DAY FORTY-SIX. 2.30 p.m.
The sight of Dervla being escorted from the house by the police for the second time in one day caused a sensation both outside and in. Surely this must mean that she was now the number-one suspect?
Geraldine could scarcely contain her delight. “The fucking cops are flogging our show for us,” she crowed. “Just when everybody thought Loopy Sal’ done it, they nick the virgin princess twice! Fuck me sideways, it’s brilliant. But we have to make plans. A lot of moolah’s riding on this. If they don’t give us Dervla back we’ll cancel this week’s eviction, all right? Can’t lose two of the cunts in one week, just can’t afford it. A week of this show is worth more money than I can count!”
Hamish and Moon were up for eviction this week, but if Dervla went it seemed that they would get a reprieve. The nominations had been the most relaxed since the relatively calmer days of Woggle and Layla. With Sally gone there had been a general lifting of the gloom, besides which Sally was a prime suspect for having committed the murder, so her absence had made the house feel safer.
It felt safer no longer, of course. There had been shock and fear at Dervla’s second removal by the police.
“Fookin’ ’ell, I thought I were all right with her,” said Moon. “We’ve been sharing a fookin’ bedroom! I lent her a jumper.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Jazz. “The cops are fishing, that’s all.”
“Just because you fancy her don’t mean she ain’t a mad knife-woman, Jazz,” Garry said.
Jazz didn’t reply.
DAY FORTY-SIX. 4.00 p.m.
Dervla’s lip quivered. She was trying not to cry. “I thought if I told you I knew the scores you’d suspect me.”
“You stupid stupid girl!” Coleridge barked. “Don’t you think that lying to us is probably the best way to engender our suspicion?”
Dervla did not reply. She knew that if she did she really would cry.
“Lying to the police is a criminal offence, Miss Nolan,” Coleridge continued.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would matter.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!”
“It was only between him and me, and he was on the outside! I didn’t think it would matter.” Now Dervla was crying.
“Right, well, you can start telling the truth now, young lady. You were, I take it, aware at all times of your standing with the public, and of Kelly’s?”
“Yes, I was.”
“What would you say was Larry Carlisle’s attitude towards Kelly?”
“He hated her,” Dervla replied. “He wanted her dead. That was why I tried to stop him sending me messages. His tone changed so completely. It was vile. He called her some terrible things. But he was on the outside. He couldn’t have…”
“Never you mind what he could and couldn’t do. What we’re concerned about here, my girl, is what you did.”
“I didn’t do anything!”
Coleridge stared at Dervla. He thought of his own daughter, who was not much older than the frightened girl sitting opposite him.
“Are you going to charge me?” Dervla asked in a very small voice.
“No, I don’t think there’d be much point,” said Coleridge. Dervla had not been under oath when she had given her statement and she had been under stress. Coleridge knew that any half-decent brief could make a convincing case that she had simply been confused when she gave her evidence. Besides, he had no wish to charge her. He knew the truth now and that was all he was interested in.
And so Dervla went back into the house.
DAY FORTY-SEVEN. 11.00 a.m.
The days dragged by in the house and the tension remained unrelenting. Every moment they expected either word of an arrest from the outside, as Geraldine had promised, or another visit from the police to take one of the remaining housemates into custody. But nothing happened.
They cooked their meals and did their little tasks, always watching, always wondering, waiting for the next development. Occasionally a genuine conversation would bubble up out of the desultory chats and interminable silences that now characterized most of the house interaction, but these moments never lasted long.
“So who believes in God, then?” Jazz asked as they all sat round the dining table, pushing their Bolognese around their plates. Jazz had been thinking about Kelly, and about heaven and hell, and so he asked his question.
“Not me,” said Hamish, “I believe in science.”
“Yeah,” Garry agreed, “although religion is good for kiddies, I think. I mean, you’ve got to tell them something, haven’t you?”
“I’m quite interested in Eastern religions,” said Moon. “For instance, I reckon that Dalai Lama is a fookin’ ace bloke, because with him it’s all about peace and serenity, ain’t it? And at the end of the day, fair play to him because I really really respect that.”
“What sort of science do you believe in, then, Hamish?” Dervla asked.
“The Big Bang Theory, of course, what else?” Hamish replied pompously. “They have telescopes so powerful nowadays that they can see to the very edges of the universe, to the beginning of time. They know to within a few seconds when it all began.”
“And what was there before it all began, then?” asked Moon.
“Ah,” said Hamish. “You see, everybody asks that.”
“I wonder why.”
“Yeah, Hamish,” Jazz taunted. “What was there before?”
“There was nothing there before,” said Hamish loftily. “Not even nothing. There was no space and no time.”
“Sounds like in here,” Jazz replied.
“Fook all that, Hamish, it’s bollocks.”
“It’s science, Moon. They have evidence.”
“I don’t see what you’re arguing about,” said Dervla. “It seems to me that accepting the Big Bang theory or any other idea doesn’t preclude the existence of God.”
“So do you believe in him, then?”
“Well, not him. Not an old man with a big beard sitting in a cloud chucking thunderbolts about the place. I suppose I believe in something, but I don’t hold with any organized religion. I don’t need some rigid set of rules and regulations to commune with the God of my choice. God should be there for you whether you’ve read his book or not.”
Coleridge and Trisha had caught this conversation on the net. The House Arrest webcast played constantly in the incident room now.
“I should have arrested that girl for obstruction,” he said. “There’s one young lady who could do with a few more rules and regulations.”
“What’s she done now?” said Trisha. “I thought you liked her.”
“For heaven’s sake, Patricia, did you hear her? ‘The God of my choice.’ What kind of flabby nonsense is that?”
“I agreed with her, actually.”
“Well, then, you’re as silly and as lazy as she is! You don’t choose a god, Patricia. The Almighty is not a matter of whim! God is not required to be there for you! You should be there for him!”
“Well, that’s what you think, sir, but -”
“It is also what every single philosopher and seeker after truth in every culture has believed since the dawn of time, constable! It has always been commonly supposed that faith requires some element of humility on the part of the worshipper. Some sense of awe in the smallness of oneself and the vastness of creation! But not any more! Yours is a generation that sees God as some kind of vague counsellor! There to tell you what you want to hear, when you want to hear it, and to be entirely forgotten about in-between times! You have invented a junk faith and you ask it to justify your junk culture!”