Cocaine Nights

‘Inspector Cabrera doesn’t want anyone sifting through the evidence, though God only knows what’s left. There’s a side door off the terrace we can look through. It’s too dangerous to go inside the place.’

I stepped over the shattered tiles and wine glasses at my feet. The intense heat had driven a jagged fissure through the stone walls, the scar of a lightning bolt that had condemned the property to the flames. Hennessy led the way towards a loose French door levered off its hinges by the firemen. Wind gusted across the terrace, and a cloud of white ash swirled around us like milled bone, restlessly hunting the air.

Hennessy pushed back the door and beckoned me towards him, smiling in a thin way like a guide at a black museum. A high-ceilinged drawing room looked out over the sea on either side of the peninsula. In the dim light I found myself standing in a marine world, the silt-covered state-room of a sunken liner. The Empire furniture and brocaded curtains, the tapestries and Chinese carpets were the decor of a drowned realm, drenched by the water that had poured through the collapsed ceiling. The dining room lay beyond the interior doors, where an oak table carried a pile of laths and plaster and the crystal debris of a chandelier.

I stepped from the parquet flooring on to the carpet, and found my shoes sinking as the water welled from the sodden fabric. Giving up, I returned to the terrace, where Hennessy was gazing at the sunlit peninsula.

‘It’s hard to believe one man started this fire,’ I told him. ‘Frank or anyone else. The place is completely gutted.’

‘I agree.’ Hennessy glanced at his watch, already keen to leave. ‘Of course, this is a very old house. A single match would have set it going.’

The sounds of a tennis game echoed from a nearby court. A mile away I could make out the players at the Club Nautico, a glimmer of whites through the haze.

‘Where were the Hollingers found? I’m surprised they didn’t run on to the terrace when the fire started.’

‘Sadly, they were upstairs at the time.’ Hennessy pointed to the blackened windows below the roof. ‘He was in the bathroom next to his study. She was in another of the bedrooms.’

‘This was when? About seven o’clock in the evening? What were they doing there?’

‘Who can say? He was probably working on his memoirs. She might have been dressing for dinner. I’m sure they tried to escape, but the intense blaze and the ether fumes must have driven them back.’

I sniffed at the damp air, trying to catch a scent of the hospital corridors of my childhood, when I had visited my mother in the American clinic at Riyadh. The air in the drawing room carried the mould-like odours of a herb garden after a rain shower.

‘Ether …? There’s something curious about that. Hospitals don’t use ether any more. Where was Frank supposed to have bought all this bottled ether?’

Hennessy had moved away, watching me from a distance as if he had realized for the first time that I was a murderer’s brother. Behind him Miguel stood among the overturned tables. Together they seemed like figures in a dream-play, trying to remind me of memories I could never recover.

‘Ether?’ Hennessy pondered this, moving aside a broken glass with one shoe. ‘Yes. I suppose it does have industrial uses. Isn’t it a good solvent? It must be available at specialist laboratories.’

‘But why not use pure petrol? Or lighter fuel for that matter? No one would ever trace the stuff. I take it Cabrera tracked down the lab that’s supposed to have sold this ether to Frank?’

‘Perhaps, but I somehow doubt it. After all, your brother pleaded guilty.’ Hennessy searched for his car keys. ‘Charles, I think we ought to leave. You must find this a dreadful strain.’

‘I’m fine. I’m glad you brought me here.’ I pressed my hands against the stone balustrade, trying to feel the heat of the fire. ‘Tell me about the others – the maid and the niece. There was a male secretary?’

‘Roger Sansom, yes. Decent fellow, he’d been with them for years – almost a son.’

‘Where were they found?’

‘On the first floor. They were all in their bedrooms.’

‘Isn’t that a little odd? The fire started on the ground floor. You’d expect them to climb out through the windows. It’s not that long a jump.’

‘The windows would have been closed. The entire house was air-conditioned.’ Hennessy tried to steer me across the terrace, a curator at closing time ushering a last visitor to the exit. ‘We’re all concerned for Frank, and absolutely mystified by the whole tragic business. But try to use a little imagination.’

‘I’m probably using too much … I assume they were all identified?’

