19 May 2025 THE ISLAND

Isla de las Estrellas, Pacific Ocean

The island wasn’t much more than a rocky outcrop, set on the equator like a pearl on a string. Compared with other nearby islands, its charms were rather modest. In the west a quite impressive cliff rose from the sea, crowned by tropical rainforest, which clung dark and impenetrable to jagged volcanic slopes, and was inhabited almost exclusively by insects, spiders and an unusually ugly species of bat. Streams had dug cracks and gorges, collected into waterfalls and poured thundering into the ocean. On the eastern side, the landscape fell in terraces, intermingled with rocky elevations and largely bare. You would have looked in vain for palm-lined beaches. Black basalt sand marked the few bays that gave access to the interior. Rainbow-coloured lizards sunned themselves on stone pillars amidst the crashing waves. Their day consisted of catapulting themselves several metres into the air and snapping for insects, the meagre climax of an otherwise unclimactic repertoire of natural spectacles. Overall, the Isla had hardly anything to offer that didn’t exist in more beautiful, bigger and higher forms elsewhere.

On the other hand its geographical location was impeccable.

It actually lay exactly at the middle of the Earth, where the northern and southern hemispheres met, 550 kilometres west of Ecuador and thus far from any air routes. There were no storms in this part of the world. Major accumulations of cloud were a rarity, lightning never flashed. During the first half of the year it sometimes rained, violently and for hours at a time, without the air growing particularly cooler. Temperatures hardly ever fell below twenty-two degrees Celsius, and usually they were significantly higher than that. Because the island was uninhabited and economically useless, the Ecuadorian parliament had been more than happy to lease it, for the next forty years in return for an invigorating boost to the state economy, to new tenants whose first job was to rename Isla Leona as Isla de las Estrellas: Stellar Island: island of the stars.

Subsequently part of the eastern slope disappeared under an accumulation of glass and steel that promptly united the fury of all animal conservationists. But the building had no effect on the island’s ecology. Flocks of noisy seabirds, unperturbed by the evidence of human presence, daubed cliff and architecture alike with their guano. The creatures were untroubled by ideas of beauty, and the humans had their minds on higher things than swallow-tailed gulls and ringed plovers. In any case, not many people had set foot on the island for a long time, and everything indicated that it would remain a rather exclusive place in future as well.

At the same time, nothing fired the imagination of the whole of humanity as much as this island.

It might have been a rough pile of bird-shit, but at the same time it was considered the most extraordinary, perhaps the most hopeful place in the world. In fact the actual magic emanated from an object about two nautical miles off the coast, a gigantic platform resting on five house-sized pontoons. If you approached it on misty days, at first you couldn’t see what was so special about it. You saw flat structures, generating plants and tanks, a helicopter landing pad, a terminal with a tower, aerials and radio telescopes. The whole thing looked like an airport, except that there was no runway to be seen. Instead, a massive cylindrical construction grew from the centre, a gleaming colossus with bundles of pipes meandering up its sides. Only by narrowing your eyes could you make out the black line that emerged from the cylinder and soared steeply upwards. If the clouds were low, they engulfed it after a few hundred metres, and you found yourself wondering what you would see if the sky cleared. Even people who knew better – in principle, then, anyone who had managed to get through the high-security area – expected to see something where the line ended, a fixed point on which the overstretched imagination could settle.

But there was nothing.

Even in bright sunshine, when the sky was deep blue, you couldn’t see the end of the line. It became thinner and thinner until it seemed to dematerialise in the atmosphere. Through field-glasses it just disappeared a little higher up. You stared until your neck ached, with Julian Orley’s now legendary observation in your ears, that the Isla de las Estrellas was the ground floor of eternity – and you started to sense what he had meant by it.

Carl Hanna strained his neck too, craning from the seat of the helicopter to look up stupidly into the blue, while below him two finback whales ploughed the azure of the Pacific. Hanna didn’t waste a glance on them. When the pilot pointed out the rare animals yet again, he heard himself murmuring that there was nothing less interesting than the sea.

The helicopter curved round and roared towards the platform. The line blurred briefly in front of Hanna’s eyes, seemed to dissolve, and then it was clearly visible in the sky again, as straight as if drawn by a ruler.

A moment later it had doubled.

‘There are two of them,’ observed Mukesh Nair.

The Indian brushed the thick black hair off his forehead. His dark face glowed with delight, the nostrils of his cucumber-shaped nose flared as if to inhale the moment.

‘Of course there are two.’ Sushma, his wife, held up her index and middle fingers as if explaining something to a child in reception class. ‘Two cabins, two cables.’

‘I know that, I know!’ Nair waved her impatiently away. His mouth twisted into a smile. He looked at Hanna. ‘How amazing! Do you know how wide those cables are?’

‘Just over a metre, I think.’ Hanna smiled back.

‘For a moment they were gone.’ Nair looked out, shaking his head. ‘They simply disappeared.’

‘That’s true.’

‘You saw that too? And you, Sushma? They flickered like a mirage. Did you see—’

‘Yes, Mukesh, I saw it too.’

‘I thought I was imagining it.’

‘No, you weren’t,’ Sushma said benignly and rested a small, paddle-shaped hand on his knee. Hanna thought the two of them looked as if they’d been created by the painter Fernando Botero. The same rounded physiques, the same short, inflated-looking extremities.

He looked out of the window again.

The helicopter stayed an appropriate distance from the cables as it drifted past the platform. Only authorised pilots from NASA or Orley Enterprises were allowed to fly this route when they brought guests to the Isla de las Estrellas. Hanna tried to catch a glimpse of the inside of the cylinder, where the cables disappeared, but they were too far away. A moment later they had left the platform behind, and were swinging in towards the Isla. Below them, the shadow of the helicopter darted across deep blue waves.

‘That cable must be really thin if you can’t see it from the side,’ Nair reflected. ‘Which means it must actually be flat. Are they cables at all?’ He laughed and wrung his hands. ‘They’re more like tapes, really, aren’t they? I’ve probably got it all wrong. My God, what can I say? I grew up in a field. In a field!’

Hanna nodded. They had fallen into conversation on the flight here from Quito, but even so he knew that Mukesh Nair had a very close relationship with fields. A modest farmer’s son from Hoshiarpur in Punjab, who liked eating well but preferred a street stall to any three-star restaurant, who thought more highly of the concerns and opinions of simple people than of small-talk at receptions and gallery openings, who preferred to fly Economy Class and who craved expensive clothes as much as a Tibetan bear craves a tie. At the same time Mukesh Nair, with an estimated private fortune of 46 billion dollars, was one of the wealthiest people in the world, and his way of thinking was anything but rustic. He had studied agriculture in Ludhiana and economics at Bombay University, he was a holder of the Padma Vibhushan, the second-highest Indian order for civilian merits, and an unchallenged market leader when it came to supplying the world with Indian fruit and vegetables. Hanna was intimately acquainted with the CV of Mr Tomato, as Nair was generally known, having studied the careers of all the guests who were travelling in for the meeting.

‘Now look, just look at that!’ shouted Nair. ‘That’s not bad, is it?’

