murder | verymerri

MURDER BY POPULAR DEMAND

Full was the moon and liberal its influence upon humankind, as ever it was and ever will be, so long as they remain content in their discount with others. With no seasonal nature of its own, the Earth’s sole orbiting escort, a mere 0.0123rd the its size of the planet, determines the tides and governs the willpower of many who, in their disorientated state of emotional deluge, see lunar’s sole existence as their forever plaything, regardless of consequence. Full it was, silvern and benign and embraced after the squall that drenched the city and surrounding regions, despite the power failure and some small damage to property, but a mercy, compared to the unseasonal events these past months, despite the Bureau of Meteorology and their prediction of an optimistic change in the weather. Still, rain left a pleasant aroma, and hopefully it fell where it was most sorely needed. Those fortunate enough to live in high-rise apartments owned an ideal view of Mother Nature in all her contrary humours, but now that the storm was spent, she had less barometrically turbulent diversions to help fill her eternal time.

Same same but different said of one well versed in the uncertainties of chance and the predictable foibles of humankind. Nobody’s fool, least of all her own, Sky remained stoic, despite the minefields that she circumnavigated, which were the hunting ground of her chosen field of endeavour. The inherent nature of a professional exterminator requires adopting the life of a faceless entity, invisible in their skin, unknown and unknowable to all. All, save those in whose nefarious employ she sows and reaps. While encountering people of every path and purpose in her orbit, chance played no role, nor would it, and her introduction to Veda St Clair was no different. They had never met, nor should they, although Sky was soon to be even more familiar with her quarry than the quarry herself. As with all her prior assignments, there was no shadow of doubt as to the ultimate success of the termination. The ways and means of accomplishing the resolve, however, simmered away on the back burner for the time being.

Powering back from the showroom in her Rolls Wraith, she stopped off to secure a cask of rosé before retiring to the creature comforts of her penthouse apartment. Once having slipped out of her civvies and into something less constricting, she threw on the ‘Kiss: Unmasked’ album and settled back to review the litany past her past achievements. Ever the consummate purist, each triumph must need trump the one prior, and the significance of competing with herself served as pivotal to the cause célèbre. Mid-reverie, a full moon cast aside the clouded firmament and coloured her reverie silvern. Pouring a stiff bracer of her favourite food for thought and toasting to herself, she meditated on its blood-red hue, savouring the irony.

Meditation begat insight begat modus operandi, so accordingly she arrived early the following morning at Miss St Clair’s chosen place of employment. The mantle of figurative invisibility afforded her a passport which guaranteed easy access to areas otherwise verboten to mere commonfolk, particularly television studios isolated by a perennially closed set.

The nearest Sky ever got to show business was front row centre at a matinee of ‘Cinderella’, a pantomime originally conceived in the best of classic tradition. Her recollections of that fated afternoon involved the over-produced and under-rehearsed assortment of disreputable suspects ever to tread the legendary boards. When not singing and dancing for all their questionable worth, there were called upon to keep afloat both the dodgy script and one of the principal actors. By Act 11, scene 1, the passive-aggressive Cinders and her three sheets to the wind Fairy Godmother angled for the spotlight, the former in bedraggled regalia and the latter dressed to kill and likely could, judging by the industrial strength pyrotechnics she produced with that quaint little prop of hers. After the finale and curtain calls, her parents dragged Sky backstage to meet the cast, but their shell-shocked daughter claimed incontinence and caught the next bus home. Safe in her own room and flanked by groaning shelves of Edgar Allan Poe, Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Bram Stoker, and Mary Shelley, the world was by far a more realistic sphere of creative inspiration and it was on that fateful night that her life’s vocation took seed.

Miss St Claire, whose physical attributes was as legendary as her acting skills, was already present on the cavernous soundstage, encompassed by those employed to ensure the day’s filming proceeded without disruption. Having secured an aerie from which to observe proceedings, Sky observed that their superstar’s age and vital statistics were similar to her own, but for the fact of career predilections. That and the obvious way St Clair flaunted herself. Below and above, a seething colony of technicians made ready the cameras and lighting and sound equipment, the set, wardrobe and makeup, and all for the greater glory of their golden idol. The director, a diminutive gentleman with distinctive people-pleasing timidity, was trying to impart some bearing on the scene at hand, but his tactful labours merely served to encourage her unwarranted discontent.

Turning abruptly on the poor soul, she advised him, in no uncertain terms, what he could do with the script, whereupon she snatched the offending text from him, threw it in his face, and threatened to walk off the set. Erring on the side of self-preservation, he backed away, bowing and scraping in ritual compliance. Her authority uncontested, she turned on the cast and crew, tearing them to shreds, until, at last, her rage was sated. As one, they fled the disaster area before she gained her second breath.

In that one actualised moment of implausible lunacy, it occurred to Sky that the uncompromising stress of churning out live-to-air television series was standard procedure. The self-delusional lunatics who were running the asylum put paid to any hope she held for humankind. High overhead in the darkened, glassed-off control booth, a group of producers and technicians supervised proceedings, silently bore witness to all that had just transpired.

