Anyone for Murder?
Next to the body lay a bottle of Theakstons Old Peculier and an upturned book; it was a crime novel and the already lurid jacket was spattered with real blood.
“Shame to let it go to waste,” said Peter, picking up the bottle and draining what was left of its contents. Then he gagged. Instead of the treat he’d expected, the beer was flatter than a teacher’s joke.
“You idiot!” No sympathy from Russ, best friend or not. “Don’t you know that actors never get real beer to drink? Just like this thing isn’t real either.” He gave the body a vicious kick. “It’ll be rubber or something. A real corpse would be stiff by now.”
Not to be outdone, Peter leaned over the motionless form and dipped his finger into the blood around the deep wound in its back. “This isn’t real either. They’ve used a proper knife, though, and I’m having it!” He wiped it on the grass and put it into his school bag.
At the unit base on the other side of the road, the cast and crew of Anyone for Murder? were queuing up for lunch. Only the director, seated comfortably at the window of his caravan, was monitoring the boys’ antics. He smiled wryly. It had taken weeks for suitable suspects to present themselves at just the right time. Now another story about youth knife crime would hit the headlines. He watched, as Russ started to go through the dead man’s pockets.
Ben Black aka Miles Spangler, thriller writer! How easy it had been to keep the arrogant star behind and then to dispatch him with one well aimed blow. No one would miss Ben. The rest of the cast blamed him for the show’s falling ratings, but Ben knew too much about certain people’s private lives to be sacked.
There’s more than one way to kill off an unpopular character, reflected the director, as he picked up his mobile to call the police.