Hanna craned his neck. The helicopter hovered along the eastern slope of the island so that they could enjoy a perfect view of the Stellar Island Hotel. Like a stranded ocean steamer it lay on the slopes, seven receding storeys piled up on top of one another, overlooking a prow with a huge swimming-pool. Each room had its own sun terrace. The highest point of the building formed a circular terrace, half covered by a huge glass dome. Hanna could make out tables and chairs, loungers, a buffet, a bar. Amidships lay a part that had been left level, plainly the lobby, bounded to the north by the stern-shaped construction of a helicopter landing pad. Architecture alternated with sections of rough stone, as if the architects had been trying to beam up a cruise-ship right in front of the island, and had miscalculated by a few hundred metres towards the centre. It seemed to Hanna that parts of the hotel grounds must have been blown into the mountain with explosives. A footpath, interrupted by flights of steps, wound its way down, crossed a green plateau whose design looked too harmonious to be of natural origin, then led further down and opened up into a path running along the coast.

‘A golf course,’ Nair murmured in delight. ‘How wonderful.’

‘I’m sorry, but I thought you liked things simple.’ And when the Indian looked at him in amazement, Hanna added, ‘According to yourself. Plain restaurants. Simple people. Third-class travel.’

‘You’re getting things muddled.’

‘If the media are to be trusted, you’re surprisingly modest for a public figure.’

‘Such nonsense! I try to keep out of public life. You can count the number of interviews that I’ve given over the past few years on one hand. If Tomato gets a good press, I’m happy. The main thing is that no one tries to get me in front of a camera or a microphone.’ Nair frowned. ‘By the way, you’re right. Luxury isn’t something I need to live. I come from a tiny village. The amount of money you have is irrelevant. Deep down, I’m still living in that village, it’s just got a bit bigger.’

‘By a few continents on either side of the Indian Ocean,’ Hanna teased. ‘Got you.’

‘So?’ Nair grinned. ‘As I said, you’re getting things muddled.’

‘What?’

‘Look, it’s quite simple. The platform we just flew over – things like that occupy my heart. The fate of the entire human race may hang on those cables. But this hotel fascinates me the way theatre might fascinate you. It’s fun, so you go there from time to time. Except that most people, as soon as they get some money, start thinking theatre is real life. Ideally they’d like to live on stage, dress up again every day and play a part. That makes me think; you know the joke about the psychologist who wants to catch a lion?’

‘No.’

‘Quite easy. He goes into the desert, sets up a cage, gets in and decides that inside is outside.’

Hanna grinned. Nair shook with laughter.

‘You see, I have no interest in that, it was never my thing. I don’t want to sit in a cage or live out my life on a stage. Nonetheless, I shall enjoy the next two weeks, you can bet on that. Before it gets going tomorrow, I’ll play a round of golf down there and love it! But once the fourteen days are over I’ll go back home to where you laugh at a joke because it’s good and not because a rich person’s telling it. I’ll eat things that taste good, not things that are expensive. I’ll talk to people because I like them, not because they’re important. Many of those people don’t have the money to go to my restaurants, so I’ll go to theirs.’

‘Got it,’ said Hanna.

Nair rubbed his nose. ‘At the risk of depressing you – I don’t actually know anything about you at all.’

‘Because you’ve spent the whole flight talking about yourself,’ Sushma observed reproachfully.

‘Have I? You must excuse my need to communicate.’

‘That’s fine,’ Hanna said with a wave of his hand. ‘There isn’t so much to say about me. I tend to work in silence.’

‘Investment?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Interesting.’ Nair pursed his lips. ‘What fields?’

‘Mostly energy. And a bit of everything.’ Hanna hesitated. ‘It might interest you to know that I was born in New Delhi.’

The helicopter lowered itself towards the heliport. The landing pad had room for three helicopters that size and was marked with a fluorescent symbol, a silvery O with a stylised orange moon around it: the company logo of Orley Enterprises. At the edge of the heliport Hanna spotted people in uniform, taking reception of passengers and luggage. A slim woman in a light-coloured trouser suit broke away from the group. The wind in the rotor-blades tugged at her clothes, her hair glistened in the sun.

‘You come from New Delhi?’ Sushma Nair, visibly taken with Hanna’s unexpected revelation, edged closer. ‘How long did you live there?’

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 the 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.

‘I knew you’d like it,’ Momoka replied with the faintest of smiles.

No, it looks lousy, Lynn thought. Complete disaster.

‘Nice to have you both here,’ she said.

* * *

At the same time Evelyn Chambers, sunning herself on her sixth-floor terrace, was calling up her knowledge of Russian and pricking up her ears. She was the high-society seismographer. Every tremor, however small, registered as news value on her personal Richter scale, and there had just been a big one.

The Rogachevs were in the room next door. The terraces were separated by sound-absorbing barriers, but she could still hear Olympiada Rogacheva’s breathless sobs, now close by, now further away. She was obviously pacing back and forth on the sun-deck, clutching a full glass, as usual.

‘Why?’ she wailed. ‘Why again?’

Oleg Rogachev’s answer came dully and incomprehensibly from inside the room. Whatever he had said made Olympiada explode in a volcanic eruption.

‘You complete bastard!’ she yelled. ‘Right in front of my eyes!’ Muffled sounds, gasps. ‘You didn’t even bother to do it in secret!’

Rogachev stepped outside.

‘You want me to have secrets? Then fine.’

His voice was calm, uninterested and designed to bring the surrounding temperature down a few degrees. Evelyn pictured him in front of her. A middle-sized, inconspicuous man with thin, blond hair and a foxy face, eyes set in it like little icy mountain lakes. Evelyn had interviewed Oleg Alexeyevich Rogachev the previous year, shortly after he had become majority shareholder of the Daimler company, and met a polite, quiet businessman who had willingly answered all her questions while at the same time appearing as impenetrable as a piece of armour plating.

She recapitulated what she knew about Rogachev. His father had run a Soviet steel firm, which had been privatised as a consequence of Perestroika. The usual model at the time was to give the workers voucher share certificates. For a short time, the multicellular organism of the proletariat had assumed command, except that shares in a steel-works didn’t get families through the winter. So most workers had quickly been willing to turn their certificates into money, selling them to finance companies or their superiors, and receiving, on the eat-or-be-eaten principle, just a fraction of their actual value. Gradually the former state companies of the fragmented Soviet Union had fallen into the hands of investment firms and speculators. Old Rogachev had also turned up and bought enough of his workers’ share certificates to purchase the company himself, which brought him into the firing line of a competing Mafia clan, unfortunately in the literal sense of that phrase: two bullets hit him in the chest, a third drilled its way into his brain. The fourth had been intended for his son, but missed. Oleg, who had until that point been more inclined towards student distractions, had immediately interrupted his studies and established an allegiance against the murderers with a clan close to the government, that led to a shoot-out about which no further documentation was available. At this point Oleg was demonstrably living abroad, but after his return he was suddenly appointed chairman of the management committee and a welcome guest at the Kremlin.

He had simply sided with the right people.

In the years that followed Rogachev set about modernising the company, raked in considerable profits and swallowed up a German and an English steel giant in quick succession. He invested in aluminium, signed contracts with the government relating to the extension of the Russian railway network, acquired shares in European and Asian car companies and made a fortune in China, with its hunger for raw materials. At the same time he was painfully aware that he had to take the interests of the powerful men in Moscow into account. In return the sun shone for him: Vladimir Putin assured him of his high esteem, Dmitri Medvedev invited him to his table as an advisor. When the world market leader Arcelor Mittal was plunged into a crisis, Rogachev took over the ailing steel giant and put himself, with Rogamittal, at the top of his field.

