Dead Famous

DAY TWENTY-EIGHT. 6.50 p.m.

“I say we fahkin’ go for it.”

Garry had been the first to speak. He was a geezer and a hard one at that, and he wasn’t squeamish about using a toilet in which someone had been knifed.

“I’ve been in a lot of bogs with blood on the floor,” he said, thinking to himself that this comment would play rather well on the telly, before he remembered that he was outside the house and for the first time in a month there were no cameras being trained on him. “So I say fahk it, let’s have it large.”

Geraldine had managed to collect all seven of the tired, confused housemates as they left the police station and wrestle them onto a waiting minibus. It had not been easy: the offers of money had burst forth with a roar the moment the station door had opened. Any one of the remaining housemates could have got a hundred thousand for an exclusive interview there and then. Fortunately, Geraldine had brought a megaphone with her and she was entirely unembarrassed about using it. “You’ll do much better if you bargain collectively,” she shouted, “so get on the bus!”

Finally, with the help of the ten huge security men she had brought with her, she managed to get her precious charges inside the vehicle and there they sat like obedient children while the police tried to clear a path for them to depart. Outside, hundreds of cameras were clicking and whirring, microphones were being banged against the windows; the noise of the shouted questions was cacophonous.

“Who do you think did it?” “How do you feel?” “Did she deserve it?” “Was it a sex thing?”

Even inside the bus Geraldine had to use her megaphone to get their attention. She knew what she required of the housemates, and she got right down to telling them.

“Listen to me!” she shouted.

The seven shell-shocked people stared back at her.

“I know you’re all sorry about Kelly, but we have to be practical. Look at what’s going on outside! The entire world’s press have turned up, and for what? Not for Kelly, she’s gone, but for you, that’s who. So think about that for a minute.”

While the seven housemates thought about it the minibus began to edge its way through the roaring sea of journalists.

“Why did you people get into this thing in the first place?” Geraldine continued. “Why did you write to Peeping Tom?”

They were confused: there had been so many reasons given at the start of the whole business. “To really stretch myself as a person…” “To explore different aspects of who I am…” “To discover new horizons and life adventures…” “To provide a goal, and to be a role model.”

They had all known the codes, the things that they were supposed to say. The new language of pious self-justification. All rubbish, of course, and Geraldine knew it. She knew why they had applied to be on Peeping Tom, and no amount of pretentious New Age waffle could disguise it. They had done it to get famous and that was why Geraldine knew that they would all go back into the house.

The bus was finally pulling away from the mob at the police station, and the motorbike photographers were beginning their pursuit, weaving in and out of the traffic, oblivious to their own safety or anybody else’s, intoxicated by the hunt.

“So,” Geraldine barked, “let’s leave aside for a moment the issue of who kill… of how poor Kelly died, and consider the opportunity that her sad demise has opened up for you people. I am talking about fame beyond frontiers, beyond your wildest dreams. This show will be broadcast worldwide, no question about that. By the time you come out of our house your faces will be recognizable in every town, village and home on the planet. Think about that. If you guys split up now the story’s over in a week, you’ll all make a few quid talking about Kelly to the papers and that’ll be it. But if you stick together! If you go back into the house together! You’ll be the biggest story on earth day after day after day.”

“You mean people will be watching to try to work out which one of us killed Kelly?” Dervla said.

“Well, that certainly,” Geraldine conceded. “But the police are trying to work that out anyway, so you might as well make a profit out of it. Besides, there’s so much more to this, the human angle of how you all cope with the tragedy, with each other. Believe me, this is a century-defining definition of what constitutes good telly.”

Geraldine could see that they were all still struggling with the terrifying and bewildering change in their circumstances.

Sally spoke up in a sad small voice, a voice no one had heard her use before. “I thought that maybe it would be nice just to go home for a bit.”

“Exactly!” Geraldine exclaimed. “That’s what I’m saying.”

“No, I mean my real home.”

“Oh, I see… Fuck that. The house is your real home now.” Geraldine’s own life was so entirely defined by her work that she simply could not understand the idea that somebody might be seriously considering putting toast and Marmite and a bit of a cry on the sofa with Mum before participating in the greatest television event in decades.

“All right, let’s look at it this way,” Geraldine said, able to adopt a quieter, more conciliatory tone now that they had left the roaring crowd behind them. “If one of you killed her, then that means six of you didn’t, right? Six people who can either slink away having had your big chance ruined by a cruel psychopath, or six people who can have the guts to stand up for themselves. Don’t forget that you have a right to pursue this journey of personal empowerment, you have a right to be stars. Because, at the end of the day, you’re all strong, fabulous, independent people, so I say just go for it! Crack on, because you’re brilliant, you really are. And I really, really mean that.”

But still they wavered.

To go back into that house…

To sleep in those beds…

To use the toilet. The toilet where only hours before…

Having tried conciliation, Geraldine picked up her cosh once more and played her strongest card of all: the truth. “All right, let’s really get down to it, shall we? Yesterday you were all part of a crappy, unoriginal little cloned game show that we’ve all seen ten times before. You’ve all watched them and you all know that the people on them basically look like a bunch of arrogant self-absorbed arseholes. Do you think you looked any different? Think again. I’ll show you the tapes if you like. Blimey, the public preferred Woggle to you lot. Stars? Fuck off. Disposable minor celebs is all you were. That’s the truth. I’m levelling with you for your own good.”

“Now look here…” David began to protest.

“Shut up, David, this is my fucking bus and I’m fucking talking.”

David shut up.

“Now, however,” Geraldine continued, “you can change all that. If you have the guts, you have the chance to be a part of the most fascinating television experiment of all time. A live whodunit! A nightly murder mystery with a real live victim …”

She realized what she’d said the moment she said it. “Oh, all right, then, a real dead victim if you like. The point is that this will be the biggest show in history, and you are the stars of it! Kelly has given you the chance to be the thing she wanted most of all, to be a star! Do you hear me? Genuinely, properly famous, and to get it all you have to do is continue to play the game.”

Geraldine looked at their faces. She had won her argument. It had not taken long.

Together they quickly concocted a press release, which they issued through the bus window as they approached the house. “We, the seven remaining housemates of House Arrest Three, have elected to continue with our sociological experiment as a tribute to Kelly and her dreams. We knew Kelly and know that she loved this show. It was a part of her, and she gave her life for it. We feel that for us to give up now and to jettison all that she worked for would be an insult to the memory of a beautiful strong woman and human being, whom we loved very, very much. House Arrest continues because it is what Kelly would have wanted. We are doing it for her. Crack on!”

“That’s fookin’ beautiful, that is,” Moon said.

Then Sally started to cry and in a moment they were all crying. Except Dervla. Dervla was thinking about something else.

“Just one thing,” she said, as the bus forced its way through the crowds who had gathered round the Peeping Tom compound.

“Yeah, what?” said Geraldine brusquely. Having secured their agreement, she wanted no further discussion, particularly from Princess fucking Dervla.

“Suppose the killer strikes again?”

Geraldine pondered this for a moment. “Well, it’s never going to happen, is it? I mean, come on, you’ll all be on your guard, and we’d never do something like the sweatbox thing again. Obviously all anonymous environments and closed-in group activities are out. No more bunches of people, everything open and spread out. Really you should be sorry. I mean, imagine if it were possible for it to happen again. Just how fucking big would the remains of you be then?”