Dead famous (31 page)

DAY FORTY-FIVE. 3.10 p.m.

I
’d kill her for you if I could,’ ‘ Coleridge read out.

‘Well, that’s pretty damning, isn’t it?’

‘So there he is,’ Hooper pressed on eagerly.

‘The man who wrote that message, standing with his camera pointing at the toilet door, knowing that the object of his hatred is inside. What does he do? He locks his camera in the position he has been told to maintain, creeps back along Soapy corridor, up Dry, through the wall hatch into the boys’ bedroom, picks up a sheet from outside the sweatbox, emerges from the bedroom covered in it, and the rest we know. It’s Carlisle we see cross the living area to pick up the knife from the kitchen drawer, Carlisle who bursts in on Kelly, and Carlisle who murders her.’

‘Well…’ Said Coleridge warily.

‘I know what you’re going to say, sir. I know, I know. What about the bedroom? It’s covered by cameras too…’

‘It had occurred to me, yes,’ Coleridge answered.

‘If he’d entered the room from Dry and gone and picked up a sheet at the sweatbox we would have seen it and we didn’t.’

‘Yes, and not only did we not see it, but what we did see was a person emerge from the sweatbox and pick up the sheet.’

‘Yes, sir, but only on video. No one who was in the sweatbox recalls a second person leaving it. Therefore either one, some or all of them are lying.’

‘I agree.’

‘ Unless the video is lying. Carlisle is a trained camera operator. We know from his extraneous activities that his interest in the tools of television is not merely professional. Is there some way that he could have corrupted the evidence of the hot-head camera in the bedroom? The imaging of the figure emerging into the sheet is pretty unclear. Trisha and I have been wondering if he could have somehow frozen the picture being broadcast for a few moments—’

‘After all, the image had remained unchanged for hours already,’ Trisha interrupted.

‘Is it possible that he somehow looped a few seconds or simply paused it for long enough to cross the room to the sweatbox?’

‘After which it would all happen in real time as we saw it,’ Hooper concluded.

‘He would have had to pull the same trick on the way back,’ said Coleridge.

‘We saw the murderer return to the sweatbox, don’t forget.’

‘I know. There are a lot of problems with the theory,’ pressed Hooper, ‘but don’t forget, sir, that Carlisle was very hazy about the timings of when the events happened. Do you remember that he claimed that only two minutes had passed from when Kelly went to the toilet to when the killer emerged from the bedroom, while everybody in the monitoring bunker said it was five, which was proved on the time code. And he claimed that as much as five minutes passed after the killer had re-emerged until the murder was discovered, whereas in fact it was only two. Again the people in the box and the actual time code all concurred. Those are big discrepancies, sir, but understandable ones, of course, if it was actually Carlisle who committed the murder. Anybody might imagine that two minutes was five and that five was two if they had spent those minutes killing someone with a kitchen knife.’

‘Yes,’ conceded Coleridge.

‘I think they might. I suggest you speak to the relevant boffins in order to see how these remote cameras might be interfered with. And of course we’d better have another word with Miss Nolan.’

DAY FORTY-SIX. 2.30 p.m.

T
he sight of Dervla being escorted from the house by the police for the second time in one day caused a sensation both outside and in. Surely this must mean that she was now the number-one suspect? Geraldine could scarcely contain her delight.

‘The fucking cops are flogging our show for us,’ she crowed.

‘Just when everybody thought Loopy Sal’ done it, they nick the virgin princess twice Fuck me sideways, it’s brilliant. But we have to make plans. A lot of moolah’s riding on this. If they don’t give us Dervla back we’ll cancel this week’s eviction, all right? Can’t lose two of the cunts in one week, just can’t afford it. A week of this show is worth more money than I can count!’ Hamish and Moon were up for eviction this week, but if Dervla went it seemed that they would get a reprieve. The nominations had been the most relaxed since the relatively calmer days of Woggle and Layla. With Sally gone there had been a general lifting of the gloom, besides which Sally was a prime suspect for having committed the murder, so her absence had made the house feel safer. It felt safer no longer, of course. There had been shock and fear at Dervla’s second removal by the police.

‘Fookin’

‘ell, I thought I were all right with her,’ said Moon.

‘We’ve been sharing a fookin’ bedroom! I lent her a jumper.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ said Jazz.

‘The cops are fishing, that’s all.’

‘Just because you fancy her don’t mean she ain’t a mad knife- woman, Jazz,’ Garry said. Jazz didn’t reply.

DAY FORTY-SIX. 4.00 p.m.

D
ervla’s lip quivered. She was trying not to cry.

‘I thought if I told you I knew the scores you’d suspect me.’

‘You stupid stupid girl!’ Coleridge barked.

‘Don’t you think that lying to us is probably the best way to engender our suspicion?’ Dervla did not reply. She knew that if she did she really would cry.

