Coleridge nodded and the technician continued.
“I think they must have been sharing this one, or else they all slept together, because there’s strong evidence of four different male individuals on it, one of whom is particularly well represented. There are also traces of a fifth man. I presume that the prominent DNA represents the four boys left in the house and the fifth is Woggle. Let’s face it, he’d leave a pretty strong trail, wouldn’t he? Of course, I can’t be sure without samples from them all to compare it with.”
“All of them? On that one sheet?”
“So it would seem.”
DAY THIRTY-THREE. 11.00 a.m.
“It’s eleven o’clock on day thirty-three,” said Andy the narrator, “and the housemates have been summoned to the confession box in order to give a sample of their DNA. The police request is voluntary but none of the housemates refuse.”
“Charming,” Dervla observed drily. “Today’s task is to attempt to eliminate yourself from a murder investigation.”
Gazzer seemed disappointed. “I thought I was going to have to have one off the wrist and give ’em a splash of bollock champagne,” he said, “but they only wanted a scrape of skin.”
DAY THIRTY-FOUR. 8.00 p.m.
Layla stumbled away from the church, her eyes half blinded with tears. The priest had asked her what had made her feel the need of a faith that she had rejected when she was fifteen.
“Father, I have a death on my conscience.”
“What death? Who has died?”
“A girl, a beautiful girl, an innocent I despised. I hated her, Father. And now she’s dead and I ought to be released. But it’s worse, she’s everywhere, and they’re calling her a saint.”
“I don’t understand. Who was this girl? Who’s calling her a saint?”
“Everyone. Just because she’s dead they print her picture and say she was a lovely girl and innocent and that she wouldn’t hurt a fly. Well, she hurt me, Father! She hurt me! And now she’s dead and she should be gone, but she isn’t! She’s still here. She’s still everywhere, a star!”
The priest looked hard at Layla through the grille. He had never watched House Arrest, but he did occasionally see a newspaper.
“Hang on a minute,” he said. “I know you, don’t I? You’re…”
Layla ran. Even in church she could not escape the shame of her poisonous notoriety as a nonentity. There was no sanctuary from her anti-fame. The fact that she was a failure, the first person to be thrown out of that house. And Kelly had nominated her and then kissed her in front of millions. The whole nation had seen Layla accept Kelly’s sympathy. And now Kelly was dead and Layla did not feel any better at all.
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.