The helicopter came gently to rest. The door swung aside and a stepladder unfolded.
‘Let’s talk about it by the pool,’ Hanna said, putting her off for the time being, then let them walk ahead of him and followed them without any great haste. Nair’s smile revealed more tooth enamel. He beamed at the staff, the surroundings and life, he drew the island air into his nostrils, said, ‘Ah!’ and ‘Incredible!’ As soon as he caught sight of the woman in the trouser suit he started praising the grounds in the most effulgent terms. Sushma added indifferent noises of appreciation. The slim woman thanked them. Nair went on talking, without drawing breath. How wonderful everything was. How successful. Hanna practised being patient as he appreciated her appearance. Late thirties, neat ash-blonde hair, well groomed and displaying that natural grace that is never entirely aware of itself, she could have played the glamorous lead in an advertisement for a credit company or a range of cosmetics. In fact she was in charge of Orley Travel, Orley’s tourism department, which made her the second most important person in the biggest business empire in the world.
‘Carl.’ She smiled and extended her hand. Hanna looked into sea-blue eyes, impossibly intense, the iris dark-rimmed. Her father’s eyes. ‘Nice to have you here as our guest!’
‘Thanks for the invitation.’ He returned her handshake and lowered his voice. ‘You know, I’d prepared a few nice remarks about the hotel, but I’m afraid my predecessor pre-empted everything I had to say.’
‘Haha! Ha!’ Nair clapped him on the shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, my friend, but we have Bollywood! Your old-school charm couldn’t possibly match so much poetry and pathos.’
‘Don’t listen to him,’ said Lynn, without turning her eyes away. ‘I’m very susceptible to Canadian charm. Even its non-verbal variant.’
‘Then I won’t allow myself to be discouraged,’ Hanna promised.
‘I would be most offended if you did.’
All around them, willing hands were busy unloading mountains of battered-looking luggage. Hanna assumed it belonged to the Nairs. Solidly built things that had been in use since Old Testament times. He himself had brought only a small suitcase and a valise.
‘Come on,’ Lynn said cordially. ‘I’ll show you to your rooms.’
* * *
From the terrace, Tim saw his sister leaving the heliport with an Indian-looking couple and an athletically built man, and walking to the reception building. He and Amber lived in a corner room on the fifth floor, with a perfect panoramic view. Some distance away, glinting in the sunlight, was the platform that they would be going to the following morning. Another helicopter was approaching the island, its arrival heralded by the clattering noise of the rotors.
He threw his head back.
A day of rare, crystal clarity.
The sky stretched across the sea like a deep-blue dome. A single ragged cloud hung there like an ornament or a landmark, apparently motionless. It made Tim think of an old film that he’d seen years ago, a tragicomedy in which a man grew up in a small town without ever leaving it. He’d gone to school there, got married, taken a job, met up with friends he’d known since childhood – and then, in his mid-thirties, he discovered that he was the involuntary star of a television show and the town was one huge, colossal fake, stuffed full of cameras, fake walls and stage lighting. All the inhabitants apart from him were actors with lifetime contracts, his lifetime, of course, and consistently enough the sky proved to be a huge, blue-painted dome.
Tim Orley narrowed one eye and held up his right index finger in such a way that the tip seemed to touch the lower edge of the cloud. It balanced on it like a piece of cotton wool.
‘Do you want something to drink?’ Amber called from inside.
He didn’t reply, but wrapped his left hand around his wrist and tried to keep his finger as still as possible. At first nothing happened. Then, extremely slowly, the tiny cloud drifted eastwards.
‘The bar is full to the brim. I’ll take a bitter lemon. What would you like?’
It was moving. It would drift on. For some unfathomable reason it reassured Tim to know that the cloud up there wasn’t nailed on or painted up.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘I asked what you’d like to drink.’
‘Yes.’
‘So, what?’
‘No idea.’
‘Goodness me. I’ll take a look and see if they’ve got any.’
