dance steps. ‘Come on, guys, follow me to where the magic happens?’ Avril led the way to the main doors, holding them open and wafting them through into a wide room, decorated to look like an opulent cinema foyer.
Film posters lined the walls, the floor dotted with display cases full of movie props, awards, and trophies. A big mahogany-and-chrome reception desk dominated the space, with an old woman lurking behind it. Huge and pasty, with a round happy face, unnaturally brown hair. Arms like ham-hocks. Clutching a copy of Hello! magazine in her sausagey fingers.
Avril bounced around in a circle. ‘You should’ve been here last week, we had Joanna Lumley and Hugh Grant in for pickups?’ She put a hand on her heart. ‘Career highlight?’
The old lady looked up from her magazine. ‘Hey, Misty.’
Avril / Misty beamed at her on the way past. ‘Hey, Mrs Clark, got the boss-man’s visitors for him?’ She pointed at them. ‘You want anything from the canteen when I’m done?’
A big smile dimpled Mrs Clark’s cheeks. ‘Wouldn’t say no to a Tunnock’s or two.’
‘You got it!’ She pushed through a set of double doors, disappearing. Then poked her head into the room again. ‘Come on, guys?’
Yeah, definitely far too perky.
They followed her into a bland corridor, magnolia paint slapped on breeze-block walls, the polished concrete squeaking under Misty’s trainers. Grey doors lined the space, each one with a job or department title on a white plastic plaque. It all looked very … Hollywood.
Misty looked over her shoulder at them as she bounced along. ‘Mr Clark’s got a video conference with New Zealand at eight forty-five, so don’t be offended if I have to throw you out then? Nothing personal?’
At the end of the corridor, she swiped her ID through a card reader and ushered them into a cavernous space. You could’ve stored a jumbo jet in here and still had room for a dozen double-decker buses. The walls were that eye-nipping shade of green they used for special effects, but the space in between was filled with big chunks of scenery – what looked like the inside of spaceships, space stations, grungy futuristic street scenes and a weird red forest thing.
Misty marched them past a prison block to where a large man stood, facing the other way, hands on his hips as he watched a team of overalled techs dismantling some kind of fighter cockpit. Tall and wide with it, broad shoulders and a Peaky Blinders haircut styled into a greying shark’s-fin quiff. ‘Be careful with that, Quin! I don’t want to have to start again from scratch if this turns into a franchise.’
One of the dismantlers gave him a thumbs-up.
Misty pounced to attention beside the big man. ‘Mr Clark? I’ve got your visitors?’
He turned, a smile dimpling his cheeks. Definitely his mother’s son. Except he had a Vandyke with an elongated white goatee and red-framed glasses. ‘Logan McRae! As I live, breathe, and exude sheer sexual chemistry.’ He stepped forward and swept Logan up in a bear hug, lifting him off the ground. ‘How are you? God, that thing last year! Completely gobsmacking.’
Barbed wire twisted beneath the skin of Logan’s stomach, digging its metal spikes deep inside.
He had to force the words out between gritted teeth: ‘Let me go, let me go, let me go!’
‘Oh, yes, the stabbing! Sorry.’ Mr Clark let go and stepped back, grimacing. ‘Are you OK? Do you need something?’
Logan bent double, one hand pressing against his midriff, hot air burning in his lungs as he swallowed a couple of deep breaths.
‘I’ve got painkillers! Naproxen, Tramadol, Co-codamol, you name it.’ Mr Clark waved at their perky guide. ‘Misty, grab some Vicodin and a bottle of water, would you, honey?’
Logan raised a hand. ‘I’m OK, I’m OK.’ He straightened up, slow. Hissing all the way. ‘You caught me off guard, that’s all.’
Misty perkied at him. ‘It’s no trouble, really? I can totally go get you some?’
‘No. No drugs. Thanks. I’m good.’ Liar.
‘OK.’ She did a couple of bounces for Mr Clark. ‘I’m getting your mum some Tunnock’s? You want?’
‘Can’t: diet.’
‘All-righty then.’ She turned and skipped off, back the way they’d come.
Weirdo.
Mr Clark put a hand on Logan’s shoulder and steered him past a killer robot as Tufty scurried along behind. ‘Oh, Logan, Logan, Logan …’ The hand squeezed. ‘Anyway, about last year: you haven’t done anything about the film rights yet, have you?’
‘Well, serving police officers can’t really—’
‘I’m thinking a hundred-and-twenty-minute thriller with David Tennant playing you. Well, it’s him or Ewan McGregor.’
‘It’s just we’re not allowed to—’
‘What do you think about Tilda Swinton for Steel?’ They passed the weird red forest, with its asymmetric leaves and twisted scarlet branches. ‘Too tall? I think she’s too tall. It’s so great to see you again!’
Logan cleared his throat as they made for the nearest exit. ‘I didn’t get to thank you for the fruit baskets. They were—’
‘I love Helen Mirren, but then she brings all that Prime Suspect baggage to a crime drama, doesn’t she?’ Mr Clark pushed open a bland grey door and propelled them into another magnolia breeze-block corridor. Only this one was lined with whiteboards, covered in scrawled schedules and bits of storyboard. More grey doors. ‘Or how about Michelle Gomez? Because Steel’s got that …’ He made a theatrical gesture with one hand. ‘You know?’
No. Logan most certainly didn’t.
‘I really—’
‘There’s something a bit sexy about her, isn’t there? She’s got that frisson of something almost animal in her magnetism.’
Don’t think about her naked. DON’T THINK ABOUT HER NAKED! Too late – the image was seared across the back of his mind again, in hideous pink-o-vision. And after all the effort he’d gone to, trying to forget …
Logan shuddered. ‘I’ve never noticed.’
Through another door into a stairwell. Up they went.
Tufty’s voice echoed in the enclosed space. ‘I noticed once. In the pub. But then she beat me about the head and neck with a packet of Quavers and that was that.’
Mr Clark gave Logan’s shoulder another squeeze. ‘And we’ll need to invent a good sidekick for you. It’s a trope of the genre, after all.’
‘Ooh, ooh!’ Tufty scurried up alongside. ‘I’d make a great—’
Logan jabbed him with an elbow. ‘Thanks for agreeing to help us find whoever posted that first tweet, Mr Clark.’
