Starlight Peninsula by Charlotte Grimshaw Page B

with gel, sat on top of his head like a brown turban. The bridge of his teeth was too narrow for his mouth; now he smiled, showing pale pink gums.
    ‘You like this suit? I hope I don’t look like a banker. God, I love suits. Ronald at RJB has this new range, just absolute masterpieces.’
    ‘What a nice waistcoat.’
    Eloise had just received two messages on her cell phone: one from Carina wanting to know if she would be staying again, and the otherfrom a real estate agent. Sean had passed on her number. The agent wanted to discuss the sale of the house. Prospects were excellent. Values on the Starlight Peninsula had rocketed; the area was hot right now. Would look forward to her call.
    She deleted the message.
    Scott stroked his blue sleeve. ‘Ronald talked me into the suit. Thee freaked out at the price. Then she calmed down and said, Oh well, as Shakespeare said, “The apparel oft proclaims the man.” Isn’t that great?’
    She looked at him: his wonder-of-the-world grin, his big hair, the blink he did, the blink that set off the smile that showed how much he relished life, how genuine he was, how enthusiastic and passionate. Sometimes she had a sense of a small busy person inside him, pulling the levers for smile, blink, beam, bray.
    ‘Reports are coming in that Jack Anthony got a shock off the urinal. Apocryphal at this stage.’
    ‘Ouch,’ Eloise said.
    ‘Also Selena says over at Q the coat hangers in hair and make-up are making clicking and sizzling noises, and there’s an electric smell. Why haven’t we all gone out on strike?’
    ‘I know. Someone’s going to get killed.’
    ‘I wonder if it’s like, carcinogenic,’ Ian the cameraman said.
    ‘What if you’re pregnant? Karen’s pregnant. So is Hine at reception. You don’t want to be getting shocks when you’re …’
    They waited for the car outside reception. Under a cloudless sky the light was impressively clear, the shadow of a plane tree making a perfect shape on the asphalt, the reflections of leaves sliding over the car windscreen as it drove up. They loaded their gear and got in, Scott on the phone to Kurt Hartmann’s man, Chad Loafer, who was getting a lot of talking done.
    ‘Chad,’ Scott said, rolling his eyes at Eloise, ‘mate, I understand.’
    An hour later they entered the gates of the Hartmann estate andapproached the mansion, with its grey-pink castle battlements and dinky turrets, its flagpole and helicopter pad, and garaging for thirty cars.
    A security guard bustled out of the topiary and waved them towards the front door, where they were met by a small black-clad man with a shaven head.
    ‘Chad Loafer, head of Mr Hartmann’s security,’ he told them.
    A great door creaked open, all oaken and Narnian and faux-gnarled, and Loafer led them into a large reception lit by lamps in the shape of flaming torches. He withdrew, silently. The room was filled with large squashy white sofas flanked by pedestals on which sat dishes of colourful sweets. Eloise imagined Hartmann arriving in a witch’s hat, on a sleigh, driven by a dwarf.
    ‘Jesus,’ Scott whispered, looking around the room. One whole wall was a mirror. They eyed themselves, wary.
    ‘I wonder if he’s watching us.’
    ‘Yeah, cameras. No wait, the mirror’s two-way. He’s behind it. In, like, a control room with a big chair.’
    They could see into another room beyond the reception, in which armchairs faced large computer screens. The internet mogul and his business partners were enthusiastic gamers; in fact Hartmann had first discovered he was being spied on by the security services when his computer games started running slow by one seventh of a second. He picked this up straight away, had the problem investigated, and found his entire system was being routed through an external system run by the spy agency, the GCSB.
    Next to the chairs and screens were more stands holding dishes filled with sweets. It was a child’s fantasy: the sweets, the screens, the