Skypoint - By Phil Ford Page 0,3

she felt one corner of her mouth trying to curl into a smile. God, she hated it when Rhys made her smile when she didn’t want to.

And that was when the elevator doors opened again, and the estate agent walked out towards them, one hand springing out ahead of him, intent on some serious welcome-pumping.

‘Mr and Mrs Williams. I’m Brian Shaw. Welcome to SkyPoint.’

Rhys took Shaw’s hand and shook it, but his eyes were on Gwen.

Oh what the hell? We’re only looking, aren’t we?

And Gwen shook his offered hand, and smiled, pushing her worries about Lucca to the back of her mind. Sod it, she was just going to enjoy the tour. If anyone was going to burst Rhys’s bubble, less than a month into their marriage, it would be the bank manager.

Shaw led them across the reception area and into the waiting mirror-panelled elevator. He was maybe thirty-five, with sandy, swept-back hair that had started to thin at the front. He wore a dark suit over a white shirt that gleamed like a soap-powder ad, and a tie sprinkled with tiny clowns. When Gwen caught a glimpse of his cufflinks there were clowns there, too. It looked like the sort of birthday combo a girlfriend might buy her fella if he had a quirky thing about guys with red noses and baggy trousers. Brian Shaw may have been an estate agent, but maybe he was a nice guy, after all, she thought.

The elevator took them up to the tenth floor and the doors slid open with a ping that was so discreet, it could have been the sound of a pin dropping. Smiling, Brian Shaw led them out into a passageway lit with frosted-glass uplighters.

‘There are twenty-five floors. A hundred and twenty-five apartments in all,’ Shaw explained as he led them along the passageway to a black door. ‘Two-bedroom and three-bedroom, all en suite.’ The door was marked thirty-two in small unobtrusive brushed steel lettering. There were no digits on the doors, Gwen noticed; figures were maybe too gauche for SkyPoint’s understated residents.

‘Fully equipped kitchens, appointed to the highest standard,’ Shaw continued as he unlocked the door with an electronic key. ‘And as you see, security here is both discreet and practically unbreachable.’ And that was a comfort with a man on the top floor who, according to one story, deep-fried a man’s bollocks while he was still attached to them. ‘I think you’re going to be quite impressed,’ said the estate agent, and he led them into the apartment.

Rhys stepped aside with a smile and motioned for Gwen to go first. And there really was no way she could argue with Brian Shaw – she was definitely impressed. The door led directly into a massive open-plan lounge-kitchen-diner (whatever the proper estate agent speak was for that), but it wasn’t the room that took her breath away – it was the Bay that lay beyond it.

The sun was now little more than a golden crest on the horizon, the sky had turned a deep, rich scarlet, and the water sparkled beneath it like a mirror scattered with jewels. Around it, the waterside development of the city gathered, cast in partial silhouette by the evening light, like an audience for the setting sun.

She felt Rhys beside her. ‘What do you think?’ he asked.

She wanted to tell him that the spectacle made no difference – there was no way they were moving. Instead she breathed, ‘It’s beautiful.’

Behind them, Brian Shaw grinned. ‘And that’s only the view. Wait till you take a look around the apartment.’

‘Yeah, right, mate,’ said Rhys, eager as a kid with a sled on a snow-swept Saturday. ‘Show us everything.’

And Brian Shaw went into demonstrator mode. The lounge – which would easily accommodate the entirety of Gwen’s old flat – was ready-wired with a wall-mounted TV screen that doubled as a mirror and looked like you could organise a drive-in picture show around it. When Brian fired it up, the Hi-Def picture blazed, and the sound boomed from hidden speakers all around the room. Rhys made a note: the beach landing in Saving Private Ryan was going to be mega on this baby. The speakers were also hooked into a sound system that emerged from the wall at the touch of a remote-control button (and the same remote operated the TV, the powered window blinds, the dimming lights, and probably the toilet flush, for all Rhys knew).

The kitchen was no less high-tech and stylish, all black granite and