Dead Famous

kept looking over his shoulder to glance at the big door at the back of the studio. He was waiting for Hooper and Patricia to appear, but so far there had been no sign of them. He knew that if they did not come in the next few moments and provide him with the proof he needed, the killer would escape.

“Well, you were right,” said Geraldine grudgingly. “Nobody did get killed. You know, I really thought the bastard might pull it off. I suppose it was stupid, but he did do such an extraordinary job the first time round. Either way, it makes no difference to me. The show was pre-sold.” She looked at her watch. “Fifty-three minutes so far, that’s a hundred and six million dollars. Very nice, very nice indeed.”

Geraldine addressed Bob Fogarty in the control box via her intercom: “Bob, give Bimbo Chloe a message to wind it up as slow as she dares, words of one syllable, please. When she’s finished, replay the Kelly tribute and then stick on the long credits, every second is money.”

Coleridge looked at the door once more: still no sign of his colleagues. It was all about to slip away from him. He knew that somehow he must delay the end of the show. Banquo’s ghost would only work on air. There had to be a feast. Macbeth’s confusion would mean nothing if it happened in private.

“Hold on a minute, Ms Hennessy,” he said quietly. “I think I can earn you a few more million dollars.”

Geraldine knew a sincere tone of voice when she heard one. “Keep the cameras rolling!” she barked into her intercom, “and tell my driver to wait. What’s on your mind, inspector?”

“I’m going to catch the Peeping Tom killer for you.”

“Fuck me.”

Even Geraldine was surprised when Inspector Stanley Spencer Coleridge asked if it would be possible for him to be given a mike.

A hand-held microphone was quickly thrust into his hand, and then to everyone’s complete surprise Coleridge stepped up onto the stage and joined Chloe. All over the world and in every language under the sun, the same question was asked: “Who the hell is that old guy?”

“Please forgive me, Chloe… I’m afraid I don’t know your surname,” Coleridge said, “and I hope that the public will forgive me also if I trespass for a moment on their time.”

Chloe stared about her wildly, wondering where the security men were, seeing as a senior citizen appeared to be making a stage invasion.

“Run with it, Chloe,” the floor manager whispered at her through her earpiece. “Geraldine says he’s kosher.”

“Oh, right. Wicked,” said Chloe in an unconvinced voice.

Everybody stared at Coleridge. He had never felt such a fool, but he was desperate. There was still no sign of Hooper and Patricia. He knew that he would have to stall. He looked out at the sea of expectant, slightly hostile faces. He tried not to think of the hundreds of millions more that he could not see but who he knew were watching. He fought down his fear.

“Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Chief Inspector Stanley Coleridge of the East Sussex Police, and I am here to arrest the murderer of Kelly Simpson, spinster of the parish of Stoke Newington, London Town.” He had no idea where the “spinster” bit had come from except that he knew he must spin it out, spin it out at all costs. He had absolutely no idea how long he would have to stall.

Once the sensation caused by his opening remark had died down, Coleridge turned and addressed the eight ex-housemates, who had been assembled by Chloe on the podium. The eight people whose faces he had stared at for so long. The suspects.

“This has not been an easy case. Everyone in the world has had a theory, and motives there have been aplenty. A fact that has caused my officers and myself some considerable confusion over the last few weeks. But the identity of this cruel killer, that despicable individual who saw fit to plunge a knife into the skull of a beautiful, innocent young girl, has remained a mystery.”

Something rather strange was happening to Coleridge. He could feel it deep in the pit of his stomach. It was a new sensation for him, but not an unpleasant one. Could it be that he was enjoying himself? Perhaps not quite that. The tension was too great and the possibility of failure too immediate for enjoyment, but he certainly felt… exhilarated. If he had had a moment to think, he might have reflected that circumstance had granted him that thing which he most craved and which his local amateur dramatic society had so long denied him: an audience and a leading role.

“So,” said Coleridge, addressing the camera with the red light on top, presuming correctly that this was the live one. “Who killed Kelly Simpson? Well, in view of the wealth of suspicion that has been visited upon various innocents, I think it fair to begin by clearing up who definitely did not kill Kelly Simpson.”

“This bloke’s a natural,” Geraldine whispered to the floor manager. She was deeply impressed with this new side of Coleridge’s character, and well she might have been, for every minute that he spoke was earning her an extra two million dollars.

Spin it out. Spin it out, Coleridge thought to himself, a sentiment which Geraldine would have applauded wholeheartedly.

“Sally!” Coleridge said, turning dramatically to face the eight suspects. “You were the victim of a terrible coincidence. Your poor mother’s suffering, which you had hoped would remain a private matter, has become public knowledge. You have anguished over your fears that the curse that blighted your mother’s life might also have blighted yours. You’ve tortured yourself with the question Did I Kill Kelly? Was your true personality revealed in the darkness of that black box?”

Sally did not answer. Her eyes were far away. She was thinking of her mother sitting in the terrible little room where she had sat for most of the last twenty years.

“Let me assure you, Sally, that never for one moment did I imagine that the killer was you. You had not the ghost of a motive save family history, and the coincidence of that history repeating itself in so exact a manner is so unlikely as to be virtually impossible. Many families have some mental disorder in their line… Why, the producer of this very show could say as much, couldn’t you, Ms Hennessy?”

“Eh?” said Geraldine. She was enjoying Coleridge’s performance hugely, but had not expected to be drawn into it.

“I gather from interviews my officers have held with your staff that on the two occasions when both Sally and Moon spoke about life inside mental hospitals you remarked quite clearly that it was not like that at all. You in fact explained clearly what it was like. I can only presume that you yourself have some experience?” Coleridge glanced once more at the studio door. No sign. Spin it out.

“Well, as it happens you’re right.” Geraldine spoke into the boom mike, which had hastily descended above her head, the studio crew having reacted according to their instincts. “My mum was a bit of a fruitcake herself, Sally, and my dad, as it happens, so believe me, I sympathize with the outrageous prejudice you have had to put up with.”

“A sentiment that does you great credit,” Coleridge said. “Particularly since medical opinion informs me that when both a person’s parents suffer serious mental instability, their offspring has a thirty-six per cent chance of inheriting their challenges.”

Geraldine did not much like having her family’s linen so publicly washed, but at two million dollars a minute she felt she could put up with it.

Coleridge turned once more to the suspects. “So, Sally, I hope that you can learn from this terrible experience that you need not fear the burden of your past. You did not kill Kelly Simpson, but you were very nearly killed yourself, as I intend to show.”

This comment was greeted with gasps from the audience, which Coleridge did his best to milk.

“Now, what about the rest of you? Did Moon kill Kelly? Well, did you, Moon? You’re a wicked liar, we know that from the tapes. The public never saw you make up a history of abuse in order to score cheap points against Sally, but I did, and it occurred to me that a woman who could invent such grotesque and insensitive deceits might lie about pretty much anything, even murder.”

The cameras turned on Moon.

“Extreme close up!” shouted Bob Fogarty from the control box.

Moon was sweating. “Now just a fookin’…”

“Please, if we could try to moderate our language,” Coleridge chided. “We are on live television, after all. Don’t upset yourself, Moon. If there were as many murderers as there are liars in this world we should all be dead