“Very nice,” Geraldine observed. “I love a bit of muted mastication, the editor’s friend. Right, chop the tangerine off the front and run that sequence mute under Kelly’s dialogue about finding head massage sensual.”

Fogarty gulped before replying. It really seemed as if this time he had had enough. “But… but, Kelly made that comment to David while they were having the rice, chicken and vegetables that Jazz cooked. If we drop it over Sally’s face it will look as if… as if…”

“Ye-es?” Geraldine enquired.

“As if she’s getting a thrill out of massaging Sally’s head!”

“While Sally,” Geraldine replied, “with her grinding jaw and tense cheeks, sucky-sucky lips and little wet tongue tip, is positively creaming her gusset, and we, my darling, have got what can only be described as a half-decent lezzo moment.”

The silence in the monitoring bunker spoke loudly of the unease felt by Geraldine’s employees. Geraldine just grinned, a huge, triumphant grin, like a happy snarl.

“We are in a ratings trough, you cunts!” she shouted. “I’m paying your wages here!”

DAY TWENTY-TWO. 6.10 p.m.

“Such a shame there was no eviction last night,” the young woman was saying. “The last one was terrific, although I was sorry to see Layla go. I mean I know she was pretty pretentious, but I respected the integrity of her vegetarianism.”

“Darling she was a poseur, a complete act, I hated her,” said the man, a rather fey individual of about thirty.

Chief Inspector Coleridge had been listening to them chat for about five minutes, and did not have the faintest idea who or what they were talking about. They seemed to be discussing a group of people that they knew well, friends perhaps, and yet they appeared to hold them in something approaching complete contempt.

“What do you think about Layla going, then?” said the man, whose name was Glyn, turning finally to Coleridge.

“I’m afraid I don’t know her,” Coleridge answered. “Is she a friend of yours?”

“My God,” said Glyn. “You mean you don’t know who Layla is? You don’t watch House Arrest?”

“Guilty on both counts,” said Coleridge, attempting a little joke. He knew that they knew he was a policeman.

“You simply do not know what you’re missing,” said Glyn.

“And long may that remain the case,” Coleridge replied.

It was an audition evening at Coleridge’s local amateur dramatic society. Coleridge had been a member of the society for over twenty-five years and had attended thirty-three such evenings previous to this one, but he had never yet been offered a lead. The nearest he had got was Colonel Pickering in My Fair Lady, and that was only because the first choice had moved to Basingstoke and the second choice got adult chicken pox. The next production of the society was to be Macbeth, and Coleridge really and truly wanted to play the killer king.

Macbeth was his favourite play of all time, full of passion and murder and revenge, but one glance at Glyn’s patronizing, supercilious expression told Coleridge he has as much chance of playing Macbeth as he had of presenting Britain’s next entry for the Eurovision song contest. He would be lucky to score a Macduff.

“Yes, I am intending a very young production,” Glyn drawled. “One that will bring young people back into the theatre. Have you seen Baz Luhrman’s Romeo and Juliet?”

Coleridge had not.

“That is my inspiration. I want a contemporary, sexy Macbeth. Don’t you agree?”

Well, of course Coleridge did not agree. Glyn’s production would run for three nights at the village hall and would play principally to an audience that wanted armour and swords and big black cloaks.

“Shall I read, then?” he asked “I’ve prepared a speech.”

“Heavens, no!” Glyn said. “This isn’t the audition, it’s a prelim chat. A chance for you to influence me, give me your feedback.”

There was a long pause while Coleridge tried to think of something to say. The table that divided him from Glyn and Val was a chasm. “So when is the actual audition?” he finally said.

“This time next week.”

“Right, well, I’ll come back then, shall I?”

“Do,” said Glyn.

DAY TWENTY-THREE. 3.00 p.m.

Sally was not yet satisfied with her new bright-red mohican hair.

“I just want a tuft,” she said, “like a shaving brush.”

“Well, just you leave it at that,” Moon said. “I’m the bald bird in this house. Can’t have two of us, we’ll look like a fookin’ game of billiards.”

Sally did not reply. She rarely replied to anything Moon said, or even looked at her.

Dervla was relieved that Kelly elected to administer the haircut in the living area. It had been agony for her on the Saturday when Sally had done the dyeing in the bathroom. Dervla always rubbed out her messages, of course, and they were only condensation anyway, but seeing Sally with her face so close to the very place where they appeared had been most disconcerting. As Kelly washed Sally’s hair and the mirror steamed up, Dervla had been gripped with an irrational fear that a message might suddenly appear, there and then, right in front of Sally’s eyes. She knew that this was unlikely, unless of course the man had decided to start writing to Sally.

“All done,” said Kelly.

“I like it,” Sally replied, having inspected the little red tuft which was all that remained of her hair. “When I get out I’m going to have my head tattooed.”

“What will you get done, then?” Kelly asked.

“I thought perhaps my star sign. It’s the ram, except obviously I’m not having a male animal on my head, so I’d have to have a ewe.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound very empowering, Sally,” Dervla observed.

“Be a fucking lioness, Sal,” said Jazz. “I mean, let’s face it, them pictures they make out of the stars are just total bullshit anyway. Three bloody dots and they draw a bull round it, or a centaur. It’s ridiculous. If you actually do join the dots all you get is a splodge, like an amoeba or a puddle. Born under the sign of the puddle.”

“Actually, Jazz,” said Moon, “it’s not just about the fookin’ shapes, is it? It’s about the personality, the characteristics of people born under certain signs.”

“It’s bollocks,” Jazz insisted. “People say… Oh, Virgo, dead brave, or Capricorn, really clever and introspective. Where are the star signs for all the stupid boring people, eh? I mean, the world’s full of them. Don’t they get to be represented celestially? Taurus – we’re really dull and don’t get our rounds in… I could tell you was a Libra, they’re very flatulent.”

“You know fook all, you do, Jazz,” said Moon. “Do you know that?”