The Islanders

by S. V. Leonard

‘Yeah, how do I explain this?’ He scratches his head and looks, if anything, a bit awkward. ‘Now, I don’t like this part of the show but LoveWrecked is good TV. Right?’

  ‘Right,’ I confirm.

  ‘But it’s good TV because of the drama, the scandal, the secrets. Nobody’s perfect, we all have pasts. Well, the producers use that information to create conflict between you all. Do you know who Sophia Dance is?’

  ‘Aside from the assistant producer, you mean?’

  ‘Yeah. Sophia Dance is relatively well known in the social media world. She fancies herself as the UK’s answer to Gossip Girl. She has thousands of followers and each week she spills the tea, as they say.’

  I roll my eyes; the Internet and world of social media never cease to amaze me, the way people can have careers, friendships, relationships, almost complete lives online and yet sitting in front of a computer they look no different to anyone else.

  ‘So what is she doing on LoveWrecked?’ I ask. ‘If the girl has thousands of followers on social media, what need does she have of a reality TV show?’

  ‘She told me she wanted to get serious. Don’t get me wrong, her online presence is huge, so it can’t be for the money. The prestige perhaps? I did think it was strange that she made the move very quickly. But then like I said, she is a secret-spiller and producers of reality TV love secrets.’

  I get to my feet and pad towards the wall of suspects, stopping in front of Sophia Dance’s name written in my messy handwriting. Black ink on white paper; if only the truth was as black and white as this sticker. I stare at her name, pausing for a moment to take in what Daniel has just said. Sophia Dance arrived on LoveWrecked quickly and unexpectedly and she is well practised at airing people’s dirty laundry. The speed of her arrival on the show is strange and her proclivity to expose people’s secrets doesn’t exactly lump her in with the great and the good but does that make her the perfect candidate to play the role of Judge?

  There are certainly things that arouse my suspicion but equally there are some unanswered questions. If Sophia is involved and working with the Judge, why go missing? Surely all it does is implicate her. If she’s a social media star, then she must be recognisable at least to some people, meaning there would be no easy way she could escape this. She’d be hunted down by the authorities wherever she went. Hounded by the public who, even if they didn’t turn her into the police, would want a picture with her or something ridiculous like that. No, something about this doesn’t smell right.

  ‘Fine,’ I say, turning around to face him, my back to wall. ‘So, what about her running Jack?’

  Daniel crosses one leg over the other and lifts his head towards the white-washed ceiling. Whether he’s remembering or deciding how much to tell me, I’m not sure. ‘Last night,’ he says, turning his chocolate-brown eyes to me, ‘off-camera, I saw Sophia whispering to Jack on numerous occasions. And after their chats, Sophia would signal to me and I’d follow Jack to whoever he went to speak to. The drama ensued.’

  ‘And what did Jack say? What secrets had he been told?’

  Daniel’s brow furrows. ‘Telling Mo he recognised him was one and I’m sure Sophia told Mo to call Jack a creep. But that’s all I really remember; I sort of stop listening after a while. I just film and Sophia and Rosalind direct me. Oh, I do remember that Valentina slapped Jack, though. It was pretty heated.’

  ‘She slapped him?’ I ask, surprised. From what I know of Valentina, that seems rather out of character for her but then, I remind myself, I don’t know these people at all, not really. ‘And you don’t remember what it was about?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry. Rosalind will probably know, though. And Sophia definitely will, if we can find her.’

  If we can find her. Unwelcome, an image of her comes to my mind; she is crouched somewhere out of sight, smiling as she watches us squirm at the threat of having our secrets revealed. I rub my eyes. The night before is hazy for me but now I think about it I do remember Jack being particularly antagonistic.

  ‘Jack pushed you in the pool last night,’ I say, remembering.

  A flash of anger crosses Daniel’s face but he composes himself quickly and fixes his smile back into place. ‘Yeah, he did. He didn’t like me showing off my muscles; I think he’d decided he was the strong man in the villa. Come to think about it, Jack was quite the shit last night. No wonder he…’ Daniel trails off.

