by Nev Fountain
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
He was escorted out of the changing rooms, through the reception area (the girl was still staring bug-eyed at him, masticating furiously) and out of the squash club.
When they emerged, he saw a huge shadowy figure illuminated by the electric glare of a shopfront. Graham Goldingay, one arm full of documents, lumbering away as fast his legs could carry him, was huffing towards the Underground. The briefcase dangled from his other hand.
‘Look, look there! That’s the man who was with me! Graham Goldingay! The girl on the reception desk must have said I wasn’t alone, surely!’
‘Let’s not worry about him for the moment, sir.’
‘But he’s stolen evidence, vital evidence!’
One of the policemen looked in the direction of Mervyn’s pointing finger, but Graham had disappeared down the steps and was gone.
‘Shouldn’t one of you get after him? It doesn’t take both of you to walk me to a car.’
‘One thing at a time, sir.’
They didn’t care. They were Just Doing Their Jobs.
Mervyn was being steered towards a couple of large black Volvos, and he could see someone waiting in the driving seat of one.
Detective Inspector Preece.
Preece opened his car door and got out, leaning on the roof. He looked directly at Mervyn, eyes unblinking, a faint smile skirting around his face. He actually took his hand out of his pocket and pointed it like a gun. He directed it at Mervyn, doing a comedy recoil motion while making a tiny explosive noise with his tongue.
That clinched it; Mervyn knew he wasn’t going to get away in a hurry this time. He had used Marcus’s card. Aiden was probably in a police station somewhere, making all sorts of accusations about him. It wasn’t going to be a couple of hours in the grey room this time. He would be firmly squashed within the cogs of the justice system. And there would be no chance to clear his name.
Mervyn suddenly bolted, ducking from between the two policemen and running back the way he had come. But not into the squash club; he veered to the left, over the tiny manicured lawn that fringed the building.
He ran as fast as he could. He could hear the scrunch of police boots on gravel behind him, but he forced himself to close it out, concentrating on hurling his body across the grounds as far as he could go towards the cover of the trees.
He leapt over several walls, and didn’t stop running until he was certain he could hear no one pursuing him; and even then, he decided to hide in a shed for an hour, listening to the noises of the night.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Mervyn knew there was a sound from far away, and that there were shapes around him. Strange shapes. Everything else was just conjecture.
He had to stop the sound. That’s what he had to do. Pick it up and stop it.
‘Mervyn?’
What was this thing he was holding? A phone! Yes that was what it was. You had to speak into them. Yes.
‘Cheryl?’ he immediately woke up.
‘You’re alive. Thank God.’
‘I think I am. It’s a bit early to tell. What—is that? What time is it?’
‘Half past five.’
‘Half past five? In the morning?’ There was no such time. If there were such a time, Mervyn would have heard about it by now.
‘Where are you?’
‘I’m in a…’ He stopped.
He remembered where he was. He was in a grimy bed and breakfast near King’s Cross. His eyes traced the cracks on the ceiling, starting from the corner of the room and ending at the naked light-bulb.
After he had given the policemen the slip, he rode the Underground in a befuddled daze until it was about to close. He picked a stop at random and emerged, blinking in the glare of the train station, and walked until he found somewhere to stay the night.
He also remembered he was on the run.
They could be using Cheryl to find out where I am. They could be listening in to our conversation right this minute.
‘I’m staying with a friend in Surrey. He’s just served up breakfast, so I can’t talk for too long.’
‘Is it true?’
‘What?’
‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. You’ve ruined everything. How could you do this? You’ve taken Marcus’s good work and shredded it, and thrown it in the dust.’
‘I’ve… What?’
‘You’ve ruined everything. Why didn’t you tell me? Take your phone off the hook. Don’t speak to anyone until you’ve seen the newspaper.’
‘What? Which newspaper?’
‘Any newspaper.’