At around this time Maxim Ginsburg, Medvedev’s successor, had so permanently abolished the boundaries between private business and politics – which were eroding in any case – that the press dubbed him the ‘CEO of Russia PLC’. Rogachev paid homage to Ginsburg in his own way. One very drunken evening, in fact, it turned out that Ginsburg had a daughter, Olympiada, taciturn and of no apparent charm, whom the president was anxious to see married, if possible to someone of a wealthy background. Somehow Olympiada had managed to complete a course of studies in politics and economics. Now she was a Member of Parliament, expressed her love of her father in referendums and faded away without having blossomed. Rogachev did Ginsburg the favour. The marriage of these two great fortunes passed off with much pomp, except that on the wedding night Rogachev shunned her bed and went elsewhere. From then on he was, in fact, constantly elsewhere, even when Olympiada gave birth to their only son, who was entrusted to a private school and from that point onwards seldom seen. Ginsburg’s daughter got lonely. She didn’t know how to respond to her husband’s enthusiasm for martial arts, guns and football, even less to his constant affairs. She complained to her father. Ginsburg thought of the 56 billion dollars that his son-in-law put on the scales, and advised Olympiada to take a lover. She did exactly that. His name was Jim Beam, and he had the advantage of being there whenever you needed him.

How on earth was the poor woman going to survive the next fourteen days?

Evelyn Chambers stretched her Latin physique. Not bad for forty-five, she thought, everything still firm, even though the inevitable muscular fatty degeneration was beginning, and signs of cellulite were appearing on her bottom and thighs. She squinted into the sun. The cry of seabirds filled the air. Only now did it strike her that there was just one single cloud in the whole of the sky, as if it had strayed there, a cloud-child. It seemed to be floating very high up, but then what was height? She would be travelling far above the point where clouds dwelt.

Up, down. All a matter of perspective.

In her mind she ran through the members of the travelling party, assessing them for their media usefulness. Eight couples and five singles, including her. Some of those present would not welcome her participation. Finn O’Keefe, for example, who refused to go on talk-shows. Or the Donoghues: hard-line Republicans who didn’t much care for the fact that America’s powerful talk-show queen supported the Democrat camp. Admittedly Evelyn’s only active excursion into politics, in 2017, when she had fought for the office of governor of New York, had begun in triumph and ended in disaster, but her stranglehold on public opinion remained unbroken.

Mukesh Nair? Another one who didn’t like going on talk-shows.

Warren Locatelli and his Japanese wife, on the other hand, had entertainment value in spades. Locatelli was vain and coarse, but he was also brilliant. There was a biography of him entitled What if Locatelli had Created the World?, which accurately captured his vision of the world. He sailed, and had won the America’s Cup the previous year, but his chief enthusiasm was racing. Umura had for a long time appeared as an actress in indigestible big-screen experiments before enjoying a succès d’estime with Black Lotus. She was snooty and – as far as Evelyn could tell – free from any kind of empathy.

Who else? Walo Ögi, Swiss investor, art collector. Involved in every imaginable area from property, insurance, airlines and cars via Pepsi-Cola to tropical wood and ready meals. According to rumour, he planned to build a second Monaco on behalf of that country’s prince, but Evelyn was more interested in Heidrun Ögi, his third wife, who was said to have financed her photographic studies as a stripper and an actress in porn films. Also part of the group was Marc Edwards, who owed his popularity to the development of quantum chips so tiny that they were switched on and off with a single atom, and Mimi Parker, creator of intelligent fashion, whose fabrics were woven with Edwards’ chips. Fun people, sporty and socially committed, moderately exciting. The Tautous might have more to give. Bernard Tautou had political ambitions and had earned billions in the water business, a subject that preoccupied the human rights organisations with monotonous regularity.

The eighth couple, finally, came from Germany. Eva Borelius was seen as the uncrowned queen of stem-cell research; her companion, Karla Kramp, worked as a surgeon. Flagship lesbians. And then there was Miranda Winter, ex-model and squeaky-voiced widow of an industrialist, as well as Rebecca Hsu, Taiwan’s Coco Chanel. All four of them had already opened their hearts to Evelyn, but she didn’t know the slightest thing about Carl Hanna.

She thoughtfully rubbed her belly with suntan oil.

Hanna was strange. A Canadian private investor, born in 1981 as the son of a wealthy British diplomat in New Delhi, who had moved at the age of ten with his family to British Columbia, where he later studied business. Apprentice years in India, death of his parents in an accident, return to Vancouver. He had clearly invested his inheritance cleverly enough never to have to lift a finger ever again: according to rumour he planned to invest in India’s space trip, and that was that. The CV of a speculator. Of course, not everybody had to be a bighead like Locatelli. But Donoghue boxed, for example. Rogachev was trained in all kinds of martial arts and had bought Bayern Munich a few years previously. Edwards and Mimi dived, Borelius rode, Karla played chess, O’Keefe had a scandalous drugs career behind him and had lived with Irish gypsies. Everyone had something that identified them as a person of flesh and blood.

Hanna owned yachts.

Originally, Gerald Palstein had been scheduled to fly instead of him: the director of strategy of EMCO, the third-largest mineral company in the world, was a free spirit who had, years before, thought out loud about the end of the fossil-fuel years. Evelyn would have liked to meet him, but the previous month Palstein had been victim of an attempted assassination, and injured so badly that he had had to cancel, and Hanna had stepped in.

Who was this guy?

Evelyn decided to find out, swung her legs over her lounger and walked to the balustrade of her terrace. Deep below her glittered the enormous pool of the Stellar Island Hotel. Some people were already diving into the turquoise-coloured water, and Heidrun Ögi and Finn O’Keefe were arriving at that very moment. Evelyn wondered whether she should go down and join them, but suddenly the very thought of conversation made her feel ill, and she turned away.

That was happening to her more and more often. A talk-show queen who was allergic to talking. She fetched herself a drink and waited for the attack to pass. O’Keefe followed Heidrun to the pool bar, where a stout man of about sixty was explaining something, waving his arms around as he did so. He was enjoying the attention of a sporty-looking couple who were listening agog, laughing comfortably as one, saying ‘Good heavens!’ at the same time and looking like the kind of people who rode around on tandems.

‘It was extreme, of course,’ the older man said, and laughed. ‘Completely over the top. And that’s exactly why it was good!’

There was something craggily sublime about his features, powerful Roman nose, chiselled chin. His wiry dark hair, run through with silver, was greased back, his tousled moustache matched his finger-thick eyebrows.

‘What was over the top?’ Heidrun asked, giving him a kiss.

‘The musical,’ the man said, and looked at O’Keefe. ‘And who is this, mein Schatz?’

Unlike Heidrun he spoke smooth, almost unaccented English. The odd thing was that he said ‘my darling’ in German. Heidrun came and stood next to him and rested her head on his shoulder.

‘Don’t you ever go to the cinema?’ she said. ‘This is Finn O’Keefe.’

‘Finn – O’Keefe—’ The wrinkles on his high forehead formed into question marks. ‘Sorry, but I—’

‘He played Kurt Cobain.’

‘Oh! Ah! Brilliant! Great to meet you. I’m Walo. Heidrun’s seen all your films. I haven’t, but I remember Hyperactive. Incredible achievement!’

‘I’m delighted.’ O’Keefe smiled. He had no particular problems meeting people, except that he always found the rigmarole of mutual introductions horribly tiring. Shaking hands. Telling someone you’d never seen before how brilliant it was to meet them here. Ögi introduced the blonde at his side as Mimi Parker, a tanned all-American girl with dark eyebrows and perfect teeth. Presumably Californian, O’Keefe thought. California seemed to have registered a patent on this kind of girl who smelled of the sun.

