The reality TV show to die for. Literally

by Kerry Drewery

  MALE VOICEOVER: … today’s show Death is Justice with our host …

  The blue fades and lights come up on Kristina seated at her usual place, perfect hair, perfect make up.

  MALE VOICEOVER: … Kristina Albright!

  KRISTINA: Good morning, viewers. What an exciting week we’ve had here on Death is Justice, and, boy, have we been serving up some justice for you!

  The studio audience applaud.

  KRISTINA: Three executions in three days are sure to make our streets safer. You can walk home from school or work, knowing that there are three fewer criminals out there. Together, with our police and your votes, we’re making a difference and making our country a better place to live in.

  The applause increases.

  KRISTINA: And it seems tonight we’ll be bringing you more of the same, but we do still have some hours to go. Let’s have a quick look and see what our accused is doing right this very second.

  She stands and moves over to the screen on the right.

  KRISTINA: Viewers, this is our live feed from Cell 7. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this, Cell 7 also doubles as the execution room. The accused spends the day in there, able to walk around, examine the death chair, have their last supper, until voting closes at 8.30 this evening.

  She pauses and looks at the screen – Martha standing in front of the door, white prison overalls and bare feet on the concrete floor. Kristina smiles.

  KRISTINA: She looks a trifle worried, doesn’t she?

  The audience laugh.

  KRISTINA: We’ve been busy taking your calls about our killer, Martha, and reading your texts and emails, and here to go through them with us now is the one and only Joshua Decker.

  Dressed in a tight-fitting grey suit and tie, Joshua strides onto the set, a hand raised to wave to the audience, who whoop and cheer.

  KRISTINA: Delightful to see you again, Joshua, and we do seem to be seeing a lot of you lately.

  JOSHUA: Thank you, Kristina. It’s always a pleasure to be here.

  He turns to the audience and smiles; a murmur travels around.

  JOSHUA: And I’m hoping I’ll be able to see a lot more of all of you in the future.

  Kristina’s smile creases, she turns away, focuses on the screen.

  KRISTINA: Let’s have a look now at some of those opinions coming in.

  JOSHUA: Of course.

  Joshua taps the interactive screen, dragging boxes of text across, tapping and enlarging some.

  JOSHUA: As you can see, Kristina, emotions are really running high. It seems our viewers have little sympathy for ‘Martha the Merciless’ as the press are cruelly calling her.

  KRISTINA (laughing): I hadn’t heard that one!

  Joshua points to the screen.

  JOSHUA: Take a look at some of these – ‘She should rot in hell,’ says Tony. ‘How can a teenager be so evil?’ asks Chandra. ‘Society should be ashamed of itself for letting immorality breed,’ a really tough one there from Caswell. But this one especially caught my eye: ‘What can society expect but wanton death and destruction when our morals have been in decline for so many years? It isn’t surprising that a teen should commit such a crime when they are brought up within inadequate families. The blame should lie with the mother.’ And that’s from Geri. No surname there for Geri. But can we really put the blame at the feet of the mother who, by all accounts, suffered her own –

  KRISTINA (interrupting): Well, viewers, it’s your opinions we’d like to hear on this. What do you think? We’ve certainly heard that argument before. How much of the responsibility should the mother take?

  JOSHUA: We have a call coming in about that right now. Hello, caller, what’s your name?

  CALLER 1 (STEVIE): My name’s Stevie and I wanted to ask about the video camera.

  Kristina and Joshua frown at each other.

  JOSHUA: Sorry, Stevie, we were asking whether the lack of a family unit can affect the behaviour of a child.

  STEVIE: Yeah, right, I get that, but right, I was caught sleeping rough at the underpass last night, right, and the police told me that they saw me on the video thing. The CCTV, yeah? So, if that’s still working, how come they haven’t got it from when Jackson was killed?

  KRISTINA: Stevie …

  STEVIE: Cos, I think maybe they have, but then why aren’t they showing it? Ask yourself that, hey – why aren’t they showing it? Well, I reckon it’s cos …

  The line goes dead.

