Ben Elton - Dead Famous

“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 .”

The 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.

Dervla’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.

The 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.