Dead Famous

DAY FORTY-TWO. 9.00 p.m.

When Chloe went back on air she was able to announce yet another dramatic exit from the house. Not live as planned, because Sally had departed an hour earlier in an ambulance, her attempted suicide having been watched live on the Internet all over the world. She had managed to stab herself twice in the chest before Jazz burst into the confession box, having been alerted to do so by Peeping Tom.

Nobody yet knew whether she would survive her wounds or not.

Chloe explained all of this to the viewers, and promised a regular update throughout the show. “I’m afraid that we cannot show you the footage of Sally’s final, brilliant, heartfelt, totally honest and spiritual visit to the confession box, because apparently suicide is a crime and our legal people are worried that some authoritarian government office or other might attack us for showing you the truth. Right! I mean how fascist is that? Apparently you’re not grown up enough to see what’s actually going on in this world, which is so all about mind control and Brave New 1984-type stuff, which is not what Sally wanted at all!”

It was not a vintage performance, but Chloe’s autocue had been hastily assembled. The message was clear enough. Any attempt to stop Peeping Tom from exploiting the anguish of a deeply disturbed young woman was an outrageous infringement of the civil liberties of the viewer.

Chloe was able to show the public the footage of Jazz’s heroic and dramatic entrance into the confession box, when he managed to grab Sally’s hand and wrest the knife from her grasp. After that she introduced a compilation of footage of Sally’s brilliant weeks in the house.

Peeping Tom would of course have liked to cut live to the house to show the reactions of the other housemates to Sally’s horrifying act, but sadly they couldn’t, because Geraldine was currently in the house conducting a crisis negotiation with the remaining inmates. Trying to persuade them to carry on with the show.

“We can’t, we just can’t,” Dervla was saying. “Not now. People will think we’re absolute ghouls.”

Even as the Peeping Tom nurse had been rushing along the corridor under the moat in order to help Sally, the other inmates had been clamouring to leave. This would be financially disastrous for Peeping Tom, of course, particularly after such a dramatic crowd-pleaser as Sally’s attempted suicide. They stood to lose tens, possibly hundreds of millions of pounds.

“You’re wrong, Dervla, you’re wrong,” Geraldine said. “They love you out there, they admire your courage, they respect you, and if you have the guts to see this through they’ll respect you even more. Nobody thinks any of you five killed Kelly, they all think it was Sally, and it probably was. She just about confessed to it before she stabbed herself. In a way that’s kind of an end to the whole murder thing, isn’t it? Now all you lot have to do is sit out the rest of the game.”

“No way,” said Dervla. “I want out.”

“Me too,” said Jazz, still shaking violently from his encounter with Sally.

The others agreed. They had had enough.

In the end Geraldine offered the inducement that she had been expecting to have to use much earlier. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’m doing pretty well out of all this, I won’t deny it. There’s no reason why you lot shouldn’t profit too. How about this? The prize is currently half a million. What if we double it and guarantee the other four a lump too… let’s say a hundred grand for the next one out, two hundred for the one after that, three hundred for whoever comes third, and four hund… No, half a mill for the runner-up? How about that? Not bad moolah for sitting on your arses for another few weeks, eh? If you agree now, the minimum all of you will make is a hundred grand.”

This offer pretty much clinched it, the prospect of being rich and famous being enough inducement for anyone.

“Just one extra thing,” said Dervla. “If the police make an arrest on the outside – you know, David or whoever – you have to tell us, OK? We can’t be the only people in the country who don’t know.”

“Fine, whatever, I promise, absolutely,” said Geraldine, thinking to herself that she would have to give that one some thought.