‘Mimi designs incredible clothes,’ Ögi raved. ‘If you wear one of her pullovers you’ll never need to see a doctor again.’

‘Really! How come?’

‘Very simple.’ Mimi was about to say something, but Ögi talked over her. ‘It measures your bodily functions! Let’s say you have a heart attack, it sends your medical records to the nearest hospital and calls the ambulance.’

‘But it can’t perform the operation itself?’

‘It has transistors woven into it,’ Mimi explained seriously. ‘The item of clothing is effectively a computer with a million sensors. They form connections with the wearer’s body, but they can also be connected to any external system.’

‘Sounds scratchy.’

‘We weave Marc’s quantum chips into them. They don’t scratch at all.’

‘May I take the opportunity,’ the fair-haired man said and held out his right hand. ‘Marc Edwards.’

‘Pleased to meet you.’

‘Look.’ Mimi pointed to her bathing costume. ‘Even in this there are about two million sensors. Among other things they absorb my body heat and turn it into electricity. Of course you only get very small amounts of usable energy from a human power station, but it’s enough to warm the costume up if necessary. The sensors react to the temperature of the air and water.’

‘Interesting.’

‘I’ve seen Hyperactive, by the way,’ Heidrun said in a bored voice. ‘Finn grew up with guitars and pianos. He even has his own band.’

‘Had.’ O’Keefe raised his hands. ‘I had a band. We don’t meet up that much these days.’

‘I thought the film was great,’ said Edwards. ‘You’re one of my favourite actors.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Your singing was great in it. What was your band called again?’

‘The Black Sheep.’

Edwards pulled a face as if he was inches away from remembering the Black Sheep and all their hits. O’Keefe smiled.

‘Believe me, you’ve never heard of us.’

‘He hasn’t either.’ Ögi put his arm around his shoulders and lowered his voice. ‘Between ourselves, young man, they’re all kids. Bet you they don’t even know who Kurt Cobain was.’

Mimi Parker looked uncertainly from one to the other.

‘To be quite honest—’

‘You mean he really existed?’ Edwards said in amazement.

‘A historical figure.’ Ögi took out a cigar, cut it and set the tip thoughtfully alight. ‘Tragic hero of a generation infatuated with suicide. A romantic in nihilist’s clothing. Weltschmerz, a latent longing for death, nothing you wouldn’t find in Schubert and Schumann as well. Brilliant exit. How did you prepare for the part, Finn?’

‘Well—’

‘Did you try to be him?’

‘He’d have had to pump himself full of drugs,’ said Edwards. ‘That guy Cobain was permanently stoned.’

‘Perhaps he did,’ said Ögi. ‘Did you?’

O’Keefe shook his head with a laugh. How could he explain in a few words to a pool party how you played Kurt Cobain? Or anyone else?

‘Isn’t that called method acting?’ Mimi asked. ‘The actor gives up his identity for his character in the film, weeks and months before filming. He basically subjects himself to a kind of brainwashing.’

‘No, it’s not quite like that. I have a different way of working.’

‘How’s that?’

‘More mundanely. It’s a job, you understand. Just a job.’

Mimi looked disappointed. O’Keefe felt Heidrun’s violet gaze settling on him. He began to feel uncomfortable. Everyone was staring at him.

‘You were talking about a musical,’ he said to Ögi, to creep away from the focus of interest. ‘Which one would that be?’

Nine Eleven,’ said Ögi. ‘We saw it in New York last week. You?’

‘Not yet.’

‘We’re thinking of going,’ said Edwards.

‘Do that.’ Ögi gave off swirls of smoke. ‘As I said, extreme stuff! They could have let it drown in piety, but of course the material needs a powerful production.’

‘The set’s supposed to be amazing,’ Mimi raved.

‘Holographic. You think you’re sitting in the middle of it.’

‘I like the tune with the cop and the girl. It’s always on the radio. “Into Death, My Child”…’

She started humming a tune. O’Keefe hoped he wouldn’t have to express an opinion on the matter. He hadn’t seen Nine Eleven, and had no intention of doing so.

‘The slushy numbers on their own don’t justify a visit,’ Ögi snorted. ‘Yes, Jimeno and McLoughlin are constantly busy, and so are their wives, but it’s mostly worth it for the effects. When the planes come, you can’t believe it! And the guy who sings Osama bin Laden. He’s really OTT.’

‘Bass?’

‘Baritone.’

‘I’m going swimming,’ said Heidrun. ‘Who’s coming? Finn?’

Thanks, he thought.

He went to his room and got undressed. Ten minutes later they were competing at the crawl in the pool. Heidrun left him behind twice in a row, and it was only the third time that they reached the edge of the pool at the same time. She pulled herself up. Walo blew her a Havana-smoke kiss, before carrying on with a story accompanied by vigorous hand gestures. At that moment an athlete and a woman with a curvy figure and a fire-red ponytail arrived near the pool.

‘Do you know that guy?’ he asked.

‘Nope.’ Heidrun folded her arms on the edge of the pool. ‘They must just have arrived. Maybe it’s that Canadian investor. Something with an H, Henna or Hanson. I’ve seen the redhead before, I think. But I can’t remember where.’

‘Oh, yeah! Wasn’t she a murder suspect at some point?’

‘For a while, yes.’ O’Keefe shrugged. ‘She’s quite witty, once you’ve got used to the fact that she has names for her breasts and that she’s squandering an inheritance of thirteen billion dollars pretty much at random. No idea if there was anything to those accusations. It was in all the papers. She got off in the end.’

‘Where do you meet such characters? At parties?’

‘I don’t go to parties.’

Heidrun slipped lower into the water and lay on her back. Her hair spread into a faded flower. O’Keefe couldn’t help thinking of stories about mermaids, seductive creatures who had risen from the depths and dragged mariners underwater to steal their breath with a kiss.

‘That’s right. You hate being at the centre of things, don’t you?’

He thought for a moment. ‘I don’t really, no.’

‘Exactly. It only annoys you when there isn’t at least a screen or a barrier between you and the people who see your films. You enjoy the cult that’s organised around you, but even more than that you enjoy making people think you couldn’t care less.’

He stared at her in amazement. ‘Is that your impression?’

‘When People magazine voted you sexiest man alive, you pulled your cap over your forehead and claimed you really couldn’t understand why women cried at the sight of you.’

‘I don’t get it,’ O’Keefe said. ‘I really don’t.’

Heidrun laughed. ‘Me neither.’

She plunged under the surface of the water. Her outline fragmented into Cubist vectors as she darted away. O’Keefe wondered for a moment whether he liked her answer. The hammering of rotors reached him. He looked into the sky and found himself confronted with a single white cloud.

Lonely little cloud. Lonely little Finn.

We understand each other, you and I, he thought with amusement.

The rump of a helicopter entered his field of vision, crossed the pool and came down.

* * *

‘There are people in the water,’ Karla Kramp observed. She said it with analytical coolness, as if referring to the appearance of microbes under warm and damp conditions. It didn’t sound as if she wanted to join them. Eva Borelius looked out of the helicopter window and saw a pale-skinned woman gliding against a turquoise-coloured background.

‘Perhaps it’s finally time for you to learn to swim.’

‘I’ve already learned to ride for you,’ Karla replied expressionlessly.

