Pleasure Island (30 page)

M
artin McKenzie felt
a strange sense of relief as the private jet made a smooth take-off from the farthest – and most sheltered – northerly point of Pleasure Island in a calculated bid to ensure his guests would not detect his departure. He glanced at his Cartier watch. It was 11.57pm. The pre-recorded footage he had made would appear on the video screen at any moment now and his prestigious players were about to unwittingly enact the final curtain call in his master plan. With a bottle of aged malt beside him and a celebratory Cohiba already lit, he flipped the lid of his laptop and booted it up in anticipation.

This was the moment he had been waiting for – the pinnacle of the entire exercise, the crescendo – though the build-up had been somewhat dampened by a terrible hallucination he'd had the previous evening that was still lingering fresh in his mind. Elaine; she had appeared at his bedside during the night, her skin dripping with water, seaweed matted in her hair, her prefrontal cortex missing, blood and tissue smattered on her conservative swimsuit. Her fingernails were black, like she'd had been clawing at debris, her facial expression fixed in the one of despair she'd had as he'd brought the cloche down onto her skull.

‘Why, Marty?' She had shuffled towards him in small, juddery, unnatural steps, her familiar voice gravelly as though her lungs were filled with water. ‘Why? Why did you do it?'

‘Elaine …?' Perspiring profusely, he'd rubbed his eyes, the apparition almost rendering him blind with terror. ‘No … no … get away from me … Noooo!'

He had pulled the expensive, cotton sheets over his head and screamed. He had been unable to close his eyes again for the rest of the night.

McKenzie swallowed a few fingers of Scotch and decided to check his phone messages. He needed to get a grip; people had been trying to reach him. Once he was back in the UK it would be business as usual, plus he would have to declare his wife missing, and then there would be press to deal with, policemen to talk to, and an international search to embark upon. He would be forced to draw on his acting skills to convey a convincing role of the concerned husband. Damn that woman; even in death she would cause him consternation and bother. McKenzie located his phone and switched it on. It beeped immediately in quick succession and he cursed. The 67 previous missed calls had now escalated to 215. There were 16 new voice messages. This was his private number, all business calls were usually filtered through one of his many overworked PAs. Whoever was trying to reach him must've been desperate.

Knocking back the remainder of his Scotch, he filtered through them. The majority were from his legal representatives, Larry Goldenburg & Co. What did
they
want? Larry was a good friend but the kind you only called upon in an emergency. McKenzie felt the lightest flutter of concern settle on top of his Scotch as it slid into his guts. The messages went back a few days. He'd ignored them of course because deep down McKenzie knew he wasn't going to like what he was about to hear.

‘Martin, yes, hi, it's Larry Goldenburg.' The man's nasal, Jewish tones irritated his ear almost instantly. ‘Um, we got a bit of a situation going on here and I need to speak with you urgently. Can you call as soon as you pick up this message? Thank you.'

McKenzie puzzlement slipped seamlessly into concern. Like himself, Larry rarely, if ever, contacted his clients direct, not as a first point of call, anyhow. This would have to have been a matter of extreme importance. The remaining messages simply compounded that something was indeed very wrong:

‘McKenzie, yeah, um it's Larry again. Listen, I have to speak with you as soon as possible. Please, the moment you get this message, call me'; ‘Martin, it's Goldenburg again. Look, some serious shit has hit the fan. I really don't want to have to do this in a message. Call me.
Now
. Please …'; ‘McKenzie, Goddamn it, man, call me! You're in it up to your neck, and I need your instructions. My fucking phone is ringing off the hook …
where are you
?'

McKenzie had begun to shake now as he listened to the messages one after the other. There was a different caller.

‘Yeah, um, Mr McKenzie –' the voice was as urgent as it was unfamiliar ‘– this is John Kirkbride from the
Voice
. I need to speak to you in connection with some footage we've reason to believe took place on an island that you own. It's regarding Mia Manhattan and Joshua Jones, Angelika and Rupert Deyton, and Nate and Billie-Jo Simmons. We'd like to get some facts straight before we go ahead and run with anything, and were hoping to ask you a few questions if possible. We've tried your reps but no one's getting back to us. I hope you don't mind my calling you directly. My private line is 0207 …'

Hyperventilating, McKenzie scrolled through the myriad messages from his press team.