  ‘Ended up dead?’ I finish his sentence.

  ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t think like that.’ Daniel looks sheepish.

  ‘No, you shouldn’t,’ I say, but maybe Daniel isn’t wrong; someone killed Jack because of what he said to them last night. ‘Tell me about you,’ I say, changing the subject. ‘How did you end up here?’

  Daniel looks at me with his warm eyes and gives me a weak smile. ‘Honestly, I can’t really believe that I’m here, that I was picked for this. Whatever the fuck this is. The media doesn’t know it yet or at least they didn’t yesterday but I was scouted just like everyone else.’

  ‘What did the scout say?’ I ask, picking up a pen and some paper.

  Daniel shrugs. ‘Probably the same as what was said to you: the opportunity to spend the summer in the sun in a luxury villa, being part of the hottest show on UK television.’

  ‘Why would LoveWrecked randomly choose their crew? Isn’t that a massive gamble?’

  ‘Greg Barker, our executive producer, loves a gimmick. But to say this was random is a bit far. For me, it wasn’t completely unexpected. I’ve worked on similar shows several times before.’

  ‘Do you know who came up with the idea to find Islanders at random?’ I ask.

  Daniel bites his lip. ‘I don’t really think it was random. As I’m not a producer, I don’t know heaps about it, but I suspect that the process was similar to the way the show found the Islanders in the past. In previous years, the Islanders who participated in the show came from two different pools: applicants and “chosen ones”. Applicants had applied and survived a rigorous interview process. The chosen ones were different in that they were approached by LoveWrecked’s talent scouts usually because they had large social media followings. The talent scouts would scour the various social media channels to find young, beautiful people with lots of followers. In short, the more you stood out, the more likely you were to be chosen “at random”. Sort of like writing “pick me” on your forehead for a police line-up. The executives wanted people with a good media presence; if they already had followers, they’d have people watching the show. It was all about the numbers.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I’m not saying anything, I’m assuming that the talent scouts would have scoured the Internet and chosen people that would make the best TV and these people would have been invited.’

  This makes me pause. Somewhere along the way a person was chosen to kill Jack Peaks; I wonder if they know that was why they were chosen. Did they enter the villa with the intention to kill him or did it happen by accident?

  ‘And the other crew members, it was the same for them too?’ I ask.

  ‘They told me it was. But I don’t know. I’m not really paid to think, I’m paid to film. And no disrespect, I’m going to keep doing that.’

  I stare at him, the calmness with which he talks as if untouched by the horror. ‘Daniel, you seem pretty nonchalant about all of this. What are you not telling me?’

  He licks his dry lips and stares deep into my eyes. ‘Look, I told you I’ve worked on similar shows several times before. And there’s one rule for the camera operators. Well, one rule if you ever want to get a job again.’

  ‘What?’ I say, leaning into him.

  ‘Never stop filming: contestants might beg, cry, scream; they might be completely naked, or wasted, or both; they might be injured. Whatever. Other people deal with the problems, I just film. You do a couple of years of that and you forget how to react. Being here, on this show, it doesn’t feel like I’m filming real life. Contestants on shows like these are as un
real to me as characters on a TV show. Well, they felt unreal to me before I met you.’ He pauses and looks down at his hands; his eyes are hidden under his thick eyelashes. Then he looks me square in the eyes. ‘I’m so impressed with how you’re handling everything.’

  My cheeks warm and I avert my gaze. There’s something about him, his handsomeness coupled with his calm, logical demeanour, that makes my stomach flutter but whatever I’m feeling has to stop. Immediately.

  A chime sounds, and we jolt as the Judge’s voice comes over the tannoy.

  ‘There are only forty minutes remaining. Tick, tock, tick, tock.’

  I swallow; my throat is dry. Shit, how is time slipping away from me like this? My investigation needs ramping up and fast. Everything is a muddled mess in my mind.

  The beginning, start at the beginning. I pick up one of the thick felt-tip pens that Rosalind dropped off with the documents and head towards the wall. I write Jack’s name underneath his picture. The black pen scars the clear glass wall and despite the violations this villa has seen I still feel uneasy graffitiing. I guess it’s the police officer in me: no crime is acceptable. I tell myself, This isn’t a crime, this is a necessity.