The debacle was result of instances which had their genesis on the shooting of the first episode when, prior to filming, the hitherto inexperienced fledgling was welcomed with great fanfare and hailed as the touchstone on which the show’s success would be determined. Accepting the mantle in tears of most humble gratitude, she had the entire unit eating out of her tiny lily-whites. But the lamb does not lay down for the lion for long. Not when lambkins is leading the flock.

Nobody denied her guidance whenever she requested same, everyone from director to clapper boy responding to her blushes of modest naivety. Heads down and hearts up with inspired teamwork, days segued into months of productivity, garnering top ratings and a clutch of Gold Logies, with Miss Veda St Clair the acclaimed apple of every fan’s answer to their waking dreams.

None discerned the unblemished light in her eyes indiscernibly usurped by something that flashed with queer, uncommon, lustre. Forbearing and vigilant at first, now the abominable grotesque became manifest, its traitorous instincts bent on survival and supreme dominion. But still none noticed. None, but for one who was no stranger to Mother Nature in all her contrary humours.

By the time the unit became aware of their entrapment, her stranglehold was absolute, even the top brass found themselves in the grip of her wanton treachery. Struck numb by the seismic encounter, all but hierarchy retreated to the one place where they were at liberty to lick their wounds.

‘The Bunker’ provided few but practical amenities, catering cheap meals and good java, served by a staff of rough diamonds, its remoteness from ground zero was tops on the bill o’ fare. Sky followed the retreating emigres, apparent as just another exile in the goldfish bowl, with likewise objectives of survival. Conversation was helplessly rationed, and while nobody had any appetite for solids, coffee and commiserations were promptly served. Silence was a rarity in the canteen, and palpable when it came at a cost. Time itself was equally conspicuous and abruptly defused by a voice calling them to attention.

With no symptom of his former apprehensions, the director demanded a show of hands, whereby each in their turn would be heard. A brief moment of confused debate played out before the motion was unanimously accepted. The floor recognised Bethany, promotions executive who had been publically humiliated by St Clair over matters too personal to voice. Considering the perceptible axe Bethany had to grind, she advocated decapitation with live media coverage. Next to bat, Lorenzo, hair and makeup, who created anti-ageing products for St Clair’s private use, only to have her pilfer the formulas and market them under her own brand. Tar and feather the vile crone. Next, the brothers McNally, cameraman and sound engineer respectively, who, when asked of their proposed solution to the standoff, suggested strangulation since many hands make light work. And so the court continued at length to hear their painful testimonials, before calling upon Sky, who had only raised her hand to be excused on grounds of incontinence. Petition recognised and granted. Last but not least, Little John. Esteemed company mascot and wunderkind mouser, loathed the cat-hating witch, the very utterance of her accursed name driving him to frenzied vengeful justice. No fate was too heinous in his little black book.

Eavesdropping from the refuge of a cubicle, Sky was a picture of quiet mollification. “Well, I’ll be damned.” Hurling a mousetrap into a room full of ping pong balls became absurdly transparent. Successfully effecting unobserved decampment, she returned to her apartment and killed off the last of the remaining rosé in one, sacrificial toast.

The media vultures revelled in the breaking news of Veda St Clair’s sudden departure from television screens, and a grievous pall of mystery surrounded her disappearance, which happened without forewarning or explanation, and her whereabouts was of nationwide concern. Further to initial speculations, police no longer ruled out the likelihood of foul play, and while the nation mourned, candlelit vigils rendezvoused at the resolutely locked gates of the studio.

After that revelational breakthrough in the canteen, Sky had summoned an immediate conference with her employers that same night. Those who produced and feted their star, those who discovered to their humiliation that they were rostered on a time-share by which they partook of her inexhaustible talents, had become desperate to excise the thorn from their collective side. The proposition she described held her associates in thrall. With authorised licence to kill off the character that St Clair played, Sky proposed writing the character out of the series and leaving an anonymous phone message threatening to expose her as the indefensible miscreant that she was, enforcing and guaranteeing a code of silence henceforth.

In due process of immutable lore, the uncertainties of chance and the predictable foibles of humanity predicted the star’s fall from grace, her obligatory retirement, and the habitual amnesia of her legion of devoted fans. There were they, of course, who would woo her with lucrative contracts, begging her to pen her memoirs, some including the movie rights, and it would not be long before ‘I, Victim!’ was atop the current list of Best Sellers, subjecting her to further infamy. The immeasurable wealth that accompanied the inestimable success was generously supplemented by individuals whose confidential donations ensured their names be withheld.

Far above the jaded world, another figure of unscrupulous renown was enjoying the creature comforts of her penthouse apartment, admiring the antique urn she had recently acquired, having outbid some disgruntled sheik or other at an online auction. The night was balmy, the rosé chilled, and she toasted to herself and the new feather in her cap. Refilling her glass from the flagon, she opened the package that had arrived in the day’s mail. As far as autobiographies go, this went altogether too far. Her six-figure check had obviously bounced. Thus did Sky embark on her own memoir, ‘What’s Past is Prologue!’ which begat a resultant memoir from her nemesis, which begat a subsequent memoir from Sky, which begat a literary impasse, into which booklovers read volumes.

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