Dead Famous

DAY THIRTY-ONE. 8.30 a.m.

After reading Trisha’s report of her interview with Fogarty, Coleridge called a meeting of all his officers.

“Currently,” he said firmly, “I am of a mind that we are pursuing the wrong seven suspects and the wrong victim.”

This comment, like so many that Coleridge made, was met with blank stares. He could almost hear the whoosh as it swept over their heads.

“How’s that, then, boss?” said Hooper.

“Boss?”

“Inspector.”

“Thank you, sergeant.”

“How’s that, then, inspector?” Hooper persevered wearily. “How is it that we’re pursuing the wrong suspects and the wrong victim?”

“Because we are looking at these people in the way that the producers and editors of Peeping Tom Productions want us to look at them, not as they are.” Coleridge paused for a moment, his attention drawn to an officer at the back of the room who was chewing gum, a female officer. He longed to tell her to find a scrap of paper and dispose of it, but he knew that the days when an inspector could treat his constables in that manner had long gone. He would not be at all surprised if there was a court in Brussels that could be cajoled into maintaining that the freedom to chew gum was a human right. He confined his reaction to a withering stare, which caused the girl’s jaw to stop moving for all of three seconds.

“We must therefore be extremely cautious in our views, for apart from a brief interview with each of the surviving housemates after the murder, we know these people only through the deceiving eye of the television camera, that false friend, so convincing, so plausible, so real and yet, as we have already seen, so fickle and so false. We must therefore begin at the beginning with all of them and presume nothing. Nothing at all.”

And so the grim task of reviewing the House Arrest tape archive continued.

“It’s day three under House Arrest and Layla has gone to the refrigerator to get some cheese.” This was the voice of Andy, House Arrest’s narrator. “Layla’s vegan cheese is an important part of her diet, being her principal source of protein.”

“You see how television pulls the wool over our eyes!” Coleridge exclaimed in exasperation. “If we weren’t concentrating, we might actually have formed the impression that something of interest had occurred! This man’s talent for imbuing the most gut-wrenchingly boring observations with an air of significance normally reserved for matters of life and death is awe-inspiring.”

“I think it’s the Scottish accent,” said Hooper. “It sounds more sincere.”

“The man could have covered the Cuban Missile Crisis without altering his manner at all… It’s midnight in the Oval Office and President Kennedy has yet to hear from Secretary Khrushchev.”

“Who was Khrushchev?” Hooper asked.

“Oh, for God’s sake! He was General Secretary of the Soviet Union!”

“Never heard of it, sir. Is it affiliated to the TUC?”

Coleridge hoped that Hooper was joking but decided not to ask. Instead he pressed play again.

“Layla has just discovered that some of her cheese has gone missing,” said Andy.

“He says it as if she’s just discovered penicillin,” Coleridge moaned.