The House on Sunset Lake (18 page)

‘We’d better get comfortable then,’ he said as colour images flickered on to the screen. He instantly recognised their afternoon on the beach, the s’mores and the bonfire and the setting sun. ‘Bloody hell, I was slim.’

‘We all were. I didn’t have to do spinning class three times a week to look like that.’

‘Your friend with the diamanté glasses. I liked her. What was she called?’

‘Jeanne.’ She smiled wistfully.

‘Do you keep in touch?’

‘We lost contact over the years.’

‘Then get back in touch. There’s no excuses these days with social media.’

‘I can’t contact someone out of the blue.’

‘You found me on the internet.’

‘That was different. That was professional.’

Jim registered a disappointed sinking feeling but he didn’t want to show it.

‘It’s weird, I remember that afternoon as if it was yesterday. It’s a bit like how I can remember every song lyric from every record I bought in the eighties, but ask me what I had for lunch today and I couldn’t tell you.’

‘Maybe it’s because everything was so new and exciting and hopeful when we were young. It’s like printing memories with better ink,’ she smiled.

‘It’s such a shame you never did anything with this, Jen,’ said Jim after a few minutes. ‘It’s still not too late, you know.’

‘Don’t be silly. Who’s going to be interested in a housewife’s old home video?’

‘It’s a social snapshot of Generation X at the height of their disillusionment,’ he replied as she gave him a playful tap on the shoulder.

‘I know what you should do with these tapes,’ he said, an idea slowly percolating.

Jennifer frowned anxiously. ‘What?’

‘You should get in touch with all these people and interview them again. This footage is great, but as it is, it’s all conjecture. People don’t want to just hear that Johnny Boy wants to be an astronaut or a stockbroker. They want to see if he makes it.’

‘Nice try, but I’m not sure there’s a place for TV like this any more. Not when people have got a heap of nostalgia on their own Facebook page.’

‘Facebook isn’t about nostalgia,’ said Jim ruefully. ‘It’s just people boasting about the best one per cent of their lives. Your documentary is about hopes, dreams, disappointments. Come on, Jen. Think about it. All the kids in this film were twenty, twenty-one when you filmed it. Now you’re revisiting them twenty-one years later. And hey, look, you can even interview my dad,’ he said as Bryn Johnson flickered into the picture, pompous, expansive, as if he were hosting his own late-night arts programme, enjoying his moment on camera. ‘He’s just landed a visiting professorship at Columbia. Says he wants to rent a place on Washington Square. I told him it’s not like it was during the sixties out there, but he wouldn’t listen; he thinks it’ll be all Breton tops and Ban the Bomb.’

‘It’s easy to keep living in the past, though, isn’t it?’ said Jennifer, switching off the camcorder. ‘Nicer to remember yourself when everything was an opportunity rather than a disappointment. When you had no responsibilities. Time is a great airbrush; you can edit out all the bad bits.’

‘Do you ever think about us?’ he asked, sensing his own moment for reminiscing. It was a question he’d been wanting to ask all night.

‘I need a drink,’ she said, standing up.

He looked at her and noticed that, despite the coffee, her eyes were not quite focused. How long had she been at Domina before he’d arrived? he wondered, remembering what Connor had said in Baruda.

‘Wait,’ he said, stopping her from leaving. ‘That summer. Do you ever think about it?’

‘Sometimes. A lot lately,’ she said quietly. She looked at him hopefully, seeking reassurance that she had not been having these thoughts alone.

‘So do I,’ nodded Jim in solidarity. ‘I think about what would have happened if you’d picked me and not Connor. How our lives might have turned out differently.’

‘It wasn’t a case of picking one over the other,’ she said, sitting back down.

‘You did,’ said Jim, desperate to make his thoughts heard. ‘You told me to go back to England. You said that if I cared about you, I should get on the plane and not contact you again. And then you moved to New York with Connor.’

‘I was grieving,’ she said, not looking at him.

‘Not when you wrote me the letter.’

She didn’t say anything.

Memories flooded back in Technicolor. He’d also written to her once he’d returned to England, but she hadn’t replied. He didn’t blame her.

‘I almost didn’t get on the plane that day. And looking back, I shouldn’t have done. I should have fought for you. I should have been there for you. I never stop asking myself the question: what would have happened if I’d gone back?’

‘I’d have made the same choice,’ said Jennifer evenly. ‘Staying with Connor, moving to New York, I knew that was what my mother would have wanted. I suppose it was my way of saying sorry.’

‘But she was dead.’