‘Please call the office. It's URGENT!' There were at least 30 more.

Even Bailey had given him the heads-up. ‘Your number's up, McKenzie. You're
weally, weally
in the shit now. We all are.'

Panic gripped him like a hand around the throat. Why the fuck would a filthy muck-peddler like Kirkbride want to speak to him about Pleasure Island? No one knew where it was. The guests had had no contact with the outside world since their arrival. Even if the likes of Bailey had sung to the press, which was unlikely given the fact he'd settled the man's exorbitant tax bill, all he knew was that Mia had been invited to a private holiday destination. No one but he and Elaine and the Super Eight knew the identity of the other players. There was little if any chance of one of the club members having gone public; to do so would mean exposing their own identities and deviances, and unless the dead had somehow learned to speak from the grave …

So how did Kirkbride know? Unless, of course …

McKenzie, massaging his heart with his hand in a bid to stop it thudding, logged into his computer using his private access code and watched as the images of the island came into view as usual, clicking on his internal message system which allowed him to speak solely with the Super Eight club members.

‘Super8#4 is no longer active … Super8#2 has left the conversation …'

He looked at the bottom of the screen in a bid to check who might be online, and could shed some light on just what the hell had happened here. He saw that the current online users had rapidly escalated since he had last checked … to an astonishing 1,678,356.

But that just couldn't be right; his technical people had given him their complete reassurance that it must just be a glitch, a mistake, a technical error. He clicked on his private email, ostensibly to contact that walking-dead man who had built the forum and who had claimed it to be ‘unhackable'. There was a message from him already waiting.

‘I need to speak to you with the utmost urgency, sir,' it read. ‘I'm afraid something seems to have gone horribly wrong.'

There was another message underneath it. One from Super 8#4, the female deviant who had pleasured him so willingly in his office. It simply read: ‘You're fucked.'

McKenzie dropped the laptop, and the bottle of Scotch went down with it.

‘Fucking shit!'

Alerted to the din, Aki came running through the red, velvet curtain.

‘Is everything OK, Mr McKenzie?' she nervously enquired, scrabbling to clean up the mess.

‘A newspaper,' he said, his lips were suddenly dry as sandpaper and he struggled with the words. ‘Bring me a newspaper … and another bottle of Scotch.'

Aki nodded profusely. She had never seen Martin McKenzie in anything other than a state of complete control and restraint and she hurried off, frantically rushing back with a pile of newspapers
and a fresh bottle of Macallan single malt.

Snatching the papers from her grasp so violently that she gasped in shock, McKenzie stared at the front page as horror seeped into every crevice of his body to the point where he thought he might have a seizure.

‘Oh, fuck …' he whispered as he read the headline. ‘
Fuck
…'

Aki hovered next to him, a look of genuine fear on her small, flat face.

‘Can I … can I get you anything else, sir?' she squeaked through her terror.

‘Yes.' McKenzie said. ‘Bring me my gun.'

‘
F
irstly
, I must apologise for not being there in person.' McKenzie cut a sharp image on-screen with his slicked-back hair and trademark dark suit, reminiscent of a fading Hollywood actor. ‘But I'm sure you can appreciate, or certainly will after this speech, why I felt perhaps it prudent not to be.'

‘He's had a facelift,' Mia remarked dryly.

Angelika was still as a statue, the sound of her heartbeat ringing in her ears, her hand still holding her stinging face.

‘Is this a live recording?' Rupert blinked at the screen. ‘Because if it is –'

‘Shhh!' Mia snapped. ‘Let's just listen to what the bastard has to say, shall we?'

Nate slipped his fingers into Angelika's and she gripped them tightly. No one noticed; they were too preoccupied.

‘We have to tell them now,' she said quietly, but the truth was she wanted to hear what McKenzie had to say as much as the rest of them did.

‘I suppose you're all wondering why I invited you here to Pleasure Island in the first place.' McKenzie cleared his throat loudly, like a politician addressing his crowd. ‘Well, I am about to explain, but before that I would like to thank you all personally for providing myself and my fellow club members or, as I prefer to call them, “the Super Eight” with such excellent footage over the duration of these past two weeks, it's been –' he paused, thoughtfully ‘– riveting to observe.'