‘Lying to the police is a criminal offence. Miss Nolan,’ Coleridge continued.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would matter.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’

‘It was only between him and me, and he was on the outside! I didn’t think it would matter.’ Now Dervla was crying.

‘Right, well, you can start telling the truth now, young lady. You were, I take it, aware at all times of your standing with the public, and of Kelly’s?’

‘Yes, I was.’

‘What would you say was Larry Carlisle’s attitude towards Kelly?’

‘He hated her,’ Dervla replied.

‘He wanted her dead. That was why I tried to stop him sending me messages. His tone changed so completely. It was vile. He called her some terrible things. But he was on the outside. He couldn’t have…’

‘Never you mind what he could and couldn’t do. What we’re concerned about here, my girl, is what you did.’

‘I didn’t do anything!’ Coleridge stared at Dervla. He thought of his own daughter, who was not much older than the frightened girl sitting opposite him.

‘Are you going to charge me?’ Dervla asked in a very small voice.

‘No, I don’t think there’d be much point,’ said Coleridge. Dervla had not been under oath when she had given her statement and she had been under stress. Coleridge knew that any half- decent brief could make a convincing case that she had simply been confused when she gave her evidence. Besides, he had no wish to charge her. He knew the truth now and that was all he was interested in. And so Dervla went back into the house.

DAY FORTY-SEVEN. 11.00 a.m.

T
he days dragged by in the house and the tension remained unrelenting. Every moment they expected either word of an arrest from the outside, as Geraldine had promised, or another visit from the police to take one of the remaining housemates into custody. But nothing happened. They cooked their meals and did their little tasks, always watching, always wondering, waiting for the next development. Occasionally a genuine conversation would bubble up out of the desultory chats and interminable silences that now characterized most of the house interaction, but these moments never lasted long.

‘So who believes in God, then?’ Jazz asked as they all sat round the dining table, pushing their Bolognese around their plates. Jazz had been thinking about Kelly, and about heaven and hell, and so he asked his question.

‘Not me,’ said Hamish, ‘I believe in science.’

‘Yeah,’ Garry agreed, ‘although religion is good for kiddies, I think. I mean, you’ve got to tell them something, haven’t you?’

‘I’m quite interested in Eastern religions,’ said Moon.

‘For instance, I reckon that Dalai Lama is a fookin’ ace bloke, because with him it’s all about peace and serenity, ain’t it? And at the end of the day, fair play to him because I really really respect that.’

‘What sort of science do you believe in, then, Hamish?’ Dervla asked.

‘The Big Bang Theory, of course, what else?’ Hamish replied pompously.

‘They have telescopes so powerful nowadays that they can see to the very edges of the universe, to the beginning of time. They know to within a few seconds when it all began.’

‘And what was there before it all began, then?’ Asked Moon.

‘Ah,’ said Hamish.

‘You see, everybody asks that.’

‘I wonder why.’

‘Yeah, Hamish,’ Jazz taunted.

‘What was there before?’

‘There was nothing there before,’ said Hamish loftily.

‘Not even nothing. There was no space and no time.’

‘Sounds like in here,’ Jazz replied. Took all that, Hamish, it’s bollocks.’

‘It’s science. Moon. They have evidence.’

‘I don’t see what you’re arguing about,’ said Dervla.

‘It seems to me that accepting the Big Bang theory or any other idea doesn’t preclude the existence of God.’

‘So do you believe in him, then?’

‘Well, not him. Not an old man with a big beard sitting in a cloud chucking thunderbolts about the place. I suppose I believe in something, but I don’t hold with any organized religion. I don’t need some rigid set of rules and regulations to commune with the God of my choice. God should be there for you whether you’ve read his book or not.’ Coleridge and Trisha had caught this conversation on the net. The House Arrest webcast played constantly in the incident room now.

‘I should have arrested that girl for obstruction,’ he said.

‘There’s one young lady who could do with a few more rules and regulations.’

‘What’s she done now?’ Said Trisha.

‘I thought you liked her.’

‘For heaven’s sake, Patricia, did you hear her? ‘The God of my choice.’ What kind of flabby nonsense is that?’

‘I agreed with her, actually.’

‘Well, then, you’re as silly and as lazy as she is! You don’t choose a god, Patricia. The Almighty is not a matter of whim! God is not required to be there for you You should be there for him.’

‘Well, that’s what you think, sir, but—’

‘It is also what every single philosopher and seeker after truth in every culture has believed since the dawn of time, constable! It has always been commonly supposed that faith requires some element of humility on the part of the worshipper. Some sense of awe in the smallness of oneself and the vastness of creation! But not any more! Yours is a generation that sees God as some kind of vague counsellor! There to tell you what you want to hear, when you want to hear it, and to be entirely forgotten about in- between times! You have invented a junk faith and you ask it to justify your junk culture!’

