Dead Famous

by now. You did not kill Kelly.”

“Well, I know that,” said Moon.

“Nobody has really known anything during this investigation, Moon. Heavens, even Layla has come under suspicion.”

The cameras swung to face a shocked Layla.

“What?”

“Oh yes, such was the apparent impossibility of the murder that at times it seemed possible to imagine that you had wafted in through an airvent on that grim night. After all, everybody saw Kelly nominate you in that first week and then hug and kiss you goodbye. That must have hurt a proud woman like you.”

“It did,” said Layla, “and I’m ashamed to say that, when I heard about the murder, for a moment I was glad Kelly died. Isn’t that terrible? I’ve sought counselling now though, which is helping a lot.”

“Good for you,” said Coleridge. “For let us be quite clear: there is no circumstance or situation in our world today that cannot benefit from counselling. You were simply being selfish, Layla, that was all, but I’m sure that somewhere you can find somebody to tell you that you had a right to be.” Coleridge was being deeply sarcastic, but the crowd did not get it and applauded him, assuming, as did Layla, that Coleridge’s comment was a love-filled Oprah moment of support.

“Layla was long gone by the time Kelly died,” Coleridge continued, “but Garry wasn’t, were you, Gazzer? So how about you? Did you kill Kelly? You certainly wanted to kill her. After the whole country saw her teach you a few home truths about, the responsibilities of fatherhood there was no doubt you had a motive. Wounded pride has been a cause for murder many times in the past, but on the whole I suspect that you don’t care quite enough about anything to take the sort of risk this killer took. But what about you, Hamish? Only you know what passed between Kelly and yourself the night you reeled drunkenly together into that little cabin. Perhaps Kelly had a story to tell, but, if she did, fortunately for you we’ll never hear it. Did you wish her silenced as you sat together in that awful sweatbox? Did you reach out a hand to stop her mouth?”

Hamish did not answer, but just glared at Coleridge fiercely, biting his lip.

“Perhaps you did, but you didn’t kill her. Now then, what about David?” Coleridge turned his gaze to the handsome actor, whose face was still proud and haughty despite all that he’d been through. “You and Kelly also shared a secret. A secret you hoped to keep hidden, and with Kelly’s death you thought it safe.”

“For heaven’s sake, I didn’t…”

“No, I know you didn’t, David. Sadly for you, though, because of her death and the subsequent investigation, the world has discovered your secret anyway and, like her, I doubt now that you will ever achieve your dream.”

“Actually, I’ve had some very interesting offers,” said David defiantly.

“Still acting, David? I recommend you try facing up to the truth. In the long run life is easier.”

As David glared at him Coleridge looked once more at the door at the back of the studio. There was still no sign of Hooper and Patricia. How long could he keep on stalling? He was running out of suspects.

“Dervla Nolan, I have always had my doubts about you,” said Coleridge, turning to her and pointing his finger dramatically.

Once more the focus of the cameras shifted.

“Have you now, chief inspector?” Dervla replied, her green eyes flashing angry defiance. “And why would that be, I wonder.”

“Because you played the game so hard. Because you have a rogue’s courage and risked it all by communicating with the cameraman Larry Carlisle through the mirror. Because you were closest to the entrance of the sweatbox and could have left it without anybody else’s knowing. Because you needed money desperately. Because you had been told that, with Kelly dead, you would win. Not a bad circumstantial case, Ms Nolan. I think perhaps a good prosecuting lawyer could make it stick!”

“This is just madness,” said Dervla. “I loved Kelly, I really…”

“But you didn’t win, did you, Dervla?” Coleridge said firmly. “Jazz won. In the end, good old Jazz was the winner. Everybody’s friend, the comedian, the man who was also in the key position in the sweatbox and could have left it without being noticed! The man whose DNA was so prominent on the sheet that the murderer used. The man who so conveniently covered his tracks by putting the sheet back on after the murder. Tell me, Jazz, do you honestly think that you would have won if Kelly had not died?”

“Hey, just a minute,” Jazz protested. “You ain’t trying to say that…”

“Answer my question, Jason. If Kelly had survived that night, the night she brushed past you in the sweatbox and someone followed her out in order to kill her, would you have won? Would that cheque you are now holding not have had her name on it?”

“I don’t know… Maybe, but that doesn’t mean I killed her.”

“No, Jazz, you’re right. It doesn’t mean that you killed her, and of course you didn’t. Because none of you did.”

The sensation that this statement caused was highly gratifying. Coleridge’s emotions were torn. Part of him, the main part, was in absolute torment, desperately awaiting the arrival of his colleagues. An arrival which if put off much longer would be useless anyway. But there was another part of Coleridge, and that was Coleridge the frustrated performer: this part was loving every minute of his great day.

“You are all innocent,” he repeated, “for it is a fact that no one who shared the sweatbox with Kelly on the night she died killed her!”

“It was Woggle, wasn’t it?” Dervla shouted. “I should have guessed! He hated us all! He took revenge on the show!”

“Ah ha!” shouted Coleridge. “Woggle the tunneller! Of course! Everybody’s mistake in this investigation – my mistake – was to presume that the murder was committed by a person who was a housemate at the time. But what of the ex-housemates - not Layla, but Woggle! How simple for a committed anarchist like him, a saboteur, an expert underground tunneller, to break into the house and take his revenge on the show, and in particular on the girl who nominated him and then insulted him with a tofu and molasses comfort cake!”

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