Beach Bodies_Part Two_A Shocking, Twisty Summer Read, Perfect for Fans of Love Island by Ross Armstrong

Author:Ross Armstrong [Armstrong, Ross]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Goodreads: 46268329
Publisher: HQ Digital
Published: 2019-07-05T00:00:00+00:00

6.16 p.m.

Liv tucks her hair behind her ears, approaching with manic energy.

Roberto and Justine, Tabs, Zack, Sly and Summer all flinch in their own way.

‘Listen, we need to check upstairs,’ she says, in a whisper.

The noise of the fire crackles as they think.

‘Not being funny, Liv, but we need to stick together,’ says Sly.

The subtext is clear. If we’re safer here, why are you trying to break us apart? And Liv didn’t think Sly did subtext.

‘Yeah, I’m not being funny either, but I don’t want to go up there,’ says Tabs.

The villa was designed to be a big enough space so that ten people living on top of each other for six weeks wouldn’t go insane. The bedroom is two flights of stairs up and feels an awfully long way from the apparent safety of the living room.

‘Why do we need to go upstairs, Liv? Cos I’m listening, but I’m telling you now, I’m already pranging out,’ Zack says, keeping his voice soft.

The others will be descending nearly two floors below them, but discretion is something they’ve got used to practising within the paranoid walls of the villa. ‘You don’t mean… to see the body?’ Zack says.

‘Of course I do,’ she says. Which is greeted by groans of dissent.

‘No way. I don’t want to see that,’ says Summer.

‘Then you don’t have to go. But some of us should do something,’ says Liv.

They take Liv in, a hurry about her that the others don’t share, making her seem edgy.

‘You need to do something, you mean? Before they see on that tape you didn’t cut your hand?’ says Roberto, who gets an immediate dig in the ribs from Justine.

‘You want to look at the body, Liv?’ she says. ‘See if there’s anything we can tell from it? I understand.’

Liv gets a little closer, while downstairs, Simon, Dawn and Lance approach the door of Simon’s quarters.

‘Lance is the only one that saw the body,’ Liv says, softly, the kind of soft that can shiver the spine. ‘Why are we taking his word for it? What if there’s something he’s not saying? It’ll take a while to look at those tapes. Let’s check it out while he’s down there.’

‘We’ve no reason to not trust Lance,’ Roberto says. ‘You’ve been digging him out from the beginning, you don’t the like the lad, we get it.’

‘Doesn’t mean I’m willing him to have killed someone!’ says Liv.

‘Shh,’ says Sly. ‘But it’s a prejudice isn’t it, Liv? Trust me, Lance is a peng sort. If he says Tommy’s up there, lying in a pool of blood, I’m not putting myself in a dark spot just to prove the obvious.’

Liv laughs and shakes her head. ‘So it’s a boys’ club, is it?’

‘It’s not that. It’s because you’re being hysterical,’ Sly says, without a shred of irony.

‘There it is,’ says Liv, keeping her voice down this time. ‘There it is. A mad woman, crazy, suspicious paranoid. The same shit whenever you want us to shut up. And it always suits you for us to shut up.

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