‘That’s right. And if it wasn’t for me, she might still be alive. I hated myself because of what happened that night,’ she said quietly. ‘I also knew that if I had you in my life, if I was constantly reminded of why I was fighting with my mother that night on the stairs, I wouldn’t just keep on hating myself, I’d end up hating you too. And I never wanted that.’

She puffed out her cheeks and didn’t look at him.

‘Over the years I’ve made my own sort of peace with what happened. As for me and you, we had a perfect summer, a perfect love affair frozen in time. Because if you hadn’t left Savannah, if we had stayed together, we’d have ended up like all those couples in Domina who don’t have anything to say to each other except their thoughts about the tasting menu. As it is, we were and always will be incredible.’

‘Is that what you honestly think? Has life really made you that cynical?’ he said passionately. ‘We were perfect for each other.’

‘I’m married, Jim,’ she said, the tone of her voice hardening. ‘Connor loves me. He’s always been so good to me.’

‘And I never had the chance,’ Jim replied with passion.

He paused before he proceeded.

‘I know about the pregnancy,’ he said finally. He knew he might never get another chance to say everything he wanted to say to her, but he hadn’t been able to forget what Connor had revealed in Baruda. ‘Connor told me. He told me about the abortion.’

‘He never should have done that,’ she said, her voice hardening as a tear slipped down her cheek.

Jim reached over to touch her hand, but as she flinched away, Jim felt a wave of sorrow that made him lose his breath. A sorrow for what was, what they had lost and what never could be.

‘You’d better go,’ Jennifer said. ‘My husband will be back soon.’

‘Jen, please. We’ve waited twenty years to talk about this.’

‘Just go,’ she repeated, her voice getting even more steely.

Jim nodded grimly at the irony of it, at the painful reality of history repeating itself, and left the house without another word.

Chapter Twenty-Four

‘So do you think you can pull it of
f
?’ Jim looked at Nina Scott, one of New York’s top travel industry publicists as she sat in the boardroom outlining her plans for the Casa D’Or launch in November.

‘I can pull off the best launch party of the millennium if you can promise me the place is going to be finished in time. I’ve been burned too many times by hoteliers wanting the big splash but having to settle for a soft launch because the swimming pool hasn’t been tiled.’

‘It will be finished,’ said Jim with determination. ‘Everything is on schedule. All I need is for you to get me lots of big celebrity names and acres of lovely media coverage. If you do, there’s a presidential suite at any of the Omari hotels with your name on it for a night.’

‘Well, I’ve put out some feelers and people are already biting my hand off for an invite. I thought it might be a question of who we can get down to Savannah, but I think it’s going to be how many people we have to let down.’

‘Seems Simon was right about the number of people with Scarlett O’Hara fantasies,’ said Jim, flicking through the media pack.

‘Speaking of feisty belles,’ added Nina, ‘an agent from Elan Models called me up yesterday. Seems they’ve got wind of the party and Celine Wood, a very old friend of yours apparently, wants to know if she can be on the guest list. She said to call her.’

‘Did she now?’ said Jim, smiling as he sipped his coffee.

‘An old friend, hey?’

‘Not like that.’

‘I wondered. I don’t doubt how popular you are with the ladies, although I read in
People
magazine the other day that she’s going out with Richie Hawkins, the rock star, now. So long as you don’t have any
emotional
objections, I can put him down as her plus one.’

‘Mr Johnson, I have your ten o’clock call holding,’ said Jim’s executive assistant, popping her head around the door.

‘Put him through to my office in a moment,’ replied Jim, finishing off his coffee.

He wound up his meeting with Nina and went back to his office. He had always wondered what it would be like to be the boss, and had figured it would be an easy life of long lunches and hand-shaking deals. In reality he sometimes felt like a juggler, keeping all these balls in the air, switching lanes from one project to another.

Not only was he overseeing the Casa D’Or launch, he was still keeping his eye on the rest of the Omari chain, not to mention his new pet project that had been jump-started to life. The RedReef resort acquisition had been rushed through, and with it had come dozens of meetings for creating the Omari diffusion brand. They’d come up with the name Santai for the spin-off, a Far Eastern word meaning ‘relax’, which he hoped would also become the byword for the new chain. He was still mulling over the idea of an electronics ban for guests from the moment they checked in.

He sat down at his desk and put some headphones on; at least modern technology had made things easier for his juggling act, he reminded himself as he prepared himself for his Skype call.

‘Gregor, how are you?’ he asked as a flickering image appeared on his monitor.

Gregor Bentley was the new RedReef general manager, transferred just a couple of weeks earlier from the Omari resort in Phuket. In Jim’s mind he had been the perfect recruit for their new Caribbean Santai property, having a CV that included many years’ service at one of the top Barbados hotels.

