Dead Like You

99

Saturday 17 January

In the CCTV room of Sussex Remote Monitoring Services, Dunstan Christmas shifted his twenty-stone bulk on the chair, careful not to lift his weight off altogether and trigger the alarm sensor. It was only 7.30 p.m. Shit. Another hour and half to wait before he would be relieved for a five-minute comfort break.

He was not due on nights for another two weeks, but he’d agreed to cover for someone who was sick because he needed the overtime pay. Time wasn’t even crawling by; it felt like it had stopped altogether. Maybe it was even going backwards, like in a sci-fi movie he’d watched recently on Sky. It was going to be a long night.

But thinking about the money he was making cheered him. Mr Starling might be a strange boss, but he paid well. The money here was good; much better than in his previous job, watching X-rayed luggage at Gatwick Airport.

He reached forward, pulled a handful of Doritos out of the giant-size packet in front of him, munched them and washed them down with a swig of Coca-Cola from the two-litre bottle, then belched. As he routinely ran his eyes over all twenty screens, his hand close to the microphone button in case he should happen to spot any intruder, he noticed that No. 17, which had been dead when he had started his shift, was still not showing any images. It was the old Shoreham cement works, where his dad had been a driver.

He pressed the control toggle to change the image on the screen, in case it was just one of the twenty-six CCTV cameras that was on the blink. But the screen remained blank. He picked up the phone and dialled the night engineer.

‘Hi, Ray. It’s Dunstan in Monitor Room 2. I’ve not had any image on screen 17 since I started my shift.’

‘Mr Starling’s instruction,’ the engineer replied. ‘The client hasn’t paid his bill. Over four months now apparently. Mr Starling’s suspended the service. Don’t worry about it.’

‘Right, thanks,’ Dunstan Christmas said. ‘I won’t.’

He ate some more Doritos.