Dead Famous

DAY THIRTY-EIGHT. 7.00 p.m.

Hooper had to ring David’s doorbell for a long time before he could get him to answer it. While he waited on the steps of his apartment building the three or four reporters who were hanging about fired questions at him.

“Are you here to arrest him?”

“Was he in league with Sally?”

“Was it all of them that did it? Was it planned in the sweatbox?”

“Do you accept your incompetence in so far not making an arrest?”

Hooper remained silent until finally he was able to announce his credentials into David’s intercom and gain admittance.

David greeted him at the lift dressed in a suit of beautiful silk pyjamas. He looked tired. He had been home for only three days but he was already heartily sick of the one thing he had gone into the house to get: fame.

“They don’t want me,” he moaned when finally Hooper found himself inside the beautiful flat that David shared with his beautiful cat. “They want the man that bitch Geraldine Hennessy created. A vain, nasty probable murderer. Vain and nasty I can handle, lots of stars are guilty of that, but probable murderer is something of a career no-no. If only that silly girl had not got herself killed. It’s ruined everything for me.” He was entirely unabashed about his take on Kelly’s death.

“You think I’m a right bastard, don’t you?” he continued, making Hooper coffee from his beautiful shiny cappuccino machine. “Because I don’t pretend to forget my own interests and reasons for going into that house now that the girl is dead? Well, excuse me, but I do not intend to add hypocrisy to my many other faults, which seem now to have become a part of the national consciousness. She was a stranger to me, and if she hadn’t been killed I might have had my chance to shine. To show people all the things I have to offer. To be the leading man. Instead it appears that I’ve been cast in the role of villain.”

“And are you a villain?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, sergeant! You’re worse than that silly bitch Chloe. If I had killed her do you think I’d be telling you? But, as it happens, I didn’t. What possible motive could I have?”

“Fuck Orgy Eleven.”

David took it well. He clearly had not been expecting this, but he hardly let it show. “Oh, so you know about that, then? Well, all right. I admit it, I’m a porn star. It’s not a crime, but it’s not very classy either, and by some appalling coincidence it turned out that the girl Kelly knew. Yes, of course I was hoping that she would keep quiet about it. But I can assure you, I didn’t feel strongly enough about it to murder her.”

They talked for a little while longer, but David had very little to add to the statement he had made on the night of the murder. Except to expand on his reasons for suspecting Gazzer. “He really truly hated her for what she said about his son, you know. He tried to cover it up a bit, but I know how to spot the signs. I’m an actor, you see…” David’s voice trailed off. His handsome arrogance seemed to evaporate from him and he looked tired. Tired and sad.

Hooper got up to leave, but as he did so he asked one more question. “If Kelly had not been killed,” he said, “if the show had proceeded as they normally do, do you honestly believe that the sort of exposure you or anyone else could get on these things could ever lead to proper work – I mean, as a real actor or whatever?”

“Not really, no, sergeant,” David conceded. “But, you see, I was desperate. Desperate to be a famous actor, certainly, but if I couldn’t have that I was happy to settle for just being famous.”

“Well, you got your wish,” said Hooper. “I hope you enjoy it.”

Outside the building the assembled press pack snapped and barked as he forced his way through to his car.