Dead Famous

DAY TWENTY-NINE. 8.10 p.m.

The line of numbers at the bottom of the screen of the incident room television showed that it was 11.44. 11.44 and twenty-one seconds, twenty-two seconds, twenty-three seconds.

Coleridge still found it difficult to watch, even after numerous viewings. He had heard that the whole sequence was already available on the Internet and had been downloaded many tens of thousands of times. As long as he lived Coleridge did not believe he would understand how a single race of beings could include both Jesus Christ and the sort of people who would download a video of a young woman being murdered. He rather supposed that had been the Messiah’s point, but that didn’t make it any easier to understand or accept.

He, Hooper and Trish watched as, while Kelly sat naked and unsuspecting on the toilet, at the other end of the house, in the boys’ bedroom, the plastic flaps of the sweatbox moved. There was a sort of flurry of activity as a hidden figure swiftly gathered up one of the sheets that Peeping Tom had allowed for lavatory trips, spread it out to cover the entrance and on leaving the box enveloped his or her self in it. Try as they might, and using the best image-enhancement technology available, the police had been unable to gain any information whatsoever from that blurred bluish image. For a moment a hand was visible, but it was not possible to even tell if it was male or female, or even to say whether it wore a ring.

Then, carefully, covered from head to toe in the sheet, the hunched figure made its way out of the boys’ bedroom and into the glaring tube lighting of the living area. From there it went to the kitchen units, where it provided the police with another tantalizing glimpse of hand as it reached into one of the kitchen drawers and took out the largest kitchen knife available, a beautiful Sabatier. Then, as the murmuring and giggling that emanated from inside the sweatbox continued gently to waft into the microphones, the cloaked figure crossed the rest of the living room, went into the utility area and approached the toilet door.