it was a phase. Everyone understood.’

‘Except Father. He couldn’t cope when Mother lost control. He started that weird affair with his middle-aged secretary.’

‘The poor man was desperate.’

‘He blamed you for my stealing. He’d find my pockets full of candy I’d pinched from the Riyadh Hilton and then accuse you.’

‘I was older. He thought I could have stopped you. He knew I envied you.’

‘Mother was drinking herself to death and no one was doing anything about it. Stealing was the only way I could make sense of how guilty I felt. Then she started those long walks in the middle of the night and you’d go with her. Where exactly? I always wondered.’

‘Nowhere. We just walked around the tennis court. Rather like my life now.’

‘Probably gave you a taste for it. That’s why you’re nervous of putting down roots. You know, Estrella de Mar is as close to Saudi as you can get. Maybe that’s why I came here

He stared bleakly at the table, for the moment depressed by all these memories. Ignoring the policeman, I reached across the table and held his shoulders, trying to calm the trembling collarbones. He met my eyes, glad to see me, his smile stripped of irony.

‘Frank …?’

‘It’s all right.’ He sat up, brightening himself. ‘How is Esther, by the way? I should have asked.’

‘She’s fine. We split up three months ago.’

‘I’m sorry. I always liked her. Rather high-minded in an unusual way. She once asked me a lot of strange questions about pornography. Nothing to do with you.’

‘She took up gliding last summer, spent her weekends soaring over the South Downs. A sign, I guess, that she wanted to leave me. Now she and her women friends fly to competitions in Australia and New Mexico. I think of her up there, alone with all that silence.’

‘You’ll meet someone else.’

‘Maybe …’

The policeman opened the door and stood with his back to us, calling across the corridor to an officer sitting at a desk. I leaned over the table, speaking quickly. ‘Frank, listen. If Danvila can get you out on bail there’s a chance I can arrange something.’

‘What exactly? Charles?’

‘I’m thinking of Gibraltar …’ The policeman had resumed his watch over us. ‘You know the special skills there. This whole business is preposterous. It’s obvious you didn’t kill the Hollingers.’

‘That’s not quite true.’ Frank drew away from me, the defensive smile on his lips again. ‘It’s hard to believe, but I am guilty.’

‘Don’t talk like that!’ Impatient with him, I knocked his cigarettes to the floor, where they lay beside the policeman’s feet. ‘Say nothing to Danvila about the Gibraltar thing. Once we get you back to England you’ll be able to clear yourself.’

‘Charles … I can only clear myself here.’

‘But at least you’ll be out of jail and safe somewhere.’

‘Somewhere with no extradition treaty for murder?’ Frank stood up and pushed his chair against the table. ‘You’ll have to take me with you on your trips. We’ll travel the world together. I’d like that …’

The policeman waited for me to leave, carrying my chair to the wall. Frank embraced me and stood back, still smiling his quirky smile. He picked up his cigarettes and nodded to me.

‘Believe me, Charles, I belong here.’

3 The Tennis Machine (#ulink_f557f86b-129d-58f9-84be-826158628b3b)

BUT FRANK DID NOT belong there. As I left the driveway of the Los Monteros Hotel, joining the coast road to Malaga, I drummed the steering wheel so fiercely that I drew blood from a thumbnail. Neon signs lined the verge, advertising the beach bars, fish restaurants and nightclubs under the pine trees, a barrage of signals that almost drowned the shrill tocsin sounding from the magistrates’ court in Marbella.

Frank was innocent, as virtually everyone involved in the murder investigation accepted. His plea of guilty was a charade, part of some bizarre game he was playing against himself, in which even the police were reluctant to join. They had held Frank for a week before bringing their charges, a sure sign that they were suspicious of the confession, as Inspector Cabrera revealed after my meeting with Frank.

If Señor Danvila was the old Spain – measured, courtly and reflective – Cabrera was the new. A product of the Madrid police academy, he seemed more like a young college professor than a detective, a hundred seminars on the psychology of crime still fresh in his mind. At ease with himself in his business suit, he contrived to be tough and likeable, without ever lowering his guard. He welcomed me to his office and then came straight to the point. He asked me about Frank’s childhood, and whether he had shown an overlit imagination as a boy.

‘Perhaps a special talent for fantasy? Often a troubled childhood can lead to the creation of imaginary worlds. Was your brother a lonely child, Mr Prentice, left by himself while you played with the older boys?’

‘No, he was never lonely. In fact, he had more friends than I did. He was always good at games, very practical and down-to-earth. I was the one with the imagination.’

‘A useful gift for a travel writer,’ Cabrera commented as he flicked through my passport. ‘Perhaps as a boy your brother displayed a strain of would-be sainthood, taking the blame for you and his friends?’

‘No, there was nothing saintly about him, not remotely. When he played tennis he was fast on his feet and always wanted to win.’ Sensing that Cabrera was more thoughtful than most of the policemen I had met, I decided to speak my mind. ‘Inspector, can we be open with each other? Frank is innocent, you and I both know that he never committed these murders. I’ve no idea why he confessed, but he must be under some secret pressure. Or be covering up for someone. If we don’t find the truth the Spanish courts will be responsible for a tragic miscarriage of justice.’

Cabrera watched me, waiting silently for my moral indignation to disperse with the rising smoke of his cigarette. He waved one hand, clearing the air between us.

‘Mr Prentice, the Spanish judges, like their English colleagues, are not concerned with truth – they leave that to a far higher court. They deal with the balance of probabilities on the basis of available evidence. The case will be investigated most carefully, and in due course your brother will be brought to trial. All you can do is wait for the verdict.’

‘Inspector …’ I made an effort to restrain myself. ‘Frank may have pleaded guilty, but that doesn’t mean he actually committed these appalling crimes. This whole thing is a farce, of a very sinister kind.’

‘Mr Prentice …’ Cabrera stood up and moved away from his desk, gesturing at the wall as if outlining a proposition on a blackboard before a slow-witted class. ‘Let me remind you that five people were burned to death, killed by the most cruel means. Your brother insists he is responsible. Some, like yourself and the English newspapers, think that he insists too loudly, and must therefore be innocent. In fact, his plea of guilty may be a clever device, an attempt to unfoot us all, like a …’

‘Drop-shot at the net?’

‘Exactly. A clever stratagem. At first, I also had certain doubts, but I have to tell you that I’m now inclined to think of your brother and guilt in the same context.’ Cabrera gazed wanly at my passport photograph, as if trying to read some guilt of my own into the garish photo-booth snapshot. ‘Meanwhile, the investigation proceeds. You have been more helpful than you know.’

After leaving the magistrates’ court Señor Danvila and I walked down the hill towards the old town. This small enclave behind the beachfront hotels was a lavishly restored theme village with mock-Andalucian streets, antique shops and café tables set out under the orange trees. Surrounded by a stage set, we silently sipped our iced coffees and watched the proprietor scatter a kettle of boiling water over the feral cats that plagued his customers.

This scalding douche, another stroke of cruel injustice, promptly set me off again. Señor Danvila heard me out, nodding mournfully at the oranges above my head as I repeated my arguments. I sensed that he wanted to take my hand, concerned as much for me as he was for Frank, aware that my brother’s plea of guilty also involved me in some obscure way.

He agreed, almost casually, that Frank was innocent, as the police’s delay in charging him tacitly admitted.

‘But now the momentum for conviction will increase,’ he warned me. ‘The courts and police have good reason not to challenge a guilty plea – it saves them work.’