  ‘Right,’ I say, clearing my throat and attempting to shake off the blush that rose when Daniel said he was impressed by me. ‘What do we know about Jack Peaks? There’s his file there.’ I bring the end of the pen to my lips and bite it.

  ‘He is— was,’ says Daniel correcting himself, ‘a twenty-five-year-old estate agent from Essex.’ I write these things down.

  ‘What else?’ I ask. Daniel’s brow furrows as his eyes scan the page. He really does have such a nice face, a kind face.

  ‘He’s applied for the show before. Got pretty far as well but then pulled out, personal reasons.’

  I raise my eyebrow. ‘What personal reasons?’

  ‘It doesn’t say,’ says Daniel with a shrug. ‘Do you think it could be relevant?’ I don’t answer but write personal reasons followed by a question mark on the wall. ‘Don’t forget the slap and the argument with Mo,’ he adds.

  I write down ‘Mo and Jack argument’ and ‘Valentina and Jack argument’. I wonder about Valentina. She was the one who discovered the body; she was standing over Jack’s body when I arrived and I don’t remember hearing her leave the bedroom.

  ‘Is there anything else we know about Jack?’ I ask, re-focusing on Daniel. He flicks through Jack’s file once more.

  ‘The only thing that might be relevant here is that it says he’s a self-professed ladies’ man,’ he says and I hear the scorn in his voice when and it reminds of the tone Mo used when he called Jack creepy. I felt that too, when I met Jack yesterday; there was a certain intensity to his ‘charm’ that made me uncomfortable. I write it down – it might be relevant. Could that have been the reason for his argument with Valentina? Carly certainly wasn’t overly impressed with his behaviour from what I can remember and Jack ramped up his advances with Carly particularly hard.

  ‘OK, that’s enough on Jack for now. Let’s move onto the other files.’

  We pore over the documents, writing down the basic facts of the lives of the Islanders. When we’re finished, I grimace at the wall; it isn’t enough. It isn’t nearly enough information to build a case.

  Names, ages, places of birth, occupations, the airports the Islanders flew from and their arrival times, their likes, their dislikes, their favourite music, their celebrity crushes, dating history. Information that on the show might provide a good basis to create drama but when trying to solve a murder, completely pointless.

  I struggle to see how any of this will help me. Under normal circumstances, information about a person’s background can be vital, but these aren’t normal circumstances and the information provides a mere snapshot of the people that they are. The words on the page mingle into one another, making it impossible for me to focus.

  What am I missing?

  My head is aching, and my body is gripped by the unnatural chill of the air conditioning. My eyes are raw and one of them has developed a twitch. I feel awful but then how am I expected to feel when I’ve been asked to solve a murder live on television? My stomach squirms; this, all of this, is being screened into people’s homes.

  ‘Thirty minutes remaining,’ shouts the Judge over the tannoy. It’s time I started interviewing.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Sunday 27th July, 12:31

  29 Minutes Until The Next Murder

  My eyes move from my makeshift suspects wall to the glass window and out into the villa’s garden. Daniel stands next to me, his camera on and pointed at me. I try to ignore how the camera’s on light blinks with every second that falls from the killing clock. Instead, I focus my efforts on scrutinising the group of people who over the course of a couple of hours have gone from competitors in a reality show to murder suspects in a horror show.

  Rosalind, still dressed in her pyjamas, sits alone on the wooden seating around the Fire Pit, staring blankly into the distance. I follow her eyeline and find that Rosalind is staring at the spot in the pool where Jack was found. Only Rosalind’s dazed expression and attire suggest that anything is wrong, for nothing else in the garden looks out of place: the decking has dried in the midday sun, erasing any trace that we fished a body out earlier today and the hedges are as tall and perfectly manicured as they were when we first arrived.

  Carly has changed into swimwear and lies on a sun lounger on the far side of the pool. Her dark hair, black bikini and black linen kimono make her look like the holiday version of a widow in mourning. And if this were a TV murder mystery, she would probably have inherited the money. I shake my head; it seems rather strange that she has chosen this moment to do a spot of sun-tanning.

