“Pandora is the most beautiful and intelligent creature I have ever met,” David explained, “and sadly I include human beings in that statement.”
“I
Trisha stopped the tape. “Fogarty the editor told me they got very excited about David and Layla that night. They thought that they might even troll off to the nookie hut and have it off there and then, but all that happened was a shoulder massage.”
“But they were definitely friends?” Coleridge asked.
“I think it’s more that they hated everybody else. Looking at the tapes, it’s pretty obvious that they thought themselves a cut above the others. On the first day or two the cameras often caught them exchanging wry, superior little glances. Peeping Tom broadcast them, too. The public hated it. David and Layla were the absolute least popular people in the house.”
“But of course they didn’t know this.”
“Well, there’s no way they could have done. They were sealed off. In fact, watching them you get the impression that they think people will love them as much as they love themselves. Particularly him.”
“Yes, David certainly is a cocky one,” Coleridge mused. “Arrogant almost beyond belief, in fact, in his quiet, passive-aggressive sort of way.”
Hooper was surprised to hear Coleridge using a term as current and overused as passive-aggressive, but there was no doubt that the phrase summed up David exactly.
They looked at David on the screen and stared into his soft, puppy-dog eyes. All three were thinking the same thing.
“It would certainly take a very confident person to believe that they could get away with what our murderer got away with,” said Coleridge. “No one with the slightest self-doubt would ever have attempted it.” He returned to the theme of friendship. “So familiarity quickly took its toll on David and Layla’s closeness. Like many a friendship too eagerly begun, it had no staying power.”
“That’s right,” said Trisha. “It started going wrong with the cheese and went downhill from there.”
“They were too alike, I reckon,” said Hooper. “They got in each other’s way. They wanted the same role in the house, to be the beautiful and sensitive one. It all fell irrevocably to pieces over Layla’s poem.”
DAY FIVE. 9.00 p.m.
The row began with the best intentions. David had suggested, in an attempt to engineer a rapprochement between himself and Layla (and hence avoid her nominating him), that since he was trained and practised in the art of recitation perhaps he should learn one of Layla’s poems and recite it for her. Layla had been touched and flattered and because there were no papers or pens allowed in the house David had set to learning the poem orally directly from the author.
“Lactation,” said Layla.
“That’s very, very beautiful,” said David.
“It’s the title,” Layla explained.
“I understand,” said David, nodding gently, as if the fact that “Lactation” was the title required a heightened level of perception to come to terms with.
“Shall we take it two lines at a time?” Layla asked.
By way of an answer David closed his eyes and put his hands together at the fingertips, his lips gently touching his index fingers.
Layla began. “‘Woman. Womb-an. Fat, full, belly, rich with girl child. Vagina, two-way street to miracles.’”
David breathed deeply and repeated the first two lines of Layla’s poem. It was clear from his manner that he thought Layla would be amazed and thrilled to have her words lent wings by such a richly liquid and subtle voice.
If she was, she hid it well. “Actually, that first line is meant to be very upbeat, joyful,” Layla said. “You’re being too sombre. I always say it with a huge smile, particularly the words ‘girl child’. I mean, think about it, David, doesn’t the thought of a strong, spiritual woman’s belly engorged with a beautiful girl child just make you want to smile?”
David was clearly aghast. “Are you giving me
“No, I just want you to know how to say it, that’s all.”
“The whole point about getting an
“But I don’t want the things that aren’t there, I want the things that are.”
David seemed to snap. “Then you’d better recite it yourself,” he said, jumping angrily to his feet. “Because quite frankly it stinks. Apart from the repulsive imagery of fat, engorged female stomachs, from, I might add, a woman with less flesh on her than a Chupa Chups stick, I am a
DAY THIRTY-TWO. 10.15 p.m.
“Very short fuse, Master David,” Coleridge observed thoughtfully. “Short enough for murder, do you think?”
Rewinding slightly and freezing on David’s furious face, it did seem possible.
“He certainly looks like he wants to murder her,” said Hooper. “But of course it wasn’t Layla that ended up getting killed, was it?”
“As we have discussed endlessly, sergeant. If the motive were obvious our killer would be awaiting trial right now. All we can hope to find is the seed from which a murder will grow.”
Hooper informed Coleridge as briskly as he dared that he was aware of this.
DAY FIVE. 9.15 p.m
After David had left the room, Layla did indeed take his advice and recite the poem herself, grinning like a baboon with a banana wedged sideways in its mouth throughout.
Jazz, Kelly, Dervla and Moon listened respectfully, and when it was over, they all said that they thought it was very, very good.
Woggle opined from his corner that poetry was merely an effort to formalize language and as such indicated a totalitarian mindset. “Words are anarchists. Let them run free,” he said. But the others ignored him, something that they had learned to do as much as possible, while counting the minutes to nomination day.
“That was the business, that poem, Layles. It was dead wicked, that, so fair play to yez,” Moon said in her Mancunian accent, which seemed to be getting thicker by the day.
“Did you notice my red lipstick?” Layla gushed.
They all had.
“Some anthropologists believe that women paint their lips red in order to make their mouths reminiscent of their vaginas.”
“Steady on, girl,” said Gazzer from over by the kettle. “Just had my dinner.”
“They say that women do it to make themselves more attractive to men, but I do it as a celebration.”
