Ben Elton - Dead Famous

The studio erupted. All around the world the press lines jammed. So Woggle had done it after all, the evil kicker of teenage girls had surpassed even his previous levels of brutality.

“Of course it wasn’t Woggle!” said Coleridge impatiently. “Good heavens, if that highly distinctive fellow had popped up through the carpet I think we would have noticed, don’t you? No, let’s stop looking for opportunity and start to consider motive . What are the common motives for murder? I suggest that hate is one. Hatred drives people to kill, and my investigations have discovered that there was one truly hate-filled relationship souring the Peeping Tom experience, and it did not fester inside the house. It was the hatred that Bob Fogarty, the senior series editor, felt for Geraldine Hennessy, the producer!”

Coleridge pointed above the heads of the audience to the darkened window situated high in the wall at the back of the studio. “Behind that window sits the Peeping Tom editing team,” Coleridge continued, “and they are led by a man who believes that his boss, Geraldine Hennessy, is a television whore! He said as much to one of my officers. Bob Fogarty claimed that Hennessy’s work represented a new low in broadcasting, she had ruined the industry he loved and that he longed for her downfall! But! He did not kill Kelly.”

Coleridge could detect a tiny edge of impatience in the crowd. He knew that he could not play the trick he was playing for much longer. The spin was running out. But it no longer mattered. Coleridge was smiling, for at the back of the studio he saw the big door open and Hooper steal through it. Hooper gave Coleridge the briefest of thumbs-up signals.

Geraldine did not see the smile spreading across Coleridge’s face. She was too busy smiling herself because, glancing down at her watch, she worked out that the mad policeman had been on the stage for five and a half minutes and had therefore earned her an extra eleven million dollars, and clearly the idiot had not finished yet.

The smile was about to be wiped from Geraldine’s face.

“So!” said Coleridge dramatically. “We know now who did not kill Kelly Simpson. Let us come to the real business at hand and establish who did kill her. Nothing happened in that dreadful house without first being arranged, manipulated and packaged by the producer. Nothing, ladies and gentleman, not even murder most foul. Therefore let us be quite clear about this. The murderer was… you , Geraldine Hennessy!” Coleridge pointed his finger and the cameras swung around to follow its direction.

For once Geraldine found herself at the wrong end of the lens.

“You’re out of your mind!” Geraldine gasped.

“Am I? Well, I think you’d know something about that, Ms Hennessy.”

Trisha entered the editing box carrying a plastic bag filled with video tapes. She went up to Bob Fogarty and whispered in his ear.

“I can’t leave now,” Fogarty protested.

“I can cover it,” said his assistant, Pru, eagerly. All her life she had longed for just such a chance.

“I’m afraid I must insist, sir,” said Trisha, whispering once more into Fogarty’s ear.

Fogarty rose from his seat, took up his family-sized bar of milk chocolate, and left the editing box.

Pru took over the controls. “Camera four,” she said. “Slow creep in on Coleridge.”

Down on the stage the object of this command was in full flow.

“Perhaps you will allow me to explain,” Coleridge said. “First let us consider motive.” Coleridge was standing tall now, strong and commanding. This was not just because his performance muscles, which had for so long lain dormant, were flexing themselves, but also because he knew that success could only come with confidence. She had to believe that the game was up.

“Well, a motive is simple enough, it’s the oldest one of the lot. Not hate, not love, but greed. Greed, pure and simple. Kelly Simpson died to make you rich, Ms Hennessy. The whole media establishment expected series three of House Arrest to be a failure. The Woggle affair drew attention to you, certainly, but it was Kelly’s death that turned your show into the biggest television success story in history, as you knew it would ! Can you deny it?”

“No, of course not,” Geraldine said. “That doesn’t mean I killed her.”

Geraldine was alone now on the studio floor. The happy throng of excited young audience members and studio staff had drawn back to form a large circle. Geraldine stood in the middle of this, like a lioness at bay, the focus of that vast room, three big studio cameras hovering around her, for all the world like great hunting animals of prey.

Beyond them, still standing on the stage with Chloe and the eight housemates, was Coleridge, returning Geraldine’s defiant stare. “You have been clever, Ms Hennessy, brutally, fiendishly clever. I do believe your finest hour, perhaps, was allowing the early profits from the worldwide interest that Kelly’s murder produced to be given away. Oh yes, that certainly made me wonder, when your editor, Bob Fogarty, told us of your fury at the missed opportunity, a million lost? Perhaps two? And then, I thought, what a small price to avoid suspicion falling immediately upon your shoulders, as since then you have milked hundreds of millions of dollars from your ghoulish crime.”

“Now you be careful, chief inspector,” Geraldine said. “You’re on live television here. The whole world is watching while you make a fool of yourself.” The mention of money had put the spirit back into Geraldine. Coleridge’s accusation had certainly been a shock, but she could not imagine on what grounds he was going to base it, let alone prove it. Meanwhile, the House Arrest drama continued and the profits kept on mounting.

“You may bluster all you wish, Ms Hennessy,” Coleridge replied, “but I intend to prove that you are the murderer and then I intend to see you punished under the full majesty of the law. Let me say now that I knew even on the night of the crime that things were not as they appeared. Despite your impressive efforts, there was just so much that was wrong. Why was it that cameraman Larry Carlisle, the only person to witness the cloaked murderer follow Kelly to the lavatory, thought that the killer had emerged only two minutes after Kelly left the sweatbox, while the people watching on video could see very well from their machines that it had been more like five?”

“Larry Carlisle has been proved to -”

“Not a very reliable witness, I accept that, but on this occasion I suggest reliable enough. Otherwise, why was it that the blood which flowed from Kelly’s wounds seemed to accumulate so very quickly? The doctor was surprised, and so was I. Who would have thought the young girl to have so much blood in her , to paraphrase the Bard. A great deal of blood to flow in the two minutes that was supposed to have passed between the murder and your arriving on the scene, Ms Hennessy, but not so much if you reckon on the five minutes that Carlisle thought had passed.”

“Not all blood flows at the same speed, for fuck’s sake!” Geraldine barked, forgetting for a moment that she was on live television.

“Then there was the vomit,” said Coleridge. “Kelly had been drinking heavily, and she rushed to the lavatory in a mighty hurry, didn’t she? But according to what we saw, when she arrived she simply sat down. More curious still, even though the lavatory bowl had clearly been scrubbed clean, the lavatory seat had a few flecks of vomit on it. Vomit which has been confirmed as having emanated from Kelly. How could this be? I asked myself. Watching the tape again I can see that Kelly does not throw up, she merely sits… and yet I know that she was sick . I have vomit from her mouth, I have her vomit from the lavatory seat. Without doubt this is a girl who ran into the lavatory, knelt before it and was sick. Yet when I watch the tape, she just sits down .”