He returned his attention to Lynn. Amber came across the terrace towards him, swinging an open bottle of Coca-Cola seductively between thumb and forefinger. Tim mechanically accepted it, put it to his lips and drank without noticing what he was pouring down his throat. His wife watched him. Then she looked down to where Tim’s sister and her little entourage were just disappearing into the lobby.
‘Oh, I see,’ she remarked.
He said nothing.
‘You’re still worried?’
‘You know me.’
‘What for? Lynn’s looking good.’ Amber leaned against the railing and sucked noisily on her lemonade. ‘Really good, in fact, if you ask me.’
‘That’s exactly what I’m worried about.’
‘That she looks good?’
‘You know exactly what I mean. She’s trying to be more perfect than perfect, all over again.’
‘Oh, Tim—’
‘You’ve dealt with her before, haven’t you?’
‘More than anything I’ve experienced her having everything under control here.’
‘Everything here has Lynn under control!’
‘Fine, so what should she do, in your opinion? Julian’s invited a crowd of filthy-rich eccentrics that she’s got to look after. He’s promised them two weeks in the most exclusive hotels of all time, and Lynn’s responsible for them all. Should she start letting herself go, and walk around the place looking all unwashed and with her hair in a mess, neglect her guests, just to prove that she’s a human being?’
‘Of course not.’
‘This is a circus, Tim! She’s the ringmaster. She has to be perfect, or else the lions will eat her.’
‘I know that,’ Tim said impatiently. ‘That’s not the issue. It’s just that I can see that she’s starting to get agitated again.’
‘She didn’t seem specially agitated to me.’
‘That’s because she deceives you. Because she deceives everybody. You know how well her personal diplomacy works.’
‘I’m sorry, but isn’t it possible that you’re dramatising everything just a little bit?’
‘I’m not dramatising anything at all. I’m really not. Let’s leave aside the question of whether it was a brilliant idea to join in all this nonsense in the first place, but fine, nothing to be done. You and Julian, you—’
‘Hey!’ A warning light flashed in Amber’s eyes. ‘Don’t go saying we twisted your arm again.’
‘What else?’
‘No one twisted your arm.’
‘Oh, come on! You insisted like mad.’
‘So? How old are you? Five or something? If you really hadn’t wanted—’
‘I didn’t. I’m here because of Lynn.’ Tim sighed and rubbed his eyes. ‘Okay, okay! She looks fantastic! She seems to be stable. But still.’
‘Tim. She built this hotel!’
‘Sure.’ He nodded. ‘Yes, sure. And it’s great! Really.’
‘I’m taking you seriously. I just don’t want you to start blaming Lynn simply because you can’t sort things out with your father.’
Tim tasted the bitterness of the insult. He turned to face her and shook his head.
‘That’s unfair,’ he said quietly.
Amber turned her lemonade bottle between her fingers. Silence fell for a while. Then she put her arms around his neck and kissed him.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘Have you talked to Julian about it?’
‘Yes, and I’ll give you three guesses. He insists she’s doing brilliantly. You say she looks as if she’s in t
he pink. So I’m the idiot.’
‘Of course you are. The most lovable idiot who’s ever got on anyone’s nerves.’
Tim grinned crookedly. He pressed Amber to him, but his gaze was fixed beyond the parapet. The helicopter that had brought the athlete and the Indian couple here hummed its way out to the open sea. The next one was hovering above the heliport and preparing to land. Below it, Lynn was leaving the lobby to welcome the new guests. Tim’s eyes drifted across the steep terrain between the hotel and the cliffs, the abandoned golf course, then followed the walkway down to the coastal path. Dips and gorges had required the construction of several small bridges, with the result that you could comfortably stroll along the whole of the eastern side of the Isla de las Estrellas. He saw someone ambling along the path. A slender form came darting up from the opposite direction, its body gleaming bright in the sun.
Bright as ivory.
* * *
Finn O’Keefe saw her and stopped. The woman was running at an athletic pace. She was a curious creature, with willowy limbs, almost on the edge of anorexia, but still shapely. Her skin was snow-white, as was her long, flowing hair. She wore a skimpy mother-of-pearl-coloured bathing suit and trainers of the same colour, and moved as nimbly as a gazelle. Someone who belonged on the front pages.