The RedReef was currently closed for both the hurricane season and refurbishment, but Gregor and his team had been hard at work getting the property ready for the December soft launch, and had been keeping Jim up to date with improvements in twice-weekly calls.

Gregor didn’t respond immediately to Jim’s casual greeting, and Jim instantly detected that something was wrong.

‘What is it?’ he asked quickly as his assistant brought him another cup of coffee.

‘There was a problem last night,’ replied Gregor, his brown face creasing with concern.

Jim’s mind went into overdrive wondering what it might be.

‘Daniel Verrander is in hospital,’ continued his colleague. Daniel was Gregor’s number two, who had also just started at RedReef.

Jim had faith in the hotel’s new executive team. Before his official appointment as RedReef’s general manager, Gregor had alluded to certain difficulties about working in the Caribbean and was keen to get his own team on board. Jim had agreed; he’d been in the business long enough to know how a corrupt management could fleece profits, and it had been one explanation for why RedReef had not previously been a flourishing business.

‘Hospital? Why?’ he asked anxiously.

‘He was jumped leaving the hotel last night. He’s fine. He will be. He has cracked ribs, a broken arm, bruising.’

‘Do we know who did it?’ asked Jim with rising panic. A violent attack at RedReef was not good news, least of all for poor Daniel Verrander. He pictured the hotel’s number two, a strapping, no-nonsense man. ‘You don’t grow up in Kingston, Jamaica without being able to look after yourself,’ Daniel had told Jim on his most recent visit to RedReef. It must have taken a group of assailants to inflict that sort of injury, thought Jim with concern.

‘We’re not certain, but we have an idea,’ said Gregor cautiously.

He paused a moment before he continued.

‘It looks like RedReef has been in the pocket of a local crime mob for a long time,’ he explained soberly.

‘Protection money?’ asked Jim, feeling the sunshine drain from his day.

‘I think they’ve taken at least a million dollars from the hotel in the last year alone.’

‘Shit. No wonder it’s not making any money.’

‘Daniel was on to it. He’s had experience of this sort of thing before. In fact he had already started weeding out members of staff he thought were involved.’

‘
Staff
were involved?’ said Jim, almost spilling his coffee.

‘Not directly, but it looks like some people were reporting hotel earnings to the mob boss so he knew how much they could extort. Daniel finished his shift last night and left the hotel,’ he continued. ‘At some point on his way home he was jumped by a gang. He was found by a tourist in a pretty bad way. We had him airlifted to the hospital in Provo last night. I didn’t want to contact you until we knew more.’

‘But he’s OK?’ said Jim, wanting assurances.

‘He’s shaken up pretty badly, which I think was the idea. It was a warning for sure.’

Jim took a sip of his coffee to help him think.

‘Who are this crime gang? Do we know?’

‘It’s headed up by someone called Marshall Roberts. Nasty piece of work. Lives on Baruda.’

‘And no one has had any contact with him?’

‘Not sure Daniel had the chance, no.’

‘Fuck,’ muttered Jim under his breath.

‘What do you want us to do, Jim? Carry on paying?’

‘No,’ he replied passionately. ‘The hotel will never be owned by us, not really, if we don’t face them down.’

‘And who’s going to do that?’

Jim could tell that Gregor was rattled.

‘I will,’ he said without even thinking about it.

‘So you’re going to come over?’ asked Gregor with a note of relief.

‘Yes,’ he said grimly. ‘Though first I need to go and speak to someone. Find out what he knows.’

‘Who?’ replied his Caribbean colleague.

‘The man who stitched us up over this bloody acquisition,’ said Jim, not even caring that he was talking out of turn. ‘The man who sold us RedReef. Connor Gilbert.’

I’m going to strangle him, then I’m going to sue him – in that order, thought Jim, pushing the car faster now he was turning away from the Montauk Highway and on to the tangle of exclusive roads.

He couldn’t remember being so angry in a long time. He was angry with Connor Gilbert – furious – but most of all he was angry with himself. Of course he’d listened to Simon’s warnings not to be sentimental about the RedReef deal, but he hadn’t really paid attention and had pushed the deal through without the right due diligence. Yes, they’d examined the profit-and-loss account and researched the potential of the resort comparative to other hotels in the area, but they hadn’t done their homework where it counted. Hadn’t spoken to enough people on the ground, hadn’t listened to the warning bells: the mutterings among the staff about problems with supply chains; hell, even the boy on the beach who’d talked about taxes.