‘Do you know what, sir? I think if you’d been around four hundred years ago you’d have been a witch-burner.’ Coleridge was taken aback.

‘I think that’s unfair, constable, and also unkind,’ he said. The brief conversation around the dinner table had died out as perfunctorily as it had begun, and the housemates had returned to the uncomfortable contemplation of their own thoughts. What could possibly be going on out there? They speculated endlessly, but they did not know. They were cut off, at the centre of this mighty drama and yet playing no part in it. Not surprisingly, they had begun to turn detective, conjuring up endless theories in their own minds. Occasionally they took their thoughts to the confession box.

‘Look, Peeping Tom,’ said Jazz on one such occasion.

‘This is probably really stupid. I never even thought to say anything about it till now, I just think maybe I ought to say it so you can tell the police, and then it’s done, right? Because I reckon it ain’t nothing anyway. It’s just I was in the hot tub with Kelly and David. I think it was about the beginning of the second week and Kelly whispered something in David’s ear that freaked him out. I think she said, ‘I know you,’ and he didn’t like it at all. It did his head in big time. Then she said the weirdest thing. I don’t know what, but I think she said, pardon my French, ‘Fuck Orgy Eleven’, and he was polaxed, man. That, he did not like.’

‘Great,’said Hooper, who had now joined Trisha at the computer. Inn ‘Two weeks staring at those bloody tapes. We wrestle one piss- poor clue out of the whole thing, and now it turns out this bastard knew about it all along anyway.’

‘Well, at least he left it till now to tell us,’ said Trisha, ‘and gave you the satisfaction of working it out for yourself.’

‘I’m thrilled.’ Hooper may not have been thrilled, but everybody else was, because it took the press, who were also monitoring the Internet, all of five minutes to find out what Fuck Orgy Eleven was, and of course who Boris Pecker was. The news of this juicy development hit the papers the following morning, to the delight of the legions of House Arrest fans. David’s downfall was complete.

DAY FORTY-NINE. 10.00 a.m.

I
t was eviction day, but many long hours would have to pass before the excitement of the evening. As usual the Peeping Tom production team had been racking their brains trying to think of things for the housemates to do. It wasn’t that interest in the show was waning, far from it. House Arrest remained the single most watched show on the planet. Geraldine had just brokered a worldwide distribution deal for the following week’s footage of US$45 million. It was more a matter of professional pride. Peeping Tom knew that it was running a freak show, but, freak show or not, it was still a television programme and they were responsible for it. The general feeling at the production meetings was that some artistic effort was required, if only for form’s sake. The week’s task had been a success. Geraldine had challenged the housemates to create sculptures of each other, and this inspired thought, with all its possibilities for psychological analysis, had provoked an incident of genuine spontaneous drama. An incident that once more confounded the sceptics who thought that House Arrest had run out of shocks. The trouble started when Dervla returned from her second visit to the police station. She was tired and upset after her grilling from Coleridge. Then there had been all the gawpers and reporters outside the house, screaming at her, asking if she had killed Kelly, and if it had been a sex thing. And finally there had been the looks of doubt and suspicion on the faces of her fellow housemates when she re-entered the house. Even Jazz looked worried. All in all, she was in no mood for jokes, so when she noticed that Garry had placed a kitchen knife in the hand of his half- finished representation of her, she flipped.

‘You bastard!’ Dervla screamed, white with fury.

‘You utter, utter bastard.’

‘It was a fahking joke, girl!’ Said Garry, laughing.

‘Joke? Remember them? After all, you are the coppers’ favourite, love!’ At which point Dervla slapped him across the face with such force that Garry toppled backwards over the orange couch.

‘Fahk that!’ Said Garry, leaping up, tears of pain and anger in his eyes.

‘Nobody slaps the Gaz, not even a bird, all right? I intend to give your arse a right proper spanking, you nasty little Paddy bitch!’

‘Oi,’ said Jazz, and leaped forward with the intention of intervening, but this act of chivalry turned out to be unnecessary. Dervla did not need any help, for as Garry advanced upon her, fists clenched, intent upon mayhem, she spun round upon one foot and in a single smooth movement planted the other one firmly into Carry’s face. He fell to the ground instantly, blood gushing from his nose.

‘Blimey,’ said Geraldine in the monitoring bunker. Dervla had been practising kickboxing since she was eleven and was by now a master at it, but she never told anybody if she could help it. She had discovered early on that once people knew, it was all they ever wanted to talk about. People were always asking for demonstrations and asking earnest questions: ‘OK, say if three, no, four blokes, with baseball bats, jumped you from behind, could you take them out?’ On the whole Dervla had kept her special skill private. Now, however, the world knew and frankly she didn’t care. She realized that she had a score to settle, and that it had nothing to do with Garry. Suddenly weeks of pent-up fear and rage exploded within her. Dervla knew that lurking not ten feet from her was almost certainly the message-writer, Larry Carlisle, the agent of her recent distress. Ignoring Garry, who was crumpled up on the floor howling in pain, Dervla turned to face the mirrors on the wall.

