Lynne Pemberton - Platinum Coast

She shivered and turned to face the shore. They were close to land. Past the vast turquoise semi-circle of Brighton Beach she could see the bustling harbour and low stone buildings of the island’s capital, Bridgetown.

‘Don’t worry,’ Christina whispered, ‘I’ll take care of myself. I had a good teacher, the best there ever was – Stephen Reece-Carlton.’

He wasn’t going to catch her; not this time. Her legs torn and bleeding, Christina brushed through the sharp, brittle cane-stems as flying cockroaches buzzed and whistled past her head. The island sun in the cloudless sky was merciless, scorching her shoulders and arms whilst the rushing blood pounded in her ears.

Suddenly, the cane field cleared to a wide expanse of dry scrubland across which she saw the old abandoned plantation house. The breath sobbed in her throat as she ran towards it.

The crumbling coral-stone steps leading up to the front door looked scarcely able to take her weight. She stepped up them cautiously, glancing behind her There was no one there. She had lost him.

‘Thank God.’ she gasped as she pushed open the heavy wooden door with its peeling paint Inside the house it was cool. She stood for a few moments, adjusting her eyes to the gloom as her rasping breath echoed around what she gradually came to see was a vast, domed hallway dominated by a broad, sweeping stone staircase to her left.

She stopped at the landing, her expression a mixture of fear and fascination. She could hear something. It echoed faintly around the vast, empty house a hushed, repetitive scraping sound, sinister yet strangely familiar As if in a trance she walked slowly towards the noise It was coming from one of the bedrooms. She tried the doors as she moved along the landing. They were all locked, except one – the door to the room whence came the ghostly sound. She opened the door and edged into the bedroom. Then she smiled.

Crossing the room she leaned over the old-fashioned gramophone and lifted the stuck needle. The record crackled slightly as she replaced it in the groove and Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 erupted around her

It was loud, so loud that she did not hear the sound of manic laughter coming from the man who had appeared behind her. She heard nothing but the music until he was upon her.

She whirled round as he grabbed her arm.

He was wearing a crude voodoo mask. It covered his face, but she could see his eyes, cold and unblinking. Dead green eyes. The man’s laughter turned into a high-pitched shrieking which shook his body. She tried to struggle but it was no good, he was too strong. Yet, strangely, she was not afraid.

He reminded her of one of the grotesque laughing men she had seen at fairgrounds when she was a child. Somehow he wasn’t real. Yet he was real; so were his actions.

He began unbuttoning her blouse. She watched him as if from a distance, impassively, knowing that it was useless to resist. He bared first one breast and then the other. She cried out as he squeezed one nipple viciously. His laughter had subsided; he smiled at her pain and seemed almost peaceful.

He moved his hands up over her breasts towards her neck. She stiffened as the fingers closed around her throat. Now she was afraid. Rigid with fear she waited for him to tighten his hands. Then she saw the ring: the tricoloured band of gold that she had given Stephen on their wedding night. And it was then that she began to scream …

‘No, Stephen, no, please.’

Christina woke up shouting, drenched in perspiration and knotted in a tangle of silk sheets. Shaking uncontrollably, she sat up and tried to calm herself as her overloaded mind began to distinguish dream from reality. She was not on the island, she reminded herself, but in New York for a meeting with Kingsleigh Klein, Stephen’s lawyer. After a few moments she reached across and switched on the bedside light. It was 3.15. She leaned back against her damp and crumpled pillow and took a deep breath. It was the same nightmare she’d had for the past ten nights, since returning from Stephen’s burial at sea to the familiarity of the apartment in New York’s prestigious Sutton Place.

She ran a shaky hand through her dishevelled hair. Tonight, she thought, of all nights she had needed a good seven hours’ sleep. She contemplated taking a sleeping-pill but thought better of it. It would make her groggy in the morning, and she couldn’t afford that. Not tomorrow at the meeting which Kingsleigh Klein had unexpectedly called to ‘discuss the disposition’ of Stephen’s Platinum Resorts shares. Christina had been surprised that this had not been covered in his will, but at the time it had been read to her by an overawed young associate from Bascombe and Partners on Barbados she had been too stunned and disorientated by grief to ask any questions. All she knew was that Stephen had left a great deal of money – many millions more than she had dreamed possible – in outright legacy to herself and in trust for their son Adam and Stephen’s daughter from his first marriage, Victoria.

She shivered, though this time it wasn’t the bad dream that caused her uneasiness. It was the cold breath of reality.

She knew that there was going to be conflict. In the weeks and months ahead the wolves would be after her, snarling and snapping, eager for blood. She had always hated the deviousness and brutality of high-powered business. It frightened her. Yet later that morning she was to be pitched right into the middle of it, thrown into the arena to fight it out with Antonio Cellini and the stepchild who had always hated her.

At least with Antonio it would be purely business. With Victoria it would be personal. It always had been. Like Christina she had expectations of Stephen’s Platinum Resorts Inc. shares. After all, like Christina she had been much loved by him.

Though unlike me, Christina thought, as she made herself more comfortable against the pillows, she was also completely spoiled and indulged by Stephen.

She shook her head ruefully. She had never been able to make it work with Victoria. From the very beginning, at their first meeting, Christina had seen something in those lovely eyes that did not belong in a child. She had tried to win Victoria over, to become friends with the beautiful child who had fast become a beguiling young woman, but she had failed. Her efforts over the years had been constantly rejected; now the gap between them was filled with distrust and resentment.

It was, she supposed, the classic stepmother – stepdaughter relationship. With Stephen in the middle.

Despite his acuteness in business he had never been able to see how treacherous his own daughter could be. He had showered her with material possessions; her trust funds and the country properties she would inherit in England made her worth tens of millions of pounds. And with her looks and brains she was bound to acquire herself a fabulously wealthy husband.

But it wasn’t enough, not for Victoria. Platinum Resorts Inc. remained, a monument to Stephen’s vision and legendary flair. Tomorrow the disposition of his holding in the company was to be made clear.

Tomorrow, at the lawyer’s meeting, Victoria was certain to make her move.

Robert Leyton awoke with a colossal hangover.

Delicately he eased himself out of the bed, careful not to jolt his sore and aching head.

Behind the bathroom door was a full-length mirror. Robert squinted at his reflection. He looked like death. The muscles of his stocky, gone-to-seed body were slack and his face was drawn and haggard, eyelids drooping heavily over his dark eyes.

‘Getting old, my son,’ he told himself in the mirror.

His hand shook as he slowly and painfully shaved the dark stubble off his chin, careful not to nick himself. He didn’t want shaving cuts on his face today, not with a meeting with that smart lawyer coming up. Besides, as Victoria’s chief trustee he owed it to her to put up a good appearance. He must do his best for Stephen’s daughter. His old friend and partner would have expected no less.