Dead Famous

DAY NINETEEN. 7.00 a.m.

Kelly groaned once and she was awake. “What the f…?” Then she remembered. She was in Copulation Cabin. The Shag Shack, Bonkham Towers, Haveitoff House. Even before the show had started, when Peeping Tom had announced this refinement to the house structure, the press had had about fifty names for it. And now she was in it, in front of the nation. What must she look like?

“Don’t worry,” she said to the camera that hung directly overhead. “Nothing happened.”

She reached out from under the rug for her jeans, grinning sheepishly. Like Hamish before her, she felt obliged to address the camera.

“Was I arseholed last night…? Still you have it to do, eh?”

Kelly’s shapely legs emerged now and she donned her jeans with considerable elegance considering her hangover. “Bet Hamish feels rotten too.”

She smiled once more at the camera, but beneath the smile lay unease. Why did she feel so dirty? Why did she feel such a sad old slapper? Just the hangover, surely? After all, she knew that nothing had happened. Had anything happened? Had she let Hamish get further than he should have done?

Definitely not. She was sure about it. She remembered everything clearly, she had snogged him and then she had crashed out. Going exactly as far as she had intended to go.

So why this feeling? Why this unease?

There was something, something about herself that she could not quite define, except that she wondered… Had anything happened? How could it have? She remembered it all, she always remembered, that was one of her characteristics as a drinker, she always remembered what she did. What she didn’t do.

And she remembered it now. She had kissed him, and crashed out. And yet… She had this feeling that she’d been…

Abused? Was that it? Did she feel abused? Surely not. Never.

It was an illusion. It had to be. The Peeping Tom house was the safest place on earth. There were cameras watching all the time. Nobody would take such a risk under those circumstances. Least of all Hamish. He was a good bloke. And a doctor.

Someone else? Later? No. It was absolute madness. Even as she sat there thinking, she knew that there were five cameras watching her. Five all-seeing chaperons there to look after her. She smiled up at them once more. “Yeah, lucky nothing happened, eh? You’re my protectors, aren’t you, Peeping Tom? My dad don’t have to worry, does he? Nothing’s going to happen while you’re watching.”

In the monitoring bunker Geraldine, who had arrived breathlessly in the small hours to be confronted with the night’s disappointments, was livid.

“That’s not the idea, you stupid cow!” she shouted at Kelly’s face on the monitors. “That’s not the fucking idea at all!”

Kelly emerged from the hut and dived straight into the pool. She did not even take off her jeans. It was a spontaneous action, a sudden need to be clean. And another £500 microphone gone.

Behind the glass doors the house slept. Jazz, Moon and Sally had not even bothered to rise from the couch.

Even Hamish had finally fallen asleep, but his dreams were troubled and studded with guilt. And when he awoke it was worse. Did she know? Did anybody know? What had the camera seen? Nothing. If they had, then Peeping Tom would have intervened, otherwise they would have been compounding a felony. Surely, no. Hamish felt certain that from the outside nothing would have seemed amiss or, if it had, then nothing had been said. Discovery could only come from within. Did Kelly remember? How could she? She had been asleep. She had definitely been asleep.