‘I know.’ Borelius leaned back and stretched her bony limbs. ‘You never stop learning, my jewel.’

Facing her, Bernard Tautou was dozing with his head leaning back and his mouth half open. After spending the first half-hour of the flight giving an account of his exhausting everyday life, which seemed to play out between remote desert springs and intimate dinners at the Élysée Palace, he had fallen asleep, and was now giving them a view of his nasal cavities. He was short and slim, with wavy, probably dyed hair that was starting to lighten at the temples. His eyes, beneath their heavy lids, had something weary about them, which was further accentuated into melancholy by the long shape of his face. The impression vanished as soon as he laughed and his eyebrows rose clownishly, and Tautou laughed often. He delivered compliments and acted interested, just to use his interlocutor’s statements as a springboard for self-reflection. Every second sentence that he directed at his wife ended in a challenging n’est-ce pas?, Paulette’s sole function being to confirm what he had said. Only after he had gone to sleep did she become more lively, talked about his friendship and hers with the French president, the country’s first female head of state, and how important it was to grant humanity access to the most precious of all scarce resources. She talked about how, as head of the French water company Suez Environnement, he had contrived to take over Thames Water, which had made the resulting company a leader in global water supply and saved the world, which as good as meant her husband had saved the world. In her account plucky Bernard was tirelessly laying pipelines to the areas where the poor and wretched lived, a guardian angel in the battle against thirst.

‘Isn’t water a free human resource?’ Karla had asked.

‘Of course.’

‘So it can’t be privatised?’

Paulette’s expression had remained unfathomable. With her hooded eyelids she looked like the young Charlotte Rampling, although without the actress’s class. The question just asked had been put to people in the water business with great regularity for decades.

‘Oh, you know, that debate is passing out of fashion, thank God. Without privatisation there would have been no supply networks, no treatment plants. What’s the use of free access to a resource if you have no chance of accessing it?’

Karla had nodded thoughtfully.

‘Could you actually privatise the air that we breathe?’

‘Sorry? Of course not.’

‘I’m just trying to understand. So Suez is building supply installations, for example in—’

‘Namibia.’

‘Namibia. Exactly. And are such planned constructions subsidised by development aid?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘And the plant operates on a profitable basis?’

‘Yes, it has to.’

‘That means that Suez is privately registering profits that have been subsidised by development aid?’

At that point Paulette Tautou had assumed a tortured expression, and Borelius had said quietly, ‘Enough, Karla.’ Right now she didn’t feel like getting involved in disasters as she usually did when Karla deployed the scalpel of her curiosity. After that they had exchanged harmless pleasantries and admired the platform in the sea. More precisely, her gaze and Karla’s had hung spellbound on that endless line, while Paulette eyed them rather suspiciously and made no move to shake her husband awake.

‘Aren’t you going to wake him?’ Borelius had asked. ‘I’m sure he’d love to see this.’

‘Oh, no, I’m happy for him to get some sleep. You can’t imagine how hard he works.’

‘We’ll be there in a minute. Then you’ll have to wake him anyway.’

‘He needs every second. You know, I’d only wake him for something really important.’

Something really important, Borelius thought. Okay…

Now that the helicopter was lowering itself onto the landing platform, Paulette forced herself to say ‘Bernard’ several times in a quiet voice, until he opened his eyes in confusion and blinked.

‘Are we there already?’

‘We’re landing.’

‘What?’ He jerked upright. ‘Where’s the platform? I thought we were going to see the platform.’

‘You were asleep.’

‘Oh! Merde! Why didn’t you wake me, chérie? I’d have loved to see the platform!’

Borelius forebore from commenting. Before they got out, she caught a glimpse of a stately, snow-white yacht far out on the sea. Then the skids touched the ground, and the side door of the helicopter swung open.

* * *

On the yacht Rebecca Hsu left her study, crossed the huge, marble-covered drawing-room and stepped out onto the deck, while she phoned her headquarters in Taipei.

‘I don’t give a damn what the French sales manager wants,’ she said harshly. ‘We’re talking about a perfume for twelve-year-old girls. They have to like it, not him. If he starts liking the stuff, we’ve made a mistake.’

Wild arguments came crackling down the line. Rebecca walked quickly to the stern, where the first officer, the captain and the speedboat were waiting for her.

‘It’s already clear to me that you want your own campaign,’ she said. ‘I’m not stupid, after all. You always want something of your own. These Europeans are terribly complicated. We’ve put the perfume on the market in Germany, Italy and Spain, without giving anyone special treatment, and we’ve been successful every time. I don’t see why France of all places— What? He said what?’

The information was repeated.

‘Nonsense, I love France!’ she yelled furiously. ‘Even the French! I’m just fed up with all that constant rebellion. They will have to learn to live with the fact that I’ve bought their beloved luxury company. I’ll leave them in peace as far as Dior and so on are concerned, but for our own creations I expect unconditional cooperation.’

She looked irritably across to the Isla de las Estrellas, which rose from the Pacific like a humpbacked sea serpent. No breeze stirred the air. The sea stretched like dark aluminium foil from horizon to horizon. She ended the conversation and turned to the two liveried men.

‘And? Did you ask again?’

‘I’m extraordinarily sorry, madame.’ The captain shook his head. ‘No permit.’

‘I’m absolutely mystified about what’s going on.’

‘The Isla de las Estrellas and the platform can’t be approached by private ships. The same applies to air-space. The whole area is one single high-security zone. If it wasn’t you, we would even have to wait for their helicopter. Unusually, they have given us permission to ferry you across in our own speedboat.’

Rebecca sighed. She was used to rules not applying to her. On the other hand the prospect of a trip on the speedboat was too much fun for her to insist.

‘Is the luggage on board?’

‘Of course, madame. I hope you have a pleasant holiday.’

‘Thank you. How do I look?’

‘Perfect, as ever.’

That would be lovely, she thought. Since she had turned fifty, she had been fighting a losing battle. It was played out on various piece of fitness equipment, in swimming-pools with cross-current features, on private jogging paths and her 140-metre yacht, which she had had built in such a way that you could perform a circuit of it unimpeded. Since leaving Taiwan she ran there every day. With iron discipline she had even managed to get her extreme hunger under control, but still her body went on expanding. At least the dress emphasised what was left of her waist, and was appropriately extravagant. Her trademark bird’s-nest hairdo was characteristically chaotic, and her make-up was impeccable.

As soon as the speedboat cast off, she was back on the phone again.

* * *

‘Rebecca Hsu is heading this way,’ Norrington said on the walkie-talkie.

Lynn left the kitchen of Stellar Island Hotel, gave the canapés a quick examination, issued instructions to her little group of waiters and waitresses and stepped out into the sunlight.

‘Has she brought bodyguards?’ she asked.

‘No. On the other hand she has checked several times to ask if we seriously intend to refuse her docking permission.’

‘Excuse me? Rebecca wants to park her damned yacht here?’

‘Calm down. We refused to budge. Now she’s coming in the speedboat.’

‘That’s okay. When does she get here?’

‘In about ten minutes. As long as she doesn’t fall overboard on the way.’ An idea that Norrington seemed to find cheering. ‘There must be some pretty good sharks around here, don’t you think? When I last saw our little darling she was fit for a banquet.’

‘If Rebecca Hsu gets eaten, you’re dessert.’

‘Funny and relaxed as ever,’ Norrington sighed and ended the conversation.

