The Club(12)
Freddie Hunter.
Why is it the person you least want to see who always turns up first at a party?
Vanity Fair
MURDER ON THE ISLAND
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6
Even before the body on the island was officially identified, even before the divers had arrived and attempts to access and recover the submerged car and its grim contents had started, the overheated media coverage had begun.
All around the country, all over the world, people watched and rewatched as news channels replayed the same footage: blurry drone shots of the incident tent amidst the trees; the forensics team in their ghostly hooded jumpsuits; the same short video clip over and over of Ned Groom, shot a few years earlier for GQ’s Men of the Year awards, demonstrating how to mix the perfect Old Fashioned (‘This is what I get all my guys to make before I hire them – Home’s barman test . . . so you get your sugar, bitters, whisky and an orange slice . . .’), talking to camera about what made a great party (‘It’s about making people feel welcome, creating an environment where you can kick back and be completely yourself – we are called Home, after all . . .’).
That jerky footage of the first boats arriving back on the mainland, the first partygoers huddled against the cold spray of the waves, the shell-shocked expressions of those being helped up onto the dock. People swaddled in foil blankets on the harbourfront. People crying. The weirdness of spotting, amongst those tearstained, anxious faces, one that you recognized, someone famous, then another, then another. That actress. That singer. And having to force your brain to understand that this was not a movie, that this was really happening, and happening now.
All around the world, people who, a few days earlier, had barely heard of Home, sat glued to their phones, strangely unsettled, oddly excited, waiting for the identities of the deceased to be confirmed.
It didn’t take long for the online sleuths to spring into action and the conspiracy theories to start and spread. Confident claims appeared almost instantly on Reddit about who was on the island. Wild assertions circulated on 4chan about who was in the sunken vehicle. YouTubers pored over leaked autopsy reports, scrutinizing new footage for evidence of fakery. Unsubstantiated stories emerged about unmarked helicopters sighted approaching the island, leaving it. People thousands of miles away were pre-emptively furious that there was going to be a cover-up. Suddenly everyone on Twitter was well-versed on the safety features of the Defender 2020 Electric Land Rover, everyone on Facebook was an expert on the Blackwater Estuary’s currents and tides. Several actors felt compelled to announce publicly, via social media, that they were still alive. In several cases they were asked immediately by hundreds of people to prove it.
Even now, six months later, many of the party guests pictured shivering on the dock in that first grainy footage still can’t post anything online – a picture of themselves on the red carpet at some premiere, say, or hiking in the Hollywood Hills – without being immediately bombarded by questions about what they saw on the island that weekend, what they told the police, messages demanding they clarify this or that supposed incongruity in the official version of events.
‘They can get a bit upsetting, the Instagram comments. I posted a picture of my daughter Lyra’s eighth birthday party last week and instantly someone was ranting underneath about a paedophile ring, demanding to know what really went on at Island Home. Like I would have the first clue!’ Kyra Highway shakes her head at the ridiculousness of the suggestion. ‘The thing is,’ she points out, ‘I wasn’t even meant to be there. I’m a member, sure, but I was never going to be on the list for a launch like that, not any more. I think the last one I went to was Venice Home, and when would that have been? Early 2014?’ The singer shrugs.
Anyone with a memory for celebrity scandal will recall that 2014 was not a good year for singer Kyra Highway. She had only recently married footballer Keiran James – Hello! spent a seven-figure sum securing the print exclusive on their lavish wedding, where their one-year-old daughter Lyra was an adorable flower girl in a pink glitter tutu – when their family life imploded. The News of the World ran a front-page story on Kyra’s affair with James’s best friend and teammate, Sean Nicholl, and it turned into a months-long tabloid feeding frenzy, each headline more sensational and intrusive than the last. Their subsequent divorce played out publicly and bitterly, her music career in the UK never quite recovering from the fall-out, with her break-up single ‘Free Again’ stalling at number 41 in the charts (although it was a top-ten hit in Germany and number one in the Philippines for a week).
Sitting cross-legged on the cream leather corner sofa in her Primrose Hill home, Highway’s curly hair is pinned back in a messy bun, her doll-like, heart-shaped face glowing but entirely make-up free. Apologizing profusely for not being dressed up enough, she is still elegant in a pale grey cashmere tracksuit with bare, perfectly pedicured feet. ‘What happened was, a few nights before the opening party, I was at Covent Garden Home and bumped into Freddie. I was so happy to see him, because I’d completely forgotten he was even in town . . .’
Freddie, of course, is Freddie Hunter, the angelic all-American former choirboy who found early fame back home Stateside in chart-topping pop trio Sideways (you may recall the coordinated denim outfits, the gelled spiky hair), before walking out on the band at the height of their success and moving to the UK to escape the spotlight. Now, of course, anglophile Freddie is best known as the top-rated late-night talk-show host in the US – a gig landed after several stints in rehab and a good few years bouncing around his adopted home, presenting British prime-time TV (hence the occasional cockney inflection to his Californian accent). Famously fun, faultlessly charming, unfailingly flattering to his talk show guests, Freddie was the one who hatched the plan to smuggle his old friend onto Island Home in the helicopter he keeps at his Surrey mansion (one of several palatial properties he owns around the world), the same make and model as the one he keeps at his Montecito house and pilots (or pretends to pilot, for insurance reasons) while singing with guests in the Mile-High Duets segment of his show.