Dead Famous

DAY THIRTY-FIVE. 7.30 p.m.

It was the first eviction night following the murder.

An executive editorial decision had been taken that Chloe should remain upbeat and positive about events. This was, after all, the house style.

“We all so miss Kelly big time, because she was such a top lady and a sweet young life cruelly snuffed out, which just should not have happened, right? Kelly was a laugh, she was a gas, she was bigged up, amped up, loads of fun and just lovely. And no way did she deserve such a pants thing to happen to her, not that anybody does. Ooooooh, Kelly, we miss you! We all just want to give you a big hug! But the show goes on and as the other inmates have made it clear, this whole gig right now is a tribute to Kelly’s gorgeous memory. So you just amp it up in heaven, Kezzer babe, ’cos this one’s for you. All right! Let’s give it up large for another week in the house!”

This announcement was of course followed by the now famous credits. One house. Ten contestants. Thirty cameras. Forty microphones. One survivor. A sentence which now carried with it a highly provocative double meaning, but which, it was felt, it would be even more provocative to change. Either way, it was difficult to imagine better telly than this.

“House, can you hear me? This is the voice of Chloe.”

“Yes, we can hear you,” said the seven people assembled on the couches, and for a moment everything seemed back to normal. It was almost possible to imagine that nobody had died.

“The fourth person to leave the Peeping Tom house will be…”

A huge dramatic pause.

“David! David, it’s time to go!”

“Yes!” said David, punching the air in triumph, following the necessary practice of appearing absolutely delighted to be going.

“David, pack your bags. You have one and a half hours to say your goodbyes, when we will be back live to see you leave the house!”

The nominees for that week had been David and Sally.

Everyone had nominated Sally, because she had become so depressed, and a majority had voted for David, because he was a pain in the arse.

By coincidence, the two people whom the inmates had nominated for eviction were also the nation’s two biggest suspects for the murder. Outside the house the eviction vote had turned into a national referendum on who had murdered Kelly. David won by a shade, and when the results were announced it was for a moment almost as if the crime had been solved.

“It’s David!” the press wires hummed. “As we have suspected all along.”

“Yes! It’s David!” they shouted on the radio and on the live TV news links. Some even added, “We are expecting an arrest shortly,” as if while in the house David had been enjoying some kind of sanctuary from the law but now that the people had spoken he could expect no further reprieve.

Inside the house the ninety minutes of allotted departure time ticked by slowly. It did not take David long to pack, and there was only so much group hugging and swearing of undying loyalty that you could do to somebody whom you heartily disliked and whom you suspected might be a murderer. Under normal circumstances the correct etiquette at evictions would be for everybody to put up a hysterical pretence that, despite everything, they adored the person departing and were desperately sorry to see them go. But on this particular night, the tiniest whiff of real reality could not be prevented from intruding.

Not on the outside, though. Outside the house the rules of TV still applied.

David stepped out to the throbbing beat of “Eye Of The Tiger” and into the white light of a thousand flash cameras. The crowd was enormous. David had been terrified moments before, but now he found himself uplifted by the noise of the crowd. For this one moment at least he was the star he so desperately wanted to be. The eyes of the entire world were upon him and to his credit he pulled off those few seconds with great aplomb. His beautiful shoulder-length hair was lent life by a light breeze, his big black coat billowed romantically. He gave a sardonic smile, threw wide his arms and gave a deep bow.

The crowd, who appreciated a bit of theatre, rewarded David with a redoubled cheer.

Then, smiling broadly, David swept a hand through his beautiful hair and boarded the platform of the cherry picker to be lifted up over the moat. When he arrived at the other side he bowed deep once more and kissed Chloe’s hand. The crowd whooped again while simultaneously observing that David was an even bigger arsehole than they had previously thought.

Together David and Chloe took the short limousine ride to the studio. The music throbbed, the lights bobbed and weaved and the crowd shouted and waved their placards, “we love dervla!” and “jazz is lush!”

Finally David and Chloe managed to get to the couch, where only Layla had sat before, and begin their chat.

“Wow!” shouted Chloe. “Amped up! All right! You OK, Dave?”

“Yes, Chloe, I’m fine.”

“Wicked!”

“Absolutely. Wicked indeed.”

“Look, fair play to you, David,” Chloe gushed. “Respect and all that big-time. You’ve been through it, and we all haven’t, and it must have been an incredibly weird experience and all that, but I’ve got ask you this, you know that, don’t you? Of course you do, you know what I’m going to ask, I can see it in your face, you do know, don’t you? What I’m going to ask? Of course you do, so let’s get it over with. The big question everybody wants to know is, ‘Did you kill Kelly?’”

“No, absolutely not. I loved Kelly.” David gave it his best shot – the short pause before answering to focus fully and assume the appropriate look of pained sincerity, the tiny catch in the voice, but it did him no good. The crowd wanted a result; they booed, they jeered; a chant developed: “Killer. Killer. Killer.”

David was stunned. He hadn’t expected this.

“Sorry, babe. They think you did it, babe,” said Chloe. “Sorry and all that, but at the end of the day there it is, babe.”

“But I didn’t do it, I promise.”

“All right, then,” said Chloe, perking up. “Let’s see if anybody thinks somebody else did it.”

There were substantial cheers for this proposition, some without doubt coming from the same people who had only moments before condemned David. The situation, like the police investigation, was confused.

“Well, fair play to you, Dave,” said Chloe. “There are lot of young ladies on your side, I can see that, and can you blame them? Wicked!”

And, of course, at this the cheering redoubled.

“So come on, then, David. If you didn’t do it, who do you think did?”

“Well, I don’t know. I’d have to say Garry, but it’s just a guess. I really don’t know.”

“Well, we’ll just have to wait to the end of the series to find out, won’t we?” said Chloe, which was an outrageous and entirely unfounded statement, but it sounded convincing enough, such is the seductive power of television.

“In the meantime,” Chloe shouted, “let’s take a look at some of Dave’s finest moments in the house!”