‘Hello,’ he said.
The woman stopped running and approached him in springy steps.
‘Hi! And who are you?’
‘Finn.’
‘Oh, of course. Finn O’Keefe. You look somehow different on screen.’
‘I always look somehow different.’
He held out his hand. Her fingers, long and delicate, gave a surprisingly firm handshake. Now that she was standing right in front of him he could see that her eyebrows and eyelids were the same shimmering white as her hair, while her irises were almost violet. Below her narrow, straight nose, a sensuously curving mouth arched with almost colourless lips. To Finn O’Keefe she looked like an attractive alien whose firm skin was starting to crease in places. He guessed that she was just past forty.
‘And who are you?’
‘I’m Heidrun,’ she said. ‘Are you part of the tour group?’
Her English sounded as if it ran on crunchy gears. He tried to guess her accent. Germans generally spoke a kind of saw-toothed English, the Scandinavian version was soft and melodious. Heidrun, he decided, wasn’t German, but she wasn’t Danish or Swedish either.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m part of it.’
‘And? Fed up?’
He laughed. She didn’t seem even slightly impressed to find herself bumping into him here. Exposed as he was to the wearying and universal admiration of women who would happily have ditched their husbands just to go to bed with him, not to mention the men who fancied him too, he was constantly on the run.
‘Quite honestly, yes. A bit.’
‘Whatever. Me too.’
She brushed her sweat-drenched mane from her brow, turned round, spread the thumbs and index fingers of both hands into right angles, brought the tips together and studied the platform in the sea through the frame she had created. You could only make out the vertical black line if you looked very carefully.
‘And what does he want from you?’ she asked suddenly.
‘Who?’
‘Julian Orley.’ Heidrun lowered her hands and directed her violet gaze at him. ‘He wants something from each of us, after all.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh, come on. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here, would we?’
‘Hmm.’
‘Are you rich?’
‘I get by.’
‘Silly question. God, you must be rich! You’re Mr Royalties, aren’t you? If you haven’t somehow screwed everything up, you must be worth a few hundred million dollars.’ She laid her head curiously on one side. ‘And? Are you?’
‘And you?’
‘Me?’ Heidrun laughed. ‘Forget it. I’m a photographer. With what I own he couldn’t even have the platform repainted. Let’s say I’m part of a job lot. It’s Walo that he’s after. Walo.’
‘Sorry, who’s that?’
‘Walo?’ She pointed up to the hotel. ‘My husband. Walo Ögi.’
‘Doesn’t ring a bell.’
‘I’m not surprised. Artists are incapable of thinking about money, and he doesn’t do anything else.’ She smiled. ‘But he does have a lot of good ideas on how you can spend it once you’ve got it. You’ll like him. Do you know who else is here?’
‘Who’s that?’
‘Evelyn Chambers.’ Heidrun’s smile assumed a mischievous quality. ‘Darling, she’ll put you through the wringer. You can run away from her down here, but up there—’
‘I have no problem talking to her.’
‘Let’s bet you do?’
Heidrun turned her back on him and started climbing the path back up to the hotel. O’Keefe came after her. In fact he did have a brontosaurus-sized problem talking to Evelyn Chambers, America’s number one talk-show host. He avoided those shows more than anything else in the world. A thousand times, perhaps more, she’d invited him onto Chambers, her high-rating spiritual striptease that millions of socially depraved Americans gathered in front of their screens to watch every Friday evening. On every occasion he’d declined. Here, now, without the bars between them, he was the fillet steak and she was the lion.
Appalling!
They passed by the golf course.
‘You’re an albino,’ he said.
‘Clever Finn.’
‘Not scared of burning? Because of – what do you call it—’
‘My pronounced melanin disorder and my light-sensitive eyes,’ she chanted the answer down at him. ‘Nope, not a problem. I wear highly filtered contact lenses.’
‘And your skin?’
‘How flattering,’ she said mockingly. ‘Finn O’Keefe is interested in my skin.’
‘Nonsense. I really am interested.’
‘Of course it’s entirely free of pigment. Without sun protection I’d go up in flames. So I use Moving Mirrors.’
