Beach Bodies: Part Three. Ross Armstrong

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.

11.08 p.m.

      Simon thinks, moving his tongue around his mouth, checking he still has all his teeth, which thankfully he does.

      ‘I can’t explain how a woman gets killed when she’s all alone in a locked room,’ he splutters out before the blood in his throat makes him cough.

      As he does so, Liv rises to grab a tea towel, wets it at the tap in the kitchen then heads towards Simon.

      ‘Careful,’ says Roberto.

      ‘He’s not Hannibal Lecter,’ says Liv, as she wipes his mouth dry.

      ‘More like “Have No Balls, Lecturer,”’ says Roberto.

      ‘That’s terrible,’ says Summer.

      Roberto keeps smiling but something inside him dies at another knock from Summer. And the group cringe again.

      ‘Okay, what if someone went down there and banged on the door,’ says Simon. ‘Said they wanted to come in so they could be safe in there with her?’

      ‘Not possible. You have to slide the door in the wall open to get down to your lounge, it’s conspicuous as hell and we were all here the whole time,’ says Tabs.

      ‘Okay. What if someone came from the outside? Tapped on the window?’ says Simon.

      ‘So now we’re back to the outsider theory?’ says Justine.

      ‘No, can’t be an outsider. One of us. Who wasn’t accounted for?’ he says.

      They watch the smoke from the fire eek out into the room as they recall how this started and everything that has happened since.

      ‘There’s just Zack,’ says Roberto. ‘Who I’ve thought was a shark for a while.’

      ‘And he’s out there somewhere looking for help. So he can save our skins,’ says Tabs, opting to defend the man who isn’t here to defend himself.

      ‘Or we gave our one phone to the murderer,’ says Justine. ‘And now he’s waiting for us to step outside, one by one, so he can—’

      ‘Or there’s you, Si,’ says Lance. ‘You and Zack are the only ones unaccounted for at the time.’

      ‘All right,’ says Simon, and for a second Lance thinks that’s a confession before Simon starts speaking again. ‘Sly was killed by that same knife in the drawer, yes?’

      Summer nods. While Simon was unconscious, she insisted they drag Sly’s body into the partial dry. She kissed him on the cheek and confirmed the shape of the smile that had been slashed across his voice box. A crescent with a serrated edge.

      ‘Then how did I get hold of that?’ says Simon, his voice raised in challenge. ‘Surely you can all agree I wasn’t in this room?’

      ‘We can’t agree on anything,’ says Tabs.

      ‘I certainly couldn’t have picked it up, killed someone and put it back without anyone noticing. There was someone here the whole time. Right?’

      Tabs looks to the others. ‘Yes. But… maybe someone could’ve slipped it out and slipped it back? Without me noticing—’

      ‘Someone must’ve been better placed to do that than me. Any theories?’

      The truth is, as they breathe in the silence, that no one has broached the journey of the knife because none of them has a single clue how that happened.

      ‘Nah. Real magic shit that,’ says Roberto.

      ‘No, no, not magic! All explainable by some kind of logic. It’s just logic you haven’t thought of yet,’ says Simon.

      ‘Shut it!’ says Lance, back-handing him across the face. ‘He’s trying to confuse me. But it’s harder to confuse a man like me than he thinks.’

      Simon leaves that one alone. ‘I’m merely trying to get you to reflect, like I always have,’ he says, taking a deep breath. ‘Look, so it’s all out in the open, there is one other insight we stumbled on. Isn’t there, Lance?’

      Lance folds his arms, shaking his head, but by now people are catching his eye and he knows he has to spill it.

      ‘What is it?’ says Summer.

      Simon gives Lance a ‘be my guest’ look.

      ‘Whatever,’ says Lance. ‘It don’t change the fact that it’s you, Si. But listen, when we viewed the footage, Zack and Liv’s stories checked out,’ says Lance, still uneasy about the fact that Liv didn’t appear to cut herself the first time they watched. ‘But we also found something else. Sly getting aggy with Tommy before the blackout hour. He cuffs him, like the one I just gave this mug. Something muggy had gone on between them and Sly didn’t like being mugged off.’

      The room shudders uncomfortably.

      ‘So. Anyone have any idea what happened between them?’ says Lance.

      And it doesn’t take long for the pressure to tell on one of them. Summer lifts her head from Liv’s lap.

      ‘I think I do,’ says Summer. She’s held this back for a while, not so much because she was worried it could implicate her, but because it’s hardly a great character reference. ‘I told Sly… that I was thinking about getting to know Tommy better. Because I didn’t want to keep all my eggs in one single basket.’

      ‘Wow,’ says Roberto, and gets a sharp look from Summer.

      ‘But getting to know each other is what this game is all about. Isn’t it? Well… isn’t it?’

      The words seem so simple but the consequence, including Sly’s on-camera attack on Tommy, is a little more divisive.

      ‘But that’s not quite all, is it, babes?’ says Tabs.

      Summer falters, looking around the room. She thought this revelation would be enough to pacify them.

      ‘Babes. I’m afraid Tommy told me everything,’ Tabs says.

      Summer braces herself for her big glossy magazine interview moment. Admission of guilt, sorrow, redemption, all in the length of a double-page spread.

      ‘Look, me and Tommy… had a moment in the Love Nest,’ she says.

      Judging by the open mouths that greet her, admission of guilt has landed heavier than she intended. She takes a look back at the steps that have taken her here, knowing it’s too far to go back, then looks forward to how far away sorrow and redemption seem. She might have to go with tears, platitudes and cries for mercy. The shamed internet star’s apology video full house.

      ‘We knew the cameras wouldn’t be on, so we snuck in there. For a little kiss.’

      ‘And…’ says Tabs.

      ‘Jesus Christ, he really did tell you everything,’ says Summer. ‘Yes, and the rest. We did it twice. Me on top, then I let him go on top. We tried to only do it once, to be respectful, but the moment got the better of us.’

      Summer looks pained. She tried to rip off the plaster in one swift painless move but seems to have taken half of her arm off in the act.

      ‘But me and Just never even got our night in the Love Nest,’ says Roberto, unerringly missing the point. ‘You have to be voted in by the British public. It has to be the will of the ruddy people!’

      ‘The