‘With some difficulty. Dental records, I suppose, though I don’t think either of the Hollingers had any teeth. Perhaps there are clues in the jawbone.’

‘What were the Hollingers like? They were both in their seventies?’

‘He was seventy-five. She was quite a bit younger. Late sixties, I imagine.’ Hennessy smiled to himself, as if fondly remembering a choice wine. ‘Good-looking woman, in an actressy way, though a little too ladylike for me.’

‘And they came here twenty years ago? Estrella de Mar must have been very different then.’

‘There was nothing to see, just bare hillsides and a few old vines. A collection of fishermen’s shacks and a small bar. Hollinger bought the house from a Spanish property developer he worked with. Believe me, it was a beautiful place.’

‘And I can imagine how the Hollingers felt as all this cement crawled up the hill towards them. Were they popular here? Hollinger was rich enough to put a spoke into a lot of wheels.’

‘They were fairly popular. We didn’t see too much of them at the club, though Hollinger was a major investor. I suspect they assumed it was going to be for their exclusive use.’

‘But then the gold medallions started to arrive?’

‘I don’t think they worried about gold medallions. Gold was one of Hollinger’s favourite colours. Estrella de Mar had begun to change. He and Alice were more put off by the art galleries and the Tom Stoppard revivals. They kept to themselves. In fact, I believe he was trying to sell his interest in the club.’

Hennessy reluctantly followed me along the terrace. A narrow balcony circled the house and led to a stone staircase that climbed the hillside fifty feet away. A grove of lemon trees had once filled the bedroom windows with their oily scent, but the fire-storm had driven through them, and now only the charred stumps rose from the ground like a forest of black umbrellas.

‘Good God, there’s a fire escape …’ I pointed to the cast-iron steps that descended from a doorway on the first floor. The massive structure had been warped by the heat, but still clung to the stone walls. ‘Why didn’t they use this? They would have been safe in seconds.’

Hennessy removed his hat in a gesture of respect for the victims. He stood with his head bowed before speaking. ‘Charles, they never left their bedrooms. The fire was too intense. The whole house was a furnace.’

‘I can see that. Your local fire brigade didn’t even begin to get it under control. Who alerted them, by the way?’

Hennessy seemed hardly to have heard me. He turned his back on the house, and gazed at the sea. I sensed that he was telling me only what he knew I would learn elsewhere.

‘As a matter of fact, the alarm was raised by a passing motorist. No one called the fire services from here.’

‘And the police?’

‘They didn’t arrive until an hour later. You have to understand that the Spanish police leave us very much to ourselves. Few crimes are ever reported in Estrella de Mar. We have our own security patrols and they keep an eye on things.’

‘The police and fire services were called only later …’ I repeated this to myself, visualizing the arsonist making his escape across the deserted terrace and then climbing the outer wall as the flames roared through the great roof. ‘So, apart from the housekeeper and her husband there was no one here?’

‘Not exactly.’ Hennessy replaced his hat, lowering the brim over his eyes. ‘As it happens, everyone was here.’

‘Everyone? Do you mean the staff?’

‘No, I mean …’ Hennessy gestured with his pale hands at the town below. ‘Le tout Estrella de Mar. It was the Queen’s birthday. The Hollingers always threw a party for the club members. It was their contribution to community life – a touch of noblesse oblige about it, I have to admit, but they were rather nice shows. Champagne and excellent canapés …’

I cupped my hands and stared at the Club Nautico, visualizing the entire membership decamping to the Hollinger mansion for the loyal toast. ‘The fire took place on the night of the party … that was why the club had closed. How many people were actually here when it started?’

‘Everyone. I think all the guests had arrived. I suppose there were about … two hundred of us.’

‘Two hundred people?’ I walked back to the south face of the house, where the balcony overlooked the swimming pool and terrace. I imagined the trestle tables decked in white cloths, the ice-buckets gleaming in the evening lights, and the guests chattering beside the unruffled water. ‘There were all these people here, at least two hundred of them, and no one entered the house and tried to save the Hollingers?’

‘Dear boy, the doors were locked.’

‘At a party? I don’t get it. You could have broken in.’