Jim hadn’t got to where he was in the company without being hard-headed, but he’d let his feelings for Jennifer and his desire to help her cloud his judgement, and now he was paying the price. RedReef would never be profitable while it was still in the clutches of a mob gang. And if RedReef failed, it might take his career prospects with it. He’d worked too hard, sacrificed too much – any life outside the office, relationship, friends, hobbies – to have it all fall down now.

But even though he knew he was culpable for the whole mess, Jim couldn’t help but feel that he had been royally stitched up by Connor Gilbert. Connor was no fool. He’d have known what was going on, why the hotel was running at a loss, and had used the oldest psychological business game in the book, pretending that RedReef was the one asset he wanted to keep hold of, that he was getting rid of it because he absolutely had to.

Once Jim had been tipped off by Gregor about what was going on, he’d done some investigations of his own, and discovered that local ‘businessman’ Marshall Roberts controlled everything in Baruda, and demanded a vast protection fee to allow anything in or out of the complex. Not so much as a bag of ice cubes would reach RedReef until they coughed up the cash.

Baruda was governed by a local council, but the mayor was unable or unwilling to lift a finger against Roberts, and without the help of the authorities, the situation would not change for RedReef or the handful of other similar businesses on the island until Roberts was brought down.

Hurtling down the beach road, Jim rolled down the window of the car he had rented to get to the Hamptons, in an attempt to let the warm breeze calm him down. The mood he was in, he was half minded to commit a crime of his own – the premeditated murder of Connor Gilbert. He’d spent all morning after his conversation with Gregor Bentley trying to track the bastard down. His assistant claimed he was in meetings all day, but any requests for him to call Jim back had gone unanswered. In the end, Jim had called Jennifer. It had been an awkward conversation – the last time they had spoken was the evening at her house – but he had kept it polite, the tension between them had disappeared and she had eventually confirmed that Connor had gone to the Hamptons to meet a potential client, and would be back the following day.

Jim didn’t really know why he’d decided to drive out there to confront Connor. He guessed that he just wanted to do something to start resolving the mess. Remembering something Connor had said to him at the Memorial Day weekend – ‘sometimes I just like to play hookey and come paddleboarding’ – Jim had visions of him on top of his board, the carefree entrepreneur enjoying the fruits of his unscrupulous business, and wanted to knock him into the sea.

A business lunch he could not put off, and collecting the hire car, meant that it was late afternoon by the time he reached Beach Lane. The sun was beginning to dip in the sky, but it was still hot. Jim had no idea where Connor was meeting his business associate, but he figured that if he was returning to the city the next day, he would be staying the night at the beach house.

He pulled up outside the enormous gates that fronted the house and pressed the intercom. There was no response, but he recognised Connor’s Ferrari sitting in the drive. He tried Connor’s mobile again, but still there was nothing.

Cursing under his breath, he looked around for a place to park. His hire car didn’t have the requisite permits to stop near the beach, but he was going to have to take his chances with the police. He hadn’t driven all this way to turn back now.

He parked the car in the shadow of a sand dune and walked the fifty yards to the entrance to the beach. He kicked off his shoes and socks and stalked across the hot sand, his vision fixed towards the sea, looking for a paddleboarder, but there was no one in the water except a couple of teenagers playing by the shore.

He turned round and looked at the proud line of beach houses that lined the edge of the sand.

‘Sod it,’ he muttered, walking towards the picket fence that separated the grounds of the Wyatt-Gilbert house from the beach. Even from this distance he could see that the glass doors were open, which meant that someone was at home. If Connor wasn’t going to let him in through the front door, he was going to have to go to Plan B.

As he stalked towards the house, the thought did occur to him that he was more likely to be arrested for trespassing than being able to resolve the RedReef mess. Part of him wondered if he should just call Simon and come clean about what was going on. Simon was one of the wealthiest men in the world. Money meant power, power meant influence; perhaps he could exert some pressure on the mayor to shut Marshall Roberts’ operation down. A promise to fund an international airport on Baruda would certainly do it.

But deep down Jim knew that he had to sort this mess out on his own. Besides which, if Simon got to hear about the situation, Jim was more likely to get fired than bag a promotion, which was what had brought him to New York in the first place.

Who are you kidding? he told himself. He’d come to New York to be closer to Jennifer. The one woman he had loved unceasingly for twenty years.

What had he thought would happen once he got here? That Jennifer would fall madly back in love with him – though he doubted she’d had any genuine feelings for him in the first place – that she would divorce Connor and fall into Jim’s arms? No. Jim had been living in New York for six months now – had this woman shown the slightest interest in him? Had she given him any sign that she was ready to be swept off her feet by some ex-lover? No, she hadn’t. In fact she had set Jim up with one of her friends, and had dispatched him from their one intimate night out with the words, ‘My husband will be home soon’.