  JOSHUA: Stevie? Stevie …?

  KRISTINA (smiling): I’m sorry, viewers, seems we’ve lost Stevie. I wonder how he could afford the phone call anyway …

  JOSHUA: Do we have another caller? Yes, we do. Hello, what’s your name, and what do you wish to share with us today?

  CALLER 2 (LUKA): Hello. My name’s Luka, and I wanted to ask a question about Martha and your show the other day.

  JOSHUA: Go ahead.

  LUKA: Your guest said that you didn’t need evidence because you had motivation, but then he failed to say what the motivation was. Could you tell me what motivation she’s supposed to have, to have wanted to kill Jackson Paige?

  Kristina glances sideways.

  KRISTINA: Er … well, Luka, this was discussed in depth the other evening, and I would suggest you log on to our website and watch it in full, where I’m sure you will find your answers.

  LUKA: I did log on. There are no answers. I told you, he didn’t say what her motivation was, and I don’t get why she did it. And why would she admit to it if she knew she was going to die?

  JOSHUA (quietly): Maybe she felt she had nothing to live for …

  LUKA: And what’s this secret she says she has? What if that changes things? Then it’ll be too late, won’t it?

  KRISTINA: Thank you for ringing. Do we have another caller?

  She holds a finger to her ear. Sweat’s gathering on her top lip.

  KRISTINA: Yes, we do. Hello, caller, and welcome.

  CALLER 3: Hello, Kristina. I do hope you’re not going to cut me off too?

  She laughs nervously.

  CALLER 3: In the years since the introduction of the voting system over 2,500 people have been executed. Since their deaths, evidence has been found that more than fifty of those were innocent, yet not all cases were analysed.

  KRISTINA: Meaning 2,450 were guilty.

  CALLER 3: Potentially. Yet also that more than fifty killers haven’t been prosecuted for their crimes. Also in those years, increasing living costs have priced phones and the internet out of reach for around 45% of the population …

  KRISTINA: They could use public systems … libraries …

  CALLER 3: Which still have to be paid for, again are far too expensive for many and are increasingly inaccessible. Looking at the voting records, which I have here in my hand, I can tell you that in the current case of Martha Elizabeth Honeydew, 98.3% of the votes come from areas with the same revenues as the City and the Avenues. In fact, 56.2% of the total vote, the total vote, comes from one phone number. One phone number. Would you like to know whose?

  KRISTINA: I’m sorry, caller, what did you say your name is?

  CALLER 3: I didn’t. That phone number …

  KRISTINA: And how did you get those telephone records?

  CALLER 3: How I got them isn’t important. Kristina, are you interrupting me to stop information reaching your audience and your loyal viewers? Surely you respect them enough to allow them access to the truth so their choice in vote can be an informed one?

  KRISTINA: I –

  CALLER 3: It’s the phone number of William Crawford. Do you know who he is? He was Jackson Paige’s lawyer and is still acting on his behalf. Tell me, Kristina, why do you think he would be doing that? Why does he want this girl dead?

  KRISTINA: Audience, viewers, I have to ask you to discount this information. This is slander against one of our most prolific and successful lawyers in the country. There is no evidence –

  CALLER 3: Sorry, Kristina, did you say evidence? Y
ou want evidence now do you? Not just motivation? Well …

  The screen flickers and the statement of telephone records for the lawyer comes into view, the amount of calls to the ‘guilty’ line clearly visible.

  The audience gasp.

  KRISTINA: Caller? Where did you get this? This is illegal. This cannot be shown on television.

  The phone line goes dead but the phone records stay on the screen. Joshua does nothing but watch over the audience, a hint of a smile flicking the corner of his lips.

  KRISTINA: Viewers, I must apologise for the hacking of our system with inappropriate and potentially forged documentation. We’ll be back with you after this short message from our sponsor, Cyber Secure.

  She smiles a plastic smile.

  Cicero

  Cicero wipes a towel across his sweating face and exhales loudly.

  ‘Did I do all right?’ he asks.

