They searched in the driving rain, with the biting wind whipping off the water. They trekked through glades of soaked ferns. They poked around in bramble-clogged ditches. They tramped, heads down, along wet pebble beaches. They scrambled down wooded slopes, climbed up muddy banks, slipping and sliding and swearing. They searched all morning, they searched all afternoon, even as the sky grew dark they continued to search, by torchlight.
They found absolutely nothing.
Chapter Four
Friday Afternoon
Annie
‘A few more bottles of that Vermentino!’ Ned barked at the waiter, with a side glance at the empty glass in front of Jackson Crane. ‘So what do you think of the island so far, Georgia? I know it’s October, but if you squint on a sunny afternoon like this I reckon we could all be in the Med.’
Annie did not catch the reply. She was sitting at the far end of the table, next to Nikki, and Georgia Crane spoke quietly at the best of times.
‘And what do you think, Freddie?’ Ned asked.
Freddie, who had been halfway through demonstrating to Lyra Highway some kind of magic trick involving a glass and a napkin, jumped a little in his seat.
‘It sure is a pretty amazing view from up here, Ned.’
Jackson muttered something to which no one at that end of the table responded.
The view was wonderful, from fifty feet up in the air, looking out from one of the highest points on the island, nothing to impede it in any direction. You really did get a sense of its size and shape – an elongated diamond with the still part-submerged causeway snaking from its tip – how much wilder and more closely wooded it got at one end, where Ned’s cottage was, how much flatter and lower and more sheltered the other side was, the network of cycle tracks and running paths that criss-crossed the island, the relative locations of the spa and the log cabin screening rooms and various restaurants, how exactly The Manor with its formal lawns and rose garden sat proudly at the centre of things. The Mediterranean? Maybe not. But it was certainly some kind of achievement.
Perhaps most impressive of all was that almost everything on Island Home – apart from the slightly absurd neo-Palladian splendour of The Manor itself, its soaring portico and campy columns – had either been built from scratch or repurposed from corrugated sheds and tumbledown barns. This particular, inexplicably Grade-II-listed, carbuncle of a water tower had been the design team’s biggest headache, plans for what it would house shifting right up until the eleventh hour. First, it had been earmarked as a SoulCycle, then a climbing wall, then a spa suite complete with high-rise hot tub. They eventually settled on an industrial-chic terrace restaurant, with a wood-fired oven, accessed by a lift that ran through the tower’s core.
And then Ned had announced he wanted the whole thing to rotate, which was the absolute final straw for the fourth of the seven architects to have been involved in the project. It was ridiculous, he had told them. Impossible. Somehow, though, with a lot of head-scratching and even more money （not to mention a new architect）， Ned got his way.
As the restaurant started to slowly turn, there was a soft coo from the diners around the room, little Lyra jumping up and down, some measured clapping, one whoop. The sea breeze was scented with the oak burning in the oven and the garlic from platters piled high with lobsters and langoustines. Jackson Crane, ignoring the food and already one more glass of wine down, for a moment seemed so disconcerted by the room having started to gently spin that he reached out to steady himself with both hands on the reclaimed driftwood table in front of him.
Annie knew that feeling. She was quite tempted to get a few stiff drinks inside her too. She fiddled with the fluorescent gems on her kaftan’s neckline, wishing that these launch events had not become her own personal Met Gala, everyone asking for months in advance what she would be wearing, reminiscing about outfits past. If only she could get away with the chic navy roll-neck dress Nikki, as usual, was looking elfin and effortless in.