Ben Elton - Dead Famous

Then she leaned back against the side of the tub and looked straight into David’s eyes.

David returned her stare, his superior smirk undaunted. He seemed unruffled.

He was about to be ruffled. Very.

For Kelly leaned forward once more and whispered something else into David’s ear.

This time neither Sergeant Hooper nor Trisha could quite catch what Kelly said. None of the officers working in the room could work it out at all.

It sounded something like “Far corgi in heaven.”

“That can’t be right, surely,” said Hooper.

“It would seem unlikely,” Trisha agreed.

Whatever it was that Kelly whispered, David had understood it and had not liked it.

There on the screen his expression clearly changed, subtly – he was too good an actor for his face to give much away – but his expression changed. Suddenly the smug, superior smile had disappeared.

He looked scared.

Hooper showed Coleridge the tape the following morning.

“Whatever ‘Far corgi in heaven’ means, sir, and that is certainly not quite what she said, it indicates to me that Kelly knew David before they entered the house.”

“It’s possible,” conceded the inspector.

“I reckon probable, sir,” said Hooper, running the tape once more. “When she says ‘I know you’ I thought at first she meant she knew him psychologically, because that’s what David was talking about.”

“Of course.”

“But then she says the other stuff, the corgi bit, and that’s clearly something that only David understands, some secret or experience from the outside world that they share.”

“No doubt about that, sergeant,” Coleridge agreed, “but it doesn’t necessarily mean they’d met. Kelly may have recognized something in David that enabled her to work something out about him.”

“I don’t count Kelly as the brightest apple in the barrel, sir. Working things out is not really her thing. I think they’d met.”

“Well, if they had then that is certainly a most significant discovery. Our whole catalyst theory is based on the presumption that they were all strangers. If two of them knew each other then that changes the dynamics across the whole group.”

For the first time the two detectives felt they might have a shred of a lead.

“So how do you read it, then, sergeant? Do you think that whatever Kelly recognized in David she recognized from the start?”

“Not unless she was as good an actress as she’d like to be. That first day was an absolute blank for her, I reckon. She just ran around shrieking, jumping in the pool and falling out of her top. Can’t say I noticed a single reflective moment. No, I think that whatever it was that made the penny drop for Kelly happened later. At some point David gave himself away, and Kelly spotted something about him that she recognized.”

“In that case I imagine it would have occurred not too long before she revealed her knowledge to David.”

“For sure. Kelly does not strike me as the sort of girl to keep a juicy thing like that to herself. She couldn’t wait to slap our Dave in the face with it, particularly after the way he put her down the previous day about her acting ambitions.”

“Well, if that’s correct, then whatever she saw she must have seen between the conversation around the pool and the conversation in the hot tub. What were they doing on the evening of day eight?”

“Tattoos!” said Hooper. “They were comparing tattoos! I’ve seen the tape.”

“Well, let’s take another look at it.”

By the time Hooper had reloaded the video tape, Trisha had joined them, and together they sat down to study the faces of Kelly and David as the group discussed tattoos.

Supper was over and with the exception of Woggle the housemates were all sitting about on the couches. They had just completed a small task set by Peeping Tom in which each housemate was loaned a pencil and paper and had to write down their predictions of who they thought would be left in the house at the end of week seven. They were also encouraged to jot down any other thoughts they might have about how things would pan out. All the pieces of paper were then put in a big brown envelope marked “Predictions”, which was solemnly sealed and placed at the back of the kitchen unit.

It was after that that the conversation turned to tattoos. They all had something to exhibit except Dervla and Jazz.

“I’m too black,” Jazz said, “besides which my skin is too beautiful to be improved.”

“I don’t have an explanation as to why I don’t have any tattoos,” said Dervla. “Except to say that it is extraordinary to me that these days when people talk about their tattoos it’s the people who don’t have them who have the explaining to do. Maybe that’s why I don’t want one.”

“Good for you,” said Coleridge, sipping from his china mug.

Hooper and Trisha said nothing. Hooper had the Everton football club badge tattooed on his shoulder and Trisha had a butterfly on her left buttock.

On the screen Garry was explaining that the eagle on his ankle stood for strength, honour and truth.

“What does the clenched fist on your shoulder stand for? Wanker?” Jazz enquired.

“No, it bleeding well doesn’t,” Garry replied. “Even though I am Olympic class in that particular sport.”

The girls groaned.

“My clenched fist also stands for strength, honour and truth. What’s more, I’m going to get another one done across me back. I’m going to get ‘strength, honour and truth’ written out in gothic script. It’s my motto.”

The group indicated that they had rather gathered this.

Then Moon showed the floral arrangement that ran up her spine. “The flowers are symbols of peace and inner strength. They’re spiritual blooms, and I think Egyptian princesses used to get buried with them in a bouquet, although I might have got that wrong. It might be fookin’ Norse women, but either way they’re all dead significant and spiritual.”

Kelly showed the phoenix that was flying up from between her buttocks. Sally demonstrated the female warrior fighting a dragon that surrounded her belly button, and Layla showed the tiny butterfly on one of her buttocks.

“I’ve got one just like that,” said Trisha, outraged. “The bloke who did it told me it was a unique one-off.”

Coleridge nearly choked on his tea. It had never even occurred to him that one of his officers, one of his lady officers, was tattooed. Particularly Patricia, whom he had thought such a steady girl.

Layla then proudly spread her legs and showed off the other butterfly she had, which was fluttering about right at the top of her perfectly lovely, smooth, groomed inner thigh.

“I keep it there,” Layla said, “to remind my lovers of the importance and the beauty of delicacy and lightness of touch.”

Coleridge groaned and looked away from the screen.

“Got one of those, Trish?” said Hooper.

“No way , not there. It’s bad enough having a bikini wax without some hell’s angel getting up you with his ink needle.”

“Be quiet, both of you!” barked Coleridge.

Now Layla was showing the little Eastern symbol on her shoulderblade. “It’s Tibetan,” she explained. “A Buddhist symbol indicating a tranquil inner light.”

Everyone agreed that this was particularly lovely.

Except David.

“Tibetan?” he asked, a hint of indulgent surprise in his voice.

“Yes, Tibetan,” said Layla defensively.

“Oh… OK, right. Whatever.”

Layla wanted to kill him. “What do you mean ‘Whatever’? It’s fucking Tibetan!”