  ‘You did great,’ Max says. He takes the phone from him and slips a cover from the mouthpiece. ‘They’ll never know it was you.’

  ‘They better not. How did you get those records anyway? Does your mother know?’

  ‘Oh, I did them on the computer …’

  ‘But?’

  ‘It’s only what’s happening anyway, isn’t it? You know the votes are fixed.’

  ‘Not fixed exactly, but …’

  ‘The people with money rig the phone so it votes again and again for what they want the outcome to be – that’s fixing, isn’t it? Everyone knows that’s what happens. We just got them thinking about it a bit more.’ He unplugs his computer. ‘I’ve got to go, Mum’s waiting for me at the TV studio.’

  ‘She’s going on Death is Justice?’

  Max nods.

  Martha

  This cell’s the worst. I thought it would be small, clean and white, bright lights … clinical. But it’s dark and miserable. The air’s cold. There’s goosebumps on my arms, the concrete on my bare feet is freezing but there’s nowhere to sit. Only that awful-looking chair with the straps.

  It reminds me of an old-fashioned dentist chair.

  ‘Sit here, little girl,’ the dentist would say, a dirty apron tied around him, splattered with blood, his face covered with a mask. ‘Let me put the straps around you, you’ll be more comfortable that way.’

  Oh, shut up, just shut up, Martha.

  It’s hard to think that in a few hours all this going on in my head will have stopped and I’ll just cease to be.

  Does anyone have a soul? Do I?

  I remember watching this thing on TV, where it said that in the moments after you die, you lose twenty-one grams in weight. Some people thought that was the weight of your soul. You lost it because it’d left your body.

  Funny, that.

  Does that mean a ghost weighs twenty-one grams?

  I don’t know. I don’t know anything any more.

  I move to the other side of the room and rest my palms on the glass screen that separates the cell from a viewing area. When I take them off again I can see my smeared fingerprints and I look for other people’s; maybe the guy who was executed yesterday, the one I chatted to, or the one before that.

  The guard told me it’s been the busiest week they’ve had in ages.

  I can’t see any though. I suppose they must clean the glass. I wonder if they wash the chair down too.

  It’s weird to think that I’ve been here before, but on the other side of the glass, watching Ollie. As I was the closest and only family to the victim – my mother – I was given the opportunity to make a speech.

  I chose not to. I had stuff to say but it was private stuff, not for the media to turn into something to be quoted out of context and splashed across newspapers to make them money.

  They asked if I wanted the glass down too – so I could ‘see the execution better’, they said. I told them that if it was up to me the execution wouldn’t be going ahead anyway, and if it absolutely had to, it would be somewhere private where Ollie could die in peace, not with a million anonymous faces staring at him.

  I don’t know what other people chose. I’ve never watched it on TV. It felt disrespectful not to, but like I was spying if I did.

  Mrs B was happy with my choices anyway. Well, as happy as you can be when they’re killing your only son.

  There are chairs in the viewing area on the other side of this glass. Rows of them going back – I can’t tell how many, it’s too dark, and I can’t remember from before. Ten rows? Maybe more.

  It’s like a cinema and I’m the film.

  Live action, hey?

  Who’ll come to watch me die?

  Mrs B? No, I don’t think she could stand it.

  Friends from school who I’ve not seen since Mum died and I had to drop out? Maybe.

  People from the Rises like Gus? The homeless guys who were there that night? No, I don’t think so.

  Eve?

  The press?

  Isaac?

  Isaac, I know you will.

  I’ve left everything I own to Mrs B, but I’ve asked for my ashes to go to you. You’ll know where I want to be sprinkled. I can see you now as I close my eyes and rest my head on the glass; you’re walking down the path towards the woods. It’s cold, winter, the wind is howling around you, blowing your hair around your head, your collar’s up, your shoulders hunched, you’re staring off to the treeline in the distance.

  My twenty-one grams is walking with you but you can’t see me. I want to hook my arm in yours, slip my hand into your pocket and feel your fingers grab onto mine.

