Ben Elton - Dead Famous

by Ben Elton

2001

Still has some scan errors.

One house. Ten contestants. Thirty cameras. Forty microphones.

Yet again the public gorges its voyeuristic appetite as another group of unknown and unremarkable people submit themselves to the brutal exposure of the televised real-life soap opera, House Arrest.

Everybody knows the rules: total strangers are forced to live together while the rest of the country watches them do it. Who will crack first? Who will have sex with whom? Who will the public love and who will they hate? All the usual questions. And then suddenly, there are some new ones.

Who is the murderer? How did he or she manage to kill under the constant gaze of the thirty cameras? Why did they do it? And who will be next?

David: Real job: actor. Star sign: Aries.

Jazz: Real job: trainee chef. Star sign: Leo (cusp of Cancer).

Kelly: Real job: sales consultant. Star sign: Libra.

Sally: Real job: female bouncer. Star sign: Aries.

Garry: Real job: van driver. Star sign: Cancer.

Moon: Real job: circus trapeze artiste and occasional lap dancer. Star sign: Capricorn.

Hamish: Real job: junior doctor. Star sign: Leo.

Woggle: Real job: anarchist. Star sign: claims to be all twelve.

Layla: Real job: fashion designer and retail supervisor. Star sign: Scorpio.

Dervla: Real job: trauma therapist. Star sign: Taurus.

The murder took place on day twenty-seven in the house.

T elevision presenter, television presenter, television presenter, television presenter, train driver. Sergeant Hooper looked up.

Train driver?

Im sorry, my mistake. Television presenter. Chief Inspector Coleridge dumped the thick file of suspect profiles onto his desk and turned his attention once more to the big video screen that had been erected in the corner of the incident room. For the previous two hours he had been watching tapes at random. Garry lounged on the green couch. The pause button was down and Carrys image was frozen. Had the tape been running, the picture would have been much the same, for Garry was in his customary position, legs spread wide, muscles flexed, left hand idly fondling his testicles. A blurred blue eagle hovered above his right ankle. Coleridge hated that eagle. Just what the hell did this pointless lump of arrogance and ignorance think he had in common with an eagle? He pressed play and Garry spoke.

Your basic English Premier League team consists of ten idiots and one big gorilla hanging about up at the front, usually a black geezer. Coleridge struggled to care. Already his mind was drifting. How much rubbish could these people talk? Everybody talked rubbish, of course, but with most people it just disappeared into the ether; with this lot it was there for ever. What was more, it was evidence. He had to listen to it.

What the ten idiots have to do is keep kicking the ball up to the gorilla in the hope that hell be unmarked and get a lucky shot in.

The world had heard these sparkling observations before: they had been chosen for broadcast, the people at Peeping Tom Productions having been thrilled with them. The words black and gorilla in the same sentence would make a terrific reality TV moment.

Bold,provocative and controversial,Coleridge muttered under his breath. He was quoting from a newspaper article he had found inside the box of the video tape he was watching. All of the House Arrest tapes had arrived with the appropriate press clippings attached. The Peeping Tom media office were nothing if not thorough. When you asked for their archive, you got it. The article Coleridge had read was a profile of Geraldine Hennessy, the celebrated producer behind House Arrest.

Were not BBC TV, Geraldine, known to the press as Geraldine the Gaoler, was quoted as saying.

Were BPC TV: Bold, Provocative, Controversial, and allowing the world a window into Carrys casual, unconscious racism is just that. Coleridge sighed. Provocative? Controversial? What sort of ambitions were those for a grown-up woman? He turned his attention to the man sitting opposite Carry, the one on the orange couch: flashy Jasper, known as Jazz, so cool, so hip, such strutting self-confidence, always grinning, except when he was sneering, which he was doing now.

Thats it, mate, Garry continued, no skill, no finesse, no planning. The entire national game based on the strategy of the lucky break. Once more he rearranged his genitals, the shape of which could clearly be made out beneath the lime-green satin of his sports shorts. The camera moved in closer. Peeping Tom clearly liked genitals; presumably they were BPC.

Dont get me wrong about saying the big blokes black, Jazz, Garry added.

Fact is, most League strikers are these days. Jazz fixed Garry with a gaze he clearly believed was both enigmatic and intimidating. Jazzs body was even better than Carrys and he too kept his muscles in a pretty continuous state of tension. They seemed almost to ripple up and down his arms as he idly fondled the thick gold chain that hung round his neck and lay heavy on his beautiful honed chest.

Gorilla.

What?

You didnt say bloke, you said gorilla.

Did I? Well, what I mean is gorillas are big and strong, aint they? Like your lot. Over by the kitchen units Layla, the blonde hippie supermodel in her own mind, tossed her fabulous beaded braids in disgust. Inspector Coleridge knew that Layla had tossed her lovely hair in disgust, because the video edit he was watching had cut abruptly to her. There was no way that Peeping Tom was going to miss that snooty little middle-class sneer. Coleridge was quickly coming to realize that Peeping Toms editorial position was firmly anti intellectual pretension.

We consider ourselves to be the Peoples Peeping Tom, Geraldine was quoted as saying in the article. Clearly she also considered Layla to be a stuck-up, humourless, middle-class bitch, for that was how the edit was portraying her. Coleridge cursed the screen. He had been watching Jazz, he wanted to watch Jazz, but one of the principal handicaps of his investigation was that he could only watch whoever Peeping Tom had wanted to be watched at the time, and Inspector Coleridge had a very different agenda from that of Peeping Tom. Peeping Tom had been trying to make what they called great telly. Coleridge was trying to catch a murderer. Now the camera was back with Garry and his testicles. Coleridge did not think that Garry was the murderer. He knew Garry, he had banged up twenty Garrys every Saturday night during his long years in uniform. Carrys type were all the same, so loud, so smug, so cocky. Coleridge thought back to how Garry had looked two nights before, in the aftermath of a murder, when they had faced each other over a police tape recorder. Garry hadnt looked so cocky then, he had looked scared. But Coleridge knew Garry. Garrys got in fights, but they didnt murder people, unless they were very unlucky, or drunk and at the wheel of a car. Coleridge most certainly did not like this strutting, pumped-up, tattooed, cockney geezer, but he did not think that he was evil. He did not think that he was the sort of person to sneak up on a fellow human being, plunge a kitchen knife into their neck, pull it out again and then bury it deep into their skull. Coleridge did not think that Garry would do something like that. But, then again, Coleridge had been wrong before, lots of times. The nation didnt think that Garry was the murderer either. He was one of their favourites. Gazzer the Geezer had been amongst the early tabloid tips to win the game before it had turned into a real-life whodunit, and he rarely topped the poll when the media considered the identity of the killer. Coleridge smiled to himself, a sad, rather superior smile. The only sort of smile he seemed able to muster these days. The nation did not really know Gazzer. They thought they did, but they didnt. They had been given only his best bits, his chirpy one- liners, his unnerving ability to spot what he thought to be a snob or a clever dick, the relentless and gleeful way he wound up the snooty, self-important Layla. And the bold chunky penis end that had once been glimpsed peeping out from beneath his running shorts. An image that had immediately found its way onto T-shirts sold at Camden Lock market.