Dead Famous

DAY SIXTY-TWO. 9.00 a.m.

Coleridge decided that it was time to take Hooper and Patricia into his confidence and admit to them that he knew who had killed Kelly.

He had had his suspicions from the start. Ever since he had seen the vomit on the seat of that pristine-clean toilet bowl. But it was the note that convinced him he was right, the note predicting the second murder. The murder he did not believe would happen because it did not need to.

What Coleridge lacked was proof and the more he thought about it, the more he knew that he never would have proof, because no proof existed, and therefore the killer was going to get away with the crime. Unless…

The plan to trap the killer came to Coleridge in the middle of the night. He had been unable to sleep and in order to avoid disturbing his wife with his shifting about and sighing he had gone downstairs to sit and think. He had poured himself a medium-sized Scotch and added the same amount again of water from the little jug shaped like a Scottish terrier. He sat down with his drink in the darkened sitting room of his house, the room he and his wife referred to as the drawing room, and considered for a moment how strange all the familiar objects in the room looked in the darkness of the middle of the night. Then his mind turned to the killer of Kelly Simpson, and how it might be that Coleridge could arrange to bring that foul and bloody individual to justice. Perhaps it was the words “foul” and “bloody” falling into his head that turned his thoughts from Kelly to Macbeth and the rehearsals that would commence a fortnight hence and thereafter take place every Tuesday and Thursday evening throughout the autumn. Coleridge would have to attend these rehearsals because Glyn had asked Coleridge if, given that he was in only the last act, he would be prepared to take on various messenger roles and attendant lords. “Lots of nice little lines,” Glyn had said. “Juicy little cameos.”

Oh, how Coleridge would have loved to play the bloody, guilty king, but of course it was not to be. He had never been given a lead.

Coleridge’s mind strayed back in time to the first production that had stirred him as a boy: the Guinness Macbeth. How Coleridge had gasped when Banquo’s ghost had appeared at the feast, shocking the guilty king into virtually giving the game away. They had done it quite brilliantly: Coleridge had been nearly as shocked as Macbeth was. These days, of course, the ghost would probably be on video screens or represented by a fax machine. Coleridge had already heard Glyn remark that his ghosts were going to be virtual, but way back then people weren’t embarrassed by a bit of honest theatre. They liked to see the blood.

“Never shake your gory locks at me,” Coleridge murmured under his breath. And it was then that it occurred to him that what was required to trap his murderer was a bit of honest theatre. Coleridge resolved that, if he could not find any genuine proof, natural justice required that he make his own. It was a desperate idea, he could see that, and there was scarcely time to put it into action. But it offered a chance, a small chance. A chance to avenge poor, silly Kelly.

The following morning Coleridge spoke to Hooper and Trisha. “Banquo’s ghost,” he said. “He pointed a finger, all right?”

“Eh?” said Hooper.

Trisha knew who Banquo’s ghost was. She had studied English literature at A-level, and had actually done three months’ teacher training before deciding that if she was going to spend her live dealing with juvenile delinquents she would rather do it with full powers of arrest. “What’s Banquo’s ghost got to do with anything, sir?” she asked.

But Coleridge would say no more and instead gave her a shopping list. “Kindly go and make these purchases,” he said.

Trisha scanned the list. “Wigs, sir?”

“Yes, of the description that I’ve noted. I imagine the best thing would be to look up a theatrical costume dresser in Yellow Pages. I doubt that the civilians in Procurements will view my requests with much favour, so for the time being I shall have to finance them myself. Can you be trusted with a blank cheque?”