Ben Elton - Dead Famous

But still they wavered.

To go back into that house…

To sleep in those beds…

To use the toilet. The toilet where only hours before…

Having tried conciliation, Geraldine picked up her cosh once more and played her strongest card of all: the truth. “All right, let’s really get down to it, shall we? Yesterday you were all part of a crappy, unoriginal little cloned game show that we’ve all seen ten times before. You’ve all watched them and you all know that the people on them basically look like a bunch of arrogant self-absorbed arseholes. Do you think you looked any different? Think again. I’ll show you the tapes if you like. Blimey, the public preferred Woggle to you lot. Stars? Fuck off. Disposable minor celebs is all you were. That’s the truth. I’m levelling with you for your own good.”

“Now look here…” David began to protest.

“Shut up, David, this is my fucking bus and I’m fucking talking.”

David shut up.

“ Now , however,” Geraldine continued, “you can change all that. If you have the guts, you have the chance to be a part of the most fascinating television experiment of all time. A live whodunit! A nightly murder mystery with a real live victim …”

She realized what she’d said the moment she said it. “Oh, all right, then, a real dead victim if you like. The point is that this will be the biggest show in history, and you are the stars of it! Kelly has given you the chance to be the thing she wanted most of all, to be a star! Do you hear me? Genuinely, properly famous, and to get it all you have to do is continue to play the game.”

Geraldine looked at their faces. She had won her argument. It had not taken long.

Together they quickly concocted a press release, which they issued through the bus window as they approached the house. “We, the seven remaining housemates of House Arrest Three , have elected to continue with our sociological experiment as a tribute to Kelly and her dreams. We knew Kelly and know that she loved this show. It was a part of her, and she gave her life for it. We feel that for us to give up now and to jettison all that she worked for would be an insult to the memory of a beautiful strong woman and human being, whom we loved very, very much. House Arrest continues because it is what Kelly would have wanted. We are doing it for her. Crack on!”

“That’s fookin’ beautiful, that is,” Moon said.

Then Sally started to cry and in a moment they were all crying. Except Dervla. Dervla was thinking about something else.

“Just one thing,” she said, as the bus forced its way through the crowds who had gathered round the Peeping Tom compound.

“Yeah, what?” said Geraldine brusquely. Having secured their agreement, she wanted no further discussion, particularly from Princess fucking Dervla.

“Suppose the killer strikes again?”

Geraldine pondered this for a moment. “Well, it’s never going to happen, is it? I mean, come on, you’ll all be on your guard, and we’d never do something like the sweatbox thing again. Obviously all anonymous environments and closed-in group activities are out. No more bunches of people, everything open and spread out. Really you should be sorry. I mean, imagine if it were possible for it to happen again. Just how fucking big would the remains of you be then ?”

They had been back inside for half an hour, but no one had spoken. Some lay on their beds, some sat on the couches. Nobody had yet used the toilet.

“This is Chloe,” the voice sounded through the house from the concealed speakers. “In order to maintain the integrity of the game structure we have decided to treat Kelly’s absence as an eviction from the house. Therefore there will be no further evictions this week. As a special treat, and in view of your long and tiring day, a takeaway meal for you has been placed in the store cupboard.”

Jazz went to get it. “Chinese,” he said, returning with the bags.

It was the only word uttered in the house until long after they had finished the food.

Finally David broke the silence. “So one of us killed Kelly?”

“So it would fookin’ seem,” Moon replied.

There was silence again.

There was silence also in the monitoring bunker as the hours ticked by.

Late that night Inspector Coleridge slipped into the box and sat down beside Geraldine. He wanted to see for himself how the show was put together. When he spoke Geraldine actually jumped.

“You know that if I could have stopped you carrying on with this, I would.”

“I don’t see why you would want to,” Geraldine replied. “How many policemen get the chance to watch their suspects in the way you’re doing? Normally when no charges are pressed the prey is gone, off covering its tracks and hiding its secrets. If this lot are holding onto any secrets, then they’d better keep them pretty close.”

“I would have liked to stop you on moral grounds. The whole country is watching your programme because they know that one of the people on it is a murderer.”

“Not just that, inspector, as if that wasn’t good enough telly in itself,” Geraldine replied gleefully. “They’re also watching because there is always the chance that it might happen again.”

“That possibility had occurred to me.”

“And I can assure you that it’s occurred to our little gang of wannabes. How good is that?”

“Murder is not a spectator sport.”

“Isn’t it?” Geraldine asked. “All right, then. If you didn’t have to watch this because you’re investigating it, would you still watch it? Come on, be honest, you would, wouldn’t you?”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“Well, then, you’re even more boring than I thought you were.”

Silence descended as they watched the housemates clearing away the debris of their meal.

“Why are they doing it, do you think?” Coleridge asked.

“Why do you think? To get famous.”

“Ah yes, of course,” said Coleridge. “Fame.”

“Fame,” he thought, “the holy grail of a secular age.” The cruel and demanding deity that had replaced God. The one thing. The only thing, it seemed to Coleridge, that mattered any more. The great obsession, the all-encompassing national focus, which occupied 90 per cent of every newspaper and 100 per cent of every magazine. Not faith, but fame.

“Fame,” he murmured once more. “I hope they enjoy it.”

“They won’t,” Geraldine replied.

Coleridge sat in the larger of the two halls in the village youth centre awaiting his turn among all the other hopefuls. He was very, very tired, having been up for most of the previous two nights investigating a real live “murder most foul”.

Now he was in the realms of fiction, but the words of the great “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” speech, one of his favourites, seemed to be draining from his mind.

He tried to concentrate, but people kept asking him about the Peeping Tom murder. It was understandable, of course – the whole affair was colossal news, and they all knew that Coleridge was a senior policeman. He would not have dreamt of telling them about his direct association with the crime. “I expect my colleagues will do their best,” he said, trying to fix his mind on being a poor player about to strut and fret his hour upon the stage.

To Coleridge’s great relief his picture had not been shown on any of the news broadcasts during the day, and he did not expect it to be in the morning papers either. He simply did not look enough like a “top cop” to warrant inclusion. When the press did print a photo it was of Patricia, there being nothing they liked more than a comely “police girl”.