‘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 th
e 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. Ev
eryone 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.
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