Coleridge flipped the switch on a second VCR machine, a rather complicated new one that he had only partly mastered. He had been able to convince the bureaucrats who administered his budget that the nature of the evidence he had at his disposal justified the hiring of a great deal of video and TV equipment. His only problem now was that it was so very complicated. Hooper could work it all, of course, and made no secret of displaying his superiority.
“What I could to for you, sir, is upload the tapes from the VCR onto digital format in my camcorder, bung it across a flywire into the new iBook they gave us, chop up the relevant bits and crunch it down via the movie-making software, export it to a Jpeg file and email it straight to you. You could watch it on your mobile phone when you’re stuck at traffic lights if we get you a WAR”
Coleridge had only just learned how to use the text message service on his phone. “I do not have my phone on when I am in my car, sergeant. And I hope that you don’t either. You’ll be aware, of course, that using one when driving is illegal.”
“Yes, sir, absolutely.”
They returned to the job in hand. Coleridge had lined up a moment of tape from a discussion that the group had had on day three about nominations.
“I’m at my most vulnerable to nomination in the mornings,” Dervla was saying, “because that’s when I’m going to snap at people and hurt their feelings. I’m crap at mornings, I just don’t want to talk to anyone.”
Coleridge turned off his second machine and returned to the tape showing Dervla brushing her teeth.
“She may not like talking to anyone,” Coleridge observed, “but she certainly likes talking to herself.”
On screen Dervla winked again into the mirror and said, “Hallo, mirror, top of the morning to you.”
“Now watch her eyes,” Coleridge said, still staring intently at the scene. Sure enough, on the screen Dervla’s sparkling green eyes flicked downwards and remained on what must have been the reflection of her belly button for perhaps thirty seconds.
“Maybe she’s contemplating her navel, sir. It’s a very cute one.”
“I’m not interested in observations of that kind, sergeant.”
Now Dervla’s eyes came up again, smiling, happy eyes. “Oh, I love these people!” she laughed.
“This tape is from day twelve, the morning after the first round of nominations,” Coleridge said. “You’ll recall that nobody nominated Dervla, although, of course, she’s not supposed to have any idea about that.”
Hooper wondered whether Coleridge was onto something. Everybody knew that Dervla was in the habit of laughing and talking to herself before the bathroom mirror. It had always been seen as rather an attractive, fun habit. Could there be more to it than that?
“Look, I’ve had some of the technical boffins make up a tooth-brushing compilation,” said Coleridge.
Hooper smiled. Only Coleridge thought you needed “boffins” to edit a video compilation. He himself made little home movies on his PowerBook all the time.
Coleridge put in his compilation tape and together they watched as time and again Dervla dropped cryptic little comments at her reflection in the mirror before brushing her teeth.
“Oh God, I wonder how they see me out there,” she said. “Don’t kid yourself, Dervla girl, they’ll all love Kelly, she’s a lovely girl.”
Coleridge switched off the video. “What were Dervla’s chances of winning the game at the point when Kelly was killed?”
“The running popularity poll on the Internet had her at number two,” Hooper replied, “as did the bookies, but it was pretty irrelevant, because Kelly was number one by miles.”
“So Kelly was Dervla’s principal rival in terms of public popularity?”
“Yes, but of course she couldn’t have known that. Or at least she’s certainly not supposed to.”
“No, of course not.”
Once more Coleridge pressed play on the video machine that held his toothbrushing compilation.
“I wonder who the public loves most?” Dervla mused archly to herself. Moments later her eyes flicked downwards.
DAY FORTY-FOUR. 12.00 p.m.
Coleridge picked up the phone. It was Hooper, calling from the Peeping Tom production office. He sounded pleased.
“I’ve got the duty log here, sir. You remember Larry Carlisle?”
“Yes, the operator who was working in the camera runs on the night of the murder?”
“That’s the one. Well, he’s been a busy boy, seems to have taken advantage of the fact that a number of people stopped working on the show out of boredom. He’s done twice as many shifts as anyone else, often eight hours on, eight hours off. Loves the show, can’t seem to get enough of it. And, what’s more, he’s covered the bathroom on almost every morning so far. If Dervla’s chatting through the mirror to anyone, she’s chatting to Larry Carlisle.”
“The operator who was working on the night of the murder,” Coleridge repeated.
DAY FORTY-FIVE. 7.58 a.m.
Coleridge had been in the dark hot corridor for only a few minutes and already he loathed it. He felt like a pervert, it was disgusting.
The east-west camera run of the Peeping Tom house was known as “Soapy” to the teams who serviced it, on account of the fact that part of the run covered the mirrored shower wall and the mirrors above the basins, which often became splashed with suds and foam. The north-south run was known as “Dry”.
Soapy and Dry had smooth, highly polished black floors, and were entirely cloaked in thick black blankets. Any light came from inside the house and shone through the long line of two-way mirrors that ran along the inside wall of the corridor. The camera operators were covered completely in black blankets and slid about silently like great coal-dark ghosts.
Coleridge had already seen Jazz walk out of the boys’ bedroom and across the living space to use the toilet. That same toilet that had been Kelly’s last port of call upon this earth. The only part of the house that was not visible through the two-way mirrors. Coleridge gritted his teeth as he was forced to listen to what seemed to him to be the longest urination in history. Coleridge could find no words to describe the horror and contempt he felt for the whole tawdry business. Was there ever a better example of humankind’s utter lack of nobility and grace? Here, where with such care, such immense ingenuity, such untold resources, the comings and goings of a communal bathroom were recorded for posterity.
It was eight o’clock and time for a change of shift in Soapy corridor. Coleridge heard the faintest swish as a heavily padded door was opened and Larry Carlisle crept in, dressed from head to foot in black. He even wore a ski mask, which further increased the grim and chilling atmosphere of the corridor. Without a word Carlisle disappeared under the blanket that covered the camera and its dolly while the previous operator emerged from the other side and crept away.
Coleridge slunk back into the darkness, drawing his black cowled cassock close about him. Carlisle had not been informed of Coleridge’s presence, and imagined himself alone in the corridor as usual.
At the other end of the house Dervla emerged from the girls’ bedroom and wandered into the living area. She entered the bathroom and approached the shower, where she took off her shirt to reveal her usual shower attire of cropped vest and knickers.
Coleridge turned away, a natural instinct for him in the circumstances. There was a lady in a state of undress and he had no business looking at her.
Carlisle also followed his natural instincts, those of a reality TV cameraman, in that he slid along the darkened corridor to get as close as he could to the flesh.
Dervla stepped into the shower and began to wash herself, her hands running all over her body with soap. Coleridge forced himself to look again. It was not that he found the sight of Dervla soaping her near-naked body unattractive; quite the opposite. Coleridge bowed to no man in his appreciation of the female form, and Dervla’s in particular with its youthful, athletic grace was just his type. It was because he was attracted that Coleridge wanted to look away. He was a deeply Christian man; he believed in God and he knew that God would be extremely unimpressed if Coleridge started getting hot and bothered while looking at unsuspecting young women in their underwear. Particularly when he was on duty. Coleridge, that is, not God. God, in Coleridge’s opinion, was always on duty.