  I hope you sense me with you, but I fear you won’t.

  At the clearing in the middle of the trees, the place where we sat together around the fire we made, the place we first kissed, where we lay with sunrays on our skin, will be where you leave my ashes, and when you want to remember me and the times we had, it’ll be the place you return to.

  And when everything is shit, when fighting is so hard, it’ll be the place you come to feel stronger again.

  I will miss you.

  You lit my life when everything was in blackness.

  You woke me and gave me strength to be myself again.

  You gave me reason to wake in the mornings, to eat in the days and to smile again.

  And although tomorrow I won’t be here, the reason I will die is reason to die.

  You will see to that.

  ‘The time,’ oh, that voice again, ‘is 9 a.m. You have: twelve hours until your possible execution. The current stats are: 96.5% in favour, 3.5% against. We will update you in: one hour.’

  This is the worst; let it happen now.

  Are you waiting for me, Mum? Ollie, are you there too?

  I slam my fists against the glass.

  ‘Do it now!’ I shout, banging my fists again and again. ‘Kill me now!’

  As I stop I hear the whirr of the camera but nothing else.

  I slump down and rest my head on the floor.

  Remember what we said, Isaac – I can be the martyr but you have to be the fighter. I close my eyes.

  We’d been seeing each other for eight months when he found out. Lord knows how we’d managed to make it that far. ‘Because he’s always busy,’ you told me. ‘He doesn’t care what I get up to.’

  But you’d been suspicious for a while. Thought he was tracking your phone, so you’d started leaving it with a friend. Comments too, you told me, about how important it was to go out with the right people, or that you never brought any girlfriends home.

  The night he found us, actually saw us, I was there at the station to meet you, waiting on the platform. It was a warm summer evening, the sun just dipping behind the tall buildings, a beautiful orange hue cast on concrete. The sun could make even the High Rises look attractive.

  You smiled at me as you stepped off the train, took my hand and together we strolled away.

  ‘You want to go to my place?’ I asked.

  You shook your head. ‘Let’s sit in the sunshine somewhere,’ you said.
r />   We grabbed some drinks and crisps from the corner shop and strolled through the streets towards the park.

  People around us were in good spirits. Some I knew stopped to say hello and asked about you. You didn’t tell them you were Jackson’s son, but most recognised you.

  ‘See your old man round here a lot,’ one said.

  You weren’t surprised.

  Some guy asked if you’d got any supplies from your dad. We walked away.

  As we walked, you put your arm around me and drew me towards you, taking my face in your hands as you bent to kiss me. ‘Thank God I’m not actually related to him,’ you said. ‘You don’t have to worry about me turning into some psycho, unfaithful, womanising drug dealer.’ You smiled at that, but I knew it was no joke.

  We could’ve only walked a few more steps before we heard the roar of the car. We both froze, do you remember that?

  The car screeched to a halt in front of us, and Jackson launched himself out.

  I don’t remember all of the conversation, if you could call it that, all the ranting, the shouting and swearing, but I remember how much he scared me, and I remember that one thing he said.

  ‘The women here are the ones you have sex with,’ he said. ‘The ones over there are the ones you marry. You can come here to get your kicks but you don’t take these home and you don’t get caught.’

  At that you hit him.

  When he’d got over the shock he hit you back. Knocked you to the floor.

  As I bent over you, helping you to your feet, I looked back at Jackson. I remember shaking, but I wouldn’t let him see.

  ‘You killed my mother,’ I hissed at him.

  ‘Huh,’ he replied. ‘Who’s your mother?’

  ‘Beth Honeydew.’

  People were starting to gather, standing near me and you, staring out at Jackson with sneers. He seemed off-balance, like my words shocked him.

  ‘You know who I am?’ I asked him.

  He spat on the ground. ‘A slag like your mother,’ he said.

  I remember the fear I felt as you launched yourself back up off the ground and towards Jackson. I tried to pull you back but you squirmed from my grip and were at him and I thought you were going to kill him. People around us shouted and jeered, others came from across the park and the underpass.