Dead Famous

DAY THIRTY-SIX. 11.50 p.m.

Sergeant Hooper was thinking about ringing for a cab. He had had a long and fruitless day on the murder inquiry followed by a pretty monumental amount of beer and curry and it was time to pull the pin.

It had been a decent night out with the lads, but it was about to go boring on him. It wasn’t that he particularly objected to pornography, although he was not a big consumer of it himself, it was just that he had never seen the point of watching it with your mates. As far as he was concerned, the purpose of porn was to stimulate sex, either sex with yourself or sex with a partner. That was what it was for. To be masturbated over or to be watched with a girlfriend as a way of expanding the horizons of your own nocturnal activities. What he was not into doing was sitting bleary-eyed on a friend’s couch holding a kebab in one hand, a can of Stella in the other and drooling over it with a bunch of pissed-up off-duty coppers.

“You lot are sad,” he said. “I’m going to finish me beer and leave you to it. Don’t stain the sofa now.”

“You don’t understand, Hoops,” said Thorpe, a detective constable from Vice. “This isn’t about sex, it’s about quality. We’re critics. Porn is an art form and we are aficionados. Do you know that at the blue movie Oscars in Cannes they have an award for best come shot?”

“I find that very hard to swallow,” said Hooper, unwittingly earning himself about five minutes of hysterical drunken laughter.

“Pornography is a legitimate film genre,” insisted Blair. “Every bit as important as, for instance, the adventure movie or the romantic comedy.”

“Like I said, Blair, you’re sad,” Hooper replied. “Why can’t you just be honest? You watch this stuff because it gives you a hard-on. Well, fair play to you, mate, I can understand that, I just don’t see why you need company.”

“You’re wrong, Hoop, you just don’t understand at all. This is a social thing. We discuss the movies, the acting, the groaning, the relative success of a golden shower, whether the dick you see being slipped actually belongs to the bloke you see slipping it. What we have here is a critics’ forum. You seem to be under the impression that all porn movies are the same.”

“Aren’t they?”

“No more than horror movies are all the same, or westerns. Is Butch Cassidy the same as A Fistful of Dollars? Of course it isn’t. Is The Exorcist the same as a Hammer Horror? I don’t think so. Well, it’s the same with porn. For instance, this one I’m putting on now. This is from the tacky end of the market, real hard-core humping. A proper down-and-dirty porn nasty.”

“Thanks for the warning, mate,” said Hooper, draining his beer. “I think I’ll give it a miss. I’ll find a cab on the street.”

“You’re mad. You’re missing out on a classic of its type, a cultural icon. The Fuck Orgy series is a milestone of its genre.”

Hooper was already heading for the door when the little bell rang in his head. “What series?” he said, turning back.

“Fuck Orgy. Legendary no-holds-barred, in-your-face porn. No stupid plot, no lengthy preamble, it does exactly what it says on the tin. Fuck Orgy is the name and fuck orgy is most definitely the game. This is number three, an early one, really only for the connoisseurs. The series hadn’t found its feet yet. The recognized triumph of the collection is Fuck Orgy Nine, which won no less than -”

“Is there a Fuck Orgy Eleven?” Hooper enquired urgently.

“There certainly is. They’ve made fifteen so far. I can get you them all if you like… What are you looking so pleased with yourself about?”

Hooper was indeed smiling. He believed that he had found out what Kelly had whispered to David in the hot tub. The thing that had made him look so concerned.