She followed the coastal path at a walking pace, as her mind split into pieces and thousands of concerned and disembodied Lynns haunted the hotel grounds. Was there something she’d overlooked? Each of the booked suites gleamed immaculately. Even in terms of furniture the personal preferences of the guests had been taken into account: lilies, mountains of lychees and passion fruit for Rebecca Hsu, Momoka Omura’s favourite champagne, a luxury volume about the history of car-racing on Warren Locatelli’s pillow, reproductions of Asian and Russian art on the Ögis’ walls, old tin toys for Marc Edwards, the biography of Muhammad Ali with photographs never before published for the edification of good old Chucky, chocolate-scented bath oils for Miranda Winter. Even the menu reflected likes and dislikes. Lynn’s worried ghosts sighed in the saunas and jacuzzis of the spa area, prowled icily over the golf course, streamed damply into Stellar Island Dome, the underground multimedia centre, and found nothing to complain about.

Everything that was supposed to work, worked.

And besides, no one would see that they hadn’t been ready in time. Unless the guests opened doors they had no business opening.

Tools were still lying around in most of the rooms, bags of cement were stacked up, the paintwork was only half finished. In the knowledge that she couldn’t keep the official opening deadline, Lynn had put all her energy into getting the booked suites ready. Only part of the kitchen was operational, enough to spoil the group, but certainly not the three hundred visitors for whom the hotel had actually been conceived.

She stopped for a moment and looked at the gleaming ocean steamer that grew out of the basalt. As if her pause were a signal, hundreds of seabirds scattered from a nearby cliff and formed a swarming cloud that drifted inland. Lynn gave a start. She imagined the creatures swooping down on the hotel grounds, shitting all over it, hacking and scratching it to pieces and chasing the few people into the sea. She saw bodies drifting in the pool, blood mixing with water. The survivors ran up to her and screamed at her for not preventing the attack. Loudest of all was Julian.

The hotel staff were frozen. Their eyes wandered back and forth between Lynn and the hotel, visibly unsettled, since their boss suddenly gave every appearance of witnessing the Day of Judgement.

After a minute of complete stillness she pulled herself together and continued down the coastal path to the harbour.

* * *

Andrew Norrington saw her walking on. From the hill above the pool where he had taken up his post, he could look out over large sections of the eastern shore. In the harbour, a natural inlet extended by blasting, several small ships lay at anchor, most of them patrol boats and some Zodiacs, marked with the familiar O of Orley Enterprises. He could have provided plenty of room for Rebecca Hsu’s yacht, but not even in his wildest dreams did Norrington imagine giving the Taiwanese woman special treatment. All the others had, as agreed, flown in on Orley’s company helicopters, why not her? Rebecca could be glad that she’d been allowed to travel in by water at all.

As he walked down to the pool, he thought about Julian’s daughter. Even though he didn’t particularly like Lynn, he respected her authority and competence. Even at a young age she had had to shoulder a huge amount of responsibility, and in spite of all the naysayers she had put Orley Travel at the top of all tourist companies. Without a doubt, Stellar Island Hotel was one of her pièces de résistance, even though there was still much to be done, but it paled into insignificance next to the OSS Grand and the Gaia! No one had ever built anything comparable. In her late thirties, Lynn was a star in the company, and those two hotels had been finished.

Norrington threw his head back and blinked into the sun. He absently flicked a saucer-sized spider from his shoulder, entered the pool landscape via a path overgrown with ferns and conifers, and gazed forensically around the area. By now the whole travelling party had met up by the pool. Drinks and snacks were being handed out, people were noisily introducing themselves. Julian had selected the participants very cleverly. The diverse group there was worth several hundred billion dollars: world-improvers like Mukesh Nair, oligarchs along the lines of Rogachev, and people like Miranda Winter, who had, for the first time, found her pea-brain faced with the task of spending money sensibly. Orley planned to relieve them all of part of their fortunes. At that moment Evelyn Chambers joined them, and smiled radiantly around. Still remarkably good-looking, Norrington thought. Perhaps she’d become a bit plump over time, but nothing compared to the progressive spherification of Rebecca Hsu.

He walked on, ready for anything.

* * *

‘Mimi! Marc! How lovely to see you.’

Evelyn had overcome her revulsion, and was once again capable of communicating. She was almost on friendly terms with Mimi Parker, and Marc was a nice guy. She waved to Momoka Omura and exchanged kisses on the cheek with Miranda Winter, who greeted every new arrival with a ‘Wooouuuuhhw’ that sounded like a burglar alarm, followed by a saucy, ‘Oh yeah!’ Evelyn had last seen Winter with long, steel-blue hair, and now she wore it short and bright red, which made you think of fire alarms. The ex-model’s forehead was decorated with a filigree pattern. Her breasts squeezed themselves reluctantly into a dress that only just covered the planetary curve of her bottom and was so tight at the waist that it made one fear that Ms Miranda might at any moment split in two. The youngest here, at the age of twenty-eight, she had undergone so many surgical interventions that the mere documentation of her operations kept hundreds of society reporters in employment, not to mention her extravagances, her excesses and the aftershocks of her trial.

Evelyn pointed at the pattern on her brow.

‘Pretty,’ she said, trying frantically to escape the massive double constellation of the Miranda cleavage, which seemed to be drawing her gaze powerfully downwards. Everyone knew that Evelyn’s sexual appetite was equally divided between men and women. The revelation of her private life, namely the fact that she lived with her husband and her lover in a ménage à trois, had cost her the candidacy in New York.

‘It’s Indian,’ Miranda replied gleefully. ‘Because India is in the stars, you know?’

‘Really?’

‘Yes! Just imagine! The stars say we’re heading for an Indian age. Quite wonderful. The transformation will begin in India. Humanity will change. First India, then the whole world. There will never be war again.’

‘Who says that, darling?’

‘Olinda Brannigan.’

Olinda Brannigan was an ancient, dried-up Hollywood actress from Beverly Hills who looked like a codfish. Miranda went to her to have her cards read and her future predicted.

‘And what else does Olinda have to say?’

‘You shouldn’t buy anything Chinese. China’s going to go under.’

‘Because of the trade deficit?’

‘Because of Jupiter.’

‘And what sort of dress are you wearing?’

‘This? Cute, isn’t it? Dolce & Gabbana.’

‘You should take it off.’

‘What, here?’ Miranda looked furtively around and lowered her voice. ‘Now?’

‘It’s Chinese.’

‘Oh, stop! They’re Italians, they—’

‘It’s Chinese, darling,’ Evelyn repeated with relish. ‘Rebecca Hsu bought Dolce & Gabbana last year.’

‘Does she have to buy everything?’ For a moment Miranda looked frankly hurt. Then the sun came out once again. ‘Never mind. Maybe Olinda made a mistake.’ She spread her fingers and shook herself. ‘Anyway, I’m reaaally looking forward to the trip! I’m going to squeal the whole time!’

Evelyn didn’t doubt for a moment the serious intent behind this threat. She glanced around and saw the Nairs, the Tautous and the Locatellis in conversation. Olympiada joined the group, while Oleg Rogachev studied her, nodded to her and went to the bar. He immediately came over with a glass of champagne, handed it to her and assumed his familiar, sphinx-like smile.

‘So we’re going to be exposed to your judgement in space,’ he said in a strong Slavic accent. ‘We’ll all have to be very careful what we say.’

‘I’m here as a private individual.’ She winked at him. ‘But if you really want to tell me anything—’

Rogachev laughed quietly, without losing his icy expression.

