Dead famous (19 page)

DAY TWENTY-NINE. 8.00 p.m.

H
aving spent the day reviewing the footage from the very first day in the house, Coleridge and Hooper turned once more to the tape of the night of the murder. The same images that Geraldine, the Peeping Tom production team and 47,000 Internet subscribers had watched live less than forty-eight hours before. Those same strange, fuzzy, bluish-grey pictures that the night-sight cameras had transmitted from the boys’ bedroom. A bedroom that seemed innocent and empty, entirely normal, save for the weird-looking plastic box in the middle of the room, a box which they knew contained eight drunk, naked people, the only evidence of whom were the strange bulges that seemed to undulate against the polythene walls from time to time. It was an eerie and depressing sight for the two policemen, knowing as they did that one of those living bulges was shortly to die.

‘He could have done it inside the box,’ said Hooper thoughtfully.

‘Why didn’t he do it in the box?’

‘Or she,’ Coleridge reminded Hooper, ‘or she. We refer to the murderer as a he for convenience’s sake but we must never ever forget that it could be a woman.’

‘Yes, all right, sir, I know. But what I’m saying is that nobody would have known, if he or she had done it inside the box, if a hand had reached out in the darkness holding a small knife, which the murderer could easily have sneaked in with him. It would have been relatively simple to just slit a throat in the dark and wait until people smelt blood, or felt it. By the time anybody realized that the warm stuff flowing all over them wasn’t sweat they’d all have been drenched in it. Maybe that’s what he planned.’

‘There was no small knife in the box when we searched it, or in the room.’

‘Well, sir, if he’d suddenly decided to follow the victim to the toilet instead, he could have put it back in the kitchen drawer when he got the bigger one.’

‘I don’t think so, sergeant. How could he have been sure of his kill in that darkness? Whether he’d stabbed the right person and whether he’d finished the job properly? Chances are it would have been a terrible mess. He would have just cut off a nose or something, or somebody else’s nose, or his own fingers.’

‘Well, he had to do it some time. How would he have known that a better chance was going to emerge?’

‘He didn’t know, but he was waiting. If the chance hadn’t come, my guess is that he would have carried on waiting.’

‘For how long? Until his prey got voted out and escaped him altogether?’

‘Ah, but he or she knew that the prey hadn’t been nominated that week, giving at least eight days’ grace.’

‘All I’m saying,’ the sergeant insisted, ‘is that if I was desperate to kill somebody in that house, I would have reckoned a crowded, darkened sweatbox, inside which everybody was drunk, to be about the best shot I was going to get.’

‘Well, the drinking is a factor, surely. I suppose he knew that people would have to start going to the lavatory at some point.’

‘He couldn’t be certain.’

‘No, he couldn’t be certain of anything. However and whenever he chose to do it, this was always going to be a risky sort of murder.’ Coleridge looked at the time code on the video. They had pressed pause at 11.38. He knew that when he pressed play the code would tick over to 11.39 and Kelly Simpson would emerge from the sweatbox to take what would be the final brief walk of her life. Kelly Simpson, so young, so excited, so certain of her splendid fun-filled destiny, gone into that stupid, pointless house to die. In Coleridge’s mind there appeared the image of how she had been on that very first day in the house, jumping into the pool with excitement, shrieking about how ‘wicked’ it all was. And wicked was without doubt the word, because the time was now 11.38 on Kelly’s last day in the house, and in a few more minutes she would be in a pool once more. A pool of her own blood.

‘The point I’m making, sir,’ Hooper pressed on, ‘is that if he was planning to kill her, which we have presumed he was, then he must have been considering the possibility of doing her inside the sweatbox. He could not have known for certain that she would go to the loo, or that he would be able to conceal his identity when he followed her into it.’ Coleridge stared at the screen for a long time. Difficult to believe that there were eight people in that foolish little plastic construction.

‘Unless the catalyst for the murder did not occur until after they had entered the box,’ he mused.

‘Unless whatever it was that made the killer want Kelly dead did not occur until moments before she ran to the toilet, and in fact he ran after her in an act of spontaneous fury.’

‘Or fear,’ Hooper added.

‘Yes, that’s right. Or fear. After all, since none of these people knew each other before they entered the house…’

‘Or so we have been told, sir.’ This remark came from Trisha, who had just returned with a round of teas.

