Beach Bodies: Part Three. Ross Armstrong

his tone getting him cold looks. He remembers it’s best not to stick your head above the parapet. Heads on display in this place have had a habit of being detached from their owners.

      Liv recalls a phrase she once heard: ‘The weak speak too much.’ Or perhaps it wasn’t a phrase, perhaps it was something her dad once said. But it was still true.

      ‘So,’ says Justine, picking up the pieces. ‘Tell us how a woman gets killed, when she’s all alone in a locked room.’

      And all eyes stay on Simon.

London, Waterloo, Rennie Street…

      The phone rings and Mr Knight picks up immediately.

      Check the temperature, he’s told. Never done that before but he knows where the meter is and is thrilled to be asked.

      All controlled remotely of course, what happens in there, but you need to have someone look over the hard copies. Cos although everything can be everywhere, everything is really only somewhere. And these things are here. The hard copies.

      As he taps the readout – tactile, real, a nice feeling – Mr Knight notices the darkness in the cold storage room. So little light in a place of such importance. His eyes wander, picking out the interruptions to the dark. Shelves, lit by neon, a line of small drawers, almost like the ones Mr Knight remembers as a kid, that held index cards or public records, before all of that really was placed elsewhere and the real things destroyed. Because you don’t need hard copies of everything. Only some things.

      The only other light in there seems to be coming from a screen. He cranes his neck to see. It’s a smaller one that he’s used to seeing, that reminds him of old times. And there are old illusions flickering away on it.

      Mr Knight remembers they’ll be waiting for the okay at headquarters. One of the oldest and best tech companies around. He stretches his arms, his back, gives his neck a crack as his feet tap on the gleaming floor, the noises echoing around, his lonely reflection staring back at him in the glass as he walks. And past the glass, the river, chopping away in the dark and overflowing as it often does this time of year.

      ‘Fine and checked,’ he says into the phone and the voice repeats back some kind words for his efforts.

      He sits back in his chair and feels the pleasure of being active in the working world. Half an hour later he spins around on it. He has tap danced alone in this place. How he remembers tap dancing went anyway. He has wandered the corridors in the dead of night. He has rested his tired body on the gleaming floor at 4 a.m. He used to wear a suit.

      His mind wanders, and he observes the movement of his thoughts. He thinks of his mother in an old hospital bed. She was in a coma, but he still spoke to her. Left the radio on the whole time she was in there. Just in case.

      Mr Knight gets up and runs a hand through his wave of salt-and-pepper hair. He glances at the extravagant chandelier above, part glass, part diamonds, part feathers from rare birds, as his feet echo back to him from high ceilings. He approaches the temperature readout, tapping it. All fine. Then looks through the window at the glow of the screen.

      He presses his face and hand against the glass to getter a better look at the screen in there. It shows an old television show repeat. Beautiful men and women in some exotic location. Just playing away in there on its own. For no one in particular.

      Tap, tap, tap. That hasn’t happened in a long time. Another pair of footsteps in the building. Unannounced. Impossible, he thinks. And his heart quickens a beat.