Dead Famous

DAY TWENTY-EIGHT. 7.30 p.m.

The door closed behind David. He picked up his guitar from the orange couch and began playing a mournful song. He was the last one in. They’d all come home.

There was never any real question in their minds that they would go on with it. Even as they were driven away from the house in seven separate police cars in the early morning following the murder, they were able to get some idea of the scale of interest that would henceforth be shown in them. The corpse was hardly cold, and yet already the word was out and the whole world was rushing to their door.

By the time they left the police station, without charge, eight hours later, there were over a thousand reporters waiting for them.

A thousand reporters. On a recent trip to Britain the President of the United States had rated only two hundred and fifty.

And once Peeping Tom announced that the seven remaining contestants intended to continue with the game, the media and the public went berserk with excitement. For these were no longer just seven contestants in a TV game show, as Geraldine continued publicly to maintain, they were seven suspects in a murder hunt. The only seven suspects.

All day and all night it seemed as if people could talk about nothing else. Bishops and broadcasting watchdogs deplored the decision as a collapse of moral standards. Opportunistic politicians applauded it as evidence of a more open and relaxed society that was “at ease with its traumas”. The prime minister was invited to comment on the matter during Parliamentary Question Time, and earnestly promised that he would “listen to the people”, attempting, if possible, to “feel their pain” and get back to parliament the moment he had an idea about how they felt.

Many people expressed surprise that the seven contestants were legally free to go back into the house, but of course there was nothing to stop them. Even though it was clear that one of them had murdered Kelly, the police were unable to find evidence to detain any of them. They were all free to go for the time being, free to do what they wanted, and what they wanted, it soon turned out, was to go back into the house.

Efforts were made by concerned individuals to implement the law that states that people cannot profit from media exploitation of their crimes. But what profit? The inmates of the house were not being paid for their efforts. And what crime? Six of the people had not committed one, and the identity of the person who had done it remained a complete mystery. Once he or she was detected, it would of course be possible to prevent them from appearing on television, but until then there was nothing that could be done to restrain any of them.