‘Yes, that’s right, constable, so we have been told,’ said Coleridge.

‘We have been working on the theory that the catalyst that provoked the murder must have taken place at some point between the housemates entering the house and their entering the box. But of course something terrible might have happened once they were inside the box.’

‘Well, it would certainly explain why the people at Peeping Tom have no idea about a motive,’ Trisha conceded, sugaring Coleridge’s tea for him.

‘It would indeed. And this situation was after all developing into an orgy.’ Coleridge pronounced the word ‘orgy’ with a hard ‘g’. Hooper wondered whether he did it deliberately and rather thought he must.

‘Quite a volatile environment, I should imagine. An orgy,’ Coleridge continued.

‘Are you suggesting a rape, sir?’ Said Trisha.

‘That someone forced themselves upon Kelly and then killed her in order to avoid the consequences?’

‘It wouldn’t be the first time a rape turned into a murder.’

‘But the others? We’ve talked to them all. They didn’t notice anything. I mean, you simply could not keep a thing like that quiet.’

‘Couldn’t you? In that environment? Besides, consider the possibility that they were all conspirators. That they were all covering up for the one who actually did the dirty work.’

‘You mean perhaps they all wanted Kelly dead?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Coleridge.

‘It would certainly explain the startling lack of evidence in any of their statements.’

‘You think that perhaps she had something on them, that she knew something about them all?’ Coleridge accepted his mug of tea from Trisha without looking at her. Instead he continued to stare at the box on the screen. He was imagining something very ugly.

‘Or because they’d all done something to her,’ he said finally.

‘Some kind of group abuse?’ Hooper said.

‘A gangbang?’ Coleridge wanted to tell Hooper to use some other more suitable term, but he knew that there wasn’t one. For the umpteenth time he pressed play and 11.38 ticked over to 11.39. Kelly emerged from the sweatbox.

DAY TWENTY-SEVEN. 11.39 p.m.

G
eraldine was thrilled. Thrilled and very excited. When asked to describe the scene later to the police, everyone who had been in the box with her that night commented on just how happy had been her mood. Almost hysterical, one or two of them had said. And well Geraldine might have been happy. It was clear to them all as they watched the grey, translucent plastic box almost begin to throb that her plan was working and that real sex truly was on the cards. They had been in the box for just half the allotted four hours, and there had clearly already been some quite specific erotic activity, and it seemed certain that there would be more. The shouts and shrieks and smart-alee comments of the first rush of embarrassed excitement had died down, and now only murmurs and whispers could be heard. The people inside the box were clearly very drunk and very disoriented after their two hours of sweating and writhing in the complete darkness of their little plastic hut. Clearly anything might happen. And of course it did. It was about ten minutes after Jazz’s voice had been heard suggesting a touching game in which people were to attempt to identify each other in the darkness that the plastic flaps at the entrance to the sweatbox parted, and Kelly emerged.

‘Aye aye,’ said Geraldine.

‘Piss break.’ Bob Fogarty winced and concentrated on his monitors. On the screens Kelly straightened herself up. Her naked body was gleaming and dripping with sweat.

‘Very nice,’ whispered Geraldine, tense with excitement.

‘Very, very, very nice.’ Kelly seemed to be in a hurry. She did not bother to take up one of the great long sheets that Peeping Tom had thoughtfully provided for such eventualities, but simply ran naked out of the boys’ bedroom, across the living area and into the sole lavatory, which served the needs of the whole group.

‘Beautiful!’ Geraldine exclaimed.

‘I never thought they’d use the cover-up sheets once they got amped up. Except maybe that snotty cow Dervla. Moon was right, I only put them there to make it look like I’m not a total perv, which of course I am, along with the rest of the population, I might add.’ Kelly’s run had certainly been thrilling for the watchers in the monitoring bunker. The show’s first moment of absolute, in-focus, full-frontal nudity.

‘Minge and all,’ as Geraldine delightedly put it.

‘Now we won’t have to keep running that same tired old shot of her tit coming out in the pool.’

‘Superb image quality, too,’ commented Fogarty.

‘The body or the pictures?’ Geraldine enquired.

‘I’m a techy, I don’t do aesthetics,’ Fogarty replied with angry embarrassment. He was right about the quality, though. This was no grainy-blue sneaky night-shot like the ones they occasionally caught in the bedrooms. Kelly had run right through the living area, which was permanently neon lit, and although the lights had been dimmed to avoid light intruding into the boys’ bedroom when the door was open, it was still a glorious shot.

