Because the truth was, there had never been any opportunity to stop it, because Ned never gave him advance warning when he was going to do something, or asked his opinion, or listened when he did offer it. Everything with Ned was always a fait accompli. And it wasn’t the whole place bugged, back before the fire. It was a couple of bugs in a handful of suites, as far as Adam knew. It was not until long after the refurb that Ned had mentioned something about one of their members, and Adam had asked him how he could possibly know that, and Ned’s smirk had given the game away. Adam had realized then he was now filming as well as recording people, and all the suites were wired up. Maybe he should have made more of a fuss then, and threatened to walk, or call the police. But the truth was he could not imagine himself ever having done either of those things, blowing his life up like that, back in those days. And Ned knew that. And Adam knew Ned knew that.
There had been one night, at Manhattan Home, when Ned had been needling him about something or other, when Adam had said something back about how fucking creepy it was, and his brother had gestured around them, indicated with a sweep of his hand the club in which they were sitting, and asked Adam where he thought the money for this place had come from. It had taken a moment to sink in. And somehow the bigger things had got, the larger the sums involved, the bigger the names, the easier it became to persuade himself that he and Ned were on the side of the angels, that these people were paying the price for behaviour they would have otherwise got away with, finding themselves over a barrel of their own construction. That there was some sort of justice involved, in watching some of these people – these terrible fucking human beings, these terrible fucking men – beg, grovel, face for the first time ever the consequences of their actions.
Now, it seemed, Adam himself was in exactly the same position.
It was like Ned said, really, wasn’t it? We all have versions of ourselves we can bear to look at, versions we prepare for the world’s consumption, that we hope will make ourselves loved, allow us to be forgiven. Versions of our real selves that allow us to live with the things we have done. Adam did it. Ron did it. Keith. People who did the most terrible things told themselves whatever they needed to tell themselves to carry on living their lives as before.
Jackson Crane? He had fucking killed two people.
Jess
It might not have been the biggest, but of all the cabins Jess had been inside so far this weekend, the view from forty-two was by far the most beautiful, especially at this time of the morning, with a mist still on the surface of the glassy sea, a dull pink orange starting to spread across the horizon, the whole island so still you could hear the gentle lapping of the waves on the pebble beach just below the balcony. Of all the cabins it was also the most remote, the least overlooked, surrounded by a twee picket fence and at the end of its own little track, lined with red-leaved acers. It was no coincidence that of all the cabins on Island Home, it was the furthest from Jackson Crane’s.
Jess opened the fridge, confirmed that all twelve bottles of Tasmanian Rain mineral water were in place, and closed it again. She had already checked that the weighted cashmere eye mask was where it should be, that there would be a fresh set of Lululemon gear in the correct size waiting for Georgia in the wardrobe when she got back to her room – she was currently half an hour into a ninety-minute sunrise session in the yoga pavilion on the far side of the island – as well as a clean pair of Allbirds trainers in case she had scuffed the ones she was currently wearing.
What Jess was fairly confident Georgia would not spot when she came in for a shower – as she sat down in her room to the breakfast of porridge with oat milk, turmeric, vanilla paste, hazelnuts and goji berries washed down with a vegan protein powder and a mug of PG Tips she had ordered for 9 a.m. – were the various other items Jess had spent the past twenty minutes placing around her rooms. The pestle and mortar, borrowed from the kitchen shortly after Jess’s arrival, now neatly stowed on top of the bedroom wardrobe. The various empty or half-empty bottles of pills she had tucked away around the bathroom: folded into the very bottom towel in a very large pile of towels in one of the bathroom cupboards, for instance, or thumbed down into the soil of one of the balcony planters.