‘I’m sure I will, not least for the pleasure of your company.’ He looked out to the platform. By now the sun was low over the volcano, and bathed the artificial island in warm colours. ‘Have you been through preparatory training? Weightlessness isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.’

‘In Orley Space Centre.’ Evelyn took a sip. ‘Zero-gravity flights, simulation in the immersion tank, the whole caboodle. You?’

‘A few sub-orbital flights.’

‘Are you excited?’

‘Thrilled.’

‘You do know what Julian is trying to do by organising this event?’

The remark hovered in the room, waiting to be picked up. Rogachev turned to look at her.

‘And now you’re interested to find out my opinion on the matter.’

‘And you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t thinking seriously about it.’

‘And you?’

Evelyn laughed.

‘Forget it. In this company I’m the church mouse. He can hardly have had his beady eyes on my savings.’

‘If all church mice had to reveal the state of their finances, Evelyn, mice would run the world.’

‘Wealth is relative, Oleg, I don’t have to tell you that. Julian and I are old friends. I’d love to convince myself that it was that that persuaded him to make me a member of the group, but of course I realise that I manage capital that’s more important than money.’

‘Public opinion.’ Rogachev nodded. ‘In his place I’d have invited you too.’

‘You, on the other hand, are rich! Almost everybody here is rich, really rich. If each of you throws only a tenth of his wealth into the jackpot, Julian can build a second lift and a second OSS.’

‘Orley won’t allow a shareholder to influence the fate of his company to any great extent. I’m a Russian. We have our own programmes. Why should I support American space travel?’

‘Do you really mean that?’

‘You tell me.’

‘Because you’re a businessman. Nation states may have interests, but what good is that if you lack money and know-how? Julian Orley dusted off American state space travel and at the same time sealed its fate. He’s the boss now. Worth mentioning to the extent that space travel programmes are now almost exclusively in private hands, and Julian’s lead in the sector is astronomical. Even in Moscow people are supposed to have been saying that he doesn’t give a fig for the interests of nation states. He just looks for people who think the same way as he does.’

‘You might say he doesn’t give a fig for loyalty either.’

‘Julian’s loyalty is to ideals, believe it or not. The fact is that he could get on perfectly well with NASA, but NASA couldn’t cope with him. Last year he presented the White House with a plan for how a second lift could be financed by the Americans, and that would have meant that he was putting himself in a highly dependent position as a supplier of know-how. But rather than using the opportunity to involve him, Congress hesitated and expressed concern. America still hasn’t worked out that for Julian it’s just an investor.’

‘And because this investor seems to lack a certain potency at the moment, he’s extending the circle of his possible partners.’

‘Correct. He couldn’t care less whether you’re a Russian or a Martian.’

‘Even so. Why shouldn’t I invest in my country’s space travel?’

‘Because you have to ask yourself whether you want to entrust your money to a state which, while it might be your homeland, is hopelessly underperforming in technological terms.’

‘Russian space travel is just as privatised and efficient as the American version.’

‘But you haven’t got a Julian Orley. And there isn’t one on the horizon, either. Not in Russia, not in India, not in China. Not even the French and the Germans have one. Japan is running on the spot. If you invest your money in the attempt to invent something that other people invented ages ago, just for the sake of national pride, you’re not being loyal, you’re being sentimental.’ Evelyn looked at him. ‘And you aren’t inclined towards sentimentality. You’re sticking to the rules of the game in Russia, that’s all. And you feel no more connected to your country than Julian feels to anybody.’

‘You think you know so much about me.’

Evelyn shrugged. ‘I just know that Julian would never pay for anyone to take the most expensive trip in the world simply out of love for his fellow man.’

‘And you?’ Rogachev asked an athletically built man who had joined them in the course of the conversation. ‘What brings you here?’

‘An accident.’ The man came closer and held out his hand to Evelyn. ‘Carl Hanna.’

‘Evelyn Chambers. You’re referring to the attempt on Palstein’s life?’

‘He should have been flying instead of me. I know I shouldn’t be pleased in the circumstances—’

‘But you’ve been promoted and you’re pleased anyway. That’s completely understandable.’

‘Nice to meet you anyway. I watch Chambers whenever I can.’ His eyes turned to the sky. ‘Will you be making a programme up there?’

‘Don’t worry, we’ll keep it private. Julian wants to shoot a commercial with me, in which I praise the beauties of the universe. To stimulate space tourism. Do you happen to know Oleg Alexeyevich Rogachev?’

‘Rogamittal.’ Hanna smiled. ‘Of course. I think we even share a passion.’

‘And that would be?’ Rogachev asked carefully.

‘Football.’

‘You like football?’

The Russian’s impenetrable, foxy face grew animated. Aha, Evelyn thought. First clue about Hanna. She looked with interest at the Canadian, whose whole body seemed to consist of muscle, although without the awkwardness that bodybuilders so often had. With his close-shaven hair and beard, his thick eyebrows and the little cleft in his chin, he could easily have played the lead in a war movie.

Rogachev was usually a little frosty with strangers, but the mention of football made him seem suddenly almost euphoric. Straight away they were discussing things that Evelyn didn’t understand, so she took her leave and moved on. At the bar she ran into Lynn Orley, who introduced her to the Nairs, the Tautous and Walo Ögi. She at once took a liking to the swaggering Swiss. Complacent, and with a parodic tendency to overdramatise things, he immediately proved to be open and attentive. In general, no one was talking about anything but the imminent trip. To her delight, Evelyn didn’t have to try to attract Heidrun Ögi’s attention, as she cheerfully waved her over to introduce her, with furtive delight, to the tormented-looking Finn O’Keefe. Over the next five minutes Evelyn didn’t manage to ask him a single question, and said she presumed it would stay that way.

‘For ever?’ O’Keefe asked slyly.

‘For the next fortnight,’ she confessed. ‘Then I’ll give it another go.’

Not staring at Heidrun was a far more hopeless task than escaping the gravitational pull of Miranda Winter’s breasts – undulating landscapes of promised delight, but nothing in the end to lose your head over. Miranda, by and large, was a simple design. Sex with her, Evelyn guessed, would be like licking out a honey-pot, sweet and enticing, a bit ordinary after a while, eventually boring and possibly making you feel a bit sick afterwards. Heidrun’s pigment-free, anorexic body, on the other hand, her white hair, snow-white all over, promised an intense erotic experience.

Evelyn sighed inwardly. She couldn’t afford any kind of adventure with this lot, particularly since everything about Heidrun shouted that she wasn’t interested in women.

At least not that way.

A little way off she spotted Chuck Donoghue’s barrel shape, with its complete lack of a neck. His chin jutted bossily forwards, his thinning, reddish hair blown into a sculpture on his head. He had just launched into a noisy diatribe directed at two women, one tall and bony, with strawberry-blonde hair, the other dark and delicate, looking as if she had emerged from a painting by Modigliani. Eva Borelius and Karla Kramp. At regular intervals Chuck’s lecture was counterpointed by Aileen Donoghue’s maternal falsetto. With her rosy cheeks and silver hair, you might have expected to see her flitting off at any moment to serve homemade apple pie, which according to rumours she did with great enthusiasm when she wasn’t helping Chuck run their hotel empire. To talk to Borelius, Evelyn would have had to put up with Chuck’s teasing, so instead she went in search of Lynn, and found her in conversation with a man who looked uncannily like her. The same ash-blond hair, sea-blue eyes, Orley DNA. Lynn was saying, ‘Don’t worry, Tim, I’ve never been better,’ as Evelyn walked in.