‘Nice one, Larry,’ Geraldine called into the microphone, addressing the one live cameraman on duty.

‘Glad we decided to keep you on.’ Geraldine was referring to the fact that there had only the previous day been a debate about dispensing with night operators altogether, because so little ever actually happened in the house at night, and seeing as how the entire environment was covered by remotes anyway. Geraldine had, however, insisted on retaining at least one person in the camera runs at night for just such an eventuality as had occurred. A naked girl running right across the room needed the personal touch. The coverage from the hotheads not only came from above but also encompassed three different arcs of vision, and would have had to be cut up accordingly. On the other hand Larry, the live cameraman, had got one long beautiful, tit-bouncing, thigh-wobbling, tummy-stretching, full-frontal shot with pubic hair in full and constant focus. A shot that would play absolutely beautifully in slow motion.

‘Terrific work, out of the blue like that,’ Geraldine continued, giving credit where it was due.

‘Looks like there’s still a role for you human beings in making television. Stick with her at the toilet door, Larry, and get her again when she comes out.’ Inside the toilet, of course, there was only remote coverage, a single camera mounted high in a corner above the door. This camera was looking down now on Kelly as she sat on the seat of the lavatory, her head in her hands. In the monitoring box there was a slightly embarrassed silence. None of the production team had ever quite got used to this bit of their job. Listening to people pee and poop. In the daytime at least there were other things going on, something else to look at and listen to, but not at night. When any of the housemates went at night it was just them and the six people watching and listening from the box. This was always a strangely intense and rather degrading experience for the editing team. They felt like the most awful perverts. On this occasion, of course, there should have been plenty of distraction coming from inside the translucent plastic box, but suddenly the party seemed to have arrived at something of a lull. The high hilarity,grunting and giggling of the touching game had rather abruptly died down into what sounded like something approaching a drunken stupor. Murmured conversations and giggles could be made out, but nothing very clear. Nothing distracting enough to take the team’s minds off the girl on the toilet. And so they sat there, grown-up, educated, professional people, waiting to watch a young woman empty her bladder and very possibly also her bowel. They all felt very stupid.

‘Get on with it then, darling,’ said Geraldine.

‘You can’t have stage fright after three weeks. We’ve all heard you piss before.’

‘Maybe she’s having a little cry or something,’ said Fogarty.

‘She doesn’t normally hang her head like that when she pees.’

‘Somebody in the sweatbox pushed her a bit too far, do you think?’ Geraldine replied eagerly.

‘Well, we shall no doubt hear all about it in the confession box tomorrow.’

‘She’s just sitting like that ‘cos she’s drunk,’ observed Pru, the assistant editor.

‘Probably.’ Together they all continued to stare at the girl on the toilet. It was, after all, their job. That reminds me,’ said Geraldine.

‘I’m busting.’ She had been in the bunker for many hours, drinking coffee almost continuously.

‘Bet I’m back before she’s been.’ Geraldine rather prided herself on the efficiency of her physical functions.

‘ ‘And I’m going to have a shit,’ she remarked over her shoulder as she left. Geraldine knew how unpleasant her staff found her and she delighted in compounding it, surprising them by going further than even their grim expectations.

‘Far, far too much information,’ Fogarty said ruefully after Geraldine had left the room. They waited in silence.

‘I think she is upset,’said Pru.

‘Who? Geraldine? I doubt it.’

‘No, Kelly. She doesn’t want a pee, she’s just gone in there to get away, hasn’t she?’

‘Possibly, I suppose.’

‘Well, she’s not doing a wee, is she? She’s just sitting there. She just wanted to get out of that sweatbox, but she knows if she does she’ll forfeit the task and Geraldine will fine the group half their budget. The only way she can get a break is by pretending to have a pee.’ Shortly after this Geraldine returned and drew the same conclusion as Pru.

‘She’s skiving off,’ Geraldine sneered.

‘She’s having a bunk. She’s not having a piss, she’s taking the piss, and I’m not putting up with that. I’m going to give her a Peeping Tom announcement to pee or get off the potty. Where’s my voice? Where’s Sam? I’m going to tell that young slapper to get her lovely body back in that sweatbox or pay the price.’

‘Hang on,’ said Pru.

‘Something’s happening.’