* * *
The story was on the inside pages of The Telegraph, The Times and The Independent. Even the middlebrow papers and the tabloids featured it—the link to recent deaths and possible juicy murders/religious sacrifices had helped them over their distaste with a highbrow story about publishing. The Sun had come up with ‘Naughty Spice!’ and The Mirror had responded with the also amusing but less pithy ‘Fraud God Almighty’.
The Mail was having a predictable gloat in a long and badly-written ‘Well What Did You Expect?’ article, describing how such a loud-mouthed figure of godlessness was a lying charlatan all along. The Evening Standard was offering free copies of Marcus’s old books to all its readers (just cut out the tokens this week) and the Daily Star inexplicably ran the story from the angle of ‘Vixens Actress Shocked at Writer Lie’—with made-up quotes from Vanity Mycroft saying how disgusted she was. Then again, considering the piece was accompanied by a huge colour picture from 1987 with Vanity wearing a basque and stockings while lying on a hearth rug with her bottom in the air, it probably wasn’t that inexplicable after all.
The spread of articles across his floor made Mervyn’s brain whimper. He picked up The Daily Telegraph, hoping that their article would be on the sober side and at least put things into some sort of perspective.
It did. Which didn’t help matters at all.
Holy Ghost Writer
By Matthew Goode
The literary world has found itself in uproar, as it was claimed yesterday that the late novelist and polemicist Marcus Spicer, author of best-selling books such as The Serpent on the Mount and The Last Sucker, might turn out to be as big a fraud as he claimed Jesus Christ to be.
Strong evidence has come to light suggesting that he didn’t write his controversial episode of cult classic science fiction Vixens from the Void and it was in fact the sole work of another writer, Mervyn Stone, the script editor of the series.
The episode, called ‘The Burning Time’, brought Spicer into the public eye with its bold and controversial religious themes. His follow-up novels sold tens of millions of copies and have become best-sellers in almost 40 countries, helping to catapult Spicer from relatively obscure television writer into a worldwide celebrity and a famous atheist, rivalling other noted secular humanists such as Gore Vidal and Richard Dawkins in terms of profile.
His wife, Cheryl Spicer, 45, also a television writer when she met Spicer, has refused to comment. Spicer, 48, died at BBC Television Centre two weeks ago, recording a DVD feature for that very episode of Vixens. The death, which is being investigated by police and described as ‘suspicious’, has been taken as evidence of ‘divine intervention’ by certain fringe religious groups, proving that Marcus Spicer will be as controversial a figure in death as he was in life.
Mervyn Stone, the man who allegedly wrote the episode, was present when Spicer died and is now being sought by police who wish to question him. He is currently missing, and there are already concerns that he has committed suicide.
The evidence, including notes, papers and entire manuscripts in Mr Stone’s handwriting, was delivered to Nigel Fox, literary editor of London Book World by an anonymous source. Fox said: ‘If this is true, it’s staggering. If this man really wrote this episode and killed Marcus in a final fit of jealousy, it could be the biggest story to hit the literary world since the Hitler diaries.’
* * *
Well at least they’d spelt his name right this time.
Mervyn stepped out into the sunshine and walked. And kept on walking. It was hard to find a payphone; Mervyn hadn’t had cause to use one since the late 90s, so perhaps it wasn’t that surprising.
He thought it was too risky to use his mobile; he’d seen films about fugitives on the run from the police. The moment he used his phone, satellites wandering in orbit would immediately turn their lenses in his direction.
He read the number off the screen; not without difficulty. The phone was filling up with texts and messages, interrupting his view of the number every few seconds. Finally, he made the call.
‘Graham, what have you done?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘You’re a bad liar, Graham. You took those documents, and went to the press.’
‘I thought you’d be pleased. After all these years, you get the recognition for writing a classic episode of Vixens.’
‘Graham…’
‘After all, it was much better than any of the other scripts you did.’
‘Thanks a lot. Why did you do it?’
‘I have a duty to the legacy of Vixens from the Void, I have spent the best part of 20 years exhaustively tracking down notes and documentation for posterity so that the history of this great show is exhaustively documented for all future generations.’
