“I cannot believe they’re trying to get away with this,” Dervla fumed.
Then Sally spoke up. “Actually, Dervla, I really think that we should do this, because I am worried that we might come across as racist if it looks like we think we’re too good for a legitimate ethnic custom, particularly one with such obviously homoerotic overtones.”
Sally was pleased that Peeping Tom had provided her with an opportunity to hold forth on the one area about which she felt truly passionate.
“As a lesbian woman of mixed race I know what it’s like to have my customs and rituals held in fear and contempt by the majority community. Peeping Tom is offering us the opportunity to experience the bonding rituals of an oppressed indigenous group. I think we should try to learn from it.”
DAY TWENTY-SIX. 9.15 a.m.
Bob Fogarty waited until the following morning’s production meeting to make his complaint. He wanted his objections to be noted publicly. It was difficult for him to find his moment because Geraldine was roaring with laughter so much as she recalled Sally’s unlikely take on the weekly task.
“All I’m trying to do is persuade them to feel each other up and it turns out I’m a champion of minority rights. Anyway, all ethnic and sexual bollocks aside, Dervla will have to get ’em out for the lads or nobody gets a drink next week.”
Fogarty had to stand up to get her attention. “Geraldine, we are coercing this girl into taking her clothes off against her wishes.”
“Yes, Bob, we all know that. Why are you standing up?”
“Because I think it’s morally corrupt.”
“Oh, do fuck off.”
Fogarty had finally had enough. “Ms Hennessy, I cannot prevent you from using profanity to punctuate your sentences, but I am a grown man and a highly qualified employee and I am entitled to insist that you do not use such language towards me or those who work under me.”
“No, you’re fucking not, you cunt. Now sit down or fuck off.”
Fogarty did neither. He just stood there, shaking.
“You think you can do me for constructive dismissal?” Geraldine asked. “For swearing? Grow up, Bob. Even this cunt of a country isn’t that pathetic yet. If you walk out it’s a straight resignation and you get bugger-all. Now, are you staying or are you going?”
Fogarty sat down.
“Good. You may be an arsehole, but you’re a talented arsehole and I don’t want to lose you. And besides which,” Geraldine went on, “Dervla is free to leave that house at any time. She could have walked out there and then, and she could walk out now. But she hasn’t done, has she? And why? Because she wants to be on telly, that’s why, and at the end of the day, if she has to take her clothes off to do it, then you can bet your last quid she’ll allow herself to be persuaded.”
Bob stared down into his coffee. He looked like a man who needed a bar of chocoate. “We’re corrupting her,” he mumbled.
“What?” Geraldine barked.
“I said, we’re corrupting her,” but this time Fogarty said it even more quietly.
“Look!” shouted Geraldine. “I’m not asking the snooty stuck-up cow to show us her bits full on, am I? There are guidelines, you know. We do have a Broadcasting Standards Commission in this country. The polythene walls of that box are going to be translucent and the lights will be off. The idea is to make it so dark that the anonymity will persuade some of them to have it off, which I can assure you will be a lot more interesting than precious little Dervla’s sacred little knockers. I want it to be literally dark as hell in that box.”
Eviction
DAY TWENTY-EIGHT. 6.00 p.m.
Coleridge pushed the record button on his audio tape-machine.
“Witness statement. Geraldine Hennessy,” he said before sliding the little microphone across the desk and setting it down in front of Geraldine.
“Bit of a reversal for you, eh, Miss Hennessy?”
“Ms.”
“I’m sorry, Ms Hennessy. Bit of a reversal, you being the one getting recorded, I mean.”
Geraldine merely smiled.
“So tell me about the night it happened.”
“You know as much as I do. The whole thing was recorded from start to finish. You’ve seen the tapes.”
“I want to hear it from you. From Peeping Tom herself. Let’s start with the sweatbox. Why on earth did you ask them to do it?”
“It was a task,” Geraldine replied. “Each week we set the inmates challenges to perform to keep them busy and see how they react when working together. They get to pledge a part of their weekly booze and food budgets against their chances of success. We gave them wood and tools and polythene, a couple of heating units and all the instructions, and as it happens they did a bloody good job.”
“You told them how to make it?”
“Of course we did, or how else would they have done it? If I gave you some wood and plastic and told you to construct a Native American sweatbox to seat eight, could you do it?”
“Probably not, I suppose.”
“Well, nor could this lot either. We gave them the designs and the materials and told them exactly where to put it to suit our hot-head camera. This they did and it took them three days. Then on the Saturday evening, as the sun went down, we gave them a shitload of booze and told them to get on with it.”
“Why did you let them get drunk?”
“Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? To try to get them to have sex. The show had been going for three weeks and apart from a near miss with Kelly and Hamish in Bonkham Towers we’d had scarcely a hint of any nooky at all. I wanted to get them going a bit.”
“Well,” said Coleridge pointedly, “you certainly did that.”
“It wasn’t my fucking fault somebody got killed, inspector.”
“Wasn’t it?”
“No, it fucking wasn’t.”
Coleridge absolutely hated to hear a woman swear, but he knew he could not say anything about it.
“Look, I’m not a social worker, inspector. I make telly!” Geraldine continued. “And I’m sorry if it offends you, but telly has to be sexy!”
She said it as if she was talking to a senile octogenarian. Coleridge was in fact only two years older than she was, but the gap between them was chasmic. She had embraced and joined each new generation as it rose up to greet her, remaining, in her own eyes at least, forever young. He, on the other hand, had been born old.
“Why did it have to be so dark?”
“I thought it would loosen up their inhibitions if they couldn’t see each other. I wanted them all completely anonymous.”
“Well, you certainly succeeded in that, Ms Hennessy, which is the principal factor inhibiting my investigation.”
“Look! I didn’t know anybody was going to fuck off and murder someone, did I? Forgive me, but in my many years of making television it has never crossed my mind to arrange my work on the offchance that you coppers might want to look at it later in the light of a homicide investigation.”
It was a fair point. Coleridge shrugged and gestured Geraldine to continue.
DAY TWENTY-SEVEN. 8.00 p.m.
The sweatbox stood waiting in the boys’ bedroom, but for the time being the housemates remained in the living area, trying to get drunk enough to take the plunge.
“Well, we gotta do four hours in there,” Gazzer said, “and if we don’t want to get caught all nudey when the sun comes up we’ll have to get started by one at the latest.”
“I want to get it over with long before that,” said Dervla, gulping at her strong cider.
“Well, don’t get too pissed, Dervo,” Jazz warned. “I don’t think the confines of a sweatbox are a very clever environment to honk up in.”