The Club(73)

Jess tried to say several things at once, and ended up saying nothing. She could feel Georgia’s fingers digging now into her upper arm.

She was not finished.

‘I love my husband. He is a flawed person, and ours is not a perfect marriage. We fight, and we argue, but I do love him, and it is a marriage. We have been through a lot. We have put each other through a lot. We have helped each other through a lot. I don’t want to believe what you’re saying – of course I don’t want to believe it – but if it is true and if you can prove it—’

Georgia broke off, a catch in her throat, and glanced away – and once again for a moment Jess really did believe this was all coming as news to her, that she did not know anything about the accident. Which would mean . . . My God, what would it mean?

Georgia’s grip on Jess’s wrist was unshakeable. She could feel Georgia’s fingers digging even more urgently into her flesh.

‘There is something else I need to explain to you, though, before I start screaming, really screaming, and security comes, and we get that mask off and find out who you are, and why you’re telling me all this, and what you want from me, from us, and whether a single word of what you’re saying checks out. My husband has a type.’

Had a type, Jess found herself mentally correcting the dead actor’s wife, automatically, the image of Jackson’s body on that bed springing unprompted into her head, and even as she was thinking this, she was trying to take on board what Georgia was telling her, to piece together what she had seen, what she thought she had seen, what all this meant . . .

Just as the music climaxed, just as – as one – the dancers fell and swooned and scattered across the floor, just as the audience burst into thunderous applause, the ballroom doors crashed open, and someone screamed, and someone laughed.

And for a moment Jess’s brain simply refused to process what she was seeing. And then she began to feel an overwhelming urge either to laugh or to scream too.

Standing in the doorway was Jackson Crane.





Adam

Jesus fucking Christ, thought Adam.

He had seen Jackson Crane in some states before, but never anything like this. He wasn’t sure he had ever seen anyone in a state quite like this. His skin looked grey. His hair was a mess. His shirt was buttoned up all wrong, untucked, some of it visibly protruding through the open fly of his trousers. He was wiping at his mouth with his sleeve. He was walking like a man with his shoes on the wrong feet.

‘Where is he?’ Jackson barked at someone, the nearest person to him, half lunging at them as he did so. They recoiled, shaking their heads, holding their hands up in what they presumably hoped was a placatory manner.

All around Jackson people were stepping backwards, discreetly retreating, as he lurched and shuffled across the ballroom.

‘Ned Groom,’ he shouted, his voice so slurred with fury and whatever else that it was barely recognizable. ‘Where is he? Where are ya, Ned?’

Pausing, looking around the room, swaying on unsteady legs, he gathered himself for a moment, then bellowed the question again. Adam would hardly have believed it possible, but the closer you got to Jackson, the worse he looked. The weird way his mouth was twitching, as he waited for someone to reply to him. The bizarre angle at which he was holding his head. Those flared nostrils. The stubble, crusty at the corners of his mouth. Those eyes, like bloodshot marbles.

My God, what had he been doing to himself in that cabin?

Seeing Adam striding towards him, Jackson came to an unsteady halt.

‘Ned!’ he shouted, extending a quivering arm and a wavering finger in Adam’s direction. ‘There he is. Ned.’

Before he had a chance to say anything else, Adam had closed the distance between them and gripped Jackson by one of his elbows and managed to turn him in the direction of the stairs. His first priority was to try to defuse the scene, get Jackson somewhere private. The upstairs lounge ought to be empty at this point, as good a place as any. With surprising force Jackson tried to pull away, pushing at Adam’s shoulder with his other hand. Adam braced himself, and resisted.

‘He’s not here,’ he hissed. ‘It’s me, not Ned. Adam. His brother.’

‘Where’s Ned?’

‘I’ll take you to him,’ Adam lied. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here, Jackson.’

‘Wanna talk to Ned,’ Jackson slurred.

You and me both, thought Adam. As the day had progressed, he had alternated between mild concern and intense irritation at Ned’s continued absence – both underscored by the absolute certainty that, with his brother not there, anything that went wrong tonight would be blamed on him – on Adam – forever.

Seeing two of the security staff hovering, he gestured to them to keep their distance.

Shrugging Adam’s arm irritably from his shoulder, rejecting all assistance, almost missing his step entirely several times, Jackson stumbled his way upstairs.

Adam pointed him in the direction of the door to the lounge. Obviously under the impression he would find Adam’s brother in there, Jackson gave a grunt and headed towards it.

Behind them the hubbub was beginning to pick up again. Laughter. Cries of delight and surprise. They had been a masterstroke, the masks, the hoods, he thought. Everywhere you looked people were trying to guess who was who, some lifting up their masks occasionally for a moment to prove or disprove a guess, to reveal perhaps an unexpected familiar face or the instantly recognizable face of someone you had never met before.