‘And if you’re out there, Carlisle, you disgusting little pervert, that’s exactly what you’ll get if you come within a hundred miles of me when I get out of this house. You made the police suspect me, you bastard! So you just leave me alone or I’ll kick your fucking head off and pull your balls out through your neck!’

‘Wow,’ said Geraldine in the monitoring bunker.

‘Is he going to have some explaining to do when he gets home.’ Thus it was that the affair of the perving cameraman unexpectedly entered the public domain, giving Peeping Tom yet another day of high drama. Carlisle was sacked, of course, but Dervla, who should by rights have also been kicked off the show for conniving with him, was allowed to stay.

‘Dervla did not solicit these messages, nor did she welcome them,’ said Geraldine piously, which was complete rubbish, of course, but the press did not care because nobody wanted to remove Dervla from the mix, particularly now that she had suddenly become so interesting. Particularly after Geraldine broadcast a selection of Carlisle’s private footage of Dervla in the shower. All of that excitement, however, had been some days before, and the voracious public appetite for surprises now needed feeding again. The hours until eviction would have to be filled. Geraldine decided to dig out the predictions package.

‘Peeping Tom has instructed the housemates to open the ‘predictions’ package, which they had all been a part of preparing at the end of week one,’ said Andy the narrator.

‘The package has lain untouched at the back of the kitchen cupboard since the day it was produced.’

‘Uh’d fugodden all abah did,’ said Garry, who was still nursing a swollen nose. Garry had decided to accept his surprise beating at Dervla’s hands in good part and let it be known both to her and in the confession box that there were no hard feelings on his side.

‘At the end of the day,’ he said through his bloody sinuses, ‘if you get bopped you get bopped. No point crying about it. In fact, getting hit by a bird is good for me and has made me more of a feminist.’ Garry was not stupid. There was a big difference between the hundred grand that the next person out would get and the million that would go to the winner. He wanted to stay in the game while the money grew, and he guessed that sour grapes would not help his cause at all. Therefore, once the doctor had treated his nose, which had been neatly broken, he shook Dervla’s hand and said, ‘Fair play to you, girl,’ and the nation applauded him for it. Inside, of course, Garry was seething. To have been duffed up by a bird, a small bird, on live TV. It was his worst nightmare. He’d never be able to show his face down the pub again. Watching Carry’s efforts to make up with Dervla on the police computer. Hooper did not believe a word of it.

‘He hates her. She’s number one on our Carry’s hate list,’ he said.

‘The place that Kelly used to occupy,’ Trisha mused.

‘And Kelly, of course, got killed.’ They had all forgotten about the predictions envelope, and there was eager anticipation as Jazz solemnly opened it and they all dipped in. The whole thing reminded them of a happier, more innocent time in the house. Peeping Tom had supplied some wine and there was much laughter as all the wrong predictions made six weeks earlier were read out.

‘Woggle reckoned he’d be the only one left,’ said Jazz. Took me, Layla picked herself to win the whole thing!’ Laughed Moon.

‘Listen to David!’ Shrieked Dervla.

‘ ‘I believe that by week seven I will have emerged as a healing force within the group.’’

‘In your dreams, Dave!’ Jazz shouted. The laughter died somewhat when they came to Kelly’s prediction. Moon read it out, and it was a moment of pure pathos.

‘I think that all the others are great people. I love them all big time and I shall be made up if I am still around by week seven. My guess is I’ll be out on week three or four.’’ There was silence as they all realized how right Kelly had been.

‘What’s that one, then?’ Moon asked, pointing at a piece of paper that had not yet been read out. Hamish turned it over. It was written in the same blue pencil that Peeping Tom had provided to everybody but the handwriting was a scrawled mess, as if somebody had been writing without looking and also with their left hand. This, the police handwriting expert was later to confirm, was indeed how the message had been written.

‘What does it say?’ Asked Moon. Hamish read it out.

‘By the time you read this Kelly will be dead.’’ It took a moment for it to dawn on them just what had been said.

‘Oh, my took,’ said Moon. Somebody had known for certain that Kelly would die. Somebody had actually written out the prediction. It was too horrible to imagine.

‘There’s more. Shall I read it?’ Hamish asked after a moment. They all nodded silently.

‘I shall kill her on the night of the twenty-seventh day.’’

‘Oh my God! He knew!’ Dervla gasped. Still Hamish had not finished. There was one final prediction in the note.

‘ ‘One of the final three will also die.’’

‘Oh, my God,’ Moon gasped.

‘No one’s touched that envelope in six fookin’ weeks. It could have been any of us wrote that.’