‘What's he talking about?' Billie-Jo's faced crumpled. ‘Observe? Observe what?'

‘Us, you stupid girl,' Rupert said, without taking his eyes from the screen.

‘Some of you, that is to say the smarter amongst you, have rightly already suspected that you were being watched. Of course, the question you are no doubt asking yourselves right this very second is why exactly?'

Billie-Jo swallowed back nausea. This was a joke, right? A sick joke.

McKenzie paused again, though his cool composure remained intact.

‘Some time ago I had an idea for a new reality game show, one in which the contestants had no idea they were being observed. The premise of the initial concept was to place a group of people onto an island and … how can I put it?' He stroked his chin. ‘Put them in various situations in a bid to see how they would react. Place temptation in their way, obstacles for them to overcome, secrets to divulge … that sort of thing … thus affording the viewer a psychological insight into their individual personalities. A social experiment, if you will.'

‘Oh my fucking God.' Billie-Jo exchanged nervous looks with JJ.

‘The plane crash,' McKenzie continued, ‘was pre-designed to put you on the back foot. We wanted to test your metal, myself and my fellow viewers, see what you were made of, which of you would sink and which would swim, metaphorically speaking, of course.'

‘
Fellow
viewers?' Rupert's hands were shaking violently. ‘
Super Eight
?' He rubbed his temples. This wasn't really happening. It was all a horrific nightmare, wasn't it?
Had McKenzie witnessed his tryst with Raj
?

‘As it was, all of you somewhat surprised us with your individual capabilities and survival instincts. Though perhaps now would be a good time to express my apologies to young Joshua for the business with his arm. That particular incident wasn't supposed to happen, but the best-laid plans and all of that. Anyway –' he smiled jovially ‘– the champagne was laced with a strong sedative which allowed the operation to run smoothly, or as smoothly as possible anyhow. And, shall I say, no real
arm
was done.' He laughed then, a horrible sound that showcased him as the psychotic maniac he really was.

‘Of course, my wife Elaine was fully briefed and privy to all plans and the staff, the pilot and the flight attendant on my payroll, and the men and women who have helped make this experience a truly luxurious one, are all trained actors who, while aware of the cameras, were not aware of
your
lack of awareness of them, so please, don't blame them should any of you feel the need to vent any frustration.'

‘I need another drink,' Mia said to no one in particular.

‘Frustration
? Is he for real? Angelika could barely believe what she was hearing.

‘And so,' McKenzie continued, ‘to the bit you've all been waiting for. Why us?' He stood then, clearly revelling in being the centre of attention, albeit by proxy. ‘This was no random selection process. There really was a method to the madness.'

He paused for a moment, took a sip of his Scotch before carefully placing it down on the desk and addressing the camera once more. ‘Revenge –' he said the word as though he were recording a TV commercial and explaining to the viewer why they should buy his product ‘– is of course a dish best served cold. But I feel it one of the most underrated of the sins, if one can call it such a thing. Let me elaborate. Many years ago, decades in fact, I discovered a young singer –'

Mia froze.

‘Ahhh, the beautiful Mia, or should I say June? I do hope you're listening, I want you to savour every word of this.'

‘
June
?' Billie-Jo stifled a snigger.

‘June truly was the find of my career: young, beautiful, supremely talented, I'm sure she won't mind me saying.'

Mia gulped back her drink, swallowing down nausea with it.

‘I made her an overnight sensation, a household name. I gave her everything she was, and still is to some extent today. June had – has, in fact – me to thank for the life she's been privileged enough to experience: for the glittering career; the riches and the adoration and success; the cars and the homes and the places she has travelled. None of this would have been possible without me.'

‘He's absolutely insane, a despot, completely certifiable … He's going to prison, you know that, don't you?'

‘Shut up, Rupert!' Mia snapped. ‘I need to hear this. We all do.'