  It takes me a moment to find Mo and Valentina because they’ve moved to the kitchen area, which isn’t visible from the pool although it is from the living room. When I catch sight of them through the corner window of the room, I find they are sitting next to each other propped up on stools around the bar. The very place I was sitting when I first heard Valentina scream. Neither of them has bothered to clear away my dropped mug.

  Valentina has her pale fingers wrapped around a large mug and Mo’s legs are spread wide on the stool; his hands cling to the fabric of the chair in between them. They are leaning in close to one another. Mo glances over his shoulder as if checking he isn’t being watched, and then leans forward and brushes his hand against Valentina’s cheek.

  Their closeness intrigues me; is it normal for people to connect as quickly as they have or is there more to their relationship? I intend to ask them this when I question them.

  I try for a moment to assess who looks the guiltiest but it is, of course, impossible. If guilt were simply a badge that someone wears, my life as a police officer would have been a hell of a lot easier.

  I reassess the facts at hand. Mo, Valentina, Carly and Daniel all had a run-in with Jack Peaks in some way.

  There were Jack’s advances on Carly. He had singled her out as the one he wanted, and he pursued her relentlessly for the entirety of the evening. And, I remember, regardless of how much she appeared to resist his charms, he persisted. Did Jack overstep the mark with her? Did he say something to her that pushed her over the edge? Add to that Carly’s reaction to the discovery of the body. Where everyone else reacted in ways typical of those suffering from a shock, Carly didn’t even make the effort to look surprised and she certainly didn’t seem affected by his death. No, Carly couldn’t give less of a shit that Jack was dead. But not caring that someone is dead – heck, even wanting someone dead – is a far cry from actually murdering them.

  There’s potential here but I need more to fill in the gaps.

  Valentina’s evening was somewhat ruined as Jack basically accused her of doing drugs. From what I remember, Valentina didn’t respond well to his accusations and Daniel said she slapped Jack.

  And then there’s Mo. When Jack insisted that he knew Mo, pushed him
for information about his past, refused to give in to Mo’s obvious divergence tactics, the exchange was so heated that I intervened.

  I wonder what I would have found out if I hadn’t intervened. If Jack did recognise Mo and it wasn’t a case of mistaken identity, does that mean Jack knew something about Mo that got him killed?

  And then there’s the crew: Rosalind, Daniel and Sophia. It doesn’t seem likely that they would risk their jobs, their careers, their freedom to kill Jack and I don’t have any obvious motive for any of them.

  And who is the Judge?

  ‘Urgh,’ I say aloud. None of it makes sense; I have more questions than I have answers, more gaps than I have plugs. I massage my forehead. My hangover, driven away by the adrenaline, has returned with a vengeance, making my head throb, but time is ticking. I must proceed on.

  There is only one place that seems logical for me to go next so I slide the door of the living room a fraction and call through it.

  ‘Rosalind, please can I speak with you?’ Rosalind glances around, unsure for a moment where my voice is coming from. ‘Inside, please.’

  Her red, watery eyes meet mine and she nods, pushing herself to her feet as if she has the weight of the world on her shoulders. I look quickly towards Mo and Valentina and notice that they have moved slightly further apart.

  Stepping aside, I allow Rosalind to enter the living room. I push aside the folders and files Rosalind gave me and sit down. She doesn’t follow my lead but instead steps towards the wall of photographs and my messy scrawls. Even from my sitting position, I can see that her lips tremble as her eyes hover over the suspect wall. In that moment, I see it all through her eyes and I cringe. My makeshift operations room is amateurish and the lack of information laughable.

  ‘You know I usually set up a wall just like this,’ she says, turning to face me. ‘Me and the other producers would, I mean. We use it to map out the Islanders’ stories and secrets. And mark a big red cross over your faces when you’re eliminated.’ Rosalind reaches a hand out and presses it against the wall for support. ‘How awful that seems now.’ Her voice catches in her throat and she stares down at her bare feet.