‘Graham you have caused so much trouble! I knew you were irresponsible, but you have behaved disgracefully.’
‘Don’t get all moral on me, Mervyn, you lied to us, to all the fans, it is you that caused this by caging the truth all these years, and not allowing it to fly free.’
‘It was none of your damn business!’
‘Do you know how many of my programme guides and quiz books are going to have to be revised and reprinted?’
‘I don’t care!’
‘I do.’ A hint of glee oozed into his voice. ‘Money in the bank. Everyone will have to buy new editions, after all these years, a new fact to add to add to the sum total of Vixens knowledge. Perhaps they’ll bring back Vixens from the Void magazine for a one-off edition to cover it. Do you have any more long-standing lies that you could share? Is that what’s in the briefcase?’
Mervyn hung up. Then he sighed, redialled and waited.
‘Hello?’
‘Graham, it’s me again.’
‘We seemed to have got cut off.’
‘How about I give you an in-depth interview about how I wrote “The Burning Time”.’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’’
‘You’ll get me prison access to you?’
‘Well, I was planning not to get sentenced for multiple murder, but if it comes to that then yes, you can interview me in prison.’
‘That would be so amazing. Thank you so much.’
‘But there’s one condition.’
‘Name it.’
‘When you break into that briefcase—and I know your staff are probably attacking it with hacksaws and flamethrowers as we speak—you let me know what’s inside.’
‘It’s a deal.’
‘I will be the first person you ring. Promise.’
‘Promise.’
‘I’ll give you the number of a pay-as-you-go mobile, which you will keep utterly secret, and you ring that as soon as you find out.’
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
It was an idiotic thing to do; but he had to do it.
Mervyn waited until the street was completely empty, and leapt over the low wall, running over the tiny ragged lawn. He crept around the side of the house until he was by the kitchen. Wrapping his hand in a rag found in the shed, he lightly punched a pane of glass in the back door. Thankfully, the glass gave way with a tiny tinkle and Mervyn was able to snake his hand inside and turn the big metal key.
The door creaked open. He was in.
It was quite an odd sensation, breaking into his own home.
It was a mess. The police had pulled out all his books, turned his chairs upside down and disembowelled his sofa. They’d obviously assumed he wouldn’t be returning home soon, so they’d felt no need to tidy up.
The bottle of water was gone. What a pity, he thought. I was looking forward to drinking that once I’d solved the case.
The broken CD Robert had given him had gone, too. No doubt both water and CD were inside little plastic bags and lying in a drawer in a police station somewhere, labelled ‘evidence’. He noticed his laptop had been confiscated too; it looked like he’d never finish that bloody novel.
It didn’t look good.
Not only was Mervyn present at the scene of three murders; he had two clear motives to kill Marcus; his ‘relationship’ with Cheryl and Marcus’s ‘theft’ of his script, the details of which were now decorating the insides of every newspaper in the country. A picture of him was being manufactured, of a bitter and jealous man. Unfortunately the picture wasn’t entirely inaccurate. And that wasn’t the half of it. He’d used Marcus’s pass to break into his squash club locker in the middle of the night. They’d discovered a bottle of water and a CD with ‘Burning Time commentary’ written on it inside his house.
They’d throw away the key.
What if they fixed the CD and found Marcus’s last moments on it?
They’d throw away the key and the spare.
What if they’d discovered cyanide in the bottle of water?
They’d throw away the key, the spare, the padlock and seal him in with a welding torch.
He’d made a stupid mistake. He’d started to run, and now he couldn’t stop running. He was a fugitive; he had no idea where to go, or what to do. More importantly, he had absolutely no idea how to clear his name.
He went upstairs, pulled out a duffle bag and filled it with clothes. He was in the process of chucking in the contents of his sock drawer when his jacket pocket started vibrating.