‘Only instead of her loyalty, instead of the gratitude due to me in abundance, dear June decided there was something better out there for her and so she dismissed me … betrayed me by taking up with a rival label – an unforgivable act of treachery that I am sure you can all comprehend.
I
made Mia Manhattan the person she is today. It was
I
who bankrolled her first-ever world tour.
I
who convinced some of the world's greatest artists to collaborate with her.
I
who changed her name, took her from a plain, frumpy nobody and turned her into a mega star
and
it was
I
who fixed it all for her when got herself pregnant with a son, whom incidentally she went on to give up for adoption. But I digress slightly, for now at least.'

Mia swallowed. She felt lightheaded with rage.
That bastard
, how could he? Given up for adoption? Forced into it by that evil heartless cunt more like! Mia had been just nineteen years old when she discovered she was carrying a child, news made all the more bittersweet by the fact that on the very same day she had also scored her first UK number one with ‘Dreams Like These'. Terrified, she had concealed the truth for six weeks before finally plucking up the courage to break the news to her formidable mentor.

‘Get rid of it,' he'd instructed her coldly. ‘You have that child and you can kiss goodbye any hopes of a glittering career, Mia, because it won't happen, you hear me.' She had begun to cry then.

McKenzie's shocking brutality had blindsided her; her tears replaced by silent sobs. How could he be so cold, so cruel? She had thought that he loved her. How stupid she had been.

‘I'll arrange it all, pay for a private doctor, make sure you're looked after. You'll be back at work within the week.'

Only it wasn't as simple as that. Mia had lied to him about how far gone she was and had left it too late; and had felt the child kicking inside her belly, the sensation of arms and legs connecting with her body, causing a deep bond within her. She was attached to the child already, the desire to see the pregnancy through as strong as her ambition.

‘I'm having this baby; I'm already twenty-five-weeks gone, maybe more.' She didn't tell him that the child was his. How could she now? He didn't want her, didn't love her.

McKenzie had looked at her with such disgust that she'd felt ashamed.

‘You fucking foolish girl.' He'd rubbed his temples in angst, struggling to think. ‘ I can keep you in the studio away from the limelight, build up a bit of mystique until the child's born, but once you expel that thing you put it up for adoption and it's back to business.'

On the twenty-first day of September 1981, two weeks ahead of her due date, Mia Manhattan had given birth to a tiny baby boy. The sound of his cry as he'd entered the world for the first time haunted her like a recording to this day. Those lungs! He was her son all right! She had made to put him to her breast instinctively, an overwhelming rush of endorphins contaminating her with such intense feelings of love that she never wanted to let him go. She wanted to protect him, comfort him, feel the warmth and newness of his skin against her own, her boy, her son. And in that moment Mia had understood everything clearly; her own parents, her own mortality and what real, unconditional love felt like.

‘Kit,' she'd said the name softly to him, her fingers lightly stroking the softest downy fuzz on his warm bloodstained head. It had been her grandfather's middle name and she had always loved it, just as she'd loved him, a gentle, kind man who had always adored his ‘little singing princess'.

‘Welcome to the world, Kit.' She'd kissed his little head, breathed him in as he'd snuffled and snorted around for her breast. And that's when they had come for him; two stony-faced women in suits, their stiff fingers brutally prizing him from her loving arms.

The weeks that followed post-partum had seen Mia sink into the darkest abyss of deep depression, plagued by images and dreams, the scent of her newborn son omnipresent in her nostrils. Even sleep offered little solace; she would hear his birth cry inside her mind, the trilling of his virginal lungs as they had met with air for the first time. She would awake in the night and search for him thinking she could hear him, smell him, aching for his tiny body against her own. She had never experienced pain like it – emotional pain so intense it had manifested into the physical, rendering her bed-ridden and paralysed. And the tears, oh, the crying … she'd sobbed until her skin was tender and raw to the touch, her diaphragm on the point of collapse.

It had been thirty-three years since Mia had given up her son. Although time had seen her with little choice than to come to terms with it, it had not eased the pain she felt whenever she thought of that grey abysmal day in September, a day that by rights should've been one of the happiest a woman could experience. She'd often contemplated searching for him; the need to know he was alive and safe, happy and looked after had never waned. She'd endlessly daydreamed about him: how he might've looked as a toddler; did he have her eyes, her smile, her determination? Was he married with children himself? She had driven herself half-mad with thoughts of ‘what if'. And now, suddenly, there was a strange, new thought running through her mind. What if her adoptive son was closer then she thought...?