The man turned his head and looked at her reproachfully.

‘Excuse me. Didn’t mean to interrupt.’ She made as if to go.

‘Not at all.’ Lynn held her back by the arm. ‘Do you know my brother?’

‘Great to meet you. We hadn’t had the pleasure.’

‘I’m not part of the company,’ Tim said stiffly.

Evelyn remembered that Julian’s son had turned his back on the firm years before. The siblings were close, but there were problems between Tim and his father that had started when Tim’s mother had died, in a state of total insanity, it was rumoured. Lynn had never revealed any more than that, except that Amber, Tim’s wife, didn’t share her husband’s dislike of Julian.

‘You wouldn’t happen to know where Rebecca is?’ said Evelyn.

‘Rebecca?’ Lynn frowned. ‘She should be down at any moment. I just dropped her off at her suite.’

In point of fact Evelyn couldn’t have cared less where Rebecca Hsu had got to. She just had a distinct feeling of being about as welcome as a case of shingles, and tried to find a reason to slope quietly off again.

‘And otherwise? Do you like it?’

‘Brilliant! – I heard that Julian’s not getting here until the day after tomorrow?’

‘He’s stuck in Houston. Our American partners are causing a few problems.’

‘I know. Word gets around.’

‘But he’ll be there for the show.’ Lynn grinned. ‘You know him. He loves making the big entrance.’

‘But it should be you in the limelight,’ said Evelyn. ‘You’ve sorted everything out fantastically well, Lynn. Congratulations! Tim, you should be proud of your sister.’

‘Thanks, Evie! Many thanks for that.’

Tim Orley nodded. Evelyn felt more unwelcome than ever. Curious, she thought, he’s not a nasty guy. What’s his problem? Is he pissed off with me for some reason? What did I burst in on?

‘Are you flying with us?’ she asked.

‘I’m, er… Of course, this is Lynn’s big moment.’ He forced a smile, put his arm around his sister’s shoulder and drew her to him. ‘Believe me, I’m incredibly proud of her.’

There was so much warmth in his words that Evelyn had every reason to feel touched. But the undertone in Tim’s voice said, clear off, Evelyn.

She went back to the party, slightly flummoxed.

* * *

The twilight phase was brief but dreamlike. The sun adorned itself in blood-red and pink before drowning itself in the Pacific. Darkness fell within a few minutes. Because of the Stellar Island Hotel’s location on the eastern slope, for most of those present the sun didn’t disappear into the sea but slipped behind the volcanic peaks; only O’Keefe and the Ögis were able to enjoy its big farewell. They had left the party and driven up to the crystal dome, from where you had a view of the whole island including its inaccessible, jungle-covered western side.

‘My goodness,’ said Heidrun, staring out. ‘Water on all sides.’

‘Hardly a shattering observation, darling.’ Ögi’s voice emerged from the cloud of his cigar-smoke. He had used the opportunity to get changed, and was now wearing a steel-blue shirt with an old-fashioned matching cravat.

‘As you wish, jerk.’ Heidrun turned towards him. ‘We’re standing on a bloody great stone in the Pacific.’ She laughed. ‘Do you know what that means?’

Ögi blew a spiral galaxy into the approaching night.

‘As long as we don’t run out of Havanas, it means we’re in good hands here.’

As they talked, O’Keefe wandered aimlessly around. The terrace was now half covered by the massive glass dome to which it owed its name. Only a few tables were set for dinner, but Lynn had told him that at peak period there was room for more than three hundred people here. He looked to the east, where the platform stood brightly lit in the sea. It was a fantastic sight. Except that the straight line was absorbed by the dark of the sky.

‘Perhaps you’ll wish you were standing back on this bloody great stone,’ he said.

‘Really?’ Heidrun flashed her teeth. ‘But maybe I’ll be holding your little hand – Perry.’

O’Keefe grinned. After plunging lemming-like into the depths of non-commercial film, and choosing his roles in terms of their inappropriateness, he had been more surprised than anyone else when he was awarded an Oscar for his impersonation of Kurt Cobain. Hyperactive became the certificate of his ability. No one however could ignore the fact that the famously shy Irishman with the amber gaze, the regular features and sensual lips was already yesterday’s man, seen only in unwieldy low-budget and no-budget productions, cryptic films d’auteur and blurry Dogme dramas. Box-office poison had become a drug. Cleverly, he had avoided ogling blockbusters and gone on making the sort of things that he liked, except that all of a sudden everybody else liked them too. Azerbaijani directors could still book him for a pittance, if he liked the subject-matter. He cultivated his origins and played James Joyce. He acted out the lives of junkies and homeless people. He did so much both in front of the camera and behind it that his past blurred: born in Galway, mother a journalist, father an operatic tenor. Learned piano and guitar as a boy, acted in theatre to overcome his shyness, bit-parts in TV series and advertisements. Worked his way up from minor to major roles at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre, shone with the Black Sheep in O’Donoghue’s pub, wrote poetry and short stories. Even spent a year living with tinkers, Irish gypsies, out of a pure romantic connection with good old Éire. So convincing, finally, as a rebellious farmer’s son in the television series Mo ghrá thú, that Hollywood called.

Or so they said, and it sounded good, and was somehow true.

That shy Finn had been short-tempered as a child, and had knocked out his fellow pupils’ teeth, that he was seen as a slow learner and, unable to decide what to be, had at first done nothing at all, was rarely mentioned. Nor were his fallings-out with his parents, his immoderate alcohol consumption, the drugs. He had no memory at all of his year with the tinkers, because he had spent most of his time pissed, or high, or both. Once he had been successfully socialised in the Abbey Theatre, a German producer had had him in mind for the main role in Süskind’s classic Perfume, but while Ben Wishaw had auditioned, O’Keefe had fallen noisily asleep on top of a Dublin prostitute and hadn’t even turned up for the appointment. Not a word about losing his day job because of similar escapades and being thrown out of the TV series, followed by two more years of neglect among the travelling people, until he had finally been able to effect a reconciliation with his parents and gone into rehab.

It was only then that the myth began. From Hyperactive until that remarkable day in January 2017, when an unemployed screenwriter of German origins in Los Angeles got hold of a fifty-year-old pulp novel, that marked the start of an unparallelled literary phenomenon, an intergalactic soap opera that had never been published in America but which could claim to be the most successful sci-fi series of all time. Its hero was a space traveller called Perry Rhodan, whom O’Keefe played as cheerfully as ever, without worrying about success. He interpreted the role in such a way that perfect Perry became a hot-headed fool, who built Terrania, the capital of humanity, more or less by accident in the Gobi Desert, and stumbled out from there into the great expanses of the Milky Way.

The cinema release beat everything that had gone before. Since then O’Keefe had played the space hero in two additional films. He had taken a training course at the Orley Space Centre, and struggled against nausea on board a Boeing 727 converted to take zero-gravity flights. On that occasion he had met and liked Julian Orley, since which time they had formed a loose friendship based on their shared love of cinema.

But perhaps I’ll hold your little hand—

Why not, thought O’Keefe, but refrained from replying accordingly to avoid annoying Walo, because he strongly suspected Heidrun of loving the jovial Swiss. You didn’t have to know the two of them any better to have a sense that that was the case. It was expressed less in what they said to each other than in the way they looked at and touched each other. Better not to flirt.

For the time being.

In space everything might look very different.

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