He reached inside and pulled out Graham’s mobile. He’d forgotten he’d picked it up. The screen was glowing. He put it down on the table. Every 30 seconds it scuttled forward angrily, demanding to be heard. Then it stopped. The screen displayed ‘MISSED CALL’.
Mervyn leaned down, and then it jumped again, like a rattlesnake playing dead to snare unwary rodents. This time the screen said. ‘MESSAGE RECEIVED’.
Should he?
Mervyn wrestled with his conscience. Well ‘wrestled’ was too strong a word. He kicked it and it ran away, whimpering.
Sod it. Of course he should. That would teach Graham a lesson. ‘The truth should be allowed to fly free’, should it? Well, he can’t complain if I listen in on his phone messages, can he?
Mervyn dialled the ‘message’ number, and put it to his ear.
‘You have—one—new message,’ said the phone. ‘Press one to hear it, two to erase it, three, to—’
Mervyn pressed ‘one’.
‘Hello Mr Goldingay. You don’t know me. My name is Lionel Bickerdyke. I gather on the grapevine that you like buying up “exclusive merchandise”. Well, I’ve got something for you. Something really special. Some merchandise you do not want to be without. The most amazing thing ever.’
Lionel Bickerdyke?
‘Everyone’s going to want this, fans, collectors… And the police. Particularly the ones investigating Marcus Spicer’s murder, if you know what I mean.’
What?
‘How much for material evidence in the murder of an actual Vixens from the Vortex writer? If that isn’t the ultimate merchandise, I don’t know what is. Anyway that’s all I’m saying. For now.’
A woman’s voice came on the phone. ‘End of messages. Press two to repeat, three to delete, four to save, five to call the person back—’
Mervyn pressed ‘five’.
The phone barely started ringing before a loud voice surged into Mervyn’s ear. ‘Yeah?’
‘Mr Bickerdyke?’
‘Is that Graham Goldingay?’
‘Yes,’ said Mervyn, amazed at
his own audacity.
‘That was quick. You just got my message.’
‘Yes.’
‘You interested?’
‘Very.’
‘Well, things move fast in this game, Graham. I’ve just had another offer, so I’m expecting a bit of a bidding war on this.’
Another offer?
‘Whatever’s on the table, I’ll beat it,’ said Mervyn. ‘In fact I’ll double it.’
‘I like the cut of your jib, Graham. I look forward to meeting you to discuss this further.’
‘You want to meet?’
‘I’m not doing this over the phone, Graham. I’m not stupid. I’m currently meeting the other party at Hambley Hall, near Dorking. You know it?’
‘I know it.’
‘I knew you’d come. I’ve reserved you room 79. Get here as fast as you can, and there might be merchandise left to sell. The other potential buyer is very keen. Hurry Graham, you haven’t much time.’
The phone went dead.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Mervyn didn’t want to use his Visa card; he’d also seen that film where the hero used his credit cards and they lit up the police computers like Christmas trees. He used the last of his cash to buy a train ticket for Dorking.
As the train lumbered out of Waterloo, Mervyn pressed his head against the window and thought.
It all seems to lead back to Hambley Hall, doesn’t it? he thought. It was where Marcus stayed while we were filming ‘The Burning Time’. It was very likely the place where he seduced Samantha. Didn’t Joanna say Marcus took her there a few times? It was where Marcus had held the reception for his fantasy wedding to Cheryl, and it’s where I’m going back to now.
Why?
Why had Lionel picked this particular place? He doesn’t seem that much of a fan of Vixens from the Void—he didn’t even get the name of the show right—so the irony of it all won’t be very apparent to him…
It only took an hour before Mervyn was alighting at Dorking and falling into a minicab. Hambley Hall was just a stone’s throw from the station, and adjacent to the quarry where they’d filmed ‘The Burning Time’. It was a big hotel that sat in the middle of acres of lush greenery. Instead of a safari park, Mervyn’s taxi took him through rolling greens, where he could watch savage golfers prowling in their natural habitat.