‘Moving Mirrors?’
‘It’s a gel with microscopic mirrors that adjust themselves according to the heat of the sun. It means I can stay in the open for a few hours, but of course it shouldn’t become a habit. So, sporty guy, fancy a swim?’
* * *
After she’d spent most of the day accompanying guests from the heliport to the hotel and going back to wait for the next helicopter to arrive, back and forth, back and forth, Lynn Orley was surprised she hadn’t worn a groove in the ground ages ago.
Of course she’d done other things as well. Andrew Norrington, deputy head of security at Orley Enterprises, had turned the Isla de las Estrellas into the kind of high-security zone that made you think you were in the Hotel California: ‘You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave!’ Lynn’s own idea of security included protection, but not its visible display, while Norrington argued that you couldn’t hide the guards in the bushes like garden gnomes. She mentioned that it had been difficult enough to persuade the new arrivals against having their own bodyguards with them at all times, and referred to Oleg Rogachev, who had only reluctantly left at home the half-dozen heavies he usually arrived with, and pointed out that half of the service staff were highly trained sharpshooters. No one, when they were out jogging or playing golf, wanted to be constantly bumping into dark figures with the word Emergency practically stamped on their foreheads. Besides, she rather liked gun-toting gnomes who looked after you without tripping you up all the time.
After a stubborn battle Norrington had finally retrained his brigades and found ways of adapting them to their surroundings. Lynn knew she was making his life difficult, but he had to deal with it. Norrington was excellent at his job, highly organised and dependable, but he was also a victim of that infectious paranoia that gripped all bodyguards sooner or later.
‘Interesting,’ she said.
Beside her, Warren Locatelli snorted like
a horse.
‘Yes, but you wanted to lower the price! My God, I lost it at that point. I said hang on. Hang on … ! Do you know exactly whom you’re dealing with here? Pimps! Monkey-brains! I didn’t just climb down from the trees, you get me? You don’t lure me out of the jungle with bananas. Either you play by my rules or I’ll …’
And so on and so forth.
Lynn nodded sympathetically as she walked the new arrivals to reception. Warren Locatelli was such a jerk! And Momoka Omura, that silly tart beside him, not one bit better. But as long as Julian thought it was important, she would have to pay attention even to a talking dung-beetle. You didn’t necessarily have to understand it to have a conversation with it. It was enough to react to tone, tempo and accompanying noises like grunts, growls or laughter. If the torrent of words raining down on you ended in merriment, then you joined in with the laughter. If it rattled down furiously, you were always on the safe side with an ‘Unbelievable!’ or a ‘No really?’ If the situation called for contextual understanding, you just listened. Mockery was legitimate, it was just important not to get caught out.
In Locatelli’s case autopilot was sufficient. As long as he wasn’t talking shop, his main topic of conversation was the state of his own awesomeness, and the fact that everyone else was a bunch of assholes. Or pimps and monkey-brains. Depending.
Who would arrive next?
Chuck and Aileen Donoghue.
Chucky, the hotel mogul. He was okay, even though he told terrible jokes. Aileen would probably turn to the kitchen first thing to see if they were cutting the meat thickly enough.
Aileen: ‘Chucky likes fat steaks! They’ve got to be fat.’
Chucky: ‘Yes, fat! What Europeans call steaks aren’t steaks at all. Hey, you know what I call European steaks? You want to know? You do? Okay – carpaccio!’
But Chuck was okay.
To Lynn’s regret, on Julian’s chessboard Locatelli was the queen, or at least a rook. He had managed to do something that had driven generations of physicists to despair, namely developing solar cells that converted over sixty per cent of sunlight into electricity. With those, and because he was also a brilliant businessman, Locatelli’s company Lightyears had become market leader in the solar energy sector and made its owner so rich that Forbes put him at number five among the world’s billionaires. Momoka Omura strutted indifferently along beside him, let her eye wander over the grounds and managed a grudging ‘nice’. Lynn imagined hitting her between the eyes with her clenched fists, but instead took her arm and complimented her on her hair.